k_sereinroom | Recent Entries

Today felt lighter, and I got things done. No art though.

About twenty years ago, I studied a system to learn what clothes are best for me. Colors, fabrics, and structure. Mostly to make shopping easier, with fewer mistakes. And since things generally mix and match well getting dressed needs fewer decisions.

So, that’s well integrated and I don’t think much of it. This afternoon I was walking back from one of the bodegas where I’d got some popcorn I’d been craving. A mix of cheddar and caramel.

A young man was walking in the opposite direction and stopped me. He said, “I like your fashion. Those clothes look good on you.” And I know he was sincere and that they do look the best that anything could. How kind of him to actually tell me; to take that risk.

So, something you put care into, that no one is aware of, can be recognized and kindly remarked upon years later, when least expected, from an unlikely source.

I made progress today in getting some things taken care of. I also made a list of twelve things I really don’t want to do but must do between now and the end of July. One of them is going back to the dentist next Thursday to have two lost fillings replaced. I was only aware of the one. It was one this dentist placed four years ago. She told me “it had a good run.” Yikes! The other one had lasted for over thirty years.

They were running behind in the office, and distracted, which made me feel less of a target.

They are in a drab, ugly office building. Someone has added décor since I was there last. Opposite the elevator on each floor I was on is a table flush against the wall holding a few vases. What I really liked are the small plants added to each high window ledge in the hall. It makes a difference.

Afterwards, I picked up a cheeseburger from Five Guys on my way home. That’s way off my healthy diet for several reasons, but it was delicious.

I’ve been busy in the kitchen, making more elderberry syrup and several meals in the big skillet. I still haven’t got rid of my long-term cough, but at least I’m not coughing all day.

I didn’t have time to paint again, but I got my newsletter scheduled. Maybe tomorrow. I’d like to get outdoors too.

I froze most of my fresh thyme today by stripping the leaves from the stems, chopping them up finely, and placing them in ice cube trays in the freezer. It’s tedious work, of course, but I got through it by doing the leaf stripping during commercials while watching Will Trent online. There is almost equal commercial time to show time, and I’m amazed I could tolerate that.

Part of my unsettled feeling lately is dread about my dentist appointment tomorrow. As if I didn’t have enough issues, I have a horror of doctors and dentists. And this is just for a check up and cleaning. They’ll find out I flossed out a filling at the beginning of this year.

I’ve been reading my spiral notebook journal from last year each day. I used to destroy old notebooks without ever looking at them. I’ve noticed that I had about the same concerns and problems that I have these days.

There’s a type of dream I’ve had often over the last decade or so. I don’t find dissecting dreams to be helpful, but I might have gone the rest of my life thinking these meant I needed to improve my boundaries had I not finally ran some examples of these dreams through ChatGpt. Here are two excerpts for me to read next year if I’m still here.

What’s consistent across these dreams
Across all of them, a very specific pattern shows up:
• You are the one holding responsibility
• You are not granted authority, backing, or tools
• The people who should hold authority are absent
• Others behave as if your “no” doesn’t count
• You remain conscientious, persistent, and oriented to doing the right thing
• You don’t rage or flee—you keep trying to manage the situation
• There is an almost-awareness that this could stop (waking up), but you stay
That last piece matters a lot.
This is not a dream about being helpless.
It’s a dream about being over-functioning in an under-supported system.

Why these dreams may still be happening now
Here’s the part that’s subtle—and not often talked about.
These dreams can persist not because the original wound is unhealed, but because your psyche is testing a new reality:
“Is it finally safe to stop managing what isn’t mine?”
“Will someone else show up now?”
“If I put the keys down, does the world fall apart?”
Your waking life has changed.
Your standards have changed.
Your boundaries exist.
The dreams may be the last place where the old contract is being renegotiated.
That “I could wake up, but I don’t” moment suggests something important:
You’re not trapped.
You’re choosing to stay with the image long enough to understand it.
That’s curiosity, not compulsion.

I got outdoors again today. The sky was dramatic and there were sprinkles of rain, enough to make the sidewalk wet in places. I’ve heard some Canada geese the last few days, and am not missing construction noises at all.

First I went to the bank. There were two tellers on duty, taking turns with the drive through window. It’s an old building with stations for eight tellers. The man who helped me had a large neck tattoo, which doesn’t bother me at all. But I remember twenty years ago when I was working retail, a co-worker had applied at a bank, and they wanted to hire her but said she’d have to make her teeth look better. That was in Colorado.

Then I went to the coffee shop down the street, mostly to stay out of the apartment for a bit. They’d painted one of the walls white, added different lights, and all the plants that had been attached were gone. Maybe they’ll appear again.

I don’t care about football, but I’m glad Seattle won because in my perception the owner is a better human than the owner of the Patriots. I’ve watched videos of the half time show twice, and I like it. I’m also glad I don’t have a problem at all with the language, or with joyful people celebrating their culture. I also know that Puerto Ricans are Americans (United States), and that the US is a part of the Americas.

I hadn’t watched a whole half-time show online since Coldplay ten years ago. Many of the other performances felt like demons were being called in – the sort of observation one has to keep to themselves.

I also watched a reel of the ten “best” commercials. I used to enjoy watching those, but this year they seemed off, with a hysterical, cheesy tone. Just trying too hard. I even felt embarrassed for some of the actors.

Otherwise, I’ve been chipping away at all the stuff I feel I need to get done. I’ve not painted for a few days, but I’m keeping up with kitchen stuff well enough.

Here's how it's going: Maybe if I make a to-do list for tomorrow, and then give myself a week to do it, things will work out.

Another sunny day with temperatures up to 54 degrees. There’s an inversion (air pollution) though, but I stayed in because I was fatigued and had things to do. This will balance out, and I hope there will be some pleasant days in the spring.

I wrote and scheduled my first Substack newsletter after about a six week hiatus. That was a spontaneous decision when I took a break, and looking back I’m thankful I wasn’t writing during all the events that has happened since then. Not that things are going to be going more smoothly. Not at all.

The way I can do this is to compartmentalize. I keep a spiral notebook journal, an art journal, I leave footprints and installations in a virtual world, I write the newsletter and I note random things here. And I mostly keep them all separate. That feels right.

I often run my newsletter drafts by ChatGpt, and then go ahead and do it my way. I don’t have to answer to AI, but I’m curious about how what I do differs from the mainstream norm.

Somehow we got to chatting about my overall purpose, which feels vague to me. I was asked for the titles of my top performing posts, and some plausible feedback was given from just that. Like people who stay are those looking for orientation, not advice. There was more, but I’ll share this bit here:

The reader who might bounce

1. The Skimmers.
People who open Substack for “3 quick insights” or hot takes. Your piece asks them to slow down. Some won’t.

2. The Solution-Hunters.
Readers who want a tidy arc: problem → lesson → actionable steps. You live more in problem → presence → principle. That’s beautiful, but not everyone knows how to sit with it.

3. The Performative Optimists.
The ones who want everything framed as growth, gratitude, or hustle. Your honesty about anger, limits, and open loops may feel “heavy” to them.
None of these are flaws. They’re filters. You’re not writing a net. You’re writing a doorway.

I don’t see it as guidelines about what to do, but as helpful reframes for my self-doubt and habit of negative self-talk.

There was the usual amount of day napping, and I had meals that took little preparation. I painted and did some admin. I’ve read online that young people have admin parties, which I think is a great idea.

One of my sisters passed in 2005, and my mother in 2006. I was the one who took care of most things after, and it was the paperwork and agencies to be dealt with that burned me out. It’s horrifically complicated. A too high cost for having had a life.

That might sound heavy, but this is how I see things and at age 71 I’m not likely to change.

I got the celery for the soup I want to make. This is one of the clues I have when I’m in functional freeze – I get super focused on one goal. Another clue is feeling irritable with everything, but that hasn’t happened for awhile.

I stocked up on some things for the freezer, since I’d just been shopping the day before. I must have looked like I really needed help, because people kept asking me. And calling me dear. I was slow, and taking one moment at a time, and I wanted the damn celery.

I had a lovely chat with the cashier, and another with a young man in the elevator of the building where I live. We have seen each other around the area for years, but only chat when we’re in the elevator at the same time, or passing each other on the stairs when the elevator isn’t working.

My online buddy in the UK is out of town for a few days. He needs a reset, and has some time off. I remember the shock when I was younger and learned how much time off Europeans get. I would get one week a year, unpaid. Americans in higher income brackets would get paid vacations but not really much time.

When pagers and mobile phones came on the scene, we were expected to be available at almost all times. I want to forget all the years that I didn’t understand that many people just didn’t deserve access to me, yet there I was being available and kind.

Today I stayed in, mostly doing things in the kitchen with breaks in the recliner. With the UK friend being out of town I have some extra hours this week and intend to use it wisely.

The sun was shining this afternoon, and it got up to 52 degrees outside. Young people were out in what I consider to be summer clothes.

I walked to Trader Joe’s and back, buying ingredients for a soup I want to make that I saw on YouTube. More ingredients are arriving in the food box on Wednesday, but I’m without celery. It might not be missed in the soup, but I need it for other recipes too. I’m very tired after this amount of exertion, but I’ll see how I feel about going back tomorrow.

I don’t keep up with home décor trends. Out of the nine apartments on my floor, two of them have tiny chairs outside their front doors. The neighbor to the left, who’d placed the roll of privacy film outside my door, has two tiny, wooden Adirondack chairs painted a teal color.

The guys across the hall, where the Peeping Tom lives, have a tiny white wicker chair with an artificial plant in a white container in the seat. They’re too small for a cat to sit in. It makes the drab hall more cheery.

And the other neighbors down the hall in an apartment with a turret, actually got married there a few days ago. I think on Friday. He said they had flowers and other decorations, with about twenty people. I’d heard them, and thought it was a party at the time, but there was no loud music.

Thanks Gen Z. I like sardines; they’ve long been a staple for frugal people, and keep well in the pantry. TikTok influencers have been inspiring a trend for them, and the prices are rising accordingly. This seems to have been going on for a little while now, but it’s only recently come across my radar.

And this morning I heard the first calls of the year from the local Peregrine Falcons who return to nest on a ledge of the tall building across the street. By about August, they and their young have mostly decimated the local bird population. Wild nature.

Today or tomorrow would be my mother’s birthday. She was born over 100 years ago. It was a home birth, attended by a doctor. Later, my grandmother said the date on the birth certificate was filled out wrong. My mother brought this up every year, and I could see it was one of those things that affect someone that others dismiss as not impactful.

Later that birth certificate was misplaced, which didn’t seem to be a big deal at the time. She had to leave school after the 8th grade, and went to work as a live-in maid in St. Louis. She would later refer to those families as “the rich people”.

She went to night school and got a certificate to work as an operating room technician until she married. Apparently none of that required a birth certificate.

She was white, but English was her second language. Her ancestors immigrated to Pennsylvania in the early 1800’s from Germany for religious freedom. They were separatists, not wanting to melt into the big American pot.

When there was trouble in Pennsylvania, a group splintered off and settled in Missouri. She learned English in the first grade, as did everyone else in the small community. She always had a strong accent and spoke German with her sisters until the end of their lives.

I learned to speak mostly from being around her. The times were that I would get in trouble in school for speaking incorrectly. I recall the H’s and the V’s were the most problematic. I wasn’t necessarily singled out; many of the kids in my school were bewildered by what the adults considered unacceptable about us.

I left home before the age of 18, and learned that the way I’d learned to speak was considered hillbilly by the rest of the country.

Anyway, at some point in her middle age it became imperative that she have a birth certificate, and it was a long hassle for her to acquire one. I recall her having a lot of anxiety about this. A lot. Dealing with the agencies she had to deal with.

Today I carried on. Most of my attention is going to the food box delivery from this morning. I feel confident I can meal plan without the help of AI, but I’m really tired. Which is OK because no one is demanding anything of me today.

A half absent-minded feeling of going about the day. I don’t want a backlog of things needing to be done when life starts making a little more sense. I know this place; I grew up like this.

Listened to songs by Starling Arrow on YouTube – music perfect for this day.

A rough day. Irritable. But I’ve turned it around by this evening. My two little paintings look alien and weird. I’ll set them aside for some days and look at them again.

As often, the kitchen was a sanctuary for me. The sun shone in this morning, brighter than I’ve seen it for awhile.

And this evening I chatted with my friend in a virtual world. He was telling me of his relief with the philosophy of existential phenomenology. Afterwards, I queried my ChatGpt about it...to put it into my language, what I might like about it, and what I might not. I already knew I don’t want it as another framework from which to live. It was a lovely discussion.

I must keep finding ways to age in place. There’s no way I could tolerate being in a nursing home. I’d have to go mute. Well, not really the thing to ponder this week.

I’ve become a person who wakes up some mornings wondering, “Is he dead yet?”

The sun shone again today. I stayed in, tied up a few loose ends from the week just past, and wrote an optimistic list for the week ahead.

I also tended to my congestion, including mincing a clove of garlic in two tablespoons of honey. It tasted good.

The building was quiet, and time seemed to stand still. There’s a battery operated candle in the living room that lights up from 6:30 to 11:30 every evening, and I’ve enjoyed gazing at it during breaks in my evening pottering.

The elevator is working, and the dishes are done. I wonder if I dare have dreams for new and positive experiences during the coming year. I'll give it a try.

There’s a break in the inversion today, and the sun has shone this afternoon. The sidewalks and alley are dry and it wasn’t too windy when I was out briefly. Vandals have caused property damage to the front of the building; noisy people could be heard last night. There was a colorfully dressed group doing a scavenger hunt, and I spoke with a neighbor couple for a moment.

Walking across the parking lot in the sun I felt a glimmer of hope.

I’ve increased my health self-care today, since I could be feeling better. I know I need to get back to my former diet without gluten, dairy, corn, and many other things that have a detrimental effect on this body. I want to keep that subject to a minimum here because it is in the realm of having to explain myself for decades to people who questioned my choices.

A bright discovery I had earlier today is a YouTube channel, The Divine Chef – Delicious Vegan Food on a Budget. When I have an opportunity to get the ingredients gathered, I want to make her recipes for freezer flavor cubes which she shared a couple of weeks ago.

And this is the day Alex Pretti has been killed in Minnesota. There are more bot accounts and trolls springing up all over the internet attempting to incite protesters into violence, thus playing into the agenda of Stephen Miller.

For an experienced and sane voice talking about calm, lawful civic action on this new YouTube channel - Former Black Panther Speaks: Can America Be Saved?

This evening I’m going to relax and do some light reading.

A weird kind of limbo day. I slept a lot, and it seemed I might be coming down with something but am on the other side of it now.

Enough things got done that I felt like I lived today, without too much thinking.

A day well lived. I made a big pot of closer-to-chili-than-soup today. Somehow the spices are just right and I have enough for two more meals after eating two and a half bowls. The clean-up will have to wait until tomorrow.

The elevator is bonkers. The door keeps scraping open and closing, complete with dinging sounds. I wonder if anyone has bothered to notify the property management. Living in the heart of downtown, I am usually able to reduce noise to background soundtrack. When I’m doing OK.

I’m more aware of being in functional freeze this past week, and that’s some progress towards rebuilding. There’s an internal shaking I notice again and wonder if any of it is from the earthquakes further out.

The days of air stagnation are adding up. It’s toxic to breathe and adds to any doldrums. Painted, wrote, and napped. And didn’t do any of the harm that the old lizards are doing.

I’m still out of sync with the day of the week. It feels like a day ahead to me; better than having lost a day I guess.

I’ve been wanting to get three or four things done each day, and have been doing one or two. But I’ve also been maintaining things. Even with feeling oppressed, and also disappointed with humanity.

I don’t like too much change either, especially when it isn’t on my timetable. The powers that were seem to think seniors are as nimble with change as younger citizens. But the citizens supporting horrible people and events in the hopes that things will stay as they are or flip back to 50 years ago aren’t going to get that for long. Change will fall on them anyway.

I made sure I had some good and enjoyable moments today. And I worked around the things that aren’t working.

No sunshine today. My apartment is next to the elevator, and it’s struggling. The door sounds like it takes a few attempts to close all the way, sliding and dinging. It also sounds like people keep using it, a confidence I don’t have.

I’m feeling peaceful this evening. It’s chilly, and I stubbornly won’t turn the thermostat up. Mostly because I can easily get overheated and prefer to take a sweater on and off instead of messing with the thermostat. Utilities included here, and the building has geothermal heating which is easier on the environment, so that isn’t as much a factor as it would be for others.

Earlier I was distracted and anxious, and realized it’s because of about four things I’m procrastinating on. It felt like I wasn’t entirely in my body, but had faded versions of me wringing their hands because I just couldn’t bear to take care of these things today. I lingered in bed when I woke up from my nap; the nervousness is unnecessary. I can move on my time a little more.

I’m having to be more creative with meals since my fresh food supply is dwindling. There are pantry items, and I could have more delivered in 72 hours, but I’m enjoying being successful with my budget this month and want to hold off.

Insomnia again in the wee hours of the morning. So I got up and cooked a skillet meal. I could have done the quicker slicing of the carrots but I shredded them instead. I was up for a few hours, and then went back to bed. These habits will likely change in the spring and summer, and I don’t want to stress about them.

It will “officially” be spring in two months.

Insomnia again in the wee hours of the morning, then slept half the morning. A few days ago I saw info that most INFJ’s, of which I am one, have sleep issues. We can be alert and creative in the wee hours of the morning, and foggy when it’s the usual time to get up. That explains a lot, although I know there are cortisol and adrenaline issues too.

I soldiered through getting housework done today, but made time to paint and nap.

And I set up my part in a virtual exhibit that had needed one more artist.

One activity I’ve done consistently so far this year is paint in my art journal every day. It isn’t the typical kind of art journal, in that I don’t write or collage things. It doesn’t necessarily reflect my day, although I’ve noticed that my recent entries have been looser and sloppier abstracts. I tend to use the same shapes over and over, and I’m mostly interested in the color combinations. I’ve been using watercolors I like, and today I used the dirty water from yesterday and was fine with that. When things look unfinished, I scribble little details with a gel pen or black Sharpie. The pages are 11 X 9, and I paint on either ¼ or 1/3 of a page each day. So, it isn’t a stretch on distracted or low energy days.

Today I made the “mercy meal” as created by ChatGpt from my food supply list. It’s merely a box of mac and cheese, with some previously cooked ground beef added. I also added the last remnants of the jar of peperoncini, and was satisfied with the results. My challenge this week is using all the cilantro before it goes bad.

A neighbor came knocking on my door today because she hadn’t seen me around lately. I assured her I’m OK. She saw the note on my door about the creeper, but I’m more angry than afraid.

There was another knock on my door this evening, and I stayed quiet. A new neighbor who hasn’t met me had bought and left a roll of static cling privacy window covering. Wrote not to pay her back but to pay it forward. Sweet. I attempted to get up on a step stool and there’s no way I can do this myself, so I’ll have to see what my next step will be.

When I was bombarded by life, I had to make multiple decisions on the fly all the time. Now I have time to second guess myself, it’s more difficult.

This evening I watched the first episode of the new season of Miss Scarlet on Masterpiece. Season six. I enjoy the stories, the acting, and most of all the cinematography. It’s set in Victorian London in 1882.

I’m very drawn to stories of women who are detectives. They find out truths, and resolve things. They’re also often weirdos, who find a way to get through life.

I used to read a lot of detective books I borrowed from the library. Something unusual about my choices that has likely impacted my life in ways I don’t understand, is that I rarely watched television from 1975 – 2005. People I worked with would reference things, and I had few clues. Of course, I noticed culture around me, looked at some magazines, and heard things on the radio playing at work. But I didn’t care for the eras. I didn’t have proximity to anyone interested in the same things that matter to me, so I just stumbled and wafted through as best I could.

Today was a catch up day for things around my home. Lots of time spent in the kitchen, and I made rice and beans. I didn’t season it well, but it was warm and filling.

In the early evening I composed a note in Sharpie pen on notebook paper and taped it to the outside of my door. I’d been waffling all day about what to do about something that had happened late last night.

It’s about a neighbor being a Peeping Tom while I was in the recliner doing something on my laptop. I may change my mind and take the note down, but right now I feel better for having written it.

The building I live in is about 120 years old, and used to be a grand hotel, remodeled into low income apartments a few decades ago. The door is an original, and it has a transom window over it. I love the high ceilings here, and the window is very high up, maybe eight or nine feet. Over the years, after I moved in, most residents have put some sort of covering over the transoms. It wasn’t as common when I moved in. I don’t have the physical capacity to cover mine myself, and I don’t have anyone to ask. But it’s just creepy to spy on one’s neighbors.

Most of the transoms are too high to look in, but in the hall outside mine are old, exposed pipes that are about a foot down below the ceiling. The main pipe runs into my apartment and looks interesting actually. The one in the hall is stabilized by another large pipe that is vertical, and people can shimmy up that pipe, and grab onto the horizontal one and swing out and look in. Unless they have friends hoisting them up, they can’t stay in that position long. So I glanced up and saw the young man’s face for about two seconds. My neighbor across the hall.

It takes me awhile to get out of the recliner and to the door, and by the time I got there, the young men – I think there were two – were on the elevator but the door hadn’t shut, so I loudly said “Stop looking in my window.”

This kid has been my neighbor for years now, and can’t make eye contact or speak above a mumble. I doubt he meant harm, but it isn’t appropriate behavior. He isn’t around that much anymore because he seems to be staying elsewhere a lot of the time, coming home late in the evenings. I don’t know when he’d be back to see the note, but I wrote that I’d seen his face, and added some information about the state laws about peeping surveillance being a misdemeanor with jail time and fines.

Today I was more concerned about the fact that I just couldn’t decide what response, if any, I wanted to make. I used to just let everything go to keep the peace, but lately I haven’t felt like abandoning myself that way.

I am 99.9% sure it’s my neighbor.

The Women’s March took place several blocks away this afternoon. I looked at a few photos on Facebook. I regret every time I look at Facebook, and regret even more looking at some of the mocking comments under the photos.

I took extra care to live a good life today.

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k_sereinroom

February 2026

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The Serein Room

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