This Week
Life
When I was a little girl, I had a dresser drawer that was filled with small things, buttons and badges and beads, rubber animals, seedpods, scraps of paper. Among my favourites in this drawer — if I was forced to choose — were these teardrop-shaped faceted beads with an iridescent sheen that looked like they belonged in a minuscule chandelier in tiny Versailles.
It is a mystery to me how this week I found myself transported back to a memory when, as a child, I stood on tiptoes to peek inside this drawer and pick out one of these chandelier beads, hold it up, and watch the light dance around the room.
It might have been a glimpse of a dangling earring, reminiscent of the sparkly treasure. It might have been that, in a week full of family upset and distant tragedy, something settled into place in the tangled nest of wires I call my brain. I don’t know what that something was yet, or I don’t have words for it, only the feeling of that moment with a piece of plastic and refracted winter light.
Snap out of it: we’ve got a status report to write.
Week 3 of 12-week wellness programme introduced me to oil pulling. (Please do not click that link if you are squeamish.) I have not noticed any health benefits so far but something that disgusting has got to have at least one health benefit. I am hoping for two, even. Also I tried to reduce my caffeine intake further but roasted yerba mate tastes like ashtray coffee. The best I’ve been doing is getting more sleep and drinking the hell out of my spinach and kale smoothies.
Misfit activity goals met on 0 of 7 days. Let this be the nadir of my exercise motivation.
My friend Julia and I have exactly opposite days off work but this week the stars aligned! She came over and we made lunch together (pan-seared pork loin, chickpea and dill salad) and then chatted the daylight away. That visit plus plenty of Skype time with family kept me in higher spirits than last week.
Work
The location authority structure is in place and location data — such as it is — has been loaded into JDB1745. Now comes a whole bunch of cleaning up transcription variants and other fun stuff. I am looking forward to this a little because I’m much better at focusing on a task like this than I am on straightforward data entry.
The weekend gig involved a special treat this week: I participated in a Wiki-edit-a-thon. My fellow editors and I worked on improving articles about several women in STEM careers. We spent a few hours researching these women’s biographies and CVs and ensuring that their Wikipedia entries were up-to-date and correct. The edit-a-thon inspired me to take a more active role in Wikipedia than I have in the past. Did you know that only 13% of Wikipedia editors are women?
Writing
No blogging this week. (I haven’t forgotten those last book-club posts!) Mildly more fiction-writing, but I had a legitimate how I love writing moment this week, which felt wonderful. I love my lumpy, crummy drafts.
Hobbies
What even goes here?
Media
Still savouring every page of “The Bees”.
I mostly listened to podcasts this week and not music, but I did rediscover a mixtape (can we even still call them that?) that FunkyPlaid made when he left for Scotland back in 2003. Like that shiny bead, the songs yanked me back to before I had ever set foot in this country, wondering what she got that I don’t got and other self-absorbed, younger worries. Plus, FunkyPlaid just has great taste in music.
This American Life’s two-part series on policing in America is excellent.
So far as the tubular pursuits, FunkyPlaid and I finished our season one re-watch of “Pushing Daisies” and are on to viewing the second season for the first time. Exciting!
I also watched the first two episodes of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” which is a must-watch if you enjoyed “30 Rock” or if you have a heart.
I’m saving the latest season of “House of Cards” for when I am not so twitchy because Frank Underwood makes me so tense.
Ink o’ the Week
High off the pink excitement from last week, I tried another from that Goulet Pens’ Ink Drop, De Atramentis’ Red Roses. I should have used a wetter writer, because my Pelikan M205 isn’t showing all the lovely variation I’m sure it has. But it is pretty, a darker red than the Caran d’Ache Divine Pink, and scented like roses. The scent wears off quickly but it feels very fancy while I am writing with it.