Sunday, May 23 2021

2019-06-18 Tuesday , vancouver, routine, and sick

Good Morning Journal!

It's been way too long since I've made a journal entry. I decided not to make journal entries in Vancouver. Between the jet lag, sleeping in, and the beer, and ridiculously delicious food, it was all so deeply relaxing that it pulled me right out of my routine. As a result, I feel a bit like a stranger in my own routine. I vaguely remember everything I used to do, and luckily I have it all down in a schedule, so this morning feels a little weird - like I'm assuming the identity of someone, following their meticulous instructions.

It doesn't help either that the vacation ended in a really bizarre way. The second I got home, I started feeling sick, and by 11 pm I was hurling my guts up and had the shakes - I think it was the flu. I think I still might be getting over it all to be honest. I'm getting random headaches and everything I eat or drink makes me just a bit queasy. So my hope for today is that I'm going to take it slow, stay on the tracks, and hopefully my life will start to feel a little normal again. I have to say, it feels good to be writing in the ol' journal again. While I was cleaning up my documents yesterday, I couldn't help but be impressed with how magnificent my single file journal looks now that it spans three months. But then again, the several days missing from June bum me out a bit.

Here's a personal challenge. Next time I take a trip, I need to keep journaling. It may take me out of the feeling of deep relaxation that comes with vacation, but I bet there would be some benefits. Maybe entering back into the real world wouldn't be so hard. Maybe I would remember more sights and sounds and capture them in a record more effectively. That's definitely true, because now all I have is pictures and a few stories.

OK, let's hit the breaks a bit. I feel like this entry is a little negative, and I think the coffee is finally starting to kick in. Vancouver, in short, was amazing. Something about the Pacific makes the food taste so vibrant and fresh. It was like everything I put in my mouth had an entirely new dimension of delicious. The city itself was kind of an urban exploration wonderland. Vancouver defied my expectations in that it was grimy, rebellious, young, loud, and undeniably cool. Marissa and I stayed at an AirBNB in the middle of Gas Town, and on the 40th floor looking out at the city from our shaky little balcony, I felt like one of those war lords from Mad Max. Vancouver, in the best way possible, felt a little lawless and very cool.

The urban wandering and bar hopping was outside of Marissa's comfort zone (we knew about this from Amsterdam), so we made lots of time to do more relaxing touristy things as well - going to the aquarium, biking around Stanley park, going whale watching, taking a cooking class. We found a much better system that would have probably saved us an argument in Amsterdam - Marissa drives the agenda during the day, and I drive the agenda at night. Every night, I was able to convince her to go out past 11PM for a quick beer, and that alone led to a lot of fun discoveries.

But yeah, Vancouver was amazing. We joked about how it was a "one night stand" kind of city, and we'd have little reason to return, but it's definitely not a city that I'll forget. Honestly, Vancouver was a more delicious, darker, more honest San Francisco. Vancouver is San Francisco with better beer. San Francisco with if it hadn't shaved in a while. San Francisco, except it's much less insecure.

I'll try to pepper in more stories about Vancouver throughout the week and tag them accordingly. In the meantime, I've got other stuff on my mind. As I'm writing, I'm mentally barraging myself with things I need to get done. I have a feeling that this four day week is going to feel like a five day week. I really need to get the ball rolling with my class reunion, and it looks like it's going to be a pretty awkwardly small group. I have a lot of shit to catch up with at work, like personal goals and writing and all kinds of other nonsense - on top of our team's main project, which it looks like it may have pivoted a bit while I was gone. I trust the team, but I'll still have to mentally catch up.

I think Zig Zig missed me last week. She napped on my nap all yesterday morning. Then she climbed into bed with me last night while Marissa was still working in the studio. I woke up to her nose pressed against my face. For how weird it is to get back into things, that's the best possible way to start off your day.

Alright - it's 7:30. That means go time. The name of the game is "fake it til you make it".

2019-06-23 Sunday

Good Morning Journal!

It's a beautiful quiet Sunday, and I've got plenty of good food in my stomach. The ribs turned out pretty good, but I used too much charcoal in the grill, so I pretty much had to baby sit the temperature until they were done. I'm pretty exhausted today. The cornbread really stole the show though. It turned out absolutely perfect. And additionally, I learned that you can make it the night before and stick it in the fridge and it still turns out amazing (if not even better than baking it fresh). After dinner, we met up with Alex and Cassie that that new beer place getting built in the union corners. It was pretty cool. The beer was tasty, and they had a few really interesting ice cream flavors. I still have a hard time thinking about the union corners as a place to hang out - it's basically been a giant abandoned field for as long as we lived there, and even know you have to walk through a field and the UW clinic parking lot to get there. Still, it's encouraging to see the neighborhood changing in a positive (albeit wealthier direction). Gentrification sucks, but being able to bar hop at places on the same street as you is pretty cool too. It will be interesting to see how this affects our street. It's still pretty much old people, rented houses, and other eccentric types.

Today we're going to church, then heading straight home for some leftovers. Marissa was supposed to have a painting class today on the patio of Karben 4, but there's a lot of rain in the forecast, so the contingency plan is to reschedule and put on a private lesson at our place for the few people that are driving from out of state. I'm hoping to catch up on some chores and tasks. I'd like to finally finish Kelly's laptop, write a letter back to Maya, and finally catch up on emails. I've also been getting the itch to work on some code. Not sure what, but I'm not letting myself jump into anything new before I clear my TODO list.

Well, I'm starting to hear Rodney stir. I better go get him. Let's have a productive Sunday!