embracing_calm

 I’m still alive.

I simultaneously have many things to say and absolutely nothing at all.  So, I’ll type out the mundane things with the hope that it helps with the things I can’t quite put into words.

I made chocolate chip cookies with a touch of rye flour, hemp seeds and cashews.  They’re gone now.  They were more oily than normal but still good.  Cooking at higher elevation really is different but also… maybe a touch too many fatty seeds and nuts?  

I rearranged the orientation of the bed, he moved his macrame hoops onto the wall behind the bed, we put up art, took some down to make room for the tv (which had been in the living room) and hung a couple plants.  Two days ago,II checked the craigslist free section and found a bedframe especially made to fit our queen size shikibuton and tatami mats.  It’s extremely pretty: solid wood built in a way that slides together like perfect puzzle pieces.  The room is cute and cozy.  After setting things up, we picked out a new plant for the window.  it’s a pink dot begonia.  it’s large and lovely but has t been hung yet.  I would like to find a small shelf for books but it can wait until someone in the complex moves out/throws it out.  

the book I’m reading is awful but easy enough to read. It’s Tomb Seven by Gene Snyder.   I chose it because it was in the floor in the corner of the bedroom and because pulps tend to be fast easy reading.   I’m about a quarter through it.  I’m looking forward to the other books I have stacked on my side table but I thought reading something analogous to trash tv might be a healthy distraction for me right now.
 

He’s still sleeping.   I should probably go, make coffee and wake him up.  Maybe we can have one of those French pastries while we wait for boots to march this way.

 I have been saying since 2024 that I think gen z is getting drafted.   I sounded crazy then but it’s looking truer by the day.   I think that’s going to be the underlying reason for pushing women out of combat positions: much like after WW2, we will need or rather America will need another baby boom.  Young able bodied women cannot have babies if they are dead.  Whoops.   I wasn’t supposed to let my anxiety about the bigger picture infiltrate this post.  

Well, the coffee isn’t going to make itself.

I don’t attempt to read tea leaves often, so I’m not particularly sure I’m an expert. I certainly don’t do them often for myself. The last time I did was election night. It was quite easy to find a T and an Aries sign. Which is a bit spooky if you don’t think about it or if you really allow yourself to think of it as some sort of divination. Really it’s just a meditative tool to help you extrapolate your hopes and fears. I started thinking about this last week (maybe last month?) sometime after reading about the Baba Vanga World Cup 2026 alien prophecy. Which, if you haven’t been down there already, is quite a fun little rabbit hole, sensationalism or not.

So, what did this cup say about my upcoming year? That little lump at the bottom lies between the area of sorrow and hate and it points up to that big mass at the top corner which is associated with contentment. When you read tea leaves you spiral from the bottom clockwise letting you mind draw associations between shapes and the zones they lie in. For the most part, this cup lacks shapes but the distribution of these tea leaves falls on mostly on areas which symbolize simple aspects of life that bring happiness or at least make it more comfortable: beauty, wealth, love, honor, fidelity, art, generosity, endurance etc… with very few of the bad sections speckled with tea at all. To me, that says that the worst struggles in 2026 for me, will be concerning issues of hate and sorrow but that I will be given plenty of chances to create contentment through the good things in life like love, friendship and helping others.

Of course, like I said, that’s just how my hopes and fears are reflected through this cup of tea if I take the time to stare at it and think about life for long enough but it's enough to help me feel a bit better.