Four customers on one weekday afternoon...

...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

1) A (thing) (late 20s) (female) (Chinese) student who gets the lunch special and brings her bill to the counter and ends up leaving a $0 tip.

2) Two (younger) (Chinese) students with (dull) and (nerdy) eyes who order four dishes for just the two of them, and say to bring the free salads when they find out they're free but then don't touch them, and who each also get a beverage and who order dessert when we let them know we're closing, and then leave a $2.30 tip on like a $72 bill, and when we're trying to get them out the door and they've packed up some food the one asks me to get her a plastic fork and spoon and I ask if there's anything else for the table and they say no, and then I bring out the plastic fork and spoon for her and like right away the other one asks me for a plastic fork and spoon too, so I talk very clearly and am like, "Do you need anything else? Please let me know now, because I asked you before if you needed anything else, and you said no, and now you need another fork and spoon," and I also ask if they're done with their waters and pick them up, and between all of that they seem a little shocked, and after they're out the door I tell my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker that I feel a little bad because it's business for the restaurant but that's weird behavior to keep asking someone to run around like that after you leave such a bad tip on such a big bill, and she shook her head no, like I shouldn't doublethink what I just did with them, and she said they don't understand tipping yet, they're (Asian).

3) A (late 20s) (STEM-ish) (Asian[-American?]) repeat customer who is wearing (gigantic) headphones and who has had weird behavior before like ordering to go and then sitting down at a prime window table upfront and asking us to bring him water, who comes in and orders his usual vegan dish, and who keeps walking out to talk on the phone or do something out there even though the restaurant is closing soon, and my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker asks me if he knows the restaurant is closing and I tell her that I had asked him if he wanted any dessert because the kitchen is closing soon for the afternoon, so he should know, but when he keeps going outside and his food isn't really eaten much, she steps outside to tell him, and he says he didn't know that the restaurant is closing, and he gets to-go boxes and comes up to pay the bill at the counter and and hides the receipt he signed, which has a $0 tip.

. . .

Response to a blogpost that I recently put out...

...on a more minor-ish finding on the one ancient language that I've been studying intensively for the past few years, as well as to its circulation on a listhost for the broader field and on social media:

1) One guy who's not in the academy and who doesn't have degrees but who does heritage language stuff really gets it, and says as much on social media;

2) A guy who's outside of the academy and who does work on a language from another branch of the family and who has a standing book contract with an academic press was saying to me that I've been kicking *ss (his words);

3) A few scholars who I know from social media who work on yet another branch of the language family and who have jobs in the academy seem open and engaged; and

4) I get several international IP addresses googling my personal webpage, and some new followers on social media.

But, even though the blogpost got over 200 hits -- quite a bit for such a specialized topic! -- it's radio silence from within the field itself.

I almost feel like a portion of people there are waiting for cues from others, on what to think, especially since my employment status doesn't correspond to the magnitude of the claim and its pretty decisive resolution of a long-standing problem in the language that multiple people have set their hand to, unsuccessfully.

A question about my personality

Like a month ago when I was reading a scholarly book late at night at a bar in the one (college) town that I now live in, the (aging) (town) eccentric with the (Japanese) (stewardess) girlfriend saw me and we started talking, and then after a bit he was like, "Can I ask you a personal question?".

"Sure," I was like.

"So, is all the ancient stuff you study a way of avoiding real life now?", he was like.

"Not really," I was like, and I said it was more like a puzzle that I'm solving than a lost civilization that I admire and get lost in.

"I don't even really like the culture all that much," I explained to him. "I mean, there's interesting things you come across and that are fun, just like with any culture, but it's way too hierarchical for me personally, I'm too much of a lesbian feminist at heart."

"I see," he was like, very seriously.

And, to tell the truth, I wasn't not serious, either.

Then, we started talking about something else.

A very intense and intensive research idea.

I know it sounds crazy, but I think that down the road for the one ancient language that I've been studying intensively for the past number of years, I'm going to have to just sit down and read entire dictionaries, both etymological and regular.

Like, I wouldn't read them all at once, maybe just fifteen minutes a day, but it makes sense for me to make myself pick one up and read the whole d*mn thing cover to cover, with multiple dictionaries.

Like 2-3 times now I've stumbled across really important stuff that's buried in them and that never gets mentioned in even the most detailed grammars of different language stages, but somehow it happens that that stuff has its own dictionary entry. It's like the compiler was super exhaustive and was smart enough to recognize that something different was going on, but they couldn't figure out what it was they were looking at, or how important it is for the study of the language.

In terms of hunting for clues that trigger "aha!" moments, then, it's not a bad strategy at all.

It's just not something that I need to do now, though, because the last thing I need is more writing projects mounting up.

Recurring post-breakfast occurrence...

... usually as I linger at my kitchen table over my empty plate and sip my coffee:

[A very small belch arises in the back of my throat, just one, and for a second it tastes mildly like orange]

. . .

(This has only been happening recently, and I never eat anything citrus in the morning and only very rarely late at night, so I'm thinking that it's the orange-flavored fish oil gelcaps that I've been taking recently, as a nutritional supplement... Like, they sit in my stomach after I take one when I get up, and something about the coffee or my eating makes it dissolve or whatever and causes.a burp to occur, just one.)

Scheduling my day.

I'm thinking more and more that when I wrap up certain projects, that I need to shift around my day.

Like, no more waking up a bit over coffee and a magazine, then doing Duolingo, then doing some reading, then maybe some writing.

Like, I'd be better off doing language work over the coffee, then the Duolingo, then the writing, and save recreational magazine reading for later in the day.

I'm not sure if it'd work, but it's an idea.

Developments at "The Meat Lab."

The other week I hauled ass over to "The Meat Lab" to stock up for summer on sausage since I was running low, and I wanted to get some to freeze before they close for the summer.

And, I get there, and their one cooler of sausage is just empty except for some snack sticks, and the other small freezer just has a few packages of bratwurst and spicy cajun sausage and polish sausage in it, and it's just not the same tall wall of full-window fridges full of like sixteen-to-twenty different sausages in dark royal blue plastic trays that I remember, it's like a total and abrupt end to my sausage heaven.

So, I ask what's up, and the one (young) (white) (white-aproned) (undergraduate) guy tells me that first off they're restocking soon and they're not closing for the summer this year, and then that they had like  absolute freezers full, but no-one was buying any and they had to get rid of like eighty pounds like two weeks ago, and so they're going to revamp and cut down on what they offer and only make like their handful of standards and like four others, especially stuff with cheese in it like cheese bratwursts, since that sells.

"That's a shame," I was like, to which he added that they get rid of stuff by the "sell by" date and it's actually good for another 7-10 days after that, and one of the guys in back is in a frat and he got all of it and brought it back for his brothers, and he does that a lot, with stuff that doesn't sell, so, it wasn't wasted.

"That's good," I was like.

He also said that emails haven't been going out since their new manager got injured on the job with a concussion and had to step back from her duties.