dirty words

I have a few friends w/birthdays coming up and I have a few packages that I need to send out. The one that I'm working on now (they're not here, often!) is just silly and fun. And, to qualify it for cheaper shipping (media mail) I put together a mix cd. I've not done one of those in over a decade, so this was just so much silly fun.

I forgot how fun it is to get a bunch of silly, cheerful things together as a gift. None of the things I'm sending off are more than $10, but all are useful in their ways. Plus, part of the fun of making a mix CD (and knowing they have a cd player in their car still) is forcing your friends to listen to stuff you like in the vain hope they'll like it too.

Right, so I picked up a fiction book this last week! AND I started reading it!

This is mildly exciting because I've read nothing but 9-1-1 gay fanfic for the last six months. Legitimately. I think I've read something like 70 novel-length stories in that time period; some of them twice.

ANYWAY, I borrowed The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong. It's (so far) a cozy little fantasy road trip book, and I'm having an ok time.

I've also got two non-fiction books in audio and text format (a book on the craft beer industry and a book on the West's perception of food scarcity, specifically with the Banda people in West-Central Ghana), both of which have entertaining-to-me Chicago-connections. The first centers around the creation of Goose Island brewing - HILARIOUSLY started by someone from my mom's home town in Iowa - which is a Chicago brand. The second was written by someone who went through Northwestern's doctoral program and did a good chunk of writing/research for the book while with that institution.

Quick moment to stump for University of California Press' Open Access arena for books. I keep finding cool shit to read here! For FREE! Legally! (And here's the University of Michigan.)

Also, I kind of really appreciate my graduate level work now. I got a lot of practice reading a whole bunch of higher level academic stuff, so now I can just read it for fun.

Right, so I finished Invitation to a Banquet by Fuschia Dunlop and one of the things it's kind of reminded me is how honestly limited our fruit/veggie selection is in the US. Coupled with reading Frostbite by Nicola Twilley at the same time, it's got me thinking about the diversity of food I had available to me as a poor child in rural Iowa in the early 1980's versus what I currently eat.

And, like? I remember when we didn't have access to oranges - or if we did it was kinda sad and not all that cool - in the winter months? Because, again, tiny rural area in northeastern Iowa. That made sense? Canning and food preservation was a more common thing (my grandma was aces at freezing veggies) and that area still has a robust meat locker culture.

I don't know that I have any specific thoughts coming out of reading those two books (still not done w/FB, but it's really good!), but I do have more motivation to read the book on the Pawpaw fruit I bought a few years ago. I don't think I've ever even tried Pawpaw? Which is a shame as it's apparently NA's largest native fruit? TBF, I've also never eaten a persimmon, so 0/2 on realizing there were native fruit trees and eating anything from them? Because apparently there is a persimmon variety native to NA? NOTE: Apparently one of the indigenous names for a pawpaw is assemina. Which is prettier?

IDK, food diversity is cool and while I know I suck as a gardener (and someone who is a DELICATE FLOWER in outdoor arts), I am grumpily starting to realize I might be moving in that direction as I get older. BOO!

Note: Also, ground cherries are great, I love them.

Picked the car up last night and \o/ WORKING AC! Also, I'm apparently super sensitive so they didn't have to replace all the freon and it cost less than cited. I mean, it wasn't cheap and budgeting shall commence, but was ~$200 cheaper. I will happily take that.

This is good as I have an appointment this afternoon that is going to cost me roughly the same amount I saved. Balance, y'all. It's a thing.

In other news, I'm having a complicated timeallowing myself some grace and space when it comes to mental health stuff. I've been working my ass off about it all for ~20 years. I have my checklists, I have my coping skills, I have my clinical support system, and I am just tripping on every goddamn stair right now. And I AM doing what I can when I can - logging the damn adulthood shit regularly - but I'm just having a lot of hard time slogging through the everyday. And there's just so much all the time.

So, in honor of that, I think I'm going to give myself three actionable goals that will give me a little more grace and space:

1. Reschedule my OB intake exam. It's at the end of July and I just don't have it in me to care about this this summer. I have nothing emergant, so it should be fine.
2. Stay home over Thanksgiving. I'm really tired and would like to do some local things instead.
3. Finally schedule someone to come professionally clean my house. I keep putting it off because all I can do is stare at the stuff I need to move/tidy before they can come, but idk. Maybe it's just time to chunk out the $$ and let someone go to town.

And I know some of this is that I've not really been more social. I'm not walking as much or going out or doing things, but I just don't have the energy or interest right now. Like, y'all I'm barely reading books. And I know, I know, depression/mental health crisis pushes you to make your life smaller, etc. I know. But I am giving myself the grace and space to not be MAD at myself about all that right now.

Plus, my therapists are keeping an eye, so. SIGH.

It likely does not help that my stupid lungs are MAD AS HELL about the air quality changes and the wildfire pollutants currently circulating around the city. Breathing hurts, man. It sucks to have a woodsmoke allergy in all of this.