What did I do?

📝 I’d never heard of week notes until I joined the Fediverse. My Fedi friends must just be more cool than my old Twitter friends. Anyway, I love reading them and I fancied starting my own, but I felt like I was encroaching on some thing or some culture that wasn’t mine. But on Saturday morning, inspired by James Arthur Cattell’s notes on week 42 of 2024, I realised I was being daft.

👩‍💻 I spent Saturday repurposing cariad.fyi from my defunct Obsidian Publish site and building this blog on GitHub.

🌔 I finally made time to fit the blackout blind I bought a couple of weeks ago! Directly behind our bedroom is a very wide, very tall, very white wall, with a very bright floodlight. During the summer, the owner turns it off around 11pm. In the winter though, it’s on ’til morning and it illuminates our bedroom as brightly as daylight. I’m certain I could talk to the council about it, but I live in a stabby part of town and it feels safer out there with the light burning away. I’d rather be resilient to it than destroy it, so I got a black sheet and Velcro strips and it works a bloody treat!

Where did I go?

🧻 My landlord wanted to pop in and fix the extractor fan in the bathroom on Tuesday. He couldn’t give 24 hours’ notice nor could he guarantee the time he’d want to get in, so I thought I’d go out for the day rather than sweat over him walking in on me pissing.

🚫 I don’t like going out. I’m deeply agoraphobic. Earlier this year, I pushed myself to go to a local farmers’ market, and I ended up having a panic attack, passing out and cracking a rib. It’s not social anxiety. It’s just that being outside feels like walking upside-down under a overhang, and the sky is a long way to fall up into.

❤️ Alex, though, loves fresh air and sunlight, and I wish we could spend more time out there together. So I committed, and booked us a couple of tickets for the Dartmoor Line to visit Okehampton Castle. And it was lovely! I nearly blacked out a few times, but I managed to bottle it up and get home safe.

🧐 Dartmoor’s less than £10 away. Dartmoor’s beautiful. I really should push myself to go more often.

What did I eat?

🚚 I bloody love Huel shakes! I’m trying and struggling to lose weight, and those shakes really help – but getting them delivered is a pain in the bum. My post and packages always end up distributed across the street, and it’s a ballache to get refunds. I’ve got a local Amazon Locker for the things I buy from Bezos, but I can’t reliably get anything to my front door.

🧋 After Huel, the next-best thing that I can get my hands on is Holland & Barrett’s Nu26. It’s dirt cheap on subscription, and I can pick it up free from my local shop. Earlier this year, though, they ran out of stock. I tried replacing it with SlimFast shakes, but they’re miserable. They taste fine, but they’re utterly unsubstantial. Anyway – joyful news! On Friday I finally finished my last tub of the stuff, and as of Saturday I’m back on the Nu26. I’m finally full.

🥗 Oh, and on Tuesday I had a chicken caesar salad at Brothers in Okehampton. It was delicious! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such fat anchovies! But…

What did I drink?

🤢 …but they have the weirdest oat milk for their coffee. I love oat milk. I drink it every day at home. I know what it’s supposed to look like. I know what it’s supposed to taste like. And I know it’s not supposed to be gray. And I know it’s not supposed to taste like dish water. 10/10 for food, but negative a million for drinks.

🍺 On Friday night, Alex brought themselves home a can of Beavertown Heavy Gravity; a 6.5% IPA. They were ambivalent about it, but crikey I loved it! I normally just smash myself with gin, and I’d forgotten how interesting and refreshing beer can be.

What did I learn?

⛓️ I passed the University at Buffalo’s Blockchain specialisation! I really enjoyed it, and I’ve genuinely got a deeper appreciation for the technology now.

🦀 I started Duke University’s Rust specialisation, but it sucked and I boned out. The first module was dedicated to promoting GitHub Codespaces (felt like an ad) and GitHub Copilot (and why would I need that if the course was going to teach me?). I cancelled and started reading The Book instead.

I listened to…

🎮 Voting opened on the Spooky Tune Jam 2024, so I spent a morning listening to and rating everyone. I’m not going to share my favourites in public, but they’re all bloody gorgeous – and I’m grateful for all the nice comments on my submission!

🎵 Laura Jane Grace & The Mississippi Medicals’ M*A*S*H is a banger with a big fat content warning for suicide.

👻 The music video for Professor Elemental’s Tales of Wrong is spooky as balls.

I watched…

🪐 I’ve given up on For All Mankind. It got a bit too silly for me.

😈 I renewed my Amazon Prime subscription to get Hazbin Hotel. We… uh… we watched Masquerade. It’s incredible.

🛳️ For lighter entertainment, we’ve started the second season of Cruising with Susan Calman. I hate cruising. I love Susan. The show rides that bloody line.

🏳️‍⚧️ I’m a sucker for OneTopic’s trans memes.

🎮 I don’t think I’d love Thank Goodness You’re Here, but the ending song is a glorious shot at the social expectations on point-and-click heroes.

🚀 Avery Brooks is cool.

I’m perturbed by…

📈 I applied for a dozen more jobs. I received a dozen more rejections. I’m scared. I’d pay real money for someone to tell me what’s wrong with my CV.

💥 My noisy neighbours.

I need to remember…

☑️ …to sweat less over the words and enjoy the spirit of week-noting.

☑️ …to push myself to go outside more often.

☑️ …to stop dwelling on how existentially terrifying the job hunt is.

☑️ …to try more IPAs.