Sat 18/11/2023

The weather is misbehaving again. We dressed up to go for a walk (my wife's health would benefit from it), since the forecast was positive, and it started raining as soon as we set foot outside. We sheltered in a bookshop to wait it out by perusing the books, but it took the good part of an hour. I was a little annoyed that all paperbacks were priced the same, regardless of printing quality, publication date and so on. By the time the raining stopped it was already starting to get dark (fucking daylight savings time) and a chill wind was blowing, so we just headed back home. We did not buy any books either. What a waste of time.

Yesterday we had another cook-off session with M., we made pumpkin and shrimp risotto. I went all out and pulled a lot of tricks I have learned over the summer watching Youtube cooking videos. The risotto tasted amazing to me, but my wife said it lacked some salt - one of the rare times we disagree on this. It was a little runnier than it should've been owing to a miscalculation on my part, but I figured I'd rather keep it that way than overcook the rice. I would eat the cream with a spoon, to be honest. The next time I cook the dish it will be perfect though. M. did not have many involuntarily funny tales to share this time, surprisingly; he's injured his big toe at a karate lesson and was limping around like a peg-legged pirate. He is still sporting his pornstache, which I am starting to have respect for - it takes balls. Maybe he'll bring them back in fashion, who knows. When I was little my father always had a big mustache and no beard; I still remember the day he shaved it off, I was so shocked by his change in appearance.

Tonight we are having pizza, as usual. I am trying a neapolitan dough this time, which I prepared yesterday and let rise slowly in the fridge overnight. I got the recipe off another Youtube video, but later realised that something seemed a little off. I watched the video again and noticed that there had been some sleight-of-hand: the chef claimed you shouldn't work the dough too much before moving it to the fridge, but when he showed the result of overnight rising it was a clearly well proven dough. So who knows what my dough will turn out like. It looks alright for now, and we will see later tonight. [EDIT: it was mediocre-to-bad, will need another recipe]

My birthday came to pass. A number of friends forgot about it this time (I don't volunteer the info), but that's actually a relief because I hate the attention. A. wished me a late happy birthday today and apologised, but I honestly had not even noticed he had forgotten. I don't care much for my birthdays and never have. My wife does though, and hers are the only celebrations I actually let myself enjoy. She went all out this year and gifted me a treasure chest full of piratey stuff; she picked each item individually over months. Very charming. I am now the proud owner of a spyglass, among other things. She also got me a pair of wooden swords because she overheard me discussing my obsession with them as a young child during a call with my parents (I forced my father to craft about a dozen of them, as I kept smashing them up). It is nice to indulge your inner child from time to time.

For bookkeeping purposes, I will list some things that have happened since the last entry, in no particular order:

• We had G. and K. over for dinner (G. is another colleague/friend of my wife, K. is his girlfriend), as they had us over a long time ago and we had never returned the favour (I cooked this as a starter and this as a main).
• I sent another couple of job applications, one for a permanent position abroad (in a place I don't want to move to anyway) and one for a temporary position here; still too early to hear anything back. ChatGPT has been a godsend in writing cover letters and various statements - I cannot for the life of me learn how to speak in professional-bullshitting language, but ChatGPT speaks it fluently.
• The working group meetings have been going on regularly, I volunteered another couple of lectures. I hate the room we are in though, it's just a conference room with a whiteboard.
• Some newly appointed research officer wanted to talk to me about some past funding application I had made (a failed one at that); I talked to her over a videochat, gave her my feedback and impressions. Now she has come back to me saying that there's another call and she wants me to apply again; she seems eager to help but I kind of want to turn her down, as the process is stressful, wasteful and mostly pointless given the extremely low success rate. The way we do funding nowadays is basically killing research; I did not tell her that though, obviously.
• Another colleague of my wife, A., had her birthday earlier and we went out for pizza; it wasn't half bad. The evening was mostly uneventful, besides the pizza we just got some pints in a well-known pub. It rained when we left, of course.
• I have talked to O. a couple of times over Zoom, since we have an article in the works and there are still some details to be settled. He got Covid again just the other week (tested for it), got it from his child - it's the curse of being the parent of a 3-4 years old. This time it was nasty in an unexpected way: he said they were all puking very badly, which I did not know was a possible symptom. Hopefully we are not going to get it this winter. We vaccinated for the flu to avoid the potential nuisance, but turned down the Covid vaccine earlier this year - I am not sure I see the point in it anymore.
• My uncle's handicapped daughter had a serious operation - they basically gave her a permanent feeding tube because of a malformation in her esophagus that prevents her from swallowing properly. Poor little thing can't catch a break. She is better though, and has started gaining weight again. My uncle R. is very happy - so much so that when I talked to him he forgot to mention that he has a bad back and needs to see a neurosurgeon (!).
• Speaking of weight gain, I have been intentionally eating more and my weight loss has stopped, which means there was nothing sinister about it. I can now go back to eating a little less so I can drop a few kilos (I just want to have a normal BMI, which I am close to anyway). In the last week I have started exercising a little with some light weights. It's as awful as I remember it, but I can tell that my muscles have gotten weaker over time and I am not happy with that. I want to maintain a modicum of strength - something to do with feeling like a man, I guess. I am not about to join a gym, but I will try to exercise regularly in the hope of rebuilding a little more muscle mass. Will probably need to increase the weights if I manage to stick to it. My coping strategy is to do the exercises while watching In Living Color.
• The tap water has been brownish for about a month, there is some sort of sediment suspended in it; it is staining the sink brown (our faucets are dripping a little). It is particularly egregious as there have been a number of works on the water mains in the area in the past few months, works that have taken place exclusively at night time, keeping us awake. They were meant to improve the water quality, not make it worse. I was so pissed off that I wrote a complaint to the water company (I am entering my old man era, evidently); surprisingly, they have gotten back to me. They claim they will investigate. Let's see if something comes out of it.