Miscellanea, part whatever

Have you ever seen a cloud that was just a few prisms shy of being a rainbow? Like, if you could just nudge it . . . boop . . . in one direction or another, it could be something completely different.

I’m fascinated by light and how we perceive it. How sometimes it seems so solid, like when rays of light break through a cloud and shine down in actual beams. They seem so real that if you could get close enough, you could touch them.

I’m fascinated with how the light changes in the fall, how the angle of sun changes the way the whole world looks. Of course spring light is different, too, but fall is may favorite I think. The way it turns the sky a certain color blue. I feel as though if you were to pluck me out of a dark cave or bunker after many months and set me outside, I could look at the sky and the light and tell you when we are.

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I went to the photoshoot. And I’m mostly glad I did. I had a good time hanging out with my friends and I felt like I looked good and I felt mostly comfortable about what I did with my face, but then I saw some of the behind the scenes shots that another photographer took and I feel less great.

But one of the reasons that I decided to do the photoshoot is that I know from experience that in five years — hell, maybe next year! — I will look back at these photos and think, “Damn, I looked good. Why couldn’t I see that at the time?” And future me will be glad to have these pictures to document this time in my life, and these friends.

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Things have not been great at all in the ol’ noggin of late, which I have already alluded to. But I know that my brain is an unreliable narrator and so I’m trying to take what she says with a grain of salt. I don’t like to tell people to shut up, but I’m about to tell that bitch to shut the hell up. Also, last week I started a new anti-anxiety med and upped my anti-depressant dosage, so, fingers crossed.

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There is a surprising amount of sheep/farm content in my social media feed these days. Two of my current favorite follows are a young woman living alone off grid in Scotland while raising sheep, cows, chickens, pigs and rabbits.¹ The other is an Irish sheep farmer who is smack dab in the middle of lambing season. Plus there’s the This Farming Life show I’m addicted to on BritBox. I’ve said it in a previous post but I really think I could help deliver a lamb. I’d probably hork while doing it, but I think I could do it.

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What I’m reading: I’m having a hard time settling into any book. I’ve started and discarded several, but finally managed to finish one even though I mostly hated it. The prose was overwrought and there were too many Southern gothic/mystery tropes. I did recently finish and enjoyed (though I had to put it away for a day or two when I was feeling really down) the second book in the On the Calculation of Volume series. It’s very existential which is usually not my bag, but I am enjoying the books so far. Fiction feels wrong to me somehow right now, like an itchy sweater or a too tight sports bra that I can’t wriggle out of, so I think I’m going to go non-fiction for a bit and see how that feels. Or maybe I’ll do a re-read of an old favorite. We’ll see.

1. I’m just deluded enough to think I would have liked to be able to give that kind of life a go as a younger woman, but I think I was/am too soft for that.