2024-03-31: extra day off

in the midst of a long weekend: tomorrow's easter monday, and i'm very lucky i get that off too. one of my coworkers is bringing his younger dog over: we're going to have a puppy play-date with his dog and my younger one. my older one might join in depending on how things go; my younger dog is a sweetheart but reactive around other dogs, and while he has made friends with some, it's a pretty rare thing. so we'll reintroduce them slowly in the backyard (they've met once before), and once they're roaming around, sniffing at the vole-trails in the grass, i'll make us some coffee to warm up. it's not cold, but it's not warm, either.

i've got a few other plans for tomorrow. since wednesday we've had people over, so i've been busy most of the time, playing games (our thing to do as a group), making meals, running errands, fixing tea & coffee, &c. i have a huge pile of reading to do, and "huge" doesn't do it justice; dozens of books (easily), many thousands of pages. maybe i can finish something? i started steven heighton's "every lost country" a few nights ago, and i've had it for at least a year, probably more, picked up for $2 at a charity bookfair at the nearby mall. it's good so far. maybe tonight i can put in another 50 pages, maybe tomorrow i can finish it. &, &, i need to practice fiddle, practice guitar, do some writing. all these have slipped as i've started or focused on other projects the last few weeks. i say i don't beat myself as long as i'm working on something, but that's not entirely true. i need to get back into these, get some real music into muscle memory. i have a strange little poem i wrote late last week, stored as a photo of a page of a notebook in my phone. i need to get this written down properly as well.

this year is something of anniversary year for me, in a lot of ways. i've been keeping an eye open, keeping an ear out, in case there's any interest, any sudden memory. i've always been pretty quiet; i don't reach out, don't add people on social media (too worried about being weird, seen as a creep, whatever you want to call it), but i always add back. say hi to old friends, even if (many) years have passed. a lot of them will be happy you remembered.

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