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thunder that sounded like an explosion

2025-05-02

4 minute read

Feeling average.

storm

Woke up 2 or 3 times to thunder that sounded like an explosion. Exciting, but not great for sleep.

herpes

Had an oral herpes breakout (coldsore) on Wednesday - I'm not sure what cause it. Maybe sun exposure on sunday and monday. Anyway today I've woken up with an irritated and sore eye - I think I may have developed ocular herpes. Will go to doctors soon to see what I can do.

I'm making an effort to use the correct term - herpes - because there is a general stigma against genital herpes and I believe normalising it is important. Oral herpes, ocular herpes and genital herpes are all symptoms of the Herpes Simplex Virus. There are two known types, HSV-1 and HSV-2. HSV-2 tends to have more genital outbreaks, but both types can cause genital and oral outbreaks. HSV is a lifelong infection and most people will contract oral herpes by the time they are 20.

The coldsore isn't too bad, but what ever is happening with my eye is really uncomfortable. Its a general ache around that part of the face, and the eye is quite irritated. Slight feeling of malaise throughout body

budget

Realised I'd been calculating my budget wrong after I got suspicious of how much it said my daily spend could be. I'd been using the wrong dollar sign, thinking it was in euros when it was actually in dollars. Did a review of my spending over the last couple of months and I'm well over. Will do a little detective work to see what the issue is, will also pursue paid work a little more actively. It's not an emergency situation, I'm still good for a fair while, but still feels bad to realise.

Feeling good

climbing

I had a really good couple of bouldering sessions this week - I've got a month pass and I'm going to start really hitting it.

bloom

I've been making incremental progress, using the small project wringer to break it into parts.

time with friends

I made some friends at the bouldering gym, and I had a nice evening with a friend last night in which I beat her at chess and she showed me a miradouro I hadn't been to yet.

bike, beach, bochet

When the power cut out on monday I biked to the beach and did crochet. I'm working on a mesh bag - it's taking a lot longer that I realised but it's steady progress. Medium and craft create form.

what else

I've been to the doctors - he reckons it's not Ocular Herpes! Great news. He said it's allergies, I'm taking antihistamines as eyedrops. Bloody expensive doctors visit, will see if insurance covers it.

I've been reflecting on how slow and difficult to see progress is when you're in it. It's only after a long time that you can look back and see how far you've come.

I've started work on a diagram of the concepts we're reading about in "What is Philosophy?". At the moment it's just a mind map from the first chapter, but I'm feeling good about it.

I'm very distracted - I don't know if that bears repeating, because it's all the time, but nonetheless.

I've been reading poetry - the book "SE ME EMPURRARES EU VOU" - "IF YOU PUSH ME I WILL GO" - by Maria Quintans. I think I'll try my hand at a translation soon - it is difficult. I've got my dictionary beside me at all times.

I've been putting ideas through the small wringer. It's good practice. First, things go to the "ideas" list. I've written a script for that, so I can call it from anywhere in the terminal.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

SCRIPT_DIR=$( cd -- "$( dirname -- "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" &> /dev/null && pwd )
echo "$@" >> $SCRIPT_DIR/ideas.txt

then another one, that lists them all

#!/usr/bin/env bash

SCRIPT_DIR=$( cd -- "$( dirname -- "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" &> /dev/null && pwd )
cat "$SCRIPT_DIR/ideas.txt"

then, when I want to start a project, or if I'm iterating on one, I create a directory and run the "small" script. It prompts questions and creates a file called "plan.txt" with a framework for scoping a project.

This is a tool for taking exciting project ideas 
and turning them into achievable, scoped, actionable project briefs.

Write down these details (don't think too hard):
	- The Goal of the project
	- The general idea
	- The size of the project
	- The skills required
	- The potential complexities

then

Now you can think hard. Halve the size of what you're trying to do.
Introduce constraints that let you remove or reduce parts of the 
- size, 
- skills 
- and complexity of the project. 

Always come back to the goal. 
What's the shortest path? 
your list of constraints and your "general idea" will actually grow here, 
as you get a clearer idea of what you're actually going to do.

and finally

Do it all again. be ruthless. 
It's easier to make something better 
than it is to make something from nothing

It's been a good tool, and let's me pause before launching into something. That alone, I think, is good. Once I've started something it's harder to pull away without feeling like I've abandoned it. Is the same problem I have with owning things? I feel like it's okay to feel bad about throwing things away, but it's not very helpful. Do I, unrequested, indebt myself to concepts and objects? To people? Possibly.

what else else

There was a national electricity blackout across Portugal and Spain on monday. I biked around and went to the beach. Good use of time, but it highlighted how unprepared I am for something like that.

listening to

choke enough - Oklou - this is the new album by french alt pop artist Oklou

questions