Friday, October 09, 2026

Turkey time

Still haven’t been sleeping, despite workouts and decaffeination and melatonin. This morning I woke up at 1:30am from another nightmare with fuck you! still on my lips, one elbow up, convinced for a terrible second that I was back in Hawaii and the man was in the bed behind me. I listened to the rain on the window and felt deep relief, reminding myself that I’m here, and nobody can make me go back there.

The flannel-clad raccoon got back into the library and leaned against the doorframe of my office to chat, giving me an up-and-down look that made me feel like a cupcake. Sir. I have read too many Janet Evanovich books to be dealing with this. Get out. I bet he could pick me up. STFU, brain.

I took a walk around the pond on lunch, trying to smooth my sleep-jagged thoughts. The trees are turning orange and red. I heard a woodpecker, and saw a crab. The ducks were napping in the sun, the wild roses were covered in bright red rose hips, and it smelled like salt water and pine trees. I avoided a puddle by walking on the narrow edge of the wood board that runs alongside the path, then realized someone was right behind me and would have been a witness if I had fallen off the board into the bushes. Glad I didn’t have to play dead until they went by.

It’s the weekend of Thanksgiving. My coworker gave me a bag of apples from his tree, and I bought a proper pie plate so Zenny and I can make an apple custard pie out of them. We have half a skin-on turkey breast to roast, and decided on popovers and creamed peas instead of mashed potatoes and carrots. We’re going to eat what we want. Sorry, canned cranberry sauce and weird obligatory bowl of black olives, you are not invited this year.


Like everyone else on the province, we’re watching Below, and so far they’re doing a pretty good job with the depiction of Newfoundland, right down to the skeets, jig’s dinner, and Pepsi products. The accents have been slowed a bit for the viewers, but our boy from Stranger Things is from the UK and managed to nail it. Go watch.


Wednesday, October 07, 2026

Results are in

You guys. I put out the double-stuffed Oreos. 


Now I feel like someone who has lured over a raccoon and then remembered that raccoons sometimes have teeth and rabies. I’m stepping back from the cookie table.





Saturday, October 03, 2026

Do you like me? YES/NO

 I have accidentally over-caffeinated myself after a misunderstanding with a Tim Hortons matcha latte. 

THIS WEEK:

My mother left on Monday. Sad she’s gone, happy to have free reign and lots of jam.

Zenny has gotten into The Office, and we’ve just plowed on into season 5. 

Spent most of the week trying to figure out if a new guy at work was flirting with me. Decided he wasn’t. Unless elbowing someone, calling them nicknames, and joking about double-stuffed Oreos is flirting (I buy cookies for the library every week, in the longstanding household tradition of Cookie Monday). I don’t know. Could be cultural - the sheet metal instructor calls me “duckie”…Maybe I should wear a name badge.

Got back to painting, working on a large commission piece for my aunt. It’s in the ugly stage, and it’ll stay there longer because it’s a bigger canvas, so I am very much in the forcing-myself-to-trust-the-process stage so I don’t regress into the wiping-it-out-with-sandpaper-and-starting-over stage. Again.

Also got back to the pool. New speedo, new goggles, same 14 minutes of not being a high school athlete anymore. Damn it. I am going to have to start Sparta-kicking the phone-scolling men off the weight machines so I can get some shoulders on this meat vehicle.

I did not go catwalking past the tattoo booth at the craft expo. Turns out it costs $5 to get in there, and I’m just not that dedicated to reclaiming my mojo or whatever. It only costs $3 to bait the library with double-stuffed Oreos to see what happens, and then at least I get a cookie.

Haven't been sleeping well for the past few weeks. Nightmares at 2am, struggling to get back to sleep, waking up sad/lonely. Also I knocked over all the bottles in the shower and tried to catch them with my foot like a circus performer and now my foot hurts. Somehow sensing all this, my music algorithm suddenly started kicking out 2000s emo music while I was driving to work this week. I laughed. 

rawr XD


Overall: happy with life, if not my circadian rhythms. I do not recommend the Tim's strawberry matcha latte.