19th of Tishri

The dishwasher stopped working on Tuesday. I tried to press the buttons to start a cycle, but the lights weren't coming on. It seemed to be totally disconnected from power. Sometimes it's a little fussy where we have to slam the door a few times to get it to work. That wasn't the case this time. Sometimes it just works itself out. It hasn't. This happened the day before my parent left for a conference in Spokane. I thought it was best to wait until she's back to have it repaired. I ended up hand washing all of the dishes that were in there (it was completely full), and have been washing the ones I've used throughout the day each day. It's a bit difficult with feeling so much pain this week (it's been worse) and my hands have been a little shaky. So far, so good with that, at least. I think hand washing gets things cleaner, but can be a hassle.

I decided I didn't like the new speaker, and set up my old speakers again. That new one was getting annoying, especially with it saying "connecting to..." or "ready to connect" so often. Not being able to control the volume was a deal-breaker for me. Couldn't actually turn it off unless it was low on battery power, either. The old speakers aren't great, but at least I can control the volume and there's no voice to them. I didn't put the floor sub-woofer back. Never really needed it. Hopefully, I can find decent speakers in the future. I probably won't get the bluetooth ones. 

Rosie been sick the last couple of days. She was sick just a couple of weeks ago, too. She's throwing up frequently throughout the day. She doesn't usually do it often. Constantly cleaning it up is tiring. I'm starting to get worried about it. She's also been hiding under my bed a lot. I half-thought it might be this 'new' batch of cat food. The bag was over-packed and smelled weird. However, she didn't start throwing up until a little over a week after she started eating it. I don't think that's the cause. Plus, Tasha's been fine. She sometimes takes food from the same bowls Rosie eats from. Maybe she's gotten into plastic again somehow? 

I also cleaned out some drawers in my room that were full of health documents, stuff I got from past Pride events, things from places I've visited, etc. I was searching for something, but didn't find it. It wasn't a waste, considering I got rid of a lot of things. I have more space now. 

Finished reading Hell's Kitchen. Technically, they didn't have the last 3 chapters available online. However, that covers a side-story. Even the last chapter I read said it was the end. It didn't feel like an ending. It was like they were about to start a new story arc. Something that sounded like it would be really interesting. It seemed like the creator had to end it earlier than they wanted to. I had this on-hold for a few years before finally being able to continue it recently. There were only around 30 chapters up for so long. It's 50 chapters long (53 if you count that side story). I'm glad I got the opportunity to finally finish it. It's one of my fave manga. 

I've technically finished Elder Scrolls: Blades. Finished all of the main quest and most of the side ones. I've even finished the special Halloween ones that came with the most recent update. The only things left now are the daily jobs and the Abyss. I can be rewarded through challenges based on either of those. I still haven't completely rebuilt the town yet. It's kind of lost its spark for me, now. I'll still play it, just not often. There's talk that they might add more to the main quest in the future, and there might be more holiday related ones. I like that they've decorated the town in Halloween decorations, turned it into night mode, and the music is different. That music is also holiday themed, of course. It seems like a giant spider threw up or exploded its webbing all over the place. There's snow, lots of jack-o-lanterns at shops, houses have candlelight glows coming from the windows, and there are thorny vines at the entrance gate. Interesting touches. 

Started watching Beastars yesterday. It's better than I expected. Really dark (darker than expected) and psychological. It's set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, with the herbivores and carnivores coexisting. The main character, Legosi, is a wolf who looks menacing, but has a very gentle heart. He's a student at Cherryton Academy and a member of the drama club. Many students fear and hate him because of his looks. During the first episode, one of his classmates is murdered by a carnivore. Some of the herbivores suspect him. I'm surprised that the use of CGI didn't look awful. There have been many lately that have tried to use it, but are really difficult on the eyes. Kimetsu no Yaiba was one of the few that used it well. Gave off more of a 3D feel. It wasn't throughout the whole thing, either. This one, I think, is using it in a similar way.  

Went through more of Duolingo's Dutch course. Made it through the Society unit today. Next is Business. Managed to edit more of Alliance. Finished chapter 13, and halfway through chapter 14. I've gone through 22 pages of the ebook and 32 pages of the print version this week. 

Youtube:

Gintama:

One Piece:

Naruto:

Kimetsu no Yaiba:

11th of Av

Managed to mostly stay away from social media during Shabbos. Yay! Really felt like I recharged that way. Been cutting down the time I spend on social media today and yesterday, too. It's been nice. 

Did the candles, blessings over the grape juice (I can't have wine) and challah, and online services for both Friday night and Saturday morning. Wahoo! Same as last week. Hopefully, I can make this a habit. They actually had that Saturday morning's service, rather than the week before like last week's had. That was good. I like how they make it feel like you're actually there.

Some of the night and morning services touched on Tisha B'Av. That was a bit difficult to sit through. It started Saturday night and went until Sunday night, and is a mourning holiday. We remember atrocities that happened to us in the past. Things like the Crusades, pogroms, expulsion from Spain/France/England, the Holocaust, and more. One of the main focuses is on the destruction of the 1st and 2nd temple in Jerusalem. It's the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. People fast, study the Book of Lamentations, most Torah study is forbidden, sit on low chairs or the floor (like with shiva or the week of mourning someone), some sleep on the floor, some people refrain from greeting each other, and more. I didn't observe it, and I don't think I ever have. I usually just notice it. The rabbi that did the drash (or sermon) Friday night tied it in with the recent mass shootings. It seemed to fit too well that that stuff happened close to the holiday. It was a powerful and emotional one. 

For close to 5 hours on Sunday, I cleaned my bathroom. It really needed to be done. It was difficult with the pain of whatever's going on with me healthwise. I'm glad I was able to get so much done, though. I swept the floor, cleaned the toilet, did all of the shower area, sink, a cup and toothbrush holder, the counter, and dusted off the things on the counter as well as a little step stool. I didn't 'mop' the floor because the way I do it might have been too much for me on top of the other stuff. Unfortunately, Tasha decided to pee near the closed door and that leaked onto the floor. It was right after I swept. I was angry for a moment, but I don't know if she actually knows she's doing it. It was similar to when she peed on my closet door not long ago. She may have an issue with that. I was able to clean that up, too. It looks so nice in there now. 

I've been having an even harder time sleeping lately. Both of my arms hurt constantly. They never really let up. They get worse when I'm lying down. It's really hard to describe the pain, but it burns and feels tight, I guess. Anyways, I decided to go to bed at a more decent time last night. I got out of bed at around 6:50am or 7am, because I couldn't stand it. I don't really like getting up earlier than 8am. So, this was weird for me. Most nights I've been in bed for even less time lately. Maybe I could look at it as being able to get more things done or something? 

Got back to Duolingo's Dutch course. It had been a while. Still remembered most of it. Finished the Nature unit and started the Traffic one. 

Read the most recent chapter of Ao no (Blue) Exorcist. A lot of surprises this time. With one of them, I was glad that it didn't turn out the way I thought it would. I'm still wondering about Shiemi's role, and when will Rin come back to their present time? 

Tried drawing more of Junko. No matter how many times I tried, her cat ears weren't coming out right. I'll try again next time. Started thinking more about her hairstyle, too. 

Edited more of Alliance. I'm surprised at the mistakes I'm finding, despite going over the beginning not that long ago. I think once I catch up to the part I know is better, I'll move on to the sequel. I don't think that one will have nearly as many mistakes. 

Watched Boku no (My) Hero Academia The Movie: Futari no Hero (Two Heroes). It supposedly was also in the manga (I haven't read it), and the anime briefly hinted at it. It seems to have taken place before the last season of the anime. It was nice to see something related to the show again. The next season starts in October. Yay, soon! This one was about All Might and his old friend Dave. They met when he was a Japanese exchange student in California. In a way, it was also about them handing the torch down to their successors, Melissa (Dave's daughter who also wants to help heroes as a scientist in the future) and Deku. The action scenes were great and fast-paced. 

National Pecan Pie Day!

I love pecan pie! Pecans are one of my fave nuts (walnuts are up there, too). The only downside to pecan pie now is I can't have whole or a lot of pieces of nuts. It's somewhat of a trigger food. They irritate the scarring in my colon. Sad that I'm supposedly in remission and still have to look out for that stuff. Maybe I can have it if it's the ground up filling. It's not the same, though. I'm happy for those that can enjoy it the way it should be.

For Dutch, I did all of the Pr. Per. 2 unit and some of Food 2 in Duolingo. The Food 2 one has been funny and interesting. Quite a few idioms. One of them translated to: You are a pancake! Apparently, this means the person's an idiot. They seem to have a thing for pancakes, too. There was another one that was kind of sad: I eat and sleep with mice. Haven't found anything on that one online, but it certainly sounds like one. Peanut butter is pindakaas. That's lit. peanut cheese. I was a little puzzled and grossed out by that and looked it up. There are a couple of reasons why they refer to it as cheese. They were introduced to a peanut product in Indonesia that looks and is sliced like cheese, before they heard about the modern day version of peanut butter. Another reason is they can't call something butter or boter if it doesn't have dairy. However, doesn't cheese normally have dairy? Someone asked in a forum about calling it pindapasta or peanut paste instead. They apparently use paste to refer to something sweet. Another person asked about the word for spread or smeer, and people agreed that would have been better. There's no reason why it shouldn't have been that way. I guess peanut butter's a mystery thing there. 

Tasha decided to pee on my closet door/carpet under it a couple of days ago. She did it while standing, which was weirder. It threw me off. She doesn't usually throw up, pee, or poop in my room. Even to her it seems off limits. Once I yelled at her, she stopped, acted confused, and ran away. That makes me wonder if she's got something going on. She is the eldest at around 13 or 14 years old. Rosie's 3 years younger. She's peeing more often out of the box. I've seen 'evidence' on my bathroom floor often. I keep it closed, but it seeps in underneath the door. Anyways, I cleaned what she did to my closet floor with carpet cleaner. Ever since, she's been avoiding that area. That's a plus.

Even though I'm still in a lot of pain every day (not just in my wrists), I managed to sweep and clean my bathroom floor. It was so bad, I had to get on my hands and knees and scrub it with a sponge (that had Mister Clean) after I swept it. A mop wouldn't have helped. With the excess grime that came off, I used a towel to wipe it away. Now it looks nice and clean. I also got to cleaning the mirror. Pretty proud of myself for getting to all that. Hurt a lot afterwards, but it really needed to be done. The only reason it had been such a long time was because of my health. Hopefully, I can get the rest of the room done soon. 

Youtube:

Bungou (Literary) Stray Dogs:


Black Clover:

National Cherry Pie Day!

This holiday was yesterday. This is one of my fave pies! Cherries are one of my fave fruits, so it makes an awesome pie that way. It can be surprisingly difficult to find decent cherry pie sometimes. Sometimes there are huge sugar lumps, sometimes it's too watery, sometimes there aren't enough cherries, etc. Might be why I don't order it often at places like Shari's or feel like getting it at the markets. 

Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week ends this Saturday. Didn't do much for it. Most people know that I'm aro on places like fb, dA, and Instagram. I post aro stuff occasionally on fb. Not often for the other stuff. Oh, I post about it on here, too. I thought a little about making aro related art, but couldn't come up with anything. 

I got the referral letter for gender therapy through the mail yesterday. (Didn't see it until today.) I find the referring diagnosis both funny and insulting. I know they have to have something like it in order to cover it, but it's weird. It's: uncomfortable with one's gender. I'm not uncomfortable with my gender. I'm more uncomfortable with how society forced me into a box that doesn't fit. Seems backwards. Just because a doctor looked at me when I was born and said I was female, does not make my gender that. Would have been better if it was just gender dysphoria, but they can't do that until I get diagnosed by a therapist that I've seen. I wish things were better this way. At least, my new therapist will be covered and there'd be a small copay. However, I've noticed I haven't been billed for a copay for that 1st visit yet. Maybe they'll cover the whole thing? Doubt it. I guess I'll see. 

Most of the snow is gone. There's more snow in the forecast, though. I really hope that doesn't happen. I'm tired of seeing it. It's just been cold with a slight breeze lately. Fun when you still feel like you have a respiratory/ear thing going on. 

I'm trying to be better about eating a certain way again. Not related to the calorie thing. I'm still following that. Having more soluble fiber, and less insoluble. Insoluble fiber often aggravates my colon, since it's so scarred. That stuff scrapes across the scarring harshly. Plus, a lot of it triggers my colitis symptoms, and I think I'm flaring again. Soluble fiber is like soups, applesauce, oatmeal, cooked/peeled vegetables and some fruit, non-seedy/grainy breads, etc. Insoluble fiber is like a raw green salad, raw/unpeeled vegetables and some fruit, seeds, and more. Think the fibrous roughage type foods. Often thought of as 'healthier'. I've decided to try and stay away from most things that are nut-based. Creamy nut butters are comfort foods, but whole and pieces of nuts are triggers for me. (It's more than just insoluble with this.) So, I went to Shari's last night and their turkey dinner comes with the option of salad or soup beforehand. I got their tomato bisque. I still got a vegetable this way, and avoided the pain of the salad. The vegetables for that turkey dinner were well-cooked. That was nice, but I didn't have much of it since I wasn't really thrilled about it. I got their s'mores pie, instead of a nut based one. I like their nut ones, so that was sad. Their new hazelnut pie sounded so good, so I got it last time. It had so many nuts that 1/4 of the way in, I was feeling the effects. Partially why I decided to be better about this sort of thing. There are a lot of restaurants that have salad as a thing before the entree. I'll try to look at their soups to replace it. I don't think there are very many options for me at places like Red Lobster. We'll see. Gone back to not taking home leftovers, except for those few dishes that I know will still be good the next day/certain places. I'll try asking for smaller portions again, too. 

Studied more Korean today. I've decided to completely level out the early units (at least) one at a time. I'm close to finishing the Alphabet 2 unit. There are 5 levels to each one. Alphabet ended up having 72 parts to it in total. So much! It'll probably be close to that for the one I'm on. This will also elongate the course a bit. It's much shorter than the other courses I've gone through. I want it to last at least to the 3-month mark. I'm surprised that I'm pretty much able to read it now. I've been saying it along with the speaker, but some things look like they should be said differently. I also feel like I'm getting some form of speaking exercises this way. Still not as good as the actual speaking ones for Italian and German. They were more structured, too. 

Finished drawing Shadow's clothes today. I tried to add folds to them, but didn't want to overdo it. Hopefully it looks fine. I'll draw his shoes and start outlining it all with ink next time.

Managed to practice my clarinet, too. Haven't in a while because of that respiratory stuff. Had to take more breaths than usual. Mostly played Gershwin and some from the Solo Pieces for Advanced Clarinetists book. I was better than expected. Hopefully, I can practice again tomorrow.

Edited more of Alliance. Found some really silly mistakes. Went through 4 pages of the print version, and 3 of the ebook. The print version is smaller in size. Not bad.

Finally, got back to cleaning today. Despite still feeling sick, I felt I really needed it. I swept my bathroom floor, used a strong version of liquid plumber to clear my sink, and laundered the large rug near the counter. Beforehand, that stuff was probably making me feel sicker. I haven't done it in a while. I used to clean something every day but the weekends. Hope to get back to that. It's hard when you're always fatigued. I don't remember actually laundering that rug before. (Might have, it's just been so long I don't remember it.) I've had it for many years. I just would shake the stuff off it. Stuff like hair and cat litter. It didn't smell right for a while. It'll be nice to see it clean. With cleaning, I'll try to do little sections of rooms again each time. It worked well. If I feel that I'm going to have to do a lot, I'm a lot less motivated to do it. Plus, this takes into account the fatigue. 

Global Cat Day!

This holiday was yesterday. I love my cats. Rosie is especially attached to me. Cats are a lot more affectionate and loving than many people think. They just may express it differently than dogs. They all have different personalities, too. (Same thing with dogs.) Every time Rosie sees me, she seems so happy and excited. She also treats me like both a parent and kitten. I don't know how that's possible...She encourages me to eat more. Particularly if I haven't eaten much or have forgotten during the day. Today's National Pasta Day. I love pasta. Pretty much any kind.

I got a jewelry cleaning kit this past weekend. It comes with 2 2-sided polishing cloths (one for silver and the other for gold), a small brush, and a tray that you dunk into a tub of cleaning solution. It seems like quite an operation. Depending on the size of jewelry, you put 1 or 2 pieces in the tray. Then, dunk them for 30 seconds, rinse with lukewarm water while brushing them, and finally use one of the cloths. One side helps clean it further (helps with the tough grime), and the other side is to polish it off. I've never cleaned my jewelry before. I started wearing earrings when I was 14. (Clip-ons before that, of which I obviously don't have anymore.) So, it's been a while. Some are really awful looking. I think they were even causing infections near the holes. A few months ago, I stopped wearing them on a regular basis because they were hurting too much. I ended up with weird lumps around the openings. Anyways, I cleaned all my studs first, and they look so much shinier and feel cleaner. I did some of my bigger earrings yesterday, which took a bit more effort. They turned out much better, too. There was only one pair that I couldn't scrub off the green stuff completely. I thought the pair was fake gold, so it seems odd to me that they'd turn green. I know it oxidizes over time, and may have affected it if it were 'real'. Also, even if it were, it seemed excessively green. I hardly wore them. At least, they look better now. I have a lot more earrings to clean. It'll take a while. It's good to do, though. 

I got frustrated so much with Duolingo's Russian course that I dropped it. Even without the glitches, it wasn't structured very well. I started learning Italian Monday. I can tell already that it's set up like their German course, which was great. I'm liking it so far. There have been speaking exercises right away, unlike the Russian course. (That never had them.) I've been spot on with those. It's fun to say. It also seems rather easy right now. I know I just started, but I'm breezing through with only a couple of minor mistakes. A lot of it makes sense. I'm noticing that some Italian words that people say here in the US are mispronounced. That's been interesting. Also, interesting that a cookie is a biscotto, and cookies are biscotti. This goes for any type of cookie. Candy is caramella, which lit. is caramel. So, all candies are referred to that way. Makes sense, but might get a little confusing when specifically talking about caramel. Today, I finished the Plurals, Animals, and part of the Food 2 units. Quite a bit. After the Food 2 one, it'll be Possession. That'll be the end of the 1st section or trek. 

I made a list of possible future languages to study. It's longer than I expected. Here it is so far: Indonesian, Hindi, Korean, Spanish (I know snippets of it already), Romanian, Gaelic (not sure if it'll be Irish or Scottish), Dutch, Norwegian, Vietnamese. Each one will be about 3 months each, like I have been doing. I'll also be learning more about the cultures around them, as well. 

After going through a forum poll on AVEN, I realized I have a lot of interests. That popped up in my mind when I went to an international market downtown, too. (To me, they had so many fascinating different types of food.) I'm curious about pretty much everything, not just the languages and cultures. All different types of sciences, stories, writing, media (includes anime, manga/comics, movies, shows, etc.), food from around the world (includes snacks, cheeses, breads, etc.), math, reading, music (almost every aspect from playing it to listening, history...), history, drawing/photography, my religion, and so much more. It can be overwhelming and sometimes intimidating. I sometimes forget about them. That doesn't mean my interest in them has waned, but that there are just so many of them. I sometimes feel like I don't have the time.

I thought it'd be interesting to focus on science, history, more Judaism, reading, drawing/art (like memes to practice with), music, and more stuff during the weekends. For science, I found a list of disciplines I can go through alphabetically. (Since I wasn't sure where to start.) There are a lot. I thought depending on what it is, I'll focus a month or two on them. I'll skip some of the ones that I have no interest in. Like, the first one on the list is acarology or the study of mites. That would make my skin crawl...I might start with aceology or the study of remedies or therapeutics. Or, acoustics. There are a lot of really interesting sounding ones on the list that I don't have much knowledge of. That would be fun to expand that knowledge. I plan to look into pages on fb related to those fields, possibly find books on it, read articles, maybe see if there are apps devoted to it, and more. I might go through anthropology stuff when I get to it. That's what I was majoring in in college, but I could reacquaint myself with it or see what's new. I could do something similar with history. I want to get through my really old reading list too, and eventually add to it. For music, I could look up music-based fb pages for things like music history, clarinet, musicians, etc. I could discover and download new songs, too. 

With Judaism, I could look into Jewish philosophy (I loved it when I took a course on it) and study more of the Talmud, Mishnah, etc. I could look for more Jewish pages and apps, too. All that in addition to getting back into regular Shabbat stuff again, like going over the weekly parsha (Torah portion) and my own services. My own, since my immune system has weakened quite a bit. Even though I'm currently taking an anti-inflammatory med, lialda, it's heavy duty and still messes with my immune system. Not as much as azathioprine, at least. Anyways, I'd easily catch something if I went to one of the 2 synagogues in the area for it. Also, doesn't help that I have other 'issues' with both. I can still have the 'experience' with live-streaming services. Sometimes, I just go through on my own with an old prayer book. 

Sometime in the near future, I might upload audio vids (with text) to Youtube of playing the clarinet. Audio, because I feel weird with seeing myself on video. Although, my new computer has a webcam...It might be easier, and I might ease myself into it. Either way, hearing myself when I play them back might help me improve. It'd be nice to get some constructive criticism from people. However, I know there are a lot of trolls on there. So, we'll see with that. I don't think I've gone back to playing long enough or on a regular basis to do this yet. 

Also, I've decided to join a few trans specific forums. (Haven't registered with them yet, just found them.) I've never been a member of one. I've joined many other types of forums in the past. This might help me. If anything, I might befriend other trans people, and commiserate with people who 'get it'. AVEN has a gender section, but it's not that big. It's usually full of people questioning what they are, which is a great starter for people. It's just...not in depth or anything. The ones I'm going to join are: Susan's Place, TransPulse, Non-Binary & Genderqueer Support Forum. I think I've heard Susan's Place briefly mentioned in the local trans group. It seems to be one of the oldest. I didn't know there was a specific enby forum. That's pretty nifty. We have some specific issues that we deal with that binary trans people don't. We experience a lot of the same stuff in general, though. It's like another layer/element for us. All 3 forums are huge! The generalized trans forums both actually have a surprisingly large enby section. I found these 3 through a google search. There might be other great ones out there, especially because these were pretty much the first ones that came up. I didn't know there was such a large community online. Gives more choices. If I don't like them, for whatever reason, I can easily find others.

It feels like I've been overwhelmingly sick every few days. I'll get incredibly nauseous and have come close to passing out. Also, my guts are acting up more than usual. I'm not sure if it's just that I'm flaring worse on those days or I really am sick. There are lots of memes shared in the 2 IBD fb groups I'm in about this sort of thing. Speaking of which, I'm getting really tired of seeing extremely graphic images through them. There are a few people who take pics of themselves high, too. That's weird. I know that some people smoke marijuana or use cbd oil to help with it, but I don't need those sort of posts. A lot of them seem very religious. Particularly, Christian. They tend to be much older than me. Yet, most people are diagnosed in their late teens to early 30s. It's odd. Although, I'd say a good chunk of the members are actually parents of IBD patients who don't have it themselves. That's added a bit of drama between them and actual patients of the group. Some people think it should only be for patients, others feel grateful that there are parents/family out there that support us and it makes them feel better, others are grateful but think there should be a separate group just for them. I agree with the latter. Many join to gain knowledge, but maybe there could be a few patients that join that family group to help them instead. They have quite a few anti-vaxxers. That's dangerous for a chronic illness community. Especially, for patients with autoimmune diseases. One of them seemed anti-LGBTQ+. I feel like dropping them both, and looking for others. Maybe there are some for LGBTQ+ IBD patients? Or, Jewish groups with it? Or, even ones for people younger than 50? There's got to be some out there like that.

I finished watching Hinterland on Netflix. Tried to go back to Let's Eat. I had only watched the 1st episode before. This second one was less about food, which is what it's supposed to focus on. It was honestly boring. The hyper-female-centric aspect got to me. (It wasn't just because I'm afab and not a woman.) It had stereotypes, and wasn't like women in real life. Sure, the main character was a tough woman with an attitude, but there was something about her, too. She was better than the others. 

So, I dropped that, and went back to The Method last night. I watched a couple of episodes a long time ago. It's a Russian detective show. There's quite a lot of dark humor, which I like. The main detective goes to extremes to teach people, and seems to go an easy/sly way of catching criminals. It can be intense to watch. Things move quickly. In the episode I watched last night, he caught the criminal by talking through the criminal's reasoning, saying it was valid, serving him cake, casually talking to the girls he kidnapped, and essentially cozying up to him. He went willingly. The detective's partner/assistant, who's learning from him, had the mindset that she had to have a weapon to arrest him. She was ready to hit him with a large rock. She's actually tough and has been the only one to 'survive' longer than a day with him. All his previous partners couldn't stand his 'methods' or accidentally died. In a few of the situations so far, she actually seems stronger and smarter than him, which might be why he pleaded with her to stick with him. I think this is the 1st suspect that didn't end up dying in a brutal way. I remember the one from the 2nd episode well. The detective was trying to talk him into turning himself in. Then, he grabbed his partner and was about to slash her throat. The detective was quick on his toes, and as soon as the knife started to move, he stabbed him in the neck with a pen. It was at such a spot, he couldn't speak as the blood gushed out. Just gargled a lot. This is, of course, on a mostly empty bus. At the next bus stop the detective just tossed the guy out onto the bench as he bled to death. He did it to save his partner, but I don't think he should have gone to such lengths. Parts of the episodes are set in the future with his partner talking to other detectives about whether he's fit to work. They think he's mentally unstable. And, there was some sort of incident that we (the viewers) haven't seen yet. That's what made them start investigating him. Meanwhile, as they're talking, she keeps drinking alcohol from a flask. It looks like the same flask that he uses currently. He drinks a lot, by the way. Currently, this has flabbergasted his partner. She doesn't really drink right now. Something changes her, too. 

I decided to start a birthday fundraiser on fb. (My birthday's on November 7th.) It's the first time I've ran one on there. It was a bit difficult to narrow down. After a while, I decided on the Trevor Project. They're an organization focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQ+ youth. They have a crisis intervention lifeline (they're most known for), school workshops, educational materials/programs, online resources, advocacy, and help the parents. They recently recognized and trained their staff to help with what aces face. Not sure about aros. They might lump them together, which isn't really cool...Even if I'm both. This gained them even more 'points' with me. They want to help everyone in the community. A very worthy cause. So far, none of my friends have donated. Fb itself donates $5 to it no matter what. At least there will be that. There are 3 weeks left, so maybe that will change. After posting about it a 2nd time, a couple of people reacted. Maybe that means they'll donate later? I guess I'll see.

National Pancake Day!

Pancakes can be so diverse. One of the most interesting ones I’ve made was German spinach with hollandaise sauce. It was from an old German book. Really good, but I hadn’t thought too much about savory pancakes. (The regular kind, not something like latkes.) I love the cinnamon roll pancakes from Elmer’s. Combining both of those makes it fun. I remember my mom occasionally making pancakes with different things added each time. One time it was blueberries, another bananas and chocolate, another jam, etc. Made it interesting. She used Bisquik as the batter base. Made it easy. 

Got through the Accusative unit, and halfway through the V.Pres 1 unit for Russian. Again, still no speaking exercises. Went over more forms of certain words. They haven’t been introducing too many new words for the last couple of units. I suppose they want us to get a firm grasp of the forms and sentence structure first. It seems like they have a lot more grammar rules, although they’re a lot more blunt with things. 

Read more of Choujin Gakuen or Supernatural School. The group made it into The World’s Strongest Committee’s hidden lair. It seems like a paradise for supernaturals, but it’s the opposite. In order to live there, they must defeat higher ranked supernaturals who specialize in the same ‘genre’. If you can’t beat them you’re sent to a school further underground where they torture and train you harshly. If you don’t die from the treatment, they’ll send you back up and the cycle starts again. If you make it passed rank 12, you get to permanently live on the main floor. It’s how their leader maintains ‘order’. The group was easily detected, and over 50 residents chased them. Some of those supernaturals were severely injured by their own people. Somehow, Adam scooped up all the injured people and the group wheeled them to an abandoned building to treat them. Eventually, he turned all of them into friends. He might end up with an army by the time they reach the headquarters. The group’s main aim is to find Yoshino and have her join them. Adam decided to add that he’ll break all the rules of that ‘paradise’. Seems like he’s already doing that. 

I inked the larger and more detailed drawing of the Dark Healer’s facial tattoos. Didn’t get to scanning, editing, posting his head, the assassin, and those tattoos. 

Instead, I wanted to do a few more things for my computer. I tried to defrag, but it said I didn’t need to. By the way, it stayed on for much longer yesterday. Roughly 15 hours. It shut down sometime during 3-5am. I woke up at 3 and then 5. (Had a hard time sleeping.) It was on at 3, but off by 5. Also, it doesn’t really turn off. It suddenly goes into standby mode. I don’t have that enabled, and I might try to just tap a key on my keyboard next time to see what it’ll do. Still, it’s not supposed to do that. It seems like it’s getting better. I decided to try to run a ‘check disc’ again. It’s still running that. (It’s been several hours already.) That means there really is an issue. It doesn’t usually take long. When it finds errors, it’ll fix them itself. Hopefully, it doesn’t suddenly decide to ‘standby’ in the meantime. I didn’t get to editing/reading Alliance because of this.  

I also noticed that Tasha has found a new hiding spot in my room. Right next to the surge protector that has lots of wires coming out it. The computer is plugged into that. It’s right under the left side of my desk, so there’s a bit of an overhang for her. It must be warm down there. I have a feeling her being there might have affected it, too. She may have been moving the wires around. I decided to put a thick book in that spot (not touching any wires), so she can’t sleep there anymore. She looked hurt when she found the book there. I also scooted the desk a little further from the wall so it wasn’t right up against the plug for the surge protector. I moved the plug to another outlet, too. I used an air duster on the outlet, plug, wires, surge protector, the fans of my computer, and other parts near those in the back. Hopefully, all this will help. 

Practiced my clarinet for an hour. Mostly played klezmer tunes, but also did a few Mozart pieces. Wasn’t too bad today. I’m noticing that I’ve been thinking too hard about things, and making more mistakes because of it. I just need to relax with it. I think at some point I’m going to make audio recordings of what I play and post them to Youtube. I hate seeing myself in vids. This will not only help me improve by hearing and critiquing myself, but also others can tell me what they think. Although, I know there are a lot of trolls on there. It could be just for myself...I remember we were told to record ourselves a couple of times back in high school, and it did help. Somehow it seemed different than hearing my own voice. 

For cleaning, I did the cats’ stuff, swept my bathroom’s floor, and poured liquid plumber down the tub’s drain. I consider using Rosie’s grooming mitt as cleaning, too. She’s been really bad about cleaning around the base of her tail and butt. Seems to be getting worse. I can only do so much with the mitt. My bathroom’s floor gets dirty quickly. It’s a combo of my long hair and the cats tracking litter in. When I wash my hair, all the loose hair from the previous 3 days comes out. Most of it congregates around the drain, where I can just reach over and grab what’s there with tissues; and on the edge of the tub. The tub’s edge is easy, too. However, a good amount ends up on the floor and it piles up each time. I’m always amazed at how much litter shows up, too. Both cats like to relax in there, and sometimes want to stay in there when I use it for anything. The drain to the tub seemed a bit clogged. There wasn’t much liquid plumber left, but I think it helped. I wanted to do more, but that stuff took a while. I’ll get to more next time.

Video Games Day!

I love video games! Although, I don’t have too many. I still have my Sega Genesis, and it works great. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was my first one. I found Ecco the Dolphin one of the most challenging games for it. Never finished that one. Came close. For my PC, I often play Fate and the Sims 2. Fate is an interesting rpg/dungeon game. The Sims 2 fascinates me still. You can custom build houses, design it, decorate it, mess with how a sim looks, see what they do, etc. I got the Seasons expansion pack a couple of years ago, and it adds even more stuff to it. My fave games are actually Morrowind and Fable. I love rpg’s. Neither of them are compatible with my computer. The graphics are amazing for both, and they put a lot into the stories. You really can delve into these worlds. Hopefully, I can try more rpg’s for the PC in the future. I also liked one of the detective/escape games I played a while ago, which I can’t seem to find. I think it was Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None. I love the mystery/detective genre for pretty much anything. 

I went to Central Synagogue’s (in NYC) Rosh Hashanah services Sunday night and Monday morning online. I love how interactive it is for online members, too. They really try to make you feel like you’re actually there. Although, if you don’t watch it live, it’s not as much. There’s an fb thread for each broadcast where you can participate in it. For example, you can mention a name of someone you’re either saying the healing prayer for or a yahrzeit. You can ask questions, too. I like how with the night one they started with a greeting from people all over the world that follow it online. Some from India, Brazil, Belgium, Mexico, various places in the US, and more. Really cool. Some use it because there isn’t a synagogue near them, some are disabled, some are traveling, some are hospitalized, some have autoimmune diseases, some can’t afford tickets to their local synagogue’s, etc. Many reasons. It seems to really help people. I’ve mentioned it before, but the reasons why I go to their online HHD services are because my immune system isn’t great (since I have an autoimmune disease, the meds slow it way down), tickets are expensive, it gets super crowded, really warm because of how many people are there, it’s expected that you dress up, I don’t want to interact with certain people in either local congregation, I can decide when it starts, and it’s cozier at home. Their main rabbi made a very powerful sermon (aka drash). One of the few sermons I felt that way with. They do post her sermons afterwards in their archives. That one’s not up there yet. When it’s out, I’m thinking of sharing it on fb, and maybe even on here. It was on antisemitism, and what we need to do to combat it. I think even people who aren’t Jewish would find it interesting, at least. 

I started doing 10 sit-ups 2x a day (when I wake up and go to bed) on Monday. Last week, I managed to do 5 of them 2x a day. I didn’t miss a single one. Yay! I’m starting to feel it in my gut. It’s a tightening/stretchy type feeling. Next week, I’ll do 15 of them 2x a day. Last week amounted to 70 sit-ups altogether, this week will be 140. It seems like it’s not much at a time, but it adds up. I still hope I can get back to my 2-mile walks, even if it’s raining.  At some point, I think I’ll get a pedometer app. I’ve never really used one. Would be interesting to see how many steps I take during the day, even when I don’t do my walks. I’ll have to have my phone with me all the time. 

Got back to learning Russian today. I came close to getting the 2nd crown (level 2) for the Basics 2’s unit. Finished the Plurals unit and started the Where one. Their plurals are weird. Tripped me up a bit. After Where, there’s Animals 1. That one sounds like it’d be more interesting. 

There was finally an update up for Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler). I think there’s just too much drama at the moment. Ciel’s (the one we’ve known) identical twin (who’s a zombie...) is framing him. By the way, the Ciel we’ve known took the name from his brother. The author has been very good at not actually telling us his real name, which has pissed off some fans. The real Ciel managed to get Lizzie (his fiancee) on his side, he told everyone in the mansion that his brother has been lying to them, the police suddenly showed up, Bravat was found in their cellar with blood packs (‘evidence’ that he was behind the music hall murders), he might be arrested, the servants doubt him, the Undertaker is there (he pretty much orchestrated this whole thing), a couple of the other shinigami are there, and all the main characters from town seem to have just shown up. Stuff’s going down. They’re not letting him say anything, and Sebastian was about to attack the Undertaker. Now, he seems to be suggesting that they should escape. This is hard to read with everyone going after him. He’s already had it rough without his brother/the Undertaker doing this to him. I hope Sebastian’s not the only one on his side. It also feels like the manga might end soon. Like this is the big climax before the end. However, there hasn’t been any word about it ending and it’s popular. Maybe after this ordeal, there will be something more. I know he still hasn’t gotten his revenge. 

Only managed to edit a few pages of Alliance today. I’m finding a lot more mistakes, and taking out extra descriptions of the characters’ clothes. Instead, I’m referring to styles, so readers can use more of their imagination with it. Hopefully, the rest of it doesn’t have much to edit. 

Figured out the hairstyle for that Dark Healer. Still trying to figure out a simplified version of his facial tattoos. Once I’m done with that, I’ll ink him. Then, I’ll draw a more complex ‘closeup’ of the tattoos. 

Practiced my clarinet for an hour today. Finished playing from the generalized pieces book, Duke Ellington, Gershwin, and some of the advanced clarinet classical pieces. 

For cleaning, it was all cat stuff. However, I tend to not wash their food bowls often, and I got to those. Also, got to their water bowls. I wash those a lot more often. I just forget about their food bowls most of the time, or I feel bad about dumping a mostly full food bowl. That’s a waste of food. I’m going to try to be better about it. Their food bowls looked pretty scummy. Rosie was so happy that I did it. She kept biting me as I was washing them. Probably telling me to go faster. Tasha didn’t seem too enthused about it. 

National Cheese Pizza Day!

One of my fave pizzas! Some people think it's boring, but it's really not. There are a variety of different cheeses you can use as a mix or by themselves. There are so many different sauces you can have with it. Traditional tomato-based pizza sauce, Alfredo sauce, garlic-based, pesto, bbq sauce, etc. Plus, you can have different types of seasonings for it. It's pretty versatile. 

The new barbecue arrived this morning! It was ordered not too long ago at Lowe's. They had an open space for today and we took it. It wouldn't have fit in the car, the box was really heavy, and we'd have to assemble it ourselves if we hadn't asked them to do it. It was on sale, which made it roughly $100 cheaper than normal. Seems about the right time to get it. Even with the service charge of them assembling and moving it, it was still slightly cheaper than what the barbecue itself was originally. It's pretty cool looking. It can use gas or charcoal. Good if you want something quick, and good if you want something slow cooked. Best of both worlds. I think it has an added burner on the side, too. It'd be interesting if I tried to grill something on it in the future. I've never actually used a barbecue before. I've used my indoor portable grill that you put over the stove a couple of times. That's definitely not the same, though. There are a lot of interesting Pinterest barbecue recipes. I thought it was interesting that it was already assembled on the truck, and they just wheeled it over to the concrete patio in the backyard. Took them only a few minutes. They weren't very talkative, but that's ok. As long as they weren't rude. 

Got to studying more Russian on Duolingo. I decided to do something similar to what I did with learning Chinese. Every time I study, I'll use the first half of the time on reviewing stuff. Made it to level 2 for the first unit called Alphabet (doesn't actually go over the alphabet), level 1 of Basics 1, and level 1 of Phrases. The last half of the time, I'm moving on to new stuff. Currently I'm going through Basics 2. It won't be at level 1 until I get through all the sections for it first. After that, it's Phrases 2. I'm remembering a lot of the phrases. The alphabet is getting more familiar again. I mentioned that it seems mostly unique besides the Greek letters it borrowed. That's not quite correct. Some are, but a lot of it is borrowed from Roman letters. Some of them have just been flipped over. Like the backwards R (pronounced as ya) and backwards N (it's pronounced as i). Some may look the same as in English, but are pronounced differently. Like, e is actually ye. With the two dots over e, it's yo. P is actually a rolled r, and x is like a guttural ch. (Same as the sound in Hebrew and German.) There are 36 letters. Quite a bit more than English. There are sounds that we don't use. There are even 2 letters that are silent that indicate a hard or soft sound for the letters they're next to. Those ones are unique looking. I remember we spent a while on the alphabet, and probably a good chunk of that time was on figuring out how those silent letters were used and 'pronounced' with other letters. It's fascinating to me how much I remember of it. It has been a long time after all.

Read more of Choujin Gakuen or Supernatural Academy. Seemed like a fluff chapter. They thought Adam had fallen in love with the cyborg Yoshino. She's an enemy at the moment, and Oska is in love with him. She's extremely possessive of him. Depending on how tired she is, her eyes change. The most human-like eyes (like the 'angel' version of her in the pic) indicates that she's exhausted her powers and is weak. She's actually a demon. Her powers are based on her mood. Turned out Adam was doing something for the group to celebrate Christmas Eve. He put lights up on a big cherry tree near the school, made snowmen in the likeness of the group members, and gave them all presents. After finding out what he was doing, they all were very touched by it. It was rather sweet. After such an intense arc, it's probably good to have something like this. Now they're determined to make Yoshino join them. It's not really a school yet. Plus, Adam's vision of it seems more of a community center for the supernatural. The supernatural beings are shunned by society. A support system, a place to make friends, they can have sports groups, clubs, etc. Not really about learning things. Although, Hachi, the talking police dog (actually acts and stands up like a human), was learning how to draw katakana. They only have 5 or 6 members at the moment. 6 if you're counting the 'living' skull mask artifact that eats up a member's misery. That member, Sae, is in the pig outfit. Yoshino's behind Oska with her back turned. It's an interesting manga so far. The art style reminds me of other manga I've read. I like it since it's a bit of a different style than the mainstream ones. 

Finally got to looking at Alliance again. I had to change a couple of things in order to publish it to Smashwords. I'm also taking the time to edit the beginning. I've always thought the wording at the beginning was a bit awkward, but never seemed to make it flow better. I think I finally figured out how to do that for the first few pages. After the first 1/4 of it or so, it's good. Alliance 2 was even better, though. I'll continue editing it again next time. I might have to change the print version to reflect the changes. Then, I'll probably have to submit both versions again to Amazon, when I submit it to Smashwords. Then, it's onto A2's stuff. I'm wondering if I should actually read (and edit if needed) the entire series so far. It'd be interesting to read it back to back, and I might immerse myself more into it this way. If I do this, it's going to take longer to submit them to Smashwords. I guess that's ok. It'll be interesting to go over Sweet Endless Terror again, too. That one's like visiting multiple worlds. 

I finally got back to drawing. Started figuring out the best hairstyle for the Dark Healer. I'm basing it off of a list of drawn out hairstyle suggestions. I think there are 50 styles on it. I want the hairstyle to not hide his facial tattoos/paint. Mostly stay out of his eyes, too. Not too spiky, and preferably something different than what I have been doing for previous characters. I drew it out today and will probably tweak it a bit next time. Will probably start figuring out and draw those tattoos then as well. In the future, I also want to improve on my style for the other characters. I might try to start drawing full bodies at some point soon. 

Practiced my clarinet for an hour. Played the last doina in the Klezmer book, advanced Mozart pieces, and started the generalized (classical and folk tunes basically) solo book. Doinas can be difficult to play. There are 2 of them in that book. They're ad libbed and they have no tempo written down. They have suggestions for the time signatures, but it varies a lot. Even playing it as written is weird. There are a lot of fermatas, too. It's really however you make it. If I remember correctly, they didn't have either of those doinas on the CD it came with. They're the last pieces. They're also the longest ones in the book. I think I'm improving quite a bit.

For cleaning, I mainly just did the cat stuff. I'll try to do more of my bathroom tomorrow. There's a trans meeting tonight, so I'm going to try to take my walk before I eat dinner. We usually leave the house right afterwards. It won't feel the same, but at least I'll get it done. 

17th of Elul

Finished the Feelings unit for Chinese. On the only speaking section, I got my highest score ever. A 4.3. I mostly get in the high 3's. I think the highest score you can get is 4.5. I didn't think I would be that great this time. Some of the new words were rather difficult to pronounce. Although, one of them was kind of fun to say. That was: 越来越 or yuèláiyuè. Has a sort of rhythm to it. It means: more and more. Sometimes it's added to certain things like words related to feeling something, and adds a -er and -er to it. So, when it's with the word for 'sad', it turns into 'sadder and sadder'. The Feelings unit is the last one of their course. I'll try to catch up with the review stuff. There are 182 words/grammar points at the moment that it says I should review. Quite a lot. I might go over the characters, too. So, I'll be done with Chinese by tomorrow or the next day. Then, it'll be time to move on to a new language. Exciting! I wonder how many languages I can stuff into my head? I'm just too curious about learning this stuff.

Read more of the manga, Alive. Han's ability is to kill people than take over their body. She has all their knowledge and can blend in well. She can essentially become anyone this way. Interestingly, I think she only took over one woman, the rest were men. Makes me wonder if she felt more connected to them...She was finally caught and killed before she was able to escape to another body. There's another power user nicknamed the Poet. He can control and manipulate others just by touching them. He apparently has part of the 'heart' in him, and is stronger than he appears. He's terrified of men, though. He let the military observe and run experiments on him, as long as they locked him up. At first, no one understood why he wanted to be locked away. They thought it was in order for him to protect others. It seems more likely now that he wanted to hide. Everyone's after him now. He's supposedly a big key to everything. He mumbles a lot, and the military thought he was mentally unstable, but a lot of it makes sense to them now. He wasn't spouting nonsense. Yukie tells Taisuke that when they find the main 'heart' (the one Hiro is encased in at the bottom of the ocean) he should absorb it, and go into an 'eternal slumber' to seal it off. He's the perfect 'vessel', and she thinks it's the only option they have. Taisuke essentially is going to wait and see what happens. If it truly is the only way, he'll do it. It's getting even more interesting. 

Practiced my clarinet for an hour. I played a couple of advanced Mozart pieces, Gershwin, Duke Ellington, and some of the advanced solo classical pieces. I'm surprised how much I can fit into an hour. That's good, because I can make the 'rounds' through my books faster. Therefore, get to repeating pieces sooner, and improving on them more quickly. I can tell that I'm already improving quite a bit since I restarted practicing on a regular basis. Feels good. I might try to find and listen to some of the pieces at some point. To make sure I'm getting it more. Maybe at some point I'll post Youtube vids of me playing. I hate seeing myself on video, so it might just be the sound and some text. I can have people critique it and/or learn from me. That'll be cool. Although, Youtube might not be the best for critiques, considering there are a lot of trolls. I can critique myself through listening to it, too. I've recorded myself playing in the past, and played it back. I could pick up a lot of things from it. 

For cleaning, I did the usual cat stuff, my toilet, and the bathtub. I've decided to get back to cleaning for an hour. I probably did closer to 45 minutes, but that's not bad. I figured that my left shoulder is healed enough. I just hope I don't strain it again. That was the only thing keeping me from it. I decided to try something a little different for the tub. I normally use Comet and water, scrub it all with a sponge, then rinse with more water. It works, but it's tiring. I used Shower Scrubbing Bubbles this time. I don't know why, but I've felt reluctant about using Scrubbing Bubbles products. I let it sit for several minutes like it suggested. The smell was (and still is) nice, and the sound of the bubbles was interesting. They said you could wipe it off with a rag/towel or rinse it off. I rinsed it off using the shower head. It didn't completely lift off that way. I wiped the scummy parts with a paper towel, and it came off easily. Next time, I'll use a towel instead. Tomorrow, I plan to use the Scrubbing Bubbles on the shower walls, faucet/shower head (and other similar spots), and on the vinyl inner shower curtain. I had been wondering for a while about how I was going to clean that inner curtain. It's looking pretty scuzzy towards the bottom. I was surprised to read that Scrubbing Bubbles works on that, too. 

I was going to finally tackle that Dark Healer's head. Then, I blanked on his hairstyle...I'm noticing a rather boring pattern for most of my characters' hairstyles. I want to change that up, too. So, to get more ideas for it, I searched for styles. I came close to finding my 'vision' of him, before I got tired of looking. I'll look into it again tomorrow. I will get to drawing him again at some point.

Went back to watching D.Gray-Man. That was on hold for much longer than Kujira was. Probably a few years. I still remembered a lot of it. I'm roughly halfway through the old series. That one is 103 episodes long. That series originally aired in 2006 until 2008. It's rather old now. However, a new series that's a continuation of the old one originally aired in 2016. Quite a long time in between. I'll probably watch that after finishing the old series. It's much shorter, too. It's a surprisingly dark series. Especially with the last episode I watched last night. Someone commented with a pic of one of the most brutal/disturbing scenes as it was in the manga. It was even more so. Allen thought he saved Suman, but Suman's mind died while his body still lived. Ever the hopeful, Allen thought for sure that he'd find a way to revive his mind somehow. Suman was drooling and staring blankly, which added to it. As soon as Allen reached out to him, one of members of Noah (essentially the strongest demons) appeared behind him. He clapped, said goodbye, Suman, and Suman's upper body burst into butterflies. In the manga, it was an explosion of blood and guts everywhere. Maybe they had to censor it? The emotional rollercoaster with that was bad enough. Allen looked like he was going to mentally break at that moment. He finally 'saved' him, went through excrutiating pain with his arm, was pushed to his limits, saw townspeople die in the process, he kept telling Suman that he'd bring him back alive so he could see his family, and suddenly Suman 'explodes' like that. Feels like all that was wasted. He did get Suman's 'innocence' before the demons got it at least. Although, with one of the strongest ones showing up, and him clearly not able to fight anymore... He might lose that. 

I'm also close to finishing Isekai Shokudou or Restaurant to Another World. It's a comforting and peaceful series. The food looks amazing! A door to the restaurant appears once every Saturday in a fantasy world full of elves, fairies, demons, dragons, dwarves, royal humans, etc. The restaurant is from our world and is 'Western-style', yet they do have other cuisines. It's interesting to see the people from the other world show up, their stories, what food they order, and their reactions. At first I thought it opened up to many different worlds, but apparently it's just one other besides ours. They even showed a map of that world in the last episode I saw. 

Anjaan finally had a reincarnation themed episode. I thought there'd be one much sooner. Especially for an Indian supernatural show. It had a sad ending this time. It started with someone going to a police station with a bag of bones. Saying it was his and that they needed to find his killer. Turned out the person he thought he was the reincarnation of was real, and everything he said was true. They did figure out the killer, at least. I won't spoil the ending. 

I'm trying to be even more balanced with my nutrition today. For the last couple of days, I've been 'off' with a lot of it. I try to plan almost everything out the night beforehand. (Except for dinner usually, because that changes so often. I sometimes plan it when there are leftovers.) I might revise it throughout the next day. Turns out I'll be just 3g over for my carbs. Yay! I'm usually way over that. Protein will be close to 2/3 of what I should be getting daily. 90g is what's recommended. That's a lot better than usual. I managed to pack 38g of it into my lunch. I think that's the most I've had in one meal, and it was really filling. Not sure if I'll ever make it to 90g in one day, though. I'll keep trying. I'm low with my sugar for the day, which isn't good. Fiber is really low. I usually do better than that. I'll end up with just a little more than half of what's recommended for fat. That's unusually low for me. The interesting thing is that my macros section is a lot more balanced than I thought it would be. It's hard to balance all these things and shoot for 1400 (right in the middle of my range) calories for the day. Despite that, I'm making more of an effort with it. 

National Banana Lovers Day!

I love bananas! One of my fave fruits. I usually have one with my cereal for breakfast. They're very nutritious. 

It didn't really hit me until a couple of days ago that it's the month of Elul. I did make a post earlier this month with it in the title, but I didn't think much of it at the time. On the Jewish calendar, it's the month before Tishri. Tishri starts with Rosh Hashanah, or our New Year. It's lit. 'Head (of) the Year'. That's also the beginning of the High Holy Days (aka Days of Awe). It's a very important time for us. That ends with the end of Yom Kippur or our Day of Atonement. That's the most important holiday on the calendar. Then, later that month is Sukkot (lit. Booths), which is an 8-day long harvest-based holiday. A lot in one month. A lot of people do things to 'prepare' for it during Elul. 

I usually blow the shofar every morning during it. Except for on Shabbos (Yiddish for Shabbat). It's something my mom did with me, too. It's supposed to symbolize 'waking up' our souls for the coming holidays. It's a little thing, but I like to do it. There have been years where I completely forget about it. 

I'll probably 'attend' online services for the High Holy Days. The New York City one that I occasionally go to online is really good. Their synagogue is impressive. They also have interesting speakers in between services. There are only a couple of iffy things for me, but that's not bad. There are other congregations around the country that live-stream their services, too. It's a pretty cool thing. My immune system is still weird, I'm not comfortable (because of certain people) going to either local synagogues, tickets for going to HHD services are usually expensive, and it gets really warm and stuffy during them in person. That last one is because the synagogues are usually packed for every service. There have been years where there weren't enough seats. Everyone seems to feel that that is the time out of the whole year that they must go. Hence, why going online is probably the best option for me. I kind of feel like I'm there, too. The NYC one even has a pdf file online of their machzor or HHD prayer book. I might print that off beforehand. The last couple of years I've had to guess with some of it, since I didn't have it in front of me. It's pretty nifty that they've thought so much about their online audience. They even have a phone number you can call to hear the service translated in different languages like Spanish, German, Russian, etc. 

I managed to 'start' Shabbos like I used to last Friday night. Sang the blessings over the candles, juice, and bread. Didn't have grape juice, so I used cranberry raspberry juice. Didn't have challah, so I used the Norwegian bread that I like so much. It was a little different. Haven't done that in at least a year, I think. I also bensched after dinner. It's when we go through the Birkat Hamazon or blessings after eating. I forgot some of the melodies at first. If I do it more often, I'll remember. I also had my own service after that, using the prayer book I have at home. That was nice. I didn't do Havdalah, which is a ceremony that ends Shabbos. That's ok. I got to quite a bit. It felt good. Hopefully I can continue with Shabbos stuff again in the future. Make it a habit again. Good to do just before the HHD.

The air quality has been much better. It felt really cold a couple of days ago. The high was 60 degrees. Didn't feel like summer. We went from being in the high 80s to that...such an extreme. I'm much happier with it being chilly. Just wasn't really prepared for it. I love fall weather, and it seems like that's coming up quick. Today got up to 76, and tomorrow will get up to around the same temp. After that, it'll be in the mid to high 60s. Much easier to live with. Feels like we're finally getting a rest from the hot weather. Hopefully it won't come back until next year.

Both Alliance and Sweet Endless Terror have Select terms that end today. So, now all 3 of the ones I wanted out of Select will be by tomorrow. (The 3rd being Alliance: Dawn, which ended its term a couple of weeks ago.) I'm thinking of not turning on my computer until the beginning of next month. I want to make sure another heat wave won't hit in the meantime, and since it'll be close to a new year for me. Anyways, I won't prepare those 3 for submission to Smashwords until then. Once I do submit them, I'll have to wait a little longer for them to be approved for their Premium Catalog. Once that happens, it'll be distributed to a lot more places. It might end up being mid-September by then. 

After submitting them to Smashwords, I'll go back to writing Alliance 3. I've already forgotten most of it. I'll probably have to read what I've written already beforehand. To get back in the mindset. Can't wait to get back to it, though. Last year I ended up staying away from writing in July and August, too. I think this time I actually stopped in June. I've only stopped this year and the previous one because of the heat and smoke. It's not good for my desktop computer, and when it's on it generates quite a bit of heat. It's in my bedroom, so it ends up making it more difficult to sleep when it's hot out. I have more ideas for books, too. Will be nice to finally get to them after I finish A3. Not sure how long A3 will end up being.

I've made it to the last unit, titled Feelings, for Chinese. I'm almost through their course...It's been fascinating to me. I might still catch up with the review part after I finish it. Then, I'll move on to another language. I'm close to that. I'm still debating whether I want to take the Duolingo Russian course or something else. I'm curious as to how much I remember from taking Russian in college. I loved it. Duolingo's course will probably be better for it than it was for Chinese. I'm also tempted to go back to French, which I took all of the classes that were available in high school. Or, maybe on conversational Hebrew? Or, Italian? So many choices.

Started reading the manga, Code Breaker. I'm unsure if I like it. Despite it being a long first chapter, there's not much to the story yet. Not sure if I like the main characters either. With some manga, I instantly like it after the first chapter. I'll give it a couple more, and if I feel the same way I'll drop it. I still have quite a list of interesting looking manga that I want to read. There's bound to be some duds. This one also has an anime adaptation. I haven't seen it. 

Practiced my clarinet for an hour today. I played a lot of an advanced Mozart book, and a miscellaneous solo one. I tried to push myself with some of the most difficult Mozart pieces in that book, and ended up frustrated at times. I wasn't too bad, but what made it frustrating was more of what was written. Like, many were in half time, or something like 6/8. Oh, and changing time signatures multiple times in one piece...Some were agonizingly slow or seemingly impossibly fast. The one piece that he made specifically for clarinets, is especially frustrating. I think Mozart loved to mess with people. Some of it's fun to play, though. 

For cleaning, I got to the cat stuff, did laundry, took the trash and recycling bins in, swept my bathroom floor, and cleaned my bathroom mirror. More than I thought I would get to. Rosie wasn't too happy with me cleaning the bathroom. I had to lightly tap her on the butt with the broom in order for her to leave my bathroom. Couldn't sweep the floor with a cat there. She decided to lay up against the closed bathroom door, so whenever I came out she was right there. She didn't like when I sprayed the mirror with Windex, too. She got really nervous and turned up her face. She usually doesn't get 'involved' like this when I clean. 

For drawing, I looked up pics of eye/cheek makeup or tattoos. I have a vision of what the Dark Healer's facial art design is, but I have a hard time imagining it exactly when I go to draw it out. Some of the ones I found were very close. Many of them were feminine looking. I want it more masculine, because he's a man. There was a cool masculine looking facial tribal tattoo. I might use a combo of that and others. I'll draw a semi-simple one for his face, since the face is rather small. Then, I'll draw another more complex version by itself. A closeup, essentially. In my head, he has quite a lot of tattoos. A couple on his face, on his arms, chest, etc. Interestingly in my mind, I imagine Doina, who's a Light Healer, has tattoos as well, but they're more hidden. It's not like I demonized tattoos (Dark Healers may be considered 'evil') or glorified them. They're cool and intricate. 

Yesterday I went back to watching Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau or Children of the Whales. I put it on hold a year ago, because there were more interesting shows that came out at the time. It had a very slow start, and after watching 2 episodes yesterday, it didn't progress much. I'm halfway through it now, so at least there isn't much more. The art is rather unique, and even though the story has been super slow, it's been interesting. Interesting enough to keep going with it. It seems like they wanted to turn this into something bigger than it ended up being. At least, so far. Maybe it picks up at this point. 

So many things happened with Gintama. It was intense. They may have killed off a lot of beloved characters. Everyone kept fighting to save Earth, even after being slashed up. Sadaharu seemed like he faded out of existence at one point. He's a huge alien dog that's Odd Jobs' pet. He came back somehow, though. It seems like they defeated Utsuro at the end. However, the spaceship (I think it's called Heaven's Cradle), made it through Earth's atmosphere and crashed. It's huge. There was a bright light and then the ending credits rolled. What a way to end the episode! Luckily, there was a segment after the credits. Apparently, it was 2 years into the future. It was almost like how the first episode of the entire series started. Except Shinpachi was playing the same role as Gintoki. It was kind of like an inside joke. I hope they didn't kill off Gintoki, and that it's not really like they showed in that last bit. They did mention in the preview that we'll find out who died and what exactly happened after the crash. They also did mention that it'll be 2 years into the future. It feels like it ended already. There's no say on how many episodes this last season will be, but even if it's the usual 12 for seasonal anime, we still have at least a few left. I have a feeling they'd make more than that. So what else is left? (Besides finding out who survived and how things are now.) 

27th of Tammuz

Managed to get back to writing Alliance 3. Wrote quite a bit this time. Yay! Still feels like there's a lot more to this one. Not sure how long it'll be. 

Went through the Clothing unit for Chinese. There were more measure words for clothing. This time the ones for usually thin clothing (like skirts) and the others (like coats) were different. I find it interesting that when they say something is good/beautiful/tasty, the ending corresponds to what they're referring to. It's like they're lit. saying good food, good clothes, good drinks, etc. So, it's very specific to certain things. The pic for the Chinese word for long had a woman with impressive super long hair blowing in the wind. It seemed a funny and exaggerated one. The speaking exercises weren't too bad. I was surprised that I pronounced the new words correctly most of the time. Some seemed a bit difficult. The sentences are getting longer, too. The next unit is Appearance.

Read more of the manga, Alive. They ended up being captured by the military, but Taisuke managed to free them with his powers. Technically, his power isn't just based on burning things, but destroying and regenerating cells. Interesting how much thought the creator put into their powers. They destroyed the truck that was carrying the rock or 'Heart of Akuro'. That also has Hiro inside it. Taisuke awakened it somehow and it started shooting and killing the soldiers around it. Taisuke and his group managed to escape by car. However, the military was able to transport it anyways to a ship. The captain thinks none of the power users will attack in the middle of the ocean and that it's safe. Turns out at least one of them, this time on Katsumata's side, made it on. 

For cleaning, I did it for half the time that I normally plan for. Just did the cat stuff and a little more of the laundry. Again, I still have some pain in my shoulder and didn't want to stress it too much. It might end up being like that for the rest of the week. It is getting better, though. The new mattress protector felt nice last night. It's really soft. Felt like an actual bed this way. I think I slept a little better. Still not as well as it should be, but it's a huge plus. 

For drawing, I inked the assassin. Then, started drawing the Dark Healer that Shadow talked to. Again, he had no name in the first book. Still doesn't, but he's a very important character. Also, if I remember correctly, he has a face tattoo/decoration. That'll be cool and something different to draw. He has tattoos on the rest of his body, too. That won't be visible, though. 

Watched 2 episodes of Million Yen Women on Netflix last night. (They're only about 20 minutes each.) I remember why I was turned off of this one after watching the first episode a while back. The ones I watched this time were better, but not good enough for me to keep going with it. Too much sex and referring to it. The main character has no self confidence. While I understand the women might be there to help him with that, he just looks pathetic. The women are strong willed and really tough, and I give them credit for that. They're very interesting characters and it does keep you guessing on who they actually are. The premise is that someone made an arrangement where 6 women will stay with a writer for a certain amount of time. He'll get a million yen each month, I think. The women also get paid a certain amount. It's more than he gets. He can't ask them questions or the deal's off. Another 'rule' is that everyone has to eat dinner together with no distractions like smart phones. One of them is a high schooler, another is a movie star, another has some sort of incurable disease that she'll die from soon (she hasn't told anyone yet), another is a nudist at home and runs a brothel, and I can't remember much of the others. The nudist is very open with things and kickass. She doesn't care what anyone thinks. She's pretty cool. Although, she tends to be very sexual at times. The writer's father killed his mother, her lover, and a policeman who walked in on the scene. The only one he's regretful for is the policeman's murder. After his father went to jail, the writer has refused to kill off any of his characters in his books. He's constantly getting death threats, too. I have a feeling the person who set up everything is trying to spark some creativity with the writer. He could write about his experiences with the women. He seems too dense to get that, though. 

The next Netflix one I might try tonight is Mob Psycho 100. They apparently made a live-action show of the anime of the same name. I love Mob Psycho. I don't know how that would carry over to a live-action. A lot of it was very artsy and trippy. The animation style, especially during fight scenes, is unique. Very difficult to get the same effect this way. There will be a 2nd season of the anime in the future, too. There's just no start date yet for that. Same thing with One Punch Man, which comes from the same mangaka (creator). I think I like that one a little more. They both have a similar type of humor.

Watched the first One Piece movie last night. It was short for a movie. Roughly a little more than 2 episodes. I had forgotten how much the animation has changed. I like it more now, but on the other hand I think they put more work into it in the past. This movie came out in 2000. They only had Luffy, Zoro, Nami, and Usopp at the time. Their crew has grown quite a bit since then. I might watch more of their movies in the future. I just didn't have anything 'scheduled' yet for yesterday. I might start watching the other things on my 'plan to watch' list for those empty slots in my 'schedule'. There's also one more anime coming out this season that I want to watch. I like to watch something different each day of the week with anime. Plus, the new stuff only comes out once a week. I tend to watch only an hour's worth, which is about 3 episodes. For instance, today I'll watch this week's episode of Black Clover, One Piece, and the finale of the 2nd season of Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan (The Disastrous Life of Kusuo Saiki). I don't want Saiki to end. Maybe they'll be back. 

Youtube:

Since I've caught up with One Piece, I decided to look at amv's related to it. These will give people a taste of what the series is like. It's a lot darker than it seems. In fact, I think it's one of the darkest anime I've watched. Every character has had a traumatic past. There's a lot of humor and goofiness, too.

26th of Tammuz

This is my wallpaper for July. It's another Dear manga wallpaper I made a while ago. I didn't actually create the art. I just stretched the image big enough to make a wallpaper out of it. There's another manga named Dear that's sports related. This one's by Cocoa Fujiwara, and is fantasy-based. Quite different. These are all the main characters. Subaru is so tall! (Compared to the others.) Taller than I remembered when I was reading it. Hopefully, someday I'll finish reading it. I only stopped because the rest of the chapters weren't available. I liked it a lot. The story was unique, and each character was interesting. This seemed like a nice summery one. 

The weather calendar's main pic's of a shelf cloud in Kansas with a storm behind it during a sunset. They captured a bolt of lightning from the storm. It's cool looking. The smaller pics are of tornado-producing supercell clouds, that were also in Kansas. They seem pretty hung up on tornadoes. There are plenty of other weather-related phenomena they could capture. 

The month-long holidays for July are: National Grilling Month, National Hot Dog Month, National Ice Cream Month, National Blueberries Month, and National Honey Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. Lots of good food ones. Also, locally, it's like we have another Pride month. 2 months is a bit much...

My shoulder is a lot better than it was. The heating pad and Vicodin seemed to have helped quite a bit. It's still not 100%, though. It aches every so often throughout the day. I'll probably have to continue to use the heating pad for a little longer. Went for the entire day yesterday and today without taking Vicodin. Yay! I really didn't like how it was making me feel. My stomach was worse on it, too. Had more headaches than usual. So, I was determined to stop even if I was still in a lot of pain. I don't understand how people can get addicted to it. It just makes me feel sicker the longer I'm on it. I also was taking Benefiber for a few days while I was taking Vicodin. I might have had too much each day with it. It made my intestines hurt more than they already were. It helped with the constipation I had with the painkillers. I might try taking it once a day in the future, just to get more fiber. I'm always low on it. So, even if I didn't have colitis it might still be a good thing. I'll see how that goes. I managed to get to most things today, despite the shoulder still slightly hurting and my gut pain getting worse. 

I tried to eat lighter yesterday to help a bit. Haven't eaten much different today, I just have to figure something plain/bland for dinner again. Yesterday, I had a salmon onigiri (rice ball) and some vegetable spring rolls. They were pretty bland enough, and still really tasty. Maybe I'll have something with the rest of the spring rolls? Today, I've also gone back to being strict with tracking my calories (keeping to my 1200-1600 daily range) and such. I didn't last week, because I didn't really care and I was in a lot more pain. 

Went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond this weekend. I hadn't been to one in a very long time. I tend to forget what's actually there. There was a ton of kitchen/cooking stuff. Things that most places locally don't have. It was interesting to look at it all. My old mattress protector was ripped to shreds enough that I had to throw it out a couple of years ago. I had forgotten what it was called at the time, and kept telling myself I'll look for it online. It's difficult to sleep without it. Considering, it usually has some padding. It's felt like I've been sleeping on the floor or something ever since I threw the old one out. It even feels weird to the touch with my other linens on it. Anyways, they had them there. At first, I thought what I threw out was a mattress pad. That seemed too thick, though. I looked at the mattress protectors, and they seemed to be the right thing. I also looked at the info they had on mattress protectors and pads. They of course had the twin mattress protectors just barely within my reach. Almost had to jump for one of them. The one I picked supposedly keeps the bed cool, is hypoallergenic, and has other interesting features. When I took it out of its packaging, it felt nice and soft. I decided to wash it before I used it. Today was not only a laundry day, but also a day I usually launder my bed stuff. I do it every other week, along with my eye mask. Although, the mask has to be washed by hand. So, it worked out that way. Maybe I'll sleep better with the new mattress protector. At least, it'll be more normal.

I didn't get to writing more of Alliance 3 today. However, I did think more about the promos and my other books. I might lower the paperbacks' prices when the promos start on the 14th. That way I can have something close to a promo for them. It won't be the same as having Amazon promote the ebooks through Select, but it'll be something. Their Select program is only for the ebooks. I wish they had one for paperbacks. Maybe they will in the future. It's still kind of a new thing for them. Someone told me yesterday that they just got a copy of the cookbook and can't wait to use it. That's great! 

Went through the Adjectives and Adverbs unit for Chinese. I'm slowly getting better with the pronunciation. I get confused sometimes with the up and down tones. Had many 'perfect' sentences this time with speaking. They turn the color of the mispronounced words (sometimes parts of words) red when you get them wrong. Green is when you get them right. If they're all green, you get a quick 'perfect!'. I'm glad they highlight them this way. You know your weaknesses more. For the rest of it I've been doing really well. Even with the grammar and sentence structure. I'm getting better with quickly learning new characters, too. The next unit is Clothing. That should be interesting. 

Kuroshitsuji or Black Butler's manga had an update. It's put out monthly, although sometimes there's nothing for a couple of months. The story just keeps getting darker. I wonder what Undertaker's true relationship was to the Phantomhives. Yes, we know that he was in love with Ciel's grandmother. However, it seems much deeper than that. The Undertaker said he needed the bloodline to continue. Why? And, he seemed like bringing back 'our' Ciel's dead identical twin brother was only part of his plan. (We still don't know the true name of the one we've known as Ciel throughout the series. It's his dead brother's name.) I'm thinking he's planning to bring back Vincent. He's their father. A couple of the other shinigami showed up at the end of this chapter. After reading this one, more questions have sprung up.

I didn't much extra cleaning besides the laundry and cat stuff. I don't want to stress my shoulder too much. I did get to drawing today. Drew the assassin's head/bust from the first book of Alliance. She had no name in that book, she does have one now, but considering it's in the book I'm currently writing, I won't mention it yet. She's also like a bodyguard for one of the Dark Healers. She'll protect him, and kill anyone he tells her to. 

Started watching Satsuriku no Tenshi (Angels of Death or Slaughter) a couple of days ago. It's apparently based on a horror game. I like it so far. Puts more of a spin on it personally when the main character has the same name as me. They have quite a few things written out in English on the walls, too. It seems to be some sort of survival game. Rachel had witnessed a massacre, and went to see a therapist about it. At some point, she woke up from the session and walked out of the room. It seemed very different compared to the hospital before. She heard an announcement in an elevator that she was the next sacrifice. Each floor has a killer, and she has to get through them all. She met Isaac on one of the levels. He has a huge scythe and seems to be blood thirsty. He came close to killing her. She made it to another elevator just in time. On that floor, she met her therapist again. Turned out he was another 'killer' in the game. Only he seemed more interested in ripping out her eyes. After Isaac travels to that level and kills the therapist, he's branded as a sacrifice, too. He was not supposed to travel to another level. It ended with her wanting him to kill her. So, apparently they team up. I'm unsure how that will go. I wonder if it's real or something she made up. I guess that's part of it. I like psychological/horror/survival anime. Actually, pretty much any medium that has that combo. Hopefully, they can pull it off well. 

Close to finishing Shiyan Pin Jiating (Creatures Family Days). It's only been available in Chinese dub with English subs. It's supposed to be a Chinese and Japanese collab anyways. Very interesting to hear the Chinese while learning it this way. They even have Chinese subs above the English subs. So, I can try to read along with that at the same time. Although, that gets a bit difficult and dizzying. This is a much darker anime than it seemed at first. 

Started watching Hataraku Saibou or Cells at Work on Saturday. This one's interesting. It's about the world of cells in our bodies. The main characters are a red blood cell (rbc) and a white blood cell (wbc). I don't think they have actual names, but numbers with what type of cell they are. Like, Red Blood Cell 200. I think people that don't have any previous knowledge of biology won't truly get everything. They can see how things work, though. I like that they anthropomorphized all of them, and they've made it seem like an actual world. The white blood cells are hilarious to watch when they've found an invader. They immediately swarm it and scream things like: "Die, germs, die!" Then, they attack until the invaders become nothing but a bloody mess. It's rather violent, but that goes along with what actually happens. It's fitting that the red blood cells are mail people. They're constantly delivering things. It was the first day for the main rbc, and she was having a hard time finding where to go. She needed to go to the lungs. The platelets are cute little kids. The T-cells are even more crazy about killing things than the white blood cells. The main wbc met the rbc just after attacking a bacteria. He helped her find the lungs, and saved her when one of the bacteria found its way into the rbc's package. They got rid of him by stuffing him in a rocket and setting it off as a sneeze. It's also interesting to watch this from the perspective of having an autoimmune disease.

Started watching the 2nd season of Gintama.: Shirogane no Tamashii-hen (Gintama.: Silver Soul Arc) yesterday. I didn't realize it'd be out so soon. I get notifications from MyAnimeList of anime on my 'plan to watch' list that's about to premiere. It was nice to see. Gintama is my fave, and this is it's last season. (It's the 2nd half of the last arc.) So, it's bittersweet for me. The first episode didn't disappoint. I wonder how it's all going to end. 

Finished watching Samurai Gourmet on Netflix. It was cute. He slowly realized that you should enjoy your food however way you want. Also, that you should try to be adventurous, but old favorites are good to have as well. I like how they dealt with foreigners in one of the last episodes. They were at a yakiniku place, and the chef seemed to really hate foreigners. The retiree on the other hand thought that since they traveled so far, they should be treated with utmost respect. The fact they decided to come to Japan instead of somewhere else was something to be proud of. The foreigners in this one didn't understand Japanese, and the retiree helped them with figuring out the menu. The chef lectured the foreigners in Japanese when they started sprinkling red pepper flakes on the meat. The retiree was scared to confront the chef, but another man slightly older than him stepped in. He made the chef realize that what's important is that the customer should be able to eat their food however they want. They'll enjoy it more that way. The chef apologized and the waitress told them they can have something on the house for their troubles. The retiree tried it with some red pepper flakes, and said it made the meat even better. Next, I'll watch Million Yen Women on Netflix. I watched at least the first episode a while back. It's a weird one, and I'm unsure if I'll finish it.