It’s funny, the halfway brain that sprouts from sleep deprivation. I wake up at 05:30 but really I wake up on the bus in downtown Portland, trying to remember if I did basic things like dress myself and feed myself and not leave the front door wide open.

So far, I’m doing pretty well. (But let’s not jinx it.)

Many photos to catch up on! Nineteen, in fact. I may have a little bit of a preoccupation with flowers. To be fair, this city blooms gratuitously. And now ripe apples and plums are falling off the trees, sometimes knocking me in the head like a physics lesson.

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I’m still in love with my new job, but it is mentally and socially intense. Most evenings I come home and barely have enough energy to eat dinner. While my in-laws were in town, we managed a little weekend escape to Forest Grove, which I needed desperately.

Zen now reliably wakes me up with mournful howling before my alarm goes off. While FunkyPlaid is out of town I have taken to sleeping in my study downstairs so I can soothe her faster.

Other snippets from the past few weeks:

  • I visited the Beaverton City Library for the first time and was suitably awed.
  • I tried to switch back to an electronic task list but my Bullet Journal is just too good.
  • I dealt with my mobile service woes, including a factory reset of my iPhone which sucked up a day and a half, one of those being a weekend day I was rather cranky to sacrifice at the altar of the capricious technology gods.
  • And I bought body lotion. Big deal, right? Well, it is my favorite, and I had been holding off on buying some until I had my own income again. It became a bit of a symbol, this body lotion, and I relished the anticipation.
  • O yeah, and I tried Pokémon Go! I am entertained by it but perhaps not as much as actual Pokémon fans or at least people who like wandering around with their phones out. Since the library is a Pokémon Gym, I regularly witness Pokémon Go players bumping into things. I try not to laugh.

Time for bed. Tonight I will rest well, being all caught up with my project. Well, for a few hours. Then Zen will start to sing …

Writing from: my study. Listening to: some episode of “Prison Break” I’m not really watching.