As I described dinner plans for the next few days, the dude described it as “a comfort food speedrun”.

As I was walking home from the bus stop, power went out across the neighborhood.

Had dinner and drinks with Steve and Jonathan; Steve is moving out of town next week.

Finished reading City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett, the final book of a trilogy. In a way, I wish the series hadn’t kept getting better — even though the first book was good, it’s awkward to recommend a book by saying that its sequels are even better. (This one was about regret and repentance and, eventually, making a good decision even if you haven’t always in the past. And aging, as a kind of sub-theme.)

On Saturday, we went to Amy’s farm for their open house; met people, saw old acquaintances, and encouraged some kids who were pressing apples for cider. Nathan looked sharp wearing my peacoat.

Deleted my eight Twitter accounts.

Finished reading The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel, another book featuring an obsessive, helplessly-passive (up to a certain part of the book) man-child. (To be clear, I enjoyed this, as I have her other books so far, and there’s a clear progression from Last Night in Montreal through The Singer’s Gun to here.) It might be interesting to reread Station Eleven at this point, her next book in publication order, but I probably won’t.

I almost quit the book early on, as the main character’s particular form of self-destruction made me incredibly anxious, but I managed to power through.

The air has been smoky more days than not for the last five weeks or so, but today is the worst yet — barely a hint of blue behind the beige sky. It’s supposed to clear out this weekend, but they’ve been wrong about that several times already.

I took a break to read some RPG stuff, but back to regular books! Finished reading City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett, sequel to City of Stairs that I read earlier this year. That book was good, but this was more compelling, about war and trauma and regret. (Very strange how I’m finding myself relating to older characters these days.)

Gamed with Nathan and friends last night, the actual first session, in and near Samarkand.

For the last couple months, I’ve been pulling mediocre shots with the espresso maker, fast and barely manageable at even the finest grind. It coincided with a new batch of beans, but persisted through various batches and roasters; maybe I’d changed my technique? It got even worse a few days ago, impossible to pull a tolerable shot; it turned out that the grinder’s burr had gotten unseated and was producing coarser and wildly-inconsistent grounds. We overnighted a new housing for the burr, and everything is great again.

Went over to good friend Nathan’s house for the first (or zeroth) session of an RPG that’s finally getting off the ground.

Current earworm: “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by the Who.

Got my bivalent covid booster.

Ant update: We’ve continued to see a few scouts. Yesterday, Meghan caulked over some small cracks under the sink and behind some drawers. We’re now waiting to see if this has helped.