News

My campaign to produce Shakespeare's Sonnets: A Graphic Novel Adaptation needs your help! Please sign up at https://www.patreon.com/fisherking for access to exclusive content and the opportunity to be a part of the magic!

I'm also producing a podcast discussing the sonnets, available on
industrial curiosity, itunes, spotify, stitcher, tunein and youtube!
For those who prefer reading to listening, the first 25 sonnets have been compiled into a book that is available now on Amazon and the Google Play store.

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

better

yesterday: i had a good meeting with a friend in the silo district yesterday, and gd and i began the process of tidying and rearranging our apartment in order to be able to work from home. i took mr smear to the pool for swimming lessons twice, the second much better than the first, during which i realized that he's struggling to use his arms properly because he's so used to the water wings.

today: i got up really early, and actually stretched my back for the first time in a long time. which turned out to be a mistake, because i subsequently put my back out installing a wall panel heater. 

oh, and we unfriended our "friends" who left for australia without giving our kids a chance to say goodbye, after a lot of their shady behaviour compounded into massive disappointment. 

we did a very big grocery run, after which my mom and i took a bunch of things to her storeroom, she then returned with me to help us transform mr smear's bedroom into a proper little boy's room (he's super excited) and light the chanukah candles, eat dinner, play jenga with mr smear, and then eventually talk shop before going home.

i've just watched the first episode of the witcher (i mostly enjoyed it), i've played a fair amount of sudoku and unrollball and unblock me (mr smear's good at it!) , and i'm finally going to get back into leviathan wakes now before getting some rest. it's been a tough few days emotionally, figuring out my next steps, and cleaning my room (metaphorically) seems to be helping. 

merry christmas! 

Monday, December 23, 2019

celebrating gratitude

it's hard to feel relief over the very real terror of having your son almost drown without you even noticing. the details are irrelevant, but a bunch of outlying circumstances led to a moment that shouldn't have happened, *couldn't* have happened, and did. if it wasn't for our crazy neighbour who just happened to be in the pool at the time... we might have lost him.

our lives have not been easy, but fairly often i encounter moments that make me understand that i'm living on a timeline that is infinitely better than an immeasurable number of its dark alternatives. it's tough being grateful when caught in a maelstrom, but here we are. 

all we can ever do is continue trying to do better, and make things better.

...

the morning was nice, pancakes and pirates of the caribbean, a really nice and uneventful hour or so at the pool, making some progress with my online store, a good start to a playdate that then transformed into the aforementioned nightmare moment followed by a very stressful repeat of what's become this past week's standard fare of crying and screaming, followed by a long chat with our neighbour when we went over to thank him.

after weeks of waiting mr smear finally got to light the chanukah candles, then passed out on our way to dinner at balducci's and only woke up when we left, eventually deciding he was hungry only after brushing his teeth. and then... oblivion for everyone.

until around half an hour ago when gd and i woke up panicking about what happened. 

Saturday, December 21, 2019

the long tail

thursday:

i began my day with a couple of hours of bureaucracy, stressing about money while paying our nanny a large christmas bonus which took us down to almost nothing. interesting timing, as we had to send her home with chicken pox. we're praying she didn't give it to us, primarily because gd's still compromised by her surgeries and she's not sure if she's ever had it :(

i had a positive introductory call with a consultant operation, spent an hour playing rummy with gd and mr smear and then another hour prepping for an interview, which i realized too late was in a language i haven't touched in more than a year. i hadn't prepped sufficiently for the personal story section of the interview, and the coding portion wasn't great, so i don't feel particularly confident about that one...

thursday night was an improvement over wednesday - mr smear appears to have learned the lesson, for the moment at least.

yesterday:

the money came in! huge relief. i met up with a now-ex-co-worker for breakfast, it was great feeling the walls come down and having a refreshingly honest conversation (even if we were very careful not to make explicitly disparaging remarks about anyone). i get the sense that i have had a positive impact, at least on my fellow seniors, and it did me good to get some resolve.

i met up with gd and mr smear for a quick shopping run, and we all spent the afternoon together walking around the company gardens and then hunting (successfully) for reassurance beads for mr smear in case we have a repeat of wednesday morning. mr smear behaved abominably for a chunk of the experience, then beautifully. he's been all over the place lately and we're really not sure what the deal is, but it's possible he's feeding off our anxieties...

the evening service at the temple was generally great. after a mixed bag of hide-and-seek (mr smear hid REALLY well, but then so did i and i had to go running when he gave up and began yelling for me at the top of his lungs), he played nicely while i actually got to sit and enjoy the service. my mom picked us up for dinner, it was very pleasant and ended in a late bedtime for mr smear and an early one for everyone else.

today:

i'd managed to leave mr smear's epipen and asthma medication at the temple last night, so we didn't have much choice in going again this morning. once again, i actually got to participate in the service, and afterwards it took forever to leave as i got caught up in a not-uninteresting conversation with someone who doesn't really pick up on signals such as "i'm sorry, i have to go". eventually we made it home, i played some games with mr smear before lying down with leviathan wakes for a bit before having a very heavy conversation with gd before going out for a walk, again with mr smear giving us the occasional bit of trouble.

when your kid-who's-old-enough-to-know-better is screaming like a banshee in a public place, it's hard to be kind. i've learned some pretty hard negotiating tactics, like "would you like me to put you in this convenient hole and leave you here?", i hope he remembers some of the funny bits one day when he's describing his childhood to a shrink.

the evening was pleasant, he's very excited for hanukkah tomorrow, and now that everyone else has gone to bed i have to decide whether to be functional or to go to sleep myself. i've been burned out and depressed for so long i don't know what "normal" feels like, and i'm struggling to figure out whether i need to be sleeping so much or if that's part the problem.

...

anyway, i was pleased and saddened simultaneously this afternoon when mr smear told me we had to stop watching an asterix movie because they were eating boar.

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

the wait

well, i did get to read a lot today.

mr smear made such a scene when we left the house this morning (he didn't want us to leave him behind), the nanny accidentally locked us out and i left the obligatory black pen behind. we arrived just in time to buy some new ones (which we'd later discover we didn't need), stood in a long queue for security, then another long queue for a ticket. then they seated us on one side of the floor for a while, time passed, and then they moved us to the other side.

the ticket numbers. were. random. for the longest time (two hours) we sat in their uncomfortable metal seats, trying to amuse ourselves (reading, sharing memes, chatting with other people and their kids), and each time a ticket number was announced we had to pay attention because there was zero predictability. i doubt the psychological toll on hundreds of people per day is taken with malicious intent, i'm sure it's just wild negligence.

until we handed over our documents, i had no way of knowing if i'd been given the right information and i was really nervous that we were missing documentation that could take weeks to procure. fortunately, everything was in order and the one item that was missing i could write by hand (with their pen!). then we sat down for another hour (more of the same) until we were called to hand the approved documents to someone else.

when you've paid one and a half thousand rand for an application, wouldn't you expect the R20 sms update package to be included?

just saying.

another half an hour's wait for the fingerprinting, and we were finally out of there!

to celebrate, we went to balducci's for an amazing meal. then we went grocery shopping. then we came home.

gd ran a salt bath, once she was done mr smear and i jumped in (we tried to convince him it was too hot, but he insisted and he was fine). tool songs, rubber duckies and a hot soak: just what the doctor ordered.

i went straight from the bath to a haircut (backwards, much?), the assistant's head massage was great until she stuck her fingers in my ears (???), and i picked up a couple of forgotten items on my way home.

over the course of the day a number of bureaucratic items accumulated: i have quite a few documents to submit to my former employer, and the CRA sent us an ambiguously-worded message so we had to call to clarify. *sigh*

bedtime wasn't very smooth - mr smear wasn't listening or taking my threats seriously so i ended up putting him to bed without a story. he obviously wasn't happy with the situation, but it was a fascinating experience talking him down and witnessing him play out the exact scene we were in with a couple of his stuffed animals (one got punished, but apparently redeemed himself later). the finale was mr smear explaining to me that if he behaves well and tomorrow night has a story-time, i can either read him a story or tell him one, but i can't do both. and he insisted that i choose - he wouldn't let me get away with "whichever you prefer" :P

i've got a busy, busy day tomorrow. hopefully a relatively early night will help.

ups, downs and palpitations

the last few days have been interesting. sunday's birthday party was a mixed bag of the frustrations of sevens' traffic and bad directions, versus mr smear having a grand old time at acrobranch and making me super proud. also, me being under-dressed for the freezing wind. monday was a beach day. yesterday was a shopping mission / walk through town and a fun encounter with an israeli couple.

over the course of the past few days i've put in a fair amount of hours creating an online store for my books, and i've read quite a bit and played lots of games.

yesterday our projector died, so that's a bummer that needs to be dealt with. fortunately, mr smear's pretty good with keeping himself occupied and he's really excited by a bunch of books my aunt offloaded on us :)

my anxiety's been mostly off, although i have been surpisingly impatient and agitated. to be fair, mr smear has been mixing up his behaviour and he's balancing his "awesome" with a fair amount of "what-is-WRONG-with-you?!".

but this morning i woke up fully loaded, worrying about gd's visa appointment. that's in half an hour. i'm praying we have everything we need. wheee!

Saturday, December 14, 2019

halfway through the weekend

hmm. i wonder what just exploded / collapsed outside.

yesterday was a strange day filled with lots of positive farewell conversations, a delicious and fun lunch (with occasionally amusing interjections by toxic crusader as she tried to be relevant and failed), and sadly being escorted out early by my manager and having to skip the game hacking session.

most gratifying moment of the day? removing myself from on-call rosters.

i met up with gd, mr smear and the nanny at the grocery store, learned that birkenstocks are way too expensive for my tastes (the ugliness i could handle ironically), and the struggle to uber is real (we now use a combination of uber and bolt). we swam in the afternoon for a little bit, and skipped going to the temple because i was just too tired. my mom came over for dinner, and everyone went to bed relatively early.

today was mostly fun, although at some point i was too tired and became cranky. we went to the waterfront (sevens + summer = more mall people being more mall people than usual), i found a decent-ish pair of crocs, mr smear ate most of the falafel wrap, we played until kids with ice-creams got on the slides, listened to amazing music, shared unframed's vegan turmeric latte ice-cream, visited the aquarium (mr smear hugged a shark mascot), had an impromptu playdate with a friend of his, and finally returned home so i could read leviathan wakes and nap.

i woke up to do a bit of personal work (well, i guess any work i do is personal until further notice), watch a bit of the nightmare before christmas, put mr smear to bed, discover that gd really doesn't like johnny mnemonic, and now it's either bedtime or fiddle-a-bit-more time.

Thursday, December 12, 2019

the last week

today: mostly spent trying to leave something positive behind. mostly succeeding. at 5pm hearing that someone had discovered a bug in our project that was supposed to go out on tuesday, at 7pm leaving the building having fixed the bug. coming home to a big dinner and the croods.

wednesday: announcing my resignation to the team, and witnessing just how quickly news travels through the organization. getting a real apology from my strongest teammate (the one i'm convinced is on the spectrum), and toxic avenger arranging a farewell lunch which i presume is to make it look like everything's okay. i'm wondering if she's smart enough to avoid talking to me at the lunch tomorrow.

a really important meeting with the other senior engineers, getting to see them get the ball rolling to prevent other new seniors from going through what i did.

coming home and spending a few hours sorting out my mother's computer, eventually discovering that the reason she hasn't been able to log in is because her keyboard is broken and it's impossible to enter her password correctly...

working until midnight to write up feedback on my manager. that was a really, really tough task. i tried to be fair, but it's pretty darned scathing.

tuesday: the awkwardness of handing over things while waiting to make an announcement with my line manager. speaking of which, i still haven't spoken to my direct manager about any of this. i might not. i don't know.

spending some time reworking an old project for sailor and being fairly satisfied with it.

monday: the newly renovated offices are fantastic. high pressure to complete the project, three of us struggling with a mystery and me enjoying the gratifying sensation of uncovering the bug. pushing the button on my resignation, and promptly learning that i probably shouldn't have cancelled their visa assistance, but whatever.

---
this has been a long week with very little electricity, we even got up to stage 6 load-shedding. businesses are losing insane quantities of money and the fat-cats who've stolen so much from everybody are not going to jail.

i'm really tired. i think it's because i'm relatively relaxed for the first time in a long, long time. i've learned a lot over the course of the past ten months. a LOT. but i'm really happy to be out of there, and i'm looking forward to some summer holidays and whatever 2020 may bring ^_^

Sunday, December 08, 2019

debunking the game changers

the game changers is an amazing documentary. joe rogan's been bothering me recently because his biases have been showing through, and inviting kresser onto his show alone was a really bad move. but his follow-up, with both kresser and wilks?

it's a train wreck, but a profound one. while wilks gives a master class in scientific literacy and critical thinking, joe demonstrates the reasonableness he's made himself famous for and kresser unwittingly turns the episode into a wealth of evidence to back up the documentary's claims in a format that's almost twice as long.

i can't believe i'm still watching, but i can't stop. this episode should be showed in high schools the world over.

also, wilks' patience is legendary.

Saturday, December 07, 2019

the upside down

in my last post, i mentioned my mother picking up a nuance in the offer that made the story a lot less severe. then i went to work and received an email informing me that that phrasing had been a mistake. *whoosh* went my anxiety. the last few days have been full of panic attacks lasting hours, almost no sleep, a lot of soul-searching, struggling to make sense of the past six months, the past ten months, the past ten years. many unknowns, many scary things.

i have until monday to make my decision. yesterday morning, after a helpful talk with an attorney who confirmed my understanding that not filing formal complaints about being harassed by toxic avenger had made this an unwinnable fight, i went to work for deadline day and was so stressed that i was completely dysfunctional. that was when i received an email from my employer's partner company who was supposed to be helping us with gd's visa, finally asking when to schedule our appointment after a week of dragging their heels.

i had to make a call.

i walked home, a knot in my belly and my heart in my throat, to pull out whatever documentation i could find from the last renewal. in a daze, i went to the website, filled out the online application, and paid. an hour later, when we had an appointment scheduled, i let the partner company know that i was done with my employer.

a great weight lifted off my shoulders and out of my gut. when i got back to the office, i received my first sign that i'd made the right call - deadline day, down to the wire, and my laptop almost died. the technician who did me a favour by looking at it outside of office hours was freaking out because it was so messed up, he eventually managed to rescue it but for most of the time he was convinced we'd need to wipe it, and it could take another day to get it set up enough to complete the work. and then the other senior dev on the project had to call it a day, and he wasn't finished either - so we were officially late.

and i didn't have to care anymore. my whole world was better. so i have some work that needs doing after shabbat, and i have some reports to write about my manager and an harassment complaint to file against toxic avenger, and then monday will be primarily about saying goodbye to my coworkers and getting the hell out of dodge.

i effectively went straight to the temple from work, meeting my mom and gd and mr smear outside our building and ubering there. i'd had a banana for breakfast, and plenty of tea during the day, but otherwise i was on a perfectly empty stomache for a welcome glass of whiskey. i was able to really enjoy the service, received some much-needed support, and i barely saw mr smear because he was busy playing with some other kids.

my mom joined us for a nice pot-luck dinner, and after putting mr smear to bed the week's draining finally took its toll and i went to bed early.

for an actual night's sleep.

i'm still feeling pangs of anxiety here and there, but life's better now. i actually just cried a little, that relieved cry when you realize that the worst is over, that the coming challenges are going to be better than the alternatives.

i cannot express how grateful i am for my family. i am a really, really lucky man.

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

anxiety for tough choices

it was difficult to sleep last night. i've been reading james s. a. corey's leviathan wakes for the past week or so, and when "being present" didn't help and i was too tired and agitated to walk around, reading seemed to help a little. i woke up early and went through my financial statements - it turns out we've lowered the costs that used to be problematic, but are still living ever-so-slightly above our means - and i started working on editing this week's podcast episode.

then i paid my therapist a visit, who talked me through a lot of the shit i've been dealing with and concluded that it's probably best if i just walk away.

would that i could.

so i got in to work, bumped into my line manager and realigned a bit, then spent the day (when i wasn't introducing the new guy i convinced to join us a while back to how we operate) focused on churning out changes. i eventually left the office feeling pretty good about the day's work, even if some of it was spent grinding my teeth every time i heard toxic avenger fake-laugh.

ugh. the last time i worked with someone this dedicated to destroying others was with megaman.

i walked home through the soft beginning of the storm that's now raging outside, played uno with mr smear, ate dinner and prepped him for bed, and then discussed the "offer" with my mom, who picked up an important phrasing that makes this whole story a lot less dire than i thought. so i'm now going to settle in and try to impress my taskmasters, while simultaneously hunting somewhere new to go to regardless of the outcome - i really want to work in a place that doesn't demand sacrificing my family just to scrape by, and i'm praying that such an opportunity exists.

either way, i'm feeling considerably more relaxed now. now to prepare a podcast episode for publishing and go read a bit.

Monday, December 02, 2019

monday's child is full of woe

yesterday was a pretty good sunday. we had friends and my mom around for pancakes, i got my next podcast episode scripted, and some surprising tantrums were resolved very well*

* and humorously, too. mr smear punched me, and when i slapped his punching hand he yelled "no! if i punch you then you have to punch me back!". he eventually accepted my explanation that i don't really want to hurt him, and even less so kill or disabled him... once he'd calmed down, he told me he had to open the door "just to let some air in so we could talk"

i tried to go to bed at a reasonable hour last night, but i slept badly and then woke up at 3 or 4am to do battle with his nightmares. this took a lot longer than expected and i was a wreck by the time the sun rose, even though gd had eventually taken over. he was in even worse shape, didn't go to school and ended up sleeping a fever off for most of the day.

me, on the other hand? i thought my day was going pretty well until i walked in to my meeting with my manager and an HR representative was waiting for me. i'm still in shock, thoroughly disappointed and frustrated, after discovering that toxic avenger has been pulling all the strings and the fact that i delivered what was required of me by my deadlines was disregarded and i'm fairly confident i was not judged by a jury of my peers. i now have a big decision to make: do i stay, or do i go? the "program" they've set up for me seems designed to see me out the door, and while i was already starting to look around for somewhere better anyway this just adds insult to about six months' worth of injury.

one thing's for certain, though, and i say this in spite of my current emotional state: i am very, very grateful for my family, and for the many wonderful things in my life. it would be nice if the rest of being an adult could all be positive too, but i guess everything has a trade-off and in general... my trade-offs are a damn sight better than most people's.

maybe i'll stay and play their game. maybe i won't.

Sunday, December 01, 2019

happy birthday to me!

this birthday, all i ask is that if you haven't already, please click on this link and see what i've been up to!

yesterday was fun, i managed to deliver what i'd been working on the previous days, had a pretty good time with gd and mr smear at the bring-your-kids-to-work-day event (i'm sure he now thinks that "daddy has to go to work" means "daddy has to go play with balloons and coloured sand and get face-painting and watch magic shows"), and then enjoyed our first game-dev session.

i took mr smear to the temple yesterday evening, which was nice, my mom picked us up, brought us home and stayed for kiddush, we generally had a nice evening and then all went to bed early.

today was my birthday, but it was also gd's hypnotherapy exam so i did not get to sleep in. i watched a cute show with mr smear (gauko), played adventure time guess who? (he's playing well!), took a pleasant walk around town, spent some time trying to set up games on my windows machine then went to celebrate our accomplishments (gd aced the exam!) at plant, ate too much, came home with the intention of vegging out.

instead i watched most of bridge to terebithia and then got sucked in to playing draw a stickman epic for a while, and then took care of all the bedtime stuff before eventually deciding to spend some time setting up the next podcast episode and being distracted by recording a poem that after many attempts was ultimately disappointing (the recording, i'm happy with the poem).

and now it's late and i definitely need to crash.

maybe.

maybe i'll just read in bed until i pass out.

Friday, November 29, 2019

one week later

freaky. it's been a busy week. just invested in a black-friday-deal sewing machine, watched most of hochelaga, terre des âmes (some of the reviews are just silly, it's got some minor issues but overall it's excellent), we had a really nice dinner at plant (mr smear devoured their seitan shwarma).

it's been a disappointing week at work, i really feel like it's not the place for me. some of my teammates and i are just not going to be on the same page, and some of the work is engaging but mostly it's dull as hell. i'd probably perform a lot better if i cared.

mr smear came running after me this morning after we said goodbye, in tears and unable to communicate through his sobbing. eventually i managed to work out that he was upset because he'd given me a kiss goodbye, but forgotten to blow a kiss as well...

... oh, and a little drama happened today when gd discovered that she's been worrying about bullying going on based on the reports of a four year old, and our son's versions of events don't seem to line up with reality so well. but he's very good at telling his teachers "my mommy says _____ is a bully".

after struggling a bit to format my book for publishing, i've been trying to organize an ISBN number. getting to the right people is a slow process.

it's been two weeks now, i'm finally feeling good about my podcast again!

over the weekend i borrowed my mom's car and took mr smear to a bicycle birthday party, remembering that i was on-call and getting a team-mate to cover for me. later on i drove to dystopia's birthday party, and had been there for a couple of hours having a grand old time when i suddenly realized that nobody was covering for me and i'd left my laptop at home. *that* was a rush :/

two weeks no coffee on weekdays, so far so good. seems like a legit plan. i think my physio and i aren't friends anymore since i missed the last appointment, but i also think i'll be fine and i need to get back into the gym (although i did swim a little yesterday evening, the weather's warming up fast).

i think i missed some things. whatever.

* oh! space invaders - infinity gene is AWESOME.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

surprisingly relaxed

even if not consistently. maybe the not-drinking-coffee thing is helping.

a pleasant morning (although mr smear was surprisingly sensitive), learning that my sister's about to begin divorce proceedings, a good company breakfast and talk, getting some actual coding done, seeing our "friend" and now understanding that she was lying straight to my face about not knowing about yesterday's morning circle, eating lunch alone and then my manager arriving to pick up the tab and have a positive chat about leave.

my knee hurting a lot after stretching it last night (although i was stretching it because it was hurting), and being surprisingly unstable

getting some more coding done, developing a sudden headache, learning that gd's new passport has arrived and praying that the courier will pick it up successfully tomorrow.

coming home and needing a drink, a pleasant evening in spite of gd being snappy

sorting out gd's credit card after mr smear went to bed.

oh! there's that headache again. maybe it's bedtime.

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

healthy tired?

i'm feeling that sweeping exhaustion of not having slept enough in a while combined with a very pleasant afternoon and evening in spite of it being the middle of a rather long week.

gd and i went with mr smear to school so that we could watch their end-of-year morning circle shenanigans. first, it was a bit emotional because we missed accidentally missed his concert so he kept checking to see if we were still there... second, his class is full of characters and he and a friend of his insisted on performing solo which was really cute, a bit awkward, and extremely pleasing when mr smear decided to sing a song by himself and all the parents applauded wildly ^_^

third, and my favourite: the "class mom" was being obnoxious, she was in the front row and insisted on standing up to record her kid while blocking everyone else on our side from seeing theirs. we were all irritated, but of course nobody wanted to ruin the experience for the kids so nobody said anything. she happened to be positioned right behind mr smear, though, and at some point she moved his chair.

let me tell you, the shock that registered on her face when he turned to glare at her - and continued to give her the stink-eye every now and again afterwards - and the fact that she was so put out that she actually sat the fuck down? THAT MADE MY DAY. i was proud and amused at the time, but i've been giggling at random intervals since!

a friend of one of my teammate's started asking questions about my tattoos, i subsequently learned that he's actually listening to my podcast and that makes two of my coworkers - i'm quite chuffed!

i got very little work done today, the main reason was that we all got sucked in to a baby shower for toxic crusader. not that any of us cared, though, so basically it was a good excuse to have interesting conversations that weren't related to work until the whole ordeal was over.

also, i had a chat with my line manager about our vacation conditions and the outcome was excellent.

i left work a bit early, came home and took mr smear down to the pool but it was just a *bit* too cold, so we returned home and watched a good chunk of howl's moving castle and animaniacs. i actually spent a good chunk of that time passed out on the couch after a delicious dinner, and after doing some housekeeping (has it been an hour already?) i'm just about ready to go to bed.

---

i'm disappointed that the guys i spoke to last week shut down when i told them how much i wanted, they could at least have politely declined. i've tentatively talked to a couple of recruiters, but i'm starting to wonder if i wouldn't be happier moving internally rather than leaving my current employer altogether. either way, i'm grateful that i don't feel *stressed* to leave, even if i'm not happy where i am.

monday and a half

some of today was good: i finally published a new episode of my podcast! i enjoyed the time i spent with my family. my therapy session was constructive. i just *almost* completed exapunks, but it took me until a couple of minutes ago to finally realize that my solution is complete, just 28 lines over the code size limit.

OH.

but another meeting took place with toxic crusader demanding dumb, irrelevant shit and nobody saying anything. and a sinking feeling that this job is *really* not what i thought it would be, and that unless i make a move (even internally) that's not going to change. and that awkward feeling after telling someone what compensation i'm after and they go silent.

but in spite of all that, i haven't had coffee since yesterday morning and i'm already feeling better for it. i've decided i might just indulge on weekends, but i really don't *need* it when i work in an environment that generates plenty of anxiety without it.

Monday, November 18, 2019

monday's gonna monday

difficulty getting mr smear out of bed, an intense discussion about parenting (and foster-parenting) with my mother along the way, dropping mr smear off at school, and then beginning the workday with a conversation about coffee addiction that led to me stopping again (after a guilty first cup).

first meeting of the day: toxicity from toxic crusader in a situation where i'd have been the asshole if i'd stood up for myself, leading me to want to curse in quebecoise and decide that i'd rather be somewhere else. kinda. i'm less conflicted now about leaving, and after some back and forth with the guy i met with on thursday i'm waiting to hear if they can afford me.

so i stewed a bit over lunch, then walked in to the second meeting unprepared to spend the entirety of it being grilled about the work i've been doing over the past couple of weeks. i thought it went really badly, but my manager was full of praise once it was over and now i'm having flashbacks from an article i recently read about my employer and wondering how i ended up in such an unenjoyable space.

i spent the remainder of the afternoon housecleaning, left early with the intention of going to the gym and then realized that between a sore shoulder and a desire to record my podcast episode that probably wasn't a good idea. instead, i spent a mostly relaxed evening with my family, crushed my four year old's rebellion* and then, after saying goodnight, finally sat down to record. which is when my nose and throat suddenly closed up. i don't know what that's all about.

* i keep telling him not to play with the toilet paper when he's on the toilet, and tonight he became defiant and yelled "don't tell me what to do!". so i told him that it's *my* toilet paper because i paid for it, and when he argued with me i told him that in that case, he's going to have to work to earn the toilet paper and going to work means no school, friends or toys. boy, did that go down well. our shower immediate afterwards was fine, though, and when i was drying him i tried to have a discussion about what had transpired... but when i started with "i love you" he cut me off before the "but" with "i love you too, daddy" and at that point the conversation was over.

so i finally got my (slightly nasal) podcast episode recording, i'm most of the way through the editing already but it's almost midnight so i'm calling it a night and going to bed.

i hope tomorrow's not another monday.

weekbegin

it may be late, and i'm sure the morning will be a struggle, but i'm feeling VERY good right now that i've just prepared a new podcast episode that i can record tomorrow night. or tonight. whatever.

the weekend was pretty good overall, saturday was predominantly an at-home day that ended with a very nice (but very cold) barbecue at the temple (mr smear got to hold the candle,  but a big piece of melted wax landed on his hand), today started off slowly, then turned into a rush to shop for shirts (we ordered a bunch of personal prints) and a birthday gift before an afternoon birthday party that was surprisingly fun, then coming home and watching titan a.e. and thundercats, showering late and enduring a minor struggle to get mr smear to sleep before settling in to complete the episode.

and now - at 1.30am - to bed.

Saturday, November 16, 2019

good good good

i feel better after thursday's meeting. and generally conflicted about how i feel about my current employer. especially after a relaxed day which made sense, had generally positive interactions and included me getting a small group together for a weekly game dev session.

taking mr smear to the temple (he's getting the hang of hide-and-seek), coming home with my mom for a really nice dinner (gd got experimental), followed by an evening primarily occupied by exapunks (i'm most of the way through the final level, and enjoying the experience)

1am? cool. the world seems alright right now.

Friday, November 15, 2019

tigers are not afraid

what a heartbreakingly beautiful movie. also, i'm REALLY happy my coworker told me about plex, because instead of the usual frustrations watching over airplay we streamed to the ps3 and the experience was fantastic.

the last couple of days were a strange mix of stressful and boring, lots of meetings on tuesday and then i got sick (kinda?) and accidentally over-medicated and worked from home yesterday, after which i took mr smear down to the pool where gd joined us and we had a great time. also, finishing the karate kid reboot and appreciating it so much more for how good it is for delivering its value payload to children!

today i went off for a very interesting meeting in town, and the "new york" bagel i had on the way back was amazing. when i left the office the raging storm stopped, a light rain passed by overhead, and then i joined another witness in getting some poor drunk dude into an uber because he couldn't walk straight and was literally falling into the middle of the street. then i help my mom tidy her storeroom and came home for shower / bedtime / movie night.

it's friday already O_o.

Monday, November 11, 2019

is it just me?

i'm not sure if i need to learn to control my emotions better, or if i need to find a job with people who don't make me anxious. i discovered this afternoon that it is not company-wide practice to make me take on-call responsibilities when i'm on authorized vacation, which led to me angrily firing off an email to my manager and line manager to retract my morning's concession. now i'm anxious about how that's going to play out when i get back into the office, instead of spending my evening doing things that *i* want to do.

not that i couldn't enjoy watching the karate kid reboot with my boy, or complete a particularly interesting level (is it the penultimate yet?) in exapunks. i'm generally not interested in the post-level stats, but primarily because really want to know what percentage of players have made it far enough to be included in those stats. it's one thing to tell me my solutions are average, it's another to tell me they're average for the top percentiles.

one long week

it's been a long week, and a long weekend. that tiredness seems to have passed a few days ago, but it's now half-past midnight so maybe i'll start monday on a new low note. i have been sleeping a lot more the past week or two, although some nights i've woken up uncomfortable and taken hours to get back to sleep. our new mattress has caved in properly, just like the others. it's very frustrating.

my cranial nerve thing's been causing me trouble this week, i hope it's not related to the fact that i actually made it to the gym a couple of times (and even did a little weight training).

mr smear developed an ear infection at the beginning of the week, that sucked. we've had too many funny moments to note.

work's been interesting, overall positive. two enthusiastic interactions with coworkers regarding my shakespeare project helped.

this weekend: yesterday was all about swimming to relieve the heaviness of having invested an enormous amount of money and stress in getting gd's passport renewed, today was dominated by a birthday party (and borrowing my mom's car and draining the battery on the way there) and a mall expedition that saw me
a) ordering a pair of shoes
b) turning my back on a sales pitch and buying a new phone online
c) coming out alright from a very awkward situation with some traffic officers when my uber driver turned out to be unlicensed

oh, and a birthday party conversation somehow turned into a "my boss wants to meet you" situation

mr smear enjoyed the original pirates of the caribbean with us, i was surprised that he was more scared by paranorman this evening than by the ghost pirates...

Sunday, November 03, 2019

absurdly tired

and not alone in my tiredness, i've been sleeping a lot this past week and i don't know if it's some kind of disease or if allergy season is just taking a particularly big toll.

friday was tough to get through - or just tough to stay awake through - but a lunchtime discussion turned inspirational and i'm eager to speak to someone who can do something with it. otherwise, i left early for a haircut and an awkward season's greetings to my tattoo artist, and friday evening is a fragmented memory.

both yesterday and today began with enjoyable birthday parties, today's was an adventure because i borrowed my mother's car and drove for the first time since my knee injury, additionally the massive jumping castles were great fun (although we did have one accident that could have gone really badly) and mr smear made me very proud on a number of occasions.

yesterday afternoon involved a big shopping followed by alice in wonderland and brave,  today was angry birds, frustration with the curse of monkey island (it keeps crashing and won't save), an excellent return to my brother rabbit, and a fun visit to our building's playground for a while.

yesterday's shower was a rough experience, every now and again mr smear pushes me to carry out a threat and we went through three cycles before he finally accepted that i meant business. this evening's, by contrast, was an absolute pleasure. the last song that played as we finished up and got ready for bed was enter sandman :P

speaking of music, yesterday morning began in a really special way: he climbed into bed with me and started singing "one - and one - are one" from tool's jimmy, which to my knowledge he's only ever heard once, two weeks ago when i got sonnet 8 tattooed. pitch perfect. i put the song on my phone and we lay there, enjoying it together until it ended and then getting up for breakfast.

Friday, November 01, 2019

the joker

yes. i find it hard to believe that todd phillips, a man who has historically directed movies that have disappointed me, had it in him to push out a true masterpiece. two hours of the most visceral drama i've ever encountered, shockingly fantastic. this is how i imagine everyone who voted up the dark knight must have felt, which i was left out of because as much as i loved heath ledger's joker i found the movie around him lacking. the joker? i could have sat through another couple of hours of that, easy.

...

on a completely different note, this has been a rough week at work. i walked into today's meeting with my manager and told him straight: "i'm upset. i'm frustrated. i'm anxious. i think i've turned a corner with my teammates, but now i have a problem with my manager."
surprisingly, we got to the end of that meeting on a generally positive note, even with our disagreements. and then i finally got to sit down with his manager, and we're definitely better aligned regardless of what the man in the middle is up to. so i left work feeling pretty good about the state of the world, and i really hope the next month goes according to plan.

the rest of the week has been full of stuff, some good, some not so good. but i'm pleased to have published the next page of the graphic novel!

Monday, October 28, 2019

why am i still eating?

it was a bit of a weird day, but it ended with a positive discussion with my mentor after which i finally made it to the gym. i cycled hard for 25 minutes, then tried a couple of times to use my jump rope (i gave up), then worked REALLY hard on the punching bags. it feels good to have done it.

after a pleasant evening with good news (mr smear's second swimming lesson went really well), shower and bedtime was fun and then i sat down to pay bills, consider gd's visa renewal application, look at the finished fourth page of the graphic novel and watch lots of random comedy on youtube.

now it's late, i'm tired, and i'm going to spend just a *little* more time *a-hem* digesting before going to bed.

mr smear used fluoride toothpaste for the first time today. i'm oddly proud.

Sunday, October 27, 2019

the weak end

friday was good, because i successfully completed a chunk of work before i went home that ended a week-long run of successfully demonstrating my competence to my coworkers to the point where my achievements were called out in a meeting i wasn't present for. friday was not good, because i received a post-discussion email from my manager effectively threatening my job.

it's hard to dial down the anxiety even though i feel confident that i'm capable of doing what's being asked of me to prove myself, primarily because it's so unfair to be under fire after demonstrating to him the day before that he's the reason why i haven't been performing at the desired level. come to think of it, maybe it's because i did that...

anyway, friday evening was mostly pleasant in spite of that and the weekend was spent feeling sluggish but Doing Stuff regardless. yesterday morning was spent putting together a toy with mr smear, a successful endeavour both in terms of outcome and in terms of getting mr smear engaged and participating. he actually helped, and i was really proud of him! we also watched a really cool documentary on the universe together and that was fun.

in the late afternoon sailor invited us to join him for a hike on table mountain, and for the first time in forever we were able to go as a family and aside from a hiccup or two (well, one main one that was caused by a cupcake that wasn't for mr smear) the walk was really great!

and then we came home, enjoyed a delicious curry club dinner and a long philosophical talk that clarified some interesting things for all of us, eventually managed to get sailor out of the garage without a remote (but with a warning from security) and finally went to bed.

today was as rainy as friday (our pool's pretty much filled), it began early with shopping for brunch (gd'd invited my mom, my aunt and my aunt's boyfriend over) and while there was a fair amount of setup required (including clearing my desk, finally!) it was really nice and i had a very interesting chat with my aunt's boyfriend that i'm hoping will turn out to be productive.

also in the positive news, my professor responded to my email with an encouraging and enthusiastic first impression of the book i've put together which was extremely gratifying ^_^

mr smear and i spent the rainy afternoon watching pinocchio and peter pan, followed by a lot of crazy tantrum behaviour that took a concerted effort to manage and finally resulted in mr smear saying "i guess that's a 'no', then", apologizing and ending the day on a much better note. some of the long fight (which spanned a toilet, an extended timeout and a shower) was sad, some of it was enraging, and some of it was absolutely hysterical. all's well that ends well?

i don't know. so this job anxiety thing is on / off / on / off, but as upsetting and frustrating as my situation is i've decided to make the best go of it i can and if it doesn't work out, well, i'll move on and find another compromise. 'cause that's all there is for me unless i magically find a consistent way of funding my own thing.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

wednesday, and thursday

hoo wah.

it's been a dreary week. yesterday mr smear and i both had a hard time getting out of bed, and i never quite shook that desire to put my head back on my pillow. i enjoyed a fair amount of success, albeit success in really low-level, uninspiring tasks, and i had a long and difficult conversation with my manager today in which i realized that he has no idea what i've been dealing with and he's apparently the best ally i have. so i can't wait to speak to his manager and attempt to clarify some shit.

my neck's been hurting me since yesterday. not sure what to do, but i'm trying a regular pillow again and hoping it's the right thing.

my tattoos are itching. but the latest one is so freaking cool i'm really excited by it. the effect overall is now much improved, too.

i finally completed the first volume of my podcast compilation the other night, i'm impatiently waiting to get feedback. it may not be perfect, but it's definitely good and i hope (once i've admitted a round of criticism) that it'll bring in some cash and some more interest.

three months ago i paid someone $50 for a job they didn't do. i'm grateful to whatsapp for maintaining a trail of evidence.

right, i think it's time to go to bed. i don't know why i feel like i've been productive this evening, but i'm feeling pretty good about myself.

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

ah. yes. of course.

i was going to "hit the sack". and then i saw i'd missed a call from canada, from a number i didn't recognize. and then i learned that my phone relay solution was broken (for outgoing calls, at least). and then a whole lot of time went by as i refactored and debugged and troubleshot, and now it's half past midnight and i'm finally satisfied with the work and i'm so tired i'm feeling woozy.

brilliant.

Monday, October 21, 2019

monday

i think i slept well last night. this morning, i realized that my pillow is really bad for my neck and i swapped it for a peaceful last hour or so. mr smear started the day badly, but then fixed it with a snuggle and i really, really didn't feel like getting up and going to work.

turns out he was starting something, and he only finally woke up around noon - when i got home he'd been passed out on the couch for a while, and i still put to bed at his regular time. something about him seemed more mature when he woke up, even if he was strangely obsessed with the fans...

my work day was full of menial tasks, and code that wasn't performing as advertised.

i've spent a good chunk of this evening working on my book, which i'm very happy with so far. it just struck me that i haven't really worked on my mom's project since sailor tried to discourage me a week or two ago. the thought of his manipulation still upsets me, even though i know it wasn't malicious.

i think it's time to hit the sack.

the scream

ugh. i tried to take mr smear downstairs for a bit before my mom picked us up for the evening's celebrations, and it involved a lot of crying and screaming and hurt feelings. and boy, was he unhappy when he learned that he still wasn't getting back the toy he'd been screaming for because he'd been screaming for it. i feel like he should understand how that works by now.

anyway, he had a good time at the temple, dancing his plush torah around during the hakafot until he was too tired to remain standing. he woke up on the way home, though, so i still had to read to him, but overall the evening was a pleasant recovery from the afternoon.

and i even spent some time on my book project and made some good progress. but it's now late, and i have to be functional for work tomorrow. good night, weekend.

Sunday, October 20, 2019

disengaged

i've a few hours left on-call, and i'm praying they'll be quiet because i've done almost nothing this weekend and i'm thoroughly beat - i wonder if it's not my body rebalancing from spending the past two weeks on borrowed time (sudafed).

friday was a relaxed day - it was kinda nice spending it on menial tasks, very grounding - and ended on a good note when i took mr smear downstairs to play in our building's garden. friday night was nice, and afterwards i sat down with mr smear to watch an episode of thundercats. it just so happened to be the episode in which the thundercats' base loses power as they run out of thundrillium. and as they joked about being afraid of the dark, *our* power went out unexpectedly.

thank you, eskom.

it was an early night for all.

yesterday:

i was tired, grumpy, and really wanting to put some effort into my book project for once. but i was too tired, and being left alone with mr smear for the morning was as draining as it was entertaining. as in, some of it was entertaining, some of it was terribly unpleasant.

i watched neal brennan's 3 mics last night, it was fantastic.

today:

i finally caught myself up with my book project today, but i did spent a lot of time lying down and a lot of the day was covered by a shitty feeling.

now to figure out how to take mr smear to the temple for tonight's festivities.

Friday, October 18, 2019

lower

yesterday:

yesterday went better. generally. and then i came home and had to confront our neighbour, which wasn't comfortable, but went more positively than expected.

today:

the day began with a small taste of success, followed by a lot of frustration when i realized that by fixing the thing i'd broken i'd somehow rendered it impossible to fix the thing that broke it.

it was a long day, with a sense of doing very little. and then i left early, headed on through to the tattoo parlour, and lay down for the last of the pieces before the coming swimming season ends.

i'm REALLY happy with this.

our new bed came today. i'm about to go see if it's as good as advertised.

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

meds or not

i don't know how much influence the meds did or didn't have, but i spent most of last night suffering an anxiety attack. then i saw my therapist this morning, talked through a whole bunch of stuff, and left feeling only marginally better.

and then i got to work, and everything was fine. it was a pretty good day, actually, very relaxed and everyone was cool. i walked out feeling pretty good, and then felt anxiety begin to creep the further i got from the office... which makes me wonder.

i managed to enjoy a really nice evening with my family, we watched old peanuts and then ate at the table together, shower-and-bedtime was reasonable, and i gave aziz ansari's new show "right now" a chance which was excellent (i've never enjoyed his comedy before, but he's evolved).

and then some well-intended advice triggered my anxiety again, and even after spending some time completing a tough level of exapunks i'm still feeling it. i really need to learn to manage this.

i mean: THIS.

at least a little progress has been made on the next page of the graphic novel.

Monday, October 14, 2019

conflicted

yesterday:

my sister's 60th birthday party! it was a beautiful day and my nephew graciously took mr smear into the pool with him, my cousin was being oddly nice (he even complimented my new tattoo) and i had a very interesting chat with an unnamed man about upliftment paradigms.

i was so tired that i tried to rest in the afternoon but couldn't, and my memories from yesterday afternoon are vague and hazy.

today:

my cough let up enough for me to sleep a few hours, then returned with a vengeance.

medicated. frustrated. and after a long chat with a rep for a recruitment platform, i walked into a meeting with a mentor who laid out what my last seven months should have been and most certainly wasn't. i've now stepped back and am going to try to tweak my experience before i give up.

cupcakes for the man who asked me to trade on-call with him yesterday and had it blow up in his face.

coming home late and having a very short time to spend with my son (who was having a great time playing draw a stickman when i arrived), and now trying to somehow decompress before going to bed (but i suspect the meds are doing their bit to make me jumpy)

Sunday, October 13, 2019

sleep is for...

... other people. how many more days of this? if it's not the meds, it's physical discomfort, and that's only when it's not anxiety caused by the last week of work stress.

gd was still out of commission yesterday, and my cough was really bad (it's still not good). i single-parented most of the day, a lot of which was fun: the part of the walk to the mall that mr smear wasn't throwing a tantrum, shopping and chilling at my mom's coffee shop, discovering the skate park and fountain at the waterfront.

but the anxiety underlies everything. i find myself questioning my competence. my lack of motivation both at work and on my own projects upsets me.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

the gift of temporary

today was a better day, awful cough notwithstanding. things in the office felt alright, there was an attempt at organizing vegan pizza even if it failed (the vegan option was covered in real cheese, my head and my gut were not happy with the half-slice i tried), a couple of positive conversations came out of the team lunch, and i eventually left with a minor victory under my belt.

i hurried home to pick up coffee, snacks and fisherman's friends, then headed to the tattoo parlour. the initial proposal was disconcerting, but a few tweaks and we were both happy. sonnet 7 took an hour and a half, there were a few particularly painful points but by and large it was fine - i'm beginning to suspect that he's right, that i am starting to toughen up a bit.

straight home to get ready for dinner, my mom taking me and mr smear to my cousins' for a really nice evening, but an awfully late one. mr smear was fantastic (minus the not eating) the entire night, right until we arrived home. it was 11.30pm, and he becomes tearful and defiant when he's that tired...

eventually we got him to bed, i sat down to cough and hack and play through another level of exapunks, and now it's time to try to sleep in spite of the caffeine / sudafed combo i'm still running on...

Friday, October 11, 2019

oh, hello, 3.30am

gd's been really sick for well over a day now. mr smear's cough from the weekend still hasn't subsided. i got through yesterday with sudafed, but about an hour ago i started coughing too and now i can't sleep because i'm hacking until i tear up.

no, that's not right. the real reason i haven't been able to sleep is a chat with my manager yesterday: it turns out my team's holding a pretty low opinion of my abilities at the moment. i feel like i'm living the expression "when i do right, no-one remembers; when i do wrong, no-one forgets".

there's a part of me that wants to make this work. there's another part of me that recognizes that every job in my industry has trade-offs, and that this one's are relatively good. there's a third part of me that just wants out.

it didn't help my day that on top of that emotional overload, i had a chat with sailor in which he tried to dismantle one of my ideas in an attempt to convince me to consider his, not factoring in that my idea (at this point) is literally (aside from the time i spend with my family) the only thing giving me any satisfaction in lieu of my day-job.

last night i had a long chat with SxS for the first time in ages, it was nice to catch up.

...

when is this damned cough syrup going to kick in??

Thursday, October 10, 2019

a day of reflection

hooo boy, did i ever need today off. well, kind of off, i mean i did spend a good chunk of it at the temple with mr smear, i broke my fast a few hours early and i spent some inspiring time with my tattoo artist planning friday's work.

but after a long night, mostly spent in the throes of an anxiety attack replaying the past six months and being angry with myself and the world, i eventually got up feeling a bit better about things, my perspective a bit less hard.

oh, right. we had a fight over discipline this morning, i almost forgot. well, that aside.

anyway, long story short, i'm going into work tomorrow and i'm going to try to make the best of things. at least until i have better options.

on a different note, mr smear made me really proud this evening, both at the temple and at dinner afterwards. i enjoyed the dinner immensely, myself, it's always nice to talk to people about complex topics who are interested in what i have to say. and the vegan chocolate mousse was (and is) superb.

Tuesday, October 08, 2019

an oil spill in my chest

today was another day of dreary, mindless work. well - not exactly mindless, but not applying my mind in the ways i'd like. every interaction i'm having with our systems and with my coworkers is making me more - painfully - aware that i'm not where i want to be.

my biggest frustration? how did i fall into this trap, where i've spent months proving myself for a role i don't really want?

once upon a time i dated a girl for a month, and i'm feeling a really strong parallel. i was so focused on making things work, i forgot to check in with myself and see if i actually wanted them to work.

i don't know how this next bit is going to pan out. before i do anything drastic, i need to stop and evaluate: with all of my experiences i've been accumulating over the past few years, perhaps it's time for a real career change?

...

what a note to start a yom kippur fast on.

downer

sunday was going well, right until mr smear smacked his head hard at which point we spent the rest of it worrying about whether or not we needed to take him to the hospital (two doctors advised against it, but he went to sleep super early and woke up super late). aside from waking him up every half hour until late, i had a great chat with horseman, i made progress with exapunks, made real progress with my mom's website, and it was really late before i realized i needed to get into bed.

same now, i guess.

it was tough getting out of bed this morning. i spent most of the day thinking about the realization i had over the weekend - i'm really not happy with my job. and i don't know where i would be happy, 'cause where i am is pretty damned good relative to most places.

mr smear seemed alright this evening, if a bit of the naughty side, and reading to him at bedtime was a real treat! i finished firefly again - that series ages really well - and i've made some more website progress. i've also learned a rough lesson about social media. did you know that you can be banned from a hashtag?

tomorrow is another day.

Sunday, October 06, 2019

milestones!

today's been a big day so far: mr smear has, for the first time, done a pretty good job of wiping his own butt!

i started friday in a surprisingly good mood, but the workday ended with hours of waiting to wait for disappointing results. the temple service on friday night was great - mr smear sang again for the first time in ages - and we ran into my old hebrew teacher who was thoroughly amazed that she could actually have a conversation with mr smear :)


yesterday was... irritating. i wasn't in the mood for anything, mr smear and i constantly switched between having a great time together and him pushing my buttons, i was really tired (and that was after i got up around 10am). some of the day was really nice, though, including both times we went through the new area in the company gardens.

my mom came over to babysit so that gd and i could have a date night for the first time in forever, gd was super excited about going to see the joker! a pity the actual cinema experience was so crap, starting with bad timing on our part, then waiting forever in a queue for a concession stand that was collection only, then having our seats nicked by another couple, which led to the last straw: the old couple that sat down next to us STANK of too much perfume.

perfume. if you must use it, less is more. and if you don't want to be a shit person, there are three places to tone it down or avoid altogether: on an aeroplane, in the gym, and in the cinema.

so that triggered the end of date night and the beginning of a somewhat unpleasant evening. i'm so tired of other people's shit.

at least this morning is off to a good start. between mr smear's achievement, his desire to begin the day with the toy story 3 game and now watching toy story 4 (i picked it up last night), maybe sunday will be a good day.

Friday, October 04, 2019

wednesday thursday

where did this week go?

1. this morning mr smear woke us up, but refused to let me near him. right until i said goodbye at school, at which point he suddenly began screaming and crying and wouldn't let me put him down.

sheesh.

but i'm well impressed that he's pretty much learned the aleph-bet song!

2. at 4.50pm today i finally experienced some real success after a day's slog that was very gratifying.

3. the "other new guy" and i had a chat over lunch, it really doesn't seem like he's going to stay very long.

4. i really do feel pity for toxic avenger, she's definitely not stupid but i'm becoming more convinced that she's a bit deep into the spectrum. i can't say that her attitude and her obstructiveness doesn't bring me down, but it's easier to deal with when i just don't care.

5. hunter x hunter is a thing again.

6. planning the next tattoos, feeling pretty good about it!

7. playing a fair amount of exapunk. brilliant game.

8. my physio was impressed with me yesterday, it looks like i'm done with the healing part of the recovery and i've now got to start hitting the gym.

9. i'm tired. going to bed.

Wednesday, October 02, 2019

a new year!

sunday?

a mall expedition with my mom, then getting home in time for a really nice couple of hours with protoplasm and his girlfriend before getting ready to go to the temple.

gd managing most of the rosh hashana service in spite of the chairs (that's pretty big), and an entertaining big dinner at cousins with mr smear literally running around until 11.30pm. an unpleasant experience explaining to him that he couldn't have something he wanted, and being distressed to here from him that teachers at his school have been giving him eggs to eat against our wishes.

monday?

going to the temple by myself, mostly enjoying the service (i'm going to have to have uncomfortable words with the council regarding the choir), helping my mom transport chairs, taking mr smear  to the company gardens, playing in our complex's playground and being joined by someone's nanny's kid - mr smear and him got along great, but i was really sad for him and his mom when she came out looking for him and she immediately apologized in case he was "bothering" us. jesus, some shit really hasn't changed :(

unfortunately gd didn't join us for dinner, but it was a nice enough evening and mr smear and krybabie's kids played really well together. another late night - although not as late as the night before - and i vaguely recall doing something until late last night but i might just be confused.

tuesday?

it was a struggle to get out of bed this morning (it helped that my shitty phone wouldn't let me turn the alarm off), i spent the morning catching up on emails and the afternoon doing some housekeeping tasks, got something real done with a coworker just before leaving and over-excitedly pushed (i should have waited until morning), then spent an hour waiting in the queue at the pharmacy, came home to the tail end of dinner, had a mixed evening of fun and irritation getting mr smear to bed, then finally got to watch the game changers which is absolutely incredible!

now i'm ready for bed.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

strange weather

mr smear was in a good mood when he woke up this morning. i asked him if he'd dreamed better dreams, and he looked at me and went "oh, no! i forgot to dream again!"

my back hurts, it spasmed this morning when i stretched. otherwise a lot of the day was a mix of playing with mr smear, Doing Stuff online (including creating a public facebook group, 95% of the effort was producing a group cover photo), and struggling to get mail forwarding working on two of my websites.

it's sad to have airplane make it clear that he's not my friend anymore, but over the course of the past few years i'd more or less accepted that so it doesn't sting quite as much.

then my mom picked me and mr smear up and we went to kirstenbosch. the weather wasn't great for it, but it wasn't bad either, and everything was pretty relaxing until we made a wrong turn on the way back to the car and ended up walking the entirety of skeleton gorge - my four year old, and my mum with a sore foot.

huh.

the evening was pretty relaxed, mr smear wanted to watch bambi again, shower and bedtime were pretty cool, firefly is amazing again, and i then watched paper tiger again while fiddling with the mail forwarding again (still no luck), completed another level of exapunks, and got sidetracked on my way to bed making some changes to my mom's website. how it's now past 1.30am is utterly beyond me.

GORRAM i just bit my tongue sneezing again. $#@!.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

riding the nightmare

"it's not your bed's fault you're having nightmares. that's not what's causing them."

his crying slowed down to a sob and an occasional sniff. his screaming had dragged me out from a particularly positive dream and, still in that liminal space before fully waking up, i'd been sitting on the floor in front of his door facing off with his four year old terror for what seemed like forever before guessing that there might be a reason he was refusing his own bed.

"do you know where nightmares come from?" i asked him. i don't know what kind of answer i expected.

"from my head".

ah. okay.

he finally relented and let me help him up into his bed. i climbed in next to him and we lay there for a minute in silence.

"daddy?"

"yes?"

"when are you going to fix my head?"

oh.

shit.

"your head's not broken, sweetie, there's nothing wrong with you. do you know what causes nightmares? fear. and a nightmare is your brain figuring out how to deal with that fear. so when you're having a nightmare, it's okay. it means your brain is teaching you to not be afraid."

being half-asleep i rambled on a bit more, trying to repeat the same thing in different words and praying i wasn't confusing the poor kid.

then i paused to see if anything had landed.

"okay, daddy," he calmly said. and turned over. and went back to sleep.

i lay there a bit longer, then quietly returned to our bed, and went back to sleep myself. but none of my dreams were going to top that experience of relief; not his, and certainly not mine.

Friday, September 27, 2019

not parasites after all

holy shit. the owner of the pest control company, who happens to be a particularly sharp individual, came over to talk to us about our pest problem and explain why he doesn't want to spray more chemicals.

what a refreshing experience.

so it turns out that we don't actually have a parasite problem, and we're not hallucinating either. we're reacting to something, probably something being carried in on dust particles, and even just knowing that it's not something contagious following us around is an enormous relief.

in other news, my son has been making us really, really proud over the last couple of days in his dealings with his friends (even if he broke down tonight, he seems to be coming down with something and he was really tired). there's a level of maturity that's breaking the surface that is extremely gratifying.

in other gratifying news, the amount of positive responses i've received from my post that drew so much ire is inspiring. even on the original post, the overwhelming majority of responses were positive. so that's cool.

i'm glad i got to rest a bit before taking mr smear to his friend's swimming pool (it was a ridiculously hot day for spring). quick shopping, home, shower, back to the grocery store, a glass of wine (and a liquorice root) to say farewell to our friend, then finally home for a quick and sad bedtime, firefly, a bit of progress on my mother's project and now, i think, going to bed.

i can't believe it's friday already. wtf.

Thursday, September 26, 2019

gorram parasites

jesus, these things are back with a vengeance. when will this be over?!

i took mr smear to the company gardens yesterday afternoon, which was lots of fun until the wino (inferred from his intense smell) selling nuts took a shine to my boy and tried to befriend us by giving us a free bag. it's really hard navigating "thanks, but no" with people who are well-intentioned but have a culture that demands they give gifts, second time in two weeks i've offended someone by refusing and felt bad for them.

we had a really good time in our complex's playground, a good shower / dinner experience, a fantastic family moment singing ani couni at bedtime, and then i treated myself to a couple more episodes of firefly while snacking excessively.

and then the previous post's drama unfolded.

kicking over rocks

phew. and by that, i mean i'm lying here in the middle of the night trying hard to regulate my breathing, calm down, and convince myself that disabling comments and giving people some time will speed up the process of my faux pas blowing over.

i should have known that the south african #imstaying group would not have been particularly receptive to the idea of not identifying south africanness with eating meat, and my post saw people very quickly turning from purely positive to vicious.

i wish i'd thought of disabling the comments much earlier. or that i'd never posted in the first place.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

tattoo design and child pride

today was definitely better. i finally fixed the handles of our balcony door (which required drilling, whoever installed it originally somehow made even more of a mess of it than the other doors), got sucked in to watching tool - fear inoculum reaction videos, came up with the first draft designs for the next four tattoos, played exapunks, and when mr smear got home received an amazing (and surprising, considering the bullying episode from sunday) report from his nanny about his playdate behaviour - we were concerned about one of the kids of the playdate due to the school drama we went through recently, and the nanny watched in wonder as mr smear put this kid in his place, but did so kindly.

*deep sigh*

we don't always win, but when we do it's extremely gratifying.

on another winning note, mr smear's had the aleph-bet song stuck in his head and we finally opened a bunch of stuff i ordered from the states recently which included hebrew alphabet flash cards - and he actually enjoyed going through them and singing along in slo-mo :)

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

heritage day out the window

today was a bit of a stuff-up. i dragged myself out of bed to get to my therapy session on time, forgetting that it was cancelled due to it being a public holiday. i came back home for pancakes and coffee, then climbed back into bed because i was suddenly thoroughly exhausted. i eventually got up and left angrily (for a couple of reasons) to go with my mother her coffee shop, talked for a long while (participating in a conversation with an old friend of hers i'd never met before, then joined by a friend of ours), did a fairly quick grocery run, came home and spent the afternoon fiddling with the balcony door (stopping because i'd need to hammer a bit and it's a public holiday) and then playing exapunks. and now it's 7pm, getting dark, and i'm not sure what i want to do so i've let mr smear convince me to put on adventure time.

a stressful start to my staycation

friday... friday, friday, friday. workwise, a remarkably unsatisfying day. but a few of us walked out for the global climate strike march, and aside from the route making it impossible to keep my new tattoos out of the sun it was a positive experience. i met gd and mr smear and our friends at the grocery store, my mom came over for friday night dinner, and that was the week that was.

gd and i started dark phoenix, but almost ruining the movie with a misunderstanding.

saturday:

starting the day playing lego batman, then my mom picking us up for a shopping run in the rain (finding a bed, giving up on silicon wedding rings, and an afternoon navigating mall people at the waterfront).

trying to teach mr smear how days work.

bambi. peter pan.

gd and i finishing dark phoenix which was awesome.

sunday:

migrating sonnetcomix.com back to blogger, which is so much better than wordpress. and moving another domain from godaddy to hover, which is extremely gratifying.

taking mr smear to the aquarium. then for lunch (he made me SO proud, but he ate so well i barely had lunch and we HAD to have ice cream afterwards). running into our friends and a coworker, the kids playing terribly on the playground and the day officially ending with mr smear hitting a little kid back, after which i took him straight home for long lectures and no television.

watching firefly by myself. because i'm on holiday.

today:

happily figuring out a new way of working with mysql this morning, and this evening completing a migrations package for it. in between, we all walked to the bank - everything there was broken or useless - then to the locksmiths for patent screws, then to steers for delicious veggie burgers, then we headed to complete volumes of documentation for the bed purchase before rushing home to slug a cup of coffee before i took mr smear to his first swimming lesson at the school i learned in.

it started off well because a friend of his was already in the pool, but then a mother came in with an older kid who was throwing a full-scale toddler tantrum and she did NOT handle it well. mr smear took his cue and behaved badly until i had a chat with him, but he wasn't very cooperative for the rest of the lesson even if overall he did pretty well.

anyway.

we watched most of spider-man: into the spider-verse this evening, but then mr smear stopped and decided he wanted to play our adventure time-themed guess who? game, and although it took a while to get him to play it correctly, with a little assistance from gd he actually beat me! it was great, especially when (just as gd arrived) he looked up at me and asked "is your character humanoid?"

it's been a long-slog evening getting the migrations package working well, i've done a bunch of other stuff, it's late, i'm going to bed.

...

it's worrying us that my mom's suffering from vertigo again.

our neighbour's door bangs whenever there's wind. repeatedly. it's infuriating because it does that because he keeps messing with it and he doesn't have a clue what he's doing.

oh, and we thought we were done with the invisible parasites. gd and i are both feeling them again.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

parenting down and up

we had a little drama getting mr smear up and at 'em this morning, but once resolved the morning went smoothly. my mom and i dropped him off at school, nobody said anything to us about a concert but my mom convinced me to check anyway and according to the latest email mr smear's class concert was scheduled for october.

so i went to work. the morning was relatively productive, and i hit lunchtime with a win. another positive chat with a teammate over lunch (to follow a different one from the day before), and then i strapped myself in for a struggle. and the struggle was real. by the time gd messaged me to tell me we'd both missed mr smear's concert (it had been rescheduled via a whatsapp group and neither of us had taken note, and mr smear was very sad that he'd had nobody to hug after the concert was over), i'd been lost in documentation for hours and between the distress of learning that we'd let him down and the frustration with what i'd been doing, my concentration was done.

fortunately, a super-patient teammate came to the rescue and even though we didn't finish the job completely, we were both ready to call it a day once we'd made some pretty serious progress. hopefully tomorrow will see the end of it.

i came home feeling horribly guilty, but after a few minutes sitting and eating dinner the world seemed much better. mr smear received some guilt concessions, one of which was playing snow bros  after 7pm, and by the time we were done he was actively challenging the monsters!

it's been a pleasant (albeit late) shower and bedtime, and i'm now intending to do not much and hoping to get a good night's rest.

---
parenting fail aside, tonight's the first time gd and i have had a serious conversation about potentially adopting.

wtf, week?

jesus, am i still up? i've gotta go to bed. this week has been intense, primarily due to some big shifts at work, two days of being on call for two projects simultaneously, a weird cough, more bugs (they're still here, whatever they are), spending a little time working on my mom's project, an exciting reboot of an old idea of mine by a friend i had lunch with on monday, mr smear being mostly awesome but really struggling with mornings, and i'm sure there's more but i'm done for the day.

oh, and instagram. and instagram failing, the app is terrible but nobody cares because they've cornered all the markets. also, it's mind-blowing seeing how many tattoo artists there are, and even more mind-blowing considering that i'm only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Monday, September 16, 2019

the phantom menace...

... IS good for kids, no matter how much the midichlorian thing bugs me. jar jar binks is kind of okay if he's softening things for (relatively) little people. the highlight of the movie was mr smear jumping on the couch yelling at obi wan kenobi to defeat darth maul.

yesterday was pancakes, a great birthday party, a late brunch, gaming, the phantom menace, and everyone going to bed early.

and then everyone struggling to get up this morning.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

*throat-clearing*

friday? something about being excited to be going on-call because the rest of my week had been so freakin' boring. and meetings. and a team lunch where i discovered that the raptor room's ambience is significantly more enjoyable than their food.

oh! and seeing my surgeon for hopefully the last time, he's very happy with my progress.

walking home quickly to shower and head to the tattoo parlour for a half-hour, walking out VERY happy with the results! also, learning how to manage a "professional" instagram account and being overwhelmed by the sheer number of fantastic art / literature / tattoo accounts i haven't been following because my personal account has been curated so that i only see pics from people i know and care about.

a good friday night dinner.

last night: a long, difficult night. still feeling bugs, and i somehow hurt my hip when i did get to sleep. a couple of hours sitting on the carpet in the middle of the night.

today: a slow start to the day (i'm sure i did something useful, i think), taking mr smear to the locksmith again (they tried to give us a gift because mr smear was being super-cute, i hope i didn't offend them by not accepting it), a visit to the wellness center (riding up and down the elevator, mr smear disturbed because it looked like the make-up model was putting bum-cream on her face), belgian waffles (that tasted gluten-free), feeding squirrels, entering the museum looking for the giant globe and finding it off (i couldn't convince mr smear that it was a black hole because "it's made of glass, daddy"), returning home to crash on the couch for a bit, crash bandicoot and coffee, another walk to the pharmacy and a couple of tantrums along the way, playing "adventure time" around a monument and hide-and-seek in the "maze" before returning home again, and then putting on the phantom menace as an introduction to the star wars franchise which he found thoroughly engrossing until about halfway, a mostly pleasant shower / bedtime, fixing some email relays, and watching bill burr's paper tiger.

thoroughly brilliant stuff. i'm glad to have seen both sticks and stones and paper tiger. if you're upset after seeing them, well, fine, whatever. but if you haven't seen them for yourself? don't let anyone else form your opinions for you, you might be embarrassed to discover what those opinions were based on.

now - to bed. and praying for a better night.

Thursday, September 12, 2019

f'n bugs: round 2

another day working from home, with jackhammers outside the window, with shitty work, and then having to move across to my mom's for an hour and then a waterfront mission, coming home exhausted, my mom upset because the exterminator didn't appear to do his job, getting mr smear showered and into bed then heading to my mom's to help her with her duvet (my mother and my wife are both terrible with duvets, meanwhile mr smear seems to be keen to help next time), coming home, eventually going to sleep on our floppy bed

waking up with a sore neck and shoulder for another not-great day, although better for being at work, an awkward chat with my manager, eventually coming home tired again and finding my wife upset because the exterminator really hadn't done his job and we're still dealing with an invisible invasion

f***.

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

f'n bugs

i slept horribly, and woke up with my back threatening to spasm. i cancelled my therapist and worked from home to avoid spreading whatever the heck these things are (gd has theories, but i'm not convinced by any of them), and spent a very long day struggling to do what should be very basic things. all the while with pool renovations drowning my sanity.

i eventually closed my work computer, disappointed, played some crash bandicoot with mr smear (until a jet-ski level gave me motion sickness), taught him how to eat with a knife and fork while watching adventure time, and navigated the disciplinary action of carrying out the punishment for him not cooperating while getting ready for bed (i did read him one story, so one more than was threatened). he was really sad when i turned the light out, but i reminded him that mommy and daddy are always in his heart and that he could sing to himself with my voice once i'd gone to bed. i stood outside for half a minute, waiting to hear me fail, but that was the end of it! i'm really proud of him ^_^

i've applied for GAP insurance (we'd be in BIG trouble if we didn't have it), and i'm now struggling to do two more sets of squats before going to bed (so distracting myself however i can). this shit is hard.

pest control is coming tomorrow, i'm so not looking forward to working from home again but with my current tasks it probably isn't worse than being in the office... these bugs are driving me nuts.

Monday, September 09, 2019

bad form

it feels like every half a year we get hit by the same invisible parasites, it's incredible. we're constantly feeling things crawling or hopping all over us, and it's not clear how long it's taking for the bites to appear but they all made their presence felt while i was in a meeting this evening, four of them in a particularly upsetting place.

we're making our favourite pest control company rich, and losing our minds in the process.

in other news, monday turned out to be a really good day. first, my accountant got in touch with some very relieving news and second, our friend invited me to speak with a new hire and his thank you email to my manager was phenomenal! also, aside from a lot of meetings and housekeeping i actually managed to make myself useful, which is always nice.

due to our late meeting i came home just in time to shower mr smear and put him to bed, it took a while before he was satisfied that i'd read enough and i quite enjoyed our time together (and his choice of "my new favourite book"s).

i've played some more exapunks to give myself a sense of actual programming before bed, and now it's time for the bed part of that sentence. our bed, which has suddenly sunk in significantly over the past few days...

Sunday, September 08, 2019

friday, saturday, sunday

friday sped by really fast considering how slow i was getting into the one real task i had to do. i was ten minutes late to a half-hour meeting that ran so late that i was then forty-five minutes late to a one hour meeting, and i finally completed the day's work five minutes before my mother arrived to pick me up. i took mr smear to the temple, where i was in time for a quick whiskey before the service (and just finished it as mr smear decided he wanted to explore and threatened me that if i didn't come with him, he'd leave me there by myself).

the service was great, there were two kids around for him to play with, and when we got home we had a nice curry club dinner and then easily got him to bed.

yesterday was interesting, it began with me putting on peter, paul and mary's puff the magic dragon and when mr smear complained that it was in black and white, i explained that it's because the video was recorded so long ago that colours hadn't been invented yet, and that that's just what the world looked like back then. i was thoroughly amused, but then i felt super-guilty and had to come clean a minute later and explain the truth to him.

i spent my morning wrestling with instagram to set up a project-specific account, because instagram doesn't expect users to want to edit their pictures' descriptions from a desktop and certainly doesn't endorse re-posting one's photos to one's own accounts. but wait, there's an app for that! buffer. and buffer would be perfect if it didn't fail abysmally when i tried to post.

i took mr smear to the locksmiths next door expecting them to have patent screws (like they had before), only they were out and the two of us walked all the way across town to find the other locksmith's closed. i knew i should have checked first, but it was a good walk for mr smear. he then reminded me, at our furthest point from home, that i'd promised him a week earlier to take him up the mountain. and i always keep my promises.

so we walked all the way back home, i stopped for a cup of coffee while i ordered cableway tickets, and we proceeded to uber up to the base station. shortly before we stopped at home, i pointed up at the upper station and said "that's where we're going", and he went "we're going to castle greyskull?!", and i said "yes!". and immediately knew that there was no way for me to tell him it wasn't castle greyskull without disappointing him to the point of ruining the experience. so we visited castle greyskull, the real, real castle greyskull, and his little mind was blown and he was utterly thrilled. the conversation that made my day was my son talking through what he thought would happen if superman had to defend castle greyskull against skeletor, which led me to wonder: if superman incinerated skeletor, could it be that he-man would become a despot with no evil to keep him in check?

it was a bit of a mission to keep my new tattoo out of the sun, but mr smear had a blast and at one point i realized that if i let him keep walking we'd never get home at a reasonable hour, so i had to coerce him to turn around and return to castle greyskull. it's castle greyskull now. it is, and i suspect it always will be.

today started really well, with a slow wakeup, and then we weren't allowed to put the telly on because mr smear wanted peace and quiet to play with his toys. gd made pancakes, and then mr smear and i met up with our friends and hit their swimming pool for a while, then went inside for some more playtime (banana bread and tea), and then returned home. it was only as the uber driver arrived to pick us up that i realized that i was supposed to do some emergency grocery shopping, so after a shower and a cup of coffee i went to the mall to pick up meds and food, came home for some playstation time and watch one strange rock, and then get mr smear to bed. i had stuff to do this evening, but i'm not doing it and i don't care. it was a fantastic weekend.

[shit. i think we might need to get pest-control in here again. this feels like something we need to keep doing every six months and nobody's been able to identify the actual cause]

Friday, September 06, 2019

oauth 2

i can't believe how clunky google, facebook, and even twitter have made their oauth offerings, and how little useful documentation i've been able to find. thanks, github, for setting unreasonable expectations.

the pace is painfully slow, but helping out with my mother's new business website is almost therapeutic. there's something about doing these almost mindless things (like oauth) one at a time, small achievement after small achievement, without jumping to the million other things that need doing. i'm starting to feel like i'm finding that same groove at work, too. and that's definitely a good thing.

work seems good. mr smear had a horrible cough for a few days but was back at school today, and i'm a little shocked that in half an hour it'll be friday again. FRIDAY. wtf.

my new tattoo is itching the shit outta me. my wife upset me earlier by finishing my sentence about the new tool album in the worst possible way (she thought i was trying to say "it sounds the same as the others", and while it's borrowed a few phrases and there's a clear and present tool-ness going on, the more i listen to it the more i hear. so yes... just like every other tool album, but not in the way she intended).

Tuesday, September 03, 2019

oauth experience

setting up oauth with github was a breeze. setting it up with google has been a giant pain in the butt so far, and i'm only halfway there *if* i've configured things correctly so far. and three hours ago i thought i was going to go to bed soon...

Monday, September 02, 2019

a positive reset

i was nervous going in to work today, and i was pleasantly surprised when my manager a) confirmed that my new strategy / approach is good and b) relieved that toxic avenger had been cautioned over her hostility. i don't know how things are going to play out going forward, but out interactions today were mostly civil and constructive and regardless, the rest of the team and i seem to be on the same page technically which was validating.

and i even made some progress on the things i meant to do.

i walked home to drop off my bag and put on a long-sleeved shirt to cover my new tattoo, then headed to the hairdresser for a pretty decent haircut. i came back and watched dr horrible's sing-along blog with mr smear, put on thundercats for him after making a fun video to send to future him (something had inspired me to do that on my way home, and then he insisted on an out-of-sequence  episode that involved time capsules. wtf?!)

i got stuck in to something technical for half an hour while he watched, got up to sort out dinner and found him passed out on the couch. whoops!

it's about 9pm now, i think i'm going to try to make a little more progress and then turn in early again. it's been a big start to the week.

Sunday, September 01, 2019

tool day 2019

omg, this world has been a slightly better place to live in since tool's old material became officially available, and with their new album's release it feels like my soul's giving a sigh of relief with a breath i didn't know i was holding in. i can't seem to get enough pneuma.

on saturday morning i went to bed with my headphones in so that i could listen to the rest of it, but it was muddled up with friday's trauma. i've been feeling that same heavy, deep exhaustion that i experienced the last time i was severely depressed, after leaving my first montreal job because of megaman. this kind of thing takes a lot of thought, processing, and planning, and that's a lot of what this weekend has been about. i'm just starting to feel comfortable with the idea of walking into work tomorrow, having a conversation with my manager and then proceeding to try to fix this shit.

otherwise, i took mr smear out yesterday morning for a bit, he silently stalked a couple of kids for a while before i could convince him to actually speak to them, and after he broke the ice they all enjoyed the short time they had together before i had to get us home so i could get ready for the new tattoo.

the new tattoo HURT. but it's beautiful, and i'm really excited about it. an advantage of it being tool day was that everyone at the tattoo parlour was happy to hear the album again :D

mr smear and i have played a lot of video games this weekend, and the experience has been mostly very positive.

today was corrective, after a pleasant wake-up i took mr smear to the gallery and the museum, for the latter i had to promise not to try to feed him to the great white shark he calls "sharkzega" again :P

we played toy story 3 for quite a while this afternoon, after which i took him to the gardens for a round of squirrel hunting (to feed them), and then we watched hook again.

i went to bed early last night (right after getting him to sleep), and i just said goodnight to him before writing this and then i believe i'm going to crash again.

Friday, August 30, 2019

the pregnant lady sings

today did not go as smoothly as planned... it went really badly, in fact. but in a constructive way? time will tell. my toxic teammate (toxic crusader) rolled her eyes at me again this morning, and i asked our manager to ask her to see if he could get her to dislike me less visibly. instead, he put us in a room together and told us to work it out, and in retrospect i think it would have been better if he'd hung around to hear what we had to say.

it's hard to hear someone tell you you're no good, even when you already know that's what they think of you. but she did admit that she felt that i'd improved a bit, and she said some things that tied in with what i'd been hearing from other sources but which came across more clearly. i felt like shit for a while after we talked, even contemplated some of my other options, but then i realized that this is an organization that i have a lot to learn from - in particular in terms of how i approach my work - and some of the things that have been getting under my skin are opportunities for me to bring value.

the way we frame things matters, and by the end of the day i realized that the work i'd been doing since yesterday morning was actually above and beyond what my original task mandated, and that the task i'd been stuck on for weeks was actually a long series of tasks the scope of which i'd naively assumed the creator had understood from the get-go. what comes next is not going to be easy, it's way out of my comfort zone, and in my little world of ideals it shouldn't be necessary, but here we are and here i need to adapt.

i also realized that the main reason my last two days have been unsuccessful is that toxic crusader screwed up months ago, removing a critical component of our project and replacing it with a hack, and now the original design no longer fits back in. it's satisfyingly disappointing :P

i came home, giving gd such a fright (she didn't hear me come in) that her response hurt her :(
my mom picked mr smear and me up and we went grocery shopping, came home for kiddush and dinner (delicious vegan dumplings bought from a coworker's wife's business), i read mr smear some alice in wonderland to sleep (it's really cool witnessing the exact moment he drops off), and i've been tooling around (playing exapunk, waiting for the new tool album to be released) since my mom left and gd went to bed.