THE SLEEPY CROW postcards ... 2025.07.28 (#3) The picture on the front of this postcard: A crowded restaurant table, covered in plates and glasses. My friend is scooping some of her dinner onto my plate to try, and I'll give her some of mine. Recently: I was feeling ill at the start of the week. I spent most of the monday and tuesday in bed watching old QI[0] episodes, reading, or sleeping. I started feeling better after that, which is good because I was going out with some friends for my birthday. We went out for dinner, and then for a game of bowling. I came second-to-last, but my friend in last place claimed that she was playing bad on purpose so I wouldn't lose. I don't believe it. I got my new laptop (finally). I'm dual-booting windows and debian, and had some struggles with forgetting to turn off safe boot, and then with needing to find Wi-Fi card drivers online. I got it everything sorted eventually. This laptop is a 2-in-1, which is super cool. I'd like to try using the touchscreen for note-taking when I get back to college. I ordered a stylus online, but it hasn't arrived yet. Media: I re-read 'The Last Samurai' by Helen DeWitt, which is kind of a comfort book for me. I read some of 'The Violinist's Thumb', which is about our genetics. I had started reading it some time ago, but I put it down and forgot all about it. It's actually very interesting though. I discovered that you can change a setting in the kindle app to scroll through your book instead of flipping the pages, which I find more comfortable for some reason. I guess it's muscle memory. [0] I found them on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/search?query=QI&and%5B%5D=creator%3A%22bbc%22 2025.07.19 (#2) The picture on the back of this postcard: A jug of pink lemonade, with lots of ice. Each time I've made this drink, I've gotten strawberry juice all over the counters. I don't know how I manage to make a mess every time. Recently: I went to a theme park & zoo with my parents and siblings. It was fun, but I didn't go on too many rides because they make me feel sick. We also had some friends over for a barbecue. We went all out, & had everything from burgers, to fish, to chicken wings on that grill. We had loads of leftovers, so no need to cook for a few days :-) Media: I read 'The Mind in the Wheel'[0] by slimemoldtimemold, which proposes a new model for understanding the mind: the idea that control systems ('governors') to regulate different feelings like thirst, hunger, or warmth. The part I found most interesting was about how mental health problems are explained though this model. I finished reading 'Metaphors We Live By'. I also watched A LOT of House MD. [0] http://mindinthewheel.com/ 2025.07.12 (#1) The picture on the back of this postcard: A beach. Not the type you'd expect see on a postcard. If you're thinking sunbathing and swimsuits and volleyball, you're doing it wrong. It's the kind of beach with cold, salty air that cuts through your thoughts, and dark, wet sand that gets stuck to your trainers. Once, at a beach like this, my cousin gave me a crab skeleton he found on the ground. It was hollow, fragile. It crumbled in my hands. Recently: I've challenged myself not to download or borrow any new books until I go back to college in september. I have a lot of unread books on my ereader, and each one I downloaded because I wanted to read it at some point. I think now's a good time to actually do that. I have a tiny 3D printer (the tina2), which had been sitting unused for a while with a nozzle that was too clogged for the usual methods of clearing it to work. I finally fixed it. The only things I've printed yet are a flat gecko pendant (my usual sample print as it only takes a few minutes), and a dalek figurine, which I gave to my little sister. I also memorised Shakespeare's 81st sonnet (which the Bastille song 'Poet' is inspired by) one night when I couldn't get to sleep. Media: I read "just like hamburger, exactly like hamburger"[0] by tim rogers, as well as his essay "What We Might Mean When We Say a Clock is Wrong"[1]. They both feature the condition he has, hyperthymesia/highly superior autobiographical memory. I'd heard of it before, but this was the first time I've thought about what it would be like to have. They're both great reads. I listened to Lorde's new album, 'Virgin'. I think my favourite track is 'Shapeshifter', or maybe 'What Was That'. I don't like the album as much as 'Pure Heroine' or 'Melodrama', but I still thought it was good. I read half of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's 'Metaphors We Live By'. It's about how we (without even noticing) use metaphor as a way of understanding the world. Like how so many phrases fit the idea that 'good is up, bad is down' (e.g. 'things are looking up', 'in low spirits', 'high-quality', 'all downhill from here'), or how we talk about arguments like we do about wars (e.g. 'won an argument', 'attacked the weak points in their argument', 'defending an argument', 'he shot down all of my arguments'). [0] https://medium.com/@108/just-like-hamburger-exactly-like-hamburger-5ba6f95c2b32 [1] https://medium.com/@108/what-we-might-mean-when-we-say-a-clock-is-wrong-5f055ff631a6