It says 13 days to periods but it feels like the mittelschmerz have already set in. Lol. What a joy it is! 

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This stupid bot thing really irritates me. 

Howell playing again lol. So much for degeneracy, I love it. I enjoy seeing his games, but endgames I can tell what he is upto. Always saving all pawns and ending counterplay for others. He must be a bit type A tbh. How very interesting to wonder if the playstyle gives away something about the player. I wish I knew enough chess to know if I'm right haha. Sadly, I do not. 

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My leg is finally feeling a little better. Maybe next week I can play? Ugh. Pls 🥺

It's incredibly windy and rainy rn. I love it. Feels so beautiful outside. Few times a year the weather just pivots to something absolutely smashing and I love love love being outside. Or in my balcony as I am rn. Hehe. There's something about the winds that is so freeing tbh. Just gorgeous.

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Winds are truly my fav element. Just sweep on by, carry me with you sometime. How I wish we could fly!

Waking up at 3 am these days just for a bit. I feel super wide awake too, like it's time to go brush my teeth lol. What to do, what to do. Maybe try reading, that'll put me to sleep in under two mins. 

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Weird intrusive thoughts pop up during this time. Like I noticed it's 15th oct and then remembered it's close to a year since danya passed. Feels so strange all over again. :( 

I feel queasy about this stuff always. Hmmm. 

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Fitful dreams and weird sleep post 5 am. Of wanting to reach some place with some tennis guests and not being able to. The courts were lovely though. Green and red. 

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Howell is still playing that's nuts... I fell asleep around 4.30 watching his games and now he is still going. Wish he commentated them more often, he has remarkable clarity of thought. I appreciate that. Maybe I'll watch some more rn. I have a feeling there'll be one clash I see. Caution vs let's fucking go! Haha. 

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Lol. And what a coincidence, it happened... Good fun. Atleast he made him think 🤔 . Out of all the games I saw, this one deffo had Howell ji thinking and playing. Nice nice. Howell is a beastie so that's quite good tbh. 

I wonder if games like these also help the players understand the inaccuracies they make. Something to think about later. 

 Omg I feel a tad bit better. Fuck, do I dare hope I can go play tomo? Ugh. How much longer do I have to rest? Can't I just do a half hour workout? Do I dare? 🥺

Being stuck watching series cuz I can't move is not my idea of fun. East of Eden leaves me grumpy, it just feels like some dudes fantasy of a woman who screwed him over so now he gotta turn her into a villian. I'm in general just tired of these dated narratives of people playing the victim all the time. It's pretty annoying. 

No wonder I prefer star wars and andor and such tbh. I like stories where people attempt to do the right thing. I'm discovering this bias bigtime now. And I'd rather stick to these genres. Maybe I should finally watch rocky. Haha. It is suuuch a deeply male film though. I've always avoided it cuz it feels suuuper guy film like. Dudes and machismos. Guys will love all this fighting and such. Adorable how they just get so into it. That thought just makes me smile in affection tbh. 

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Maybe I'll check out some old stuff. Or idk maybe I'll just lay here and toss and turn out of grumpiness. 

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I want to go and playyyyyy :(

I am so unwell it's unreal. Just not able to move properly. Back and hip are completely out of order. It's been more than a decade of this injury being in remission and it pops up now. Damn. Idk what to do. Couldn't even walk a few steps on my own for a bit. :(

I'm too slow, too weak, body hurts, everything sucks. Don't want a pill, can't go and play, don't even feel like going out, should probably be outside. Chess sucks, everything sucks. Wail, wail, wail and ugh, ugh, ugh. I hate everything today. So saddddddd😑

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A lifelong love

Life stays in balance when I play tennis. Just a week's rest and I'm already feeling a bit irritable and not as happy as I was when playing. That's wild. But also amazing to me. 

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I also am discovering that watching tv during free time ends up feeling annoying over a period of time. I don't like this vegetable state of staring at a show. Action is greater than inaction. 

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I don't know who I dreamt about last night, but the presence was so soothing and nice tbh. I really loved that. 

What a horrible chess day like truly bad.

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I had loved mice and men. I didn't expect east of eden to be what it is. Hate it, truly. This whole trope of woman bad ruins everyone is so damn lame. No thank you. 😭

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Talking to mum about K and how much we admire certain outlooks of hers. I really do find her approach to life to be great. Navigating a long distance marriage for the time being isn't easy but the thing I love about some conservative folks is how they have this stable foundation of ' this is my person, I made this choice, now what comes our way is something we have to deal with as a unit. ' I myself am like that so I truly appreciate the groundedness. 

I feel like as I'm getting older I have started gravitating towards folks that are similar in values and it's something that I hope sticks. I don't wish to be around anyone who is straying from that. Just now I was checking some post on reddit and it was about ibd and someone was talking about their experiences and I caught myself reading keenly, then googling, then suddenly catching myself and going hey I don't need to care. It made me chuckle a bit at the thought that no matter how awful the person, my instincts are always to care about their well-being. Guess taming that instinct would serve me well. For the time being. I'd love to experience the joy of just being in a stable equation so I can fully allow these traits to flourish and feel a sense of safety in doing so. Oh well. Until such time lemme just so my own thing. 

And now the beginning of the second part is just annoying me sheesh. It's the same thing like men wanting their sister in law and fancying girls that aren't their wives. Like. I refuse to believe all guys are like this. What a saaaad thought. I bet if they felt their wives were looking at all other dudes the same way, they'd be livid. 

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"She’s a good woman, he thought. The kind of woman whose goodness is oppressive"

I'm rolling my eyes haaaard at this like. God, what a loser this yeung ho dude is ugh.

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Atleast I'm reading a book in one sitting like old times. Clink clink🥂

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She uses initials like I do. And there's an M, a J and now a P in the book. Well. Oops.  This second half is just a weird porno. Why do Asian novels have this fixation on sex? I find the same elements in Japanese books too. Just this weird desperately craving forbidden sex. It's not even attractive to me at this point just like eeyeah ok.  That empty feeling when the fantasy wears off and all you are left with is mundane. That's how this feels rn. 

I wish i'd just stopped reading at the first half tbh. 

I feel like having a drink tonight and just binging this book. There's this truth in it that is so commonplace. The lack of compassion that underscores the lives of so many women. I hated it growing up and I hate it just as much as an adult.  

~ 

Little things stick out to me so much these days tbh. Like that guy at tennis practice who is always so considerate. He just needs no prompting at all. It was a weird contrast in my mind to the time M once talked about some women he saw playing pickleball and instantly said something insulting to them. It reminded me of A so much. He would also want to insult women he wished to speak to and then try to show off in front of them like look, look I'm so good at this. People like that exist more and more. Ones who will just be sweet and do it instinctively now just stand out to me for whatever reason. Maybe it's just low self esteem in people like A who wish to be admired. I semi puke at the idea of anyone admiring that dude. Nah, I fully, whole heartedly puke at the idea of anyone admiring that moron. Seriously like. 🤢🤮 

This book is interesting to me in the sense that it describes how a looot of folks will see women as people who need to fulfill some role. That's it. Not a person whose feelings should be cherished. 

Raise your kids well, ladies. It matters how you raise them and who they end up being. Some folks turn out well despite bad parenting but so many more would be great if they just had a good,wholesome childhood. That's very important. 

The vegetarian is incredible. Man. What a powerful book. Only 1/3rd in and I'm already just shocked at how simple, elegant and in depth it is. 

It's very rare that I wish to read books about people. I prefer fantasy and sci fi and action. Status quo always felt like something I would rather avoid, just gets too painful and real to read. But this one has been so haunting. At the same time I can't help but see the parallels in a few other books which kind of lessen the impact of it for me. There's elements of dostoevsky and Chuck palahnuik in it that feel distinct. It takes me out of the reading experience whenever I encounter stuff like that. Hmm. 

I think people who feel powerless are ones who will resonate with this quite a lot too. The message of the book is very vivid. 

Let me finish it over the weekend and see what I feel overall. Atleast it's been a good read after a long time. I'm glad. 

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I somehow feel like mans search for meaning has been a lot more impactful for me personally than most other books. That and flowers for algernon. Man, that was exquisite. Even to kill a mockingbird had made a huge impact on me growing up. I recall weeping lots when I was done reading it. It truly hurt. It's wild that to a large chunk of people today it would simply not make an impact. That's a sobering thought. 

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I suppose I always chose to steer clear of books about the human condition cuz they just hurt. 

Every day more and more nobels. Where is mine I ask you? Gimme pls

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Andrew Garfield in my feed again man that's a lot of interviews he is doing. His description of grief actually did resonate with me though. It's interesting that he can talk about it in interviews. I don't think I can ever discuss something this personal with someone unless they were extremely close to me. I feel like it's such a personal emotion that only you have complete dominion over it. I'm very, very cagey about feelings. Although over the last few years I have made an attempt to be a bit more open. 

Heh. I still don't buy his persona though. Always thought he was super attractive but the more he speaks the less I like him now. Weird how that works for me. I have to actually like the person to swoon over them. Otherwise it doesn't do anything for me. Didn't know he was jewish either. I think I may have finally discovered that my type is Jewish men lol. Like literally all the guys I've had a crush on have been Jewish that's a wild coincidence. Oh wait not cumberbatch. See but when he speaks it sounds very much like he is being authentic.  Which is what makes him super attractive to me. Hmmm. Interesting. I guess then that means my type is authentic, witty, funny dudes. Which is cool. Yeah I like ernest speakers who have a lot of substance when they speak and share things. I love listening to someone talk so much tbh. Falling asleep on phonecalls with ak was just one of the most beautiful feelings in the world to me. 

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The more I observe people, the more I realise how flawed we all are. And then I realise that that means I have to always love someone from a distance. A mighty sad realisation, that. Well. I haven't met everyone in this world, so let's not write everyone off. 😁

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Let's just dive back into fishers games. Banish this garfield, get off my algo dude! 

Chink in the armour

There's a bobby fisher game that agad uploaded which had this one where white went e5 in a kings indian and bobby termed it weak. And seeing why it was weak was like a revelation. 

I recall this guy talking about a position that looked fairly regular to me and describing it as very rich and I didn't understand it then. Watching this game it made it all click. 

Holy moly how much did these folks even calculate man. I feel more ashamed of blitz now than I did 24 hours ago lol. Literally every position can be studied and here we play 40+ moves in under a few seconds. Jeez. Talk about desecrating a game man. Truly astonishing. 

And idk what it is about these older games but they just looks so much richer and more detailed to me than games today that seem very clinical. I suppose maybe it's cuz the errors happened in the opening so strong players went down the road of capitalisation quicker? Idk. Hmmm. Yet another puzzle that may be answered sometime in the future. 

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Watched one fisher game and now I'm on a win streak lol. This is the key to chess. Inspiration. 😂