how lovely to read about your travels! side note, air becomes thinner at higher elevations; if you're not used to that sort of mountainous atmosphere, it's very common to experience extra windedness or other side effects. my mom gets headaches up high and i'm glad that your side effects were relatively mild !

Hi Roccie! Yes that aligns with my experience, it felt like there physically wasn't enough air, and I guess there wasn't! That's neat, I didn't know that.

I hate doing citations soooooooooooo much !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The one where I finally fixed the meme, and also, a new one.

Reading this made me regret not picking up licorice at the store !! I've been seeing a lot of water boatmen as well, they get quite big !

I've sort of fallen into a pattern now that whenever I see black licorice at a store and I don't already have some at home, I'll get it haha. They do get big! The first one startled me because I didn't recognize it for the size

i mean you definitely gotta be eating lemon wedges with raw garlic, no?

"for science"

For science, I put a whole lemon (instead of a quarter) and half a bulb of garlic (instead of 2 cloves) in a food processor with a can of chickpeas, a buncha olive oil, and some salt. 2nd round of covid seems to have cured my centuries-long battle with vampirism. Oh, but I still couldn't taste it, only feel my heart burn lol

i'm not a scientist but that sounds like the makings of a tasty concoction. perhaps some sort of, humm...is this--what is the word i'm looking for?

Ah yes, good ol hummus. The peanut butter of pita. I'll have to take your word for it being tasty, on account of my lack of taste

My worst nightmare... this is so scary to me

I can't get my meme to work and I'm tired, so, *continues to apply clown makeup*

we seem to be on extremely similar paths, thank you for sharing! Makes me feel like a tiny bit less of a clown lol

thanks for sharing, sauer! I def struggle with negative imaginings of people and their possible reactions to me, especially when they're important to me. May we all make the most of our suffering <3

oh, PS, your image needs the little root directory double period thingy added to its reference for it to work. Like this: src="../images/

always good to see a sauer baker return

I brought snacks

Sauer! It is good to hear from you. Sounds like we are abstractly in similar places right now, good to hear you ae doing good. I always enjoyed your thoughtful style of writing.

Thank you Manul! I am looking forward to catching up on reading your posts during my time off

so excited to see you again! also grappling with interpersonal relationships and growing out of certain ideas about 'love.'

sorry to hear, get well soon!

Get well soon, Sauer!

your updates are always so well written. i hope you find whatever you may need until the next time we hear from you. reach out if you ever need anything.