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Long Time, No See
Oct. 11th, 2021 08:24 amLast week was really quite busy, and I failed to report any of it. Let me see what I can reconstruct from my memory.
Last Monday, the big excitement was getting my Pfizer booster shot (along with the flu shot in the other arm.) Very unexpectedly, I got a strong reaction... kind of for the first time. I had a headache, muscle aches, chills, and a fever. While I was lying in bed complaining about the fact that no one warned me that this one could be tough, Shawn looked it up and the reason no one did is because only about 11% of people who get the booster have any sort of reaction at all, much less all of this. I had a bad roll of the dice. However, like with previous doses, I tend to like having a strong reaction because then I know I got the shot?
So, that wiped me out for a lot of Tuesday, too.
I had my Loft class on Wednesday. My Loft class is going very well, I think. Though, I am a bit more disorganized this time than I normally am. I don't know why? My brain is fickle, I guess. Plus, I started out with seven students and am now down to six. I had a student in California who seemed to be under the impression that "workshopping" meant something a bit more like what you'd get from a writing coach, rather than rigorous critique. So that person was disappointed and bailed, which, you know happens from time to time. But, I do think that eroded my usual confidence a bit.
On Wednesday night a friend came to deliver a new-to-us used car, which also sent my household into a small amount of decision anxiety. There is a used car shortage coming/happening, and so Shawn and I would like to be on top of that, since we only ever buy used cars. So, when our friends offered this one--a 2011 Toyota Camry--we were like, "yes, yes, YES!" but we hadn't previously thought through all the logistics. Where will we store it? How much will insurance cost? Should we immediately sell the older car? Or? Or....??? So, we had to work all that out, and, of course, do all the title transferring, etc. We are very happy with the results.
Since we had part of the day before our friend had a flight back to Michigan, she wanted to see the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Normally, when she and her family visit, it's Thanksgiving, so a lot of the usual things are closed. I am always up for a trip to the MIA, so we went. We diverged early, her heading off to explore the third floor, and me revisiting the Chinese and Japanese collections. Since I've been recently reading The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation / Mo Dao Shi Zu, I rather enjoyed pretending I was on the set of the live-action version "The Untamed," while checking out this "Chinese scholar's study" at MIA: https://new.artsmia.org/programs/teachers-and-students/teaching-the-arts/artwork-in-focus/chinese-scholars-study/
I hardly left this area the entire time I was there, because next door to Chinese antiquity, is the Japanese collection. I ended up live-tweeting (actually Discording) with a friend in Wales about the various cool objects we came across.
For instance, I sent her this picture because we are both fans of Bleach and I said that I thought this was the kind of costuming worthy of the mangaka of that manga. Like, it looked like it should have a magical name and a super-power, possibly a personality.
Image: Dragonfly helmet, 17th century, Japan.
And because we were chatting back and forth, live, my friend in Wales was looking up information on this type of helmet, which is called kawari kabuto, or "strange helmet," which was apparently popular in the Momoyama Period to distinguish leaders or to give a battalion a symbolic motif. Some parts of the helmet are iron, but the fancy bits were made with lacquer over papier-mache. If you're curious about other designs, someone has a lovely Pinterst page that shows off a number of others: https://www.pinterest.com/dan_stiver/kawari-kabuto/
I also spent a long time in the calligraphy rooms, because I am/was a fan of an anime/manga called Barakamon, which is about a disgraced calligrapher trying to make his way back into the art world.
Just I was leaving, I stumbled into the collection of anarchist zines. The Minneapolis Institute of Art recently acquired the Fly Zone Archive,https://new.artsmia.org/stories/rebel-voice-inside-the-fly-zine-archive-a-chronicle-of-punk-queer-and-diy-counterculture.
Thursday night, I also had Wyrdsmiths, my writers group, which is still meeting via Zoom. We caught up with a member that has been on hiatus for some time, so that was very pleasant.
The weekend was a lot of car stuff--Shawn wanted to take the new-to-us car to get the special cleaning treatment at a Mr. Car Wash--and we put on the new license plates, etc., etc. We also had a movie night, where we re-watched Dr. Strange, and ate too much popcorn. On Sunday, yesterday, we spontaneously took another trip to Fort Snelling State Park.
Even though I had walked Pike Island before, I had never officially logged my miles for the Minnesota Hiking Club, so we did the whole thing, collected the password and... saw this amazing white pelican preening itself on the backs of the Minnesota River.
This week, my plans include prepping for Wednesday class, and hopefully not too much else. It would be nice to have more time to write this week, as I'm starting to feel a bit behind.
Last Monday, the big excitement was getting my Pfizer booster shot (along with the flu shot in the other arm.) Very unexpectedly, I got a strong reaction... kind of for the first time. I had a headache, muscle aches, chills, and a fever. While I was lying in bed complaining about the fact that no one warned me that this one could be tough, Shawn looked it up and the reason no one did is because only about 11% of people who get the booster have any sort of reaction at all, much less all of this. I had a bad roll of the dice. However, like with previous doses, I tend to like having a strong reaction because then I know I got the shot?
So, that wiped me out for a lot of Tuesday, too.
I had my Loft class on Wednesday. My Loft class is going very well, I think. Though, I am a bit more disorganized this time than I normally am. I don't know why? My brain is fickle, I guess. Plus, I started out with seven students and am now down to six. I had a student in California who seemed to be under the impression that "workshopping" meant something a bit more like what you'd get from a writing coach, rather than rigorous critique. So that person was disappointed and bailed, which, you know happens from time to time. But, I do think that eroded my usual confidence a bit.
On Wednesday night a friend came to deliver a new-to-us used car, which also sent my household into a small amount of decision anxiety. There is a used car shortage coming/happening, and so Shawn and I would like to be on top of that, since we only ever buy used cars. So, when our friends offered this one--a 2011 Toyota Camry--we were like, "yes, yes, YES!" but we hadn't previously thought through all the logistics. Where will we store it? How much will insurance cost? Should we immediately sell the older car? Or? Or....??? So, we had to work all that out, and, of course, do all the title transferring, etc. We are very happy with the results.
Since we had part of the day before our friend had a flight back to Michigan, she wanted to see the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Normally, when she and her family visit, it's Thanksgiving, so a lot of the usual things are closed. I am always up for a trip to the MIA, so we went. We diverged early, her heading off to explore the third floor, and me revisiting the Chinese and Japanese collections. Since I've been recently reading The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation / Mo Dao Shi Zu, I rather enjoyed pretending I was on the set of the live-action version "The Untamed," while checking out this "Chinese scholar's study" at MIA: https://new.artsmia.org/programs/teachers-and-students/teaching-the-arts/artwork-in-focus/chinese-scholars-study/
I hardly left this area the entire time I was there, because next door to Chinese antiquity, is the Japanese collection. I ended up live-tweeting (actually Discording) with a friend in Wales about the various cool objects we came across.
For instance, I sent her this picture because we are both fans of Bleach and I said that I thought this was the kind of costuming worthy of the mangaka of that manga. Like, it looked like it should have a magical name and a super-power, possibly a personality.
Image: Dragonfly helmet, 17th century, Japan.
And because we were chatting back and forth, live, my friend in Wales was looking up information on this type of helmet, which is called kawari kabuto, or "strange helmet," which was apparently popular in the Momoyama Period to distinguish leaders or to give a battalion a symbolic motif. Some parts of the helmet are iron, but the fancy bits were made with lacquer over papier-mache. If you're curious about other designs, someone has a lovely Pinterst page that shows off a number of others: https://www.pinterest.com/dan_stiver/kawari-kabuto/
I also spent a long time in the calligraphy rooms, because I am/was a fan of an anime/manga called Barakamon, which is about a disgraced calligrapher trying to make his way back into the art world.
Just I was leaving, I stumbled into the collection of anarchist zines. The Minneapolis Institute of Art recently acquired the Fly Zone Archive,https://new.artsmia.org/stories/rebel-voice-inside-the-fly-zine-archive-a-chronicle-of-punk-queer-and-diy-counterculture.
Thursday night, I also had Wyrdsmiths, my writers group, which is still meeting via Zoom. We caught up with a member that has been on hiatus for some time, so that was very pleasant.
The weekend was a lot of car stuff--Shawn wanted to take the new-to-us car to get the special cleaning treatment at a Mr. Car Wash--and we put on the new license plates, etc., etc. We also had a movie night, where we re-watched Dr. Strange, and ate too much popcorn. On Sunday, yesterday, we spontaneously took another trip to Fort Snelling State Park.
Even though I had walked Pike Island before, I had never officially logged my miles for the Minnesota Hiking Club, so we did the whole thing, collected the password and... saw this amazing white pelican preening itself on the backs of the Minnesota River.
This week, my plans include prepping for Wednesday class, and hopefully not too much else. It would be nice to have more time to write this week, as I'm starting to feel a bit behind.
