Hollow. Hopeless. Lonely. Afraid.
from Star Trek Picard S01E06, The Impossible Box.
Month: February 2020
To Stars Hollow
I have too many important things hanging in delicate balance. In none of them is the ball in my court. They’re all triggering my anxiety.
Each of them individually is enough to turn half my head grey. Together, they’ll run me bald. The head shave appears foresight now.
This is not good. I’m siwnging every day between happy, optimist, productive periods and long periods of anxiety. I miss my days of steady, productive work.
It even stopped snowing.
I’m not happy.
At least things are back to happy and normal in Stars Hollow. I just wanna go hide there for a little while.
Happy
It’s snowing!
Wonderwall is playing in the background.
I’m working.
Yes, there’s lots of anxiety in the background—too many important things hanging in delicate balance.
But here, now, at this moment, I’m very happy :)
Agra sky over the decades
The BBC has an article with photos of celebrities in front of the Taj Mahal over the decades. The thing that caught my eye was how the sky is nearly never blue in the recent photos. While the yellowing of the Taj’s marble is well documented, the slow yellowing of our sky is well known but rarely discussed (GDP growth trumps everything else).
Here are the photos, chronologically arranged:
1959, Eisenhower
1992, Diana
1966, George Harrison
2000, Putin
2001, Aussie cricket team
2001, Musharraf
2015, Zuck
2016, Kate & William
2020, Trump
Of course this set is in no way representative. They are too few data points. All susceptible to the weather on the day, the camera settings, and the post processing.
There is also a bit of confirmation bias on my part. I’ve noticed, sadly, the disappearance of blue day skies and starry night skies for over two decades. And I probably looked at the photos to confirm that.
But this also gives an idea that this may not be the worst approach. There are probably billions of photos shared of the Taj on social media every year. We could create a program that scans for them, dates them, filters out the outliers, and then analysis the trend of sky colour (and Taj’s marble colour) over time. Time to put all that social media oversharing to good use :)
Strong women #324
El diablo susurro en mi oído,
no eres lo suficientemente fuerte
para resistir la tormenta.
Yo le susurré al oído,
“YO SOY LA TORMENTA”
—Azara Garcia de los Salmones Marcano, Ultra runner extraordinaire.
Translation:
The devil whispered in my ear,
you are not strong enough
to resist the storm.
I whispered in his ear,
“I AM THE STORM”
Olfactory nostalgia
The backyard smells lovely this morning. Smells and feels like Ambleside, my favourite getaway in the UK.
I fell in love with Ambleside because it smells and feels like the Shimla we grew up in. Slightly chilly, wet and fresh.
I haven’t visited either place in a while. Must correct this.
Today at the airport…
One guy in a complicated, high-tech face mask.
One guy wearing two(!) face masks, one over the other.
Everyone else going about without a care in the world.
Budapest ‘87, Attila Manek
Source, via this isn’t happiness
Everything about this photo is … ❤️
The strength in her left arm. Her erect posture, and core strength; no sinking hips.
The heels on her shoes. The wicker basket. The way she’s balancing the basket with her knee. And so how her right heel is so slightly lifted to help bend the knee.
The baby, unbothered by her state but keeping an eye on something. Sharing the carrier bag with the produce, nonchalance.
The clean, but not western supermarket clean, produce on display. Pedestrians all around.
The birthmark, or otherwise, on her right forearm. The angle of bend in the right arm. The strength, and maybe stress, in her shoulders.
The handsome guy with the dark red suitcase. He’s either checking her out, or the produce. His suitcase!
The guy, dressed like my dad in photos of his 20s & 30s, carrying a wire mesh bag.
The white shoes of the woman in the background, sharply in contrast with her well tanned legs.
So much more… but I keep returning to the first thing I see every time… the strength in that arm, those shoulders and her core.
On eating…
Asceticism was a virtue in life and business, he believed. “People live more on what they do not eat,” he once said.
—From The Guardian, in ‘The Aldi effect’
Ride London?
Got this in the mail today.
I have mixed feelings.
My first thought was, ‘Can I afford it?’ Checked the website. It’s £79 to confirm my spot. That’s 2x what the London marathon entry costs. I’d take the London marathon over this any day, even without the price difference. But I don’t have a spot in the London marathon; I have a spot in this. Also, I’ve run the London marathon twice but never ridden this event. R has ridden this twice and used to suggest that I will enjoy it.
Checking the registration price was not to decide if I should pay the entry fee. I had already made that decision. I’ll pay. The price check was to see how big the hole would be.
The entry fee isn’t the big expense for this ride. Maintaining and fuelling the bike and the body through the wear and tear of training will cost a lot more. Maybe I can go all indie and start experimenting with home-made food on rides. I fully plan to employ R as my free bike mechanic—given her training and access to tools in her job. The event is in August, so I can delay starting training till after the Paris marathon in April. That delay will help since then I don’t need a lot of winter riding gear. My one cycling jacket and one long tights should suffice for the few cold rides I’ll suffer.
Writing this down has helped calm the anxiety a bit. It’s doable. It’ll be a stretch on the money, time and energy, but it’s doable.
Breathe.