wednesday evening random

 * After a bit over from a week away from it (there's a small risk of bad complications* if you exert yourself a lot while you have certain viruses), I did a 20 minute workout today. That's less than I normally do, and even that was tough (my breathing still isn't 100% normal) but at least I did it - and I avoided a weird side effect (ocular migraine) I have had on occasion after starting up heavy exertion again after being sick

(*supposedly you can give yourself myocarditis or endocarditis, and that's definitely on my Do Not Want list)

 

* I pulled out the Syyslaulu shawl again and started working on it again. I have about 60 rows left before it's big enough to start the lace edging. I took my row counter and set it so I can count down each time I do an increase (every other row, so I have 30 increases left), because that's easier than having to stop and count the stitches all the time (there's a specific multiple, of six I think, that you have to have for the edging to work)

It's not very photogenic right now - just a big garter stitch triangle

* We're finally getting some rain. There are small thunderstorms right now; I'm hoping it's not going to get loud enough to interrupt my sleep. But it is nice to have rain for a change.  

* I don't know if it's the current state of the world, or if I really am just losing my taste for certain forms of entertainment. I would occasionally watch "Chicago Med" (what? I like Oliver Platt) and Chicago Fire (at least in the earlier season, there was the whole "work family" aspect of things, which is kind of weirdly comforting). But tonight's episodes, woof. Basically, there was an entire plane that somehow landed with almost everyone on board dead from what turned out to have been an exposure (possibly accidental) of some poison gas (nerve agent) that was apparently being "muled" to a guy who was planning a mass attack. And it's just.....it's upsetting. Like, no one gets to go through decontamination and then sit in a hospital room for a while and be fine; there are people who looked better and then got sick again and a person (not a regular character) who died...And I don't know if this one is unusually distressing (either in general or to someone with my particular brain-wiring) but I found it hard to watch.

There was a time in 2020 - and again, right after the war started in Ukraine in 2022 - that I couldn't read anything much that was "tense," not even the vintage British mysteries I used to love. I was pretty much stuck with "light magical realism" or "non fiction of the not-remotely-worrisome kind" (I find for me books about language evolution or natural history work in that case. 

But yeah, maybe I just hit a point where I can't watch anything more "realistic" than what the Heeler family does (or the Belchers, or whatever kid-friendly or silly cartoon)

I did wind up getting a stuffed animal I had (a silly "valentine's day" themed capybara by Zuru that I bought because it was cuddly and inexpensive and weighted, but which - because she's pink - looks unfortunately a little like a smooth naked mole rat. But at least having a weighted thing laying against my chest made me feel a little calmer. You do what you have to in these times.

(I have another ridiculous stuffed animal I bought last year - a very large version of Mei Mei in red-panda form (from Turning Red) that was sold as a stuffie for kids to sleep with (she is shown peacefully asleep, she's that soft velour-like fabric, and had very soft stuffing), and a lot of nights, to force myself to sleep on my left side - better for my back - I grab her and squish her up against my chest, and yeah, I do sleep better. 

It's funny how a lot of things that seemed "juvenile" or "odd" when I was younger (I hid the couple stuffed animals I took to college with me) are now being realized that it's a comfort thing. Just like letting kids use fidget toys instead of forcing them to sit perfectly still. In many ways our world has become a little kinder (and I admit I fear with some of the changes happening recently, that some of those kindnesses will be removed, just like how some people now feel emboldened to use slurs again....)