1.31.2021
The end of January has arrived. I woke up in the middle of the night, and it was snowing. It was so serene that I considered going out but then fell asleep instead. Last night I watched Rebecca (1940). I was texting my mom and aunt because it's one of their favorite movies. While I never watched the version that came out this past year, re-watching the 1940 version made it clear that remaking it was just asking for failure. There's something about the slower dialogue style that was popular in the 40's that makes it even more sinister.
I was feeling very overwhelmed with my proposal today, as I realized how much I need to know. And then I didn't do much work on it because of the Overwhelming. I'll get back to work on it soon, but first I have to pick up an art print from the library before they close.
I had a dream that people were making fun of my fishing bait-themed water tumbler, and I was very confused because I knew it was objectively cool.
1.27.2021
mini dream journal: last night I had a dream that I was in my car with my family, and we were taking a shortcut to wherever our destination was. The road quickly turned to gravel and then it was a race course where the road was close to vertical on a big turn. Like in Cars. Even though I was in the backseat, I was still the one driving, and I knew I had to keep going fast enough or else the tires would slip on the gravel and we would start falling down.
Then the gravel road stopped at a large body of water. and there was a wooden dock that was in bad condition. The dock was the way to get a boat to Mackinac Island. My family and I were standing on the dock, which started to go in and out of the water based on the waves. The waves didn't appear to get bigger, but we kept going deeper and deeper in with each wave. Finally, the biggest wave came, and I was taken all the way under. I still had a grip on the dock and was not concerned about going under, but I was underwater for at least a minute. It was very calm. Then I came back up, and everything was fine.
1.26.2021
Terrible cramps today. I was dizzy and drained for most morning. I left lab early and went to get gas and pick up a few things at the Chinese supermarket. It was probably about 2:30pm when I got to the store, and the aisles were filled with boxes. I love coming across stores during stocking time. It reminded me of the Kirksville HyVee, and how they would line the boxes down the center of the aisles late at night.
My Deeper vinyl arrived. I forgot that I ordered it. When I lay on my couch with a hot water bottle, all I could see out the window was tree branches covered in snow.
1.25.2021
One month until my prelim hahahaha. Lots of meetings today. Once they were all finally over, I read a book of short stories by Denis Johnson. Favorite: Emergency
Dreamlike but nauseous.
1.24.2021
A snowy morning. Mostly cycled between working and procrastinating. I took a break for a very cold hike where I saw two swans on the half frozen Huron river. They took flight while I was watching, and they reminded me of an illustration of swans flying above a ruined castle and lake towards the moon. I knew it was of some Irish myth. I looked it up just now, and it was probably the children of Lir. Reading the story, I think I confused the plot with the Brothers Grimm swan tale, but the image of the swans taking flight was definitely children of Lir.
1.23.2021
I went on a morning walk with K and I, and we visited the lone house being built in a development. A lonely suburban monstrosity. I started doing some editing of my proposal, but then ended up drawing a self portrait and learning rainbow connection on banjo. It's confusing playing banjo with picks after going so long without them. Then we went and got tacos at a Mexican place in Ypsilanti that definitely had some covid violations going on but had very good energy overall. Now it's time for trivia. My round is food of us states. Did you know Doritos were invented at Disneyland?
1.22.2021
Tired. Not much happened in lab. Made a delightful curry after going to the evil kroger. I worked on a trivia round for U.S. states and food.
1.21.2021
A very fun date to write. Long seminars, but then I had a good break showing someone how to use the baby akta. It is very temperamental. I made it back before sunset, so I went on a hike. Everything is sort of melting, so there were parts of the trail that were super saturated mud and others that were still all ice. I talked with squaredance, R, and Sch in the evening and succeeded in most of our predictions. If I were a cooked potato, I would be the hot potato kids on the prairie carried to warm their hands on their way to school and then ate as breakfast.
1.20.2021
I rushed home to take a class from the comfort of my own room. My mullet looks sick on zoom. Really all the time. After the class, I never got back to work even though I did very little between seminar and the inauguration. K and I made bad dancing tiktoks, and then I read the second half of my current library book (Bunny - Mona Awad). It was disorienting.
1.19.2021
I had a meeting this morning that I was invited to very last minute, and then it turned out that the meeting was all about my work. Exciting. But actually I got a lot of ideas from the collaborators and am ready to get new experiments going once prelims are over. I left lab in the afternoon and walked with Myva along the river. The sky is the same shade of grey all day. It's rather disorienting. I'm ready to cocoon myself in my duvet and read until I fall asleep.
1.18.2021
I spent most of my day in lab cleaning up someone's old lab space. It's amazing how much you can accumulate over five years. The most distressing thing was finding a drawer of used gloves. K and I went to Canton to get dunkin and do some light thrifting. I found a turtleneck with cottages on the neck that look like the Little House from Virginia Lee Burton's children's book (apparently children's books are a new theme of mine). I also got a double-breasted blazer dress, red and navy, that upon trying on at home fits perfectly. We just had a pizza, garlic bread, and wings delivered to our house, but no one ordered it. It looks like someone who lived in this house 3 years ago ordered to us, so now I will eat pizza.
1.17.2021
It stays dark for so long in the morning. I woke up at 5:30 and 7:30, and it was exactly the same. I took my bonnet out on its first hike. I remind myself of the kid in The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats) because in addition to my bonnet, my coat is very puffy and large and I sort of bumble about in the snow and ice.
1.16.2021
This morning I woke up early and got an everything bagel. The bagel place had really nice late 90's decor. Wall art of bright colored shapes with squiggles over them. Then I went on a hike around a lake and ate the everything bagel. My footsteps were very loud in the snow and with no one around.
/journal/