Even in Kyoto

Yesterday I finally walked into my lab and grabbed a thermometer to set on my desk. In the afternoon, my top-of-desk temperature was 20 °C (68 °F). My floor temperature was 17 °C (62.6 °F). I'd been sitting for a while so I was drinking tea and wearing a sweater, an "infinity" scarf, my hand-knit wool shawl as a lap blanket, two pairs of socks, and leg warmers. I was almost warm, except for my feet.

When I came in this morning, my top-of-desk temperature was 15 °C (59 °F). With the door open, it's now up to 16.5 °C (61.7 °F). The hallway is always warmer than my office or lab. I haven't checked the floor today.

It's hard to concentrate when cold, especially when my feet or hands are cold. I am dreaming about crocheting a rag rug to provide at least a little more insulation on the floor, as my office is on the ground floor so I can't exactly expect the floor to be warm. I am so pleased to have come up with the idea of making rag rugs as a way to put old clothing and fabric to a new and beneficial use, but on the other hand I haven't been in the right time or space to act on the idea yet.

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Something I'm realizing and trying to come to terms with: over the years of blogging, I've always noted that my parents read my blog. This means that when I'm thinking about my writing audience, I'm always at least abstractly thinking of and including my parents in that audience. Often that thinking is more than just abstract: I'm thinking, "Here's a short story my father would appreciate." Perhaps this point can help you appreciate that my father's current and upcoming situation impacts my blogging.

At the moment, the most substantial impact is going from my father as real audience to imaginary audience (here are things I think about that he would appreciate if he were in a state where he could appreciate them, but now he isn't so instead I'm shouting them at the void or writing them for my own personal amusement). As one small example: he's no longer in a position to even check e-mail or have an extended conversation, so it's hard to say whether he has been in a position to hear or appreciate the final Winter Bike Commute Haikus. I'm okay with this because what matters most to me is having been able to use them as a way of showing that I am keeping him in my thoughts and continuing his bicycling legacy, and I think he has understood this regardless of whether or not he has been able to read and appreciate every single haiku and photo. As another small example, writing about the minutae of measuring my office temperature is the kind of thing that tickles only certain peoples' funny bones, my father's in particular. I expect that kind of subtlety is lost on others because you might not know or think often about all of the detailed observations he tends to record when doing things like embarking on coffeeshop bike rides.

There's also the component of continuing to try and always be respectful of other people in how I write about them. In the past my father has often sent along corrections or clarifications of his perspective on things, and of course he can't do that anymore. (He's been great for cases where I mix metaphors to the max, make spelling mistakes, or say something that's clear as mud). That said, I think and hope that most people reading this have the maturity to recognize that things I write are through my personal lens, and are unafraid to respond after your own fashion.