Category: Life

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Life: Returning Home to the Smell of Coffee

Gold and gray
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

(Image above: Thursday evening image of the stormy sky above the bay before the arrival of current rainstorms; this image will be a future source of oil pastel color studies and related painful lessons!)

I remain amazed that my new pour-over-imitation-chemex device makes such a pleasant cup of Sulawesi-Kalosi (Peet’s). It doesn’t beat Yosemite Dos Sierras, but I enjoy it still.

It makes my house smell so nice. Especially after being out in the rain while running errands. Warmth and coffee. Ahhhh.

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My errands included making the person at the hardware store laugh as she was ringing me up. She burst out unexpectedly while ringing me up with, “HAHAHA! You’re tall!” (I brought something to the counter that hangs from a very high hook, and she was impressed that I was able to get it on my own.) Reaching stuff FTW!

Other accomplishments today include sleeping 11 hours (I am/was a wreck), depositing a check I was sure I would never receive (a cleaning deposit from a place I lived a full year ago), cancelling a video streaming subscription, and signing up for a new audio streaming service!

My next task: writing to my European friends and explaining the current state of affairs from my point of view. What? No, I can’t just send the poop emoji, but thanks for the suggestion.

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Life: Three Day Weekend

Color studies with oil pastels from Japan
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

Long weekends are a TREAT.

I managed to stay home ALL THREE DAYS of this particular weekend, though I had friends over, so it was still social. (I APPRECIATE my friends, and realized this week that I have friends who consistently INTERACT WITH ME INSTEAD OF THEIR PHONES. How great is that?)

I have many interests and too little time to pursue them, so holiday weekends can give me stress to DO IT ALL. I have so many projects waiting – film to scan, drawings to complete, letters to write, websites to update – but, having a restful day is also important. Accepting that… is a challenge. Yet, I was able to enjoy minimal chores, fun friends, my new oil pastels, a long Korean comic, and generally moved slowly to better recover from what ailed me more than a week ago and left me with lingering symptoms. So, I know REST is POSSIBLE.

Hooray for slowing down!

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Life: Illness of the Moment

I’ve been quiet here because I’ve been seriously sick. I’ve gone through a pile of COVID tests since feeling abruptly VERY WRONG Monday evening, and the results are consistently negative, but had the same debilitating headache, and slept fourteen hours the first day without feeling RESTED. It took more than 48 hours in bed to even be minimally functional around the house. It is exhausting, whatever it is.

Bird flu has been detected in my city, and I’ve been sending jokes to my friends that I stopped hugging seagulls WEEKS ago. (The gulls seem more emotionally distant now…) I don’t know what this illness is, why it makes my ears crackle so often, why my lymph nodes in my neck hurt, why I’ve been so dizzy… I’m only at 75-80% of normal, and am in a hurry to fully recover by the time I return to work Monday. (Though that’s sad – wouldn’t it be better to recover TODAY and enjoy my weekend with more energy?)

I’ve only recently (Friday?) been able to focus enough to read recreationally, so it may be a while before I write up any more book reviews. I have some new manhwa going, but spent my low-energy evenings watching Slow Horses, so I’ll write up a recommendation for that soon.

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Happy (?) New Year

I hope your year is off to a good start. There’s a lot to do in 2025 (trying to keep human civilization operating despite ourselves, etc.), so I hope you were able to get some rest over the December holidays, and can start the new year ready to handle whatever comes our way.

Ocean Beach: Three Views
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

Here in California, we’ve had more than one earthquake here in SF and very difficult wildfires in SoCal, so that’s… something we are coping with.

Best wishes to you and all living beings, wherever you are.

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Life: Trying to Slow Down

Loving the Dome
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

What I want to do: write long letters by hand with fancy inks, and perhaps show off some of those inks.

What my writing arm wants me to do: NONE OF THAT.

This post brought to you by: ice (the frozen water) and Biofreeze, which are glorious relief for swelling when combined! Thank you, physical therapist, for introducing this combination to me!

I had to stay home for an in-person delivery today AND the weather is flat and gray. These two conditions moderated my impulses to run around frantically, trying to achieve a year’s worth of projects in a brief holiday break. But I still feel like a firefighter who should be firefighting? There’s plenty of that waiting for me at work when I return next week, but… but… Downshifting is easier when I’m traveling, as there are only travel-related things I can do.

This is something a bubble bath can fix, I think…

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Life: TORNADO WARNING!?!?!

iPhone screenshot from 5:52 AM on Saturday, December 14th with the text of a National Weather Service TORNADO WARNING: "Emergecy Alert: National Weather Service: TORNADO WARNING in this area until 6:15 AM PST. Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shter and protect yourself from flying debris. Check media."
What Fresh Hell Is THIS?

My friends were texting. It is a rainy December Saturday after 5 AM, with lots of storm sounds, and they were commenting on the gusty winds. One of them shared a screen grab of a warning that a very intense weather front was coming in, filled with lightning and movement…

And then the phone SHRIEKED. Because a rain-wrapped pillar of swirling air was coming toward land in Daly City (the city just south of San Francisco).

Spoiler: the tornado danger passed, it was okay, I got live texts from the friend who had shared the warning as he sheltered in a basement, the local emergency alert service eventually also decided that, being late to the show, they should at least tell us it was over.

I had plans today, on the basis that a little rain isn’t a big deal, and I could still run errands. I am… rethinking all of those plans. I can surely… appreciate the INDOORS today.

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Writing: Correspondence adds up

top view of a matcha latte featuring a foam heart
Mmmm, almond milk matcha latte: I love you back.

I’ve tried to have a restful and unproductive weekend, but got antsy, put away laundry (my least favorite chore), and through my restlessness made my home slightly less chaotic.

I mailed holiday cards out to my short list of active European correspondents, skimmed through my mail to find some unanswered letters, and wrote long, handwritten replies with fancy pens on obscure papers. Of the 43 cards and letters received from my pen friends so far this year, I’ve only got one left to respond to. I wrote ~67 letters this year (!!!!), and will likely write more during Xmas break. I’ve made 172 posts on this blog (this will be 173), and 185 photo posts (only some of which have wordy narratives) at my photo blog. I also filled several notebooks with personal nonsense that I needed to clear from my mind…

So perhaps I can go easy on myself for not completing the editing of my first NaNoWriMo novella, which I left somewhere in its third draft? Or at least easier on myself? Let’s pretend the answer is yes.

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Life: A Tsunami Warning Was NOT on my Bingo Card Today

SF Beneath Clouds
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

The sky was busy and interesting, with strange clouds and orange sunlight this morning. Busy, but quiet. I still didn’t expect our phones to all go off like fire alarms, warning us that our lives were in danger and to head for high ground if we were near the coast. A large earthquake far up the coast had the potential to send a big, very fast wave our way; they were giving us about an hour’s warning.

It was a relief that the warning was called off, that no one was harmed (by waves, at least) and that the threat passed quickly. Also, it was fun to catch up with colleagues for a while, as we were all too amped up to focus on our work for a bit.

We have earthquakes frequently, and most of them are uninteresting in all the right ways, but this was a reminder that land can be BUSY.

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Life: Sleep and its absence

The flash flood warnings have ended! That’s a treat. I’m dry and on land, and grateful for that. The weather has been highly variable all weekend, and has induced panic over opportunities to take advantage of the harsh, high contrast sunlight I enjoy (I have SO MUCH FILM waiting!), only to to be promptly foiled by low-ish temperatures and the arrival of diffuse clouds.

I’ve taken a brief break from posting while trying to get my sleep schedule back in order. That… hasn’t gone well.

I’ve been delirious after a days of averaging just five hours of sleep, and my punchiness (using the least common definition of that word) isn’t especially entertaining. I’ve increased my exercise and decreased my caffeine, so at least I am warmer and more fit during my delirium.

I’ve been reading, yet my preferred manhwa are either just getting started, not at a sensible reviewing point, or just returning from hiatus. The few ‘mid’ ones aren’t worth your time to read (or my time to write about). I’ve got a couple books going, and am determined to finish them completely before I write about them. I have two new reading friends (!) who love sci-fi (!!), and so may drop everything to start some of their recommendations. I’m selling them hard on Martha Well’s Murderbot Diaries (marthawells.com) and the gargantuan Anathem by Neal Stephenson (nealstephenson.com). They didn’t flee despite the gleam in my eyes, so I am encouraged. (Watching me struggle to maintain my composure while gushing about William Gibson’s most recent work is surely challenging...)

I’ve also found a new way to remain informed of serious journalism, politics, truly bad jokes, good owl photos, and types of fungus I didn’t know existed. Somehow, these are all available in one place. Yes, I joined Bluesky Social. I… will regret this, but not right away: all of my favorite people left the bird site and are using bsky’s tools to reconnect me to the same networks of thinkers, plus a new pool of silliness. (My sudoku scores are about to plummet…)

AEG in SF (or at least somewhere near SF most of the time) (@aeginsf.bsky.social)
Possibly too dedicated to drinking coffee to remember to post. Writer, photographer, reader, printmaker, blogger, foodie, insomniac, professional teeth-gnasher.

Don’t be alarmed by my relative inactivity here. I’m hoping to make up for this over the holidays, when I have a near-infinite list of projects saved up to do…

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Life: I slept more than 7 hours!

During night time hours… in my own time zone! Seven hours that were more or less consecutive!

I was confused when I looked in the mirror this morning. I looked like an entirely different person…

No, that’s not right. I looked like the dewy, relaxed, possibly healthy version of myself in some selfies I made in Kobe last month. Selfies that I used to reply to a friend in Germany in WhatsApp, which inspired her to send laughing emoji, because I looked “great” and “relaxed,” which are not ways she is accustomed to seeing me in photos.

Gosh.

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