close as a bee's dick

that though i woke up at 4 AM this saturday morning and could not go back to sleep, which is not preferable, especially on a weekend, rather than strain against it in bed, which rarely ever works and is the worst, i got up and ate breakfast and read a magazine and now am typing this to you

that we only lost power for a couple of days early last week, that though it was frustrating, because of some safety feature on our gas stove, to not even be able to boil water, we did have water, that though it got cold in the house it was never dangerously cold, that our assortment of backup batteries kept our phones going throughout, that i was able to hike to the grocery store to get us provisions, that eventually the power came back

being stuck in a powerless house with d reminding me of another "vacation from power" we lived through our first summer together, a decade ago (gulp), which i wrote about here. 

having two surprise days off of work, even though they were spent in less-than-ideal conditions so not exactly "relaxing" and even though the rest of the week was overwhelming and probably more overwhelming than it would have been if i had worked those days

fake accounts by lauren oyler, which i read a lot of those days—such a delicious book and with so many interesting, specific representations of using apps

interviewing people, even though it's frustrating when you have a very full to-do list of tasks that need to be completed in the short term to do the interview, which is an important future investment but accomplishes little to nothing for you in the short term (which is the term i tend to mentally live in). that said, it's nice talking to people and getting to imagine working with them and be on regular calls with kh, who i miss seeing.

the intimacy of working in a shared document with someone (in this case, my boss, who dropped other responsibilities to tag team on an emergency postmortem and redirection of a buggy launch)—that sense that you are both building something together even though you're not in the same room, completing and refining each other's thoughts (and the expression of those thoughts in language) with the trust and mutual respect to not need to explicitly mark or talk about every single change, little jokes and metacomments in the notes

noticing verbal tics in others, like a drinking game i came up with to drink every time elizabeth kolbert says "how about that" during this podcast interview

australian friend's expression "close as a bee's dick"

to have introduced d to that classic of stoner short film, "cosmic zoom" (see also the later "powers of ten")

last night i had a really good double cheeseburger. kh

facetimes with d's bff h, who's just such a fun person to talk to. their reminiscences of growing up together, such as h recently saying, with reverence, "you taught me how to vhs." the sentence d responded with when i asked what h was up to the other day, which was "she's going to get a tarot card reading from that neighbor she doesn't like"

the chance to make a public apology (rip dave bry) to d, after i was reading the new york times morning newsletter and there was a subheading for an article about erewhon that referenced $12 and i sent it to d and talked about h's joke about erewhon being "the $10 store" because you can't buy anything for less than $10 there ("a banana? $10. candy bar? $10") and d got angry because that was her joke and we had apparently already had this same encounter previously in LA where i attributed the joke to h and d corrected me and i forgot about it

that though i think i have a very good memory (and sometimes a better memory than i think d gives me credit for), i can acknowledge i do not have a perfect memory

the expression "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" which, as a person who typically does not like cliches, is surprisingly a core belief for me (along with "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" and "ask for forgiveness, not permission"

this youtube compilation of taylor swift playing the wrong note for 4 minutes.

the first bouquet in the flower subscription i got d for valentine's day came last night. that soon enough it will be spring.