happy new year!

sunday 25th september:

a night of unrest, tossing and turning and forgotten dreams and mr smear up a little more than usual

a pleasant morning, more cook, serve, delicious!, the surreal return to my old primary school and some awkward re-introductions, heading off to the hungry herbivore for lunch; the service isn't amazing and there're no baby facilities, but the food was great.

gd and i ending lunch on a sour note and taking it home with us. an extreme state of mind and utter emotional exhaustion to the point where i felt like i was high

monday 26th:

gd's back sprain killing all plans for the day, miserable weather, mr smear reaching the controls for the washing machine

resuming jessica jones in spite of the gratuitous sex scenes (they don't bother me as much as gd, but she's right about them not adding anything of value to the story)

tuesday 27th:

payday, otherwise known as debt management day. a frustrating few hours of work before going to bed (and managing to work in spite of my urge to sleep to the pouring rain), cold and wet weather and my first audiobook proof-listening

...

there's a volunteer organization called "tape aids for the blind" that produces audiobooks for the visually impaired. this is an important service, and it relies on volunteers for everything from selection to recording to editing... i'm almost 36 years old, and from what i've heard it sounds like i'm about half the age of the average capetonian volunteer.

they need young people, because the visually impaired deserve access to materials that are relevant and interesting and read energetically by voices from a much larger pool of talent. it only takes a couple of hours a week, it's actually quite fun, so if you can afford that time then please audition!

or donate audiobooks. if they're under a commercial license they can rent them out cheaply to the public as well.

...

still completely exhausted, napping only making it worse
finally regaining access to gd's microsoft live account in spite of their awful automated recovery system (just as awful as google's)
a failed attempt at taking mr smear for a walk (too cold)
jessica jones, elon musk live for an inspirational hour's talk on the tech to get to mars
slowly but surely getting a handle on our project's front end

wednesday 28th:

going to bed boiling with rage; human beings are infuriatingly stupid. if i told you that there was a kid dying in the hospital because his meat-eating parents forced their diet on him, would it not be interesting to learn that he'd been exclusively fed macdonald's his entire life? but when the parents are vegan, we don't care about what they did or didn't feed him? vegan parents throughout the world (long before the term vegan was coined) have raised healthy children, and decades of research have shown us (read: anyone who gives a shit about knowing things instead of believing in things) that these children - provided they're fed responsibly - are considerably healthier than those raised on any other diet.

waking up to write down my personal version of the serenity prayer:

be grateful for your family.
people are stupid.
channel your hate to productive.

(the second is the wizard's first rule, the third is pantera.)

"heroine of the cold feet covering her third eye to keep shooting her target in the mouth with a poison fart hidden from her spirit self": i need to establish some writing time

the ulcer, talking nutrition with the physio, mr smear playing gym, knead lunch and pharmacy and then nap time while the babysitter was here

bluetooth overear headphones ftw

a little work, mom's visit (the weirdness of her last days at her current job), feeling worn out and possibly ill

thursday 29th:

really feeling exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. avoiding caffeine for the ulcer obviously not helping

early morning caffeine free audiobook recording, realising after the session that if there's an existing audiobook it would be a better quality donation and use of my time if i just donated it to them

not enough time to nap before the therapist arrived, finally taking a step towards sorting out my citizenship status, rushing off to the gym

constant 10kph for 20min and finishing medium level sudoku in 14
stretching and being shown some good back exercises on the machines, then rushing home to get to the physio

leaving sore and light headed, showering and eating (gd's potato salads are awesome), locked in babysitting mode, mom's visit

resting before work, managing to get up in spite of the lack of caffeine but with such ulcer pain that i'd end up throwing up

friday 30th:

feeling a bit better, starting my day at SARS held hostage with our ids in the "special counter" queue and finally being dealt with after an hour and being told that i had brought the wrong bank statement

coming home angry, then driving to the bank to pick up the "right" statement and visit the doctor for an anti-allergy shot and a script for a medicine and some fun

quick lunch, an hour at the telkom store to be met with such indecency that i flew into a rage and was so close to literally picking shit up and throwing it at them that i had to walk out

the acupuncturist, big shopping and rushing to prepare for handing over mr smear to my mom and going to see henry rollins be awesome

saturday 1st october:

feeling much better, relief from the caffeine withdrawal and much smoother digestion
gd's first swimming lesson in a few weeks
almost not going to the vegan goods market, arriving at the wrong venue and getting a bit lost on the way to the right one; arriving too late to try what i wanted but getting some other good stuff instead (the liquorice ice-cream with activated charcoal was really good)

coming home to shower (and learn that we MUST get non-slip mats) and tidy up a bit before my sister arrived (her best friend's on her deathbed and is having a really tough time) followed by my mother

putting mr smear to bed, watching - and thoroughly enjoying - the first half of he never died

sunday 2nd:

4am up for work, finally finding what i was looking for
mr smear letting us sleep in on a gorgeous sunny sunday morning
breakfast and asterix movies and doing chores slowly
hours babysitting while gd cooked
mr smear's promenade pram push, visiting granny
a very nice new year's dinner, leaving exhausted
finishing he never died while fighting rls, it could have ended better but overall it was a great film

monday 3rd:

wasn't the doc's allergy shot supposed to stop me from waking up in the middle of the night with a stuffed nose?

sleeping in with mr smear again (not the most comfortable, but appreciated nonetheless)

document printing, an easy monday morning, beach prep, dropping gd off at the chiropractor and picking up towels at mom's and almost running over an old idiot who'd wandered into the street and camps bay in tourist season and mr smear's sorbet desperation

our first family beach experience, it was a beautiful afternoon for llandudno and mr smear was so excited to stand in the atlantic that my main job was preventing him from running in

traffic on the way home, filling up the tank and donating a hotdog, a mostly successful post-beach shower and dinner shopping optimisation, being very tired (possibly coming down with something)

a very nice dinner, although the effects of whatever i was feeling were the same as having drunk too much

mr smear sleeping through the return home and me passing out on contact with the bed

tuesday 4th:

a hot summer's day and we're not even close to summer yet...

a stuffed nose and complete exhaustion even after a full night's sleep, babysitting and then strolling mr smear to the police station for half a notarization, mr smear falling asleep just into paid babysitter time, resting a couple of hours and waking up feeling much better, spending most of the afternoon working (my mom joining gd for a walk with mr smear). mr smear being quite vicious. dinner and two episodes of luke cage - amazing - then more work.