A few roundtrips

 This week: crafts, caffeine and becoming Champion

This week has somehow contained Pokémon, exercise, music, crafts, sore hips and a surprising amount of discussion about food.

In Pokémon Moon, I made it through the final island challenge, survived the Aether Foundation and Lusamine’s horrible Clefable, and reached Mount Lanakila. Lillie followed me up the mountain and healed my Pokémon, which was useful, although finding out in advance that Hau would appear was less useful. I’m now very close to becoming Champion. This has taken up a perfectly reasonable amount of my attention.

I also tried cycling along with a workout video. I lasted fifteen minutes, right up until the instructor told me to give it everything I had. I gave the screen the finger instead. Still, fifteen minutes counts, especially when I’ve only recently started being able to walk and stand for longer without my legs going numb. I’ve been considering more walks too, although today both of my hips decided to hurt in the awkward area between my stomach and thighs.

Creatively, I made a black-cat corner bookmark for a Halloween craft swap. It has fat cheeks, because of course it does, and a little ransom-note manifesto telling people to BE ABLE TO READ ANYTHING. I also worked on a crochet pumpkin pattern and thought about ghostly things I could make next.

Then there was music. I made five songs in BandLab and submitted them for review, which apparently means I now get to worry about whether they are marketable, whether I can sing, and whether anyone will ever listen to them. Very relaxing hobby. One of the songs is called So Stupid Loving You, which is at least an excellent title.

My sleeping pattern remains less of a pattern and more of a choice between two moods: sleeping until four in the afternoon, or drinking too many bottles of caffeine and becoming jittery. Tonight I wanted to sleep but was also annoyingly awake, waiting for my Kela benefit to appear in my bank account after midnight so I could pay a bill and nod off. The traditional Finnish bedtime routine: wait for public money to spawn, immediately sacrifice it to a bill, sleep peacefully poorer.

I briefly considered ordering a newspaper to my new apartment because there was a three-month offer for €60. It would arrive through the letterbox at four in the morning with a tremendous clang. So, €20 a month for a mechanical alarm clock, with some journalism included.

I’m also moving at the end of the month, which sits behind everything like an approaching boss battle. There are boxes, furniture and decisions everywhere, but I have at least continued doing things besides worrying about it.

Looking back, this wasn’t an empty week. I exercised, made things, made music, progressed through Alola and remained awake long enough to pay a bill.

Next week: moving preparations, possibly becoming Pokémon Champion, and ideally slightly less caffeine.