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.