Zen<3lofi

a kid keeps throwing their toys out the window. It felt like a spontaneous easter egg hunt. Think I found them all.

yup, preliminarily trying out Misfits Market. Got one order so far. And it seems to be an awesome idea and way of carrying it out. 🛒

I watched an interview with Ocean Vuong, for his latest book. The Emperor of Gladness. He talks a lot about “the working poor”, a socioeconomic class label I have *never* heard mentioned, except by Ocean. The class labels I was aware of started with ‘the working class, or blue collar workers’ at the lowest level, then the middle class, which is divided into lower and upper middle class. And the latter is what I tend to hear mentioned the most - the middle class, the upper middle class, the … upper class (multi-millionaires) / billionaires. When I hear the term “working poor”, it’s immediately understandable. My parents were that when they first immigrated to the United States. We were poor, and they were working various types of low paying jobs. I felt this way, the first few years after graduating with a Psychology major. I felt poor, though I had a job and was working. In my case, I suspected this was more of a personal failing, maybe. I had selective mutism for 6 years as a kid, which affected my grades in middle school, and in high school, my grades were just normal / okay. I felt that the things I really liked (drawing, reading, journaling, listening to music, watching TV) had nothing to do with making money. There’s fear and insecurity from that time that stayed with me while I was getting my second bachelors degree (more student loans), then graduate school (more student loans), then after graduate school, getting a job with my new Master’s degree. Around that time is when my dad was laid off from his job, after the 2008 financial crisis, and was out of work for several years due to his older age. My mom worked at the post office, doing a very physical job, and I worried about her as she was also getting older. My parents owned a house, but it seemed more like a financial burden than an asset. They might not be able to afford the mortgage payments? What if nobody wants to buy the house because it’s so run-down looking? At many points in my life, I felt like my family and I were … poor. Or like we were in a precarious situation. This viewpoint was partially based on fact at times, and partially based on relative context (what I was seeing around me), and partially on my own ignorance of the topic and of the bigger picture and how things are connected, in the financial / economic areas. It’s fair to say I knew literally next-to-nothing about it. When Ocean talks about his family and their town, and the people they lived and worked with, as the working poor, I feel a quietness in my mind, because this is something of a scale and type I never saw or considered. I never knew about it. A different kind of value system emerges when he talks about the working poor. It’s different from the values that you think are present when the public dialogue, coming from news media, starts with “the working class” and more often dwells on and focuses on “the middle class”. With these latter two groups, the discussions make you think it’s more an issue of individual attitude and motivations - are the adults being responsible, are they applying themselves, are the kids doing well in school? If so, they can save up money and have the goal of buying a house and saving for retirement. When Ocean talks about “the working poor”, the question becomes, why is nobody helping them? How can they be stuck like this, and nobody in America is giving them the basic, fundamental help that they need? Why are these work systems violent and cruel? His mom and co-workers worked from 8am to 8pm. If a customer came in at 7:55, she would be there till 9. His uncle worked from 3pm to 12am, and never saw his family members. If “everything is connected”, and America is so rich, and “life is good”, why isn’t the money flowing down to the working poor?

it can be a fine line between … cultivating habits of self care and being self-centered.

Bujo cover page for April I started skipping monthly cover pages around … January? For various reasons… but I started to miss it and felt the need to go back and do April’s. That month seems to be characterized by checkups for physical and mental health … the latter of which was helped by two shows - 👸🏽With Love, Meghan and 🐸Amphibia. The episode ‘Elevating the Everyday’ was about Vicky Tsai, who started a skincare company with her husband. She was having physical and mental health problems after working 10 years at a corporate job ☹️, but had a healing experience while in Japan. Her demonstration of how to use rice flour and matcha powder as a diy scrub was amazing, aka, simple & inexpensive. ☺️ #artstr #bujo nostr:note1r4hj9yp3uch8x56zvcf8mgr2hec6cg62d86kamw2vsusjmkh2fes36u2hu

actually, correction! An iron pill may not be necessary. 😝Definitely not daily. But I think the recommendation to separate caffeine from meals applies (for women who are vegetarian or vegan, esp. after lifting weights or getting period). … will ask my PCP about this. There was one day where I felt oddly physically weak, and I’m wondering if it was related to the new habit of drinking matcha frequently, including with meals. 😬 nostr:note1xqg96jlpjvp4yz6zncxjltwfj7tex6j89kqlv998jph5ad260fvqhqtv3u

I’ve been reading up on nutrition relating to women who are vegetarians and the need for Iron. Basically, for women who are vegetarians (and doing resistance training), getting enough iron is important. You can take an iron pill, cook foods in an iron pot like a wok, and also, avocado and natto has a lot of iron. However, taking an iron pill needs to be done on an empty stomach, and it’s a similar recommendation for drinking caffeine, because having caffeine with food reduces absorption of iron. So what is the timing for having food, caffeine, and iron supplements? This seems to be the necessary schedule: 1. Breakfast w/ non-caffeinated drink (ex: ginger tea) 2. After 1 hour - have caffeinated drink (ex: milk tea, matcha) 3. Snacks … lunch … 4. Have iron pill either 2 hours after lunch or 2 hours after dinner In my mind, I was starting to think of matcha as like, a miracle drink that has it all, after googling ‘matcha nutrition’. It seemed to have everything. So then I got the idea to search, ‘what nutrients does matcha *not* have?’ And it tends to not have vitamin D and Iron. My partner pointed out that vegetarians tend to lack certain things that can easily be found in red meats, like iron, and how this could be especially a problem for women. So I looked that up, and found that the more troubling thing is that if one drinks caffeinated drinks with a meal, or near a meal, it actually decreases iron absorption. So, gonna try out this schedule. I stopped drinking coffee a while ago, though I’ll sometimes have like, half a cup in the afternoon to go with a pastry or something. Some desserts just seem to *have* to go with coffee.

omg. Do I have no self control or something? I’m like, I’m going to go on Nostr and just browse. Maybe a few likes here and there, but no commenting! But so far, that’s almost never happened. I wind up seeing something that I *must* comment on. Has reddit trained me to be this way? Is this a bad (meaning, unhealthy) habit… 🤔

Codonopsis, derived from the Greek κώδων (kodon) "bell" and ὄψις (opsis) "eye, to see". nostr:note1fk26z0gv5gh9g25w0q0hmkt93kn3j8wvfax3k3cktgca4my8y97q7k4anu

Today I started a year-long membership at a new gym. When I got there, the guy did the usual set up stuff, then at the end, asked if I wanted to download the app. People had been coming in and scanning their phones. I’ve gone to two other gyms previously, and both used a keychain card with a barcode scan. I asked, “what’s the point of the app? (Besides scanning at the door for ID, thinking maybe it tracks fitness goals or something - not that I need such exact data)” He said, “sometimes people don’t bring their keys. They just bring their phone.” I’m like, …they don’t bring their keys? “How do they get back in the house then?” Him: “*shrug* Maybe they don’t need it, maybe they always have someone at home.” I decided to use the keychain with a barcode. He was also asking for my email in conjunction with getting the app, which I thought was weird. I think I’m going to like this gym. It has a crisp feeling to it. *It has central AC* It’s spacious. Everything is painted black. It’s half the price of my previous gym.