The Onsen Monkey ♨️

The Onsen Monkey: a blog about existing.

  • Movement

    This month’s focus on moving around a bit more continued today, with over 15,000 steps around London. On top of my commuting steps, I went for a lunchtime walk around London’s Olympic Park (luckily, next door to my office). The sun was out and, although still bitterly cold, it was so nice to get some…

  • Exhausting

    I watched the last two episodes of ‘The Last of Us‘ back to back last night. It was exhausting. I’ve come to this show with absolutely no background knowledge or expectations. I knew it was a game, but I’d never played it. Honestly, I only added it to my watch list because I saw it…

  • Commitments

    Even when we want to, we can’t keep all our commitments. This is something I need to remind myself of, especially when others let me down. Thinking about this earlier today, I realised that I’d much rather know about a cancellation or disappointment straight away, no matter how abrupt, than be left hanging on indefinitely,…

  • Saturday

    It was pretty much a perfect Saturday. Despite being woken by our feral neighbours at an ungodly hour, the day improved immeasurably from that point. I spent a couple of hours lying on the sofa, reading and drinking coffee. After finally getting showered and dressed, we headed to an art fair in Shoreditch and had…

  • Awake

    It’s 0730 and I’m sitting on my sofa, sipping a coffee. Courtesy of my neighbours from hell, I’ve been awake since 0530. Which is not the best start to a Saturday morning. They came home from clubbing a little after 0500 and – as you do – went straight out into their balcony to continue…

  • Naked

    It was about 10:30am this morning, as I left my office to go and refill my water bottle in the kitchen, when I suddenly realised I was naked. Not, I should clarify, in the clothing sense. Though that’s never been as issue for me before. An avid naturist, I spend more time sans clothes than…

  • Revisiting the swamp

    Earlier this week, I dipped my toe back into the swamp that is Twitter. It was a grim experience. Ever since moving most of my social media attention to mastodon, I’ve left Twitter to wither. I haven’t shut down my accounts (I have professional and personal accounts), but the app is no longer on my…

  • Torture

    There’s a reason sleep deprivation is used as torture. I was woken by my antisocial neighbours at 2:30am this morning. There’s an epic saga about their behaviour, stretching back months. It involve parties, throwing stuff off their balcony (on the 37th floor, no less) and abandoning their rubbish where they like. Suffice to say, they…

  • March is for movement (and moderation)

    As discussed in some depth, January was all about going dry. And it was so, so easy. February, in comparison, was slightly damp, enabling me to compare the before and after, and reminding me that age has robbed me of my capacity to process alcohol. In other words, suffering crippling hangovers after just a few…

  • On paper.

    Yesterday, my new box of business cards arrived. You might be wondering why someone working in London in 2023 might need business cards. I wondered it myself. But in a single week, I had a half dozen occasions when someone asked me for a card. And all I had to give were cards with my…