rinsemiddlebliss
"At the mercy of the geography"
90-day performance review for a senior cat
Her job is cat
by AK Krajewska
Good evening, Shinjuku. In a few days, you will reach your 3-month mark in this household, and so I would like to take this time to deliver your formal 90-day performance evaluation. As a cat, you may not be aware of the passage of time in terms of calendar days. You also don't know how to read,... Continue reading (1268 words)
Why does the mall feel so bad?
Travels in hyporeality
by AK Krajewska
Normally when a post has a question in the title, you might expect there will be an answer inside, so let me just manage your expectation right here in this first run on sentence (I think this is a run on sentence): there will be no answer. Or, if there is an answer, it will only happen by... Continue reading (984 words)
Plein air in New England
by AK Krajewska
I've been on a trip to New England and tried to do a bit of watercolor painting. I always try to do too much on trips, even more so when I'm visiting family, so what's also happening in each of these paintings is three other people patiently indulging me when I said I'd like to sit down and paint... Continue reading (699 words)
Fancy Friday bread and cheese
by AK Krajewska
Every Friday[1], Paul and I have bread and cheese for dinner. The tradition started when I used to go to pillow fort yoga[2] after work on Fridays, and Paul would meet me... Continue reading (488 words)
What counts as reading?
Reading rainbow trout entrails
by AK Krajewska
I was forbidden to learn to read before I went to school, lest I get too bored in the initial years, become habituated to goofing off, and fail to develop good study habits. This, the family legend goes, was the fate of my uncle, who, being the youngest child, learned to read from his siblings... Continue reading (2489 words)
Unscheduled maintenance
by AK Krajewska
I finished a big project at work and immediately came down with a cold. I overworked the last two weeks and I think I was more vulnerable to picking up an illness as a result. I haven't overworked to this level in years and had to relearn my lesson, I guess. Schedule time for maintenance or the... Continue reading (764 words)
North Lake raccoons
by AK Krajewska
Isn't this where we saw a bunch of raccoons in 2020, one of those times it was really hot and we came to park? And there were way too many people who didn't get the concept of social distancing, which maybe didn't matter so much outdoors anyway but we didn't know that then, and the raccoons were... Continue reading (812 words)
Seeking the Big Otter
by AK Krajewska
One thing I've missed since I moved from Twitter to Mastodon is a certain strain of hyperintellectual shitposting. And, it's not like I could go back to Twitter and read it. Most of those people aren't posting anymore. There are plenty of very sincere Marxists on Mastodon, and many lovely anarchists, but people who were brain-poisoned in graduate school into finding critical theory hilarious seemed to be rare. I mean, they're always rare, but I could usually find them. Continue reading (970 words)
Women's weightlifting at the Paris Olympics
In which I nerd out about the vicarious thrill of moving iron off the floor
by AK Krajewska
I love women's weightlifting at the Olympics. In a few seconds of incredible intensity, a human being does something that might be impossible. Because she's pushing the limits of what she can do, the athlete herself often doesn't know if it'll happen and I get to participate in that vicarious thrill of one person's struggle against the iron weight, against her own physical and psychological limits. Continue reading (1309 words)
Self expression in painting
The allure of emotional watercolor
by AK Krajewska
Unlike when I write poetry, when I draw or paint, I don't care all that much about the outcome or the effect of the work on others. I enjoy the process and sometimes I enjoy the outcome. It's possible I can be so free and easy about it because I'm not very skilled, so I can't actually control the outcome anyway. Continue reading (1729 words)
