Today I wasted half my day going to view a house that's available to rent. I had a one-and-a-half hour, two-bus trip out. The house is at the other end of the county, in an unfamiliar location, and I could barely read signs because, as usual, I wasn't wearing my glasses. I missed my bus stop. Fortunately, the stop wasn't too far from the end of the line, so I was able to get off at the right place not too much later, on the trip back.

I found that the Craigslist ad wasn't truthful. The house wasn't in the listed city, but in a smaller, neighboring town. I'd known from my mapquest search that the place wasn't far from the highway, but I had no way of knowing how close. Once I got there, I found that it was so close that, as I walked away from the bus stop on the highway, I nearly walked right past it. The only thing between the house and the highway is a Mexican restaurant.

Proximity to the highway is a concern because of noise. Even though the highway is a small two-lane deal, the traffic is rather heavy and almost certainly nearly constant, and I wouldn't be able to handle living right next to it. I also disliked that the whole town seemed to be based on the highway, built around it, fanning out from it. If I lived there, I wouldn't be able to avoid the highway, the noise, as I walked around town, as I ran my errands. It's even worse than where I live now, a town that has two highways running through it.

There were no sidewalks on the street outside the house, and the road (more like an alley) was so narrow that I had to stand aside as cars passed. I walked up the street and took a peek at the rest of the neighborhood: no sidewalks there either. I left after that. I didn't stay to view the interior. There's something very unwelcoming about neighborhoods that lack sidewalks, and I walk a lot and wouldn't want to navigate such streets.

I was annoyed that whoever had written the Craigslist ad had wasted my time. Come to think of it, mapquest also said that the place was in the city named in the ad. I don't see how the house could be considered a part of the city given that it's a block away from the town's post office, with the post office closer to the city than the house is.

The day was quite hot. I had to walk in the heat to find a bathroom after so much time spent on the bus, and it was uncomfortable, particularly since I'd tried to dress nicely to make a good impression on the realtor.

I'd spent the inbound trip looking out my window so that I'd have some idea of what sort of area I'd be moving to. I found this part of the county brown, dry, and depressing, and it reminded me of all that I'd heard about fire risk in the area. Riding for over an hour through the dusty tan landscape, I felt that I didn't want to live there, that I was wasting my time and had decided against the place before I'd even arrived. I don't know what kind of fruit grapes are such that they can grow in such a climate. Maybe they grow in winter or fall? I don't know anything about them.

So that's one housing option that's off my list of potential new homes. The list is quite short. I doubt I'll be able to move out by the first of next month, which was my tentative goal. Maybe I'd have more options back in Santa Cruz county. But transferring my housing voucher to another county and finding housing there while I still live here would be a financial and logistical nightmare. The logistics wouldn't matter if I had enough money: I could simply stay in hotels, hire taxis, etc. until everything was settled. In my current circumstances, I'd be on all-day public transportation trips and risking homelessness.

I ended the day with the beginning of a migraine, most likely due to mild dehydration (I hadn't brought anything to drink, and the stomach-churning, unpleasant-tasting fountain water I had at the park next to the bus stop came too late). The only good thing about the day is that I got pizza at the end (stopped at the discount grocery store at the end of the bus ride back and spent my last four dollars' worth of food stamps) and that I have a clearer idea of what that end of the county is like. I'd rather live over here, in the more humid part of the county. I read on Reddit that at least one town further west in the county even gets mold, which seems like a helluva contrast to other parts of the county.

It's 9:30 pm and it's still hot!

I finally found a cheap slow-cooker at the thrift store last weekend, so I'm finally able to cook some of the legumes that have piled up in my kitchen cabinet. Cooking them in a pot, as I do with most of my food, is simply too impractical. It seems to take massive amounts of water, and the fifty cents per gallon I'm paying for filtered drinking/cooking water adds up.

I bought some kid's compression shirts because the company that sold my kid's tank tops isn't selling them anymore. I was going to simply buy tank tops from another company, then I decided that compression shirts would offer more support and more consistent support.

The new shirts were supposed to arrive yesterday, and I was eagerly awaiting them because I'm physically uncomfortable and self-conscious without proper support, plus I'm wasting money by continually re-washing and re-drying my few tank tops to re-shrink them (they loosen up each time I wear them). But there was an issue with my delivery address, so they didn't arrive until today, while I was out wasting my time, when I felt that I needed them the most because I'm self-conscious mainly when I have to be out in public thanks to men's sociopathic sexual behavior.

I'm wearing a boy's medium, size 8, compression shirt right now and it's not as supportive as I'd hoped it would be. It's surprisingly loose for child's clothing on an adult body. Or, rather, it's loose in the one place I needed tightness. A smaller size wouldn't fit over my gut (partially because I'm hellishly constipated but mainly because a small just wouldn't be long enough for my torso), where the shirt is tightest. The shirt is next tighest under the arms, then in the back. There's a noticeable drop-off in compression moving in from the arms. I can't feel much of a difference in support between this shirt and my size 10/12 tank tops when they're fresh from the dryer.

I'm sort of disappointed, partially in myself for not loosing weight faster so that I wouldn't have so much body fat to compress. I spent so much time shopping online and measuring myself and anticipating a sensation of physical relief that I'm disappointed with the way this purchase turned out.

Since I wouldn't fit a smaller size and don't know any better sort of shirt to buy (except maybe a gynecomastia shirt, which would be expensive and probably doesn't exist in my size), I don't know what to do but suffer with my purchase. It's too hot for a binder and they destroy ribs anyways. I guess I could look for a loose one but I couldn't afford more than one and I just really don't want a binder. That's not really appropriate for my situation and I'm not sure a loose one would even work.

This is the world men have given us

Another grocery day, another day of loud, discourteous, self-centered people.

I'm taking steps to stop relying on public transportation. I don't even like interacting with the bus drivers, actually. There's a bike path from my town to the county seat, which is where I usually shop. The problem is that my bike is uncomfortable to ride (because it doesn't quite fit me) and being on the path is loud and tiring because it runs along a highway. It's louder than the people on the bus, actually.

People bring their dogs on buses, in stores (even grocery stores), and into the library lobby. Somebody's puppy jumped up onto my lap while I was browsing in a used bookstore several months ago. I didn't really mind the puppy, but this whole thing with bringing dogs into public buildings is unhygienic and inconsiderate to other patrons. And it's one thing to carry a dog in one's arms and another thing to allow the dog to walk through the place.

Things didn't used to be this way. I'm not sure what has changed. There are laws permitting service dogs but these pets are not service dogs. Maybe the service animal loophole got abused so often that people don't bother saying anything about it anymore? Or maybe they've given up because trying to verify who is or is not a service dog is such a hassle.

I moved here to escape lower-class people, including their discourteous behavior. So I'm annoyed that I'm facing some similar behavior here. It's not so much here in town as the in the county seat, which has...more lower-class people. If only I earned enough to do all my shopping in town! I would save so much time and be so much less stressed on grocery day. I can barely even imagine how much it would cost. It would be manageable if I could eat grains and beans.

So I was in quite a bad mood once I got home early this evening.

And so tired! I left home relatively early so that I could shop without crowds, but that didn't pan out. At checkout, the cashier informed me that I had but eleven cents worth of food stamps left. So I had to abandon all my groceries there. The manager or whoever said they'd save them for me while I was away sorting out my food stamps situation. So I hade to walk back to the bus station, wait for the next bus, then travel to the social services office, wait to be waited on and given a number, then wait for the number to be called.

The social services worker informed me that my benefits had been canceled because I hadn't filled out some sort of status report in March. We used to have status reports due once per year, now we have to do them every two months apparently. Waste of goddamned paper. I must have forgotten to fill out the report (assuming it ever even arrived in the mail) due to the effect of fatigue on my memory. Normally, I receive a warning about benefits ending, but I hadn't received one this time. Maybe they're trying to save paper. Ha.

The social workers were nice and got me sorted in less than an hour. I think perhaps they took pity on me because I am a veteran. Normally, processing a status report and re-instating a food stamps case would have taken at least a day or two. Another day with an empty fridge would have been unpleasant. The fridge is still quite bare because the discount grocery store (which is normally the first place I shop), doesn't have nearly enough of a variety of quality whole foods. I just buy whatever is cheap and wholesome (or caffeine) there, plus one or two junk food treats, and do my "real" grocery shopping elsewhere.

So then I went back to the grocery store and found that all my groceries had been put back on the shelves. The manager hadn't told me that they hold things for only forty-five minutes. So I had to shop a second time. I hadn't eaten at all at that point, not even breakfast, but I felt surprisingly stable. Normally I would have been in blood-sugar-crash mode.

I'd gotten on the bus on my way out of town at eleven AM. Didn't make it back home until after six PM.

My new reusable menstrual pads arrived in the mail today. Since I normally buy handmade pads, I was surprised at how professional and, well, industrial these new ones feel.

I reluctantly bought these new ones because I'm forced to throw out the old ones after years of service. It seems I can no longer rid them of their stains and odors, probably because I stopped soaking them before washing. I boiled them three times today with washing detergent, and the water was dirtier the third time than the first.

I was reluctant to buy new ones because reusable pads are expensive (for my budget, not for the quality) and because I have to buy so many. Can't wear them for more than a few hours or I'll start to smell bad. Ten bucks apiece for my new ones. I could afford only three, which is nowhere near enough. I have to buy them a few at a time. Plus I prefer hemp to cotton and synthetic fabrics; the hemp ones are probably even more expensive.

When am I going to hit menopause? I'm afraid of what's going to happen but I'm looking forward to a certain medical problem resolving at that point. I don't know why I don't want to name it.

Learning sufficient vocabulary from a foreign language to become fluent is like emptying a lake with an eye dropper. I'm going to have to abandon the digital flashcards approach soon, at least for some or maybe most new vocabulary; I'll continue to review the words I've already learned. It's time to move on to graded readers for new vocabulary. I'm hoping to buy my first one next month. Actually, I bought one last year, but it was way too advanced for me so I stopped trying to read it. It's supposed to be for beginners (CEFR A1-A2), but it does not seem to be. "Theory" and "dragon" aren't really beginner words. A year later, I still struggle to read it.

Lately I've been interested in seeing what the people doing Refold and other immersion learning techniques are doing. Today I was watching a video by a Korean learner who seems to be older than the typical immersion learning crowd (typically young anime fans), a guy in his thirties. So I was a bit surprised when he said that he started learning Korean because of K-pop.

I have a rough time getting my head around why people embark on learning a foreign language, especially a language that is very different from their own, primarily or only to consume media, especially media such as anime, K-pop, and k dramas. It seems like such a shallow reason to jump into such a time- and labor-intensive endeavor. But I guess media is just a jumping-off point for some of them and they develop a broader interest in the language.

Korean sounds pretty cool; I might have been interested in learning it if the script wasn't ugly. I just feel vaguely unbalanced without an Asian language in my arsenal. Arabic is my only non-European language, and I'm currently getting nowhere with it. For a native English speaker, learning a non-European language is like a level-up. European languages tend to be relatively easy to learn because they use the same alphabet and share cognates with English.

I'm kind of half-leveling-up with Hungarian because it's not an Indo-European language. It's not difficult, however. Not so far, anyway. I've seen people say that it's difficult because of the case system, but that doesn't match my experience. So far cases manifest as suffixes, and, in the material I've been studying, just one case is presented at a time. It seems easier than the Slavic languages' case systems, which require nouns, pronouns, adjectives, names, and numbers themselves to change.

Very disappointed today.

A package arrived this morning. I was surprised. I'd just ordered my audio player and accessories yesterday, so I wasn't expecting anything. Opened it and found a USB root hub. Something that goes inside of a desktop, I think. And the box it was in looked to have been previously opened.

A bit later, I found an email from Walmart saying that my audio player had arrived. That's when I realized that I'd been scammed. I'd bought the player from Newegg, a legit but not totally trustworthy online electronics business that was also selling through Walmart's website aka "Marketplace." I figured I could reduce my risk by buying through Walmart because Walmart has good return policies. I was thinking of a product that might not work or might stop working shortly after purchase. I hadn't thought about being shipped a completely different item, and a used or previously opened one at that.

So I started the return process, which took half the afternoon. At first I chose to have the package tracked via QR code, but none of the local FedEx shippers accept QR codes. I would have had to take two buses over to the next town. So I came back home with the package, had to cancel the return and start a new one with tracking via a label. First the website wouldn't let me select the item I needed to return, then Walmart's chatbot started another QR return, then I got transferred to human chat and finally the label was emailed to me. Since I have no printer, I had to email the label to the library, walk to the library, ask the librarian how to print out the label, tape the label to my package, then take the package back to the nearest FedEx shipper.

A block away from the shipping office, I was looking though the pages of the email when I noticed that the shipping company had been switched from FedEx to UPS. I was so fed up at that point. I went back to the shipper's office, but fortunately the lady does both FedEx and UPS, and somehow she'd figured out that I had a UPS package and so I guess she put the package in the right shipping pile.

Still later, I was reading up on Newegg's scammy business practices (including lying about the condition of returned products to avoid giving refunds) when I realized that I'd likely made a mistake. I'd had the option to take the package to a Walmart store for a refund; that would have been the surest way to get my money back, but I'd decided against it because it would have taken hours and two buses to get to the nearest Walmart.

Instead of being shipped to Walmart, the package label indicated that my return would be shipped to Newegg, who will then have the opportunity to lie about what I've sent them. The fact that Newegg sent me an item that had been opened and then taped back shut suggests that they did not make an honest mistake. I bought a new item, not a used one. I don't know whether the company's lies could prevent my getting a refund. That is what has me worried. And what makes this worse is that I'll have to wait significantly longer than Walmart support indicated to even find out whether I'll be refunded: The posted refund policies don't exactly apply to third-party sellers.

My monthly income is a hundred and seventy-one dollars. The forty-five bucks plus four dollars I paid for insurance was a burden for me, and it'll really be shitty to lose that money. I was looking forward to switching to an audio player from my goddamned Obamaphone relatively soon; now I've no idea how much longer I'll be waiting. If I don't get this audio player or one like it, I'll need to return the accessories I bought to go with it, so that'll be another hassle. I searched online for a reputable seller of the audio player. The manufacturer doesn't sell their own products. One of the sellers listed on the site seems to sell to businesses only. The other seller has only an updated version of the product, at three times the price of what I paid.

So there's a non-zero chance that I won't be getting a new audio player this month after all. Being stolen from by a business as a poor person, having to continually put up with the awkward and extremely low-storage smartphone I've been using to play audio since I bricked my mp3 player, this is has all really gotten me down. It's a huge contrast to how excited I was yesterday.

I finally found a job to apply to today. It's fully remote, it's a good fit for my skills, interests, and disabilities, but it pays below my state's minimum wage. I'm not sure that's even legal; I'll have to look into it next week. It seems like half the time, the week is ending just as I'm gearing up for weekday things (such as contacting businesses).

I just finished watching the movie 2067. It didn't make much sense.

Blood in my stool this evening. Probably because of the ridiculous doses of ibuprofen I've been taking these past two or three days to deal with my insane menstrual cramps.

Today was one of my epic grocery shopping trips. I found cheap canned peaches. The kind that are not canned in syrup. Just fruit juice. Hallelujah. I bought a whole box of them.

I'd been hoping for some cheap organic fresh fruit at the 99 cents only store (which, like the Dollar Store, has raised prices above one dollar), but I had no luck.

Spent the whole day nauseous.

I was too naseous + in menstrual pain to study much yesterday, and I was busy lifting and then out shopping for most of the day today, so I did not study today either. So I'm fairly behind. I can recover without too much difficult with my older languages, but it's really bad to get this far behind on a new language (Hungarian) because unfamiliarity with the vocabulary makes the words slip out of memory easily.

"Slip out easily," that phrase just gave me a nice feeling. Even though the accompanying imagery is perhaps not-so-nice (someone giving birth to some kind of grey, slimy, slippery, octopus-type creature). I bet it's some subconscious deal having to do with my chronic constipation. I've been constipated for literally years.

I can't afford to pay my phone bill this month.

I mean, I could pay it, but I'd have like ten dollars left for the rest of the month.

I'm talking about a landline, by the way.

The local store no longer sells the cleasing bar that's solved almost all my skin issues. So now I have to buy it online. And pay shipping. Or go back to dry skin and scabs forming on my back and upper arms.

I did get my light therapy device working today. Instead of staying outdoors this afternoon, I had it shining in my face for hours while I worked online indoors. So I'll find out tonight whether it works (as well as the sun).

A couple of days ago, I ran out of one of the types of melatonin I rely on for sleep. Since my ability to fall asleep has recently improved, and because I can't really afford the melatonin, I thought I'd try to go without it. Maybe I wouldn't need it anymore and could save some money. I still took the other main type of melatonin I use, and I also took a large dose of the pharmacy melatonin I've been using for sleep maintenance (it hardly works at all on it's own).

The first night, I went to bed at 10 or 11 pm, woke up at 3 am, and couldn't get back to sleep. The second night, last night, I don't think I slept at all. Maybe I dozed off for a while. So I clearly still need melatonin type 2. Checked my checking account balance this morning and was surprised to find that I had only nineteen dollars. Of course I'd rather not spend down to my last penny, but the choice is between sleeping and not sleeping + stomach cramps. So I spent the sixteen dollars + tax on the melatonin.

I used to be able to go four or five days with very little sleep before I started having stomach cramps after meals. This time took only a couple of days, apparently. Actually, I had a third day four days ago, but slept well the day after.

So I also needed to buy some processed food, which is the only thing I can eat without stomach pain when my sleep drops very low. I had just under four dollars worth of food stamps plus the three dollars left in my checking account. I went to the discount grocery store and even there could not find anything affordable (their prices tend to be a bit ridiculous for nearly expired food). The cheapest processed foods are wheat products (such as pasta). I have to avoid wheat unless I want really bad menstrual cramping. I was about to give up and leave, but then I came across some rice noodles for seventy-nine cents per pack. I bought three and left.

I usually try to get a protein bar at that store because they are cheap (usually a dollar) and satisfying, but I couldn't afford even that. There were no fifty-cent protein bars. A whole dollar, I could put towards a bag of rice or something more cost-effective than a protein bar. Maybe I would have been better off, in terms of calories per cent, getting a bag of rice. I hate getting non-vegan rice, however, because I'm worried about arsenic and whatever other toxic garbage ends up in U.S. rice (the rice noodles are from Thailand. I'm not sure whether their rice is any less toxic). I'm hoping that the extra processing the rice goes through to become noodles destroys toxins. And rice noodles are easier to digest than rice. On a few occasions, my stomach cramping was so bad that I couldn't even eat rice.

So I got home and had my noodles. Just finished maybe twenty minutes ago. Rice noodles taste fantastic with a sauce of nutritional yeast and tamari plus salt and pepper. I had over four hundred calories worth of food (that's a lot for me), but I didn't feel fully satisfied. Then I remembered that I'm supposed to be eating more fatty foods. So for "dessert" I had a little peanut butter. And my stomach started to hurt right after that.

I went to all that trouble to avoid a stomachache, and now I have one anyways.

Next time, I'll have olive oil, as I'd tentatively planned to do while I was cooking the noodles. The complication here is that, because I have chronic hypoglycemia, I have to have my fatty foods after a carb-heavy meal, or at the tail end at least. That's why I didn't add oil to the noodles. I don't know the biochemical details, but it seems that fat prevents the carbs from being "absorbed" to some extent, which, I'm guessing, is why adding oil to my rice—the beloved food that affects my blood sugar the most—didn't help me feel any fuller; it just made me feel that I hadn't eaten enough.

So, without any fat, my blood sugar drops after eating rice or rice noodles, and I feel the need to eat again relatively soon. With fat, the carbs aren't "absorbed" properly and I still feel hungry. However you slice it, I end up with the urge to overeat. Unless I have the fat at the end of the meal.

But I was quite hungry and eager to eat after I'd cooked those noodles. I left the kitchen and forgot to bring the oil, which I'd envisioned myself adding to the last few bites of noodles. I remembered the fat after I'd finished eating. I didn't want to take a swig of oil by itself (I've done it before and don't recommend it), so I decided to have a little bit of peanut butter instead. Mistake.

When I make dietary mistakes, I pay with hours of pain, lost productivity, a low mood. If I take the anti-cramping medication I've been given, I get drowsy, fuzzy-brained, and the productivity doesn't improve much. Recently I started taking caffeine with the medication. Given my insomnia and sensitivity to caffeine (a single cup of coffee after 3 pm can keep me awake literally all night, with an abnormal heartbeat to boot), that was risky. But I've been taking small doses of green tea (instead of coffee) and it seems to be working out.

I'm quite drowsy, so I'm going out into the sun. It's one fifty-one pm.

I'm back, it's nine pm, I just took my melatonin and I'm relieved to feel the familiar level of sleepiness. Was dealing with a lot of anger this evening but I feel better now. Maybe it's having a semi-full belly and the soothing ambiance of bopomofo for babies. I found a seemingly not-terrible way to learn Mandarin Chinese (a site called lingodeer), so I'm going to give it a shot. Keeping my expectations low, however. Allegedly, reading a newspaper requires knowledge of five to six thousand characters. No, that sounds wrong. Whatever; the point is that I'm not shooting for fluency, just basic literacy. And I'm not in a rush to get it. I'm not going to get excited about a new language and then let take over my life so that I neglect the languages that are more important to me.

Normally, I don't use the smartphone for anything but playing music while I'm doing cardio. I refuse to activate the network for security reasons. But I needed a bopomofo app, otherwise, practicing the Chinese script would be a huge pain. I wasn't able to find anything bopomofo courses or practice things on the Internet, so I got desperate and decided to try sideloading an app on this phone I rarely even use. One of the apps wouldn't even open, and I thought that maybe that was because I'd disabled so much of the operating system. So I factory reset the phone, which deleted the file manager app I needed to sideload apps, so I had to find and install another file manager dia PC, which required me to restart the laptop because the software is on the partition I don't usually use, etc.

And, after all that, the app still doesn't work. I have two others, however.

I had to go out of town for aspirin (for my dental pain) and denture cleaner (for the mouth guard that is supposed to prevent the dental pain). I can't afford the products for sale in my hometown (the cheapest bottle of aspirin here costs five or six dollars, on sale). I went to the dollar store (or so it was called before prices were raised to a dollar twenty-five), a trip that requires two bus rides. Bus schedules are never aligned in my favor, so I ended up missing the first bus home and wasting over an hour waiting in between buses and after I'd left the store.

I did manage to get some studying done on the first bus.

I may have finally found a solution to my chronic constipation: acacia gum powder. I noticed a flyer about IBS earlier this month while shopping at the health food store. It advertised this powder as a solution to constipation. My constipation situation had become rather dire (the only medically recommended treatment that works at all gives me stomach cramps and works only every other day), so I bought the powder even though I couldn't really afford it.

The label on the can of powder says that constipation may not resolve except at rather high doses, and the directions say to gradually work up to higher doses by adding half a teaspoon every three to four days. That's what I did, so I hadn't seen any results until the past couple of days, when I started taking two teaspoons at a time. Having a bowel movement without resorting to some kind of medication has been amazing, but something about this powder has started giving me an upset stomach. I had my second dose of the day after arriving home from my shopping trip, and the resulting stomach discomfort and fatigue kept me home from my customary evening walk (which is a big deal because I ate too many calories today and very much want to lose weight).

This is a really boring post.

I've transitioned to a new keyboard layout as of a week or two ago. I had been using Colemak (which I settled on after failing to acclimate to Dvorak) for just under a decade. I came across the Workman layout maybe a year ago, put it off, then came across it again. The article on Workman mentioned Colemak-DH, so I looked that up and decided to try it because it's more ergonomic than Colemak yet not as big of a change as Workman.

Typing 'd' and 'h' with the Colemak layout requires the index fingers to move sideways. The main point of Colemak-DH is to put these letters in less awkward positions. Other keys must be shifted to achieve this placement, and I found that acclimating to the new positions of these other keys was too difficult, and that editing keyboard layout files was rather easy, so I ended up creating my own version of Colemak-DH. My version places 'z,' the least-used letter, at the finger position that is most awkward for me to reach (the 't' on the QWERTY keyboard). This not only improves ergonomics but allows me to retain the Colemak position of 'b.' 'c' is also back in it's Colemak position, and I improved upon Colemak-DH ergonomics by shifting 'h' to an even easier-to-reach key, at the expense of re-mapping 'k.'

Overall, I've had to get used to 8 new letter positions. I make the same typing mistakes over and over again when I'm tired, but overall the change has not been too taxing.

I started this post off in a bad mood, but I feel a bit better now. Stomach still hurts, though.

There are several other things I could post about, but it all seems either depressing or pointless.

I've started learning Haskell, so I have at least one thing to be somewhat excited about. Islands of flow in a sea misery. I no longer take much pleasure in learning Czech. I had a sort of huge break from it because of fatigue and computer troubles that prevented me from drilling my vocabulary. Now that I'm back, it's lost some of its charm. Or I've lost some of my peace of mind, more likely.

I have special keybindings for typing in vim with Colemak. I'm going to have to change those keybindings for this new layout.

I'm hoping that losing weight will put an end to the bodily sensations that make me want to put a bullet in my head. Killing an adult human being is not easy. I don't have a gun and don't plan to buy one (affording one would probably take months and months of saving), so I'm going to have a real task on my hands if I decide to end things without an insane amount of pain.

My right foot started hurting today while I was out grocery shopping (on foot). It came out of the blue, and I don't know what's caused it. I had to postpone my out-of-town grocery shopping trip, but that's ok because I got plenty of good stuff in town.

I found shoyu on sale for just over three dollars today. Every other time I've seen it, it cost eight to ten dollars a bottle. Or maybe that was just the organic shoyu. I've definitely never seen it as cheap as three bucks a bottle, however.

Early last year, the base amount of food stamps offered in my state was increased because of the pandemic. That increase (sixty dollars' worth for me) became permanent last fall, and it makes a huge difference for me because I tend to struggle to afford as much (organic) produce as I'd like. It feels good to be able to grab fruit and veggies without worrying about whether I'll run out of money near the end of the month. Well, I still worry, just not as much. I can shop a bit more freely, but not totally freely.

Because of the extra food stamps I have, I'm going back to having fruit with breakfast (I've been having protein powder brownies for the past few months). Organic berries and canned peaches. I can't be arsed to cut up and peel peaches, so I go with canned even though I can't afford the organic canned peaches.

Because I have IBS, I've been on the low FODMAP diet since last winter or fall, on the advice of a nutritionist. I stopped eating wheat (even though wheat is one of the few things I can eat when my stomach pain gets bad). Since bread is relatively high in calories and low in protein and satiation (which is bad for weight loss/bodybuilding), I wasn't eating much of it even before I started the diet. It had probably been over a year since I'd had a sandwich. Until today.

Spelt bread was the only bread explicitly allowed on the low-FODMAP diet (gluten-free bread is also acceptable, but it's also high-calorie and expensive as hell). I finally bought some today. Six dollars for one loaf. I can afford it!

Had my first sandwich in forever about half an hour ago. Sandwiches are one of my favorite types of food, so this was more than just another meal. Olive oil, vegan smoked provolone (vegan cheeses have gotten crazy good lately), mustard, sea salt, cracked black pepper, roma tomato, red romaine lettuce, and a baby spinach/garden herb blend of greens. Carrot chips on the side. Delicious.

Olive oil has become an important part of my diet. Since I became a vegan (twelve! years ago), I've been eating very little saturated fat. I discovered that I feet great adding some saturated fat back into my diet. So I pour a bit of olive oil in my soups and occasionally on my pasta. I started eating vegan cheese (which is generally made of coconut oil), and I've been oiling the aluminum foil on which I cook my breakfast brownie with a bit of coconut oil.

I've been on a shampoo odyssey ever since I ran out of my beloved Dr. Bronner's soap several months ago. Normally, I'd just buy another bottle of Dr. Bronner's, but it's annoyingly expensive where I live now. The store I tried didn't even have the kind I use (unscented), so this month I went with an ayurvedic shampoo bar instead. I've been curious about ayurvedic beauty products for a while because I used to always see them for sale on Etsy (I rarely shop on Etsy these days, however, because my seller stopped making my acne soap). The attractive thing about shampoo bars is that you get more shampoo and less water compared to what's in a bottle of liquid shampoo. The bar was also cheaper than even the small bottles of Dr. Bronner's soap.

Very happy with this purchase! I don't know how good the stuff is for my hair (I've used it only twice now), but it smells DIVINE. It smells so good that I was already missing it after I stopped washing my hair for the first time; however, I later noticed that the smell from the bar permeates the bathroom even though the bar is simply sitting in the shower, so I smell it every time I go in there.

After I use the bar, my hair doesn't feel as soft, moisturized as it does after I wash with Dr. Bronner's (that's also true of every other type of shampoo I've tried). I'm not sure whether that's a problem, however. I'll have to wait and see if my hair starts feeling dry and itchy. One shampoo I tried didn't make my scalp itchy until after I'd been using it for a while. The shampoo bar packaging says it's for all hair types, but I don't take that claim for granted.

I should be studying. I usually study with my other laptop, at my standing desk, but I don't want to stand on this foot. I've got some Russian exercises I can do while sitting, but I'm tired (still not sleeping and was out shopping for several hours after a workout today), so who knows what I'll end up doing.

Today was a good day. I woke up feeling rather refreshed for the first time in forever. I assume that I got more sleep or deeper sleep than usual even though it seems that I took forever to fall asleep. I ran out of melatonin, got desperate, and had like a third of a trazodone pill. I actually bought some melatonin the day before yesterday, but it seems I got cheated because the stuff has no effect.

Really pissed me off because I couldn't really afford it, but the number of days I've gone without sufficient sleep was (and still is) close to what causes me stomach pain, which I'm quite keen to avoid. Who knows when or if the sleep medicine department will fulfill my request for more melatonin, and, even if they do, they'll probably send the delayed-release melatonin, which doesn't work well for my insomnia because I have trouble falling asleep and delayed-release melatonin just...delays what's already delayed.

So I got desperate and took the trazodone even though it's been way too strong for me in the past and seemed like it just kind of knocked me out and left me groggy all the following day rather than helping me get into deep sleep. But I didn't experience that today. I probably would if I keep taking it, however.

I also finally managed to get to the one store in town where I can buy protein powder with food stamps. Not only did I get my favorite rice powder (Nutribiotic), I also got to try something new: pumpkin seed protein powder. I tried to make a peanut butter protein cookie with these two this afternoon and found the latter gave the batter a very sticky consistency, so I won't be mixing it the same way next time.

I'm struggling to get back into more lengthy study sessions (lately I've been simply waiting until the last minute aka shortly before bedtime to rush through my daily Arabic and German vocabulary). Instead of studying (or cleaning the apartment or anything else productive), I've been playing computer games while listening to bodybuilding youtube videos for far too much of the day lately. I finally figured out that fatigue is part of the reason for my "laziness" (I put it in quotation marks because laziness is not a real thing to me because everyone has a legit reason for not doing whatever they don't do). Since I felt so much more energetic today, I'm hoping that's coming to an end.

Still having problems with my skin. Part of my face improves, part worsens. I guess I should just leave it alone.

I mailed off a new pair of eyeglass frames today. I'm FINALLY going to get Irlen lenses. I started trying to get them a decade ago, but I couldn't figure out how to do so. With so many medical problems, mainstream medicine cannot help me. I get tired of that shit.