When You're Here, You're Quietly Reading a Book
Life, writing updates, and general chit chat from the week
(Note: Yes, this newsletter allegedly comes out on Mondays. I wrote this whole thing and then forgot to send it, so… happy Tuesday!)
This Saturday, I took myself on a rare but necessary self-date. I went to the yoga studio for a 9am class, then headed to the Barnes and Noble that is just so conveniently right next door.
When we first moved here (almost a full year ago, if you can believe it), I expected this would be a regular occurrence. But when you work from home, it’s so easy to just… never leave the house. So I didn’t.
But oh my gosh did it feel amazing to talk to other people, even if it was just pre- and post-yoga small talk. And when doesn’t a trip to the bookstore feel amazing?
After I left Barnes & Noble, I was hungry, because I’m the kind of person who eats lunch promptly at 11am pretty much every day. The Barnes & Noble shares a parking lot with Olive Garden, and boy did I have a craving for some alfredo and breadsticks.
Eating alone in a restaurant is a controversial thing, with some people thinking it seems sad or pathetic, while others say you shouldn’t take up a full table if you’re on your own. But 11am at Olive Garden isn’t exactly peak hours, and eating alone with a book at my side is a dream I rarely have the courage to fulfill. Today, though, I did.
They sat me in the little cafe area near the bar, so I basically had my own cozy little reading nook while I enjoyed my salad and breadsticks and my current read. It was honestly blissful, and I didn’t really want to leave when I finished my food.
No matter how much I work myself up about the idea of dining alone in a sit-down restaurant, I almost always enjoy it when I do. And guess what? Nobody cares. Or if they do, that’s really their issue, and not yours.
I enjoyed my cozy little yoga, books, and Olive Garden day and hope I actually make good on my promise to do this kind of thing more often. As someone who spent nearly all of my early adulthood single, I still love the spark of independence I get whenever I venture out on my own. I recommend taking yourself on a date, doing the things you love to do.
What I’ve Been Up To
Work/Writing
January was a fairly slow month, without a lot of new video game releases, but things are definitely picking up now. This week, I played a lot of Granblue Fantasy: Relink in preparation to write some guides. It’s a super cute JRPG with a fun combat system that I really enjoy, and it’s scratching that Final Fantasy itch while we wait for FFVII Rebirth later this month.
General Life Updates
I finished Yoga With Adriene’s 30 Days of Yoga series for 2024 yesterday, and I’m still in my feels about it. Adriene has announced that this is the last year she’s doing a live version of the 30 Day challenge, something I’ve looked forward to every January for the past 10 years.
Even though I understand her desire to move on to new and different projects, it will be a little sad to approach January next year without a new challenge to look forward to. My plan is to go back to the earlier series and slowly redo them over the next 10 years, starting with the original 30 Days of Yoga.
For now, though, I’m hoping to keep up the yoga every day mentality. I always feel so good at the end of January and then slowly drift off from a daily practice because life, but darn it, I’m going to stick with it this year.
Current Obsessions
TV
I’ve been watching Ghosts again in preparation for the next season, and I swear this show just gets better as it goes. Most recently there was a delightful joke where one ghost tells another “We were on a respite! A respite!” as a hilarious reference to the infamous “We were on a break!” line in Friends.
Baking
I’m once again trying to get back into baking sourdough, and I’ve had my first ever failure to launch with a new starter. A week in it just wasn’t rising, and then it grew a sort of weird fungus? So, clearly something wasn’t happening properly with that, and I’ve started over again.
Hopefully I’ll be baking some loaves by next week provided this one cooperates.
Words on the Web
Nothing major to report on in this arena of late, unless you want to read about every bit of technology you can unlock in Palworld, because that’s mostly been my project the last few weeks for work.