8/8/21: Books and Pants and Stuff

Slow day. I have found some places to purchase coffee, so I can now read more and nap less. After finishing Teach Like a Pirate and a couple assorted chapters of some other stuff (I find the best way to read a lot is to read a bunch of different books simultaneously, that way you never get bored and stop reading altogether [this works best for nonfiction. Reading more than one novel at a time gets confusing, but reading multiple nonfiction books leads to connections that you otherwise wouldn’t have made]. Not including Teach Like a Pirate, I’m in the middle of six books right now, which is more than usual, but I have had a lot of free time lately…) I read an interesting blog/essay about game theory and why Bad Stuff can continue to exist even when we can all agree it’s bad (*this description is a disservice, I swear). It was precisely the kind of essay I wish I could write. I’ll link it below.

The water in my bathroom stopped working again. My host dad (I’m like 80% sure his name is Gerardo, but it could be Geraldo, I can’t quite tell) told me how to fix it the other day, but I hadn’t brushed up on my plumbing vocab yet so the problem remains.

Also, my pants ripped yesterday, which is a problem. Most people here wear long pants (usually jeans) despite the fact that it’s like 90 degrees. I think it’s so the bugs can’t bite. I’m not trying to stand out any more than I already do, so I’ve taken to wearing shorts only in the house and putting on long pants before I go out, but the pair I tore yesterday was the lightest pair I had. This does provide a good opportunity to put my needlework skills to the test; however, I am very much still an amateur. If I fuck up, I blame you, Grandma.

I forgot to wear sunscreen today and burned my arms and neck pretty badly. There’s also some nice heat rash going on. Live and learn and suffer the consequences I guess.

A final note: I’ve fallen into the (probably bad) habit of checking the readership numbers of this blog daily. One day in particular had a surprisingly high number of visitors. This is heartwarming and exciting, and I’m thankful for all of you, but also a little uncomfortable, because on slower days like today it makes me feel like I’m not being interesting enough. I want the thoughts expressed here to remain authentic (I find the experience of shouting into the abyss rather cathartic, regardless of whether or not the abyss shouts back) but there’s also Stupid Rat Brain who gets a dopamine hit every time number goes up. And I recognize my day-to-day lifestyle isn’t always Great Content, but I nonetheless want to post daily, because I think it’s the best way for me to improve my writing. I don’t yet have a snappy resolution to this contradiction, but in the meantime, I’ll keep yall updated on my books and pants and stuff. Every day. Enjoy.

Here’s the article I said I’d link to. It’s long (and at times a bit technical), but not nearly as long as the scroll bar makes it look; the bottom 2/3 of the page is just comments: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/