Survivors

I slept??? until 11 this morning??? Blame DST, but I also walked more than eight miles yesterday, much of that inside the Art Institute with Shibrogane, who was in town for a conference, hurrah! I am also on newsletter fill-in duty at work; last Monday, I wrote our afternoon newsletter, which I usually edit, and from Friday to this coming Friday, I wake up at ugly o'clock and put together the morning newsletter, which is horrific. It actively makes me ill to not get enough sleep and throw myself right into work as I wake ("wake") up. Like, thank goodness I found some melatonin so maybe I can get enough sleep early enough tonight, but that's a gamble.

GOSH. It has been a month! We've got elections stuff at work (the Illinois primary elections are March 17th and it requires so much prep work), and then Jesse Jackson died and that became our ENTIRE output (not literally, but it's felt like it) for two or three weeks. I am TIRED.

The biggest thing is: condo got! Closing is this coming Friday! I am — scrambling to get packed and organized in addition to All of This Above, because my original shipment of moving boxes was delayed and then stolen. I'm also constantly laughing at myself because I was like, oh yeah, I'll have two weeks for contractors to fix stuff and for painting and gradual move-in and they can obviously just let themselves in to get things done! And then I remembered, with horror, that no, I am the one who will have to constantly ferry back and forth between the apartments in order to let them in etc etc etc. It's awkward on public transit and too long for a morning walk, but it's a straightforward bike ride, so I'm hoping my ex-dislocated elbow will let me travel that way for now. But yes, I do not know when I will actually be moving, aside from "before the end of the month." We'll see!

Gingko, of course, continues to be herself, by which I mean around Valentine's Day, she ate about a cup's worth of therapy putty for my hand. It was nontoxic, luckily, and she got two and a half slices of white bread with every meal to "bulk her diet" until it came out (which — ultimately, it sure did!). One of her favorite things to do to get my attention while I'm trying to relax or focus is to chew on cardboard boxes while making eye contact with me, so the arrival of so many boxes for packing up the apartment has me a little worried for the next little bit. We'll make it work, I guess! I keep trying to use my weekends efficiently or productively or whatever, and then Gingko has other plans, through no fault of her own — she does need those long walks and equally long cuddles, but I cannot afford to put her in doggy day camp for two weeks straight. We'll see!!!

Zhang Linghe's new drama Pursuit of Jade is on Netflix and it's freaking fantastic so far. Slow, patient, character-focused, beautiful to look at, excellent-af women — it's by the same director as Blossom and A Familiar Stranger, which explains a lot. I am excited to see where it goes! It is not the kind of show I can watch while doing other things, though, that is what podcasts are for.

Chaos, chaos, chaos. I keep saying I can't wait to be at the phase of moving where you have to buy out an IKEA. Today, at least, I've been able to sort through and prune a bunch of books. Maybe going one room at a time will keep me from going absolutely batshit? I've never been good at this part, but I'm very grateful that I've got some buffer time so it's not all in a rush. We haven't even talked about the storage unit I need to source and rent indefinitely... oof. Hi! ✶