Today Nick came over in the morning. We went to the farmer's market, then rented a car for a few hours to haul the last wave of Kickstarter packages to the post office. The post office was supposed to come pick them up yesterday, but never showed. Even though I paid 'em $20 to supposedly come at a particular time.

We also ran up to Northgate for some sewing supplies for my coat upgrade. And because he'd left something there that he was bringing to my place, and was afraid he might have left at the bus stop.

After lunch, we went back to my place and lounged in the living room for a while. He puttered on the net, I played some more Amalur for a while. At one point “famous people who share your birthday” came up, and he found out that in addition to sharing P. T. Barnum's birthday, I also share Bill Watterson's. Which was cool. I'd known about Barnum since I was a kid but that was new.

We also played the latest version of Ascencion, which was pretty fun. I ended up winning 107-70something, not bad for a few mistakes in the beginning and not playing any version in a good while.

And now I am lying alone in my bed listening to a neighbor practice their bongos. They have been joined tonight by a flute. It is simultaneously charming and annoying, and is kind of the price of living in the university district, really. (Also the drummer's playing is significantly more complex than when I first started hearing their evening sessions – hooray for the power of practice!)

Tomorrow I will probably do some combination of working on the coat, dealing with non-Kickstarter packages that have backed up while I dealt with the KS, and writing Rita.

I am dealing with shipping the last few copies of Rita 2 today. This is mostly a matter of ‘some lingering international shipments’ and ‘special snowflakes’.

One of the ways you can be a special snowflake who requies unique handling is to be someone who said “why yes, I would like one of those ten copies of the misprinted 2”. So I have had to open up the Box Of Misprints (it has MISPRINT! written on every visible side so there’s no confusion), and carefully take out six copies. I then sealed the box of misprints back up.

I have now put a pink post-it with an exclamation point on the cover of each of these books. Because I want there to be no question which books are misprints and which are nots, so I don’t accidentally send one to someone who isn’t expecting it.

I feel like I treat these things with the same caution I’d treat weapons-grade plutonium, sometimes. Store well away from the other half of the bomb. Do not put next to the other half until delivery is imminent. Avoid accidents.

Woo. First time doing yoga class in like a month – I’ve been away at cons, or just back from a con and too exhausted to think of leaving the house in the morning, for weeks. As usual, I pushed myself to near my limits, just to figure out what the hell they are after all this laxity. Turns out there are a few things that have definitely changed for the worse, and my stamina for holding poses feels less, but there are other parts that are still pretty flexible.

It’s gonna take a while for my spine to fully unkink after all that travel and sitting, though. Pop pop crackle.

There’s a new yoga teacher at the Y, with a different style of class, and a very citrus-y perfume. But it’s still mostly about taking the same poses and holding them.

I’m going to miss having the more extreme stretching and exercise of pole class; the Y is adding barre and high-impact intensity training, and I’m hoping those two things will fill in that gap for a while. I’ll start hitting those classes sometime this week or the next; it depends on how pooped I feel after just starting to do yoga again after so much of a break.

(Also annoyingly my pull-ups have decreased a LOT over this enforced break; I could casually do 5 or 6 when passing by the bar at the bathroom door, and now I struggle to do 3. It’ll return with regular practice, though.)

I really need to start doing some kind of exercise when I’m away from home like this, so I don’t have this total drop of flexibility and strength when several cons come in a row in the future. (I also need to avoid that if I can. But still.)

I’m having breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe. The dining room has this unusual split-level arrangement; half of it is higher than the other, with a low wall that comes up to about waist height for the people in the upper half.

I was seated right next to the wall, on the lower side, enjoying a really tasty ham scramble, when I see a hand casually slide over the wall and just dangle there. As if its owner was draping it out a car window.

Every now and then he’d kinda pick at one of his fingernails. Kinda gross, when you’re right below it.

After a bit of thought, I picked up a packet of sugar and slid it into this hovering hand. Fingers closed reflexively, and my gift was accepted. The hand drew out of sight.

A moment later, the old dude it belonged to poked his head over the wall. I waved. He said “Thank you!” and vanished.

And took his dangling hand with him.