You betta werk.

Pic of the week 

Just a little inspiration from this week's hike.

What's going on?

Once, twice, three times a lady who tested negative for COVID.  All of my tests have come back clear, so I apparently survived the gauntlet of airports and airplanes and probably too many hugs for friends. I am now back to spending much of my time inside my apartment or outdoors away from people. Dejectedly watching as our country continues to ignore science. *sigh*

I ended up having conversations with two different employers in the same day about the future of those businesses and my role within them.  

First was Story Pirates.  Since we as a country can't get it together, essentially all of our live programming is on hold indefinitely.  It is very unlikely that we'll be doing any live school shows this school year.  We have a couple of outdoor public shows planned for later in the year, but that's about it.  Since the job I was hired for was basically coordinating live programming and training people, my job is a little bit...pointless.  My bosses emphasized, though, how much they value me as a part of the organization (which was lovely to hear - please provide positive feedback to your employees when you can) and they want to keep me involved where they can, so basically they're scaling back my role and looking for opportunities for me to still be involved.  That also means scaling back my pay - but that won't happen until the end of the summer, so I've got time to make some other arrangements, and honestly what with schooling being up in the air, opportunities are abundant - imma be fine.  It kind of sucks because I was good at my job and REALLY enjoyed it, but I also understand that we are living in a bonkers time and there's not really anything we can do about that. Hopefully my job will be back up and running before too long, but until then, we'll roll with the punches.

Secondly, I texted my boss at Kidville to see if/what the plan was for reopening.  I stopped by Kidville a few days ago to borrow some books and honestly didn't know if I'd find a fully-stocked bookshelf, or an empty building.  We haven't been open since March, but presumably we've still been paying the rent.  Anyway, my boss called me and informed me that the CEO of Kidville had to file for bankruptcy - and not the restructuring kind.  Kidville is no more.  This also makes sense as the whole business model is built around in-person activities and who knows when we'll be able to do any of that again.  It's possible that once things get back to normal - whenever that may be - that they'll start over from scratch, but for now the windows are shuttered.  It's wild to think about because I've been working there pretty consistently for almost 8 years.  It's been a bit of a second home here in LA and a consistent source of supplemental income.  I'm gonna miss it.  Though my wallet will probably appreciate not being around so many delicious, but overpriced foods. 

Also, I started therapy this week!  Yay!  #normalizeit Had my first session on Monday and I think it went well.  I'm working through some stuff related to the interesting mix of my personality, the nature of a high-demand, authoritarian religion, and my parent's parenting style.  Everyone has their own unique blend of influences and reactions and nature and nurture, and I'm excited to deconstruct mine a little.

What I'm watching

This is an interesting show.  It's sort of a mystery, sci-fi, comedy. The idea is that when you die, you can be uploaded to the cloud and live digitally.  It's a hot take on the afterlife concept, along with the usual discussions about socio-economic inequality etc.  The lead guy is a very classically handsome fellow, but in a surprise twist for Hollywood, he's also a decent actor.  He makes the main character likable and relatable - which I find refreshing.  There is some language, so buyer beware, but overall my roommate and I both really enjoyed this one.

What I'm reading

This one is great.  It approaches racism from the dichotomy of racist vs. anti-racist.  There is no "not racist".  And it's not that you are one thing or the other permanently, it's that in any given moment you are either behaving in ways that are racist, or anti-racist.  You are either actively working against racism, or you're not.  Usually I don't love either/or black and white thinking (see above, re: going to therapy), but it actually makes a lot of sense in this context.  And I think there's enough nuance in the idea that any given person is not entirely racist or anti-racist, but that each action, each moment falls into one of those categories.  And hopefully we're all working toward more and more of our actions and moments being anti-racsit.

What I'm listening to

The TED Radio Hour with Manoush Zomorodi.  This episode was all about apologies and forgiveness and I LOVED it.  Give it a listen.  

What I'm puzzling

This is an infinity puzzle.  There are no edge pieces, you can kind of keep moving pieces around and creating different shapes etc.  I bought this puzzle for myself a couple of years ago, and it's been hanging on my wall for a while, but I decided to revisit it and play around with it a bit this week.  It's a fun one!