overload

 well, i made a thing: short-fuse at the ball (originally titled "prosthetic cinderella"). it's far from perfect (and required a bit of interference with gimp), but i'm nonetheless very pleased with the result ^_^

i did it more as an experiment with notebooklm than anything else, but i'm very happy to be able to share the story in a fun way!

...

i'm still feeling overwhelmed with the move, there's still a fair amount of admin to get through, and at the same time i'm fighting with social security about unemployment, and dealing with a painfully incompatible mattress, and the temporary fix for the balcony door really does seem to be rather temporary, and gd and i have to go to the ministry of the interior in person while she's really struggling with stomach issues, and i have to take care of the authorization for mr smear's next allergy test, and our apartment is still in a state of chaos and gd's pressuring me (gently?) to build the furniture so she can put things away...

mr smear apologized again to his friend today and apparently things are fine. i hope they are. i hope he's learned from this, though i'm very pleased that he knew to try and fix things without us having to intervene... but he's a bit concerned that he's turning into his parents :P

work today was bizarre. it's become very clear that nobody knows what's going on when it comes to architecture and data flows, but everything i've been told has been said to me with authority. i explained to my client team's lead that it seems to be better if i just don't take anyone's word for anything and do my own research...

halfway through the day i took the train (and walked) to my employer's office, where i was presented with a cute lego representation of myself. i spent half an hour first talking to a lawyer about my mother's aliyah case (he blew my mind asking if she was a messianic jew, and suggesting that from the sounds of things the jewish agency might actually be playing games), and then having an argument with someone from social security (apparently, i was about to be paid more than i thought for january and she stopped it, which is good because it could have caused me real trouble).

then we settled in for a workshop creating an AI agent, which was quite interesting in spite of my fatigue, and a birthday celebration for which i got my own vegan cinnamon cake and vegan cream.

[goddammit, the neighbors' super cute dog is on their balcony barking non-stop]

i didn't have time to go to the mattress store, so i returned home for dinner. after reading some more of the colour of magic to mr smear, and "completing" the comic, and posting this... i'm just about ready to try sleeping again. hopefully i'll manage tonight.

kombat

 yesterday was pretty horrible. gd and i had a couple of fights during the day, the first one triggered by me losing patience with mr smear and telling them i needed my space for the afternoon. the second one because later, i was trying to get to the bottom of something she'd said earlier.

we took a break from fighting to go to our friends for dinner, and we all had a really nice evening. everything was great until we got home, and then things got explosive and continued to be full shit until about 2am.

today was spent... recovering? i dunno if that's quite right, we both still feel horrible. i spent a large part of the day continuing to read nightwood, and napping, but we did watch the mortal kombat movie this afternoon and i really enjoyed how much fun mr smear was having. later, we took the bike and blades for a ride... there was a bit of an emotional breakdown triggered by his brakes not responding fast enough, but we moved on and i introduced him to charades (it appears we've never played that with him) and the rest of the ride was really nice.

dinner was pleasant in spite of no screens (he took too long in the shower), i read some more of the neverending story to him and gd at bedtime, and gd and i watched a psychotic episode and a half of the rehearsal reality tv show which is unbearably disturbing.

fairy tales

 it was a hot walk, even if it was less hot than the previous days. we walked past a store and picked him up a malt beer, which made his day (up until that point), and eventually got to a coffee shop where i ordered a vegan dessert that was so over-the-top that it really made his day, and i read a brothers grimm story (the golden goose).

then we walked back home, where i picked up a (free) copy of joseph jacobs' english fairy tales and read jack the giant-killer while he played minecraft. then it was dinner time, and a smooth evening including more of the neverending story at bedtime.

after he went to sleep, i synced with my boss about tomorrow, which (confusingly to me) looks like it's going to be spread over a couple of days, so my plans for taking a day off this week are clearly on hold. i've spent the rest of the evening just trying to wear myself out with youtube and slay the spire in order to get some sleep, but i'm not feeling too confident right now.

i probably shouldn't have had that late iced coffee...