capes are always in fashion

My daughter now has a 1960s Burberry cape which was once her great-grandmother's. It is FANTASTIC and its construction shows why some clothes can be worth spending real money on; it hangs perfectly. I want her to go out and do an entire Autumnal Tartan photo shoot with it now but I don't think I'll be able to get her on board. She also wasn't keen on the idea of wearing it as Lady Macduff (because apparently there will be fake blood involved) and it doesn't really work with a backpack, so she's just going to need to find other excuses to walk around campus looking fabulous.

we all have our hobbies

 I thought this post was cute. She's just describing a day that was satisfying for her in pretty boring ways.

headache

I have had a headache for three weeks now, and it comes with fatigue and emotional side effects which are even more miserable. I've tried various migraine meds, antihistamines, sinus rinses and compresses, neck/ jaw massage and stretches, eating more carbs, and eating more in general, with no effect. Next week I'll see a doctor (though that seems like a pointless exercise). Frustratingly I'd actually been feeling a bit better before this, with less post-exertional malaise than usual, and was tentatively hopeful that I may be seeing the first bit of improvement in the past ten years (or at least staving off progression).

Plant foods, week of 10/5/2025

 

Tahini 

Chocolate

Lemon 

Cauliflower 

Chick peas

Chia

Flaxseed

Pears 

Soy

Mushrooms 

Spinach 

Tomato

Peanut butter 

Potato 

Red pepper

Onion

Almond

Psyllium

Raspberry 

Grapes

Beet greens

Oats

Pumpkin seeds

Blueberry 

Corn

Prune

Pinto beans

Lettuce

Green pepper 

Bulghur

Lentil

New acronym dropped: Self Contained Underwater Burglary Apparatus

A SCUBA diver broke into a Disney fake paddleboat restaurant and stole $20K.

https://www.jalopnik.com/1970971/scuba-thief-steals-thousands-floating-disney/

and the wine-dark sea

I almost always see the sunrise; insomnia wakes me up painfully early and I make a point of opening my window shades so I can watch it. When I was 11, I was in a weird gifted and talented program in which we read The Odyssey, and I still think of "rosy-fingered Dawn" whenever I see a good sunrise. (Homer repeated several of the same phrases over and over, and that one stuck with me.) Apparently in a more recent translation, Emily Wilson switches it up more to better appeal to an audience who is reading rather than listening to the story. I don't remember which translation we read in 1986 and have considered checking out hers, but let's face it, I'm no longer that into classics.

Memento is an extreme but...

This philosopher suggests recording everything, primarily to assist with our faulty memory. I hate this idea even though my memory issues drive me nuts. Honestly it can be better for us to create our senses of self based on our memories rather than objective facts, because thinking of ourselves as behaving the way we wish we did rather than how we actually did may help us become that person instead of wallowing in shame. Some things we forget for a reason; they're unimportant or traumatic, and revisiting them helps nobody. Most healthy relationships would likely not be improved by re-listening to disagreements. And in the same way many people curate their social media images, some would start living for the recording instead of for themselves, and that would be a tragedy.

I used a five-year diary for a while, with one page for the same date of each year. I ended up throwing it out partway through the second year... reviewing my notes on what had happened the previous year was just too depressing. Not every year is that bad, but plenty are, and I enjoy letting them go as much as possible. (I also threw away all my writing from my teen years, and never regretted it.)