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Life: 2021 Personal Year In Review

It’s been… a year. Since time had no meaning (due to the sameness of being at home every day during so much of this pandemic), it is hard to believe it ended, rather than continuing on in a Groundhog-Day-like fashion.

I’m TIRED. But alive, which is a victory unto itself!

Here are some of 2021 highlights from my iPhone photo blog, mobilelene.blogspot.com.

January 2021: Monotype printing

Monotype mornings are the best mornings
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

I made great progress with my acrylic monotype printing practice this year, producing hundreds of prints, and expanding from my favorite opaque colors into transparent paints.

February 2021: Leaving the house to explore SF

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

There are entire new parks that didn’t exist before the pandemic!

March 2021: Botany

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

I like plants!

April 2021: Botany and Murals

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

There are murals I’d never seen before out there, and they’re great.

May 2021: Architecture, Monotypes, and Playing with Instax Cameras

Historic curtain wall (with fancy details)
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

Instax cameras are fun! Yes, I have THREE Instax-compatible cameras, one for each size of film, PLUS A PRINTER that uses the mini size. Judge me, while I have fun with my tiny little prints.

June 2021: SF Exploration, continued (and medium format photos)

New Hawthorne Texture
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

I will not admit how many photos I have of this building. On multiple cameras.

July 2021: Mostly Murals

Dolores Park (beyond the fog line)
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

This month starts to look like me: all my interests are reflected, and I was taking more photos because I sprained my right arm and couldn’t write or draw.

August 2021: Museums, Duochrome, and Sunshine

Polaroid Duochrome is pretty sweet
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

Have I made the book I planned to make of these? No. Did I produce another photo book mock up which I’m not sharing? Yes.

September 2021: I LOVE SF (architecture, sailboats, contemporary art, and phone photo filters)

Assorted Flavors: Glass Highrise
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

The photo I wanted to show is cropped too hilariously to post here.

October 2021: Art experience in the park

We Love Judy Chicago
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

It was the most fun I’ve had being enveloped in smoke in forever.

November 2021: Sunsets, Plants, and Murals

Sunset with lake and planet
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

By this point, you realize how conventional my phone photos are, and how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE San Francisco.

December 2021: Holiday lights, holiday projections, Boston, and textile arts

GlowSF at the Hyatt Regency
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

I really do love this town. 🙂 And I’m completely predictable in the photographic ways I express that love, and THAT IS OKAY.

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Life: First Visit to Boston and Cambridge

For reasons that I may/not eventually disclose, I visited Boston and Cambridge in Massachusetts this month. I wanted to get a feel for what life is like there, so I bought some new “base layers” for winter weather (!), and headed out of the Bay Area for the first time since the COVID 19 pandemic began.

Boston and Cambridge each made a good impression on me. As a happy San Franciscan heavily integrated into the fabric of my multicultural, open-minded, caffeinated City, I wasn’t sure that Boston would feel comfortable. Happily, the diverse population, reliable subway system, and great vegan food won me over!

Both towns were walkable. The subway system made sense, and my Charlie Card (their version of Clipper) made travel easy.

Each time I ate in restaurants within earshot of others, other patrons were chatting at their tables about trying to get their research funded. (A good sign!)

2021.12 Boston, Massachusetts
Photos representing my experience (casual, not too fancy, don’t get too excited)

Yes, many of the Freedom Trail sites were closed due to the pandemic, but I found other things to do. Yes, it got down to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-6.6 Celsius?), but I was dressed very carefully (lightweight yet insulating base layers!), and I could handle it. It snowed gently, and that was kind of fun. Puddles froze and never thawed, and I caught other tourists trying to break one, which was hilarious (adults playing with puddles like children!).

I did not fill my suitcase with art books. I did not go out to take photos at night when it was below freezing. These were good decisions.

My masks were comfortable in all indoor settings, and I learned that masks are very cozy when it is snowing.

Boston and Cambridge are both booming, filled with new construction of businesses, housing, streetcar stations, and more. Infrastructure matters, and they are clearly planning for growth.

I had a good time and a positive experience.

There is an awkward/funny postscript. I was there before the omicron variant of COVID was well understood. I participate in CA Notify, which is my home state’s bluetooth exposure tracking system. While I was in Boston, my phone asked me if I want to participate in MassNotify, and I agreed.

MassNotify sent me a COVID proximity/exposure warning 8 days after my return home (and three days after my negative home test). Someone with the right combination of proximity + duration on the day before I flew home subsequently tested positive for COVID. The instructions were clear, and since I’m both vaccinated and boosted, quarantine was never required – vigilant masking is enough. I’m impressed that the system worked, even though I was just visiting! Yaay, technology!

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Food: Thanksgiving 2021

As a former food blogger who is always adjusting recipes and planning to write cookbooks, I am usually pretty good about posting what I prepared and enjoyed for the holidays, if only to remind myself later when looking for inspiration! (Yes, I do use my own webpages, including my old recipe collections, while I cook.)

This year, Thanksgiving feasting almost didn’t happen: my parents agreed to come the Sunday before, after I’d already put in my grocery order for the week. My Cousin and his partner are core guests, but my Cousin RSVP’d with a photo of his partner’s positive COVID test, which occurred days before the gathering, requiring them to spend Thanksgiving in quarantine. That was enough of a scare to tempt me to cancel it all.

Luckily, I had more than enough food for a feast, and got to take it relatively easy because my friend M joined at the last moment, and she cooked as well! My parents’ drive to the City was smooth and easy, I got to try some great new-to-me dishes, and everything looked gorgeous and tasted even better! (M has similar dietary preferences, I can completely trust anything she makes, AND she is a fantastic cook!)

This year, the feast included:

  • sides/snacks: green olives, Kalamata olives, marinated bean salad, cherry tomatoes
  • harira soup
  • M’s mushrooms with wild rice
  • M’s kale, apple, and pecan salad
  • mashed potatoes with olive oil and chives
  • spaghetti squash with roasted red peppers, capers, and parsley
  • beverages: almond nog, sparkling water, herb tea
  • desserts: apple-cranberry pie and pumpkin pie (both homemade)

And EVERYTHING was fully vegan and gluten-free.

It was a great meal, a fun afternoon, and a delight.

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Writing: First Novel’s Second Draft Completed on December 2nd

This version clocks in at 65,484 words!

It looks hefty, printed out on regular office paper in a 12 point font. It’s 151 pages long.

I have a sense of accomplishment… And I don’t want to downplay what I’ve achieved while trying to juggle so many other things… but still need to get to version 2.1, which will have all the weird auto-correct typos taken out of it!

(My other three novellas are sitting in binders on a shelf behind me, quietly waiting for their turn.)

I’m very glad I did edited and updated my first novel, and hope to soon have it ready to USE.

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Culture: 900 Days of Duolingo

I continue to recommend this app/website/team for your language practice adventures.

Most of my Duolingo practice days have been devoted to refreshing my German, but I have also been using the Japanese course (which I’ve already gushed about).

One thing I especially need is writing practice, so my Japanese notes will be more legible. For this, I’ve recently started using the downloadable writing practice sheets at japanese-lesson.com. I also have a brush pen, which should help with some of the subtle points, curves, and flourishes on the characters, if I ever get good enough to include them!

The site includes writing practice sheets for Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. (I’m providing a link to the Hiragana page, but you can easily navigate to the others.)

Hiragana Writing Practice | Characters | Japanese-Lesson.com
Downloadable/printable writing practice sheets (PDF) with grid lines for correct, beautiful handwriting of Japanese Hiragana alphabet

Studying a language for fun at your own pace is a great thing. It’s great that it is possible, and that so many people are working hard to make studying fun!

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Life: Vivid Friday

Sunset with lake and planet
Weblog by A. Elizabeth Graves. iPhone photography and links to science-y and foodie topics.

I didn’t do any shopping of any kind, but got in some exercise and natural beauty. It was a GOOD day.

I have lots of post fragments waiting, and I’ll consider getting to them over the weekend… Maybe.

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Pandemic News: Another Treatment Candidate

This is preliminary data from a combined Phase 2/3 clinical trial, so they are still confirming the dosing along with the tolerance, but the preliminary results from this Pfizer trial are even better than those from the Merck drug. Which suggests that COVID may soon be something that is survive-able for more people!

Pfizer’s Novel COVID-19 Oral Antiviral Treatment Candidate Reduced Risk of Hospitalization or Death by 89% in Interim Analysis of Phase 2/3 EPIC-HR Study | Pfizer
PAXLOVID™ (PF-07321332; ritonavir) was found to reduce the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% compared to placebo in non-hospitalized high-risk adults with COVID-19 In the overall study population through Day 28, no deaths were reported in patients who received PAXLOVID™ as compared to 10 death…

An 89% reduction is AMAZING, and it will be good to see what the final analysis shows.

This warms my heart. We could all use some more hope for better outcomes with this terrible pandemic.

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Art: Art Supply Rabbit Hole

I have been on an acrylic monotype bender this year, but I hope to return to watercolor painting again. I do it in flurries, and I’m overdue for a return.

I use transparent Japanese, Holbein brand tube watercolors (primarily: I also like a French brand); Swiss watercolor pencils and crayons; and I have a German travel set of watercolors I bought at a museum in Switzerland on one of my last trips there, but haven’t used much since. I also have a tiny mixing set of Holbein’s opaque gouache, which I love, and can mix just about any color I need from. I’ve gone through multiple tubes of it, and love its dense color.

I have enough supplies. Probably. I’m always missing a shade of green or blue that can’t be mixed, but I surely have enough.

Anyway, there’s a type of Japanese watercolor that I (somehow) do not have. It had escaped me, because we call several things “watercolor” in English, but they have different names there.

The paint is called gansai. It is often mineral based, opaque, and generally not vegetarian in composition, commonly using animal skin binders. I wanted to know more about it, to see if a vegetarian version is available, and to know if it offers colors I don’t already have in the only big set of paints I’ve ever bought, which is a set of Holbein’s “antique” Japanese colors.

Does Holbein offer a gansai range? Yes! But only in Japan: the product isn’t available through their US distributor. Also, they don’t address my animal ingredient concern, so I may need to ask.

Is it similar in color range to Holbein Irodori Antique Watercolors? Well, this was a hard question, because that set is no longer listed on the Holbein sites. Why? It has been replaced with a full line of Holbein Irodori GOUACHES!

Irodori
The NEW Holbein Artist’s Gouache, Traditional Colors of Japan Irodori Series of opaque watercolor allows the user to experience the rich beauty and delicate expressions that the four seasons of Japan bring to mind during spring, summer, autumn and winter.

[insert sound of me, a gouache lover, losing my mind]

Oh oh oh oh oh… I need to know more about this, and found an Irodori fan who runs her own art supply shop in Hanoi to share her insights:

Knowing that I already love gouache complicates my research into gansai… Though it’s not like a huge box of tubes and all the related equipment is very portable, and I was looking for something portable in this instance. (During my business travels, I used the portable tools and got satisfactory results. While I’m at home, the bulky tube paints give me better results, but require more space and equipment. Since I created work while traveling to justify that purchase, this means I can justify having both! 😀 )

So, setting aside how gorgeous the gouache looks (though there are only a few colors that I feel I can’t go on without in that new line), I chose to go back to research gansai.

Is there a vegetarian Gansai: YES! My local supplier, Jet Pens, offers Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolors, and specifically notes that they contain no animal products. Hooray!

Did I see other magical things during this research? Oh, goodness yes. Tons of tours of various art supply shops in Japan, plus this gem on one VERY SPECIAL art supply store:

A New Japanese Painting Supply Store Lines its Walls With 4,200 Different Pigments
Thousands of pigments fill glass vials below the slatted wood ceilings of the new concept Pigment, an art supply laboratory and store that just opened in Tokyo by company Warehouse TERRADA. The store design was created by architect Kengo Kuma, utilizing bamboo and large open spaces to create a sense

My mind is filled with colorful paint fantasies now… I’ll try not to talk about paint again until I show you something I’ve made with it.

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Pandemic Life: Ongoing (with Progress)

This is where I have to decide: am I just interpreting the news favorably because I need some good news? Or is it actually good?

It’s a mixed bag.

I am thrilled that there is a drug for the treatment of COVID, which can decrease the symptoms and speed recovery. Merck’s Phase 3 study of molnupiravir showed a 50% reduction in hospitalization and death, which is dramatic. This investigational drug is already emergency-authorized in the UK, and is being reviewed for use in the US.

UK authorizes Merck antiviral pill, 1st shown to treat COVID
LONDON (AP) — Britain granted conditional authorization on Thursday to the first pill shown to successfully treat COVID-19 so far. It also is the first country to OK the treatment from drugmaker Merck, although it wasn’t immediately clear how quickly the pill would be available.

I’m looking forward to seeing it on the US FDA’s list of emergency authorizations for this crisis. (The list is a bit depressing, because you see statements like that first footnote: “1 The virus that causes COVID-19 has led to an increased number of patients requiring critical care, such as  with severe respiratory illness. As a result, there is a shortage of adequate, FDA-approved  drugs used for their treatment, such as propofol for sedation of mechanically ventilated patients.” The idea that there is a shortage of common sedatives because of this crisis is a reminder of how broad the impacts are…)

We need more where that came from! There are other medicines in the pipeline, which I get to read about in the local pharma news summaries, and while reading about a vaccine company where a friend works. I would like this progress to be celebrated more widely, or at least recognized, though I understand that the emphasis is, and should be, on getting everyone vaccinated. (Additional vaccines are in development, also!)

My European friends are frustrated. Cases are shooting up in Europe (Germany is setting new 50k daily records (my friends there complain about the inconsistent and seemingly performative guidance there), and the Netherlands are considering another light lockdown as hospitals fill (my friend there wants to go to some educational events, and is hoping that will still be possible).

Since I’m writing from the country with the highest cumulative number of cases and deaths, I see lots of reasons for optimism elsewhere, because other countries are doing so well relative to us!! [Laugh/cry here]. A country with a fraction of our infection rate is high on my tourist destination list, and I hope they will open for vaccinated tourism in early 2022 so I can go.

~ * ~

These zoonotic diseases continue to make me resent consumers of animals, who bring these illnesses into human populations and affect all of us.

One of the stranger articles on the animal-impact theme is that Americans are infecting deer with COVID, and the illness is now raging through deer populations without our noticing. Which is just another population for it to potentially mutate in…

I wish humans learned faster!

~ * ~

My daily life is relatively conventional now, in terms of being able to get where I need to go on transit, being able to keep supplied in basic household goods, getting medical appointments for routine check ups, and such.

My City isn’t fully recovered. There are still many boarded-up storefronts. There are still For Lease signs up in even those posh shopping districts with brands I’ve never understood. (You can see all the way through some fancy shops and out into Maiden Lane in spaces that have not been vacant in my lifetime…) There is still a fleet of “recreational vehicles” serving as housing at unprecedented densities in certain locations. There are still too few shelters for the people who need them, with prior progress being undone by health distancing requirements. Some hotels and restaurants remain closed, especially those that catered to professional conferences in my once-conference-filled town.

The impacts of evolving remote work policies will also take a long time to sort out.

~ * ~

I’m happy for the new medicines, the flexibility the FDA has shown, the large number of medicines still in development, and regional improvements in infection rates. I’ll try to dwell on these things.

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Writing: Novel Progress

“Novel Progress” here means I have an update on the progress of my novel, not that making progress is novel in itself… English is silly, isn’t it?

I’m over 43,000 words into my rewrite of my first novella. There’s still a lot of story to go, and I’m impressed that I’ve got so much, considering I’m 62% of the way through the printed first draft, and that draft was just over 50k. (I’m truly rewriting it, and not just retyping it. 62% of 50k would be just 31k, so…)

My writing isn’t as steady as I’d hoped: I’ve had many real-life interruptions and minor crises to resolve. I also take abundant breaks to ensure that I don’t inflame my arms from doing too much of any one activity, having just finished physical therapy for an arm injury recently.

The breaks are unexpectedly beneficial, because the time away from the writing allows me to rethink some of the motivations of the characters. There have been several nights and mornings when I’ve sat up in bed, re-evaluating how some powerful beings came to power, and how they maintain it. There’s another story there, one that I reveal partially in the climax of the first draft. While it should not be fully revealed in this book – I’m keeping the focus on the central character and how she is affected by power struggles from her point of view – refinements of these motivations have already contributed heavily to the wording of the re-write.

I hope to use breaks to decide whether or not the lead character will realize why no one else remembers the things she is talking about from earth. Not even really basic things. There’s a reason, and it was hinted at, but she missed the hint at the time, and hasn’t revisited it. Her understanding of [the cause] won’t change the arc of the story, but it may make things easier for a friend of hers, and that may be worth doing before the story ends…

Summary: I want to complete this draft zealously, and then move into continuity editing and additional story refinements. I know editing is complex, and I’m unsure how long it will really take. I am enjoying the process, and feel I am improving on my old draft. I’m glad I am making the time and space to do this!

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