February 2025

happy march everyone! welcome back to another mini digest from last month. hope you’re taking good care of yourself and doing what you can to make the world a better place. Maybe give some time or money to your local mutual aid organization. love you.

Life Events

Wow! another ski trip! this time to Killington, VT. Honestly the conditions were pretty brutal, wind blew away pretty much all the powder so it was scrape city. But got some good time with my dad, Lucas, & a couple friends over a long weekend :)

French class continues, we are putting in WORK on the subjunctive tense.

Training

I’ve been participating in MIT’s getfit challenge with some friends. I don’t think someone with a “training” section on their blog is really the target demographic, but it’s been fun. The (very light) competition element of it triggers the little gremlin in my brain that wants to WIN which means I’ve been skipping core after lifting less often. thank u little gremlin.

rowing

Decided not to try out for the comp team this summer which is likely a coward’s move! Just really could not wrap my head around a 5am start time and I’m not sure I’m ready to re-orient my life that much around rowing even if it is my main activity. I’m going to try to race more this season with general sweeps and possibly start training regularly in sculling boats as well.

I’ve kept up erging, entirely steady state. I’d love to get to a place where I can sit at 20spm as a steady aerobic workout instead of my heart rate popping up immediately. Honestly genuinely I’m enjoying the erg these days, I get to listen to silly little podcasts and do some chill work. Eventually I’ll need to bring some intensity back into it, but with mostly late summer and fall races I’m really focused on building a steady metronome base.

lifting

Nothing groundbreaking here, chugging along with the Hepburn plan. Got into making graphs during my 5/3/1 era because they were actually interesting so I threw some into my spreadsheet for this program and they are giving Nothing. The supplementary exercises (front squat and close grip bench) are more variable, I spent the first cycle trying to estimate rep maxes for them and now my mission is to keep increasing those for as long as I can a la Greg Nuckols.

Overall impressions of the program are positive, it’s never scary since I’m operating <RPE 8 all the time. Probably can make it a couple more cycles before I’ll need to switch to a different rep scheme. One note is that combining 8 working sets with overwarmups means these workouts take plus or minus forever. I’m in the gym 100-120 minutes and that’s with 2 min rest! Granted, also a good amount of accessory exercises.

Numbers for the second (in progress) cycle: Squat 185 / Deadlift 240 / Bench 110 / Overhead Press 65

MISC

Might be entering a triathlon? One of my friends suggested we train for one together and I’m very tempted by the idea. Biking and running I know I can handle - slowly! - but I can cross the finish line. Swimming however….I will need to get some lessons and serious time in the pool. For context, after my swim test for CRI the lifeguard just said “you are not good at this hope you’re better at rowing.” sure am but boy!!

Making

knitting & crochet

Reworking my “grandma sweater”. I had made a huuuge bulky-yarn cardigan years ago and it felt like it was time to fix it up into something cleaner. Trying to crochet my first ever garment using this pattern: Sunset Bomber

Completed a single mitten (pattern here, Songbird Mittens by Erica Heusser). The thumb was so annoying that I quit for a while, but I’m being so brave and cast on the right hand a week or so ago. Should be quicker to finish this one now that I know what I’m doing! I’ll be honest, I don’t looove the cuff so tested out a technique that rips back to the cast-on edge but it shifts the vertical stripes a bit and I decided too long was better than twisted. I haven’t blocked this yet, I’m hoping the slight puckering in the fabric relaxes a bit once I do.

needle crafts

Lots of embroidery this month! From left to right: Stitches by Tiff Witch’s Apothecary, Kiriki Press Cardinal Sampler, Oh Sew Bootiful Snowflake Mandala. Sorry to lie to you all last month, the cardinal was the next project for my embroidery club, not the little sweater! But I believe that’s what’s next.

This blog-keeping also reminded me that I had a Phillies cross stitch project to finish. This is the whole 2024 season where reds are losses (brighter colors for home games) and blues are wins. Squares outlined in gold we saw in person and the two slightly darker red/blue games are the London Series. I’d like to do this again for 2025 but I think I’ll put the logo up next to the year, it was a bit of an afterthought so I had to squeeze it in there. I may also do a similar project for the Red Sox, especially if we end up purchasing season tickets and going to a lot of games.

Media

books

On Looking, Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz. The premise is that the author walks around NYC (mostly) with experts in many different fields (ex geologist, physical therapist) to learn what they’re seeing/hearing/smelling as they travel. A love letter to city living in many ways, there are so many delights to see right under our noses. One of the most compelling experts was Fred Kent, the founder of Project for Public Spaces. Their walk discussed how people move around each other on sidewalks and how features in the urban environment cause people to speed up or slow down. Another particularly interesting section with Scott Lehrer investigated the different sounds in the city such an idling bus, tires on pavement, and a softball hitting a mitt.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson. Fun little murder mystery, doesn’t take itself very seriously. The narrator jumps a bit through time to explain how all his family members have yes, killed people. Which can be a bit confusing. Overall, an easy read and kept me entertained, I’ll read the sequel!

still reading on revolution but it’s a slog, nothing to report yet

articles

Helen Garner on happiness. “So I’m not going to spend what’s left of my life hanging round waiting for it. I’m going to settle for small, random stabs of extreme interestingness – moments of intense awareness of the things I’m about to lose, and of gladness that they exist. Things that remind me of other things. Tiny scenes. Words that people choose, their accidentally biblical turns of phrase. Hand-lettered signs, quotes from books, offhand remarks that make me think of dead people, or of living ones I can no longer stand the sight of.” Reminiscent of one of my favorite poems, The Orange.

Why Everything is Becoming a Game. We chase numbers and icons because they’re always available, and the chase is often so immersive that it keeps us from seeing where it leads, which is often far away from what we actually want. This can lead to what the evolutionary psychologist Diana Fleischman calls “counterfeit fitness”: the constant, momentary “wins” that come with playing digital games give us a false sense of progression and accomplishment, […] which, if it becomes a habit, risks lulling us out of pursuing true fulfillment. This essay is going to be rattling around my brain for a while. As someone who clearly!! builds a lot of their life around hobbies and treating their brain as a skill tree that can be unlocked, it’s startling to consider that that may be a stand-in for missing something bigger.

Casual Viewing, n+1. How Netflix got to where it is now and how it and streaming services like it are pumping out so much content. Which they don’t even care if you really watch! Several screenwriters who’ve worked for the streamer told me a common note from company executives is “have this character announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along.”

Health Insurers Deny 850 Million Claims a Year. The Few Who Appeal Often Win. The effort that health insurance companies will go through to deny coverage is absolutely horrifying. It’s great to read that most who can fight through all those layers win their cases, but simply cannot believe that stress is good for a patient struggling with a health issue!

The Social Media Sea Change by Anne Helen Petersen and You Might Just Have to Be Bored by Kate Lindsey. I particularly love this snippet from Be Bored - Boredom is when you do the dishes, run the errand you’ve been putting off, respond to the text you’ve left on read. Boredom is when you bring a book to read on the subway or make small talk with the person in front of you in line about how slow the pharmacy is. Boredom is when you do the things that make you feel like you have life under control. Not being bored is why you always feel busy, why you keep “not having time” to take a package to the post office or work on your novel.

What Felt Impossible Became Possible, Dan Sinker. Discusses a newspaper publisher named George Dale who continued to stand up to the KKK when they ran the town he lived in, sent him to jail, and almost killed him. Back when the KKK felt inevitable, unstoppable, people continued to stand up in the ways that they could. A good lesson for the current moment.

podcasts / videos

Sheffield 2025 this happened in January but I watched a bit late. i love watching strong people move heavy weights, good god. See also, all of the Weightlifting House videos from the world championships (women -71, men’s -89).

Scratch & Win by Ian Coss & GBH. Apparently adults in Mass spend $1,037 per capita on lottery tickets (fwiw, googled and figures seem to vary but this is what the podcast reports). Considering that I know approximately 0 people who play the lottery, this figure is absolutely staggering to me. Big fan of Ian Coss’s work, The Big Dig podcast is also great.

games

The Roottrees are Dead by Jeremy Johnston and Robin Ward. Lucas described this as an extremely Hannah-coded game and he is RIGHT! it ROCKS! think Obra Dinn meets Her Story. You piece together a family tree by searching the internet/magazines for names and events. Difficulty is more on par with Her Story than the Obra Dinn, it didn’t feel like there were as many leaps in logic that had to happen to solve the main story.

Thank Goodness You’re Here short little comedy/absurd game where you play as a salesman (this is not important) helping the residents of a little town with their different errands. Somewhat similar to Untitled Goose Game in its simplicity, but definitely more Out There. Delightful accents too.

Wilmot Works It Out a game where you’re just assembling puzzles. It’s cute, not groundbreaking.

Cooking

Shalene Flanagan and Elyse Kopecky’s Superhero Muffins. Every few months I go on a muffin kick and crank them out like nobody’s business, if you have favorite recipes PLEASE send them my way

Soba Noodle Salad sans the chicken. A banger! Easily customized with different veggies/proteins.