Life Updates
Overall I feel really good! There’s the creeping sense of dread re: finances which pops up every month or so, but otherwise I’m excited for the next few months of travel/catsitting.
I think it’s helped that I’ve been regularly going outside and walking for ~45 minutes every day. I’m really bad about doing that normally, but this neighborhood is good for walking and has enough interesting things to look at that I don’t feel bored. My Health app even says my step count is about double what it was last month!
I’ve also been venturing into some of Ann Arbor’s nature preserves, which are much hillier than I expected. Very beautiful trees, though! And usually not too crowded, so it’s peaceful.
đââŦ Cats have been super sweet this week (despite also leaving me two hairballs to find in the morning). I’ve been sitting in the dining room with the patio door open (screen closed) in the mornings and they all love to stare out at the garden and sit on my lap, alternatively. It’s also gotten cold enough in the mornings to use a cozy blanket, and they LOVE that, too.
Usually after a month of catsitting, I feel very attached to the cats and don’t want to leave them, and sure enough that’s happened here, too. I always spend the last week talking to them in super baby-speak and trying to get a lot of photos, and they run from me because my energy gets all weird.
Media Consumption
đ§ Started listening to Dimension 20’s Fantasy High arc via podcast form, but it’s one of those things that works better as a video. For instance, in episode 1, Brennan kept saying stuff like “you see this, you do that” and he wouldn’t make it clear which “you” he was talking about– because in the video they just cut to a close-up of the player! Whereas if it was an audio-first then, they’d be sure to say the character’s name. So going forward I’ll be watching the videos instead, I guess.
đē Watched several good documentaries this week (and posted about here) (see post list below). I’ve also been watching one Granada Sherlock Holmes episode a night to wind things down, which has been really fun. It’s one of my favorite adaptations and watching them always makes me want to read Sherlock Holmes fanfic afterwards.
đ Finished reading Bootstrapper, a memoir of a divorced mom in Michigan and started Here Begins the Dark Sea, which is about the history of a specific world map. However, the first 50 pages have so far been about humanity’s thing about symbolism and the importance of maps in general, and now we just started a large section about the general history of maps around the world.
Tbh this could’ve all been cut way down. It’s interesting stuff, but it could’ve been a few paragraphs and not multiple chapters. The title/subtitle of the book makes it sound like it’s focused on one single map/mapmaker, but the way the intro has been going on I think perhaps the author was trying to meet a wordcount requirement. Doesn’t help that the font size is very tiny, so I feel like I’m reading double the words I normally would.
Also started The Forest Unseen but haven’t picked it up in a few days so I’m not sure I’m going to continue. After the author stood naked in sub-zero winter weather I’m not entirely sure I trust his judgement about anything else…
Food & Dining
Very banal week for food– I’ve temporarily lost enthusiasm for cooking so I’ve been eating a lot of quick-make type dishes.
Also accidentally ordered too much food on the previous grocery delivery and either I finish it before I leave in a week or I have to take it with me1— so I’m going to figure out what I can make that won’t take too much effort and uses up a lot of the little bits. It’s mostly stuff like frozen veg, pasta, cheese2 and eggs, so I’m thinking some casseroles would be nice. It’s going to be colder this upcoming week, so using the oven for cooking won’t be terrible.
Web Updates
A few updates on the main website (the “digital garden” side?? yes, that sounds good.)
- New page: Dictionary, where I’m copying over various words from my reading log posts.
- Added 2 links to the Wiki Reads page
Fiddled with various things on the blog side, too. I added a menu bar to the top of the blog, with my most-used categories (so far), and I messed around with some style elements: I changed the color of the bullet points and the separator block (hr element) to go with the theme colors a bit better. Just small things, but it looks a lot cuter now!
(If you’re reading this on Dreamwidth, I also tweaked my theme a bit: changed the background and the colors, and I also figured out how to automatically re-format the crossposted WordPress posts so they look a little less weird on DW. Yay!)
New blog posts:
- đ weeknotes (august 10-16, 2025) (DW)
- đ¸ photo: oak tree (DW)
- đ reading log: the forest unseen by david george haskell (not crossposted)
- đē watched: some like it hot (1959) (DW)
- đ traditional linen weaving, permacomputing, sloppers (DW)
- đ¨ī¸ thoughts about gen ai from a for-profit blogger (not crossposted)
- đē watched: who done it: the clue documentary (2022) (DW)
- đ reading log: bootstrapper by mardi jo link (DW)
- đ reading log: here begins the dark sea (DW)
- đ planner pages, river circus, portland punk (DW)
- đē watched: mary heilmann: waves, roads and hallucinations (2023) (DW)
Looking Forward
I’m experimenting with self-hosting some Fediverse stuff, and it’s fun trying to figure it out but also very tiring and I’m about to give up and just go back to mooching off other people’s instances. Honestly I’m not even sure it’s worth bothering to set up these things anyway since I can do almost everything I want to do with this blog and my fandom.ink account anyway!
Anyway, this week I need to do some IRL stuff, too: mail a package of stuff I can’t carry onto the plane, do last-minute sightseeing (at least one museum and a few bookstores), and try to read through at least a few more books so I can dump them in a little free library before I head out of town. I am NOT going to try packing 10 books into my suitcase (my max is 3 books, I’m saying it right now and y’all can hold me accountable).
- I try not to leave half-used foodstuffs for the homeowners when they get back. If it’s unopened and something they’d eat, I usually just leave it. But nobody wants half a bag of frozen peas to deal with. âŠī¸
- the delivery driver gave me an extra bag of mozzarella cheese without charging me for it, so I have a LOT. âŠī¸
tozka | đ weeknotes (aug 17-23, 2025)