weekly retro #83: new month, new git meltdown
this week was the 2-year anniversary of me quitting my corporate job and i spent a significant portion of it toeing the line between calm and an absolute fucking meltdown over getting an ssh key to authorize me into one of my git repos. for a moment it felt like literally nothing changed, but ultimately so much has. i still get asked if i have any regrets and the answer is unequivocally nope! anyway, welcome to da retro.
this was also the 3 month anniversary of pumagreg's surgery. i have a blog post draft that talks about what happened, what the process was, how much everything cost (jerking-off motion), and how we all have adapted to his new shape. he's doing great though, and so are we.
last night we finished playing desktop explorer which i mentioned in a prior retro. it's very fun, the puzzles can get very challenging but not too much of a stretch from the clues to the solution. i really enjoy puzzle games that look like you're on a computer. big walk has you doing puzzles as if you were outside, which is the opposite, but it's so so fun still.
i took my last wheel-throwing class. someone got their teacup off my wax melter after the kiln malfunction so i brought it home. it works really well, so i will be making more. i have 5 things on the shelf waiting to be glaze fired, or maybe they're in the kiln, or out! i'm going to stop by tomorrow to see what's there. because of the studio being down one kiln, we've had to wait longer for pieces to cycle through. there's a waitlist for studio membership, so i signed up for a hand-building course to keep me busy while i wait for a spot to open.
i got a new ebook, this one with color e-ink technology. i love e-ink so much. unfortunately, the screen has one single bright spot that is very distracting. i went through the expected humiliation ritual of Talking To A Fucking Computer until it was escalated to My Fucking Species. i'm waiting to hear if they're going to issue me a replacement or if i'm going to become the joker of ebook companies.
after a week off of strength-training i got back into it and the rest really helped and had me lifting heavier this week. i also went to aerial yoga for the first time in 4 months with my favorite instructor. i told her that i'm stronger than last time, but that i'm sure my nerves will be extra spicy going into the hammock because i hadn't done it in awhile. turns out i am significantly stronger than i was four months ago, and yes my bikini area and underarms are quite sore from hammock pinching. i'm going to see if my therapist can move our session to a different day so i can go to this class every week. the feeling of invincibility i felt coming home after class was euphoric and it reminded me why i was doing it 2x a week before the old studio closed.
things i enjoyed this week
- aerial yoga, i missed it so much!!
- the nba actually holding a billionaire and his people accountable, and it all happening thanks to good investigative sports journalism.
- this video about photography and cats. kodak kevin shares good insights on taking good photos, but really takes storytelling to the next level with this one.
- unusual suspects is a super fun browser game from neal agarwal where you're a sketch artist who has to draw characters the witnesses describe.
given that this coming week has a few anniversaries of somber note - particularly 9/11 and my dad's heart attack - i'm going to try to stay off social media and really focus on my mind, body and art.
xoxo jenn