restless

i was falling asleep on the table, but since saying good night to mr smear and going to bed myself i've been struggling. i've slept a bit - and had a couple of strange dreams - but a lot of the night has been me tossing and turning and physically uncomfortable.

today: gym, council parents' meeting, the airport run in rush hour, strategy meeting with my mom, a quick swim

a strange day

the PTA thing meeting this morning was a wash, it's pretty much all about fundraising and that's really not what we're interested in. then gd dragged me to the mall for a couple of things, after which we went home and relaxed a bit. which would have been fine, but i forgot that i'd scheduled a meeting with my insurance broker's fiancée who's trying to become a software developer. it was an entertaining meeting, although i did feel bad for rocking up late.

it was a strange day, which i spent a fair chunk of "arranging" the cantillation, and have just finished recording what i hope is me doing it correctly.

it's now past midnight, another day down having taken care of lots of random things but none of the stuff i originally intended these two weeks for.

oh, well.

two days feeling like a month

my neck and back are still sore, and it's definitely a part of me feeling exhausted. our new bed finally arrived, which i think has given us a bit of rest, but there's lots more needed.

yesterday:

i finally took the projector - which we haven't operated since mid-december - to the repairman, who a) informed me that resetting the lamp timer put us at risk of dealing with a lamp explosion and b) confirmed my experience that there's no real reason to own a large, expensive tv when projector price and quality are so much better. our lens broke a couple of years ago, which affected the focus a little, and it seems like we may as well have it replaced while we're there. still way cheaper than getting a flat screen of even half the size.

mr smear's second swimming lesson, then driving him to a playdate, then enjoying our new bed.

a friend from the shared workspace picked me up in the evening and we went to a tech talk; it turns out i knew a lot more about both the subjects than i expected but it was still interesting. unfortunately, it went way over time and we had to leave... but the exit was right next to the speaker and there was no way out without disrupting everything. so that was awkward.

oh! and another page is up. and mr cat's begun on the updates to pages 2 and 3 ^_^

today:

it was a pretty relaxed morning, although i've been reading kent heckenlively's plague: one scientist's intrepid search for the truth about human retroviruses and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), autism, and other diseases over the last couple of days and it's as disturbing as anatomy of an epidemic and regardless of whether mikovits' theories are correct it's a truly horrifying examination of politics in science.

i went to the temple to meet with the rabbi for another cantillation lesson, it was very positive.

we picked up mr smear, i dropped him and gd off at home and went to get some printing done, spent an hour or two in bed again (trying so hard to fix my neck and failing), we played death squared, had a fantastic dinner and then gd left for a friend's birthday party. i put mr smear to bed and then watched this old interview with bill hicks, which is fantastic. gd's just come home, i'm about done with my evening and definitely ready for bed myself.

...

i went in earlier to check on my boy. the last couple of days i've seen and heard about him doing things that have really made me so damned proud. i have a ton of doubts about myself, my behaviour, even some of my life choices, but every now and again i get to look at him and feel like i'm a part of something really good. like, this evening we watched the first half of princess mononoke, possibly for the first time. we had to stop it halfway for shower and bedtime, and he was really sad. but he was sad for all the right reasons, and he responded with a maturity and an understanding of our roles and responsibilities in this world that i can only pray will strengthen as he gets older.

busy busy busy

these past few days have been very productive in spite of my intentions to be doing very little. and in spite of the fact that i hurt my neck really badly.

friday:

an interesting re-introduction to cantillation, resting, taking mr smear to the temple in the evening, a good dinner with my mom

yesterday:

we were too slow to enjoy the nice morning, the afternoon was very rainy and i don't recall us leaving the apartment except for going to say goodbye to yin and her boyfriend. reformatting the kindle and direct-to-print offerings until about 2am.

today:

approving the paperback, dropping off my mom at the airport, taking mr smear to the green point park and mary-ann's emporium for lunch, returning home to rest then driving out to pick up gd from her hypnotherapy class, ice-cream, a short walk, death squared with mr smear, a very nice dinner with great live music at plant, home for bedtime and posting page 5 of the graphic novel (patron-exclusive), celebrating the paperback going live!

off days

well, i at least succeeded in publishing the book on the kindle platform, it's pending review on google play and i've no idea what the deal is with apple books. i do know that i'm going to have to completely reformat it for paperback publishing (apples pages is completely unhelpful when it comes to that) and i had a bit of hoop-jumping to do with the goodreads page.

i also have more work to do to be able to sell it directly from my own website, but after all the above and generally feeling tired i decided to take a day or two off and relax, guilt-free. i've been busy, mind, but doing Not Much has been pretty good.

the furniture company called this afternoon, they've finally agreed to exchange the bed. once last time. we're praying this last one is actually a good one.

questionably fatigued

i've been trying to figure out since last week why i'm feeling so tired all the time, not sure if it's the lack of sleep, a nerve thing, psychological, or some kind of deficiency - but my bloodwork came back great.

we had an uncomfortable talk with the preschool principal today about teaching kids in line with established science, who seemed a little put out when she discovered i'd already spoken to the school network's education coordinator... hopefully things will move in a good direction.

mr smear and i are LOVING death squared.

i've been back in the gym a couple of times, hopefully it's a trend but i'm not sure how i'll make it work with the new job.

this evening i said some things at the temple council meeting that i thought wouldn't go over well - and my fellow council members surprised me!

...

the last few days have been spent working really hard on publishing the podcast book. this is HARD WORK. and there's LOTS of it.

faster

i fasted, i went for the blood tests, i hope the surprisingly literate woman who took my blood and was intrigued by my tattoos enjoys my podcast. i had a good breakfast, came home and spent a couple of hours making progress on the next episode and getting back into the book. and doing serious research into the games in the australia fire relief bundle, which we got our money's worth from this morning playing death squared with mr smear.

i'm a little hazy on the afternoon - i think we might have had a playdate, but it might have been on thursday - but i did take mr smear to the temple. the past few days have been insanely windy, and last night was properly scary. we went through to my aunt's for a really nice family dinner with yin (who's visiting with her boyfriend, i failed to mention swinging by thursday evening and having issues with one of the dogs at the house they're staying at).

today started off well, with the book and the gaming, and although i wasn't in the mood for it i took mr smear to a playdate. it was generally an excellent afternoon and we all had a good time.

we watched the first two episodes of soul music before mr smear's bedtime, and i've been doing random things or listening to dwayne perkins. now it's late and i'm tired. more book? sleep? who cares?

slow week

it's hard to believe that the school holidays are over, it doesn't quite feel like everything's back to normal. mr smear's happy in his new class, we're still spending a lot of time in the pool, summer's turned up the heat. i've been meaning to do a ton of things and have achieved... not a hell of a lot. i'm not sure how much of my fatigue is psychological - finally being able to relax a bit before the new gig - and how much is a physiological thing. i saw a doctor this morning, tomorrow morning i'm undergoing a barrage of blood tests and i've got a neurologist appointment end of next week. let's see how all this works out.

lately mr smear's been having nightmares involving a "black queen" who wants to bite his head off. "please protect me, daddy". everything about parenting seems to be "winging it", so i've told him that his copy of me that resides in his heart will protect him as much as possible, by activating and controlling his arms and legs to escape or fight as needs be. unfortunately, the word "activate" in hebrew got lost in translation so i'm no longer sure what he thinks i've told him, but he's asleep now so i guess it must be okay.

then i had to tell him a story about 110 cows on a farm. so i made one up about a farmer who realized that killing his cows was wrong but didn't know what to do instead, and who accepted help to transition to crops and managed to feed his family and make a profit doing so, while letting the cows live out their lives. i might have been inspired by a new study that shows that we may well have been underestimating the impact of animal agriculture until now.

a pretty good monday

not very manic, generally feeling good. the big news is that i had two meetings today with two new potential employers that were both extremely positive, and a few hours ago i received the signed contract from friday's negotiation... so i begin working in two weeks, and now it's time to shut down all the open discussions and focus on me-time.

kind of surreal.

this weekend was mostly spent relaxing by the pool and doing random things. it was quite nice, really.

a good run

thursday was tough, the couple of hours of sleep i got weren't particularly helpful. the morning meeting was very encouraging, though, it's the second time i've pitched one of my ideas to the guy but this time he seemed really receptive to it. i also got really good advice regarding salary negotiations from one of his employees.

i waited forever for gd at the sewing store, we picked up lunch from lekker vegan which was phenomenal, but which took a lot longer to prepare than expected so we were in a rush to get to the company gardens to meet my sister and her kids (and grandkid). being harassed by the homeless wasn't nice.

we had a good time in the gardens, then moved to our private garden for a really nice afternoon. the kids were all over the place and mr smear was misbehaving, but overall it was fun.

after finally getting mr smear to bed i settled down to race against the clock on one of the job applications i had open... but when i opened it, it was completely different to what i had expected and i was way to tired to be able to take it on. i sent them a message to say "thank you, but no", then crashed. i slept pretty well.

today: we're finally over our antibiotics, and it looks like they've done the trick. i am feeling much better.

i woke up to a three hour technical challenge, i completed the tasks in really good time, spent a further half an hour testing the shit out of them, and clicked the submit button. i nailed the first task, passed the second task with a decent score, and completely bombed the third - i clearly misunderstood or missed something important.

i walked to my hopefully new employer for the dreaded salary negotiation. first, the dog wasn't there when i arrived so my entrance was much more pleasant. second, we began with the contract terms and the more we talked the happier we both became. finally, he asked me how much i wanted, and i told him. he hesitated, punched some buttons on his calculator, and then agreed.

i walked out of there in a weird place: we're ready to go, but he still needs to ratify the contract and salary with what's effectively the parent company. if all is well, i'll be signing on with them and it looks like a REALLY exciting place to be.

when i arrived home i saw an email i'd received from the technical challenge in the morning, i was surprised to read that they're actually really happy with my results! now they want to test me for cultural fit. it's nice to have a backup plan.

when mr smear's new girlfriend left, gd and i took him swimming after which my mom gave us all a lift to the temple. after kiddush we headed to plant for a delicious semi-celebratory meal (i even had a cider), and then came home to put mr smear to bed. i've been doing random things for the last hour, i'm exhausted and a bit dehydrated and i'm not really sure how much of today was real. just like the fact that i still haven't internalized that after four years of grinding and anxiety, we're finally out of the debt we generated when we moved to south africa.

on the assumption that it was all real, i'm feeling like 2020 actually might be a good one.

insomnia?

that awkward moment after a jolly good day and a productive evening when you get into bed and... just lie there. so eventually i got up, had a cup of hot chocolate and did something else productive. and now it's 2.45am and i have to be up early because i have things to do in the morning.

#winning

giddy-up

i woke up early and felt the morning slip away, went with gd to sort out her phone which - presence effect? - turned out to be just fine. had a seemingly-constructive chat with a manager at the furniture store about our bed situation. walked gd to a store for sewing supplies, rushed home to play chess (kind of) with mr smear, then scarfed down half a bowl of an amazing dish gd had made for lunch before heading out to a big interview.

a six hour interview that began with the dog jumping out and (properly) biting my hand, and ended with a big meal with the boss's family. i've got the job, if we agree on terms (ie salary), and if we do it looks like it's going to be fantastic. i walked home with a spring in my step, showered and said goodnight to mr smear, did nothing clever for a bit and then continued with another one of the job applications.

and now, i'm very much ready for bed. tomorrow's another full day.

frenetic

i got up really early this morning, drank a cup of coffee, and prepared for the first technical interview at a really cool place. i think it went well, even though it began with my just wanting to close my eyes and take a little nap.

my stomache's better, but still a bit problematic, and i'm not sure if the fatigue and fogginess is a symptom of the original infection or a side effect of the antibiotics.

i returned home, most of the following hour or two were consumed by me trying to get the delivery that was promised on friday and yesterday sorted out. eventually we came right, but not without things becoming a bit tense for all parties.

i rested a little, then took mr smear for a swim. he seems to be improving, but it's hard to tell. at least he seems to be enjoying the experience, and i'm hoping he's developing some kind of intuition...

i proceeded to take mr smear to the company gardens, which was mostly great - he seems interested in learning chess, and we spent a while going through basic moves on the board with child-sized pieces. he seems to be getting it?

trying to teach mr smear about honesty and keeping promises is turning out to be quite a long story. also, he gets tearful about the weirdest things. *sigh*

this is me "resting" before bedtime,  i have a stack of assessment work to get through this evening and i'm nervous because my head's full of cloud...

headache

health-wise, i spent a lot of this morning emptying myself, and this afternoon developed a massive headache that's just not going away. gd has the same headache. whatever this is, it's a nightmare - and its timing couldn't be better, i have a 9am technical interview in the morning.

sunday:

i don't remember much aside from gd going to see the butcher boys (the demons mr smear's terrified of) before meeting mr smear and i at the museum.

last night i finally prepared the second draft of an article i've been working on, which is satisfying. i slept alright, had an amazing dream / nightmare in which rick sanchez employed me and a bunch of others to hunt and manage some weird cloaked aliens that were like an aggressive predator beak-beak from armikrog. the setting was bizarrely dystopian urban, i wish i could have recorded it. the next dream started with steve buscemi and a couple of other actors but just as it began my alarm went off and that was it.

today:

gd and i went to the vodacom store to sort out her new contract, then to the furniture store. the woman who's been dealing with us is on vacation, and after being helped by someone else it looks like this whole bed debacle comes down to her suggestions being terrible. now that we've tried a bed that actually feels good for both of us and seems solid, we have to go through the whole process of getting our current one evaluated again :(

we got back in time for gd's first consultation, i took off for my mom's coffee shop and got in some productive alone-time, then returned home just in time for a nice catch-up with an old friend of mine (tpj) who's working for a company that sounds amazing.

i spent some time working on my personal shop, then spent the afternoon and evening alternately playing with or struggling with mr smear. he's a great kid, but there's some stuff that needs serious work...

right, it's now much later than i'd planned to crash so i'm going to go do that now.

saturday

jesus. i just watched the rest of racing extinction and it's an intense emotional rollercoaster, a fair amount of which felt like watching a snuff film. how does one react in the face of one's own extinction?

i'm feeling profoundly saddened by what we're capable of, deeply troubled by what i think can and should be done and what that would cost us.

...

most of today was spent driving to greyton, with gd and i struggling - her with nausea, me with a threatening belly. lunch with my mom's friend went on way longer than anticipated (although it was very good), and we arrived at the farm animal sanctuary so late that they were doing us a really big favour by letting us in at all. it was seering hot weather, but we got a good tour and got to connect with a bunch of the animals.

aside from us adults appreciating the visit, mr smear was very sad to be leaving and wished he could stay so that's a massive success in my book. he also spent most of the drive there and back staring out the window, i love that he loves seeing trees and mountains and rivers and animals because i used to hate family drives as a kid.

we think the antibiotics are working, i hope we sleep as well tonight as we did yesterday. i'm exhausted.

friday

nobody slept last night. i was having trouble anyway, then around 4am mr smear crept in and the rest of the morning was history.

gd and i both continued to feel horrible, so we went to the doctor and it looks like we've either got a mild case of food poisoning or we've picked up some kind of parasite. wonderful. thankfully it's just us, and it's not contagious.

oh, and we're totally over uber. there's a taxi service in south africa called bolt and it's both cheaper and better.

yesterday's ridiculous story about the mobile carriers was resolved in the middle of the night with the confirmation from the carrier whose employees denied that we'd receive one. it's a painful process, but we're moving forward. we sorted out a new sim card and picked up our meds, then walked home. i spent the day expecting to have to jump to pick up a delivery in person, but they never contacted me, and the following hours after getting home were consumed by phone calls with potential employers and recruiters.

some of it was positive.

i took mr smear to the gallery (overcoming his fear of the demons!), then the museum, but quickly left there when i realized i had no signal (because i was expecting that delivery). we returned home with me exhausted but failing to rest, as he kept me busy until my mom picked us up so that i could help her hanging paintings at her place. when we arrived there she realized she'd forgotten to bring an extension cable, so we returned to town to pick one up and went back again. mr smear passed out along the way, and was out like a light for a long time. i had a good chat with my cousin who's staying with my mom for a bit, we hung a painting successfully, and came back to our place for kiddush and dinner.

the antibiotics seem to be working.

i've been playing a lot of sudoku lately.

i've received some feedback on my article from a couple of people, so i've got a bit of editing to do, i've watched stand-up, and i'm sneaking a peek at racing extinction before going to bed.

oh, i started reading a bit of hijacked by your brain by dr julian ford and jon wortmann and it's looking amazing.

the dumps

it's been a tough forty-eight hours, gd and i have picked up some kind of stomache bug and it's not showing any signs of letting up.

in spite of that, i've had some good swimming sessions with mr smear, gd and i Got Stuff Done* and i managed to get the first draft of an article completed that i've been planning for years... 

* although it did require a lot of back-and-forth between the country's two largest mobile providers whose employees couldn't agree on the porting protocol.

when the nanny left, gd and i were lying down on our bed and after a couple of minutes i suddenly realized that we hadn't heard a peep from mr smear... i walked in to the living room to find him quietly devouring jelly beans from the jar he'd had to climb to retrieve. he doesn't usually consume much sugar, and spent the longest time afterwards bouncing off the walls and driving us crazy! 

in other news, we're sad for my great aunt, she broke her femur today :(

renewed hope

this past week has been challenging, i've been dealing with depression and anxiety and struggling a fair amount to just do nothing. we've been doing a lot of housekeeping, physically and psychologically, and as a family we've had some pretty good moments alongside some pretty rough ones.

right now gd and i are ringing in the new year with a tummy bug and mr smear is developing his communication and drawing skills in leaps and bounds. also mr smear's made some progress in the swimming department in spite of his misgivings, and i think at this point it's less a question of technique and more a question of strength-building.

i stopped watching the witcher. i wanted to like it, and i managed to look past some of the shoddy writing and acting in the first couple of episodes and still enjoy it. but episode three is where all i can do is switch off, throw up my hands and quote the real queen: "another one bites the dust".

lazy writing is lazy writing is lazy writing, i'm always offended that people actually get paid for such cheap trash.

i've been playing a lot of sudoku. i finished leviathan wakes (incredible, from start to finish). i'm struggling to get into anything other than neil gaiman's don't panic (which has inspired me to do a bit of writing), and i'm doing little bits and pieces here and there towards interviews and projects but mostly i've been focused on figuring out what i really want to be doing and how to motivate myself properly.

after watching a bit of louis psihoyos on joe rogan this morning, i kinda want to do the pastafarian thing and become a pirate, attacking and plundering fishing vessels in an attempt to save the ocean and prompt government responsibility and regulation.

speaking of politics:

as a south african at what point can we expect public servants to earn the same kind of money as the rest of us? i suspect that'll free up an enormous amount of money for investment that doesn't rely on foreigners...

also, if they had to use public education, security, transport and health services like the majority of the population i'm pretty confident they'd make more of an effort to fix things for themselves and their families.

i just need to say that the hogfather is one of the greatest christmas stories ever told.

i found 2019 to be a rather unkind year. goodbye, 2019, i'm as glad to see the back of you as i am looking forward with renewed hope to a brand new decade.

happy 2020 everyone!