MOOP!

So, today's big project of the day was NEW BED!

Specifically, new mattress, and putting some bed risers in place. Everything else is the same old same old. I guess I changed the sheets, but it's not like I got new sheets. (I continue to deeply love owning nothing but dinosaur sheets.)

See, somewhere in the last few months, both Tuesday and Austin have been all "hm, you're aware that your mattress is actually complete shit, right?" and I've been like "yeah, it's ten years old YOLO" because I am an ADHD nightmare childe. But I have tried to bear their comments in mind, and kept my brain whirring about "yeah, it's deffo time for me to replace my mattress sometime". I even made a Facebook post asking for advice, which I then completely ignored.

And then yesterday, friendChris was dropping some supplies off at my house (Chris is moving and the supplies will be donated to work) and in small talk about how the move and packing is going he offhandedly said something about needing to get rid of a mattress. "Wait, shit, what size, what condition?" said I, and upon determining that it was a full and a couple years old, said "yeah, lemme see if I can arrange for a car" and that was that.

FriendKyle was all "sure, I have a car with roof rack and some strapping, and also my Sunday timing works out impeccably with yours [as long as I come to service ringing too] and so post-bells¹ Kyle and I traipsed off to his house. It was nice to get to see how his post-moving is going, and rifle through his and Clara's bookshelf a bit, and admire some art.

In the morning, Ezri had helped me to move the old mattress (and the futon mattress it was lying on) downstairs so all Kyle had to do was help me haul the mattress down from the third floor of Chris's (I forgot to warn on this part), strap it to his car, and haul it into our first floor. Ezri had also agreed to help me get it up to my room, which was good because after I hugged Kyle goodbye, Ezri and I tromped upstairs and they provided invaluable moral (and occasionally material) support while I:

*vacuumed the box spring *wiped down the entire frame with a damp rag *vacuumed/mopped the floor under the bed *put the frame up on risers *got anti-slip stuff for the risers and also took the wheels off my bedframe. I am especially appreciative of their thoughtfulness in various suggestions about making sure my bed was not likely to fall off the risers, although some of that might just be the practicality of "their bedroom is right below mine".

And then the surprisingly simple task of "haul a mattress up the stairs" and now I have a new bed. I have not finished making it, although I will do that shortly. With the trash this week, out goes the incredibly old futon mattress that was my first bed post-college (thanks BelmHouse!) as just general bulk-trash. And then the day after goes the mattress that was my Big Adult Purchase Of A Real Bed, in...

lesseee. This is coming up on the end of year four at the MFA. One year at nBs in Belmont. Three years at Dance House in Medford, and three years at ARSES before it, and I got it right at the start of moving in at ARSES. So yeah, old mattress was rounding up towards eleven years old.

Time to find out how it sleeps (I guess before I actually throw out the old one in the unlikely event that Oh No This Is Bad.)

~Sor
MOOP!

1: We've all been a little all over the place this weekend -do not ask about our first attempt at Stedman this morn, although we did have a redemptive one later on- but it's actually been a pretty fun ringing weekend. Yesterday was a Just Delightful "of the six of us, you two both have some Serious Focus Areas so let's do that" and practice was so much plain hunt and it was _great_. I don't really know very well how to teach this late-beginner stage of ringing, but I'm really enjoying getting to be part of a supportive band for it!

Today was a very good day spent with my girlfriend!

Okay yeah, fine, I also went to work and stuff. That part was boring, whatever. But then I left work right as soon as I was allowed to (this almost never happens, usually I am hanging out and kinda working for hours after last-bell) and read my book on the bus home, and came home to my Tuesday-love!

(sidebar: it has taken quite a lot of time and the weather actually getting somewhat better, but I have finally figured out that while biking is _faster_, the advantages of walking/taking the bus *far* outweigh it, specifically that I can ~do things~ while on my transit instead of just suffering on The Worst Road In The Entire City (which is basically my entire commute))

I have been reading my way through the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, and I have _finally_ made it to a Harriet Vane one --Strong Poison, not Gaudy Nights, no spoilers please, also this one is _so good_. I kept reading bits of the descriptions of artists aloud to Ezri and Tuesday and generally reveling in the prose *so much*. It is delicious! Some of these mysteries I've felt rather indifferent to, like I never need to bother reading again, but others are *quite* of the variety of "yes please, do re-consume" and unless Sayers flubs the landing, this will be _solidly_ in the second category.

Anyways, I did quite a bunch of further reading once I was home, only instead of a bus with dubious students scattered about, this was on a comfy couch pulled up alongside my ladylove while she played the new Zelda game. Heaven! Parallel play at its absolute finest, reading a book but also snuggling? So good!!!

Eventually, Ezri and Rey got very busy with An Elaborate Dinner Plan, which sucked Tuesday in to help. I know better than to try and hang out in the busy kitchen (I will get massive-stressed and then I will snap at people like an ass) so I stayed out of the way¹. Dinner was...pad thai!!! Homemade and _utterly_ delicious, thank you Ezri! And there was mango lassi for dessert (thank you Tuesday!). We all ate until we were round and merry, and that was delightful.

Near the end of it all, somehow Tuesday and I got to talking about the game Blink, which she'd also played at some point in the past. I pulled out my deck and solidly trounced her five rounds in a row² (sorry babe). As we were putting it away, she glanced at the game shelf and asked "what's One Deck Galaxy?".

I managed to entirely not answer her question by instead whipping out my unopened copy of One Deck Dungeon, pausing long enough to show her my name in the playtest credits, and then we sat down and played a really satisfying game of ODD! Sure it was just the dragon, but we beat it together, despite me rolling almost entirely shit the entire game! It was really fun to get to do this little cooperative dungeon crawl together.

Now it is approaching bedtime. I get to come in late tomorrow (I arranged it with my boss since first block is the rotating x-block but it's on the rotation I don't have a class, and then second block is just...not a class I ever have) so I'm quite looking forward to having a slightly later-than-usual wakeup time and the opportunity for bonus cuddles with my girl.

I hope you are well and happy and have people in your life who make you happy!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: In an effort to make myself sound slightly less assholish, I did all the dishes afterwards. It is to everyone's benefit for me to not cook though, it's not fun for me, and it's frequently even less fun when someone else is in charge.

2: I'm good at speed games, and explicitly, I'm good at the _speed_ part of speed games. There are definitely people who can match-or-beat me at Blink (Veronica first among them), but I must be solidly 90th or 95th percentile on it.

It was the first day of school for teachers! There is no specific nightmare that makes me want to scream, which is probably for the good. I should definitely be doing/have done more prep work, which is...interesting. Maybe this weekend? I don't actually have to do anything with students except orientation this week.

Tuesday came out to visit for a bunch of days, which was really lovely. They arrived Thursday night, their train two hours and two minutes late, but very pleased to see me waiting for them in South Station. I didn't spent the whole wait in the station of course, as soon as it became clear it was going to be a while I went for an excellent wander around the greenway and ate a late snack at a little outdoor cafe.

On Friday, we walked down to look at the green line construction and almost stole a stop sign (it was abandoned behind the dumpsters --I should remember to grab a wrench and go back to check if it's still there...). In the evening we lay side by side in bed and listened to music together --I have a headphone splitter, and she swapped her actually decent headphones for my shitty earbuds when making me listen to some things she liked.

Saturday was my birthday! I made egg sammiches for us (and Rey! Ezri'd already eaten) and then Tuesday and I went out and spent the day walking to, then wandering in, Harvard Square. Mostly it was for touristing and not shopping --we swapped lots of college stories since we were going right past Lesley-- but we did stop in to Harvard Square Books so I could pick up Harrow the Ninth. The top of the shop was unfortunately crammed, but the lower level with the used books and remainders was quite quiet. I found a keen little book of Gahan Wilson cartoons (many of which I recognize from his Haunted House) and we found a comics trade entitled "Harley and Ivy Meet Betty and Veronica". Yes that's Quinzel and Isley meeting Cooper and Lodge.

We were flipping through it just for the fun and then found a panel that made it obvious it was a bodyswap story and YEP we purchased it _so quickly_ you have no idea. It made for excellent reading on the T back to Davis and then we curled up on the couch to finish it, with me explaining the Archieverse references as they came up.

Of course then was ice cream time --I saw a nice batch of people, including at least one totally unexpected. It was wet and rainy, so we clustered under the overhang of Davis Sq station. Not totally six feet apart, but still well outside, and people were pretty good about putting masks back on when they finished their ice cream.

Sunday was for packing and back to South Station to catch the bus which was barely late at all. Tuesday's gone back to help close up Pinewoods (desperately wish I were there, because wow could I use some last minute late-summer sunshine in the woods) and I went to bed at a decent hour for the first time in two months. I don't think I _slept_ for seven hours, but I did lay in the dark for that long and I'm on track to do it again tonight I think. Depends on whether or not I want to pokewalk and how long it takes to wash the dishes.

I've restarted my dailies sheet, which I maybe mentioned before. It is...spotty. Doesn't help that I was at the school until six today (I volunteered to help with some _very_ last minute interviewing and one of those wasn't until five, so I puttered around with my work computer and got some administrativia done). I've had a few good days though, and I'm happy to see the records once again being kept --I haven't touched the thing since last May.

I stopped by the grocery store on the way home, as part of the plan Ezri and I came up with last year where it's fair trivial for me to do that a couple times a week on the commute home, and means we can get groceries quickly and more often. Of course, if Delta gets worse we should probably not be going into stores more frequently and should go back to really big trips once a month or so, but that's harder without a car. At any rate, I got to see a former student at the checkout and he was bright and chatty and lovely to make small talk with.

Then I came home and basically collapsed on the couch for most of an hour to read more fanfic --reading any DC at all put me in the mood for a reread of the entire Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts universe, which is some of my favourite fanfic in all the world. On Sunday I was reading random bits and pieces from it all, then last night I started from the beginning of the first story until I fell asleep in an armchair.

There's half an hour or so before bed, so that should be just enough time to wash a dish and walk down to the pullup bar and do one of those. Bonus points if I prepare lunch for tomorrow, but I think that's a morning plan. No therapy tomorrow afternoon, so maybe I will leave work more on time? That'd be good.

Hope you're well.

~Sor
MOOP!