gratitude and misery

for someone so privileged, with such an absurd amount to be grateful for, it's pathetic how hard it is not to feel the crushing weight of all the inescapable wrongness in my world. i've been unwell and exhausted and overwhelmed over the past few weeks, i'm getting very little done and i have tons to do, every day feels like my as-yet unidentified doom is looming just a little bit closer.

and the worst part is knowing that feeling like this is the basis for my making my situation worse than it needs to be, one bad decision at a time.

thursday 8th:

half an hour learning about earn.com instead of crashing and finally going to bed completely bombed at 2.20am...

vivid visual hallucinations on falling asleep and on waking up

... a painful start to the day with mr smear's early nightmares, getting through the morning alright and delivering him successfully before settling into mom's coffee shop to complete the crowdfunding campaign, open it up to the public and start spreading the word

the school phone call confirming that mr smear is not ready for potty training

picking him up, getting him home to bed, trying to nap but struggling so lying down and coming up with a series of shit jokes

"working": watching azure videos and coming away with an insight that cost twenty minutes of boredom to acquire: why does anyone think video is the way to learn coding techniques?! or that i should be watching hours and hours of video with no assurance that it's valuable to me?

strolling mr smear to the gym and back as the weather cooled, getting him ready for bed and leaving him with my mom while gd and i went to her class

creepy stalker guy and the latkes, sweatman so cigarette-smelly i couldn't hear what he was saying, nobody appreciating my jokes (like purim being the equivalent of "jew pride")

coming home late and mr smear still not asleep (he'd been giving my mom a hard time and continued with us for a while)

watching a bit of the winter soldier before work but even the tea and chocolate weren't enough to get me doing anything but sleep until the morning

friday 9th:

mr smear waking up with a nonsensical tantrum, getting him halfway to the school before deciding his cough was too bad for that, dropping him off at home and going to my mom's to work

my campaign's first contributions!

a coworker calling me just as i was leaving for lunch and needing enough time that i was under serious pressure to rush-eat and run to the bank to print a statement and pick up lego strips from the post office and arrive back at my mom's *just* in time for an hour-long technical interview

switching tasks and merging branches taking forever, a locked file forcing me to restart when i was already late going home and eventually needing to start from scratch anyway

a tough afternoon / evening with mr smear acting out, marketing / marketing fails and a beer and battlestar galactica while i consumed all the leftovers once everyone had gone to bed

saturday 10th:

a relatively good night's rest, a long morning campaigning, taking mr smear out to the aquarium and getting about a third of the way to the bus before he began a tantrum that would go on for about two hours, needing to take a walk up the mountain alone after getting him back home to calm down

a little tekken for my nerves, more campaigning, lunchtime with a suddenly relaxed mr smear

nap time for him, an afternoon of campaigning (somewhat successfully, i think), suddenly feeling ill again, taking mr smear out to pick up a lafa and spending the evening with him eating and playing or watching music videos before an average bedtime during which his heavy cough returned followed by dinner in front of battlestar galactica and eventually settling down and spending a few hours on one of my evaluations (the actual project was straightforward, but they mentioned migrations with node.js and mongodb and that's *annoying* - isn't the point of mongoose and nosql to not worry about schemas too much?)

sunday 11th:

2am to bed

mr smear up around 5.30am but thankfully gd handled it and i got to sleep almost until 8 - waking up with a very sore throat

breakfast, a little more evaluation (effective practice for using the MEAN stack), taking mr smear to kirstenbosch

a very cool hour or two, lots of lovely moments, and then mr smear not only calling my bluff when i tried to take him home, but i hid completely out of sight for a little while before giving up and the mother and grandfather of the little chinese boy he was playing with reported that when they told him "daddy has gone" he responded with "i don't care"

trying to pee before we left (i think it was a delay tactic), lots of heavy coughing until he fell asleep, getting him home and into bed and crashing myself for a couple of hours

making evaluation progress, mr smear eating with tangled and then me taking him and his bike to the park: the mission began and ended with tantrums, but i think i handled it better and overall we had a good time. mr smear was following a bigger kid on his bike and was visibly shocked (even wiping himself off) when he turned around and gave him a hug; another bigger kid with a LOT of energy took a liking to him and pushed him around on his bike for a while - he was taken aback when he got mr smear to the edge of the promenade and mr smear just carried on without bothering to so much as look behind him... mr smear wanted to say goodbye so we returned and waited for him to get off the roundabout, at which point he pushed mr smear around again and stopped by the public toilets, where it looked like he was inviting him inside. needless to say i took exception, and it's hard to explain to a two-and-a-half year old not to go anywhere with strangers without his parents' permission...

home, mr smear rocking out to black sabbath's iron man (his new favourite song), an easy shower and an average bedtime although his cough was worrying and went on for a long time

battlestar galactica before evaluation time, an amazing campaign contribution from scrapper, my own cough becoming hectic

monday 12th:

completing the first of four evaluations around half past midnight, then spending an hour trying to find a reasonable solution to a work problem

finally going to bed just before 2.30am, being unable to sleep for over an hour and waking up at 7am exhausted with stuffy sinuses

a message from gd's brother turning me into the gatekeeper

dropping mr smear off at school and enjoying witnessing him playing with a new friend

my runny nose and painful sinusitis becoming progressively worse throughout the day

struggling with work but advancing, mom picking up mr smear, taking a break to fiddle with currency when suddenly i discovered that i'd somehow missed all my alerts (thanks, apple watch!) and was late for my anger management session

half a session with a runny nose and headache, but generally positive

remembering to take a sinutab when i got home, rushing back to my mom's to pick up my stuff then back to do an emergency shop and spend the next few hours trying to work in spite of the distractions

mr smear being iron man, then breakdancing

investing my christmas party money in freebitco.in [link removed because apparently it makes this post "spam"]

an easy shower (mr smear soaped himself for the first time), and a pleasant bedtime, then diving into work - a lot of uncomfortable debugging with async azure authentication and the older version's sync methods not behaving much better

horseman agreeing to help out with my brother-in-law and the telling of the story just making it more surreal

tuesday 13th:

working until whenever the meds stopped working (probably early, felt late), getting a relatively good night's sleep

waking up to a HOT day (and humid and lightning-stormy), dropping off mr smear at school, working at my mom's because i was too disgustingly snotty to sit in public

a technical interview that would've been funny if it wasn't sad (he said SOLID principles, not salad), watching zuma refusing to resign (just like mugabe), picking up gd for a quick post office mission but sitting in the car was too sore so she missed getting stuck in crazy traffic as they'd blocked ALL the roads around the mall for construction

my birthday email to godmother being acknowledged with as much warmth and affection as it was sent (not much)

picking up mr smear and swelling with pride as his teacher excitedly informed me of his musicality and coordination (triangle and tambourine), a little sad that he got scratched again but both the teacher and principal assured me they were handling it with the parents

the unbearable heat in the car (40 degrees) and mr smear not sleeping - almost, but not - resting a little in preparation for the interview with the au pair who we were immediately happy with; we're were already ready to hire her and i hadn't yet found a job that pays enough but our current nanny has been taking advantage of us and we can't afford that at all

mr smear needing a bath after playing with his pens, then running right back to the pens we hadn't put away and needing to be cleaned again - fortunately not at bath scale, but we triggered a tantrum by taking the pens away which i immediately stuffed with dr horrible's sing-along blog

taking mr smear to the post office, he fell asleep as we arrived. i carried him upstairs, managed to extract my wallet with my opposite arm without waking him and paid with cash which i practically never carry; the clerk was kind enough to supply me with a plastic bag for the heavy bundle which i held under his bum (so its weight plus 15kg) as i bravely went to the pharmacy to purchase what gd needed... not only did i find it without too much hassle, but when it came to paying i had precisely enough cash-back on my card and small change from the post office to pay without waking him!

getting him into the car with only minor disturbance (i sang him back to sleep pretty quickly) and arriving home JUST as the looming thunderstorm broke... the fat drops of rain and lightning and thunder woke him up frightened as we left the car, and that was the end of his nap :(

a pleasant late afternoon (he LOVES the original theme music that goes with his justice league shirt: the flash, superman and batman), leaving him with my mom as i dropped gd off at her class

after my mom left mr smear decided he wanted to go grocery shopping. he refused the elevator, and two stairs down decided that he needed his cap. then he agreed to take the elevator, and the shopping was fine; he helped me carry and i helped an older visitor having trouble finding non-dairy products for her husband. then mr smear insisted on walking up the stairs.

a lot of stairs, a break to explore and then more stairs up to the boxing studio which he HAD to enter. everyone (including him) enjoyed his visit immensely. he got one of the trainers to put gloves on him, and after watching a woman doing pad work he decided to give that a try, and for the next while would alternate between hitting the pads, exploring and squaring off with his reflection in the mirror. the receptionist hopped in to the ring to sweep it, mr smear (with gloves on) dived in and the guy got on his knees thinking mr smear wanted to spar - meanwhile, he was only interested in the broom so he just slid right back out.

it was all fun and games until he realized we were leaving, i got smacked in the face three times before i managed to throw him over my shoulder... during his second timeout i set up the shower and put my music on, the moment i opened the door he went from yelling and tears to striding into the shower ("music soothes even the savage beast"), a mostly pleasant bedtime experience and gd arriving home in time for the last stretch

work, campaign, struggling with my summer cold in spite of the medication

wednesday 14th:

into bed around 2am after mostly being distracted - although i did learn some basic go (golang) before crashing

feeling a bit better in the morning, a good conversation with gd about the circumcision thing from my previous post, not giving the nanny her notice

the mechanic examining my car with a stethoscope, a quick and painless cop shop copy certification procedure, starting to get into a new task

my mom arriving very upset about our new arrangement, making a couple of valid points, stressing all the while on my way to pick up mr smear from school (he didn't want to leave, his teachers now know what his squeaky scream sounds like)

freaking out on the way home because i forgot i had an hour to get to my interview; a difficult and highly stressful discussion with gd ending in us deciding not to fire the current nanny and to put the au pair plans on hold until we know what's coming

getting up dizzy and feeling awful even after taking all the meds, driving through heavy traffic (for the third time) and arriving just in time to load up on pre-interview caffeine

a very positive interview experience, feeling good about it even though they'd let me know a couple of days later that they were entering a hiring freeze

failing to pick up boxes for the move, an evening spent working and playing and eating, a positive shower and bedtime experience although i was falling asleep while reading to mr smear so i lay down after saying goodnight and spent the following the-gods-know-how-long hacking and coughing and not actually resting

up for work and then starting on the go project

thursday 15th:

my first foray into go rather successful, waking gd with my coughing, zuma resigning!, crashing around 2.15am

waking up choking at 4.30am, a long an uncomfortable time getting back to sleep, then something bothering mr smear so being woken at 7am having passed out on his bed

tough getting up, still a bit chesty, dropping mr smear off and trying to put sunscreen on in the car while he listened to iron man - putting it on in class is easier - dropping him off and witnessing his new buddy running up to him wearing a spiderman shirt and the two of them laughing loudly when i joined in with my pretend web shooters

meeting sailor for surprisingly strong coffee, mom's coffee shop and a little go, picking up a very happy mr smear, car phone nerves (i was shouting to my watch, neither gd nor myself could end the call)

mr smear not sleeping, a half an hour resting then driving out to bergvliet for gd's first session with a hypnotherapist that turned out to be a whole different animal (gd really being in the right place at the right time)

an hour waiting for gd with a very awake mr smear, hammocks and ashtrays and his favourite music

coming home utterly exhausted, emergency shower and showing the apartment and crashing on the couch until it was time to go to gd's class

excited for the jewish history class by my grade 7 homeroom teacher who didn't show up

home to mr smear having just gone to bed, rushing out to the bank to try to move money in time for debit order drops, a long chat with gd and leftovers dinner then hitting the evaluation project hard

friday 16th:

going to bed around 1.30am: evaluations shouldn't take this much effort, but for the two recent ones i've actually learned a lot of cool new stuff which is exciting

a relatively decent (albeit slow) morning, dropping off a happy mr smear then spending a few hours almost completing the go evaluation

picking up a happy mr smear who arrived at home with no intention of napping

SARS mission with mom:
1. arriving together
2. after fifteen or twenty minutes in the queue, my mom was asked to go inside in deference to her age
3. a long wait later i was allowed through security; the security guard didn't tell me where to go so i lost a few places because i started at reception
4. filing a complaint with the sensation that i was dropping it in a rubbish bin
5. my mom being informed by a manager that the numbers are random
6. a long wait to the front of the section with no book or battery
7. the evil poster at the front warning people that they'd have to come back if they didn't have all their documents, a poster not visible until you've waited a couple of hours
8. still no tickets as we moved down the hall, beginning to suspect that hunger games rules might apply
9. a long wait to get to a whole other section, no tickets until we got to the front row - i wondered out loud if anyone without tickets was willing to gamble on musical chairs for better position
10. my mom finally disappearing about halfway through the new section's wait
11. finally! sitting down and establishing a) just why my details were corrupted and b) that i absolutely should have been able to fix them myself online (the phone rep lied)
12. at least i got a favour out of it, she checked my return status for me
13. leaving ("i'm not a number, i'm a free man!"), finding my mom and learning that not only had she finished only ten minutes before me, but after all that she not only didn't need to be there but they weren't able to help her (O_o)

a quick stop at baby city and then home to devour random food and get ready to go to the temple; mr smear waking up from his nap in fake tears, a long tantrum and me stepping in something gross before i was able to determine that his "owie" was in the ipad... getting him out to the car and explaining to him the way of the world (vis-a-vis crying and ipads) of which i hope something went in

a good temple experience, towards the end mr smear climbing up to the platform and going from funny-embarrassing to oh-my-god-get-your-fingers-out-your-nose embarrassing before i could get him down

redeeming himself after the service by singing along to shalom aleichem at the top of his lungs

a nice dinner with my mom, a really special kiddush with mr smear singing with me

getting mr smear ready for bed, gulping down coffee and a sudafed and heading out to home town in woodstock for protoplasm's birthday bash, a really nice evening with great music and a lot of the people i met on new year's 2014

saturday 17th:

home at 1am, in bed by 2, up before 9, everyone tired and lazy; grocery shopping by myself around noon, taking mr smear with me to meet an old friend at lekker vegan; he fell asleep as we arrived and gave us an opportunity to have an adult conversation, the food was good and the service and atmosphere were too

mr smear waking up seeing a mural of a boat, but for some reason demanding to go to the blue train. about halfway to the train he decided he wanted to go on a boat, and i happily obliged - we passed through an enormous flock of busy water birds at one stage and it felt like we were in a documentary :)

a little playground time with a schoolmate, then home to hurriedly eat and shower before my mom took over so that we could go to spier for "an evening with amanda palmer"

leaving a little late, crazy traffic and accidents but arriving *just* about on time, picking up drinks and coffee before they closed the bar (?!?), finding better seats when we couldn't locate ours

opening friend: a very cool nate maingard
rhianna clone: wtf, amanda palmer, wtf. tasteless and cheap with nothing lyrics and why so much of the audience seemed to enjoy the experience hurting my brain
amanda palmer herself: phenomenal, thoroughly enjoyable
rhianna clone collaboration: omg wtf bbq, utterly mortifying. i felt embarrassed for them both, but more for patty monroe when she blurted "you can buy my music outside" before getting off the stage
unknown author: a reading from a book that went on for far too long, didn't involve a single original or interesting thought and simply channeled sjw rhetoric
neil gaiman: what an absolute treat! his first public appearance in south africa (apparently unplanned) and he read us a wonderful short story
a tribute to the victims of the most recent school shootings that got political and under gd's skin

a silent and mercifully quick drive home

sunday 18th:

a long day spent mostly indoors and either feeling sick and exhausted or completing the project in go - overall, i enjoyed learning go and i think i would be happy to work in it

watching a bit of blade! and finding it a bit boring, walking to my mom's to drop off recycling, mr smear singing "i am iron man" all the way to ninety one, an indian restaurant with barely any vegan options

mr smear not interested in the delicious lentils and rice, watching bbc's planet earth until bedtime

resting until 11-ish then getting up to be productive; after struggling with a tender neck all day being very conscious of how badly i was sitting

monday 19th:

aaaaand working until 3.45am, just a little longer than planned having gone from wasted and barely capable of sitting upright to enthusiastically wired

struggling (surprise!) to get up and out on time, dropping mr smear off at school and then taking gd to her chiropractor who needled me and let me crash on his floor; back home for an unpleasant disciplinary conversation with the nanny, lying down for half an hour then slugging coffee and driving back to town to pick up mr smear

that wonderful moment before we left when he turned on the cd player and LOVED the psytrance

putting him into bed and then lying down until lunch was ready, reading a bit of the long earth while eating and still feeling stretched out so lying down again, only to find myself feeling worse and worse and suspecting later that the pillow height had been off

feeling a little better after getting up and being taken by surprise by an emergency shower after mr smear's haircut (i hadn't known that was happening), then entertaining him until my mother arrived at which point we all sat down to watch grease and marvel in what an awful* movie it is.

* the misogyny is quite appalling, but it's packaged so well that it's still fun to watch

gd's first ice-cream success being one she couldn't participate in (what made her choose a flavour she's allergic to, i'll never know)

a chat with SxS after handing mr smear's bedtime over to gd and then diving into work, taking a quick break for this and now returning...

ignorance is bliss, facts hurt, suck it up and watch this video

the video is child circumcision: an elephant in the hospital

i wish i'd seen this video when i was trying to research circumcision before my son was born. it pains me to think that if i have another son, i'm faced with either:

a) having one child who was the victim of my ignorance see his brother's difference and in all likelihood resenting me and his brother for it

b) wittingly causing harm to one child to protect the other and then lying to them both

option b is unthinkable for me. i was already hoping that if we have another child it would be a daughter, but now it's practically imperative.

comedy and crash

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tuesday 6th:

a long afternoon, mr smear not napping while i tried to get more of the particularly tricky variable renaming done, eventually taking mr smear for a quick visit to the park. after he got over his initial upset that i wasn't going to carry him the whole way, he suddenly stopped and pointed backwards: "i want to go home and get the stroller"
brilliant!
he was upset when i put him down again after carrying him across the road, and while he cried a smelly drunken homeless guy put his fingers in his face. i told him twice that he wasn't helping before a homeless woman told him to leave off. on our way back she called out to me that it's important not to raise children in fear, and if the light hadn't turned green just then i would have told her to tell her friend that strangers sticking their fingers in an unhappy child's face can be upsetting and frightening

brushing his teeth and putting him straight to bed, dropping gd off at her class, buying a birthday card to go with her sewing machine and hiding them in one of her cupboards

working long hours but breaking to finish bladerunner 2049 - what a beautiful sequel to one of my favourite films! it's very slow-paced for the first half but it picks up around halfway, at some point it seems a little too much but it cleverly ties everything together in a satisfying way

wednesday 7th:

completing a big chunk of work and fiddling with cryptocurrencies then jumping into bed around 1.30am

up early for "owie-yad" (sore hand, which would be less sore if he'd stop peeling off the damned plasters), cereal success and mr smear enjoying some tool covers with his old man

mr smear none too clear on gd's birthday present being intended for her, dropping him off at school and realizing he hasn't pooped in two days because he's holding it in - apparently that's relatively normal for potty training but it's slowing his appetite, making his movement visibly uncomfortable and producing disastrously smelly farts.

heading to my mom's coffee shop for a few productive hours, receiving a call a little before school's end to inform me that mr smear had been scratched in a tussle, picking up mr smear and then hitting forty minutes of heavy traffic, picking gd up and putting mr smear to bed only to have him wake up a few minutes later... heading downstairs to find moving boxes and running into my mom, a lot of strategizing and then running around looking for the manager who'd promised me boxes and then disposed of them

working quite a lot, the nanny taking mr smear out and then bringing him back and then taking him to the aquarium with our friend's older kid, picking him up a while later, walking past the comedy club and realizing that that was a pretty nifty thing to do for gd's birthday

giving everyone a ride home during which mr smear proudly sang along to his hebrew nursery rhymes :)

dinner time and still no poop, mom coming over just as shadowslight arrived at the comedy club and intending to brush mr smear's teeth and go but all hell broke loose in the form of a neverending tantrum (which ended, of course, with brushed teeth and the tears stopped a minute after we finally left)

a thoroughly enjoyable evening, the host carl weber was great, the supporting act (francois van as) was fun, the first open mic was amusing, the second absolutely bombed (everyone went wild when we were told that if we didn't make some noise he'd come back), and conrad koch - the headline act - was absolutely phenomenal; honestly, the best ventriloquist act i think i've seen, he took it from funny to masterly to just plain weird to utterly surreal (the latter involving audience participation that was literally stunning)

an awkward moment wherein the events of the past few days (and the looming ones ahead) just overwhelmed me and i found myself purging to shadowslight after an otherwise excellent evening

coming home around 11pm to find mr smear fast asleep still not having pooped,

thursday 8th:

working and cryptocurrencying until almost 2am

so you want to go vegan?

first things first, it's important to know as much as you can and the fastest and easiest way to learn the fundamentals is through two documentaries that are available on netflix and youtube (or you can find them easily for downloading):
food choices (if the section about ethics and animal cruelty upsets you then just stop watching, that's the last part of the documentary)
what the health

the following one is about environmental impact
cowspiracy

my advice is to add good stuff before you remove problem foods. the main food we should be eating is beans / legumes and grains. those are the "big meal" foods, but throughout the day you should consume as much variety of fruits, vegetables and nuts as possible. don't focus on macronutrients, things like sugars and proteins and carbs and fats, because when those are consumed in whole foods (as opposed to processed foods) the proportions will be correct and the proportions are what's really important. there's a really useful phone app (iphone and android) with a checklist called dr greger's daily dozen - very helpful to see if you've gotten everything you need.

try to ignore all the fad diet advice
* cooking food is good, steaming and microwaving are the best ways to preserve the nutrients.
* GMO is not a bad thing
* gluten-free is only necessary if you're a celiac sufferer, if you're not then it's actually good for you
* salt and sugars and fats are fine, you don't need lots of protein, and you do need lots of fibre
* organic and "free range" labels are a scam. just go with what's cheap and looks / tastes good.

try to find healthy comfort foods that you enjoy. there're tons of vegan alternative recipes to your favourite foods but there's a lot of wonderful vegan food that's not trying to be what it's not. also, when you consume a lot less animal products your taste tends to change and you'll discover a lot of things you didn't enjoy before will suddenly become delicious!

this last piece of advice is important regardless of what you eat: we all need to take b12 supplements, and vitamin d supplements. they're two things that most people are very deficient in and that your body needs for a lot of different functions. b12 sublingual tablets are the best absorbed, preferably 1000 units a two or three times a week, and you should be taking between 2000-4000 units of vitamin d daily (the recommended 400 units is the minimum amount to prevent rickets, not to be healthy)

now i realize i've just dropped a LOT of information, it might seem overwhelming. please comment with any questions or concerns you might have, and remember: making your diet better is better than not making your diet better, you don't need to be perfect to make a significant impact on your health or the environment. your first step should be to find one new thing that you like that does less harm, and then take it from there.

...

oh! and one last thing - this shouldn't be a problem if you change your diet slowly, but most people don't get nearly enough fibre and when they finally do their digestive systems take advantage and "flush"... more fibre is always good, but bumping up your intake dramatically will have a laxative effect. it's a healthy effect, but not very comfortable. i recommend a gradual increase.

dazed and confused

friday 12th january:

finally going to bed after 3am, for a few minutes believing that i'd found the root of the problem but disproving that theory between brushing my teeth and lying down

four hours of sleeping really badly, with a sore body and a mind trying desperately to solve the work puzzle without enough information

watching despicable me, prepping mr smear for his first bus ride with his nanny, going to my mom's to work but chatting to a recruiter instead, taking gd to the chiropractor, finally solving the mystery, picking gd up and then working through the next couple of hours

being informed that mr smear had earlier called his nanny's bluff when she threatened to call the police because he wouldn't stop throwing stones into the street. when a uniformed security guard happened to appear, he told him he wasn't a policeman. how did my two and a half year old know that? "because you don't have a police car"

not enough time to playdate, mr smear soiling himself and playing with it for the first time - he didn't seem to be enjoying himself, and i don't think he found the resulting emergency shower to be a positive experience - rushing to the temple

passing out during an interesting sermon, looking up a song i haven't sung in twenty years to find it bookmarked and then the rabbi suddenly chose to sing it

gd's challah getting even better, a great but simple dinner and everyone falling asleep to hotel transylvania 2

clearing old and heavy emails until midnight and finding some cool artifacts

saturday 13th:

a shitty start to a beautiful summer's day, taking mr smear on the bus* to the waterfront which was much better than driving, thoroughly enjoying the harbour cruise with him

* oddly, the side doors are on the wrong side

no, i didn't expect the little girl at the aquarium to point a barcode scanner directly into my toddler's eyes - nor did i expect my son to just stand there staring into the light.

needing a coffee to get him home.

there's nothing quite like trading an afternoon nap for a poop on the carpet

realizing that blogger was the answer to my migration woes (bye bye, wordpress)

taking mr smear to the shaded park, but turning around at the gate because he didn't want to go inside and heading to the beach instead; a fun while there, him dribbling a ball really nicely on the way to our friends, spending some time with them, visiting my mother for a bit, mr smear singing "everything is awesome" at the top of his lungs all the way home

a quick dinner (mostly for him), a quick shower, and the first time ever having him fall soundly asleep while i read to him ^_^

easily recreating websites with blogger that i'd spent forever crafting, feeling really silly about all the wasted effort when i didn't have any energy to spare

a bit of tekken, really enjoying playing with some of my old favourites (like hwoarang) for the first time in ages

sunday 14th:

properly wired, my fingers and eventually my whole body shaking, and not being really sure why

getting almost all my sites migrated by 3am, leaving two interesting node-based projects to go

still wired, barely sleeping, waking up to the disappointment of the minions movie (what a cheap cash-grab!), a little more website fiddling then emergency grocery shopping in order to take mr smear to kirstenbosch... he fell asleep just before we arrived, then woke up just as we returned home, making the whole mission a glorious waste of an hour an a half and utterly demoralizing

crash bandicoot, then relaxing for a while when mr smear went (relatively) low energy, then learning that gd couldn't focus on her paper with the two of us playing so taking mr smear to the banks to move money around, walking through mojo market in wonder at how nobody seems to have a problem with needing to shout over the music all day, then stopping at primi piatti where mr smear jumped on a bouncy castle for the first time while i got to drink a beer alone

filling the car and almost getting home before realizing he'd fallen asleep, myself passing out while helping gd with her paper, mr smear waking up and me taking him to my mom's and then to the beach for a bit just before the sun went down

mr smear's quote of the day: "for christ's sake"

another new gd dinner (delicious!), fun with the inflatable boxer, shower and bedtime - nodding off myself while reading to him and needing gd to take over, getting up a couple of hours later to ready myself for bed properly and realizing that i'd really been running on empty

monday 15th:

army dreams, waking up hoping i've still got some of my gear just in case mr smear ever has use of it

mr smear and i getting along just fine until toothbrush time, an anxiety-inducing morning filled with surprises and phone calls (learning about ewallet)

getting to my mom's quite a bit later than intended and having a tough time wrapping my head around my work (a particularly tricky refactor dumping work that took me a long time to write with the intention being extensible), aside from a couple of recruiter calls* working straight through

* and one recruiter delivery of a t-shirt, pins and stickers

home to eat and continue working until it was reasonable to go outside (setting mr smear up with jenga blocks as dominoes to distract him), meeting my brother for an hour and a half of beach and parks and mr smear making him super-nervous

big dinner and watching some deep, showering, a more positive toothbrushing, reading mr smear to sleep with some intermittent tantrums, applying for a job with a coding puzzle, making progress with my domain management issues and finally finding a groove with the work

the inflatable boxer is pretty damned creepy when seen out of the corner of one's eye, which happens to us frequently

tuesday 16th:

working solidly and making progress and going to bed just before 2am

difficulty getting up early (surprise!), rushing to mr smear's new school and arriving just on time; a very nice orientation and meeting a bunch of cool parents, mr smear holding his own against an older bully and making him cry (so proud!), arriving at afreaka too early, a really difficult and disappointing attempt to help mr smear use a public toilet, grabbing a cup of coffee and meeting an awesome couple (the loudmouths), a super cool experience buying mr smear a chinese dragon onesie which is too freaking cute

no naps but a serious mess (and waste of food) on the way home forcing us to thoroughly clean the car and carseat which needed to be hauled up and down the stairs because the elevator was broken

no naps, trying to help gd with her essay but mr smear running interference, taking him to my cousins to swim and productively talk shop, mr smear playing very comfortably in the water but me catching him slipping and the two of us getting a literal taste for how dangerous the pool can be

stopping to pick up lafot on the way home, mr smear passing out in my arms as we crossed the road and me carrying him home and all the way up the stairs (damned elevator!) before returning to fetch the car and do a heavy grocery mission before remembering that i had to carry it all the way up the stairs (goddamned elevator!!)

editing gd's essay, sailor coming over and the two of us going to pick up his falafel, being accosted by three beggars who refused shelter vouchers, called me names and i think gave me fleas to boot (perhaps that was psychosomatic, or our recent spray took care of it pretty quickly). chatting and eating before taking over getting mr smear to sleep (i had to scratch his back for a while, i suspect it was a label itch), introducing sailor to rick and morty while gd and i worked on her essay,

wednesday 17th:

which we finally submitted (late) around 12.30am... i then spent the following hour and a half doing lots of nothing and finally climbed into bed around 2.20am

* the last day of school holidays *

a slow morning, eventually getting to my mom's in time for an interview that i'd missed the cancellation request for, seeing my father's sister for the first time in about twenty years

slowly getting back into things and making real progress, working solidly until it was time to take gd to the acupuncturist, arriving home just before the nanny who'd been carrying all of his sleeping fifteen kilos on her shoulder for almost an hour and still had to climb all the stairs because the elevator was still out of order and then struggled to find her keys, but very, very quietly so as not to wake him up which was too quietly for me to hear and help her

waking him up half an hour later to pick gd up and go grocery shopping, then return home to work and entertain mr smear for the evening

great dinner, hyper efficient shampoo shower, once again (me) falling asleep while reading to him, an average struggle to get him to sleep

thursday 18th:

up around 4/4.30 to make an info sheet about dairy allergies, doing some organizing then going back to bed around 5.30

starting the day at 7 with stress about acupuncture insurance claims

first day of school nerves (me, not mr smear), lots of distractions while trying to work at my mom's coffee shop (none of them coffee-shop related), picking up mr smear who was naked (except for his diaper and shoes) and having a tea party, mr smear passing out on my shoulder while shopping, waking up as we arrived at my cousin's to spend a lovely afternoon at the pool with my brother, missing an interview because my phone was charging inside (and it had completely slipped my mind, of course)

a short stop at home then going to the temple for a memorial service, dinner and chill* before a relatively easy shower and bedtime

*not exactly, i'm stunned that i've been asked by a recruiter to pick my top five out of a list of hundreds of employers

straight to work, lots of testing and bug hunting and tweaking

friday 19th:

until 2.30am and where the hell did the damned week go?!

oooh the struggle, being pulled out of womb-warm slumber and interesting dreams by a cruel alarm and my wife

dropping mr smear off in a hectic wind, a surprising cry when i left but all was well a half-minute later

working hard but in a bit of a daze, not sure if it's sleep deprivation, anxiety or just too much coffee (typed just before grabbing another one); an awkward interview with a gaming company recruiter followed by an exciting interview with who knows what

...

picking up mr smear (he's a paradox, apparently), shopping twice and express checkout inspiration, nap, chiropractor, home, dropping gd off at the temple, dropping mr smear off at my mom's, a service that effectively discussed gd's essay, family dinner and too much talk about the water situation* and veganism (even though i was asked for it)

* farmers won't have water at day zero, and people will not be queuing politely for their 25 litres

a traditionally late evening, showering a tired mr smear, reading to him and then everyone going to sleep...

saturday 20th:

an uncomfortably hot and windy day

... or so i thought, gd didn't sleep for the second night in a row. i'd had help, and i woke up foggy; a slow morning suddenly disappearing, going to return french books but finding the library closed (why didn't i call instead of trusting google?), mr smear throwing a major tantrum that took about half an hour to calm, then napping for two and a half before we woke him during which time i started experimenting with MEAN stack for the first time

a really nice afternoon by the pool in spite of the wind, which calmed down after we went inside and ended up enjoying a long evening of passionate conversation and pizza (our vegan option was delicious); mr smear either very busy or chilling in front of hotel transylvania and generally being cool or funny (accommodating my nephew's request for a kiss then saying "now go away")

bad parenting: finally leaving after 11pm... getting him to bed quickly and pleasantly, then trying to quench a desperate thirst and messing about with my project

sunday 21st:

almost an hour of tekken then going to bed

up early, making excitingly good progress with the MEAN stack, taking more than an hour to get from saying "we're going to kirstenbosch" to actually being on the way causing loads of stress, gd hurting herself to boot and deciding to stay home

picking up my mom and making a concerted effort to keep mr smear awake, an enjoyable but exhausting kirstenbosch visit and coming up with a good strategy for the water crisis, a recruiter turning an office-bound job into remote for me, mr smear passing out on the way home and not waking up when i moved him into his bed

more work, lots of learning

taking mr smear and his bike to the promenade as the cold front rolled in, back for dinner and a shower-time fight that gd and i both regretted

getting him to bed fairly easily, then working until late

monday 22nd:

thinking i was going to bed early but obsessively debugging my new phone controller until 2am

tough getting up, quick breakfast in front of robocar poli (which i think i prefer to the actual transformers), dropping mr smear off and sitting in my coffice for a couple of hours and finally getting my azure service bus unit tests working

a rush to leave with an unreadable parking card, an enlightening chat with his teacher (he was asked if he used the toilet at home, to which he replied "not yet"), backseat lunch and managing to get him home to bed without waking him

quick snack and driving like a maniac (okay, maybe not but i was still pretty aggressive compared to my usual attitude), an important therapy session with interesting insights but i was so tired it was hard to take it all in, realizing when halfway home that i was too tired to be driving and walking straight through to the bed to crash for a while

mom's call jumping me out of an immediately-forgotten dream, a quiet afternoon with a highlight of watch bbc's africa's cape episode with mr smear and both of us really getting into it

walking in the fog to the pharmacy, coming home to shower mr smear and put him to bed, reading him an extra book and eventually getting him to sing himself to sleep

the weirdness of investing money i don't have in cryptocurrency because the market's down

a little reading, a little tekken, a little comedy and then throwing myself into message queues,

tuesday 23rd:

eventually going to bed just after 2am with a solid strategy in place and having received an interesting job spec that could possibly be a phishing scam (couldn't every opportunity be that?)

up early and with difficulty, a massive and utterly unnecessary fight (passports again), dropping mr smear off at school and then sitting in the car on the phone for an hour before going to work

powering through two hours and completing my task before returning to pick him up and take him home

nap success

heavy grocery shopping, returning borrowed french books to alliance française and being reminded of the meaning of "rush hour" on the way home

taking mr smear to gd's class, about halfway through needing to take him out for a walk, awkwardly not selling fundraising tickets, multiple tantrums on the way home, a 5 litre shower and a relatively easy bedtime (introducing a new book, chumpas)

a quick chat with SxS, then some studying until bedtime

wednesday 24th:

bedtime being 00.15

dreaming of being chased by bears onto flimsy structures, then waking up feeling like i'd been out partying for days - my morning could be described both literally and metaphorically by shakespeare's famous stage direction: exit, pursued by a bear

the bear catching me in the form of a 9.40 call asking why i wasn't at my interview, which i'd thought was telephonic... scrambling to woodstock for a chat that left me enthusiastically wired because the philosophy and tech is great AND they were excited to hear about my graphic novel

a quick chat with my mom at her coffee shop before picking up mr smear, dropping him off into bed and napping for half an hour, then rushing to my mom's for a second-chance interview (the guys whose calls i missed the week before); i got the time wrong and forgot the keys and hadn't prepared, but made it *just* in time and the interview went well enough that i was invited for a face-to-face...

trying to work with my mother, aunt, uncle and brother sitting around a table and not talking about the one thing everyone clearly was waiting to discuss - the stolen inheritance - going home at 4pm wondering if they'd just been waiting for me to leave

salt and vinegar "slap" chips and taking mr smear to the gym, putting him in the crèche and managing to swim ten lengths... although i performed considerably better than before, i entered the pool feeling dizzy and i was still gasping after a couple of lengths. and i suffered, too. whether it was water entering my goggles or the constant discomfort of it getting in my ears.

picking up and changing mr smear (a distressing moment of him licking dirty fingers and singing "yum!"), coming home to gd's first vegan shepherd's pie (awesome!) and dr horrible's sing-along blog, gd helping me with my sciatica

mom's visit with my aunt, the cutest wookie, a quick shower and mr smear so tired he wouldn't let me read him to sleep

late night freak out when he awoke crying "owie" and couldn't (or wouldn't) tell us where, a nightmare figuring out it was his eyes and mouth (eucalyptus? or other?) and getting him to rest

passing out uselessly at 11.30pm

thursday 25th:

a 3am experience and worrying about him moving whatever may be in his mouth to his eyes (how does one control that shit in a toddler?)

waking up groggy at 7.30 to a much healthier boy merely throwing a tantrum

healthier, but with a remarkably runny nose

taking him out to the shaded park (to summarize his response: "HELL no"), then along the promenade to green point park, spending a very short amount of time there before turning around to walk to the doctor. a clean bill of health and pleasant conversation, home for lunch and coconut water, falling asleep to cosmos then chugging coffee to drop gd off at the temple for a meeting while mr smear napped in the car in the shade...

... but only for a few minutes, until the sun moved and cooked him awake and i tried putting water on his face but too late realizing that the water bottle had been filled with litchi juice...

gd's fifteen minute meeting taking an hour, home for a quick emergency (post-litchi juice) shower and a telephonic interview that was a lot more interesting than expected and sadly which taught me that taking calls from our bedroom is a bad idea regardless of the reported signal strength

a late new year's resolution inspired by a fee discount from indiegogo

dropping gd off at her class, a pleasant end-of-day with mr smear turning into a real struggle at bedtime - he did NOT want to go to bed, even trying and somewhat succeeding with a couple of new delay tactics

gd arriving just as he tried get me to sing songs from dr horrible's sing-along blog, a dark discussion about the water situation

small victories with my comic campaign, leaving reviews everywhere i could think of for my t-shirt printing experience, a little trouble with mr smear's breathing (blocked nose) and finally getting back to work about twenty minutes before midnight

friday 26th:

a sudden and strong need to lie down, waking up at 1am seconds before SxS contacted me and taking an important and awkward call still groggy and a bit dizzy

a little learning followed by crunching financial numbers until 3.30am, finally learning how to make actual sense of my earnings and expenses

an hour of struggling to sleep due to sciatica discomfort, then being woken at 5am by an angry gd because a squishie i hadn't closed had (somehow) managed to be squished all over mr smear's bed

"sleeping in" until 8.30

a haircut! and gd putting her iphone in the washing machine. and windows updates combining with my exhaustion to turn planned productive time into much needed rest

[afternoon missing]

laffas for early dinner, then driving to the wynberg temple in dark winds, a really nice service with mr smear loving the songs, interesting conversations and then driving home to put mr smear into bed and watch dave chapelle

saturday 27th:

early waterfront mission to take gd's phone to the doctor (no insurance), followed by a stressful failed attempt to drop her at our friend's baby shower (mr smear passing out after his mall tantrum didn't help)

an exciting lunch meeting with sailor at the hungry herbivore (and the pleasant surprise of bumping into dystopia), too much caffeine, a disappointing but delicious open sandwich and good strategy

arriving home just in time for a playdate with friends we hadn't seen in too long, then heading to the waterfront and getting stuck for 25 minutes at the pharmacy without phone signal while my mom and aunt searched for us

a great col'cacchio dinner, then mr smear's recovery cough becoming pukey so a bit of stress before he finally went to sleep

working hard on my crowdfunding campaign

sunday 28th:

until 4am... D'OH! but i did enjoy the sense of achievement having performed the vast majority of the work required on indiegogo, patreon, facebook and twitter

waking up a lot earlier than i should have to post my pre-launch message, which received almost no love from the internets at all

taking a long time to move, mr smear passing out just as we arrived at the waterfront without a stroller and me having to carry him until he woke up (falling asleep myself outside wellness warehouse and gd waking me with fudge)

tantrums when he woke up (i couldn't and shouldn't carry him any more, he's just too heavy and fully capable of walking), big shopping, stopping at home until he'd eaten then taking him to hout bay to meet my mom and aunt

lots of traffic on the way there, lots on the way back, one very large, very tamed seal, incredible water both in colour / clarity and in temperature

mr smear fast asleep when we got home, eventually waking him for a shower and dinner, gd reading mitz petel to him, another poop experience that led us to a second shower; the weird realization that our shower optimizations have actually caused us to waste more water flushing when we haven't produced enough gray water

reading "oh the places you'll go" during a very easy bedtime, passing out myself

monday 29th:

getting up before 1am to work and needing an hour just to get my services running

going to bed at 3.30am, finally having gotten the problem solved but having opened up a whole new can of worms

up early, lying down on the couch and mr smear running off to fetch me his blanket (best wakeup ever!)

dropping him off at school, then filling up with petrol on the way to my mom's; trying to work with far too many distractions, eventually getting on a call with the front end dev and having to rush off to drop gd at the chiropractor, giving my aunt a ride to the bank along the way before returning to the school to pick up mr smear during which someone turned a corner and hit my bumper, then drive around sea point to pick up gd (she hadn't realized that walking to the gym in 37 degree weather wasn't realistic), dropping a sleeping mr smear at home and finally getting a couple of hours of work done (although with very unsatisfying results)

glasses shopping for gd that went from fun and funny to tantrum, visiting our friends for a while, coming home for dinner and a visit from my mom and aunt - she bought mr smear two amazing dr seuss books and we now have all the important ones!

a reminder that the dangers of sleep training is never a safe topic of conversation

a quick shower, an easy and nice bedtime, a little dave chapelle and then work

11.30 passing out on the couch for ten minutes

tuesday 30th:

working hard until 1.30 then crashing hard

waking up from a dream about watching american football and everybody pranking and trying to rest but i kept finding myself exposed (fixing it each time but it didn't bother me too much) and struggling with diy tools and not really wanting help setting up a home theatre system

an easy school drop-off, a really nice meeting with my nephew's employer that ended awkwardly, a sit-down with an old friend at the hotel, dropping off giant bags of bamba and bissli at home then shooting off again to pick up mr smear

getting a quote for the previous morning's accident, eating mr smear's bamba after he passed out

a little tom segura and leftover lunch, a nap, being woken to mr smear calling for me, the two of us falling asleep on his bad and then being woken to a call for a second interview from the guys from the previous week

a new interview, great dinner experience introducing mr smear to a different style of carrot, working in fits between getting ready to go to the temple, the massive quote for repairing a tiny ding

a mostly fun tu b'shvat "seder", mr smear generally being cool, rushing home to bedtime

some serious consternation regarding whether to take a higher paying job or stay with SxS, and leaning towards staying for the opportunity to work my own projects

wednesday 31st:

a long night of debugging and marketing before calling it at 2.45am, a terrible choking / coughing fit right before going to bed

sleeping just the way i needed to hurt my neck :/

second day in a row dropping off mr smear and getting a simple kiss goodbye, handing over the car to my mom and sitting down with sailor for basic contract negotiation and a couple of hours of intense strategizing that left us both really excited

picking up mr smear (who was super positive), the new commute perfect for getting him to sleep every time *knock on wood*, hurriedly shovelling lunch into my mouth before sitting down to a work call, crashing for fifteen minutes and waking up groggy and taking gd to the acupuncturist before setting up my station at my mom's

lots more talking with my aunt than working, picking up gd and taking her home (insane traffic) then hurriedly studying bullshit while trying not to pass out from sheer exhaustion for a technical interview for an exciting opportunity that disappointed both of us

an exciting debriefing with the recruiter (client no. 2 after my cousin), rushing home to sort out the electricity and take mr smear to join my mom and aunt looking at a bachelor's apartment, mr smear suddenly repeating hotel transylvania's "bleh bleh bleh"

snack stop, emergency almond milk shopping, showering and prepping mr smear for bed and then handing him over to my mom and going to our first parent teacher meeting

a pleasant evening with a couple of awkward outbursts, home in time to put mr smear to bed, seeing sleep-deprivation stars, tom segura's disgraceful going from amusing to hysterical

serious rls and tiredness forcing me to medicate and crash

thursday 1st february:

february already?!

up groggy and slow, dropping off mr smear and going to work at mom's coffee shop; a long struggle to solve a problem in a way i'm not excited about, and receive the excited (and surprising) news that i was being offered the job i'd thought i'd interviewed unsuccessfully for [but then days later it turned out that the "offer" was to do the technical challenge]

taking mr smear home, a long deliberation before lunch and then trying to get some work done when microsoft decided that automatically restarting my computer for an update was appropriate - not only did the update take forever but it failed and then took forever to roll back, and then even more forever to boot up with important services failing because the "update" had reset my registry changes

pharmacy - doctor - pharmacy - other pharmacy to fill out prescriptions, trying to work and realizing that something had corrupted my code (thank all the gods i had recently checked in my work)

taking mr smear to my mom's for a loud and busy farewell to my aunt with my brother and cousins followed by my sister and her husband

a serious offer of sanctuary from my brother

coming home really late with mr smear, shower and bedtime and a short rest before not working (bureaucracy, mostly) before working

friday 2nd:

finally breaking through and getting into bed around 1.30am

up early but out late, dropping mr smear off and heading to the cape quarter to get some work done before an inspiring technical interview (i managed to keep the inspiration to myself) that i realized as it started i was short of caffeine for - the first warning that i was about to get sick

picking up mr smear, getting him home to bed, eating quickly then going to my mom's to muse on my earlier idea and work before the second technical interview of the day

a surprisingly positive interview in spite of getting hung up on a couple of tough questions - the second warning - followed by some bureaucracy before rushing home to show the apartment before handing mr smear over to my mom and going to the temple

so tired that i was literally hallucinating - the third warning - a nice service, picking up mr smear and gd's challot then going to my cousins

feeling thoroughly stoned and trying to keep up with mr smear until i drank a cup of coffee and my nephew's girlfriend took over, eventually leaving around 11pm with mr smear falling asleep just as we got him into bed

passing out watching super

saturday 3rd:

a long time waking up which included temporarily moving to the couch because smear had climbed into our bed and started whining inexplicably

a slow morning followed by over three hours of torture by mall people; getting the car repaired and the man so desperate to not invoice that he screwed himself out of R200 and still had to invoice me

a long, looooong tantrum leaving the mall that wore down every nerve, eventually whining himself to sleep

everybody's nap time, waking up first after a couple of hours feeling a little groggy and settling in to explore other crowdfunding campaigns for perk inspiration

a severe and sudden bellyache

waking mr smear at 6pm, toy story and more campaign research, showering and putting mr smear to bed

"hearing" and agreeing on a name

half of bladerunner 2049 and passing out just before midnight (thoughts so far: beautiful, brilliant, but unnecessarily slow-paced)

sunday 4th:

crazy dreams (including my mom's breakdown), mr smear waking up before 7am from a nightmare unaware that he was out of it

generally feeling irritable, tired and out of sorts, a couch start to the day and heading to the beach, coming home for a frustratingly delayed nap but managing to get in an hour or two and have a productive meeting with the illustrator before waking everyone up to go to the mall - a generally awful experience that included shit food that nobody wanted to eat (that will be our last time going to simply asia) and way too many mall people

coming home feeling horrible, putting mr smear to bed then crashing until midnight

monday 5th:

the realization that the past few days not feeling well may have been an issue with my cranial nerve, or me getting sick, or both

up at 3.30am to purge dinner, then 4.30am, then 5.15, then 6.30, then 7.30, then 8.30, each time thanking simply asia for triggering an "easy" weight loss

finally managing to ingest fluids around mid-morning, long hours restlessly hot and cold on a really hot day, and staying in bed until evening feeling very, very sore

moving to the couch for a while before an emergency shitsplosion forced me up to dizzily keep mr smear's hands out of his eyes then clean and shower him; of COURSE he had to taste the dirty bath water after i'd explained to him that he was going to make himself sick

a very, very long goodnight

a very welcome salary increase

tuesday 6th:

a really shit start to the day even though i was feeling much better, then compounded by a phone call asking why i wasn't at a technical interview that i'd missed the invitation for, finally feeling well enough to sit down and post this, now to try being an adult and dealing with the long list of things that have been piling up. i need a real holiday, seriously.