Thoughts on the Journey

I keep meaning to write an entry on where I'm at but this past month and the start of November has been a lot. In good news, working the election was a really tiring and hopeful experience. Now though I'm just so tired and worried. It seemed like for a time things were looking up and the thought of maybe seeing my parents around Christmas might be possible but I don't see that happening. And my sister-in-law had a surgery this weekend which went well but her parents came to visit which worries me. That whole side of the family has been doing more travel so it makes me fret. I know they can take care of themselves but I just miss everyone so much.

Then I'm waiting for the paycheck from election work and also there are jobs that I can apply for and do but I keep getting in my own way. I'm really bad at overthinking and so tomorrow I think its a matter of writing out some cover letters and filling out one long job application. With how things are now, the thought of libraries hiring is weird but I miss getting out and helping people. Also I never heard back from the place I interviewed with in I think September or August, the one that went really well. I even sent out an email and never got a response, so I know that's been hard on my confidence. I'll feel better for applying for things as I'm a good librarian.

In October I watched a bunch of ghost media which I enjoyed to various degrees. The Haunting of Bly Manor was melancholy and gothic but I keep getting stuck at some choices made at the end that weren't satisfying. If you're thinking about watching it, know that its incredibly different from Haunting of Hill House in terms of tone, beautifully made but creepy more than scary. Because of watching it, I'm reading a collection of Henry James' ghost stories which I like more than I expected to. I hated The Portrait of a Lady when I tried to read it in I think high school. It turns out that he works better in a shorter format.

A completely different type of ghost story that I watched was Julie and the Phantoms which I loved. The music and story and feel of it was wonderful and made me smile and I even wrote some fic for it. If you want something happy and distracting with some 90s nostalgia, highly recommended. Kenny Ortega's behind it so all the musical numbers are full of life.

One of the best books I read recently was Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee, which is a book about artists and resistance and occupation. It pulled me in so much that I read it in a few days. That was a really pleasant surprise since I had trouble finishing the same author's Hexarcharate Stories, the writing was wonderful but the world was far too brutal.

At the moment, I'm making my way through The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison which is a fascinating Holmes' redo while a mix of slow and fast going. The writing has that real Doyle feel with a mix of angels and hellhounds, beautifully crafted but I think I might be hitting some not my trope feelings. I think I might pause it since I have The Return of the Thief and the new Penric and Desdemona novella to read.

My writing has been going slow but did move a little faster after the election, there's progress on my major stuff; start to my Yuletide, and my two little/big bangs for rebelcaptain.

At least the weather's feeling more like November, while the warm weather was nice, it was also strange. I'd rather be chilly and have reasons to wear my sweaters.

I seem to have gotten into the habit of posting about once a month. I mean to do it more often but words haven't been coming that quickly. Also I'm nearing the end of a bad shark week which has sapped a lot of my energy. But the weather lately has been feeling more fall like which has helped. So I'll go with various things that are going on.

For my shark week, I bought myself a heatable pillow with lavender in it shaped like a uterus and it makes such a difference in my pain levels.

I've been sending out a good bit of my mail and my two nephews in France sent me drawings they did which are now on my fridge. One of the first big trips I'll be planning when its possible is to see them.

My cooking's going fairly well, my local Asian supermarket has had a deal on pork belly and the other time I got it, I think was smaller. This second batch is giving me lots of leftovers, which is good but a lot. So I keep trying to find ways to change it up, I also ended up with a lot more guacamole than I normally have but I think I can make a good dent in both of those tonight.

I finally was able to go back to the dentist and have this major gum cleaning thing, which feels like useful maintenance. Now I need to take that same kind of idea to my poor car that's waiting for me.

Job stuff is a lot of waiting and throwing things out into the void hoping someone answers back.

I did reconnect with the alum group from my NZ university, we actually had a video call that went pretty well. A little disconcerting to realize how many of the men on the call had MBAs and all but I like this alum group.

At the moment, I'm reading this amazing book Sharks in the Time of Saviors which is really good. I have a couple of books due on Monday so I'm planning on doing lots of reading this weekend.

Today is my birthday and it feels surreal to be thinking about it and celebrating with everything going on in the world. Since March, my life has been fairly quiet as all the libraries are closed so I've been staying home. I've been donating since I've had a sore throat that comes and goes so I don't feel safe to be out more than my normal walk and errands. The song that keeps going through my head is Sixteen Tons especially the line, 'another day older and deeper in debt.' Even though I'm actually doing okay money wise since Massachusetts' unemployment is pretty generous but the song's there in my head.

In good news, I've been doing some cooking since one of my brothers sent me a package full of dried chilis and various spices. So since everything's made, tonight I can have chicken tacos with homemade guacamole and brownies and ice cream. On my walk, I think I'm going to pick up some wine. Yesterday, I had a nice Zoom call with most of my family, sadly not the brother in France as he forgot but I know I'll talk to him at some point.

I recently finished rewatching Avatar: the Last Airbender and I'd forgotten how good that show is. Also I love seeing all the meta as I wasn't really in the fandom before, but a lot of my friends were. In my reading, I've had lots of holds come in but I've been stalling out on new books and instead rereading a lot of Terry Pratchett. I started Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth but its a bit too close to real life so I'll probably give up on it until another time. My writing has also slowed down but that's how its been the past few months, it comes and goes, the ideas are there just need to get the words down.

I never realized how much I missed the smaller social interactions of going to a cafe or the library and reading or the conversations that are part of being a public librarian. I've had jobs and times when I worked from home but then either I was living with my parents or could go and sit in a cafe for lunch. Since the library I'm working at closed last Friday for two weeks that looks like it will extend to the end of the month, my days have been okay. The people at this library are lovely and each day my email is filled with pet pictures.

I did a lot of shopping so I feel prepared food and other things wise, but I do wish I'd had time to get my hair cut before everything shut down. At this point, I have far too many ideas of food I want to cook or bake but haven't yet. Also I have ideas for stuff I want to write and read but I'm not pushing myself too much, creativity's strange. One of the odd ironies is before this, I was getting ready to go out and do more, visit museums, go to book signings, get myself out more.

My neighborhood's a weird mix of open and closed and every day I walk to a little park behind where I live. It does worry me to see people playing basketball and tennis but most of the time in my walks, we're all avoiding each other.

One of the unexpected benefits of this is how Milliways is more active as older players come for a thread in the All Skate. I'm so grateful for all the online friendships that I have.

( Family health )

My new job is going well, I'm learning new skills, everyone's nice and I don't really feel the long commute until the end of the week. Also it keeps me nice and busy, not a lot of downtime since I'm balancing reference desk and ILL. The ILL is something I'm going to keep getting faster at but for now, it takes time.

But its also coming up on the anniversary of my sister's death and at times it feels closer than others. I'm so glad to have work to keep me busy but when the weather gets grey and I have too much time in my own head, it hurts. I think of her at unexpected moments and miss being able to text her, talk about work and books and movies.

I'm trying to see if I can get the amaryllis from last year to bloom again after living in my closet for the year. And I have plans to connect with a friend this week and I'm going to reach out to my relative in the area too and other friends. Since this coming week and weekend are going to be hard, she died on the 6th.

Words keep going around in my head and I want to try and do more writing. Long commutes are good that way, there's time to think.

My Yuletide is posted and I'm actually looking forward to having time to read the archive this year. Now I also feel like I can go back to some other things that I'm writing, my Rebelcaptain secret santa and a prompt for the Cassian prompt-a-thon. I hope that this is a quieter holiday, last year was so strange. Most of the holiday was spent going between my sister's hospital room and my brother's place in New Jersey. We made it work but there was no real time to simply be as there usually is in the holidays.

This year my brother and his family are at his in-laws so its going to be me and my parents. I think that will be nice, trying to do big family after last year I think would be kind of jarring. This way, we'll have moments together and time to be, I expect to do lots of reading. I'm thinking about even trying to do holiday cards since I do love sending them, but didn't happen last year. So if you've given me your address, there might be a card.

Also before I head down, I'll be seeing the new Star Wars' movie, which I'm hoping for good. Knowing who I'll be seeing it with, I know I'll have good time.

My holiday felt like it started off early when I saw opening night of the Christmas Revels, and then on Sunday, I volunteered backstage. I helped to feed the cast and crew which was wonderful. I've only recently started volunteering with the Revels but its filling a spot in me for the theater. I'm hoping to keep getting more involved with them in the coming year.

On Friday, I had my first colonoscopy, my parents came up to help me with the prep and drive me to and from the hospital. Everything came back clear and I think the worst stress was actually in the run up to it. Now I don't have to worry about that for another five years and just need to keep eating the normal high fiber diet that I'm used to. I've also learned how nice and well run everything at my local hospital is, I was so impressed and relaxed during the procedure. At the moment, I'm not totally back to normal, still a little tired but feeling good.

I feel like now I can actually concentrate on other things like writing for my exchanges and the run up to the holidays. Outside its lightly snowing and the weather has made the switch from fall to winter.

Oh and I also had the odd experience of having a recruiter through LinkedIn email me about a job, I emailed them back but haven't heard anything since that was on Friday. It makes me hopeful.

Thinking of the holidays, this year I plan on actually sending out holiday cards. I have a collection of them and will do a post for addresses soon.

The Democratic debate is on and I'm watching and they started right in the heart of it with healthcare which hurt more that I'd expected. Tuesday would have been my sister's 54th birthday and missing her has been threading through my life so much this year. Its made for a rough summer with a mix of good and bad. I've also been getting over a cold so I've been meaning to write what's been going on, and going to do that now.

My parents came to visit tw weekends ago and we went to the Franklin Park Zoo, which was lovely, not a big zoo but a pretty one. The weather was nice enough that we could walk and enjoy the animals and all the kids and families. I think my favorite part was the huge butterfly enclosure they had, it made me feel so much better.

Health stuff is still being annoying as I've had this cold since my parents left, but I did finally arrange to have a colonoscopy. That was a big push behind finding a doctor. I'm not happy with the communications with the doctor's office but I've made progress.

Job stuff is feeling kind of stuck as my various staffing agencies, substituting and fact-checking all know I'm available. I've also been sending all sorts of applications out there with only a few responses, its left me feeling as if I'm speaking into the void. Thankfully I've found a great new place to volunteer, one of the performance groups in the area who were so fast to respond to me. Now I'll be figuring out how best to use my skills for them. That's a good feeling.

Its finally starting to feel like Fall here and I'm so ready for it. Heat just kind of wears me down.

Also I might have actually found a book club to go to every month, its a romance one and was a lot of fun even with my cold.

My last two weeks have been full of a strange mixture of what comes next, the sense of the end of my time at work and looking forward to my birthday. To begin with, the Monday before last I changed offices to where the woman I originally replaced sat. What makes this change so surreal is that suddenly by sitting where she was sitting, I can keep a much better eye on the student workers and the desk. One of the parts of this job that I've had trouble with and honestly messed up a bit is helping the students work enough and keep track of when they're missing shifts. Until I sat in this desk, I didn't realize just how much of that was because I couldn't easily see them. My other office did technically have a window that looks out but the blinds are always down so I had to get up to see. People always searched me out with questions but now all I do is look up as my open door leads to the desk.

Its also odd to not be sharing an office anymore, the library has been having a lot of office musical chairs going on. So the woman who originally shared the office with the person I replaced moved offices before I went into that office. Then someone else has moved into my old office which has space for three people. Another temp who left at the beginning of May called our office the office of misfit toys, because all the stuff lives there and there were two temps plus my other co-worker, a recent alum who's working on a two year contract.

The timing ended up being just right for another reason as the week before last, other than one day, I had phone interviews either at lunch or one after work for school librarian jobs. The first lunch time one was the last day of finals and all the library study rooms where I'd normally go were rooms for finals. So I walked all over the library searching for a quiet space before realizing wait, I have an office with a door I can close. So I closed the door and had privacy to talk. It was kind of weird and nice. All the phone interviews were pretty hopeful, next Tuesday I have a video interview as a follow up to one of them. Its a nice reminder that my skills are seen and people want to learn more about me.

Sunday I was finally able to hang out with some friends in person which I'd really been needing. We bought food at the Public Market and then ate out on the Greenway. The day was beautiful and there were lots of dogs and kids playing around us. I'm trying to get myself out more this spring and summer as I've been realizing how much my commute has cut down on my desire to go too far when I have time off. I'm so grateful to live in a city where there are friends, schedule wrangling is required but we make it work. My plan for birthday is to try and maybe get to the Dragon Boat festival on Sunday or try to get out to the zoo one day. There's also free entry to the MFA with a BPL library card which I want to take advantage of too.

After the last day of Finals even before that the library and campus have been getting quieter and quieter which has meant my boss has done a little more hovering. There hasn't been too much to see was the students who are working are good at getting done what needs to be done. And I'm at the point of feeling like she can be disapproving all she wants at me that I wasn't standing directly at the desk and immediately there to help someone, but I know things are getting taken care of. Also that she was annoyed I forwarded an email to a student with some dates in it, it feels like an odd sort of reaching. But I also knew that my shark week started so I'm a little more grumbly. My contract ends at the end of June and I'm going to end having some time to not be working.

Friday was commencement and I was at the front desk all day except for when I did lunch and dropping some gifts to graduates and I loved watching the ebb and flow of people. The weather which has been grey was beautifully sunny and not too warm, just the right temperature. I ended being a tiny bit late due to traffic so had to deal with my boss being a little disapproving at me but then she left. And then it was the fun of taking these little snack bags to our student workers who are graduating as they were lining up. It was wonderful, I even got a hug and so many smiles. Then I came back and did a lot of directing people to the bathrooms and watching the ceremony where it was streaming. Anita Hill was the speaker and she seemed like she did a great job. I didn't see all of it due to my timing.

An odd note to the day was that Bill, this older man who's the main facilities guy in the library kept hanging out and talking with me. At some points it was interesting to hear his views on how things are run, we shared some complaints on how communication isn't great on campus. Other times, he talked more at me which was kind of annoying and now I look back, I wonder how often he's done that to student and other workers. He's an odd presence, tall older guy that's not very neat. Some of the things he'd said, I wish he'd actually brought up before as he sees when some jobs weren't getting done. Normally I'll see him briefly at the end of the day but I guess he also likes the energy of commencement since he spent a lot of the day near the front.

My birthday's next Saturday, which is also reunion and I've got enough students to cover it. As a kind of early birthday present to myself, I did a big order from Torrid, who was having a really nice Memorial day sale. The first thing arrived today, a dress which I put on and felt comfortable and beautiful. Its been a while since I wore dresses even though I like them, but part of this order is trying clothing styles that will make me feel summery and pretty. Another fun early birthday thing is that my parents bought me the thinkgeek death star glasses. I need to figure out where in my small kitchen to put them but they look very cool.

In terms of books, I've been reading Little, Big by John Crowley which is one of those books that's always coming up on book lists alongside other books I really like. I'm finding it slow and strange going, the language can be lovely and lyrical with an intriguing setting, but the thread of the story is odd. It keeps turning away from what seems to me to be the interesting plotline for a more almost normal one and that choice always seem to be from something happening to a woman to a man's life. Also there's an odd sexual undercurrent to it that keeps pulling me out of it. I wouldn't say its a slog as when I sit down to read it, I tend to move fairly quickly through it but it feels longer. Reading it has me wanting to reread some of my favorite authors who write magical realism or fantasy.

For the past couple of weeks other than a few notable exceptions like the day of my sister's memorial, the weather has been rainy or cloudy. That plus all the driving and traveling I've been doing has left me feeling not completely tethered to one place and that my apartment and my job and my family all strings anchoring me. Some are good anchors like my family that reminds me how loved I am and the wonderful people that my family connects to and makes me want to reach out to my friends and those that care for me.

Also my apartment with a growing windowsill garden that now includes tiny seedling sunflowers that weren't ready for my sister's memorial and hyacinths in a vase which were one of many gifts brought that day. My job is this strange mixture of students with all their busy lives, who share with me and bring me in, the constant and also shifting needs of the library while at the back is the sense of the school waiting to go, nope, done with you.

The travel has helped to center me as the driving gives me time to think on story ideas and get to know New England better. And driving helped me to a point of being with family and a true pause.

I went to Mystic, Connecticut the weekend before last and had a great time. I chose Mystic because of its Seaport museum and with the idea that it was farther south and would get me closer to family. Now I want to go back since I loved the Aquarium, the museum and its waterfront and would love to explore more of the area with all the history and funky shops.

( Memorial talk below )

This week, work has been good, we're moving into end of the semester mode with endings feeling closer and schedules to arrange. The tricky sense of helping for next year when I won't be there is always there adding almost a doubling feeling.

Today helped give me a sense of what's next as I had a good all day interview at a school for a middle school librarian family leave position. It was a place I could see myself and I feel like I presented myself really well. After I got home, I wasn't ready to sit as I had odd energy and took the T into more of Boston to walk and think, which was a good feeling. I even ended up getting a character from a blind bag that I've been searching for.

Looking ahead, I want to meet up with Boston people as seeing my brother surrounded by these friends that he and my sister grew up with made me want my hanging out people. Life is full and good and I feel hopeful, while having pangs as I see something I wish I could share with my sister.