AUG 03

2026

Monday: though I did not wake up early, it was a productive day, and I made a large dent in the groups I needed to get through for the week. On lunch, I indulged with a walk to the nearest halal cart, though the intermittent sprinkles turned to a regular downpour on my walk back home. Once Julie returned, we headed to Stogie Joe's for Quizzo. Julie surprised me by ordering a red pie for herself, though she needed me to take a piece to help her get through it (and still leave two slices for tomorrow's lunch). In exchange, she got one of my slices of stromboli. We were in the main room by a table full of kids celebrating a birthday; we weren't there fifteen minutes before one of the kids drops their plate and makes a huge clatter. All the usual servers were away, but I did recognize the bartender as a former waitress we haven't seen in a couple of years. Our performance was not stellar. On the way home, Julie complained that she's losing what little empathy and patience she once had, possibly thanks to her feelings of burnout, but at least we've got a vacation soon. I tried to go to bed early so I'd have time to get some work in tomorrow morning, which meant that I didn't write this update until the following night.

2025

Sunday: started with a drive to Taco Bell and the grocery store, but we had another baseball game in the evening, so around 4, we took the subway south so we could walk to that Chickie's/Pete's sports bar. Julie and I were wearing Detroit hats, so a guy in line for the cheesesteak place down there joked we were far from home. It wasn't long before Denise and Emily showed up, and we split fries, both crab and sweet potatoes. I ordered a melt for dinner, but I probably should have just stuck with a regular cheeseburger. We took the... crab taxi?... to the stadium, and our seats this time were at the very top, between third base and home. As seems to be the case whenever I attend a game, Detroit lost again, and we split up to return home. I meant to continue playing (or even working on) my current interactive fiction projects, but instead I spent tonight doing dailies in UmaMusume and Hearthstone, while watching random FFXIV trailer reactions before posting this update.

2024

Saturday: back at work, and this cold is still causing me no end of coughing and sinus congestion. Afterwards, I took out the litter, and we finished the leftover goulash for dinner. We played Civ VI while rewatching the first season of Bojack Horseman.

IS THE COUGH STILL HERE? YES

2023

Thursday: had an unpleasant call at work today. I'm hoping we can resolve the issue without too much more pain. Julie made casserole with the last of the sausage we'd stockpiled, so the menu should change in the weeks to come. In other news, I've almost finished watching the FFXIV videos that I was momentarily fascinated by, though I also took some time to playtest a work of interactive fiction another author is submitting to the competition this year. Stayed up way too late doing that, so tonight's update is a short one.

2022

Wednesday: no entries have yet been recorded for this date.

2021

Tuesday: today I made another new phone list at work. The department shrank a bit: we lost Adam, Andres, Hiram, and Tracy. Zack and Philomena traded places: she went back to being a non-digital CSR, while he rejoined digital. Darcy (DT), Natalie (NMN), and Riley (GP) were all added as new Digital CSRs. Stephanie V also received the promotion to join Melisa and Michelle as department managers, and a position in "Development and Quality" was created for Anna, who was joining us from one of the branches, I think. I would distribute the next list on September 27, 2021.

I don't know that it was necessarily today, but this was around the time that I told Julie that, if she wanted to try living anywhere besides Wichita, we should just start looking for jobs in the city of her choice, as we're not getting any younger. She started looking for work in Philadelphia. (Once she found a job, we'd move her out next April, and then I'd continue working in Wichita unti I found something as well and could finish cleaning out our apartment by the end of our lease.)