Even in Kyoto

Busy day. I gave a talk at lab meeting at noon, so I spent the morning scrambling to pull together data and analyses from multiple ongoing projects. We had an extended lab meeting so that a visiting scientist could also tell us about her work studying lipid biosynthesis in parasitoids. Parasitoids are insects that lay their eggs inside of other insects, eventually killing their hosts. Apparently there are multiple cases where different parasitoid species have completely shut off the biochemical pathways for lipid biosynthesis. This is pretty crazy if you consider that the pathways for lipid biosynthesis are broadly conserved across animals. Investigations as to why and how are ongoing.

After that, Monday cricket care duties, with help from a new undergrad, which basically means everything takes the same amount of time or slightly longer while I explain everything.

I have a late-night timepoint tonight, and then I'll sleep on the lab couch so I can remove food from more crickets tomorrow morning at 8 am, for the 11 am timepoint tomorrow.

At least I got the full 5 long-winged crickets with pink flight muscle, unlike on Friday when only 3 out of 14 crickets still had pink flight muscle.

So anyway, that's why I'm on eBay, doing a search for "vintage Tupperware." Apparently one of the containers that I have is actually an "ice cream keeper." We've been using it for various cheeses, but I don't like doing that because the plastic sides aren't completely smooth, so cheese gets smeared in the cracks and the whole thing gets moldy quickly. Maybe it's for people who still buy ice cream in those box cartons, so the leftover ice cream doesn't get horribly freezer-burned?

It does sound like the Tupperware cheese-keepers will hold a full 2-pound block of Tillamook, but then we would want something else for the other miscellaneous cheeses. Fridge space is at a premium in this house.

And maybe I should consider getting more of the 16-ounce square containers for freezer storage. scrottie and I both hate it when sacks of food slip out and fall onto the floor.

And on the third hand, too.much.stuff.

Last night, S helped me finish up Project Bike Security.

It looks like there were two different layers of concrete poured in the garage. The upper layer was much more tough than the lower layer, so I made great progress with drilling the pilot hole, to the point where I was ready to switch over to the 1/2" bit and drill the final hole. The hole widening went FAST, probably because it's easier for a bigger bit to scrape out the sides than for the smaller bit to bore downwards.

While I worked on that, S added another layer of metal to the deadbolt's strikeplate, and then he helped me attach the lower cane bolt. Once that was in place, we decided it would really be a good idea to add a top bolt as well. Fortunately, the top bolt only had to go into wood. It felt like drilling through sawdust, after the concrete episode.

The whole thing feels like a real set of doors now.



Five bikes can squeeze in, if necessary, but with four bikes it's still possible for L to get over to the washer and dryer to do laundry. The doors won't bang around in the wind anymore. And we won't find ourselves fiddling with the dang luggage lock in the dark. There is one hook that is not entirely convenient (with a bike on it, it blocks the light switch), but that project has to wait until L's available for input.

Hooray, hooray, hooray, whew. I can move on to other projects.

...maybe I should build myself a piano bench. *laughs maniacally*

I think we're maybe at about 80% packed. I play a mean game of Moving Truck Tetris. I can also tell that I have gotten a decent amount of practice at this game over the last couple of years. I suspect my younger sister sytharin is still going to be horrified by how much stuff I own. A byproduct of living in my own house and hating furniture shopping. That said - I still have a few too many boxes of t-shirt memorabilia.

In the morning:

-Go to lab, pack up dried ant samples, turn in keys and ID card, pack lab stuff into moving truck
-Pack up remaining kitchen items, dresser, roll-up futon bed, remaining three bicycles, door-table
-Cleaning sweep, then we're off.

Umm, yeah.

scrottie and I had a useful discussion over the weekend about the house-moving logistics, and it is starting to feel like things are falling into place, in a kind of amazing way, thanks to friends and family.

One of the things I'm a little sad about is realizing that Princess TinyHouse should probably stay in Nebraska. That leaves 'er in a good place for the purpose of visiting friends and relatives in the Midwest, but also means fewer opportunities to just bop around like glamorous hobos in other parts of the country. For now, at least.

On the other hand, for me it is less nerve-wracking to think about instead driving a moving truck halfway across the country through a couple of snowy, mountainous states. And, annikusrex and my sis-in-law's family have come up with some good ideas for what to do about all of the household goods and furniture I wish to store while living in the Bay Area. Yay-phew. Now all we have to do is get them all packed up. Details.

I found myself regressing back to Stage 1 Packing on Saturday. But I feel good about it, because I got a whole bunch of stationery stuff organized, got all my old financial files organized and archived for Deep Storage, and managed to consolidate some of the random stuff living in various file folders. Progress.

Let's see. When I was packing things up for the move out of the Villa Maria house, in the early stages I industriously went through my jewelry box and whittled it down, as part of the first stage of moving (full list of stages of moving at the end of this post, ha ha ha).

This time, I am working on pantry management. I enjoy a well-stocked kitchen, but on the other hand it makes me really sad when stuff sits around for 5 years and gets stale and gnawed on by bean beetles (I'm looking at you, erstwhile chickpea flour. Also you, masa harina.). As such, I have too much: cumin seeds, turmeric, black mustard seeds, and fenugreek seeds. Would anyone like an Indian spices collection? These are all in quantities that would be useful if you've run out - I just happen to have double of what I will realistically use.

I also have a variety of delicious Taiwan green tea, and some mild and tasty Bai Mu Dan (Chinese White Peony tea). Trouble is, I will never manage to drink them because coffee is my go-to caffeine source and I'm too caffeine sensitive to consume more than one caffeinated beverage a day.

I will happily send these things to you - just message me your address.

It will get more interesting when I am ready to dispose of this heavy duty three-drawer filing cabinet, eh? I suspect I won't be shipping it to anyone.

Sunday's bike ride ran so late that I didn't have a chance to attend to all of my planned chores, argdarnit. To top that off, on Saturday night, just as I got ready to bake a loaf of sandwich bread, I discovered that the gas oven had stopped working. The last time this sort of thing happened was when I was living in the Farmer house, trying to bake some scones. That time around, we managed to save the scones by firing up the gas grill, but I don't have that grill anymore, so I just stuck the bread dough in the fridge and crossed my fingers that the replacement oven lighter would show up sooner rather than later.

It finally showed up last night, so instead of working on an overdue manuscript review I took apart the oven and installed the replacement while thinking about how I don't really make enough money to afford to hire a handyman to do this kind of work for me (and no, I don't trust the apartment management to get this stuff done in a time-efficient manner; they always want me to stay home from work). It took much longer than necessary because I didn't think I had a wrench of the correct size and so I removed most of the tiny bolts with an adjustable wrench that kept slipping off of one stripped bolt in particular. Eventually I determined that the socket wrench set did indeed have the correct metric size and finished up the job. Now I want a handy-man merit badge for fixing the oven. The loaf of bread is really flat on top, and more sour than usual, but edible. I also made muesli and more yogurt, chores that I can usually wedge into everyday activities more easily. It's hard when they all pile up at the same time.

I also had to deep-clean the litterbox. On Monday, I noticed a tan smudge on the lid, which upon closer inspection was a full-blown mite infestation, the same kind of mites as we get infesting our cricket and ant colonies. They love dead and decaying material. I think the humidity just finally caught up with the wheat-based litter I prefer. So, time for a major cleanup. If it happens again after this deep-cleaning and complete replacement I may need to switch over to something else instead. The humidity has really been something else this year.

This morning, it was the worm bin that needed immediate attention. I'd hoped to empty it last Sunday, but had put it off, but too much new compost material has been accumulating. It's still kind of in experimental mode at the moment, but at some point I might go through to try and describe how I'm maintaining a worm bin for apartment living because there aren't enough good explanations of this stuff on the interwebs. My apartment method involves giving away a lot of worm dirt to various gardening friends because I'm producing more than I can use for my small collection of potted plants. I'm pretty sure my bin size is large enough for my personal vegetable consumption rate, but I'm less sure that it can accommodate both myself and scrottie. I also haven't been keeping it at quite the right ratio of vegetables to worm bedding because it has been on the smelly, moist side. Hopefully I can generate enough shredded paper to balance things out better.

I did a stupendous job of channeling Helga today. Helga is my hyper-cleaning OCD alter-ego, in case you haven't met her before. I really should make up some calling cards that just say, "Helga was here" so I can leave them in places after I've Cleaned.

I think I will be eligible to leave one at the Sour Milk House upon my departure. Assuming I keep things up.

I found some actual mildew this morning, along a crevice in the doorframe to the front bedroom - the room that had a ceiling collapse due to water funneling in from the balcony above it. I think I'm going to make "mildew spot-checks" a biweekly or monthly task, particularly in those high-up places that are easily overlooked. I also finished bleaching the hallway and dining room, so the only two spaces that remain are the bathroom and the back entryway. The end is in sight, hallelujah.

I also started to vacuum out the air intakes for the furnace. Those were looking mighty fuzzy, but the fuzz is mostly dust. Still, gross.

Then I came in to work to help an undergraduate with cricket stock maintenance. The lab is currently understaffed in that department, so it's up to me to step up. No problem; it isn't like I have a busy social life at the moment or anything. It's menial work but satisfying to see things neat and tidy. I have great contempt for scientists who find themselves utterly unable to care for their study organisms (job's beneath them, they're slobs, et cetera). TZ seems to agree with me in that department, which is great. Life's so much better when one's boss has one's back.

I've been doing some mental calculations about the stuff I've got in the storage pod. I've been paying ~$100/month for storage, which would work out to $600 to store things for the 6 months I'm here. However, if I leave stuff in the pod and have it shipped off to the Great Beyond (whatever my next destination happens to be), I'll still have to pay shipping fees again. Plus I'll have to rent another small moving truck, no matter what I do. So it seems most financially reasonable to have the pod delivered and then do my next move entirely by truck or entirely by pod. That will add another layer to the sorting and organizing, but once the bleaching is finished I think I'll be ready for it. Plus it will be nice to have access to things like bike tools and parts and desk space and spices.

Time to go do laundry.

Small chicken figurine given to me by my Aunt L, who originally gave it to my grandfather, then regifted it to me upon my grandpa's death

Have you yet witnessed the next "simplification" trend that has been hitting the US recently, manifested in the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo? I've seen it appear in several different scattered-around places - for instance, apparently it's been the #1 bestseller on NPR's hardcover nonfiction bestseller list (what? NPR has bestseller lists?!). Anyway. The first and uncharitable thought that crosses my mind is that it's hilariously ironic that people are buying a book to figure out how to declutter.

However, the thoughtful and more charitable folks over at Root Simple have rolled up their sleeves to give the approach a solid test-run, and their thoughts on their experience with the process are making me reconsider, to some extent. The hubbub might not be sufficient to convince me to actually acquire the book, but I'm taking away some useful insights from the secondhand experience.

For example, as Kelly points out, the Shinto-influenced tendency to personify objects speaks to the emotional element of dealing with stuff. It's easy for me to get stuck when dealing with possessions for this reason. I have several boxes full of handwritten notes and cards sitting in a storage pod somewhere in Lincoln, NE. It does make sense to me to hold objects and ask if they bring me joy. It's a reminder that I live in luxury.

And gifts. Somewhere, over the course of the "stuff-purge" commentary, it was pointed out that gifts should not be kept for so long that they become a burden. It makes sense to me to say thank-you to the gift-giver and the given object, and then let go of the object after a period. Some things will linger longer than others. In the case of the small chicken figurine pictured above - I am grateful that my aunt thought of me and my chicken-keeping ways, but the photograph will be more than sufficient as a memory. Figuring out where to put the thing rather quickly becomes a burden with figurine-type objects. I should know, for I have burdened myself with many such things over my ceramics-making periods.

Another thing I appreciate about the Root Simple approach is that I know they share my desire to avoid simply throwing things away, but they're also human about this desire - we have to do the best we can to send orphaned things to the right home, but we also have to avoid getting too caught-up in the process of trying to get everything to exactly the right place (for instance, trying to sell all of one's purged rare books on Amazon won't necessarily move them along quickly).

I'm also going to have to figure out how to store my clothes when I move to Lincoln (dresser's in the moving pod), so the tips on how to fold your clothes may become really handy really soon.

And, only partly related, here's today's reminder-to-self to get off the internet occasionally:

Some recent conversations and the stupid NYT bestseller book have gotten me to contemplate living arrangements in greater depth - both the ideal, and the real. A recent chapter in SNYTBB talked about how American society has transitioned from a culture idealizing strong moral character to one that idealizes extroverted personalities. In association with that change, which has affected the qualities that are sought out in businesspeople, there have been changes to how workplaces are constructed, such that the majority of workplaces emphasize group work and shared space. Ugh.

This can be harmful to introverts, or really anyone requiring quiet space for concentration (see: my current lack of office and terrible academic writing productivity). A large part of the book's premise is that introverts should receive equal attention and respect (reminds me of Somebodies and Nobodies), and I agree. So, how should this affect the shaping of our spaces, public and private?

Back to living arrangements in particular. I'm trying to reflect on what sort of living arrangements would be my ideal, and how that matches up with where I've lived previously. In this post I'll begin by reflecting on where I've lived so far, before trying to think about what might be ideal for the future. We all start out in living arrangements that are primarily driven by someone else. In the house I grew up in, it was easy to find nooks and crannies to squirrel away in as necessary - we kids all had our own bedrooms, and the house had three stories, so I could happily hide in an attic room or in the basement. Dorm life, in contrast, was a hard transition - I had to sleep and work in shared spaces (stressful), but I found relief by going to the library, hiding in the chemistry building, or walking down to the Someday Cafe. I do have a vivid memory of not being able to find somewhere safe to cry, though. 90 Bromfield was pretty glorious, once I moved out of the little stuffy room on the bedroom floor and down into the drafty room on the main floor, further away from my 3 housemates. I could look out the windows for hours, and read books on the balcony. 89 Bromfield was similar - I spent hours in my room, staring at the wall, thinking. It helped that most of my roommates at 89 Bromfield were introverted. Both Bromfield spaces had the benefit of public areas and private areas, and the benefit of multiple levels. I'm a major proponent of multi-level dwellings.

First Street, in Tempe, was not so great, because it was a single story and my housemate liked to stay up late watching television. Also, the neighbors had a super-barky dog, which would wake me up frequently, and the airplanes flying overhead were so noisy it was impossible to have a private phone conversation in the postage-stamp yard. Maple Ave was particularly difficult, between life in a bedroom right off of the kitchen (single-floor dwelling again) and trying to maintain even keel with a highly extroverted roommate who would barge in a lot. Also, late-night dinner parties hosted by a roommate in a single-floor dwelling aren't fun when I'm trying to go to sleep so I can get up early and go rowing.

Then, the Garage period. In some respects, the Garage was glorious - any messes were ones that I made myself, and the space was beautiful and peaceful, all bricks and rafters, tucked away under a big mesquite tree. I was close enough to the main house to not feel completely isolated, but still had my own space. It just wasn't quite enough room to invite over much company, though, and a bit awkward when half of the seating was on my bed and I had to perform furniture origami all the time to get anything done. I also grew weary of its stuffiness, and the lack of insulation. Keeping it cool was a challenge.

Things were pretty good in the Farmer House, although there the yard situation was kind of the opposite of the Garage - a little too much space for my tastes. I like having room for a garden, but when the yard's too big, it generates too much maintenance work in addition to the gardening space. I am thinking of the hours and hours spent pruning and managing tree branches there, and raking up and composting ornamental citrus. On the other hand, one of the greatest things about the Farmer House was that the two bedrooms were on opposite ends of the house, so even though the house was only one story it was still possible to retain a level of quiet thinking space. The house itself was also a nice size, overall - large common area for hosting friends, plenty of counter space in the kitchen, and a bike room for projects.

What about Villa Maria? It was too large for me by myself, too isolated, and way too noisy. Another large yard full of dying trees requiring way too much maintenance time. The bedrooms were adjacent to each other, separated by a paper-thin wall which is far from ideal. The kitchen didn't get any natural light whatsoever, and the whole place felt stuffy and claustrophobic. I've griped enough about it lately.

Beck Street is great in some respects, but still leaves certain things to be desired. On the one hand, the bedrooms are arranged fairly well, and the common areas interact well, too - while the kitchen itself doesn't have windows, the adjoining dining space lets in plenty of light. The house is a little strange in that it's one of those "antisocial" dwellings where there's minimal interaction with the street out in front, and maximal garage instead. The privacy and quiet can be great, and the garage does get opened up and used in a more public manner on occasion, but I keep thinking that something crazy could happen right outside the front door and we'd never be the wiser.

On top of all this, it's difficult to find quiet space when living with a five-year-old who is still getting familiar with the concept of "personal boundaries" (although he can be cute with his polite interruptions). I suspect most mothers would agree. My room is close enough to the living room that it can be difficult to filter out activities there (especially because my cat yells if I close the door all the way, even though she doesn't actually want to go out due to the ever-vigilant Luda). On the other hand, I'm now closer to downtown Bryan, and there are a couple of places there which I can easily reach if I need some time and space to think in an anonymous setting (library, coffeeshop).

So - based on previous experience, I think the Farmer House is close to ideal. My parents' house was a good size for a family with three kids, but if it were just me, myself, and I, it would be WAY too big. Maybe the Farmer House with a modified backyard, with the part along the train tracks converted to something low- or no-maintenance, and consolidated gardening spaces.

How about for you?