I'm still sick

It's halloween night. The city of Charlottesville has cancelled trick or treating. I'm sick. I'm on my phone. I ate a pretzel roll and olive oil for dinner then fell asleep and woke up two hours later and didn't know what day it was. I haven't run in 3 days. It's a low.

But things could be a lot worse. And I know I'm gonna sleep well tonight and feel a lot better and I've got a nice long weekend. I'll get back on track starting tomorrow. So there's nothing to be sad about it. Here I am. Accepting the world.

Today a 5th grader had one of those inflatable dinosaur costumes and he was worried because he thought and 8th grader was going to treat him like a punching bag so another kid in 5th grade goes "I'll be your bodyguard. I'll be in front because I'm thick." This kid is wearing fake nerd glasses and a hotdog costume. And then the littlest boy in the whole school goes, "No! I'll protect him. my people are scottish and they throw logs for sport!" And he's not in a costume at all.

So the two of them start arguing back and forth, the hotdog repeating that he is the thickest and the small boy repeating that the Scottish throw logs.

It's a beautiful holiday.

I'm fully sick

Oh man. I'm fully congested, feeling crummy sick. Mouth breathing. Little bit of a cough. This cold came on Monday night and now it is in full swing. So excited to not sleep very much and wake up early for a full day of teaching and afterschool. But that's alright because I have a long weekend for afterschool so all I have to do is survive tomorrow and then I can rest up and be my self by next week. That's pretty good.

I didn't run yesterday or today so maybe my goal of running a great mile repeat session on Friday will have to be scrapped. I did finish my card game though. I'm pretty excited about it. I think it could be fun. It's called That Card Game with Dice, because I'm bad at coming up with names. I think it's something elementary/middle school me might have really enjoyed. You draw cards and then they do different things based on what number you roll on the die. You try to beat the other person. It's fun. I'm trying to sell it to the kids at afterschool. I'll organize tournaments with prizes so they have to play. My favorite part is that it's really customizable and a deck is only 10 cards so there's a low barrier for contributing.

Had a minor hiccup in the design today after I printed the first batch and realized that the pictures were too small and the text was too fuzzy. So tonight I went through and redesigned the cards to make the pictures bigger and moved a lot of text to a separate card that can be referenced during play.

I made a deck where you just try to hit the other person really hard. I made a deck where you try to mess with the cards and the dice and control what's happening. I made a deck where the cards work together and boost each other. I made a deck where you poison the other person and they build up a bunch of passive damage. And I made a deck where you're trying to sacrifice your own cards and if you succeed then you summon Lord Smorgasbord who wins the game for you. I had some ideas for other decks and one off cards because I think you could eventually mix and match different types.

I don't know. It's a lot of work. I'm kinda tired at looking at a Google Doc and editing. I wanna draw now. I should go to bed but my nose is so stuffed up I know I won't sleep well. Oh well. At least it's gonna rain all day tomorrow. Happy Halloween. :D

what was I doing at this time 4 years ago?

wow, this apparently

https://tunderscores.blogspot.com/2015/10/another-series.html

I was quite the go-getter.

Then this is from 10/28/2012

Rain like big pigs sucking on the sidewalk,
trying to get to the library and the bus has broken down.
Wet skin, wet bones, wet earth and wet toes,
feeling for a pack of upturned lips.

Maybe we should all groan along inside,
relax the grey away until we're dusted over.
Little baby peacock wants to jump in puddles,
found a broken guitar in my toilet ring.

Muttered puddles break down towered piles
of thought and sand and sticks.
A soggy mash of ideas that stain, run, tear and wrinkle.
Thinking about trying on another person's brain.

If it all shuts down when the sky turns brown
hand in hand with the sound of my...mumbling.
Buy a cat and name him Charlie, something cute.
Sleep in and make pancakes.

We can wait until it's dry to play again.

This has been fun to look at.

I think I'm still productive. Just in a different way now. More drawing and making things than putting things on the blog.

I do like creative writing.

Oh! I was feeling kinda sick today and I didn't do much playing with the kids but when we were in the gym I went over to a corner and sat down on a wedge mat and rested and it was cool how the kids seemed to gravitate towards the area I was in. Most of them weren't engaging with me directly at all but you could tell that they were definitely drawn to where I was. And the contrast was made clear by my new coworker who was also sitting but completely by herself on the other side of the gym. It starts to sound mean or like bragging but I thought it was cool afterwards to imagine myself sitting in the gym while the music was playing and the kids just kinda dancing and frolicking all around on the mats all over the floor. Being able to be part of it and in tune with it just by sitting there. That was cool. That was really cool.

goals for this week

-print out copies of the new new card game

-rock climb at least once

-run a great mile repeat session on Friday

-get paid

my favorite interaction today

at the end of the day in afterschool we were in the gym and I see a 4th grade girl off to the side with her hand over her face, clearly looking upset. I walked over and she was crying a little bit which was odd because like 5 minutes before we were in the gym I'd just been talking to her and she seemed fine, a little off and weird and she made an off-hand comment about people not liking her but far from crying. Anyway, I sat down next to her and just tried to be there for her if she needed me. I asked a few more times if anything had happened and she never gave an answer other than shaking her head but something felt right about sitting next to her like that. Like it was okay that she was sad and she wasn't alone and I was just gonna sit there with her if she needed me.

After a few minutes she got up and rejoined the group and started having fun with the other kids so that was good to see. I don't know. I don't really consider myself good at comforting people but it felt like the right thing in that moment.

me running in a race

things I want to prioritize

running- I ran 26:20 yesterday for 3rd in an 8k cross country race against a bunch of college kids. It went well. I think it was definitely on par with a 20:50 I ran for 4 miles two weekends ago, possibly slightly better given that it was about a mile farther and on a cross country course instead of roads. I still feel like I have room to improve. The Richmond 8k and the Harrisonburg Turkey Trot are my main goals for the Fall.

afterschool- Afterschool has been going really well this year. The kids are really bought in and having a great time. There have been a lot of shake-ups with staff but I've been able to be consistent and lead my group without much help so that's been good. I have an idea for a card game that I am slowly creating and I think the kids might get really into it. Maybe I can have something made by the end of this week.

art- I've been staying really busy with projects and making things. Lately it's seemed like ideas keep leading to more ideas and I also have some requests for making things that I haven't been able to start. I finished up a different card game yesterday that I need to print and put together. I think it could be really fun. Last month I was doing a lot of painting and this month I've been busy with little projects, mostly drawing. I also have a weird book I'm slowly putting together.

teaching art: This Thursday I had a great day teaching art because I felt like all of my classes were bought into the routine that I've established. Without much prompting everyone just kind of did their thing. So that's exciting to see progress in setting up an environment where they want to make things.

yeah! I think I should leave it at that. There are other things I could put on this list but I think if I put too many things then I'll feel like I'm not getting enough done. Two jobs and two hobbies seem pretty good for one person!

oh and rock climbing! Gotta get better at rock climbing. At least once a week!

my origin story

I think things are going in the right direction for me

but it's a matter of staying at it. Like I don't think any big moves would be helpful or that I need to shift things around a lot. I just need to stay at what I'm doing and I'm going to see progression and a change. I'm being vague but I think it's true of a lot of different parts of my life. And maybe what's hard is doing the right things but not seeing a change yet. But I think that's because changes take time, not because I'm doing anything wrong. something like that.

Some Pictures

a cool house in cville

some art for a card game I made up

we built tunnels in the woods

the goodest dog

something for the kids

this is a commercial for afterschool. do you often find that when school ends you just lay down on the floor and go to sleep until school starts again? do you eat nothing but potatoes and live in a potato and sleep on potatoes and watch potatoes and take your potatoes for walks? do you sometimes see a large bird flying over your head and think, "who am I? what does this mean?" Well, lucky for you, there is a better way. After the school day, you should come to afterschool. Stop living your weird nightmare life and have fun at afterschool. We have games. You can make friends. We have snacks that aren't potatoes. It's really great. There's even a day where we have a contest to see who can put on the most sweaters at one time? That's never actually happened before but it definitely would not be the weirdest thing we've ever done. So come to afterschool. You'll be glad you did!

locked my keys in my car

had to walk to Tony's and knock on his door to get him to help me. he helped me. Tony is such a great guy. He was my neighbor when I first moved to Charlottesville and one of the first times I talked to him was when I locked my keys in my car. The last time I locked my keys in was in may 2017 in the food lion parking lot and I called Tony and he came and got it unlocked within minutes. What a great guy. I really owe him a lot.

road adventure

last night around 9PM I realized that my oatmeal boy and spoon weren't in the house. I figured I must have left it in the art room. so I made the half hour drive out to the school to pick it up. my fear was that earlier in the day I'd left the bowl on the roof of my car because I had been carrying a lot of things at once and might have placed it up there and forgot about it. It was in the classroom though. Then on the drive back I played Kid Cudi's "Make Her Say" on repeat the whole way back. It was great fun.