learning

OHAI

Posted on June 22, 2020 by K. M. Herkes

It me again.

There’s lots of life processing in my head, but not much turning itself into wordable form. Until that clog loosens, I’m gonna keep on keeping on.

It’s my birthday month, and that means I can write what I want to.

And what I want to post are smaller, mundane chunks of words, randomly tossed into the blog instead of letting them be ground fine between the stones of Facebook or Twitter. Maybe if I do this more often I’ll be able to drag the hot heavy ideas off the back burner where they’ve been simmering and turn them into a singular stew.

And maybe I’ve been watching too many Stephen Colbert “Quarantinewhile” segments. ANYway. For this first short segment: consumer product observations!

I’m not the kind of person who gushes and gets giddy over housekeeping, but I’ve come across two cleaning products in the last little while that just impress the bajeebers out of me.

First, Dawn dish spray. I grabbed it because it smelled good, the bottle was COBALT BLUE, and also I’m all about washing dishes under running water instead of putting my hands into a full sink of dirty soak water.

Review: It’s shockingly good. Takes off gunk FAST & rinses clean. You won’t catch me replacing all my regular sink-washing dish soap with it any time soon, but for dishes that basically need a quick scrub it’s downright phenomenal.

Second, Oxi-clean powder. (not to be confused with Iocaine powder.) I’d been eying this stuff for years, but couldn’t get past my revulsion for the infomercial pitches. On my last Target run, I found little tubs of it all over the laundry section, as if they were staging a takeover and pushing out all other products. (reality check says: the store rearranged inventory to fill all the shelves where disinfectant wipes used to live.)

ANYway. So I caved and grabbed a little tub. Turns out despite all the awful hype and snake-oil sleaze talk about secret chemical processes, it’s actually a super-effective detergent booster and cleaning agent. The commercials were just so busy trumpeting its marketing malarkey that they forgot to call it by the name most of us Olds would recognize.

It’s washing soda. FFS. No wonder I haven’t been able to find washing soda in forever. And being what it is, it does exactly what the commercials promise. Washing soda is a dirt-busting, grease-lifting weapon that’s been in the laundry arsenal so long my great-grandmother would know it. Now it’s all dressed up in new fancy-ass clothes, that’s all.

Better living through chemistry, oh, yeah.

So…I think that’s that for now. Until later, friends!

Latest in New House Adventures

Posted on March 20, 2020 by K. M. Herkes

I promised a more cheerful post. This is as close as it gets.

The header photo comes from my yard, where spring is springing on. Happy little crocus flower, reminding me the world keeps turning and the best thing to do is keep on keeping on. (Which for a crocus means fighting frost and dodging bunny teeth. In my case it means practicing kindness, taking ALL the precautions, & looking for new ways to help others.)

Working on fiction is hard when the real timeline is doing the whole “truth stranger than fiction” thing. Not much to share on that front.

But! There was progress on the basement renovation before things slowed to a cautious COVID-19 related crawl. Let’s peek in on that, shall we?

First, the whatnot room. I don’t have “before” pics of this zone from the real estate listing or from move-in. It’s hard to take a good pic of an unlighted room filled with paint-splashed chunky workbenches, low-hanging pipery, gnarly wiring, and beadboard walls enclosing some sealed plumbing leftover from a 1930’s vintage throne-style toilet.

Yeah. So the first image I had of this area was taken after extensive demo & cleanup, and it was none too appealing even then.

And now

The window has a deep frame just begging me to put plants there, and there are LIGHTS, and VENTILATION, and in the background on the right? That’s going to be a half bath soon. We’ll go from 1 toilet to 3 when it’s complete, and let me tell you, I am giddy about that.

See, the 1st floor bathroom has also been out of commission during the construction–to get the drains & pipes upgraded. Well worth it, and I don’t regret the decision, but…um…let’s just say that now that Spouseman & I are both home all day long every day, I am really looking forward to having multiple toilets again.

Anyway. Onward to the mechanicals area.

the electricals corner before

This was another hard zone to get “before” pics of, due to lack of lighting and general ick factor. Now it’s all brightly lit and open, with a window that works, and an upgraded circuit breaker box behind that swank wood panel. Washer & dryer are scheduled to arrive Tuesday, so I’m hoping things stay below the Dire Catastrophe level & delivery goes as planned.

(Small digression to point out this hope is grounded in wanting PEOPLE TO NOT BE DYING, not about me not being inconvenienced by a deadly fucking pandemic. Does that sound grumpy? Well, I might be a little bit raw from CONSTANTLY seeing my name associated with a zillion tweets & memes about being insensitive, selfish, pushy, whiny, entitled, tone-deaf, arrogant, clueless, nasty, and generally awful. Maybe. But I’ll rant about that in another post. THIS MY HAPPY POST.)

ANYway. Back from digression to take a look at the main hall. The part of the basement people see first, coming downstairs. It kinda sets the whole tone.

outer basement 1 — Yeah. That sets a tone.

The floors here are under protective covers right now while the trim & moldings go in, but it’s fresh & bright and so easy to see how comfy & cozy it will be when it’s done.

And it SMELLS good. (happy, happy sigh.)

Okay. that’s more than enough for one update. As usual, I’m now questioning whether I should even post it, (see above re:self-doubts on the topics of selfishness & tone-deaf bragging etc) But I AM gonna post it, and here’s why: when I get scared & overwhelmed, being reminded of good things happening anywhere lifts my spirits.

Things are hard right now for so many people, in so many ways, and this a big happy in my life. So if even one other person feels the way I do about collecting other-happies, that makes sharing (inflicting?) this on the world worthwhile. Right?

I’ll just have to hope so.

Until later, friends.

Writer Reading Report: No Longer On Hiatus

Posted on March 6, 2020March 5, 2020 by K. M. Herkes

I read a lot. I have Opinions. Why haven’t I been sharing?

Therein lies a tale.

Here’s the story of why I haven’t been inflicting my reading list or any other media adventures on people for…about a year now? Yeah.

I stopped doing it when the sharing started hurting. That happened after I received one too many remarks meant (I think, in retrospect) as compliments. Things like “I could never read that much/you are always reading/how can you get anything else done/So many? I’m lucky I read a book a year/ how do you find the time?” Etc, etc.

I find admiration and envy difficult to parse through. A lot of it comes down to tone, and when I even suspect I’ve made someone else feel inadequate or envious, I have an unavoidable reaction.

I stop doing it. Sometimes forever.

Yeah. I know. Not rational, not proportional, but also…not negotiable.

I was taught many lessons at a young age about the awfulness of flaunting, bragging, or acting superior. So when I get a sense that anyone thinks I’m being a self-absorbed egotistical, conceited asshole about (whatever it is) I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut. Or the head. Or both.

It really, physically hurts. And every time I think about the activity, it hurts just as badly, all over again. If I shut up and go away & don’t DO whatever-it-is, it stops hurting.

So. That’s why posts about Stuff I do when I’m not writing comes and goes in fits & starts, and why one of my original blog staples — lists of tedious daily life accomplishments–rarely get posted at all now. (It was making someone feel guilty about not getting as much done, and that sucked all the joy out of it.)

So far, people still universally like hearing about the new house & baking things. That’s why those topics have taken over the blog.

Here’s a happy new twist.

Not-so-long ago I learned that not everyone processes idle remarks as kick- in- the- gut personal condemnations. My kind of reaction to perceived negative feedback is called “rejection sensitivity dysphoria,” and it skips along hand-in-hand with sky-high energy levels, an interest-based attention span, and sensory sensitivities. It’s a real thing.

It isn’t me being thin-skinned, overreacting or childish, it’s just wiring at work.

IT’S SO FUN TO BE ME.

(another fun fact: pair up boundless physical energy with chronic pain/fatigue and you get a result that looks like perfectly normal from average viewing distance! It’s nothing like normal from the inside, where I can feel exhausted even while doing a lot and hurt all the time but can neglect self care because (squirrel!) means I forget to notice. The pairing goes a long way towards explaining how I’ve flown under the diagnostic radar all these years.)

BUT I DIGRESS. As fucking usual.

ANYway. It’s been long enough that the achy, scrapey bruised pain about reading lists has dulled to a bearable level, and also I want to use this new self-awareness of my reactions to break free of the rejection cycle in the future.

So I’ll be giving it yet another try. Next post, I’ll catch up on What I’ve Been Reading Since New Year. It’ll be synopsis edition, but IT WILL HAPPEN.

Until later!

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