April Sun

April is here and the sun and blue skies of Oakland have mostly returned, though it has still been a bit rainy and on the cool side. A lot has been going on in life… my investments are a complete mess due to the tariffs, and I’m down about $60k thanks to the president… I wish I had just sold a bunch in January to help us build our house. Alas…what a setback. Obnoxiously, I also owe about $5k in taxes thanks to some options I sold, but I reinvested the money, so it is essentially a loss. Again, frustrating to have to pay so much when you know the president himself pays 0% and brags about it. I honestly hate thinking so much about money, but it has a way of intruding itself in thoughts as you try to plan the future… especially after a period like grad school where I made so little money.

Writing wise, I have submitted a bunch of stories, but still been slow to work on querying my novels. I had two successes, ironically for poetry. One involves one of my poems getting published by Dipity, who also hosted an interview about me, which I’ll link here.  I’ve never thought of myself as a poet, by “The Ghost of a Cosmic Donut,” my David Lynch themed poem, also got chosen for a Lynch anthology, which I’m super excited about. Finally, as I said, sending out the novels has been slow… but I did get my query letters together and finally submitted one, so that’s a big step I think.

Work wise, things were busy and absolutely hectic about a month ago, which working on vacation to get two proposals in while I was in Hawaii. Oof. But after that period, things really slowed down, which is nice, and I have had more breathing room to think about our lunar stuff, my code, and my writing — including my technical paper which I made progress on last week.

The other two fronts in life as martial arts, and the kid situation. Martial Arts wise, well, I haven’t tested yet and it has been ages… probably six months so I’m frustrated about how slow this dojo is. That said, I got out of my comfort zone and did a music kata with Dana and Katie at a tournament here, which was new for me and lots of fun. We did Pinan 1 to “Another One Bites the Dust.” Initially it was going to be Pinan 3, which I think is more impressive looking, but Katie felt self-conscious about her crescent kicks.

Finally… our goal of trying for a kid. Well, I maybe already wrote about this, but our first round of IVF didn’t work out, which was both heart-breaking and costly. And as the US medical system is a disaster, basically none of it was covered and we both got large additional “surprise” bills in the mail. Having lived overseas, I can’t believe anyone actually think our system is the best. It’s… just really bad most of the time, and the “terrible” socialized medicine I experienced in Japan made seeing the doctor easy and affordable, without the giant waits they claim on TV. Anyway… we’re going for another round of IVF, this time in Mexico where it’s more affordable. The doctors we’ve been meeting with are already better, and we have a trip planned for May, where I’ll be working remotely and supporting Gina.

Lot’s going on! Trying to envision a brighter future. I think this is the beginning.