Running time!

It's been a while due to my extreme reboot protocol this past month, so the trick today will be not over-exerting myself even though the body can usually leap back into a *first* workout well. (One then pays for it the day after. 🙃) We'll start with a light 3k, 5k tops, and some runner's yoga.

Happy Tuesday, CoSo! Hydrate and stretch out those cricks and cracks, if you can!

👌 I'm back to normal food routines, but my greatest relief is that the reboot *held*. I'm still waking early, I have good energy, stress & street harassment aren't breaking me, & first thing tomorrow morning, I'm going to return to my running & strength training. Starting from scratch! But with enough calm in my life again that I look forward to solid gains soon.

What a year this has been. I still have challenges to overcome, but having the mental wellness to meet them again is *such* a gift. 💙

Woo! 🎉 I really shouldn't have done this - I have too much to do this month - but buckle up, #Trekkies!

Humanist reviews of #StrangeNewWorlds are back on the menu. 👾

This season opener is a mission statement. It expressly outlines how the characters have grown, & the challenges the series is taking up in S2.

There are huge moral crises in our world, but we won't always have time to deliberate over them. Can we choose how to act swiftly, seriously, *and* well? ⬇️

#SFF https://onlysky.media/mclark/how-do-we-heal-the-broken-circle-in-ourselves-our-worlds/

One note of self-consciousness while working on this novel:

CHILDREN OF DORO was written in a highly Dostoevskian voice, ideal for philosophical debate.

A FERTILE SOURCE OF RUIN also has tons of dialogue. I'm not using the same voice, but boy, do I hope that this time I've written in a way that serves the intelligence I trust my readers to have, while also passing the publisher sniff test of not being "too" cerebral to market.

No way of knowing until it's sent out.

But the jitters are real.

Rattle has a Poets Respond feature, in which people submit poems based on the news of the week and the best / most resonant is published each Sunday.

This week there was one on Cormac McCarthy's death. It's a lovely, unexpected blending of his work with the stories told in children's books - because all good literature is universal, right?

#Poetry
https://www.rattle.com/after-the-death-of-cormac-mccarthy-by-dante-di-stefano/

Food. Is. So. Good. 🎉

I am *so* looking forward to the simple, nourishing recipes I'll be making in the next while.

Zero cravings for anything processed, but I am *this* close to kissing every vegetable I see, and huffing every fresh herb I come across. My palate is *living* for the natural flavours - the sweetness, the earthiness, the savouriness - in everything right now.

Gratitude for the little things, man. It's one helluva drug. 👌

My father doesn't answer birthday or Father's Day messages. When we were kids he often railed against attempts to give cards & handmade gifts. "If you want to give me a gift just be better children", as he put it one year.

He is an emotionally limited person who plays at niceness but needs everything on his terms.

Still, I focus on the lessons in humanity learned from him.

And one is *deep* thanks to all the father figures who provide integrity in their care. Happy Father's Day to all of you.

And... finally! The next instalment of Humanist Book Club is up at #OnlySky. (I confess, this series has been terrific for novel-work as well!)

In this one, we explore what the Davids have to say about how early cities and agricultural practices did *not* automatically produce the power relationships we tend to associate with early human societies. (Hint: We've always been a much more fluid and creative bunch!) ⬇️

#Humanism #History #Books https://onlysky.media/mclark/humanist-book-club-the-diverse-human-ecologies-that-shaped-our-earliest-cities/

Strange New Worlds, baby. :)

It's back and it's fabulous.

More on that soon. #CoSoTV #StarTrek #SFF

I have beautiful fresh food in my apartment again! 😍 I swear I was this close to kissing all the veg and huffing every delicious scent off the herbs in the supermarket. We are surrounded by *such* a bounty of natural wealth. 🌿

😅 The pre-Father's Day hustle to make sales is intense in the mall just now. #Colombia

Tomorrow's the final day of my fast for clarity during Big Project Month. I'm losing too much weight, so I need to recharge. I'm going out to get fresh foods now. 🥗

Mushroom celery soup will start off the refeed, nice and gentle and nutrient rich, followed by a greek yoghurt, spinach, & blueberry smoothie to get probiotic action going again after three weeks.

If those go well, then simple solids. Then I am SO CRAVING a traditional cazuela. 🎉😋 What a gift food is going to be!

Getting nice and ruthless about time management. Reached a time limit set for one task today - and even though it's not finished yet, tough. The world won't end. I have a writing window to get to next.

But first -

Tea time! Stretching time!
And *then* back to the word mines I go.

(I'll pick you up one of your favourites while I'm there, though. My favourite is SYZYGY. What's yours? 👀)

😅 I know, I am the weirdest faster. I love watching food videos while on an extended fast. The body just relearns such amazing hankerings for fresh food when disconnected from processed food habits, and I cannot *wait* to be making some wonderful, nourishing recipes again soon.

I learned a lot from every episode in this series except the one on Italy. The other seven were a lovely blend of histories of struggle through #Food, & great food for thought while developing my novel's cultural landscape.

If you can snag access to any of these services (I usually can't through Hulu, but this one was available on a package I could trial-run) & want a gentle little trip into good food and community traditions, give Searching for Soul Food a try. #CoSoTV

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nZp3ww26WmY&feature=share8

Day 20:

Later start, but only because I didn't get to bed until midnight. Though I'm no longer in academia, I still help friends with writing from time to time, & one had a presentation that needed... a lot of work.

Otherwise? I've learned so much about resilience these last three weeks. Still waking energized, and ready to clear two tasks before a weekend of novel work. (Plus a BookTube with SF recs tomorrow!)

But also, just marveling at our resilience.
Have an indomitable weekend, all. 💫

Also, I had a lovely chat with a fruit vendor today. She hastened over to me because... she had seen me buying food for folks begging outside a store before & wanted to talk about the old man she gave lunch to every day. She said she didn't see many others go out of their way to feed people, and if I'm reading between her lines right, I think she just liked feeling that she wasn't alone in helping where she could.

So share that #MutualAid love, lovelies. It grows community in *oh* so many ways.