#but if someone who knows me and has done my crosswords before (this coworker used to love to solve the minis i made on the

[coquelicoq]

guess whose former coworker emailed today asking if she could have a crossword for free for an upcoming conference in the coworker's new field? and guess who is considering it? no one tell my stepdad.

told my stepdad that i had been commissioned to write a crossword for the wedding of someone i don't know and he got SO excited about it. this could be huge! you should make crosswords for corporate retreats!! says he, attempting to suck all the fun and fulfillment out of my main creative hobby.

[anonsally]

Days 79-82 of COVID-19 shelter-in-place

These have been four very intense days both globally and personally. This admittedly long post will focus more (but not exclusively) on the personal side of that.

Day 79 was Wednesday. I hadn’t had enough sleep, but I got up at a reasonable hour because I needed a ballet class. Before class started, I got a call from the medical center for scheduling a procedure I need to have done. That will be in 2 weeks, contingent on me testing negative for COVID-19 four days beforehand. I’m anxious about the procedure but will be glad to get it over with after several months of worry. Anyway, ballet class was good for calming me down. 

It was hot out. I did my parents’ grocery shopping (and bought a few things for us) and then had a nice conversation with my dad when I dropped off his groceries. We talked about the state of the world. He told me about a city that had literally fired its entire police department and started over... which is what we probably need on a national level, with very few exceptions. 

I refueled the car on the way home and got a predictably late start on my work day. Wife got two more job interviews scheduled at very different companies. I took a walk, spotting another Steller’s jay at the bird feeders. The jays are so much larger than the little birds who frequent the feeders!

I then went to try to buy milk, but the tiny independent market had closed early to enable the employees to get home before curfew. So I had to go to Trader Joe’s instead. By the time I got home I was somewhat demotivated about food prep, but luckily Wife pulled herself together and scrambled me an egg. I didn’t manage to get to bed till 1am, which was at least an hour later than I’d intended, but Wife was still up at 4am!

Day 80. I forced myself to get up at 8:30 since I knew I would need to go to bed early that night. I arranged to (video-)meet with my boss at 12:30. I started work around 11am or so and got a few thing done. The meeting with my boss was good--partly social, discussing how we were coping with the situation and working from home, what we missed about the office, and such, but we also talked about what I’ve been working on. She reminded me that the study section reviewing my grant application will be meeting this month, so I will have to remember to check my scores.

Afterwards we had a meeting with a few other coworkers, which was fairly productive. I had a short “coffee break” video call with a colleague, too. The county-wide curfew was lifted a day early.

After work, I took a walk in a direction I hadn’t gone in a while. Was heartened to see Black Lives Matter signs even in cul-de-sacs in a wealthy, mainly white neighborhood. I picked up takeout for dinner, and did a bunch of Adulting in the early evening, including preparing for the next morning. I was in bed by 10:45pm.

Day 81. My alarm got me up at 5am, and we left at 6am. We got to the medical center on time at 7am and I went in (Wife was not allowed to accompany me, but had to be there to drive me home; there was a separate room across the street for visitors to wait in, which was good because it was suddenly very cold outside). Initially, there was a lot of waiting, during which I did a little bit of yoga and dancing as I knew I would not be able to move much for the rest of the day. I was there for a diagnostic procedure involving a needle (for data privacy reasons I won’t get more specific here; it’s unrelated to the procedure I’m having in 2 weeks), which required me to remain horizontal for 4 hours afterwards, at least according to the information they’d given me beforehand. I had to be fasting from midnight the night before: no food or drink, including water.

Eventually I was wheeled down to the ultrasound department, where the doctor who planned to do the procedure met me and the radiologists. However, when they looked at the images, there were a lot of vessels around. The doctor did not feel confident that she could do the procedure based on a mark on my skin without accidentally hitting a blood vessel. So she asked the radiologists to do it as an ultrasound-guided procedure, which would be safer since they would be able to see what they were doing on the ultrasound. This procedure was done with only local anaesthetic. Mostly I couldn’t feel what was going on, and it was supposed to be very quick, but unfortunately, the resident had a lot of trouble--the senior radiologist was trying to guide him through doing, but he couldn’t get the needle positioned quite right, and in the end the senior radiologist had to do it herself. It was pretty uncomfortable and there were some moments where it was quite painful. I tried to breathe deeply and stay relaxed, but it was hard. When they finally got it to work, it was over pretty quickly. I was relieved. It was about 11am by then.

However, I had to spend an hour in a large recovery room with many other patients, while my blood pressure and pulse were monitored. I had expected to have the procedure done upstairs in the room where I’d started, where I had left all my stuff. They very kindly sent someone up to retrieve my phone for me so I could at least text Wife and my parents so they would know the worst of it was over. 

After an hour I was wheeled upstairs and transferred from the gurney to a bed (this took 3 people as I was not allowed to stand up yet) for more monitoring. They drew my blood to test my blood counts; I was going to be allowed to leave after only 2 hours of bed rest if the counts were stable. After the 2 hours, I was allowed to get up and use the bathroom (and grab the crossword puzzles from my backpack to work on), and then I continued resting while waiting first for the blood counts, which finally came back fine, and then for the discharge papers, which took an unreasonably long time. Around 2pm the nurse finally allowed me to have some ice--hoorah! (I was parched. I normally drink at least 2 liters of water per day.) At 2:40pm I was cleared to leave; I texted Wife, who went to get the car and picked me up at the entrance to the hospital at about 3pm. 

Literally every single person on the hospital staff was kind and friendly. They all introduced themselves to me by name, including the people whose job it was to simply wheel me from one place to another, and they all seemed to be invested in my well-being. When I was being wheeled through the hallway, whenever we passed anyone else who worked there they smiled and said hello both to me and to the person in charge of transporting me. It seemed like everyone working really considered themselves a team, with respect for everyone regardless of place in the hospital hierarchy. Since, like all patients during this pandemic, I was there alone and a bit anxious, it made the experience much less unpleasant than it could have been.  

I spent 8 hours in the hospital, so I really hope I didn’t catch COVID-19, but the procedures seemed pretty good. I was wearing a mask almost all the time (except in the room where I was waiting at the beginning and end, which was essentially private), as were all the employees, and everyone was sanitising their hands every time they entered or exited a room or touched any equipment. I also didn’t spend the whole time with any one person. So, hopefully it was safe. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon vedging out at home, rehydrating, and finally eating, and I went to bed earlier than usual though later than I expected, around 12:15am.

Day 82. I wanted to try to get a lot of sleep so my body could heal from yesterday’s ordeal, so today I slept till about 10am. The wound from the procedure is tender to the touch and there’s a small bruise near it, but otherwise I’m not in pain from it. Except my ankle is in more pain than it’s been in for ages, and I have no idea why. Maybe I slept on it funny? Or maybe it’s an aftereffect of the weird position I had to hold during the procedure.

I think my joy at getting to eat cereal this morning was perhaps a bit over-the-top!

Wife had a bad headache today, likely caused by neck tension from all the driving yesterday. I am still pretty tired today, despite all the sleep, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

We went to the farmers’ market and stumbled upon a socially-distanced, family-friendly protest. A friend of mine was there with her kids, but I didn’t see her. We bought our produce--though I had to make an extra trip back to the car to drop off my purchases, as I am not supposed to lift anything heavy today. The stand with the curried fish had run out, but they still had some uncooked prepped fish, so we bought that and they explained how to steam it at home. We came home and cooked the fish and ate it for lunch; it was just as good as it would’ve been if they’d cooked it. Phew! Other than that we’ve been relaxing at home, though Wife did gather her energy and go for a run, which has helped to relieve her headache a little (as has the bath she took afterwards, and the painkillers she took). 

I’m hoping to feel up to taking a dance class (online) tomorrow. 

[emmagrace-frost-blog]

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring

Name: Emma Grace Frost

Nickname: Em.

Reason for name: Seems like a natural progression from Emma but she wouldn’t tolerate something like Emmie

Birthday: October 3

Age: 30

Gender: Female

Place of birth: Boston, MA

Places lived since: Star City, CA, New York, Las Vegas, 

Parents’ names, backgrounds, occupations: Winston Frost (father; deceased);Hazel Frost (mother; deceased)

Number of siblings: 3 ( Adrienne Frost (deceased), Cordelia Frost and Christian Frost)

Relationship with family (close? estranged?): Her father was abusive, especially to her brother and did not care for her or her two sisters due to their telepathic powers. He did end up choosing Emma as an ‘heir to the fortune’ but she basically said go fuck yourself and left. So, not close with the parents. She was close with Adrienne and is really chewed up about her death, even still. Cordelia and Christian are estranged from her.

Happiest memory: Graduating from college on her own.

Childhood trauma: Her father’s abuse and mistreatment of her and her siblings.

Children of his/her own?: No.

PHYSICAL

Height: 5′10″

Weight: 144 lbs. but heavy as fuck, almost 500 lbs when she is in her diamond form.

Build: Tall and curvy.

Nationality: American

Disabilities (physical or mental, including mental illnesses): PTSD @ Genosha. [Note: it likely will not come up often but i promise to do research and not be a dick about a serious mental illness. My sister suffers from PTSD and it’s not to be made light of, so message me if you have any concerns about its portrayal, please <3]

Complexion (freckles, acne, skin tone, birth marks): Emma is pale in the winter but has no problem tanning. She has dark freckles here and there, one on her neck, a few on her back and shoulders, a couple on her hips and thighs and during the summer she gets a smattering of little freckles across her nose and cheeks that she hates.

Face shape: heart.

Distinguishing facial features: slightly crooked nose from when she broke it when she was 13, don’t bring it up she will fight you. Pouty lips.

Hair color: naturally blonde but has been dying it brown.

Usual hair style: down in soft curls.

Eye color: Green

Glasses? Contacts?: Both. Always wears contacts except at night.

Style of dress/typical outfit(s): Always to the nines. She is always put together and always showing a little something. She follows the Chanel rule of always taking one thing off before leaving the house, that being said an outfit isn’t complete without good shoes and a better purse. But she lives in sweat pants at her house.

Typical style of shoes: heels, usually. A casual pair of dressy sandals if she is being “casual”

Health (is this person usually sick? or very resilient?): Emma doesn’t get sick often but when she does it’s a doozy.

Grooming (does she/he wear makeup? shower daily? wear only clean clothes? pluck her eyebrows?): Emma showers every night, she always wears make up but goes for a natural look, she likes to cover her freckles and make her eyebrows look murderous. She likes a nude lip and some brown eye shadow. She is meticulous about her grooming and facial routine. Gotta fight those wrinkles. SHe gets frequent facials and gets her nails done.

Jewelry? Tattoos? Piercings?: earrings, necklace, an old ring of Adrienne’s she stole a long time ago and now treasures. 

Accent?: Slightly northern american.

Unique mannerisms/physical habits (bites nails, talks with hands, taps feet when restless): Emma clenches her jaw when stressed, spins the ring she always wears, sometimes she focuses on shifting each finger from flesh to diamond when she is bored.

Athletic?: She runs, but likes pasta.

INTELLECT

Level of education (high school drop out, undergrad BA/BS, PhD, MD, etc.): She started off as a sub par student much to her parents dismay, but ended up with an MA in literature.

Level of self esteem: Emma is very confident in her appearance. She knows she is beautiful and often plays to it. But is pretty convinced she is a garbage human and knows that beauty doesn’t always last and she’s headed nowhere fast. So -- confident she is hot, cripplingly insecure  in herself as a human (mutant).

Gifts/talents: She can turn into diamond which makes her very resilient, she can read people’s minds, project things into their minds and she has some ability for telekinesis but she is weaker there.

Shortcomings: Insecure, petty, shallow.

Style of speech (loud, mumbler, articulate, etc.): curses a lot.

“Left brain” or “right brain” thinker?: little bit of both i would say. Emma is pretty calculated most of the time but does have a habit of letting her emotions rile her up.

Artistic?: she was trained to play classical piano and violin by her rich family growing up, so a little.

Mathematical?: Not very.

Makes decisions based mostly on emotions, or on logic?: She wants to say logic always but -- like 60% emotions 40% logic.

Neuroses: cleanliness is next to godliness.

Life philosophy: Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. -- Marilyn Monroe

Religious stance: her family was religious but she is not.

Cautious or daring?: Depends on the situation. Cautious with herself and her feelings usual, daring if she has to be.

Most sensitive about/vulnerable to: being turned away for who she is, mutant and all that.

Optimist or pessimist?: Realist.

Extrovert or introvert?: in the middle she likes to be the center of attention but likes to be a shut in too.

Level of comfort with technology: Competent and uses it often. 8/10? She can’t hack or anything but can use social media and a computer/phone/tablet without trouble.

RELATIONSHIPS

Current marital/relationship status: single

Sexual orientation: bisexual

Past relationships: define relationship? Emma isn’t really a relationship kinda gal. She’s very good at loving them and leaving them. She had one serious relationship and after he found out she was a mutant, after she changed into her diamond form to save his life, he left her.

Primary reason for being broken up with: because she was a mutant.

Primary reasons for breaking up with people: She’s not trying to be vulnerable about anything, ever. 

Level of sexual experience: experienced. 

Story of first kiss (if any—if not, how does he/she want it to happen?): When Emma was 14 some boy on her block was making fun of her and called her a frigid bitch, so she kissed him to get him to shut up. When he was all stunned she told him being rude wasn’t the way to get things he clearly desired.

Story of loss of virginity (if any—if not, how does he/she want it to happen, if at all?): It wasn’t magical, she had sex with some guy in high school, then avoided him hard. He trailed after her all love struck.

A social person? (popular, loner, some close friends, makes friends and then quickly drops them): Emma is what Emma is which most find to be pretty infuriating even the ones who like her or tolerate her. But she cares for the people she cares about so her circle is small but she’d do anything for them. She’s tough to like though.

Most comfortable around (person): Erik Lehnsherr (ew), Jean Grey

Oldest friend: Erik Lehnsherr, Professor x, Jean Grey, Mystique

How does he/she think others perceive him/her?: Stuck up non-feeling cunt, shallow, thoughtless, airhead?

How do others actually perceive him/her?: Stuck up non-feeling cunt, shallow, smart, cunning asshole.

VOCATION

Profession: Women’s literature professor

Past occupations: Teacher, henchman, leader of the nefarious.

Passions: reading, cooking french cuisine, learning languages, piano, good wine.

Attitude towards current job: She likes it because she gets to read a lot and hopefully influence kids that felt lost like she did but found a home in education.

Attitude towards current coworkers, bosses, employees: She can’t be bothered with most of them, but doesn’t have a big issue with them either.

Salary: $75,000 a year but she inherited a lot of money when her folks died.

SECRETS

Phobias:  Athazagoraphobia: the fear of being forgotten or left behind.

Life goals: peace for mutant and human kind. Maybe a picket fence and kids and someone who thinks she hung the stars and moon, but she wouldn’t tell you that.

Dreams: Same as the goals.

Greatest fears: Having lived a life Adrienne would be disappointed in.

Most ashamed of: spending her time pretending she is something she is not.

Most embarrassing thing ever to happen to him/her: Emma is hard to embarrass, but when she was young she had a hard time in public speaking and she lost her concentration and started repeating the words she was hearing in someone’s head and it was some steamy details about the teacher and how that student wished she were naked.

Obsessions: lipstick, shoes, wine.

Secret hobbies: piano playing, doing the NYT crossword.

Secret skills: piano playing making a bomb-ass quiche.

Crimes committed (and was he/she caught? charged?): Like -- so many. Murder, theft, defacing things, assault, carrying a deadly weapon, like probably espionage. and no never caught or charged.

What he/she most wants to change about his/her current life: She wants to be proudly out and mutant and not give a fuck about the current state of where she lives.

What he/she most wants to change about his/her physical appearance: She’s pretty chill with that, she wishes her nose was straight again, but not enough to get surgery.

DETAILS/QUIRKS

Daily routine: Get up, take her hair out of a bun, moisturize, brush teeth, make coffee, shake her ass to some music while she puts on make up, gets dressed, pours coffee, heads out.

Night owl or early bird?: night owl.

Light or heavy sleeper?: light sleeper. She needs music or white noise to sleep.

Favorite food: sushi or handmade pasta.

Least favorite food: lima beans.

Favorite book: Where the Wild Things Are.

Least favorite book: The Grapes of Wrath. How are you going to write a. whole chapter about a fucking turtle stuck on its back as an allegory for the times economically speaking. Get over yourself.

Favorite movie: Amelie

Least favorite movie: Titanic.

Favorite song: Don’t make her choose.

Least favorite song: Never going to give you up - Rick Astley

Coffee or tea?: Both.

Crunchy or smooth peanut butter?: smooth

Type of car he/she drives (or wishes he/she drove): white infinity

Lefty or righty?: lefty

Favorite color: white/blue

Cusser?: fuck yes.

Smoker? Drinker? Drug user?: smokes a little, drinks a lot.

Biggest regret: not telling Adrienne how much it meant having a sister like her around.

Pets?: glacé, a japanese spitz.

[thisnerdsadventures]

summer updates

wow i literally just abandoned this blog for two months didn’t i LOL

yes, so, my life got a little crazy and things have been going all right, but just wrenches thrown in the gears here and there, but here’s a rundown of everything that has happened:

So I graduated (per my last post). And I was supposed to be going around the world, travelling and having fun and visiting people, but instead I was at home binge watching Netflix and wishing my internship had started a couple weeks early. If I definitely didn’t get my free weeks of travel in the beginning of summer, maybe by the end I would get them.

For my summer internship this year, googz shipped us all of our work from home stuff, including a keyboard, monitor, mouse, and our computer. This summer I had a great dual monitor setup with the monitor I already owned, which made it feel like I was at the office. However, in fact, I was not at the office, since all our internships went remote this summer, so while I was surrounded by three screens and a keyboard and mouse, I was not surrounded by coworkers, which made the internship experience feel super different.

Week 1 already felt different - some of us didn’t have our credentials, so day 1 and day 2 were pretty slow compared to the rush of getting to know people and getting to know the team in-person. My team though is pretty chill - we have standup every morning bright and early at 8am PST/11am EST (rip me) followed by the daily NYTimes crossword. I was prepped and ready for this, having done the crossword in the back of my systems class every Monday and Wednesday for a whole semester with my best friend. Turns out they’re pretty good too, we did a Friday crossword in like 11 minutes the other day.

Project has been going kind of smoothly? which is surprising if you were around to witness the chaos that was my last summer intern project, which underwent like fifty thousand dead ends and turnaround and permissions errors. Aside from like a couple of permissions errors which got resolved within days, my project has been working? Nothing has exploded?? I haven’t broken prod??? This feels fake. Every time something works I tell my boss: I am shocked. I am shook. But yeah, I essentially did most of my project in like 6/12 weeks, which my manager was also surprised to see (in a good way). I feel like the theme of this summer was getting a really solid design down before going forth and implementing the thing, which I think would’ve prevented a lot of the pitfalls from last summer. Because I had already thought in advance of a lot of the weird things I might run into or identified examples where what I wanted to do had clearly worked, it was a lot easier to implement, and I was a lot more confident that it would work. My manager and team have also been really great at keeping in touch and checking in constantly, so although it’s still obvious that there’s some team aspect missing, it definitely isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. 

Outside of my project though, I can definitely feel a lot of other things lacking. For example, last summer I was really involved with ERG stuff because my team essentially led like two of the ERG’s at the office, but I’m not sure if that’s just not the case at my current team, or maybe they just haven’t been present for the interns because of COVID. Last summer too, my team did a lot of bonding stuff, like we went out to dinner, played games, got lunch, went out for drinks, etc, but obviously nothing like that happened this summer. There also aren’t any other interns on my team, which is a little sad because it was always great to commiserate with someone else (still friends with both of my co-commiserators from previous two summers). I also feel this general feeling of like “I don’t want to put in the effort to make friends because I already have them from last two summers” and also “I am so old I can’t relate to these post 2000′s kids”, but that could also be my work life blending into my life life because of COVID.

Since work isn’t as big of a part as my life as it was in the past, I’ve been doing some other stuff too this summer. Actually a lot has happened, both good and bad. 

In July, MIT announced that only seniors would be back on campus, but only the seniors who lived on-campus could actually access campus. Thus my housing plan with my friend group full of seniors went kaboom.

I was really stressed about housing for a couple weeks after that. I asked myself whether I wanted to even go back, and I ended up choosing to go back so I would a) have at least some socially distanced contact with friends since loneliness has really taken its toll on me and b) get my own place so I can work productively and learn to live independently. I was really convinced that I had to lock it down ASAP otherwise there would be no places left. So I actually signed a lease pretty soon after that, and hopefully MIT will still let their seniors back (please otherwise I will cry so much and probably try to get out of my lease).

My personal life generally has been tumultuous. I think especially with COVID it’s been hard to keep up with acquaintances, and generally relationships are strained across timezones and the Internet. So there’s been a good amount of personal stuff going on in the sidelines, and because work and life aren’t really well separated right now, it’s been leaking my productivity at work, which hasn’t been great.

I thought about applying to grad school. Then it came time to pay for the GRE. Then I realized I didn’t, at all, not even in the slightest, wanted to do grad school.

June and July also had two of my friends’ 21st birthdays, so we did a lot of planning for zoom parties and birthday gifts. For one of them, we made a Google photobook with poems and drawings that 30 of her friends submitted (a lot of effort) and for the other, we put together a mixtape of songs that everyone associated with her. This summer has been hella boring to say the least, but it was nice to be able to pour some time and energy into something that would make friends happy.

We’ve also been playing a lot of Covidopoly. I don’t know why but my friend group has gotten really hooked on this. We really will play for like three hours straight. It’s bad.

I tried to write some more music. It’s been going on and off.

I did Chloe Ting workouts pretty regularly for a couple months, which was actually something I’m proud I stuck with. This week I really fell off the wagon due to some personal issues, but I’m hoping to get back on it this weekend.

Not sure where this falls under, but I go on a lot of walks with my mom, but I ended up getting stung in the face by a wasp and some mosquito bites got so bad I had to go to urgent care. I need to go away from California

Overall everyone has a lot of drama. I have a lot of drama. It is not fun and I wish we were back on campus

I have made shakshuka like seven times during quarantine and it is so so good.

I started journaling in an attempt to empty my thoughts out somewhere more productive and to force myself to slow down when I start thinking a lot. It has been working generally, and I guess it’s just a nice place to reflect on things that have left a deeper than not impact on my day.