Project Sassafras

 Okay, Crisis One addressed and diverted: Eve did vocal rest and gargled an ocean's worth of salt water and drank hot honey water ("honey is not good and I want to know who is generating this worldwide deception that it is", and also "I had a whole thermos of warm water and I drank it all during rehearsal. I was still thirsty") and absolutely killed it in the musical. I sort of knew she was a lead, and that she could sing, but she had a big solo right before intermission and had the last line in the play and came out for the curtain call in the middle of the three leads and it was kind of insane and magical. She has two high school friends who are really good actors/singers and they would likely have had leads in the musical in grade twelve, but Covid, so the fact that this happened was just... I don't even have the word.

The musical itself was bonkers and sometimes incomprehensible but a huge amount of fun. Every year, arts and science students write a musical that sort of addresses the fact that people outside the program don't really understand the program - it's interdisciplinary, inquiry-based, big on critical thinking and social justice. The songs are parody songs based on whatever the writers feel like - there was Summer Lovin, All That Jazz, Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, Thank You for the Music by Abba and some Portuguese one I didn't know but the version they did was killer. Eve's solo was based on a Dionne Warwick song I'd never heard. The musical supposedly took place in 1977 at McMaster and there was this group running around talking about "Sass", the 'research opportunity of a lifetime' (The Society of Arts and Science = SASS, and their emblem is a Sasquatch). 

Matt's brother came on Friday night - he and his wife were both in the program and are now doctors (it's a popular one for people who want to go into medicine). It was really funny that he commented beforehand that the McMaster campus seemed a lot like the University of Toronto, just on a smaller scale, because in the play Eve tells someone to come to the library with her and the person ("Just assume everyone is non-binary, we are a queer-ass program") says "which library?" and she says "THE library - what is this, U of T?" (there is more than one library now).

I went again on Saturday night after Matt had left for the airport to fly to Singapore. I was supposed to go with Jean, my professor who is now Eve's professor. In true Jean fashion, she was going to a McMaster choir performance first and then had to run home to have dinner and then meet me at the show. She asked if we should meet outside and I was like dude, I will go in and save you a seat - she's the former head of the program and an arts and science celebrity, I knew no one would quibble. I said I'd sit on an aisle, and she said "oh, sit wherever you want, I don't mind climbing over people", which made me cry laughing. I was also with Eve's friend Alison who came from Toronto an hour away, and her former suitemate from first year, and her housemates. Friday we sat further back so she wouldn't see us and be nervous (but it's a pretty small theatre). Saturday I said the hell with it and sat in the second row and clandestinely shot pictures and video from my lap with my phone's brightness turned all the way down so I couldn't even see what I was getting, but it worked pretty well. I dropped them at home and picked up Wendy's for the house and left them to go to their after-party. 

Sunday I woke up feeling happy and relieved and ready to get home and meet the next challenge. I swung by Eve's house to hug her and drop Alison at the bus station. The drive home was an easy 4 and a half hours. I got home and immediately collapsed in a puddle of tears feeling like everything was terrible and broken and ending. Then I took a deep breath and chatted online with my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) who was calm and reassuring and sympathetic as usual. Then Eve texted that Jean had invited her out for ice cream with her daughter and grandkids (the little girl adores Eve) and her mother who was turning 97 the next day. We were driving Jean home the night before - she just lives up the street from the university - and she said "and I don't take the bus" and Eve was like "whoa whoa whoa, easy on the personal attacks" because apparently there had been a thing where a girl was late to their class and said the bus was late and Jean (five feet of uncontainable energy, walks everywhere, swims every day, barely sleeps) asked innocently why she didn't just walk, and Eve stood up for the bus girl. So Eve enjoyed telling Jean she had just had lunch before the five o'clock ice cream and seeing her be appalled "because she already judges me for taking the bus to school."

After this I pulled it together a little more. I did a bunch of laundry, washed all the fuzzy blankets so I can make Lucy a bunch of fuzzy nests for after her surgery on Wednesday. I'm still having trouble visualizing exactly what things are going to look like, and I really need it to just happen so it can suck and be on the road to getting better. I joined a couple of Facebook groups about the surgery (before the thing happened, instead of months after, which is usually when it occurs to me that there was probably a Facebook group about the thing I'm struggling with). I nearly noped right out of them after a series of "this is the hardest thing I've ever done" posts. Look, I love my dog, but I had a two-year-old with a broken femur when I was four months pregnant with Eve. I couldn't lift him easily. I couldn't put him in a crate and leave the house. I have to think this is not going to be as hard as that, although I guess I can't distract Lucy with Elmo video games. No judgment though, I appreciate when people accept my complaining without comparisons, and I'm sure this recovery with a big dog would be pretty rough. 

Much appreciation for the support and encouragement on the previous post. I drop Lucy off at stupid early o'clock tomorrow and then the fun begins. 

Link to Eve's solo (I think): https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_12-ooqZI&si=G0qg9na0M-0yan7C

Things Fall Apart

 There's a cluster of things that are making me feel a little doomy and unstable at the moment. Lucy hurt her leg and probably needs a super-expensive surgery. Or Lucy hurt her leg and we're being dumb doing the super-expensive surgery and should just try and wait-and-see approach. But then that might go not well and then we'll still need the super-expensive surgery and I will already have spent a few weeks lifting her up on the couch and having to restrict her movement. And if I DO the super-expensive surgery in the next few days, Matt will be away for the first two weeks of her recovery, which will likely be the worst.

Also, Eve's musical is on Friday and she woke up sick yesterday and is losing her voice.

Also, at my morning school today one kindergarten child screamed at the top of his lungs for a good five minutes. I felt worse for him than for me, but only just. At my afternoon school a class had to be evacuated and came to the library during two other classes' library period, and two classes in the library is A LOT. Also the wind is off-the-charts blustery and mean today, and it's raining, and we have a snowfall warning. For tomorrow. When we're supposed to drive to Hamilton for the musical Eve might not be able to sing in now.

It's all a little much for a peri-menopausal woman to handle with style and grace, is what I'm saying.

I am trying to maintain perspective. Lucy's hurt, but she's not dying. Eve is sick, but she's not dying, and given enough vocal rest and more tea with honey and salt-water gargling than anyone wants to contemplate may be perfectly able to sing in the musical. 

I have a cousin that just had a tumour removed from his neck. An aunt who just fell and broke her shoulder and pelvis. A friend who just lost her mother. All the bad stuff is NOT happening to me (although watch your back if you're related to me, right now, maybe?)

We'll get through the musical weekend one way or another, and then I will bring Lucy home from the extremely fancy animal hospital (the first time I called I sat through part of the menu: "press 3 for dermatology, 4 for opthamology, 5 for osteology, 6 for oncology, 7 for dentistry)" and hung up to recheck that I wasn't calling a people hospital), and we will sit on the couch and watch scary movies while she has her little doughnut collar on (perhaps I will get a matching one) and then I will massage her little leg and walk her for five minutes at a time and it will be FINE. 

You'd be surprised how much shit she can stir up at the vet's office even with only three working legs. 

Good Five for Good Friday

 Didn't quite manage to get this up in time but I have nothing specific for a Saturday, so play along.

1. Enjoying the fact that I am no longer Catholic, so Good Friday doesn't entail a bajillion-hours long and extremely sad mass. Once when I was in first year at McMaster my parents came for Easter and my mom and I were going to the Easter Vigil and this Irish Catholic guy from the other wing of my floor in residence asked if he could come with us. When we walked out of the church three hours later he said "Jesus Christ, I thought I was getting away with the short one!" My mom couldn't stop laughing.

2. It was a busy week where I was out almost every night, which I am way too old and tired for at this point even though it was all fun stuff. There were a number of cool little coincidences, the chief one being that at Trivia on Monday night the musical round included a classical number which we came nowhere close to guessing - it was Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussogorsky. Thursday night I had book club, and the book under discussion was Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris, who totally based his title on that piece of music. 

3. We came in second in trivia, which is perfectly fine although Collette is still bitter at the answer she knew but couldn't think of in time - it was something like 'what was the title of the miniseries that won 8 Emmys this year that also figured in this other show that won 10 Emmys'. I knew the 10-Emmy show was The Bear, but didn't know what the miniseries was (complicated by the fact that I kept thinking 'documentary' instead of 'miniseries'). It was Beef. Another one we missed was what kind of chicken was the chicken in Bugs Bunny, something about Livorno Italy, and we knew his name was Foghorn Leghorn but thought that was just his name. Michael said he WAS thinking that Leghorn was also the chicken breed, but he didn't SAY it, which I said was bullshit because if he'd SAID I think he was a Leghorn chicken I would have said, oh, okay, Livorno, Leg-horn-o. So we missed the chicken AND the beef.

4. It was Eve's Arts and Science formal Thursday night, so as promised, here is the outfit we bought in February with The Eve inside it. She did end up wearing the shirt before formal night because they had a party for the musical where the theme was Hamilton (the city where they live) or Hamilton (the musical) and she figured out the shirt worked well for Alexander Hamilton cosplay. 

5. On the subject of trying to do tiny things when I feel like I can't do anything, I walked Lucy yesterday wearing my jacket which is technically a spring jacket but works for me as a fall/winter/spring jacket because it breaks the wind but isn't too warm and has lots of pockets. I've had it for years, and for as long as I've had it it's had the little plastic loop that the price tag was attached to. Every time I put it on I zip it up and think "when I get home I'll cut that off". And then I take it off and don't feel like looking for scissors, so I hang it up with the stupid little plastic loop still on, and the next time I put it on again it destroys my soul a little more.

Yesterday I CUT THAT MOTHERFUCKER OFF.

Bonus pics of Lucy telling me it's time to get off my fat ass and walk her already. 

I'M GLAD YOU ASKED

 Only Nicole did, really, but I was kind of thinking while I was doing it (selecting books and signing them out to deliver to classes) how I would blog it, but then didn't because it has the potential to be very dull, but this is my third post in three days so it's easy to skip if you feel like it!

So what I SHOULD have done was sat down and figured out the logistics first. But my first class is supposed to arrive very shortly after I do, so I didn't have a lot of time and what I did was grab the cart (I had to clear some picture books to be reshelved off of it first, at Monday school I have two carts, but at some I have none, so lucky, I guess?) and head down to the kindergarten hallway to grab their book bins. I got two bins, and only one had the kids' book bags in them - in kindergarten they have large ziploc bags with their names on them to keep books safe and dry in backpacks.

When I got back to the library, I counted how many kids there were and how many books I needed to pick. Then I realized I only had bags for one class, so I could check out the kid's book and immediately bag it, but how the hell was I going to do the others? I went to pick books while I was working that problem.

It was French book week - they alternate- so I went to the French book section. I didn't want to look like I just pried a wedge of books out without any thought, so I started sorting through them looking for newer-looking, interesting-looking ones. This was extremely unintelligent - it was only for one week, and who the fuck CARED if I just grabbed an armful of thirty books and parceled them out? By the end, this is what I was doing, but I BEGAN the process very thoughtfully, TO BE CLEAR.

I started out looking at each child's name and looking at the books and trying to figure out which book I should give them. I know gender essentialism is out, and with good reason, but in kindergarten do we really need to insist that the little girls can't have princess books and the little boys can't have truck books when mostly this is still what they all want? (not all, by any means, but when I'm picking and not them, it didn't seem the hill to die on). I put the books in the bags and put the bags back in the bin. By this point, the presentation was going on, and although they had left me a skinny path to get in and out, I had to ask kids to move every time, and it was disruptive (clearly the vice principal didn't have enough time to think things through either). So I decided for the second class I would put little slips of paper in the books with each kid's name.

This takes more time than you would think.

It also necessitated me ripping papers up into little slips if I didn't want to waste a lot of paper, which I did not. Was I happy about making paper-ripping noises while Nabil from Equity was doing a presentation on racial slurs? No, I was not. I was not happy about the little 'beep' the scanner made with every book I checked out either, but needs must. No one looked disapprovingly at me, anyway.

After I finished that class, I wheeled the cart out, dropped off the two bins I had and went to the third kinder class and said I needed the bags. It took a bit to locate them (this happened the first week back from March Break, which made things even more confusing), but we did. So then I went back and did those. At this point I was late for delivering to the grade one class upstairs, because the library periods are only twenty minutes long, and that wasn't long enough to do what I was doing. Someone came down and said the grade one teacher wanted to know if I was still coming. I'm sure she didn't mean this to be judgy and annoying, but it kind of was. I realized she hadn't sent their returned books down, which the vice principal had said she would ask them to. Also, the class was upstairs, and when I'd asked the vp if there was an elevator, she'd said 'yes' and walked away without telling me where.

*hysterical giggle fit*

Do I look like I'm having a nervous breakdown?

This random women went back and got the books sent down. I returned them, took some deep breaths ( I was so sweaty, and my hands and back were so achy by now). I went over to the non-fiction section, grabbed a bunch of the gnarliest shark, spider and bug books, slammed them onto the cart. Then I grabbed a chromebook and attached the scanner to it. I found the elevator, got to the classroom with about three minutes left in their library period, spread the books out over a pod of four desks and let them have at it, bracing for complaints.

Damned if it didn't work like magic. 

I only had one class left, so I got back to the library, picked some books much less judiciously, and sorted them into bags. Then I looked at the computer and saw that the scanner was still not there because it was attached to the chromebook and realized that I had looked up every name but NOT ACTUALLY SCANNED THE FUCKING BOOK.

So I took them all out of the bags and scanned them. Then I delivered them.

Then it was lunchtime so I went in the office and ate some cauliflower and grapes and laughed and cried a tiny big. Then it was after lunch and I was going to shelve a few books before leaving for my other school. Classes filed in for the next presentation, and even though I kept asking them to leave me a path so I could get out in twenty minutes, no one did. At this point I was extremely fed up, and imagined stomping through the crowd with the presentation already in progress, and thought NOPE, grabbed all my stuff and left a few minutes early. 

It's funny now.

Have a picture of Lucy's adorably enormous ear. 

Surly Thursday: General Overall Insomnia-Generated Surliness

It's been a while since I did a Surly Thursday posts. Sometimes I'm not that surly by the time I get home. Sometimes I'm so surly I don't have the energy to do anything but watch Brooklyn 99 and eat cookies. My friend Sasha reminded me today about Surly Thursday and what do you know, today is in the sweet spot - um. Sour spot? 

Tuesday night I went to bed at a normal-ish time and took the sleeping pill I usually take before my early day Wednesday, otherwise there's no way I can fall asleep early enough. I read for a while - okay, a little longer than I should have. Then I turned out the light and lay down and realized I did not feel anywhere near as sleepy as I should. I clearly remembered taking the sleeping pill. I started listening to the Mean Girls soundtrack (Broadway, not the movie, Renee Rapp and Auli'i Cravalho are straight fire but Angourie Rice, oh lord, wonderful actress, do NOT understand the casting choice here). Usually I hear two or three songs, then drift off, wake up just enough to hit pause and fall back asleep.

One hour and six minutes later, I heard the end of the finale and thought, well shit, I might be fucked. At 4:45 a.m., I thought yes, yes I am. 

At Wednesday morning school as I was setting up for the day, the vice principal came in and said, a touch sheepishly, "hey, so... there's a presentation in here this morning." And then asked me to deliver books to all my classes instead of having them come in. This is a GIANT pain in the ass, because how the heck to do choose a book for every kid and then sign it out to them and then deliver it while making clear which book is for which kid? Well now I kind of know how I would do it, but since I was given zero warning, most of the morning I did it stupidly and caused myself all kinds of grief. On the bright side, I didn't really have time to dwell on how tired I was. 

As usual, I had more trouble waking up the second day after no sleep. Today at Thursday school was mostly fine. One kid had found a cut-up pool noodle and was walking around with it and I asked him why and he said because he found it and I said "so it's now your emotional support half pool noodle?" and he said yes, but then his teacher took it away because she suspected he would whip people with it (fair enough teacher, rookie mistake on my part) and THEN the challenging class came in and the MOST challenging kid was suddenly walking around with this truncated pool noodle and I was like oh hell no, but it didn't end in a pool-accessory showdown, so no harm no foul. I'm annoyed at how fat I am - I know, I know, Body Positivity, or Body Neutrality, Health at Any Size. I am eating the fruits and vegetables, I am moving more, I am appreciative of the new understanding we (well, some of us) have about weight and outdated assumptions, but sometimes I miss the good old days when we could just sit around bitching about being fat. Also I keep losing games on the Jeopardy app. I think I might be equally angry about my weight and missing Final Jeopardy (I've always been spotty on South American capitals), which probably says something about how rational my thought processes are right now. Also it got cold again and my neck hurts and my cough is back. 

Eve and I were trading mostly humorous cranky anecdotes yesterday. Her art activism class was doing a field trip to the Hamilton Art Gallery and she had to fill out forms, which was funny for me because I used to get so cranky about having to fill out the same information on so many goddamned forms when the kids were in school so I was like "what, now you have to write yourself permission to go on a field trip?" and she said "well yeah, in case I die under a falling sculpture or something." Also shit is getting real for the musical and she loves the singing but has an issue with acting because it feels fake "and I KNOW it's acting it's not REAL, but it's still embarrassing". 

I guess I should make some dinner. Maybe one more game of Jeopardy first.

Stay surly, friends. 

Oh THERE'S my navel (do you get it?)

For various reasons my mood is in a precipitous plunge right now. I did talk to Matt about it sooner than I usually do, which is uncharacteristically intelligent of me (not self-blaming really, we all know depression lies), but almost all of my friends have very real reasons for grief or struggle right now so the 'support in, dump out' model means that people I feel comfortable unloading on right now are a bit thin on the ground, and I worry about wearing out the couple I am leaning on. Spotlight on you! Ha ha ha, feel free to run in the other direction right now.

I am pretty close to maxed out on the antidepressants I'm on. This is worrying, because the booster has tended to work really well with each dose increase, and then things level out and start heading south again. I could switch, but that has traditionally been really difficult for me given that, when it comes to side effects, I am the one percent - I get all the ones everyone gets, plus the wackass ones that nearly nobody does and they only put it in the insert for liability issues. So this presents a bit of a problem.

Anyway. I thought I would take a moment to take stock of things I have managed to improve in the past couple of years, because although it feels like I've been standing still, I don't think I have, quite. 

1. I did ask for two dose increases in my antidepressant, which I have often been slow to do for... reasons? 

2. I found a good physiotherapist and have started to go regularly. I was stopping when my benefits were exhausted and waiting until they rolled over (ha, fun visual), but this led to a deep muscle seizing in the left side of my neck that has been really difficult to address, so I have booked monthly appointments going forward whether I have to pay out of pocket or not.

3. I have also booked deep tissue massages for every couple of months to use other benefits and maybe address the problems that have led to the physio. I tend to wait until I really need these services which is too late for them to be as effective as they could.

4. Exercise, which is chiefly walking and yoga right now. I was in a good gym routine until before Covid, when work kind of threw me off - I know some people manage to work full time and still work out regularly, and I admire those people but I am not them. Covid resulted in me either walking for miles at a time or sitting in a chair doing nothing for days. At this point I manage to do yoga or walk or both a few days a week, and if I don't, I notice it missing - not in that lovely "oh, if I don't exercise I'm all out of sorts" way that many people have, but in a sulky, churlish "goddammit, if I don't do something I will probably feel both achy and guilty so LET'S GO, I GUESS" way, which has the same result, basically. For a while the yoga kept a host of joint and muscle problems at bay, and if I had thrown in some physio I probably would be way better off than I am now, THANKS A LOT STUPID FORMER ME.

5. Not sitting down at the computer when I get home from work exhausted and just want a minute before preparing for the next part of the day. This resulted in aimless scrolling that was either pointless or harmful because it would lead into arguments with internet assholes - not that the odd argument with an internet asshole isn't a good opportunity to keep my witty insult skills sharp, but it has to be on my terms and not a compulsive thing. Now I get home, immediately go and take out my contacts and shower and put on comfortable clothes, then sit on the couch and do Wordle and Connections, then do some reading or writing and make dinner, and it feels much better.

There. That's not nothing. I have also been slowly staring a snail mail habit. Which leads me to the next thing I want to do, which is thank the people that have encouraged these changes. Sasha (HI SASHA) when I said I was waiting to go back to physio until it was covered again said (with love) that this was not smart, and in fact verged on very dumb. She was right. Collette (HI COLLETTE) said "are you going for regular massages?" and when I said no, managed to convey with a look that ... well, refer back to Sasha. Nicole (HI NICOLE) only didn't murder me when I started doing yoga only like fifteen years after I met her, the Poster Girl for yoga and its many many positive effects because she is a sweet, kind, gracious, non-murdering kind of friend. Engie (HI ENGIE) is a good snail mail example that I am striving to emulate. Yesterday I got a lovely card in the mail from my friend Rhonda (HI RHONDA) with a pin that she picked up at Williamsport at the Little League World Series this summer for the tenth anniversary of Angus's team going - so incredibly kind and thoughtful. Today I went for a walk and mailed back a card, which hits TWO things in my improvement cycle, whoo-hoo!

Also everyone who reads and/or comments here - no, comments and/or reads? No, it would be super weird to comment without reading, that's more a Facebook thing. Reads and occasionally comments, except Nicole who comments every time because, as I said, kind, gracious, generous, non-murdery, possible a little ocd? Oh! Blogging regularly is also a helpful thing I have been trying to do again. 

I would start a list of things I still need to be better at but that seems counter-productive to how much better this post has made me feel. It is a little self-absorbed, so, sorry? No, it's my blog, it's allowed to be. Thank-you? Yes, that's it. Thank-you!

Pictures of the pin and Lucy deigning to shoot a glance at me while in the midst of sticking her nose into everything at the speed of a hummingbird on cocaine. Ah, to be a dog in nearly-springtime. 

Five for Friday

1. I am very grateful to the people who confirmed that toxins being swished around the body can lead to malaise, because 1) I've been a little worried about how I've been feeling and 2) it makes me feel better about spending March Break reading and walking and sleeping a lot. My husband has had executives in town and has been going out for work dinners and coming home late. He mentioned that he felt bad he hadn't taken a day off so we could do something during the break and I said "oh, but...then I'd have to do stuff." One night I texted him to ask if he was going out for dinner again. He said 'yes, is that okay?' I said 'of course, just wondering how much I can half-ass dinner'. He texted back 'full half-ass!' which was good, albeit a little mathematically confusing. 

2. After physio on Tuesday I went to the bookstore to look for a book by a favourite author that I had gotten as a library ebook and then decided I wanted to buy a copy and read the paper book. I didn't have sky-high hopes they would have the one copy the website said they did, but it was on the way home. I looked at the new books shelf on the way in and picked up a book that looked cool and sounded interesting and was slightly discounted. Then I checked the relevant shelf for the book I wanted. Not there. I found a computer. Entered the title. Computer went into spinning wheel mode, so I walked away and looked around some more. Came back to computer, and it said "are you still there or should we start a new search". Tried again, computer went bananas again. I was annoyed, and looked at the book in my hand and realized there was no earthly reason to buy this book when I have dozens of unread books at home not even counting the library books. Walked out without buying anything which is very unusual for me. (But still ordered the original book I wanted when I got home, so the growth is minimal. Still -- growth.)

3. I have a thing with exercise where if I'm going to do it, I prefer it to be the first thing I do. There is a silly thing here where exercise is still coupled with hard and unpleasant work in my mind, even though I mostly walk and do yoga and for the most part I LIKE these things. I miss doing weights, but I haven't been able to figure out how to get the gym back into my routine since lockdown. But I still feel exercise looming in my brain causing anxiety when I'm doing the other stuff I do in the day. I'm trying to change this. Sometimes I think "I'm just going to read today", and of course usually I do a whole bunch of other things. When I DO try to just read, I will exercise then do some kind of task on my list and then go up to my reading chair in my bedroom in the afternoon to read, and..... often this causes me to fall asleep. This is infuriating to me because if I read a book at night, I can start at ten and sail right through until 4 a.m. without a yawn. 

Today I woke up and decided to read first and then go for a walk or do yoga later. I spent a lovely hour in my chair and then did some other stuff, read a bit more and then did yoga. Then I showered and read a little more (last weekday of March Break, milking it) and now I have spent a lovely day reading and doing exercise and didn't fall asleep and everything felt like it was happening at the right time.

Not to say there weren't challenges...

I found a workable solution, but I wouldn't say all parties were totally satisfied.

It's good sometimes to figure out that I'm not too old to change. A little. Sometimes.

4. Sometimes I forget about hard-boiled eggs. Yesterday I remembered about hard-boiled eggs and made a half-dozen in the instant pot and today I had one for breakfast and it was perfect. Also, I tried again to make Jeffrey Eisner's instant pot peanut noodles because last time I tried it came out terrible which seemed weird because generally I find his recipes to be foolproof. Then I looked at the bottle of sesame oil I had used and thought, am I entirely sure I didn't buy this bottle of sesame oil TWO living spaces ago, which would make it very old indeed. I bought a new bottle of sesame oil (once every two decades whether we need it or not) and yesterday they turned out brilliantly. Except it's hard to eat them without them hitting my face, and I have a horror of food touching my face. The ways in which I am weird are numerous and varied.

5. I haven't heard from Angus in a bit. How strange that I have this whole entire person that came out of me and is out living an independent life in the world, completely separate from me. Going to text him now and complain about that a bit.