sleep journal entry

 it was a horrible night, coughing and choking. and then a gross morning, with a sinus infection and a lot more expectoratin'. i'm so fucking tired.

in the middle of the night, after i did managed to fall asleep, i woke up choking from a dream about fighting drones with cyberpunk weapons. it's been a couple of hours, i wish i could remember the details.

i took mr smear to school this morning, and we talked about shaved heads (he has to wear a band for school while he grows his hair long) and tattoos (about not doing them without good reason, and not doing any that can't be covered up), and as i dropped him off i showed him a picture of myself with my head shaved. he was mortified :/

since getting back home, i've had breakfast (for my supplement regimen), watched a video about elon musk's tweet about UBI that's made me think the following: if the US could figure out how to enforce corporate taxes and shuts down loopholes for them and their wealthy elite, they'll have more than enough money to provide UBI and a stable, healthy economy.

brain fogging

 once again, as it gets later and i get ready to go to bed, my nose and throat situation begins to worsen... on the one hand, the antihistamines seem to be helping a bit. on the other, this really can't be just allergies.

i'm enjoying the excuse to accompany mr smear to and from school these days, even though it's awkward and getting more awkward by the day. are we at war? will the bombing resume? or should we be living our best lives?

limbo is uncomfortable.

i told my team what i've been thinking, and that i essentially needed to go back to the drawing board, and they were understanding. in spite of a fair number of distractions, i did manage to be productive today and i'm understanding considerably more than i did before. i'm not quite sure how to formally introduce AI tooling into what i'm doing - i may have to treat it as local harnessing only - but at least i'm feeling a little less lost.

a couple of months ago i began the process of setting up paybox for mr smear, and then a few weeks later got his account set up. since then it's been unclear whether he's actually earning interest, and today i got in touch with their support. after they initially lied to me, it became apparent that children's savings accounts do not, in fact, earn interest. so the whole exercise was one in futility, and i've now withdrawn all the money and we're going to have to find another option. and, just like every other thing we've tried, this has cost us; not just in cash, but i've now got two credit cards that need to be cancelled :/

assholes.

i snacked a lot today. today was all about snacks. even if some of the snacks were essentially just an extended lunch :P

the supplement routine is getting a bit ridiculous, though. it's complicated, and i've kinda given up on intermittent fasting the full 16 hours (though i guess i've been unofficially doing less for a while now) because it makes it even more so. i can't drink tea or coffee for an hour before or after taking my iron supplement (or eating something with a reasonable amount of iron in it), and i've got to take vitamin D in the morning with food, and magnesium at night with vitamin C (but not vitamin D), and i have to have my handful of walnuts (or pancakes, if i'm in time for gd's breakfasts) for omega 3, and not forget to regularly take b12.

after my mom and i picked mr smear up from school, we returned home and then walked across the highway to find the supermarket. it really is well-hidden! mr smear's whole thing for weeks has been hunting for lotus biscoff cookies, and i honestly wasn't expecting to find them there.

but find them there we did :)

on the way there, i'd charged him with paying attention to the route so that he can he gd find the place, to which he'd responded in a decidedly uncooperative manner. i warned him there'd "be a test", and on the way back i quizzed him, putting the lotus cookies on the line. he was not happy when i "failed" him and assured him there'd be no biscuits until i got a map, at which point i went home and my mother volunteered to accompany him to give him a hand.

which he apparently didn't need 🤦‍♂️

it really is all about motivation with this kid. he got home, drew me a map, took half a biscuit and promptly forgot about the ones i'd offered him as a prize, and then settled down to try and improve his previous solution in human resource machine.

that was effectively the end of my work day :P

while he didn't exactly post the correct solution himself, he did work through it really well, he made a real effort and stayed focused, made a bunch of modifications that he was pleased with himself about, and when i sat down with him at the end, he was clearly on board with me every step of the way.

this is exciting stuff ^_^

just before dinner his new teacher called me, and our chat was pleasant. funny, even, in a distressing kind of way, because the story she told me was that she'd loaned mr smear a book for the lesson, and he'd somehow managed to lose it by the end of class even though nobody had moved.

my child is certainly talented.

eventually, i got the full story over dinner and everything made sense, nothing had been lost.

dinner was really good, gd and my mom worked together to produce a lentil curry that even anti-lentils mr smear found edible.

bedtime was smooth, i finally read a bit more of the colour of magic to him (we're so close to the end!), and i've now spent a couple of hours doing nothing of value (including some spire slaying). now i'm taking my cough to bed and praying to get some rest.

sleep journal entry

 most of the night i was kept partially awake by coughing and a post-nasal drip. the last couple of hours i actually slept a little. i'm paying for that now as my body tries to eject everything that pooled in my lungs.

i've had an ear-worm of dream theater's pull me under since i woke up yesterday morning, and it's still going strong. i suspect that it was triggered by the vampire water tank.

...

i did a lot of spire-slaying last night, winning a daily challenge run with an outrageously OP set of cards and relics (regular monsters dropping relics, all acquired cards doubled, and powers powering up powers). for the amount of entertainment and escapism i've gotten from it so far, slay the spire 2 has been well worth the early access.

of course.

 of *course* i'll get the work done after putting mr smear to bed. of course :/

as usual, the sinus thing hits harder after dark, even though i'm taking antihistamines at dinner and they do seem to be helping considerably.

...

my mother and i accompanied gd to the clinic. along the way, my mother almost got run over by a reversing truck - gd had to pull her out the way - who'd stopped in the middle of the intersection.

jesus.

the nurse was pleasant and helpful, and referred her to the doctor on duty who was pleasant and helpful. gd's been prescribed antibiotics and told to come back in a few days if the symptoms don't improve.

between the two visits, i spoke to the manager who was just as concerned by the lack of professionalism and the mysterious disappearing poo sample, and who apologized and thanked me for bringing it to his attention. so that was good.

we picked up a not-awful gluten-free bread from our favorite bakery, then walked to the mall, picked up a coffee (because i'd forgotten to get one at the bakery) and did a little moseying while gd hit the pharmacy.

we then walked over to the dermatologist's offices to try and bring her toenail appointment forward, but she couldn't wait that long so we promptly returned home.

after breakfast, i sat down and actually made some progress with AI harnesses. i also sat down with gd for a few minutes and laid out exactly what's been on my mind lately, and how i feel about her and the situation, and expressed that even if she only understands it intellectually that's fine by me. so i think i  managed to make her feel safer, and less of a burden, which is something she often has trouble with.

have made some progress - and then a little more - *i* felt a bit safer. or less anxious, at least.

my mother took another walk around the area we visited last night, and she found the hidden supermarket! it's literally well-hidden, no signs, and i'm now very confident that that's on purpose to keep us riff-raff out.

too bad, fancy-pantses, we're coming for your groceries.

my mom joined me on the pick-up run for mr smear, though he didn't come home after all because i agreed to let him and his friend go to the comics library. so we returned home - the long way - and i think my mother finally understands that me being concerned for her safety on public transport (specifically vis-a-vis holding on to things at all times to not get thrown due to heavy acceleration) has nothing to do with her age :P

i seem to recall getting a little more productive time in, but i didn't record it so i'm not sure. perhaps not, i think the hour or so between getting back home and then leaving again to pick him up from the library was a bit of a random mess.

i found him reading, chatted briefly with the librarian while he got ready to go, and then we returned home.

he had "homework" to do - human resource machine and music practice. he did really well on the programming, so much so that he was so thrilled he's decided that maybe coding stuff on the projects he wants to do *is* something he should be handling ^_^

i spoke to my mentor about pivoting towards AI harnesses, and he was both assuring and encouraging. i'm not sure how i'll approach the same topic with my teammates at my client in the morning, but i guess i'll cross that bridge when i get there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

dinner was nice, gd testing out a gluten-free pasta that was at least a palatable vehicle for her vegan pesto, and mr smear and i made a joke about putting black salt (kala namak) on clementines and were shocked to discover that it was weirdly nice (O_o)

showers / toothbrushes / bedtime went pretty smoothly. including getting started on never again will i visit auschwitz which i understand ends with some heavy TDS but at least starts very well.

...

i've got a cough and a post-nasal drip, and it's unpleasant. i'm going to do a little bit of nothing and then try to get some sleep.

bloody sunday

my allergies were more under control, but it was still a difficult night with a post-nasal drip so most of the night i was awake to some degree. between the iron and magnesium supplements, my lower back and hips haven't been causing me any real problems at night, although i did have some trouble during the day...

my last dreams were difficult: a massive attack on my armored corps unit with a zangief-like russian doing a lot of damage. then fighting to hold a vampire in a huge tank of water, assisted by an our-side vampire. something about making sure he didn't die, but not giving him enough oxygen to escape. and then she left me in charge, and aside from him wounding me in the underwater scrap, i accidentally gave him enough to get out.

i wonder if the vampire isn't AI.

...

after posting last night, my mother and i did our traditional annual try-to-find-out-what's-wrong-with-her-computer. i installed O&O ShutUp10++, and disabled all the recommended things, and it does seem to have helped. unfortunately, i then learned that she's still on windows 10 and her computer's too old to upgrade. so she either has to trade it in, or switch to ubuntu, neither of which are ideal.

and i can't give her my windows machine because the screen's too small :/

...

i woke up this morning to learn that there was a stabbing attack in our neighborhood yesterday by a south tel aviv gang of refugee / foreign workers' kids. i don't know how to break that to gd or mr smear.

i dropped mr smear off at school this morning, he's had a great idea for a front-door image!

i arrived home to learn that we're having hot-water cylinder troubles, which pisses me off not only because it's just another thing to deal with (i'm about to accompany gd to the clinic and hospital, her toenail issue has fast become an emergency), but because we just had a plumber in a week or two ago and he couldn't find anything wrong.

i'm so fucking over this week already.

artificial unintelligence

 an anxiety has been stirring. i've written about it a fair amount the last few days, and it's crystallizing.

AI is making me dumber. lazier, more than dumber, but a laziness that's rendering it harder and harder to activate my brain.

it's not *just* all the leaning on AI, though. it's also the fact that my life is being constantly railroaded and derailed by all sorts of unexpected, mandatory, urgent side-quests that are nobody's fault, but that put everything on my shoulders.

and then, when i finally manage to get part of my sleep issues sorted out, i get hit with this horrible sinusitis bullshit. so i'm completely exhausted and i don't have the energy to sit and focus and climb out of this hole.

i hope it's not covid again.

...

i read comics, played more slay the spire 2, made at least two attempts to make some progress on AI harnesses, went for a walk with my mom and mr smear, rearranged our bookshelves, and went for a walk with my mom around the soulless neighborhood next door before saying good night to mr smear, posting this, hopping in the shower, and praying for an easier night.

respite

sleep journal entry: i just got up a short while ago, after a terrible night's sleep due to acute sinusitis. i slept very little during the time in bed and got up frequently due to intense nasal and throat congestion.

...

my throat had ceased to feel scratchy, in fact i was feeling fine yesterday morning. it was a beautiful day. gd's stomach was giving her trouble so she couldn't join us, but my mom and i ventured to south tel aviv for a stroll with a shopping list.

we had a nice coffee when we arrived - both of us were approaching dire need - after which we meandered through the streets, eventually looping back to pick mr smear up from school. from there we went past yuka monsters so i could ask them (again) for a contact for their printing house, after which we walked past an ethiopian restaurant and decided to give their vegan "tasting plate" a go; not least because my mother had had to stay in a hotel in addis ababa at the beginning of the week and her culinary experience had left a lot to be desired.

...

firstly, ge'ez smells really good. it's clean and has a nice vibe. the food took quite a while to prepare - which is fair, considering it was a whole bunch of dishes in one, and in retrospect i'm really glad we only ordered a "single" because we weren't that hungry and it was a decent amount of food for the three of us.

secondly, it was not only a "corrective experience" for my mother, but my son dug in, tried everything without any encouragement ("it looked really good!"), and we all left pleased, sated and in good spirits ^_^

...

we traveled to yehuda hamaccabi, and proceeded to do the shopping. the fruit seller had great stuff (we were responsible for bringing a fruit platter to dinner), and we found a decent food scale at the hardware store, and we managed to find everything else between all the supermarkets.

we did have some bad vibes with my mother insisting on buying a dairy gift and keeping it in our apartment until the evening. mr smear is still dangerously allergic, even if it's less dangerous of late, and we are a vegan household.

that mini-drama was compounded a little later by her discovery that a coke she'd put in the freezer and forgotten about had exploded. what followed - after the initial anger (mostly at herself, but merged with her frustration over the previous dairy issue) - was a full family effort to clean out the freezer, which became progressively more light-hearted except for when mr smear thought it appropriate to begin trolling me.

the rest of the afternoon was a mix of playing slay the spire 2, and another episode or two of tokyo ghoul.

gd still wasn't feeling okay by the time we left for our cousins', so she sadly stayed behind.

the evening was very pleasant, mr smear was well-behaved and generally quite complimentary about the food, and the only thing i'm uncomfortably regretting was telling the story of how i got fired. not because it was inappropriate - there had been a point to the story - but because i was halfway through the story when i realized that it's a very long story and there's no way for me to "get to the point" without adding so much more detail...

we came home pretty late. right before leaving i coughed for the first time, which was the first indication that something was coming. by the time we arrived home, it had progressed to a proper, troubling post-nasal drip.

after showering i played more slay the spire 2 until mr smear went to bed, which took him so long that i eventually agreed to let him shower in the morning. which i'm kinda glad he did - he jumped into the shower first thing this morning with none of the usual bedtime time pressure, he didn't take too long, and for the duration was living his best life with his music blasting but not waking gd up because there were two-and-a-half closed doors between them.

for all its issues, this apartment is such a huge upgrade from where we were it's ridiculous.

while he showered, i finished reading the day everything changed. the artwork is fantastic and the stories are powerful, but i feel like the writing doesn't always do the stories justice.

sleep journal entry

my first two coffees of the day yesterday were decaf because i was still wired from the day before. the sleep i got last night felt broken, but i did dream, and i haven't been experiencing my usual leg/hip discomfort, which is probably due to the iron and magnesium supplements.

the last part of my last dream involved following someone to the "entrance" of his house, which included a terrifying jump around a corner at a dizzying height, and some kind of "bridge" which i couldn't see and didn't figure out before i woke up.

gd's other toe is looking scary. only this year (it was about this time last year), there wasn't any "accident" to explain why.

shouldn't have told the universe my plans

 gd decided to clean the bathrooms and floors today. i tried to nap for a short while after breakfast, though i really didn't get much actual rest, and then our kibbutz cousin arrived for a visit. it was great to be able to host her for once! it's the first time in the twenty five years i've known her :P

just before she arrived, i registered a flurry of activity on our classroom whatsapp group, and we were horrified to learn that mr smear's homeroom teacher was riding her bicycle to the school earlier this week and was run over by a truck. she's been hospitalized and is in a serious condition, it doesn't look like she's going to be returning to the school this year 💔

we had a great late lunch ordered from jars and bowls, after which i jumped on a bus to pick mr smear up from school. we walked all the way to the light rail, hopped on the light rail, and only then did i learn that he'd left his locker unlocked again. so we turned right around at the next stop, went back into the school and i made him unpack his locker and search for his books while i searched above and in all the open lockers in the same row.

we didn't find anything.

we then took a quick walk to a bus stop to ride to the dentist to join gd, who was very nervous after her last visit. by the time we arrived she was almost done, and we she came out she was (rightly) very proud of herself for having told her dentist exactly how she was feeling and why; the dentist responded professionally, and gd says the experiences were night and day.

i wanted to pick up a decaf coffee on the way home (it would have been my third decaf today), but the guy at the coffee shop took way too long. we caught a bus home, and since we got back i've been struggling to stay awake so as not to have a hard time getting to sleep tonight.

so, braindead, i played slay the spire 2 until dinner, ate a great dinner with my family, showered, and have just tucked mr smear into bed. now it's time to go to bed myself.

the alternative

a scratchy throat all day that caused trouble all night. it's still scratchy, but feeling slightly better right now so hopefully that's a trend.

i wasn't too sure that ze germans were doing the yom ha'atzmaut thing, and i made the mistake of only asking ru55 if he was going, and he didn't get back to me until this morning. so instead of going, i cancelled the car we'd rented and we had a "barbecue" hot-dog lunch at home that was really good.

a bit later, my mom and i dragged mr smear out to the beach. there was a chill wind on the beach itself, but once mr smear (mr inertia) was on the sand he didn't want to leave the beach, nor the sea. in retrospect, we should have brought him a towel...

otherwise, it was a beautiful afternoon. we took a slow walk down the beach and then up to allenby, where mr smear decided we should have hummus. that was a fantastic decision, we had a fun experience with the shifka and the meal was delicious.

then we walked up sheinkin, picking up some coffee along the way to the bus home.

unfortunately, i accidentally ordered a regular coffee instead of decaf. so it was around 6pm that i drank my fourth cup for the day.

we got home, and there was no argument from mr smear about jumping straight into a hot shower. afterwards, we started watching the tokyo ghoul series. which is really cool, but i did nap through half of the second episode...

dinner was the "barbecue" burgers, also delicious.

we got mr smear into bed, unsure of whether to expect a disrupted night or not because the ceasefire was supposed to end.

i went to bed pretty late (played slay the spire 2), and simply couldn't sleep. i estimate that it took me more than an hour and a half to finally fall asleep, after which it was fitful with claustrophobic dreams of an in-house rollercoaster with one of ze germans.

i struggled to wake up this morning, with my throat still doing a thing, but mr smear certainly helped as he made horrible noises (his throat) for the longest time. over coffee / his breakfast, we discovered that he's been avoiding going to school because he's been getting into trouble for not having his books. he's lost most of his books, apparently, and also never thought to report back that the lock on his locker is broken, and that he doesn't remember the code for the old one.

i don't know how much of any of that is actually true.

we explained to him that the books are expensive - they are - and that he's going to find them. and that all privileges are to be withheld until the situation is sorted out. on the bus to school, i explained what he needs to do and found his old lock's code, and sent a message to his homeroom teacher. on my way back home, he called to assure me that he's at least started the day off making an effort, so 🤷‍♂️...

also, on my way home, i thought some more about my work situation which is starting to freak me out. i've been trying to get a job done with AI that i have little context for, and the AI is leading me around in circles. not only do i need to change tack and focus on building the context i need, but i also *have* to  begin experimenting with AI harnesses because i'm feeling like i'm getting left behind on the most critical issue of our (engineering) time right now...

~3000 + 78 years old

our celebratory dinner was in order, with gd a little jealous of our desserts even though she usually doesn't participate, and the insanely good halva is naturally gluten-free anyway.

we learned this morning that the internet advises not to stop eating gluten until you have a diagnosis, to avoid a false negative. holy shit. so we've just had a talk, and agreed that *if* it matters to the medical establishment that she has a diagnosis on her record then she should put herself through it, and if not, then there's no point in getting scanned in the first place.

...

after dinner, and before leaving the house, mr smear turned our apartment into a dance floor with the bee gees' you should be dancing (followed by some kool & the gang), and then joined me an my mother for a bus ride to the museum to see what was happening. what was happening there - on the evening of a national day of celebration - was a gathering of sadness, all the woke lefties who are so bitterly opposed to our current government that they can't spare a moment to be grateful to be here and alive.

we quickly moved on from there, through throngs of tel aviv revelers going from party to party, to habima, where the concert's music was good, but not very upbeat. we walked about, marveled at the decorations and art installations, and continued walking until we got to a bus stop to come home.

the bus ride was very sweet, the bus driver and a bunch of guys behind us were all in great spirits, and we arrived home quickly and with more than 12000 steps on our watches.

after getting mr smear into bed and showering myself, i slayed the spire (i lie - the spire slayed me) for a while, then dragged myself to bed.

...

i didn't sleep particularly well, and was woken by my poor child at 6.10am (his groans indicated that he wasn't feeling well), and 8am was when i gave up trying to get back to sleep. i had coffee with my mom and mr smear while gd stayed in a bit longer, read a bit more of the day everything changed (which hits really hard), and am now relaxing while thinking about what we're going to do today.

...

from our saddest day to our happiest day, but both very, very strange days this year. to our fallen heroes, our terror victims, and to our persian counterparts: may this war bring us victory, and more than just independence: freedom from tyranny.

chag sameach, am yisrael chai 🇮🇱