Hey, uh... been a while, huh? 989 days, if my recent posts are to be believed. Funny how you can spend so much time in a (virtual) place for so long and then one day you look up and realize you haven't logged in in almost 3 years. I still think of you all, though, and hope you're well. What's new? Drop a line, I'd love to catch up.

After almost 5 years in Germany, I moved back home in 2022 to figure out what it's like to be an adult in the United States. Mixed results so far, but I'm happy to be where I am. Had a string of varyingly shitty jobs and have now settled in as a legal assistant for Big Tech. Trying to combat the guilt of working for The Man by doing covert union organizing on company time, which is fun and exciting.

Bought a car and got an apartment with a friend and her cat. Joined a sandlot baseball team and have been having a great time playing the other beautiful game with new friends (sometimes after pregame mushrooms--allegedly).

Started taking improv classes on a whim and almost immediately fell in love with it. I'm about to finish the Final Level at my conservatory and excited to move on to bigger, self-driven, artistically ambitious projects. Doing bits is fun but I want to take improvisational theater to places it has rarely, if ever, gone. I find it immensely disheartening that so many of the improv shows you see across the country look basically the same. This is supposed to be the art form where anything can happen! So I have some ideas, we'll see where they go.

Other than that... living life, reading a lot, trying to figure out what's next, as always. Maybe law school, maybe I'll find some literary grad program I can use as an excuse to get another German visa. If I'm really lucky maybe I can find a German spouse and then I don't have to worry about all that. We'll see where things go :)

Anyway, thanks for reading, and seriously, let me know how you've been. I've missed you all.

g

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=transporter11

Friday August 16th: 18:20 UTC / 11:20 PDT / 14:20 EDT / 20:20 CEST

Hot sauce update: so we put it together this past weekend and it's fermenting away. It was a few types of Chiles and peppers, and it's also got peaches and mangoes, and cardamom pods, dried hibiscus, and cinnamon sticks. It stared by smelling super strong and spicy. But we may have fucked up and put in too much fruit because now it just smells like alcohol lol. Going to be interesting to try whenever that happens. Probably give it another week to a month of ferment before we blend and bottle it up.

In work news, we've had a meeting space reserved for around a month now for an event the week of labor day. It's just a job-owned space, nothing exciting. But the county heads decided they want it at the same time and place for a meeting they have, so they're kicking us out 3 weeks out to find a new space if we have to move the time of it. Apparently not the first time this has happened either. The original space was Centrally located for our external partners, free for us to use, has plenty of parking for free, and is plenty large enough. No other space will meet all those requirements. So now I get to play those games which is super cool.