rowyn

April 1, 2025

It's a new month and I get to do my month-in-review, yay!

I haven't started it yet, even though it's 9PM and I look forward to it. I have done Other Things instead.

I woke at 8AM and did my usual "breakfast and goof off" until 10:30AM, then went back to bed. At 12:30PM, I got up again and made lunch. Shortly after I finished lunch, Telnar called. Usually when he calls, I either go for a walk outside or pace about my house for some minimal exercise. (Telnar typically also walks during our calls, either on his treadmill or outside). Since I still needed to gather stuff for donation, I did that instead. I filled two 25-gallon bags with stuff from Lut's closet and decided that was enough work and started pacing instead. Then went back to pack one more bag before we finished the call. We usually talk for an hour or so.

It's the last day of Sprint in Time Princess, which is All Consumption Day, when every kind of spending from the last four days counts, plus "society contribution". My society has more contribution than it can ever use (I should know, I run it), so this last category is just "dump a bunch of resources into the void in return for Sprint rewards." The other spending categories, you get something for expending resources in addition to the sprint rewards, so they're more fun. On the other hand, the resources expended for society contrib are ones that I have very little use for outside of sprint, so it's not all bad.

I spent a chunk of time on both my accounts (but especially the alt because no QoL improvements) doing dailies and giving companion gifts, because that has the best expenditure-to-reward ratio of the various possible activities.

I also read through two chapters of The Jewel-Strewn Night.

While I waited for water to boil for dinner, I put today's bags of clothing in the car. It looks like I'll be making multiple trips to the thrift store just because there's more than one carload of stuff. Lyric went outside since the door was open for long enough for her to decide she wanted outside. Also she likes having me outside with her so she often goes outside if I do. Even though she usually wants to stay outside after I've gone back inside.

During Coffee's stream, I wrote about my day so far. I also decided that I would Finally Post the last several days of entries, but I wanted to read through them first. So I've been alternating reading with writing this and also with finishing up some things in Time Princess. It has not been efficient, is the thing.

Now that I'm current on today, I'll start the month-in-review entry.

April 2

I woke up around 5:30AM to a ferocious thunderstorm that'd probably started much earlier. I knew the storm was coming because the power company had emailed about their preparations for it. I stayed awake for an hour or so, petting the cat and reading on my phone, before finally getting back to sleep.

I woke again a little before 8AM, briefly contemplated watching V's stream, and went back to sleep instead. At 8:45AM, I woke from a bad dream where I was GMing a game I hadn't finished reading and one player had gone "oh we don't need to worry about that because [thing] about [group]" and I went "of course, [group] [thing], right, haha" (I should've read all the fluff). And then I dozed off while I was supposed to be GMing and slept for 12 hours and it was 8PM and the day was OVER oh NO.

Okay, subconcious, I'll get up now. Sheesh.

I watched the rest of Veo's stream while getting out of bed and eating breakfast and what not. At 11AM, I decided to work on clearing out stuff some more. I filled one bag with trash and another bag with shoes to donate, then went to the bank to discuss payment options. Single-transaction ACHs are either not a thing my bank does anymore or the front line at my branch didn't know how to do them (not clear which), so I just paid for a cashier's check.

While clearing out Lut's things, I'd found a bunch of change -- mostly pennies -- so I turned that into bills while I was at the bank anyway. I wonder if people who carry money in their pocket are more averse to carrying and spending change than people who use a purse? I always spend my change, instead of dumping it somewhere for it to grow into a big pile that's too unwieldy to spend. It's been fifteen -ish years since I last converted change into bills, and that time was also a bottle of change Lut had been feeding.

I asked the teller to verify that my debit card was still functional and about changing the PIN. Because I worked for a bank for 27 years, I have long since gotten out of the habit of using my debit card. If I needed to get cash, I got up from my desk and walked to the teller line. I didn't even have a debit card for much of that time, because what was the point when I needed it so seldom that I couldn't remember the PIN. Even after I stopped working in the branch in 2020, I still didn't use my debit card, although I'd gotten a new one and set the PIN to something I thought I'd remember, just in case. The branch is less than a mile from my house, so going to the teller line for transactions was still easy.

So I hadn't used my card in years. The teller said I could change the PIN at the teller line, but I figured I should check to see if I remembered it first. So when I left the lobby, I went to the ATM.

The ATM was out of order.

Okay then. The lobby had several customers in it when I left, so I drove to the thrift store next and donate seven 25-gallon bags: almost all clothing and shoes, plus a few miscellaneous items. A staffer brought out a shopping cart for me and helped me load it. Very quick, especially since I didn't need a receipt.

Then I went back to the bank and changed the PIN, possibly to the same thing it was already, who knows? I figured that was easier than finding a working ATM to check the PIN at.

Afterwards, I went home and fed myself and Lyric lunch. Lyric had no interest in going out today because even though the storm had passed, it was still heckin' wimdy and also noisy, both from road work on the nearby street and a leafblower in the neighbor's yard. Lyric loves outside but hates both wind and noise, so she wasn't even poking her nose outside while the door was open, like she normally does.

After lunch, I did a bit of editing on The Jewel-Strewn Night, played some Time Princess, and called my local friend to let him know my move date. I decided to take a nap around 4:00PM.

I woke from my nap around 6:30PM, got up to make dinner, then ate and goofed around until Coffee's stream started. I finished up my March-in-review entry and posted it, then grudgingly wrote a little of The Secret Dragon over the next two hours. After Coffee's stream, I finished up dailies in Time Princess, and chatted a little on Discord. Just before midnight, I put in a bit more work on the portrait of Raeku.

Somewhere in here, I also emailed Google Fiber about cancelling my service.

Then more Time Princess until a bit before 1AM, when I went to bed. Did a little reading in bed and fell asleep around 1:30AM.

Thursday, April 3

I woke around 8AM, then lazed in bed for an hour, reading Fediverse and playing Time Princess. At 9AM, I made breakfast and played Race for the Galaxy. Around 10AM, I decided I should try to be vaguely productive, and started writing up yesterday in lieu of being actually productive.

It's now 11:30AM. I was about to take a nap when I realized that I was almost done with one of the daily quests in 4thewords, and if I finish it before noon, I can take another copy of it just before midnight (if I remember). So I wrote another handful of words to finish the quest. Now: nap time!

The rest of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday is a blur now (it's Monday as I write this.) These are the days when I cleared out excess stuff from my closet. I still haven't emptied Lut's -- I donated most of the clothing but there's a bunch of boxes of unknown stuff, probably ancient graphics cards/motherboards/other electronics parts. But I know I'm not bringing anything from his closet, and I am bringing everything from mine. So pruning out my own stuff was more of a priority.

It was also much slower, because I wanted to sort through it. I donated or threw away (depending on condition) anything that I didn't like or that didn't fit. I had so much cosplay stuff that I bought 20+ years and 40+ lbs ago, and I finally disposed of it, huzzah. I also had three giant stuffed animals and I pruned that down to one. (My inner child always wanted a giant stuffed animal, so I bought her some when I found them cheap at Costco 20 years ago. She gets to keep one but the others can hopefully find a good home with an actual child.)

I heard back from GFiber on Thursday that I could cancel by email and specifiy a date. So I emailed them on Friday with the bits of information needed. I have to return the router and the extender by presenting a QR code at FedEx. Haven't gotten the QR code yet, but I can do this at any FedEx. So I will probably just pack the router and extender in my luggage (and have wifi until the last minute!), then ship them back from Durham.

On Saturday, I finished pruning my closet and dropped off everything at the thrift store. I wanted to be sure to do it on Saturday because I'd have a friend in the car on Sunday and I didn't want it full of donations still.

Sunday, April 6

I started on the kitchen today, filling one bin with stuff to donate before I ran out of steam. I had plans to see my local friend at 2PM. I did a little bit of editing as well, before I headed out.

We went for food at my favorite local pizza chain, then I took him back to my house for a bit. Several years ago, I'd told him he could store some of his stuff in my garage. Months ago, when I told him I was moving and he'd need to get his stuff, he said, "Oh, I got it all already."

And I went, "...really? Because there's a lot of stuff in the garage that I didn't put there."

He's been by the house a few times since, but we'd never remembered to have him look at the garage. So I brought him to it today. He poked at one box that was full of broken reclining loveseat parts (mine; I'd had the repair guy drop it in there and forgotten it, because he couldn't do haulaway). And then looked at a few more boxes. "Oh crap. This is my stuff."

Me: "...well, you've done without it for years, so you can't need it too badly?"

Him: "But now that I remember it exists, I want it back."

I feel kind of bad because he has a tiny house and way too much stuff for it, plus a storage locker already that's full. And I'm leaving Saturday. But he has the option of leaving it, and I tried to tell him months ago that he still had stuff here. So I don't feel too bad.

We went back to his house and spent several hours talking and entertaining ourselves. I had a diet Coke at the pizza place and wne to the bathroom like 6 times in 6 hours, which is why I do not normally drink caffeinated beverages. I didn't look at my phone, or even think about my phone, until my friend finally had to use the bathroom. I felt like this was a socializing triumph on his part and told him so. "Usually I would sneak off to the bathroom at least once to check my phone, but I didn't bring it with me any of the times. Because I didn't think about it."

I got home around 11PM and hurried through all my pre-bedtime stuff, including putting the trash cart and recycling cart on the curb. The trash cart was exactly full! That was nice: maximizing free disposal. I got to sleep around my usual time, 1AM.

Monday, April 7

The move grows inevitably closer, and it becomes correspondingly more difficult to do things. Today, I loaded two plastic bins with kitchen stuff to donate and put them in the car, then stopped to load other donation items in the dishwasher and run it. (These were things I'd put away years ago, and dust and whatnot had accreted on some of it since.)

At 2PM, I met with the realtor and signed documents for her. I am leaving a bunch of stuff in the house because I don't have space for it in my parents' house, and I ran out of time/energy to get rid of all of it. She thinks the house will sell faster/for more if it's cleared out, so she's gonna hire a service to haul everything away after I leave and bill me for it, which is fine with me. She left the seller's disclosure and lead disclosure with me to fill out alone, because they're long.

I completed those after she left, and then poked tiredly at games and the web for a bit, before remembering I could just nap. So I took a nap from 5:30PM-7:00PM.

There's this theory that you should nap for 30 minutes or less at a time, but I think this is one of those "true for the average person but you personally may not be average" things, because I generally nap for around 2 hours and prefer it that way. Short naps don't feel restful at all. I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep last night; I woke at 7AM and couldn't get back to sleep.

I made dinner after I got up, put in laundry, and did some editing on The Jewel-Strewn Night when Coffee started streaming at 8PM. A little after 9PM, I switched over laundry, then opened 4thewords in the hopes of getting some fiction-writing done.

Fiction-writing has not happened, and it's after 11PM now. So probably not happening. But I will go look at the file.

All right, I have written a token amount of The Secret Dragon. Good enough.