overload

 today wasn't easy. it started with financial stress, and borrowing money from my mother again. that's really not a good feeling. gd and i had a serious talk about strategy from her end, which i feel was constructive, and an argument about shopping brought out a story from her childhood she's never shared with me before, something that's pretty useful to know.

i worked from home today, and mr smear was being difficult. i had a call with last week's coworker of the week, and the tone seemed pretty positive.

my work day was 95% battling to understand why my tests were flaking out, which was a quintessentially frustrating experience. especially considering that even the source of the flakiness was flaky.

in the afternoon i took mr smear to his jiujitsu class, but he was the only kid there. i convinced him to help out his teacher with promotional material, and they made what from the side appear to be really funny videos. if the videos don't come out as funny, i personally got to witness absolute hilarity in their production :)

i'm concerned about mr smear's neck - he really doesn't understand how important it is to keep his neck stiff when standing on his head. or use his arms to carry his weight. i really hope he doesn't end up with a neck like his parents'...

while mr smear's behavior while we were out was good, it regressed as soon as we got home. gd informed me that it's been days of that - i'd thought everything was going smoothly - and we had a couple of tense "conversations" before he appeared to remember his place. the rest of the evening went pretty smoothly as far as he was concerned.

another coworker called me just as mr smear was going to bed, and he confirmed that the theory i'd come up with only minutes before made sense, and pointed me towards the source. i think he was quite surprised that i came up with a solution as quickly as i did, and once he understood what i was getting at he seemed enthusiastic. hopefully my boss will feel the same tomorrow.

earlier i completed a survey from the school, it looks like they're making a play for controlling the kids' screentime and access to mobile devices. i don't trust their judgement in the slightest.

gd and i watched the first bit of the director's cut of donnie darko before she crashed, and although it's been a couple of decades i was amazed by how familiar i felt with the characters and scenes!

after gd went to bed, i had a quick chat with my mom and then fired up inscryption. i meant to play until i was ready to pass out, but it's almost 1am and i've just completed act iii for the second time. only this time, i unlocked loads more stuff, built a ridiculously overpowered and fun deck, and encountered some puzzles and scenes i'd completely missed the first time around. i'm really happy i decided to play through again.