happy new year!

hopefully 2025 will be decent. if it's even halfway decent it'll be infinitely better than the last one.

having said that, this last one has ended on an extremely good note. one of ze germans (the irish one) asked if any of us were interested in coming to the science museum in haifa, and i've been wanting to take mr smear but i thought it was closed due to the war. and it wasn't.

so, very last minute and to gd's chagrin (initially), mr smear and i very spontaneously jumped on the train and headed north. the train ride was cool - mr smear expressed his amazement that he wasn't on screens but also wasn't bored, though he now denies it - and we arrived there in good time.

mr smear was throughly engaged for most of our hours there, and he also got along really well with our friends (two kids, ages 4 and 6), and we all had a really good experience. after they left, we ran through the maze and then headed into the "behind the screens" exhibit, which was highly entertaining and very interesting for both of us, and we had to be ushered out at closing time.

the bus and train rides home were pretty uneventful, mr smear got his "rewards" of sprite and screen time, and we've had a pretty good evening overall.

...

in addition to the two of us enjoying a really fun day at madatech today, there was another momentous occasion we have to celebrate. this morning, i received an email informing me that my south african chequing account had been closed. this was good news!

but when i signed in in to check, i saw that our credit card account was in minus. this was bad news :(

partially because without a chequing account i've no way to pay it, but more so because two days ago, i asked them to make sure everything was clear for us to close our accounts.

so for me, the train ride (~1 hour) and the taxi ride (~5-10 minutes) were consumed with messages to my bankers. i had to explain to the first agent that i wasn't interested in paying, and that whatever it was he was telling me i should have asked for was their responsibility to have told me two days ago. he eventually transferred me through to the credit card people (this was about 45 minutes in), who took forever to respond and then closed the chat because i didn't respond within a couple of minutes. so i had to start again.

for the second agent i got through to, i explained that i wanted them to reverse the charge and close the account, and i was (and still am) literally stunned by her rapid reply that the charge had been reversed and the account closed.

so here we are, ushering in a new year with our only remaining debt to my mother, and nothing more being held over her and her apartment.

...

yesterday was a wonky day. the two memorable events were mr smear doing homework - fighting about it and subsequently doing it well - followed by me taking him to his jiujitsu class in the rain and realizing along the way that i'd misunderstood the hours update, so we arrived in time for the next lesson which simply wasn't appropriate ages for him.

*sigh*

anyway, it was a pleasant and interesting little adventure.

...

happy new year. may 2025 bring israel military success, peace and stability, both in the middle east and worldwide. the entire world deserves a break.

the storm

 we've been experiencing a particularly dramatic thunderstorm since last night, it's quite something. it's also a great excuse to be indoors in pajamas with the heaters on.

the evening mostly went smoothly - although mr smear did push past some boundaries, he responded relatively well when called out / punished and that's quite comforting. we ended up putting him to bed with a good feeling, which counts for a lot.

i think about "launches" and "landings" a lot, lately. it's always important to make people feel good when you greet them, and when you leave them.

gd and i watched the first half of dark city for the first time. i was tired, and i missed a few beats along the way, but so far it's really intriguing and atmospheric.

i slept pretty well for most of last night. i woke up earlier than intended, did some dishes and made some coffee, and was mindlessly watching youtube videos when mr smear came into the living room.

i suggested that we try hogwarts legacy together on the playstation, which i picked up a week or two ago on special. i sat through the intro/tutorial with him, and it's amazing. so that's what he's doing right now, while i'm chipping away at chores and wondering how the day's going to go.

the first of three

 i honestly don't know what i did yesterday, although some of it was dedicated to getting started with the google maps API and some of it wasted on trying to push something to a personal repository from my work computer (it's complicated by the fact that we use a special SSH agent for work).

in the late afternoon (relatively, for winter time) mr smear and i went out for a walk. he wasn't too into it (as usual) until we agreed to get some vegan hamburgers, but the state of the burger king toilets put me off completely so we walked around until rainbow opened (5pm, just as it got dark). the walkabout until then was nice, and we had some cool moments.

dinner itself was excellent, we both ate too much and enjoyed it immensely. then we picked up a meal for gd to go, and walked home, and i was really sleepy. i ended up crashing on the couch and going to bed early again.

...

i slept alright last night, although at one point i was restless and found myself on a thread about "unmissable" games, which led to me purchasing three new games this morning on steam's winter sale: planescape: torment, journey, and what remains of editch finch.

i'm very excited to try them.

...

the problem money finally arrived in our south african bank account, so we paid off the credit card debt and i initiated the closing of the account!! now the only outstanding debt is to my mom, it's a huge amount but we're finally able to start chipping away at it.

...

gd and mr smear accompanied me to the barber shop. i thought my usual guy would cut my hair - the guy whose haircuts gd doesn't like, with the ex-saffer mom so we have fun conversations. instead, it was someone who appears to be new - he's not mentioned on their website - and he was awkward, and he misunderstood me when i said i needed the cut to look professional which made things more awkward.

anyway, at the end of the day his cut satisfied gd, so we're good.

we continued down the road so that gd could start the process of getting her vape device fixed, and then further down to the mall. aside from using their restrooms, we were pretty much in-and-out and on our way home again. we stopped at home for about half an hour, then all left to take mr smear to his therapy session.

gd and i had coffee while we waited, and although i had plans for the half hour or so i ended up failing to troubleshoot why my computer couldn't connect to my mobile hotspot.

we picked up mr smear, took the light rail to azrieli, and mr smear and i had lunch* while gd shopped. and then we came home. the past hour or two has been all about mr smear getting through his holiday homework (most of it's done), and taking care of random chores.

* mostly vegan - the only way for their vegan shuwarma to be delicious is in their challah, which unfortunately has some egg in it :/

quiet morning

 during dinner i began to feel nauseous and faint, and at one point i just had to lie down and try to get my neck released. i'm pretty sure something was pushing on my vagus nerve. i ended up miserably going to bed early, and was fortunately able to sleep through most of the night (there was an attack by the houthis, but our area wasn't threatened).

i woke up this morning to an alert that the money i accidentally sent to the wrong account has been returned to the right place, which is a huge relief. i was very careful when entering my details to withdraw it to the new account 🤞

gd and i started the day watching grave of the fireflies, we stopped it when mr smear woke up. then it was watching a few episodes of house until one of them looked like it was hitting inappropriate material, and now mr smear's playing human fall flat while i try to figure out what i want to do.

the price of teeth

 the game night at the mongoose's was fun last night, just a couple of us and mostly playing on the nintendo switch. his buddy gave me a ride home around midnight, which was very much appreciated.

i think i slept alright, kinda, but we were interrupted by another rocket attack from the houthis. fortunately, we all got to sleep late.

i spent the first part of the morning just catching up on social media, then we had a fight with mr smear about brushing his teeth (as usual), and once things calmed down the two of us had sufganiyot for breakfast and tried to play video games together and failed (i purchased an extra copy of little racers street, but we couldn't connect).

and then we headed out to the barber shop. they didn't have space for me but i now have an appointment for sunday morning. we walked down the road to the mall, and it didn't take long for me to get mall-people'd out. we stopped for lunch, which was nice, then fled outside to find coffee, and then we all agreed to just go home.

i needed that nap when we arrived.

i've done a lot of dishes this afternoon.

the biggest achievement today was setting mr smear up with his own bank account (kinda, it's in my name) so that he can begin earning compound interest on the little bit of money he's acquired, triggered by the fact that he's just lost a tooth, he's about to lose another one, and we haven't even given him anything for the last one...

gd's been freaking out and has been on the verge of a panic attack for days now because of her dental work. i'm trying to be supportive but it's very hard.

we lit the candles for chanukah and shabbat on a call with my mom, and the rest of the evening's been alright so far, with mr smear and me playing rounds until my brain started melting. it's a great game!

overall: yecch.

 i got a fairly good night's sleep last night. weird dreams, a memorable moment being a stranger silently, aggressively, thrusting a pair of tweezers at me and indicating that i needed to help him remove an infected ingrown hair.

mr smear stayed home from school this morning.

work... work was a shit-show. it began well enough, with me just needed to clean up my project in preparation for handing it over as i take three days leave, and the vegan sufganiyot (donuts) at the building's happy hour were not unappreciated.

but i had trouble with my devcontainer that took a frustrating amount of time and stress to resolve - and that initiated the bad vibe with my boss - and then we had a proper argument (or fight) when we discovered that the requirements for the project were signficantly different to what i understood and that nobody's caught that until 4pm this afternoon, in spite of the fact that i've thoroughly documented everything and described exactly what i've been doing in regular syncs with my boss.

it took me two hours to refactor, and by that i mean "completely overhaul", the design and implementation; then a further 45 minutes discussing the day's unpleasantness with my manager* until we were somewhat satisfied that we understood where each of us went wrong, and how we got into the mess, and we all have some lessons we need to learn.

* or maybe he's not my manager? nothing's clear at all.

it was with a really heavy feeling that i left the office for my long weekend.

between getting home and sitting down for dinner, i played rounds with mr smear, which was (surprisingly?) fun!

then we sat down for dinner, and gd unloaded her anxieties on me in a way that pushed my buttons, and the meal was eaten in tension.

...

at least by the end of it we were in a better place, at least. we called my mom, lit the chanukah candles, sang the songs, and now mr smear's getting ready for bed while i get ready to go visit the mongoose for a bit of a game night.

performance

yesterday:

the big deal in the morning was getting gd to her follow-up therapy session (i mean, it's been more than a year since the war broke out and this was her third actual meeting). while i waited for her, i worked a bit from the hospital food court. she arrived afterwards feeling rather proud of herself - with good reason - because as part of unpacking All The Things for a new person she realized that she's been through a lot of crazy stuff and she's still trucking.

...

the work day was pretty "standard", although it was interrupted by a message from mr smear's teacher informing me that he and his bully had had to be separated physically. i called him and asked him what had happened, and he told me his version, and i sent an angry message back to his teacher.

only to discover that his version of the story had been missing some important details.

it turned out that he'd done the instigating, and "happened" to wander to his bully's side of the class, allegedly not realizing that he was really close to his desk. so the bully got upset and yelled at him to go away, at which point he decided that he should stand his ground because - as he put it - "technically, he doesn't own the whole class".

🤦

parenting is hard.

i made it very clear that he was in the wrong and that he's supposed to be helping me get moved to a different class, not tricking me into making a fool of myself to his teacher.

but, in the evening, i couldn't help myself: "did [your bully] really cry?"

"yeah, he always does when he doesn't get his way"

i feel like there's a grey area in there where i'm allowed to enjoy this mean-spirited moment with my boy.

...

we had vegan shuwarma for dinner, but gd apparently overcooked it because it was a bit too tough and chewy for both me and mr smear.

mr smear was feverish last night at bedtime. gd medicated him as much as she could.

today:

4.30am rocket attack, i slipped and skidded on my way to make sure mr smear was up and on his way to the bomb shelter and hurt my lower back a bit. it's manageable, but uncomfortable.

i neither know or care who these godforsaken "houthis" are, but they're making me genocidal. after the last jew in yemen passed away recently, after yemen successfully and completely ethnically cleansed us, i honestly don't understand why we shouldn't simply erase it from the map. i keep imagining god's hand wielding a giant hand-saw and just sawing that hellhole off the rest of the mainland.

...

we all struggled in the morning, and it was a rush to get mr smear out the door and to the school on time to prepare for the ceremony. i returned home, finished my coffee, and then gd and i went to the school to bear witness.

i made sure to get a (relatively) good spot to record mr smear, but i had no intention of taking any other photos or videos. unfortunately, it looks like the other parents saw me getting ready and assumed that i was doing the class photographer thing, and therefore didn't feel the need to take photos themselves, so i think i might have pissed a bunch of them off :P

anyway, mr smear was GREAT. i was so proud i was shaking, and he was cool as a cucumber! that was awesome.

the next forty minutes was a full-on show by their class, and i have to admit it was pretty impressive for a bunch of fourth graders. one little boy was hilariously flamboyant, and i *knew* (subsequently confirmed) that it's the same kid who sings (in mr smear's terms) "cringey" songs all the time :P

that kid definitely stole the show. otherwise, mr smear did all the things he was supposed to and everything went smoothly.

afterwards he convinced gd that he was too sick to stay at school, but i strongly suspect we got played because he literally skipped and ran all the way home.

i headed out to the office, and spent the rest of the morning fighting with aws credential caching. after a big leftover lunch (the vegan shuwarma tasted much better, somehow), we figured out a workaround for the credentials and i started making some actual progress.

then, half an hour before i was supposed to meet with the VP R&D of a company i've applied for, everyone sat down for a status meeting. i couldn't have been more obviously in a rush to leave if i'd tried, but fortunately i only ended up a few minutes late...

as soon as the meeting was over, i surreptitiously sneaked into the stairwell and let the guy know where i would be, and he met me a few minutes later. i was a bit nervous because it wasn't *impossible* to see us from my office floor, and when a guy walked into the area we were sitting in wearing a similar shirt to my boss he laughed at how terrified i looked :P

anyway, it was a really exciting meeting. i love what they're doing - my current employer could make good use of their services - and it sounds like they're looking for people like me. we agreed broadly on a way to make a technical challenge meaningful for both of us, and i left with a solid sense of alignment. 

let's see how this goes.

the rest of the afternoon was successful, the bones of the project i'm working on are complete and i've got a day spare to make it meatier.

...

oh! at some point during the day i realized why the crypto money hadn't hit our bank account! it's because i'm an idiot, and i withdrew it to my old bank account that i closed down. after a proper bit of panic, i spoke to my bank (who were surprisingly responsive for christmas day) who assured me they'd return the money to the sender. i then tried to get the sender on the line - luno - whose support chat is entirely "AI" automated, and figuring out how to submit a claim was hard. i eventually managed to get it done, though, and hopefully i'll get the rather sizeable sum of money back within the next week or two.

...

i headed home just after dark, picked up a couple of things on the way, and came home in time to make my son finish his math homework (which he continues to claim he already did, but the dashboard says otherwise), take turns showering and still have time to play his first "chanukah gift" - pikuniku - together.

it's a lot of fun!

i was really pleased that mr smear now knows some of the chanukah songs and joyfully sang them along with me ^_^

i read a little bit of the magic pudding to him at bedtime, after we'd spend about half an hour being amazed together by chino moreno and maynard james keenan's screaming abilities, and hopefully tonight won't be disrupted.

adulting

last night was... stressful. i played some of a particularly difficult mission in shadowrun: hong kong, and i honestly can't tell if my nerves were all from the game or not, but i was buzzing with anxious energy. then gd exploded out of the bedroom on the verge of a panic attack, desperately angry because she can't wait another month and a half for her dental treatment when she can't eat properly (her dentist warned her about bread, FFS) and her mouthguard has become a catch-22 (it doesn't fit properly with her temporary crown, but if she doesn't wear it there's a good chance the tooth will fracture).

...

gd and i dropped mr smear off at school today - in spite of his now-regular protests - and continued on the dental clinic. it was a pleasant enough walk.

we didn't achieve a lot at the clinic, but the receptionist tried to help and gd was much more satisfied with the outcome.

we sat and enjoyed a slow coffee at lebowski, then walked back home, stopping on the way to pick up her new shoes from the post office (which she seems to be very happy with) and do a quick grocery run (the carrefour staff creeped me out today).

by the time we returned home i was pretty hungry, and i was stuck between instructions from my boss and a sync with my teammates, so i had a decent breakfast. after the sync i had a much better idea of what i needed to be doing, but the next hour or two i was generally quite distracted.

i picked mr smear up from school and took him across the road to his tutor - we sat together in the sun for ten minutes, it was nice once he stopped trying to get me to "compromise" on spending time together vs him playing games on his phone.

the coffee shop i wanted to sit in has rearranged their counter away, so i was forced to sit outside in the glaring sun at a table surrounded by flies :/

at least i managed to make a little progress on the work, although i was distracted by helping an old friend request donations for his unit and a man standing right behind me selling books to whoever would give him the time of day.

after picking up mr smear and returning home - witnessing some interesting construction work and having an awkward conversation with a stranger who recognized my saffer accent and had stories to tell of his time living in cape town - the afternoon went by quickly in a rapid-fire series of distractions with little pockets of work in between.

during the hour leading up to my phone interview, i tried to rest and prepare myself, but i realized that i'm not just burned out, but also bummed out (read: depressed), and i really can't afford to project that during my interviews.

at 6pm i got on the call, which ended briefly after we discovered that we don't just work in the same building, but that we're on the same floor, and we've agreed to meet in person instead.

i rushed off to dizengoff to pick up mr smear's new prescription glasses, and on the way back home received authorization from my boss to take three days off next week. i made a conscious effort to not look at my phone for most of the bus rides there and back.

the evening was pleasant, i ate too much, and around mr smear's bedtime i dived in to my work and achieved a flow state for the first time the entire day, and actually managed to finish off (the work day) around an hour ago with a satisfying commit.

at that point i closed my laptop and took my kindle to the couch, reading mona lisa overdrive until i passed out for a bit, then getting up with a sore back and deciding to write this all down before i head to bed.

...

shit, i was supposed to call my mother after saying good night to mr smear, we're trying to figure out the best way to manage crypto transfers and debt repayments.

channukah gelt

"when i'm older, i'm going to become a christian" - my boy, whose only reference is that christians get to celebrate christmas.

well. if you think we're above "channukah bushes" and channukah gelt bribery, think again.

...

today was generally okay, but long. and weird. after dropping mr smear off at school, and helping gd with the grocery shopping, i headed to the office, arriving just in time to find a phone "booth" and join gd and mr smear's therapist for a guidance session.

it went well, but we had a breakthrough moment about our influence on mr smear's fear of the dark that made us sad.

i heard back from the company i interviewed with last week: nope.

i yelled at a HOT sales representative for calling me, and someone on our floor who overheard tried to help... it was a funny moment.

i consulted with horseman about whether or not to trade thursday's bitcoin, then got involved with messages with mr smear's teacher and tutor, and by the time i was ready to get some work done, everyone was leaving to get lunch.

after lunch, i needed to sync with my boss, but he and my coworker were busy, so i tried to find a way to withdraw. i eventually ended up so suspicious that i gave up for now, and went to sit in my boss's office thinking that he'd get to me when he was done.

the two of them carried on talking until my boss put his backpack on, at which point i interrupted to ask if he was leaving, and they both expressed surprise to learn that i'd been waiting patiently for them to finish...

... in parting, my boss asked me to do one more investigation.

i spent the remainder of the afternoon doing two things: sending some of the crypto to my south african bank account, and performing the investigation. it was roughly 6pm when i realized, while checking my results, that there was a much easier way to show that the investigation was pointless...

i walked home, we had a pleasant evening / vegan pizza dinner / chat with my mom / virtual tour around krybabie's mom's new apartment, which ended with mr smear's assertion (above).

we had a talk, and it's not clear if i handled it well or not. then we informed him, in the most confusing ways possible, of our new channukah tradition. at least he seemed happy about some of it :P

i didn't sleep well at all last night - both physically and psychologically - i've no idea whether i should go to bed soon or deliberately tire myself out.

pulling teeth

 the past twenty minutes have all been about gd losing her shit because her nonsensical dental plan's off the rails and she's scared she won't be able to eat solid food for the next month or two.

@$#!.

today's been a quiet, wintery, indoorsy day. we had another missile attack in the middle of the night, which struck in south tel aviv, and i wasn't able to get back to sleep after that. it was an awful night, and i spent a lot of the day on the couch napping.

i've finally uninstalled bloons: adventure time. after 500+ hours, most of which was grinding for zero payoff (the character resources mechanic is broken).

we watched the secret of NIMH, which has really held up well.

it took me most of the day to get through the dishes.

i've barely had the capacity to do anything interesting or functional. so it's been all about watching house and reading bits of mona lisa overdrive on the new kindle.

calm through the storm

 around 3.30am i was awoken by what sounded like combat aircraft flying overhead. it turned out to be very dramatic thunder, and the storm that ensued continued until noon. mr smear tried to weasle his way out of school again, but aside from it being friday (their electives day) i think he enjoyed splashing to school in his galoshes as much as i did.

i took care of the emergency shopping on the way home, gd and i finished watching the original beetlejuice in preparation for its sequel and i took care of some more of the dishes.

gd went to her dental appointment, which once again turned out to be different to what we expected. i picked mr smear up from school while it bucketed down (i got really irritated with the other parents jostling me with their umbrellas while i was waiting at the gate), then mr smear and i made it to the bus stop just in time.

we arrived at the dental clinic just as gd came out, and it took a little while and a lot of confusion to get an understanding of what the rest of the plan is. then we walked to the hummusia and gd watched while we ate an enormous, delicious breakfast. we then picked up hers to go, which she was able to eat by the time we got home.

aside from us finally cleaning the apartment, the rest of the afternoon was very chilled, shadowrun: hong kong and napping.

we had a great dinner (the simpsons stealing cable*), mr smear just went to bed, gd is on her way to bed, and i might very well be doing so myself soon.

* my son to me: i do honor you! just barely enough to satisfy the fifth commandment.

i'm feeling much more relaxed today than i have in a while.

the sufganya

 today was completely insane.

it began around 2.40am, where the missile alert sirens sounded, and we all struggled to get out and into the shelter, barely making it before the booms. i didn't realize until the afternoon that a school building near nystire was destroyed. mr smear couldn't get back to sleep after that, so i stayed with him... uncomfortably... for a couple of hours until i was reasonably sure he was actually going to sleep.

...

1. same wakeup pattern, but this time i was feeling completely broken, and no screen time for me either. i read desolation jones and we listened to music, and it was nice.

2. mr smear was complaining that he didn't feel well enough to go to school. he agreed to abide by the outcome determined by the thermometer. the thermometer suggested he was a bit warm, and so he stayed home. having reviewed his math homework dashboard, i'm satisfied that he's at or above his grade level, and apparently he did his other extra homework well, too.

3. on my way to the mall i received a call about a job. everything was sounding good, but before i agreed to come in to meet them i made sure that they could afford me. they can't, so... oh, well.

4. i'm glad i did a little research last night on kindles. i walked into the store, bought the right model (the basic 11th gen, the only one they had) at the right price (in ten instalments), and the experience was quick and painless. and then, for the cherry on top, i managed to pick up a bunch of soy yoghurts while they've been sold out everywhere for weeks.

5. my manager came in sick and coughing. again. it's really, really grating my cheese.

6. we had an all-hands today, which affirmed that the situation isn't dire. in honor of chanukah being next week, we had sufganyot. the ceo assumed that the one i got was vegan, and i took a chance - expecting it to maybe have egg, not dairy.

it was made with $#@!ing dairy butter.

that was around 11.30 this morning, and my stomache's only just started settling a couple of hours ago. for the first few hours after i had headaches and was really, really tired... so tired, in fact, that during an important conversation i fell asleep a couple of times and even dreamed. my coworkers found it hilarious that i tried to participate in the conversation when i woke up, even if i did have something to contribute :P

7. before the dairy took effect, i at least managed to finish my lunch. i'd walked past the hummusia on my way to work and just the memory of the smell made it a must.

8. in spite of everything, i managed to get the job i've been working on done by the end of the day.

9. i came home, just in time for a chat with an HR rep about another gig. it went well.

10. dinner was late, but we managed to squeeze in a simpsons episode before the new 8pm cut-off. dinner was ratatouille, gd's first attempt, and it was great. 

i can't explain why, but gd had informed me that a friend of hers wanted to lend us a hand financially, and i was inspired to do grace after the meal.

overall, the bedtime routine part of the evening went smoothly.

11. a two hour conversation with gd's friend, the conversation was all over the place but we graciously accepted the offer of help and he sent it to us in the form of some bitcoin. now i have to figure out how to withdraw that bitcoin into our bank account so that i can use it to pay off some debt...

12. that was just before midnight, when i realized that our sink was an absolute mess and in danger of triggering a blocked drain. i angrily un-jenga'ed everything and got the drain guard back in place, then sat down with my tea to post this.

i have a new kindle, and it's already set up. i think i'm going to read a bit before going to bed.

two steps

yesterday:

the work day was pretty bland.

i joined my boss for a walk for our one-on-one, and i asked some tough questions about where we're at. we're going to have an all-hands tomorrow so he didn't want to say too much, but he did a pretty good job of assuring me that we're not in a bad place.

the interview in the evening went pretty well, although signing off was really awkward so i've no idea if i made a good impression or not.

watching the simpsons as a family is therapeutic. it's also highly relevant, as we saw the results of marge getting itchy and scratchy declawed and then this morning i saw the real-life results of a 21-day cellphone ban.

today:

the morning started off alright - three mornings in a row with mr smear responsible for getting himself organized before panic time, and three mornings that were much calmer than usual - and after dropping him off at school i continued on to the post office to pick up socks and a beard trimmer.

then i accompanied gd to her dental appointment, and found a nice coffee shop (lebowski, which used to be movie-ing) to wait for her at. her appointment turned out to be quite different / less dramatic than we'd been told, they just took an imprint for the tooth that's due to be extracted so she'll be able to wear a retainer with a temporary replacement while they prepare for the real work.

i got some decent work done today, ran into another cousin working in the building on the way out to lunch with my coworkers, and by and large it was quite a relaxed one. having said that, by the time i left the office i was feeling wiped out and i still had a parents' screentime workshop at the school at 8pm.

ugh.

so we had a nice, early dinner together before i left. the evening was... well, some of it was interesting, and some of it was inspiring, but a lot of it was a slog and by 9.15 i just wanted to get the hell out of there. when she pulled out cards for a "last activity" at 9.35 i fuck-that'd and noped on out.

gd and i had a conversation about all the things that came up, and we're both going to make an effort to modify our screen habits, particularly around mr smear. this is going to be an interesting experiment, but i don't think it's going to be hard - i just need to pick up an e-ink ebook reader as quickly as possible.

...

jason pargin's review of deadpool & wolverine just blew my mind.

the slap

 well, shit.

it was a bit of an annoying work day, and i didn't get too much done. in the middle of it, i got a phone call from mr smear complaining that he'd been waiting at the gate for half an hour, which was entirely my fault because i told his teacher that his tutor session was cancelled but forgot to tell him 🤦‍♂️

to be fair, though, the reason it took him half an hour to call me was because he was playing games on his phone...

[source]

[source]

the interview went... not great. the experience was fine, but they weren't happy with my coding exercise and called it before the architecture section. i very much appreciated their directness and their not-wasting-anyone's-time-iness, but it does sting... especially considering that i felt i did pretty well.

not amazing, but well. which is obviously why they called it.

anyway, it's been a mixed emotion evening - mr smear's doing his usual, nothing extraordinary but annoying - and i'm just done with the day. i feel like watching the simpsons as a family is healthy.

i have another interview tomorrow. maybe it'll be better.

coasting

 i think i just slept about ten hours. my neck and shoulder were giving me a lot of trouble yesterday evening, with pain radiating into my left hand, and between than and being "regularly" tired i just crashed on the couch after wishing mr smear a good night, only waking up due to gd watching something loud and action-packed and slowly dragging myself to bed.

yesterday:

i learned that our devops guy is leaving too, we're down to three devs (and two chiefs). for the most part it was another unfulfilling day fiddling with dune analytics, and then trying to ascertain whether the data i was getting back was any good.

at least gd was well enough to take mr smear to his therapy session. and we finally secured her cannabis license! so it was a big day for her.

i had a chat with mr smear's "music teacher" at school, and he thinks that mr smear playing a piece from beethoven's ode to joy at the chanukah ceremony next week is a good idea. fine, whatevs. i've set mr smear up with simply piano on his phone and good luck to them 🫡

today:

another day of mr smear sleeping in, mostly calm. and today's a work-from-home day. i have a Very Serious Interview this afternoon and i'm not feeling as well-prepared as i probably should be. a part of me wants to cancel, i'm honestly not sure what would hurt my reputation more...

slowdown

 it's sunday morning and i'm about to leave for work, but i needed to get this down. i didn't really prep for tomorrow's interview, but i definitely and desperately needed to rest. gd and i are convinced that we've both had covid. she seems to finally be getting better.

friday:

i had a chat with swordschool in the morning, but i was still in recovery mode and my brain felt like it was melting into a puddle. but he had a great idea about gamifying something and i was happy to be able to contribute somehow.

we started watching the original beetlegeuse movie, then picked mr smear up from school and bussed to dizengoff center, where we ordered mr smear's new lens prescription (that we should've done more than a month ago) and picked up a new phone for him (an entry level samsung).

so not exactly a cheap day.

the hummusia was packed with a long line so we ended up at a franchise coffee shop eating mediocre vegan sandwiches, and the rest of the day was resting, snacking, and gaming.

i started getting into shadowrun: hong kong and it's really good so far. i'm liking a lot of the added mechanics, but i think they might have been a bit overwhelming if i hadn't recently played the first two games.

yesterday:

yesterday really felt like a recovery day. i didn't feel as ridiculously tired all day as i've been for the last week or so, although when i walked up the stairs after dropping mr smear off at his friend i almost fainted and had to lie on my back with my knees up for a few minutes in order to reset.

i was a bit irritable over the course of the day, part of it being because i decided to implement a feature with my phone control solution and it took ages to figure out something that should have been really trivial to understand, but it was overall a good, restful day.

the plan was to take mr smear out on his bike in the afternoon, but his friend called and it was a no-brainer for all of us that that was a better idea :P

i accompanied him on the walks there and back, but for the most part he was on his own and it seems like he handled himself and the afternoon really well.

...

i'm slowly reading through the honest truth about dishonesty, and the chapter on how effective lobbying and pharma rep manipulation is is simply appalling. this is stuff everyone should know.

the recovery

i didn't sleep particularly well last night, but i did sleep better than the night before.

this morning didn't get off to a great start, mr smear's been slowing down with waking up again and it gets under everyone's (specifically gd's) nerves. but the walk to school was good, at least. the walk back was a bit tense, though, because we had a traffic jam throughout our neighborhood and all the drivers were being assholes.

it was a slower morning compared to the rest of the week, i did a little bit of housekeeping and got gd started on stander while i did some work on my telephony project.

the office was remarkably quiet this morning. my two achievements before i returned home for lunch were taking a tiny step towards working with dune analytics (a hot mess of a platform in terms of UX and documentation - and possibly data - but with lots of potential), and coaching a coworker on the dos and don'ts of getting tattoos (along with some personal opinions thrown in for good measure).

i arrived home just in time to accompany gd to pick mr smear up from school, and i begrudgingly did so even though i was tired and just wanted to rest a few minutes :/

everything was going fine until we were almost home, when mr smear decided (again) that he didn't want to go to mma. unfortunately for him, that's not negotiable right now, and we double-teamed him pretty well. i had lunch while he calmed down with a book, then did some work while he practiced on the keyboard before we left for his jiujitsu class.

the way there was pleasant, i grabbed a coffee on the way, and we arrived on time for class. he gave me some shit about putting on his belt, but i handled it, and then i watched him bow out of the warmup and had to give him a "pep talk". from there he did well, things went smoothly for a while and he was even enjoying himself, until suddenly he was "injured".

in his defense, his ankle / heel / whatever might have legitimately been hurting, but i believe he was hamming it up. his foot looked fine to me, but his coach was concerned, so after getting him to "test it out" (he couldn't touch the floor without wincing... apparently...) we got our stuff together and he hopped out holding onto my arm on our way to the doctor.

i informed him, very clearly, that if he's legitimately injured he'll get all the care and sympathy he needs, but if the doctor doesn't find anything wrong with him there'll be hell to pay.

miraculously, his foot began healing within seconds, and by the time we got to the street he was perfectly fine 🤦

at least we didn't have to go through the emergency doctor routine, i guess 🤷

the rest of the evening went much better, i got a tiny bit more work done (although i'm not sure it's of much value) and after putting mr smear to bed early, gd and i settled in to watch the rest of stander, or at least get most of the way through before gd passed out.

at the same time, i'd managed to lock out mr smear's phone completely because a band in the middle of his touchscreen stopped working, and once that happens there's really nothing you can do. so i factory reset the phone, and after about an hour of google/android/huawei shenanigans finally managed to reinstall it and get it functioning well enough that he can use it to communicate and ride the bus until we get him a new phone.

i can't believe we're going to have to get him a new phone 🤦

anyway, it's been a long day, it's been an exceptionally long week, and i think i'm going to bed soon.

winning the battle

soon after posting, i fielded a call from a recruiter but shut him down immediately when i heard the name of the company he wanted to put me forward for. no gambling (including forex and crypto schemes), no marketing. it felt weirdly good to do that, and i wonder if he'll bring me anything good in the future :P

...

it was a rough morning, and i had a hard time getting anything productive done. i had a sync with my boss once i had a better idea of what i needed to be doing, only to discover that i didn't have a good idea at all. and our conversation went on longer than i'd expected, and i was getting stressed about being late for the school meeting...

... i made it on time for the school meeting. but, as usual, the principal was being disrespectful so i had to stand and wait outside for five minutes, even though i'd had to wait a month for the meeting and was taking off work for it. by the time i walked in, i was boiling - not just because of the waiting, mind, but because of everything mr smear's been through, and all the things i was planning on saying and expecting them to say back.

i was vibrating with the anticipation, but ready for war.

...

i walked out of there still vibrating, but with a sense of victory. there're things i said that made it very clear how indecent and negligent they've been, and how disgusting his bully's parent is, but i still managed to preserve a veneer of adult reasonableness and i was pleased to walk out of there with a feeling that everyone, even the principal, was on board with the plan to move mr smear to a different class. now it's just a matter of getting it done quickly but smoothly as possible.

i hope the amount i fought for him today makes up for the times i didn't (out of naivety and ignorance) fight for him before. i hope that wherever he ends up, he makes the most of the fresh start.

...

i came home, scarfed down a quick lunch, then caught the bus to work.

the afternoon was tough, and dreary, and it took a while before i understood precisely what my next steps need to be; not fun at all, but at least i have a direction now.

i did some quick shopping on the way home, we had a nice dinner (with more of the simpsons, mr smear's claim of "inappropriate" is now confusing me), and a smooth bedtime. now... i don't know. it would be nice to get a good night's sleep.

overtired

i now strongly suspect i'm sick, but most of the cause of my suspicion is that i've been so ridiculously tired that i've been dysfunctional, and additional coffee hasn't been helping at all.

yesterday:

the first order of business was fixing my phone control app's sms handling, which went smoothly. then i had a constructive chat with an HR person, and i say "constructive" because we discussed money and it was a heartfelt "nope" on the money.

i went to the office for a slow work morning, then rushed off to pick up mr smear after lunch because gd still wasn't handling with her coughing. i left the office three minutes before the bus was scheduled to arrive, which was good because the bus arrived three minutes early :/

as we got to the school stop and i was about to step off the bus, i heard a THUNK as a drunk old man collapsed face down on his way into it. i was nervous about touching him, but i helped another guy get him onto a seat and a doctor who happened to be on the bus attempting to check him out while someone else called for an ambulance.

i made a point of not using my hands for the five minutes it took to get to a coffee shop where i could OCD (surgeon-style) wash my hands, and thank them by buying a coffee.

i arrived just on time to the school gate, where i had an awkward conversation with the mother of the kid mr smear occasionally torments, but mr smear himself was nowhere to be found. after i'd waited long enough, i called him and learned that he'd had no intention of coming out because he was already on his way to his friend's place, and hadn't thought to inform us of his plans.

so... i was really happy he was going to spend time with his friend, but also pissed because i hadn't had to leave the office after all :/

on my way home, an old woman threw her cigarette out the car window and it almost struck me. her pitiful apology was not enough, and i fumed all the way home before realizing that what i should have done was thrown the cigarette back into her open window.

i made it home in time for an interesting demo, but at some point i found myself struggling to stay awake. i returned to work still desperately in need of a nap, had myself an extra coffee (the "slippery slope" coffee), but still was barely able to keep my eyes open. everything i was working on blended into a weird daydream until i realized that i wasn't achieving anything and decided it was time to go home.

i made it all the way out the building before realizing i'd left my sunglasses in my office, only to get back to my office and remember that i'd actually left them at home :(

i walked home in a weird state between wired and tired, then tried and failed* to nap a bit before dinner. we watched a couple more episodes of the simpsons over dinner, which mr smear has decided isn't so appropriate. then we all went to bed early.

* i did read a little bit of the honest truth about dishonesty, which is off to an excellent start.

i didn't sleep very well at all. i'm still tired. i'm working from home this morning because i have a meeting with the "school team" in a few hours... i hope i get this right.

next steps

 "work from home". today, noooot so much.

i did catch up on a little sleep last night, with some epic dreams that slipped away pretty much the moment i opened my eyes. i was still quite tired, though. the morning started off alright, i got mr smear to school in good spirits*, and was planning on heading to the clinic to support gd at her doctor's appointment when my phone reminded me that i had an upcoming interview.

* on the way, mr smear informed me that he doesn't like his singing voice so much (he has a great singing voice!), so he decided he wanted to play beethoven's 9th symphony at the school's chanukah ceremony in two weeks' time and could i please print the sheet music for him. while i was picking my jaw up off the floor and making a note to myself to take care of the printing, i stepped on a small, squishy piece of dog poo.

the interview went pretty well, i think, and i'm a lot more interested in what they're doing than i thought i would be. at the same time, the company i interviewed with poorly yesterday evening scheduled an in-person interview for next week, so 🤞

i also managed to sort out the payment for gd's cannabis license, but only after realizing that they didn't send a broken link, rather that my relay software splits form data on the equals signs and breaks links. so i'm going to have to fix that, and fast...

i tried to get some work done, but i was tired and distracted. just as i was trying to rest my eyes for a few minutes before leaving, gd began another coughing fit. a little less rough than we're used to, but still rough, and so far *tfu tfu* it looks like the new meds and saline nebulizing are helping.

i picked mr smear up and took him to his hebrew tutor, got a bit of work done, and brought him back home, to both of our excitement discovering along the way that tapuchips are making salt and vinegar flavor now ^_^

while i did get some work done during the afternoon, it was rather a messy mixture of work, random distractions and helping gd herd mr smear - he spent most of it on his keyboard, which was great but not conducive to high levels of concentration on my side of the table.

the new, uhhh, play therapist? showed up in the evening, she's very sweet. we all introduced ourselves and talked for a bit while mr smear got over his shyness, then we had a very serious drawing competition, and then i got a final bit of work done before evacuating the living room and helping gd with the dishes.

good dinner and the simpsons, a rushed bedtime ritual but not unpleasant, and when gd went to bed i played through another section of shadowrun returns. oh! i finished count zero yesterday**, and i'm now taking a break from the sprawl trilogy to check out the honest truth about dishonesty. so far, so good.

** what was particularly interesting about the re-read was just how relevant it remains in spite of some of its anachronisms, and just how much it has influenced so much other literature (including video games) that i've loved. count zero still holds up, it's a brilliant story executed exquisitely. i felt that the tying up of loose ends felt a bit rushed, but the ideas were exciting and i really enjoyed the adventure alongside the characters.

oh! it's quite late. i guess i should probably go to bed.

interview with a zombie

 today was tough. complicated. all over the place.

[trigger warning on bathroom stuff?] i didn't get nearly enough sleep, but not just because i stayed up late for shadowrun returns, but because i spent the next hour or so feeling like i urgently needed the toilet with nothing moving. that went on pretty much all night until i left for the office in the morning.

...

gd wasn't feeling better after all, and she's still not feeling better. the occasional coughing fit is still intense and scary and she's feeling properly sick again. i think i might be sick too. and might have been, too. i don't know. it's hard to say when i could just be handling stress and a lack of sleep.

...

i took mr smear to school, we'd had a decent morning and he got there in pretty good spirits. we had a parental guidance session with his therapist over zoom, which felt pretty good right until it was over, at which point i received an sms from mr smear's teacher informing us that he'd consistently refused to cooperate with anyone all morning :/

so that fucked us up.

...

afterwards, i received a call from the cannabis licensing people, to inform me again that they weren't happy with the recommendation. i told the woman i was speaking to that the problem isn't with our application, but with their process, and if it's not clear enough to her as a human being that our request is valid then she needs to send me a precise template for the doctor that he can fill it in to spec.

she consulted with someone else, and then agreed to authorize the request anyway.

sheesh.

...

i barely had time to sync with my boss and manager before i had to leave to help get mr smear to his therapy session. i didn't mean to walk all the way home, but i was very grateful to my mom for lending an ear to me venting furiously on the way there.

my avo/toast/kala namak/tabasco lunch was so good that it wasn't completely ruined by the difficult conversation i had with mr smear while chewing on it, trying to understand where he's coming from and make him understand that he's undermining my efforts to help him out of his awful situation.

as i was crouching behind the kitchen wall when the two of them entered our apartment, he didn't realize i was home. so i heard him tell gd that seeing as he's nine, he'd really like to take the bus to his therapist by himself. it was immediately obvious to me that this was an attempt to avoid having to discuss the morning's shenanigans with me along the way, which i may have found a little funnier than i should have.

but i did offer to let him lead the way. what followed was a pleasant, but awkward journey, and although he needs a little coaching he's kinda doing okay.

i returned to the cinemateque to work, and actually got something done. then i picked up mr smear and let him lead the way home.

step 1. get lost

step 2. guess and walk the wrong way

step 3. listen to dad and open up a navigation app on your phone

step 4. look only at the map, not at your surroundings, even if following the map leads you to almost walk into a giant pillar.

step 5. (surprisingly) listen to dad when he suggests that the light rail will be a faster way home than waiting for a bus across the street

step 6. successfully navigate home using the app even though you're literally across the road from the apartment you've been living in for 2.5 years already. also, make sure to walk very, very slowly whenever dad stops bugging you to move it because he's got to get back to his office.

...

as soon as he was on the same block as our apartment i spun around and caught the first bus back to the office. i was supposed to have called the woman from the municipality half an hour earlier, and i had half an hour to get to the office before the "happy hour" that they'd rescheduled so that i could make it.

i hopped on a bus with a broken back door. at the next stop, the driver stopped the bus, turned off the engine and walked outside to call for help.

a stop with no mobile reception.

it took three calls to finally be able to speak to her, but once i got started telling her what mr smear has been going through she was invested, and although she doesn't have the authority to intervene directly she really made me feel heard, and gave me helpful advice for dealing with the school team in our meeting on wednesday. and now she's in, so she wants updates :P

our happy hour was scheduled for 4pm. after pacing around the base of our building for the duration of the call, it was around 4.40pm when i finally sent up my apologies and raced upstairs for the tail end of it :P

...

the vegan offering was good this time, and i was strong - i left some for my family and brought it home with me. they enjoyed it too :)

...

i got a tiny little bit of work done, then realized that it was so late that i needed to move quickly to get back home in time for my interview with a VP R&D.

i was wired. i was overwhelmed and feeling a bit dizzy from the entire day. and i'd had zero time to prepare. sooo... it didn't go great, although apparently it was a total loss either. i guess we'll see, but i definitely can't show up without prep work again.

the rest of the evening went pretty well, in spite of gd having a coughing fit at the table during which she slammed something down hard and that made me jump and hit the handle of a very sharp knife that went flying in mr smear's general direction (O_o)

it's been an insane day. the rest of the week's looking pretty crazy already. here goes nothing...

assemble!

 so, i introduced my boy to the avengers today. it was AWESOME. pure joy ^_^

the only thing that didn't spark joy was gd having another coughing fit just at the end of the movie :(

but she does seem to be feeling better overall.

oh, and we've been watching the simpsons from its first season, and really enjoying it.

it was a weird day. the weather wasn't great, so mr smear and i stayed indoors except for a short walk around the neigborhood. i spent most of it (i believe) playing shadowrun returns, and that's the reason i'm writing this post after 1am when i should have been in bed hours ago...

i didn't actually want to be on screens the whole day, but there wasn't anything i felt like doing that wasn't on a computer (including count zero, and i'm loving how much shadowrun is just lifted directly from gibson's sprawl trilogy). 

but anyway.

shadowrun returns is every bit as brilliant - and surprising - as i remembered.

i'm a bit nervous about what tomorrow will bring, between my current work and the job hunt and the school stuff. i'm also a bit nervous about going to bed because my mattress (+topper) and i aren't vibing.

...

i'm also feeling quite disturbed by the fact that fursan al-aqsa exists and is allowed to be published on steam.

breathing (a little bit better)

 yesterday was much, much calmer. gd did have a coughing fit, while urchin was visiting, but for the most part seems to be doing better. we postponed our dinner plans because she wasn't feeling fit enough for it, and aside from a shopping mission in the morning, the day was pretty much urchin visiting followed by us watching iron man and captain america in preparation for the avengers, both of which had mr smear literally jumping up and down. 

even though it was *really* later by the time we finished the second movie :P

i also had a positive encounter with a headhunter, and a nice long chat with horseman.

...

i didn't sleep very well last night - my mattress topper isn't really helping and my hips are sore - but when i did i had some mad dreams, including one in which a small chunk of my left hand got ripped out. the weather yesterday and today so far is surprisingly and pleasantly warm.

almost better

gd's taking all the meds, but it's hard to say if her situation's improving. we hope it is. as sad as it is how scared mr smear's been, it's really comforting how he's been so supportive and caring.

...

after dropping mr smear off at school this morning, i continued on to the pharmacy and then tried to get our details sorted out in the medical aid systems. everything seemed fine on their end, and they asked me to bring them proof. so this afternoon, when i took mr smear to his hygienist appointment, i checked with them and discovered that everything's just fine, but because mr smear's first name is unusual people just assume he has a double-barreled family name and skip ahead to his middle names instead :P

i was bored at work today, so while i made some boy-scout changes to the proof-of-concept i've put together i published an article on the topic :P

and i had a "demo" with a sales agent for an API we might use, all the poor guy wanted was to understand our use-case and i wasn't prepared to tell him anything.

other than that, i contacted a woman at the municipality about mr smear's school situation. after a back-and-forth she agreed to speak to me early next week, so that seems positive.

we finished watching my neighbor totoro at dinner, and i was pleased that mr smear - in spite of his repeated assertions that it's not his favorite miyazaki movie - agreed that it's a great movie in its own right. i was thinking about it a lot today, i really think my favorite thing about it is that it's not so much the story, or the magic, but rather how real the characters and settings feel. it's absolutely wonderful stuff and the story is just icing on the cake.

i read some more of the magic pudding to mr smear at bedtime. with everything that's been going on this week i've been able to spend some real quality time with him, and most of it has been us having fun together. i'm extremely grateful.

crash and burn and crash again

 i'm feeling pretty cooked. the meeting last night went on a lot longer than planned, some of which was good, but most of which was me completely and utterly failing to communicate the idea to the point where sailor - who's supposed to be on our side of the table - was thoroughly convinced that it's a bad idea.

i cannot begin to describe how disappointed and frustrated i am about that.

for the rest of the night, when i wasn't sleeping, i was feeling shit about it. all throughout today, the group and i have been having arguments about the meeting on whatsapp, which has been very draining.

...

this morning started off alright, gd was feeling a bit better. i was supposed to have another interview but they canceled at the last minute, and i was supposed to have a scheduled demo but they canceled too. so it was a pretty easy morning, really, and the work day started off pretty smoothly*.

* for me, at least. my boss spilled coffee all over my manager's fancy keyboard and killed it.

halfway through the morning i received a phone call asking if we could bring mr smear in to the dentist this afternoon. gd picked him up from school - that was when her coughing fits began again - and i took him to the dental clinic. i was grateful when i left the office that my manager seemed happy with the fact that i'd done pretty much everything i had to do for the day.

the dentist was really uncool with me, but she was great with him, so i sucked it up and let her do her thing. he seems to be okay.

we walked all the way home, by which time we found gd really struggling. as soon as we got all the groceries unpacked we hopped in a taxi and went to the bikur-rofeh, and mr smear spent most of our visit drawing. the visit started off well, but when the arab pulmonary specialist pronounced something that gd disagreed with (that she's been having asthma attacks) and she exploded in a fit of rage and i had to physically restrain her to prevent her from storming out while i tried to smooth things over with the keenly offended doctor.

jesus fucking christ.

we were there for a while, and i managed to convince gd to apologize, and he calmed down and returned to being professional, and gd received treatment and he was really cool with us. i don't know for sure if he's right, but we've got a plan that makes sense and if it doesn't work out we'll have useful data.

afterwards, we walked around looking for somewhere to eat but couldn't find anything. we continued on to azrieli and ate vegan shwarma at the food court, which mr smear and i really enjoyed, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that i stuffed myself and then stuffed myself some more.

we came home, got mr smear showered and toothbrushed and into bed, and i'm now finishing my second cup of tea and am planning on following suit.

what an exhausting week (so far). the more it goes on the more i wonder if i'm not actually sick.

some peace?

 i mean, i'm feeling thoroughly cooked but i have another meeting with gco and sailor at 9pm.

today began alright, until just before leaving to take mr smear to school when i got into a ridiculous and very intense argument with gco. that set the tone and drained my energy for the day before it had even begun, even if we did resolve it (apparently) amicably.

[my thumbnail's got split skin that's bleeding and hurting and driving me crazy. i suspect it's from it being dry skin season]

i had another first encounter with a different company this morning, and it went *much* better than yesterday's.

gd and i were all good this morning, although she's still suffering intensely. i had to leave work at noon to pick mr smear up from school because she couldn't handle it. not only did that work out because i remembered that he had geometry (actual geometry :P) homework, and i also got to see today's artwork which was very cool (especially his stick figure renditions of one piece characters).

the work day went well, overall, and i managed to leave with a surprisingly strong sense of satisfaction.

now for dinner and a meeting :P

further down

 well, dinner was pretty cool - we finished watching wall-e for the umpteenth time, and enjoyed the pizza - but after mr smear went to bed gd had a coughing fit that led to a long and unpleasant fight. which was eventually resolved, but not without both of us exhausted and feeling burned out.

godsforbid we should have some peace.

maybe tomorrow will be better. 

i might be coming down with something

i don't feel sick, i feel wired, but i feel like i might be in a holding pattern with a bug or virus waiting to land. then again, it might just be general fatigue, physical and/or mental. it certainly doesn't help that i've been having trouble sleeping the past few nights, nor that there've been a lot of incidents of emotional stress, both ups and downs.

...

getting mr smear to school this morning was good, but then i got a message from his teacher that he wasn't cooperating in geometry. and he wasn't: he was insisting that drawing pixel art of a circle was geometry.

jesus, fuck 🤦

hopefully that was the only incident. while gd was at the doctor getting prescribed more antibiotics and meds because she's got a full-blown lung infection in addition to what looks like a virus, i was at home doing online chores (like reapplying for her cannabis license), juggling a bunch of recruiters, and trying to get something productive done.

it almost feels like the most productive thing i got done today was snacking a lot :P

i picked mr smear up from school, brought him home to switch bags, then took him to his therapy session. i headed to the cinemateque for a coffee and to work, the barista was curious about my tattoos and i ended up on a tear about the injustice of how shakespeare's sonnets are taught when her initial complaint was that she hates the sonnet form. i hurriedly scribbed sonnetcomix.com on a piece of paper, grabbed my coffee and hid behind my laptop :P

i picked mr smear up and we took the light rail home, where i got some work done but i also crashed and burned in a chat with a recruiter about expectations (which i'm still feeling a bit gross about). then gd needed help with the washing machine, and got angry with me because she thought i'd broken it while i was trying to help, and that made a pretty gross feeling too :/

anyway, my son's sitting across from me and playing beautiful melodies on the keyboard, and i've managed to complete a piece of work that wasn't trivial at all, and gd's making pizza for dinner, and i think i'm done trying to be an adult for the rest of the day.

replay

 it's been a long day, i'm exhausted but also a bit wired.

getting mr smear to school went smoothly, but then gd and i had a fight about her being triggered by something and we both handled it badly. we eventually sorted ourselves out, but not without setting a shit tone for the morning.

on the way to the office i stopped by the pain clinic, and was fortunate to find gd's doctor in his office. he sorted us out with the updated documents pretty quickly, so tomorrow morning i'll restart the application.

i'm glad i got my work done today, because it was in spite of the fact that i had to pick mr smear up from school because gd wasn't feeling up for it, then bussed to shuk hacarmel to meet me team there for my own birthday lunch and enjoy an amazing frena, then took a slow walk to get an artisanal coffee (picking up a really expensive but really good mango-granadilla-pomegranate fruit shake along the way), then returned to the office just in time for a birthday "happy hour" (the vegan crepes weren't great, but it was a nice sentiment).

i spoke to a couple of my coworkers today about the pivot situation, including my manager. on the one hand, i'm going to explore my options and see what's going on, but on the other, i'm not unhappy where i am and there's a chance we'll figure ourselves out and do something interesting. so no (immediate) stress.

i left the office around 6pm, and arrived home with barely enough time to settle before a 7pm meeting with a man who i'm describing as "an ice-cold caraffe of lemonade in the middle of the desert". the rest of the evening's been mostly about following up on that meeting and it's both exciting and tiring.

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i wrote an article over a month ago on medium that's really got traction over the past few days, it's quite an experience!

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i think i might be too tired to play shadowrun returns, which is a bit disappointing. i'm really enjoying it, and it's amazing to me that while everything feels familiar, i barely remember any details!