scrubjayspeaks

So, I guess I’ll go with the option of being grateful, as is appropriate for the gods’ luckiest fool. Apparently, it had been longer than I realized since I checked the oil in my car. Which is weird, because I have a distinct memory of doing so, but I guess that was in a bygone age??? And because it’s not enough for one thing to go wrong, the level sensor must be busted, because it never gave me a low warning, despite the light on the dash being technically functional. My “warning” was the engine smoking.

Long story short, I had a rather harrowing experience of thinking I might have murdered my car. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. No need to panic. ⊙﹏⊙

Though we had our misgivings, the holiday meal that our manager set up for my team ended up being spectacular. I still think he’s a ninny about professional matters, but I can hardly find fault with an entirely homemade prime rib lunch. Yum!

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written

Day job: 42.5 hours

Cooking: biscuits for party potluck

Gardening: succulent club holiday party

Reading: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Secondary Phase and Tertiary Phase (continuing the BBC Radio productions)

Listening: Secrets Nobody Keeps by Jon Gomm, plus the single “Shchedryk (Carol Of The Bells)” (of “Passionflower” viral fame, an interesting mix of vibes)



Clock Mouse: 1029 words

Other: donated blood

Ooooh, very frosty. Winter is not waiting for an invitation this year.

Work has been brutal. Several people who aren’t me have fucked up royally, and now we’re scrambling on multiple fronts to salvage bad situations. I spent each day counting how many layers of interruption I was from whatever task I was supposed to be doing. And while my bad foot/ankle has been doing better since I replaced the insoles in my various boots (so many boots), being on my feet without pause and up and down stairs endlessly did not do it any favors.

I think I’m going to keep writing on Clock Mouse as I am right now until the end of the year. Then I’m going to pause on daily words for it in favor of planning. I still don’t have any kind of organizing principle for this damn story, and it shows. Amusing as it is to just keep aimlessly pecking away at what is evidently a novel for the next three thousand years, I would like to maybe finish some day. To say nothing of actually making something I could show to others.

I have completely lost whatever mojo I had for writing things longer than individual Lewisia posts. I blame my life of constant interruptions and fractured time. Planning does require that I organize my thoughts, look at the big picture, ruminate… I can’t remember the last time I had both the time and the mental focus needed for any of that.

Over on tumblr, copperbadge mentioned that he turns stickers and other such flat art into magnets by way of adhesive magnetic sheets. I thought this was brilliant. I have an accumulation of stickers, even though I have always avoided buying them. I, an anxious person, cannot bear to use them on anything and thus potentially spoil/lose them. At some point, I’m going to get a small whiteboard to hang next to my desk, which can be their future home.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written, December posts queued

Day job: 42.5 hours

Cleaning: dusting

Crafting: converted 9 stickers into magnets

Reading: The Lost Art of Doing Nothing: How the Dutch Unwind with Niksen by Maartje Willems (a shallow and repetitive look at the subject, with humor that ends up just being flippant, inoffensive but pointless)

Listening: Coydog by Carter Vail (of internet “Dirt Man” fame, this is an album that feels like something I have known and loved for years, just immediately familiar and delightful)

Clock Mouse: 1013 words

Oh, I hated nearly everything about this week. The middle couple of days truly, monumentally sucked. Mostly because my manager is an arrogant prick who comes into conversations already having decided what the correct answer is, but still insists that I stand there and spin my wheels, explaining what I think about something. His catch phrase seems to be “well, I still think [...his own idea from the start...].”

I was seriously considering calling out sick on Friday, but that was the day my immediate boss (not the manager, who is above her) and our GM were taking two of us out to lunch as thanks for the forklift ballet we did a few weeks ago. They were getting us sushi...I didn’t want to miss that, just because my manager sucks.

It ended up being very good sushi at my favorite place. Then I went to get my tattoos touched up. She also did some testing on my scar for the treatment she’s convinced me to try out. Itchy, now, which the tattoos never seem to be. :/ I’m on the books to get a full session of it at the start of January.

And then I got called in for a work emergency. At 3AM. After staying up late, so I only had four hours of sleep. Which then set off the start of a migraine, so I lost the rest of the day to recovering. So this weekend has left something to be desired...

The rain continued to make life slightly difficult. Now things are merely damp. All the grass is growing and, gods help me, mum is talking about needing to mow. Mowing! In November! .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written

Day job: 44.5 hours

Cooking: a cobbled together sort of piroshki, partially based on Tasting History’s recipe but mostly wandering off far afield

Gardening: weeded in with the saffron bulbs

Listening: Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan by The Mountain Goats (nice, though I’m still trying to recapture the high of hearing Beat the Champ for the first time, which remains “my” Mountain Goats album)

Aftermarket Parts: touch-up session on my nipple tattoos, plus spot testing the scar treatment

Clock Mouse: 1070 words

I have been writing on my lunch breaks! This is the sort of easy, reasonable choice that nonetheless makes me feel like I am a very good big boy who deserves a parade. ✪ω✪

I’ve just generally been trying to arrange my days a little differently. I’m not really cutting anything out. In fact, I’ve added in both an exercise routine (I’m not doing as much heavy lifting at work as I did in my previous position) and the NaClYoHo cleaning time most days. It doesn’t even feel like I’ve cut back that much on social media time, though maybe it was adding up to more than I realized before.

The Writing Excuses podcast recommended the Balance meditation app--I’ve already forgotten why exactly--and I was feeling amenable to such an experiment. I’ve been trying to improve my sleep and manage my stress. I found myself really enjoying using it to both wind down at night AND, unexpectedly, ramp up in the morning. Using a little three-minute wake-up module really helped deal with the workday existential dread I’ve been dealing with.

Weather continues to be warm in the day and chilly at night. I’m hoping the predicted rain for this next week amounts to something so things will continue growing. It’s nice having green grass everywhere again after the dusty brown of summer.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written, November posts queued

Day job: 42.5 hours

Cleaning: worked on cleaning my stuff on and around mum’s piano, removed cobwebs from three rooms with my new Swiffer thingy <3

Crafting: continued attaching back patch

Gardening: garden club post

Reading: Dracula audiobook (old reread, new-to-me production, audiobooks really do make the classics so much more accessible to me)

Listening: Everybody Scream by Florence + The Machine (finally, enjoyable but needs more time to settle in for me)

Clock Mouse: 1115 words

Well, a number of people have fucked up royally, but at least I haven’t been one of them. I did, however, end up working (voluntarily) a half day on Saturday to help with the pickup of a very large shipment. Which included some synchronized forklifting, so I’ve got that feather in my cap now!

Mum has been seeing a dermatologist for a few skin issues. One of them finally ended up being a form of skin cancer. It was small, at least, so they went in and removed it with way less fanfare than we were expecting. Still, that was a harrowing piece of information…

It’s just generally been an extra exhausting week. This seems to be the way whenever I take my vacation time. Considering how rundown I was already feeling, I didn’t really need anything else to make me feel like I needed time off.

Still, I now have a whole week away from work to enjoy Halloween things and whatever else I fancy. Many naps, possibly. And, because I am an adult and this is the sort of thing that makes me feel better, possibly some house cleaning even ahead of NaClYoHo month.

Weather has swung wildly between quite warm again and heavy fog, with another small thunderstorm thrown in there for good measure.

Lewisia: 0 new pieces written

Day job: 46.5 hours and six days ಥ_ಥ

Reading: These Fleeting Shadows by Kate Alice Marshall (another round of asking Libby to give me queer horror stories, I loved this more than I could have ever predicted, it somehow hit all my buttons?!)

Listening: Swedish Fiddle Tunes: A Selection by Rowan Piggott (one of the people behind The Wilderness Yet, I’ve been craving instrumental stuff lately)

Clock Mouse: 1211 words

Other: got to visit with E briefly at my house

Muhuhaha! I have received my nip bits! First draft, anyway. I do have an appointment for a follow-up to do any adjustments needed. But I have gloriously 3D nipples.

The tattooist was charmingly excited to use a new technique on me, which took about four times as long in exchange for way less unnecessary irritation to the skin and better precision. I don’t know what I expected the tattooing experience to be like--loud buzzing and carefully restraining myself from flinching, I guess--but it was almost like a spa experience, just chilling out on a padded table with soft music playing. And after the fact, there’s no soreness or redness. I’ve got clear protective covers on them, and will for a week, but other than that, it’s just my chest, as though it has never looked any other way.

Having optical illusions on my body is really satisfying to me on a, like, meta level, in addition to just being a great relief to my dysphoria. The part of me that will always be a bitter, spiteful teenager, being told my identity is fake/false/Wrong-with-a-capital-W on multiple levels, feels maliciously gleeful. If I’m a fake man, goddamn, I will be a Coyote and Roadrunner, Acme tunnel painted on the wall level of fake. Fake like a trickster, which is to say real as long as the bit is funny and you don’t look down. Real as long as I believe, real enough to make my enemies look stupid.

The weather has cooled off sharply. We have entered frost danger territory, and so now I must frantically shuffle around plants and start covering them up for the night. I did see a tiny baby gopher snake, snekking along over by the hay. He needs to get somewhere warm too.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written, October posts queued up

Day job: 42 hours

Cleaning: contractor came out to fix the leaning power pole

Gardening: garden club post

Reading: To Be A Trans Man: Our Stories of Transition, Acceptance and Joy by Ezra Woodger (a series of interviews, actually, which I didn’t realize, interesting but not as relatable as I had hoped, a lot of younger guys and a lot of entrepreneurs and activists, I am apparently old and boring)

Listening: Syndicate by The Midnight (I am vexed that their new record deal means this album isn’t available through Bandcamp, but I still like the album itself, though I miss the non-music clips that made Kids so distinctive)

Playing: still playing Arceus, but also started playing TCG Shop Simulator because I apparently wanted to lose all my free time (〜￣▽￣)〜

Aftermarket Parts: I. HAVE. NIPS!

Clock Mouse: 1125 words

Other: my half sister and brother-in-law came to visit

It continues to be strange times to live in.

Work projects all seem to be spinning their wheels. So I invented a project for myself and generally became a nuisance about learning to use the milling machine. I had not, in fairness, meant to be a nuisance about that. My teammate saw me taking off burrs using the grinding wheel, though, and felt compelled to make my life easier. As I’m supposed to be learning from him anyway, I don’t feel particularly bad about taking up his time. (And for once, no one butted in and interrupted us working together.)

This week seemed to have a lot of Notable Online (Trans) People posting pieces saying, jesus fuck, we need to stop declaring we’re all doomed, we are hurting ourselves and our cause. Considering last week consisted entirely of think pieces and threads saying we are all absolutely fucked, flee the country if you can or prepare to lie down and die (I wish I was being hyperbolic), I prefer this week’s change of tone.

I am trying very hard--with limited success, admittedly--to back off on social media. While I want (and debatably need) to maintain some awareness of current events that impact me, I do not need to know on an hourly basis. And social media has become the Hourly Panic Dosing Machine, unfortunately. I wish it was easier to create curated reading lists within one’s general subscriptions (as on DW, in fact) but not have them be public (as on Bluesky). I want to be able to follow everyone under one account, but some days/hours, I want to be able to just look at, say, the nature artists I follow and not the news and legal analysis accounts. I can’t seem to figure out how to do that, though, unless I just remember account names and go to them individually.

*thinking* Well, I could do it with bookmarks in the browser, rather than the app… It’s not graceful, but it’s functional…

After a couple days of building heat, we got a massive (for California, anyway) thunderstorm unleashed on us. I spent a very sleepless night listening to it camped out overhead, while intermittent downpours caused so much moisture to mist through my window, I thought the roof might be leaking. It would have been fun, in a gothic way, had I not needed to get up for work in the morning. And of course, the power went out. The power goes out if you look at a power pole funny around here. Since then, it’s been overcast and muggy. Which is still an improvement over the blazing heat, as far as I’m concerned.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written

Day job: 42.5 hours

Cooking: half-assed chana masala for work lunches (no recipe, all vibes), millionaire shortbread from B. Dylan Hollis’ Baking Yesteryear (superior to other recipes I’ve tried, with a better, more flavorful caramel that is less fussy than the straight sweetened condensed milk ones)

Cleaning: fixed the clasp on mum’s watch

Listening: That Was The Year That Was by Tom Lehrer (felt like an extra music kind of week), Prisms by Shadow Academy (very much hit the spot that I expect from them, not sure if this one is also inspired by classic literature like the last one, I want liner notes, damn it)

Clock Mouse: 1491 words

At the end of last week, we got informed that there was a major project that needed to be ready for a customer visit this coming Monday. It meant a massive project of rearranging storage and creating a new showcase production area. This was on top of the existing hard deadline for another project to be ready for outside contractors to come in and do their part.

So I spent the week moving heavy equipment, collaborating on design choices that should have been made months ago when the project was picked up, moving more heavy equipment, fixing shit that got damaged and disrupted due to the lack of planning, and moving the heavy equipment again because the original layout plan was silly and needed to be redone.

Oh, and then Saturday I helped with tear down after a wedding in E’s family as a favor.

When I said that the middle of September would hit me like a ton of bricks, I only knew about half of that shit. So yeah. Consider me hammered into the ground.

Today is one year since my dad died. Too tired to process emotions about that.

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written

Day job: 44.25 hours, many overtime, so heavy lifting, wow

Cleaning: finally found what was wrong with the electric fence and fixed it

Reading: What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher (man, I love the Sworn Soldier series, very upsetting, thank you)

Listening: Parts of Speech by Dessa (I really like Dessa’s music, though it somehow took me ages to realize that “Sound the Bells” is hers, which I have long loved because of chaila ’s masterpiece Pacific Rim vid)

Clock Mouse: 1198 words--a slow week, but I am impressed I got any words at all with the everything

So we have wasps. In fairly short order, I noticed there seemed to be an unusual number of them, then I spotted them assembling on the cold frame, then I realized I could see the edge of a nest. No more than five minutes after informing my mum that we would be keeping a respectful distance while we figured out how to handle the situation, one of them headed straight for me to sting. Ow, motherfucker, goddamn. Fine. Murder time, I guess???

We do not generally use pesticides. We try to use non-chemical options wherever possible. I’m certainly not in the habit of dousing chemicals all over the place to eradicate insects. I like insects. Unfortunately, they chose just about the highest-traffic area possible to set up shop. The cold frames are right by the faucet shutoffs going to both the orchard and the horses, not to mention the main entrance into the backyard.

The possibility of them swarming mum while she tried to go about her chores had me crawling out of my skin with anxiety. So they were going to have to die. It sucks, and I feel bad about it, but here we are.

In the wee hours before work, I waddled out there in a disposable jumpsuit from work, hoodie, goggles, mask, and gloves to spray down the nest. That slowed down the activity, but we were still seeing some wasps in the area. Which is when mum spotted the second nest in the cold frame. *sigh* So I sprayed that this morning.

I’m hoping to knock the nests down from the wood and dispose of them tomorrow morning. I really, really hate this. But aggressively territorial creatures in vital parts of my home are, you know, a problem.

And now for something completely different: I went out to the cute coastal town with my work buddy A for shopping. She is a much more enthusiastic shopper than I am, but there were a couple places I wanted to go, and hanging out with her, whatever the activity, is always a pleasure. We’ve been trying to get this scheduled for months. I think she turned down a half dozen other invitations for the weekend--including while we were driving there--in favor of being with me, which was quite touching. I have acquired incense and yarn and roving for felting.

Lewisia: 0 new pieces written

Day job: 39.25 hours, short days Monday and Friday

Cooking: cooked down peaches into sauce for use in cake later

Gardening: moved some of the plants in the house outside, wasp battle round one...

Reading: The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy (I wanted a break from sportsboys and was still craving some horror-type stuff, very unsettling!)

Listening: Big Stepper by Louie Zong (needed one of those good palate cleansers from Louie)

Aftermarket Parts: set up a consultation appointment with a tattoo artist, had a random encounter with a trans guy (I’m making some assumptions there, but they are very safe assumptions based on the details) which had an almost magical effect on me--oh, right, I’m not the only guy in this county, I am not utterly alone

Clock Mouse: 1556 words--huh, things are getting interesting, I think I may be pantsing my way through this until the heat death of the universe, but at least I’m having fun

Other: shopping trip with A

The week has been an adventure. While hauling a machine out for decommissioning, we lost control of it and it toppled over. No one was hurt, and it was destined for scrapping anyway. It has, however, sent our upper manager into a frantic tailspin of anxiety (which is pretty much a day that ends in Y with that one). I built something to mitigate future risk, only to have it get rejected with a lot of handwringing about liability over house-made equipment. As though we don’t build stuff constantly, including many of the machines we use to make our product. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yesterday, we got to go to the local farmer’s market, though. That was real nice. Not a ton of produce that I wanted--we’re already inundated with strawberries and stone fruits. I did get some weird eggplant thingies, which are currently roasting.

The weather cooled down as the week went on, but it is set to become absolutely blistering this next week. *sigh*

Lewisia: 3 new pieces written

Day job: 42.5 hours

Cooking: rúgbrauð via KAF (pretty nice, though the smell is a bit more intense than I enjoy)

Gardening: succulent club meeting

Reading: The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic (stumbled across a bit of fanart for this on tumblr and have fallen headfirst down a rabbit hole)

Listening: Tangles by S. J. Tucker (how have I gone this far into the year without an album from Sooj?), Fever Dream Radio by Sbassbear (as mentioned)

Clock Mouse: 1298 words--two more names chosen!

Other: farmer’s market visit, mum’s truck to mechanic