Day in the Life of an Idiot

 I finally moved a lamp in our bedroom so that I have decent light to read by at night, and so I started a non-fiction book called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. The book appeared in our little free library, and I pulled it out because I am actually very interested in this subject. As I think I have reported here before, one of the reasons I returned to DW was because of a renewed interest in "long-form" communication. I'd been feeling especially scattered and burned out by the fast-pace, rock-skipping-over-the-water's-surface-ness of Facebook and Twitter.

So far, this book is pretty interesting. It's a bit old, having come out almost 10 years ago, but I'm still finding it interesting because it's explicitly not about content. The author is not trying to say "internet bad," which is often where these kinds of books start. Instead, the author is very clear that there are TONS of benefits to being online, and, that's kind of the point. We are here because we both want and need to be, now what? 

Anyway, that's what I've been reading. 

I also went on a really interesting, though not very visually stunning tour of Ueno's Ameyoko market. Ueno is one of those neighborhoods in Tokyo that I mostly know because Pimsleur decided I needed to know how to ask for the train station there. There is also a very famous, old zoo there, which Duolingo has used to teach me to talk about animals. So, it's kind of weird to suddenly be walking around in a place I think of as part of my language lessons and not much else. 

In fact, I took a picture of the Zoo, because I was so used to seeing it in my lessons, that I COULD ACTUALLY READ THE KANJI.


Image: the rather dull entrance to Ueno Zoo, only notable for Lyda's reading skills (yes, the name is also there in English.).

The tour was promoted as "Peculiar Tokyo," and the highlight was Ameyoko a street known for its history as a black market. What I found particularly fascinating about this was the tour guide's explanation of the history of the name of the street. As in the link referenced above, Kei told us that the street's name is a shortened form of "Ameya Yokocho" which means candy store alley, and the connection to the black market is that in Japan, as in most places during WWII, there were sugar rations. So, if you were a candy maker, you were probably also in it with the black market. Candy sellers still make their homes on this street, as well.

Another take is that "Ame" was a short form of American, since after the war, during the occupation, there was a brisk trade of American goods in this black market alley as well.


Ameyoko market entryway. 

This tour should not have been as exciting as it was for me, but it made a strange Bleach connection for me, because there is a very shady shopkeeper who happens to be the mentor to the hero, who owns, of all weird things, a candy store. It does, in fact, operate as a black market for people from the other side (the Soul Society,) but I have NO IDEA if the author intended this connection or not. I tend to think of Kubo-sensei as a kind of savant, so who knows. As a friend of mine wondered, is this a common enough connection to drop into a shounen manga?? Or did Kubo just have one of his strangely brilliant moments??  

As one writer to another, I say: both. Both is entirely possible. Gods know, I sometimes write stuff in that later I'm like, "OH, that's real thing? Right! Well, then I meant it that way!!" 

At any rate, Kei, our tour guide, was perky and interesting. He had apparently been hired by the tour company he was currently working for, specifically for the Olympics. In the end, of course, he said that he only managed to give a few tours to some athletes. His English was excellent, and he explained that he'd studied for several years in Canada. He kept begging us all to start travelling again soon, which was kind of sadlarious.

He worked really hard to engage with us across the miles, and, at one point, asked people to drop into the chat their favorite Japanese foods. I volunteered takoyaki, which are fried octopus balls (not testicles, which I'm not even sure octopuses have, but you know, like how hushpuppies are "balls"). At any rate, Kei was deeply surprised that anyone outside of Japan had had takoyaki and so when we were in the actual market street, he stopped to buy some to show everyone what they were like. I enjoyed that part a LOT because I got to see which condiments he chose to put on his--typically, here in the US, they're served with Japanese mayo, bonito flakes, and another kind of dark sauce, probably this takoyaki sauce that Wikipeida references. He had the dark sauce, no mayo, bonito flakes, and something I rarely get, which was a kind of seaweed sprinkle. 

It made me very much crave a trip to Zen Box. 

What was also surprising was the number of Americans who were like, "Wait, what? You can get takoyaki in St. Paul, MN??" and I was in the chat saying, "Yes, in more than one place." Google can find four places for me, two of which I've had the takoyaki at, Ishita Ramen and Zen Box. But, they are also common at the local Obon celebration at Como Park in the summer. I feel like I also picked them up at one of the night markets, in the days before the pandemic.

My point is, and I do have one, that I'm still learning things about Japan through these trips.

I noticed the silence, too, that fell when Kei asked us if anyone had been to Japan. No one. Some people had friends or family that lived somewhere in Japan, but none of us had travelled there. It makes me curious if part of the appeal of HeyGo for other people is the same as it is for me--a chance to go somewhere I will probably never be able to afford to go to in Real Life (tm).


Image: The market stalls in Ueno's Ameyoko Street

I did a few other tours last week, but I found most of them vaguely disappointing. For instance, I went to Shinjuku's Central Park with a French foreign national living in Japan, whom I suspect is one of the few guides who is not a professional tour guide. I say this because she said that she could not find much information on the park in English, which... I mean, she's not wrong. However, I feel like what the others have done in those cases is supplement with information about the neighborhood? I am probably being too judgmental. However, I have been considering trying to see if HeyGo would hire me, so I am always thinking about this sort of problem and trying to solve it for myself. Like, okay, if I took people to Como Park here in Saint Paul, maybe there isn't a huge amount of information about it, but that's when you supplement with information about architects of park buildings and other local historical or interesting facts.

Shinjuku itself is fascinating.

Moreover, I had previously never heard of the skyscraper district, Nishi-Shinjuku, which this park is located near.


Image: in the distance is a very fascinating cocoon shaped building, Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower.

Apparently, according to Wikipedia, the building was commissioned by Mode Gakuen (an educational firm) as a kind of contest, with the stipulation to its architects that the skyscraper could be anything other than a rectangle!  I only just learned that, however, our tour guide only mentioned all the various schools inside, which is interesting? Since it is also the second tallest educational building in the world.

I believe we are also looking at the cocoon building over the wall of the man-made water falls, which are known as "Shinjuku's Niagara Falls," which, "The Tokyo Weekender has described the water feature as 'generously named.'" Which cracks me up.

I will admit I bailed on this tour pretty early, and I probably missed the best part, which is the shrine at the far end of the park. Our guide had a very shaky cam, and sometimes I can roll with that and sometimes it makes me very queasy. This was a queasy time, unfortunately. I did sign-up to do another tour with this particular guide because she is headed to Shinjuku Park National Garden, which I BELIEVE is where one of my favorite anime is set, Midnight Occult Civil Servants had several episodes take place. (There are a lot of parks in Shinjuku, it turns out. I am hoping to see some locations I might recognize. I actually thought I recognized a place at the Central Park, but I'm not sure.)  At any rate, I am willing to give this particular guide a second chance.

This whole camera issue is currently the main thing stopping me from seeing if HeyGo would take me as a tour guide. I don't have a selfie stick, which a lot of the best guides seem to have (and it really seems to contribute to better sense of steadiness), and I really doubt my Tracfone service is going to be able to handle the bandwidth/streaming data required. However, it's a constant source of amusement for me to imagine what I would show off in St. Paul if I were a guide here.

 I went a bunch of places in Japan this weekend, virtually, via livestream. I suspect some of this is quite boring to some people, like that One Friend, who is always showing slides of their trips, but this is why these posts are specifically tagged 'HeyGo.' 


Image: Canola flowers in Azumayama Park in Kanagawa, Japan.

This was one of the best tours of the past week. The tour guide was Erika and, once again, she brought her mom. The thing I loved about it was that Azumayama Park is one of those places that it's difficult to find a huge amount of information about in English. Thus, it very much felt like having a friend in Japan who is excited to take you to their favorites places, off the beaten track. In fact, Erika told us that this is her favorite park to visit every year to get a sneak peek of Spring. As I found out in a later tour, cherry blossoms are already beginning to bloom in Tokyo, but Kanagawa is a bit south of Tokyo, but these canola flowers (non-commercial) were in full bloom. 

Azumayama Park is also known for its view of Mount Fuji. Of course, when Erika first arrived the clouds were gorgeous, but such that we all assumed that Fuji would stay hidden, per usual.


Image: Gorgeous cloudy day in Azumayama Park, Japan.

But, I guess I've just been very lucky on these "trips," because right at the end, Fuji made a brief appearance. 


Image: A ghostly Fuji-sama just beyond Erika's mom.

I actually took a ton of postcards on this trip because the views were spectacular. Once again, I am absolutely certain that Azumayama Park would never, ever have made it on an itinerary if I had only a week or two in Japan. 

So, that was Wednesday night. On Thursday, I jumped onto a tour with Yusuke. He took us to Mastsushima Bay, The bay was called out by a Confucian scholar from the 1600s, Hayashi Gahō, as one of the three most scenic views of Japan. The bay has a bunch of pine covered islands. He took us through the Bay's park and down to a feature called Uma no Se (馬の背), the Horse's Back peninsula. 


A very narrow walk for our tour guide!

However, the trip out, did afford us some spectacular views.


Images: Islands in Matsushima Bay on a clear, bright day.

On Sunday, I briefly popped into another one of Eriko's tours, one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan, apparently, but I came in late and hand to leave early, so I missed a lot of what that one was about. The most notable thing about this tour for me, given my brief stay, was that there was snow on the ground!


Image: Temple in the snow.

The last tour I took was last night, in which I joined a new set of tour guides, who took us on a rickshaw tour of the Asakusa district, Tokyo, Japan. If you recall, I've been to this district before with Erika, but this was a very different experience. The guy who led the tour was very... mmm, emotive. He was the kind to constantly say, "Wow! Yeah! Oooh, look at this, huh? Coooool!!" I found him rather charming, honestly. He took us to a "hidden" alleyway where he was met by his friend who is a rickshaw driver. Turns out, our guide was also a licensed rickshaw driver, so at one point they switched places as a "surprise." The whole thing was goofy, but highly entertaining. 

They took us past Thunder Gate, the Kaminarimon (雷門,) which is the entrance to Senso-ji, which is the temple that Erika took us to in the last tour I had of this area. 



I did not take a lot of pictures of this tour, because they would have mostly been the back of a guy's head and a view of the street. I found myself in this tour just sort of looking at the traffic. One of the things I learned in my Japanese language class when I learned that the Japanese consider the "go" on streetlights "aoi," blue, not green. The lights look exactly the same as ours, honestly, though you could maybe say their green is a bit bluer?  To be fair, they also call "green" vegetables, blue, so it's mostly a cultural difference.

There was, this last week, a lot of emphasis on food. We learned that Matsushima Bay is famous for its oysters. When we were at the canola flower park, Erika and her mom, gave us an informal tea ceremony/picnic.


Informal tea, but with a table cloth and matcha tea, carefully prepared.

The rickshaw goofballs also stopped long enough to admire melonpan, so there's that.


Image: yummy melonpan. 

Right. That's the whole series of them.

 
Image: Abeno Harukas, tallest skyscraper in Osaka (arguably in Japan.)

I'm not normally a fan of tours of buildings. With the obvious exception of things like museums, I will almost always prefer to walk a neighborhood than to go inside a capitol building or the top floor of the world's tallest whatever. However, I spotted this tour of Osaka's tallest skyscraper on HeyGo and thought, why not?  The tour guide for this one was Timea Yamamoto, a Romanian woman who is living in Japan (and from the looks of her last name, likely married or related to someone Japanese.) 

We started the tour at the train station, which was probably my favorite part?


Image: The Kintetsu Osaka Abenobashi Station in Osaka


Image: Another view of the pedestrian bridges of the station.

Someone on the tour remarked that the city of Osaka is not normally on a lot of people's tour itinerary. It is the third largest city in Japan, and the things I know about it are kind of vague. Comedy? Industry??  A unique dialect? Frankly, I would love more tours of Osaka just to see if it's the sort of place I might add to my list of places to see. 

But, back to the tour. Once inside the building, I lost a lot of interest. There are some nifty things inside. There's a museum and one of the largest department stores in Japan and several observation decks, etc., but it's a building? With stuff in it? The tour was specifically to take us to Harukas 300 (so named because it is 300 meters tall.) The trippiest part was the elevator ride, in which they have you look up at the glass ceiling and the elevator shaft has a light show as you travel upwards at great speed. Timea was a little dizzy once she stepped off the elevator.

We had a lot of connectivity problems at the top to the tower, which didn't frustrate me as much as you might think, because once you've seen the city scape once, the shine wears off quickly (at least for me)


Osaka from 300 meters up. (Note of interest, that big square section on the lower right is a cemetery.)

I also got a little sea sick near the end because Timea took us down into the gift shop and there was something about how the camera swung from one shelf to the next that made me a little nauseous. I'm normally okay with this stuff, but, for whatever reason, I couldn't cope this time, so I bailed out. 

This tour was still fun. Someone else on the tour was from Minnesota, someone named Lisa R., so that was cool? (Waving if you're an internet friend of mine!) But, I knew this one would be less interesting for me because of its subject matter. I'm just NOT a building person. I have done those things you're supposed to do in cities, like go to the top of the tall buildings, etc., (like in Paris, we did go to the top of the Eiffel Tower) but it never really does all that much for me.  

Otherwise, I had a quiet weekend. We did a bunch of errands and I worked on a new quilt. 

 
Image: Sensou-ji, a Buddhist temple in Asakusa

So... I wasn't going to do another one of these so soon, but I MIGHT be a little addicted. 

A friend of mine in Canada alerted me this morning that a company called Ebisuya was doing a walking tour of Asakusa, a district in Taito City, Tokyo. I signed up and let rachelmanija know, in case she wanted to join us. 

Our guide this time was an amazingly charming young Economics major named Nae-Nae (I'm not sure of the spelling, but Nae is a Japanese girl's name, so I am guessing it's just hyphenated?? Could be Naenae, or Maemae, too.)  She was very forthcoming that this is a part time job for her, and that previous to the pandemic she used to be a tour guide for this company, Ebisuya, in-person. 

It was apparently very cold in Japan today (tomorrow,) though I can't remember what Nae-Nae said the temperature was. In the 20s F?

Like most of the guides, she started us at the train station. Rachel asked to see a 7-11 or a Lawsons, (a combi, aka a convenience store, the type of which Japan is famous for) and by chance there was a Lawsons just there at the corner. She took us inside... only to be promptly shooed out by the owner for filming inside the store! It was pretty hilarious, honestly.

We also saw a huge line for melon pan at one of the restaurants in the covered ally she took us down on the way to Sensou-ji (Tokyo's oldest Buddhist temple.) We were all briefly confused by how long the line was until I remembered that it was noon in Tokyo. (Nae-Nae apparently lost track of time too.) It was just a long lunch line!

Most of the tour was on the temple grounds.



Image: Entrance to Sensou-ji.

Nae-Nae had to have been the most chatty of all the tour guides so far. She was really amazing at keeping up with all the chatter in the comments stream. Though, I don't think there were as many people on this tour as there was Yusuke's Fuji tour, for instance, so maybe it was a bit easier. I kept my own chatter going both with my friend in Canada in WhatsApp and on text with Rachel. 

I have to admit that I sometimes forget what it's like to be absolutely new to Japanese culture. I mean, I laughed out loud when NaeNae asked us if we'd "heard of samurai," because I sometimes live in my own head in a version of the geek relationship fallacy, except it's an otaku fallacy, where I just assume of course we're all Japan nerds here. This is why I am totally 'that guy' in the chats, who is trying to drop in helpful wikipedia links to things that NaeNae discussed in passing, like wabi-sabi, but probably coming off like a raging a$$hole. 


Image: If you squint you can see the koi.

Like, there was this one person in chat who did not get what Nae-Nae was saying about koi. To be fair to this commenter, I was them once, long ago, and I need to remember that because I really, really wanted to jump into the comment stream and explain it all. I held back, but it went like this: our guide was trying to explain that koi has a double meaning in Japanese. The Kanji for the the fish (鯉) and 'love' (恋) are homonyms and so are pronounced the same but are different words, right? So it is considered lucky to see a koi fish with your koi, as it were, your love.  I managed to explain it pretty concisely, but, like, getting into Kanji is a whole thing? I had not known the words were homonyms until today, but, having studied the language long enough, I was totally primed for the idea that Japan is rife with homonyms. Rife. Like overly abundant in them. 

Anyway, my point is, I need to remember to practice patience in the chats on these tours. I mean, the joy of having a couple of friends on other chat lines means I can snark to them. 

It was fun, as always to see the people on the street. We saw a lot of people very dressed up in yukata, including one amazing woman who also had cat ears. She was hiding her face from Nae-Nae's camera, however, so even though I wish I'd taken a picture, I'm glad I didn't. 

You will probably be seeing more of these? I will try not to flood my journal with nothing but HeyGo tours, but, MAN, these are addictive. I'm going to go broke bleeding out all these tips, a few bucks at a time.


More temple grounds

 

If you're wondering what Mount Fuji looks like today (or, technically tomorrow) in Japan, here it is, courtesy of another tour via HeyGo. 

Our tour guide this time was Yusuke, a very cold (temperature-wise, he had a very pleasant personality!), middle aged guy who was nevertheless a lovely companion. He was also out of breath because apparently didn't realize that the cable cars didn't start until 9 am and so he had to make the climb up on foot. On the way down, he was joking how some jogger passed him by on the way up, but otherwise there were not a lot of people around. 

Also, at one point on our way down the hill, I'm pretty sure he went off to pee in the woods? He paused us in a spot and put his camera on something to hold it steady, excused himself, and I swore I heard him crunch off into the woods and... well. To be fair to him, the visitor's center wasn't open yet, either, and it's not like it wouldn't be MORE awkward to tell a bunch of tourists to hang on while you obviously went off to use a public toilet. 

Yusuke was doing his best, though. He even brought along a special camera so that we could get an amazing close up of the summit of Mount Fuji. 


Fuji-san's summit

However, every time he switched back and forth between cameras the live-stream would cut out. Luckily, someone in the chat feed knew enough to tell us to refresh. That got most of us back, though I think some others were having additional technical issues. For me, every time I refreshed, I had to remember to "unmute" him because otherwise I lost sound. An odd feature of HeyGo, I guess. But, considering the service I get for a small tip, I'm not actually complaining at all.

Because look at Fuji you guys. LOOK. 



Image: Lake Kawaguchi.

He walked us down the trail from the visitor's center/viewing area, and generally chatted about things with people who posed questions in chat. We had a lot of people worried that Mount Fuji was about to erupt, so he had to explain several times that, no, those were just clouds forming off the high peak, and, yes, they monitor it, and also, though it is considered an active volcano, it hasn't shown any signs of erupting for almost 300 years. 



Tanuki and Rabbit mascots at Kachi-Kachi Yama (the foothills of Fuji).

I was THAT girl in the chat, this time, because at one point we stopped to look at a statue of the mascots of Kachi-kachi yama (where we were, the foothills), which are a rabbit and a tanuki. There was a big discussion about "raccoon dogs" because most people don't know that tanuki are their own animals, so I was THAT girl who was "well, actually"ing in the comments about how tanuki are neither dogs, nor raccoons, (or badgers) and dropping wikipedia links to tanuki. Yusuke tried to explain why the rabbit is setting fire to the sticks on the tanuki's back, but the whole folktale is super convoluted, honestly, but basically the rabbit is seeking revenge on the tanuki for killing a woman and tricking her husband into eating her in a soup. The rabbit is a concerned neighbor? Don't ask. (But, you know, don't feel too badly for the tanuki, even if he is cute!)

As I said, I signed up for Yusuke's second tour an hour later, as well. Apparently, he had to take a bus to the Oishi Park where everything started. While he traveled by bus half way around the world, I passed the time munching on Christmas cookies and putting some finishing touches on my latest quilt (the back of the quilt is an old bed sheet of ours and it's worn in a few places, so I've added patches on the back in matching fabric.)  

The park he brought us to normally has big bushes of lavender, but they were fairly desolate this time of year. Still lovely, however.


Oishi Park, Fujikawaguchiko, Minamitsuru District, Yamanashi  (interestingly one 2-star Yelp Review of Oishi says, "No point going there.")

However, as you can see, we had amazing weather. It was decently cold for Japan, 23 F (-5 C), but Yusuke assured us that the sun kept him very warm. There were quite a few more tourists in Oishi Park, and Yusuke said that he heard a number of different languages. What I noticed more, were the birds. We could hear a few crows or ravens on the foothill overlooking Mount Fuji, but not many song birds. Once by the water, there was just a lot more sound. Several times when he stopped, we could hear the waves lapping against the shore and the sound of the wind pushing the pampas grass into waves. 

This whole livestream tourist thing is a balm for my soul, I have to say. As I was telling a friend, I may never get to Japan, given the expense and the pandemic. At least this way, I can enjoy it pseudo-live? It's weird how present I feel in this virtual space? I think it's because Yusuke and I can discuss persimmons and the fact that I've heard that they're sweeter after first frost. And, when I spot rowers in the lake, I can ask, "Are those rowers?" and he will say, "Ah, you spotted the rowers! Yes, there are people practicing rowing on the lake." 

I'm not THERE, but I am? Do you know what I mean? 

HeyGo is really feeding something I didn't realize I was missing. I'm not a huge traveler, but I do LOVE it.  Plus, even though there are people like me in the chat and this one guy, Freddie, who I am fairly certain was a 'bot because all he'd say is, "Hello, my name is Freddy," there's a kind of spontaneous community too. It really is like booking a tour with a group... annoyances and all.

But, then you also get views like this:


Because here's the other thing. Even if I could make it to Japan, Yusuke reminded us that because Fuji is one of the highest peaks in Japan, the chances of it being cloud covered is 70%. Most people who go to see Fuji don't get to see it as clearly as we did (because Yusuke can follow the weather locally.) 

Anyway, I also had a great Christmas! More about that in the next journal. There aren't any HeyGo tours I'm interested in for a while, so we shall return to the regularly scheduled program.

 
Image: holiday cookies

I did manage to get some baking done this weekend, but the chocolate mint cookies were ruined by my missing the baking soda. I mean, they're edible? They're just not very chewy. More like a brownie cake. I am going to try again, since they're my favorites of the season. 

Otherwise, I suppose I should talk about the snow. We definitely got some. Saint Paul was very weird in that different neighborhoods had wildly different accumulation, but I would guesstimate us somewhere in between the most in the eastern suburbs (21 inches/53 cm) and the official count at the airport (12 inches/ 30.4 cm). Probably 10 (25.5 cm) inches here?  It was definitely boot weather, and it was taller than my calf-high boots. 

Saint Paul did its usual job of plowing, which is to say right down the middle. To be fair, while a bunch of my neighbors were out moving cars to the night-plow side of the street in the morning many others did not. Shawn and I have taken it upon ourselves to print out and deliver fliers that explain St. Paul's rules of a snow emergency, AND I spent a good portion of my morning hand-shoveling out spots so that all the neighbors could switch sides (because that's the other problem, of course, if the plow comes through, which it had, and makes giant drifts around cars, people can't park in the drifts.) For the first time ever on Saturday, I was not the loan weirdo. Once I explained what I was doing, a number of neighbors actually also pitched in. We nearly cleared the night-plow side.... of course my side of the street is day-plow and... a bunch of neighbors never moved. So, on Sunday I cleared a bunch more snow off the street, this time, by myself, with my hand shovel. 

Saint Paul ought to pay me for this service. 

I tell myself it's my winter workout. Plus, despite everything, I still take a certain amount of altruistic pleasure in making things nice for other people. 

And, I say "despite everything," because this morning when I went out to put the recycling in the bin, I discovered one of my neighbors had dumped an entire mattress and box frame on my property, as garbage. What the actual.  So, I hauled these things to the abandoned lot area and dumped them there, because I'll be damned if I get fined for someone else's garbage. Not only does this make me feel absolutely pooped on by the very neighbors I spent my free time Saturday and Sunday helping out, but also continues to fan the flames of my hatred of the Saint Paul City Council for having sold us out to the highest garbage bidder. Long story, but suffice to say, because it's really hard to get decent garbage service and we are all constricted to the same plan, no one has a good place to dump things like mattresses. Shawn told me this morning when I explained what happened, that this might not have been one of our own neighbors as people are reporting getting entire truckloads of garbage dumped into the middle of alleys because the service won't pick certain items up. 

Argh. 

I will say in all honesty that one of the things that the pandemic has truly damaged for me is my hope for humanity. Like, I want to still imagine that people will choose good, but I am constantly and continually bombarded by the clear message that they don't. This has been weirdly underscored for me by watching Star Trek. Shawn got us two months on Paramount +, so I've been catching up on a lot of things I never saw, like Star Trek: Lower Decks. There was a scene in the last episode of season two (I think) of Lower Decks where everyone had to work together to get a thing done, and I thought, "This is clearly fantasy" because not only did they manage it all in time, but no one complained. I mean, to be fair, the universe of Star Trek takes place in a military stratocracy, so your choice is follow orders or go to the brig/a penal colony, but still. I swear if America were a ship in the fleet, we would all already be dead because no one would ever think doing something for the good of others was ever worth doing.

And yet, I keep at it. 

In fact, just today, I wrote a glowing recommendation for one of my former Loft students to an MFA program. So, I may sound kind of hopeless, but I'm really not. It's just that sometimes I despair, you know? I do think this is why I write, read, and role-play in science fiction. I can continue to imagine the future as a better place, at least in my own mind. 

I am not planning on attending CONvergence this year. There are several factors that went into my decision. I am ready to do a lot of socialization, finally, but.... not with three thousand people, indoors. But, on top of that August is generally going to be a crazy month for me because we will be sending Mason off to Connecticut for school (Wesleyan University, for those who are interested.) 

When they made their decision to go in-person, I was asked if I wanted badges for me and Mason and I told them just what I told you. Next year, I'll be up for it, but this year I am taking a pass for reasons of COVID + College. 

Somehow the message didn't quite get through? Possibly because, long ago, I also filled out volunteer form? I did so, however, when there was still talk of possibly hybrid, we don't know. 

A couple days ago my panel assignments arrived.

They both looked great? I would happily done both of them (and more) in any other year. And, I re-read the descriptions a bunch of times but there were notes like "panelists should arrive in the room x minutes beforehand," and I started to worry that this was not a virtual room they were talking about, but a physical, in-person one. The biggest clue was that there was no link to a Zoom or any other technical info for an online recording/live-stream.

I hated doing it, because I don't want to get on someone's off list. but I had to say, "If this is in-person, which it seems to be, I am not attending this year.  Please take me off?" 

I feel especially bad about this because, independently, I happened to be part of an earlier email chain of a half dozen people who, when asked if they'd be willing to be a warm body to help save a panel that a friend of mine wanted to turn viable, EVERY single ONE of them also said that they wouldn't be attending in-person this year. Given that experience, I'm also wondering if I killed two panels?  I'm a little worried that they might be having a talent problem--I would find it difficult to believe that CONvergence, of all local cons, couldn't find enough volunteers to sit on panels, but maybe? Especially since they're limiting attendance?

I will say that I was surprised that they didn't do a better job with their online con. Last year, I took part in at least two panels at Virtual CONvergence. One was a live-stream and the other was a recorded reading (which they scheduled opposite one another? They had a full weekend schedule to fill and my fans had literally a single choice, either listen to my reading OR watch me talk, live. I mean, I don't have a lot of fans? But that one person had a tough choice! Which, I mean, I was finally on two panels at once, which is kind of a dream of every author...) But, anyway, that part seemed to be exactly like most on-line cons I'd been to that year, but I found their chat/hangout space to be much harder to navigate. For reasons known only to the con com, CONvergence didn't use one of the pandemic-standard chat platforms, like Discord or Slack. Instead, they had their own web site that you had to remember to go to? I think I went to it once. It's weird when smaller, less structured/organized/well funded cons did a better job with their pandemic cons... and so I very much understand the desire to be back in the venue that they shine in?  

But this also makes me fairly certain that there will not be a hybrid option for CONvergence, which make me sad. I am fond of virtual cons? 

Am I the only who is going to miss them??

 
Image: Cats stare intently at a crazy quilt on the floor. 

I took this picture late at night (and it's a bit blurry) but I think it still shows how big my pandemic crazy quilt is getting. I recently started working on it again because I got an influx of new material from a friend (see the bin in the background.) Plus, I kind of enjoy that I am just adding things with wild abandon. I really don't care if my stitches are straight, I don't care how well corners match. I'm just having fun.  

I also only work on it when I want to. This is, in fact, the same one I showed off over a year ago.  

Pursuant to my previous post, I did try a one-on-one outdoors on Saturday. It was not exactly warm out--in fact at one point snow started to fall!--but my friends have a firepit. We sat, wrapped up in blankets, sipping coffee, and watched the fire in their beautiful backyard garden. I stayed probably an hour and a half. We had a lovely chat and good coffee. It was often cold enough that I could see my breath.  We joked a lot about the social skills we've lost, but I didn't notice if we had. I think that honestly, what we may have "lost" is some of the stuff we never needed. Our talk was frank and straight-forward. When they asked 'how are you?' I didn't just say "Fine," but answered with the awkward truth. 

I did have a mild panic attack walking through their house to their backyard, but once I was outside, I was okay. I relaxed in no time. So, there is hope for me. I will be able to do this, given enough practice. 

In similar news, Shawn got her second shot. Her first one was assembly-line like, there were people waiting with her in line. This time, she said that the clinic was deserted. Where were all those same people who got the first shot with her? Shouldn't they all have been back basically the same day?  I've been reading about people not getting the second shot, but this is the first time I've been confronted with evidence that seems to bear that out. We weren't even all that far out of the cities. She got her jabs in Burnsville, at an actual hospital clinic. 

I worry about my fellow Americans. 

Are they really not getting the second shot? What are they thinking?

I have little to report other than the fact that we drove down to New Ulm to finish up my vaccine set on Saturday. New Ulm is no more than 2 hours away, but we left early and did some meandering. We stopped to do a quick stretch in a random lake called Cedar Lake and, of course, took time to see New Ulm's famous statue, "Hermann the German."



Image: statue of a German brandishing a sword.


If you are curious what that German is so mad about, there is a lovely description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Heights_Monument.

New Ulm, despite being a lovely place to me because I was able to get my vaccine there is actually kind of problematic town in general, being fairly central to the US-Dakota War... and sort of on the wrong side against the Nazis, because: Germany. Their mayor was apparently removed by the MN Legislature under the sedition act. However, there is a lovely glockenspiel in town that chimes on the hour and has terrifying animatronic dancing horrors. Several years ago, Mason and I made an impromptu visit to this town just to check it out. (I took a few minutes to re-upload all the photos so that if you go to read it, the images are there.)

Yesterday, I just slept. I didn't think I was effected at first, but then after being awake for an hour or two I conked out hard and basically spent the day in bed. I had a bit of a headache that seemed to be sinus pressure, but otherwise I feel fine. 

 How's things? Did you have a nice weekend?

I have apparently decided to live the pandemic backwards. Most people cut their own hair and experimented with dye jobs early on. I have waited until now to do both. 


Image: Lyda with freshly shorn, dyed red hair looking out a the camera, smiling a little uncertainly.

As abracanabra  suggested on Facebook, perhaps this is a wise way to slowly back out of the whole pandemic.  Just do all the things we did in the early days one step in reverse, so we can ease out.  

I heard from someone that we're expecting another toilet paper shortage, so....??