revolving

 i ended up getting to bed pretty late, which i largely attribute to slay the spire 2.

mr smear's early alarm woke me up, and i had difficulty getting back to sleep. i woke up feeling zombified.

my day began with stranger in a strange land. i really wasn't into it at the beginning, and some of it feels really dated, but i pushed through that to discover that it's by design - as in it's at least somewhat satirical - and that considering the decade it was published in it shows such remarkable cleverness, both in its imagination and in its incredible ability to rewrite human experience from an outsider's point of view. it's also got a really dark feel to it. slow, ponderous, heavy, like watching a film through tv snow.

i had to force myself to put the book down and start my day.

adulting is stressful, especially unnecessary adulting. if i'm paying for additional medical insurance, i shouldn't have to work harder than them to get back money that's supposedly guaranteed.

[my previous ingrowing toenail from ages back is hurting again, suddenly]

i got to work, and found myself blocked waiting for the data team. during the four hours or so that i waited for them to get back to me, i continued to suffer in an infinite AI failure loop, which i tried to utilize as a test for my skill evolution. but when one of the data guys finally got around to me, he didn't agree with my approach and demoralization struck when i realized i might have gone through all that suffering for nothing (i mean, aside from the skill improvement).

...

at this point i received a call from the paybox retention team, who wanted to know why i ditched them and what they could do to make things right. i stood on the balcony, angrily describing their lies and how they've burned any trust i might have had in them, and by the time he heard me out he miserably acknowledged that he couldn't really make things right. then i hung up and went back inside, wondering if the people working near the balcony door had heard me... because i know that they heard me talking to mr smear earlier about why i'm not getting him a spotify subscription, as somebody came up and closed the door and i was quite embarrassed...

...

as we worked through the problem, though, we ended up hitting a wall that could only be resolved with the approach i'd been taking. so that was a relief. and then we ran into another wall, and the two of us split up to investigate alternate options.

i learned something today about connecting databricks to github, i figured out an undocumented way to use both APIs in way they didn't design for and it felt VERY good to see it actually work! it took a while to explain to the data guy how it worked, at which point he agreed that it's clearly the simplest and most correct solution for our use case, and that felt especially good after thursday's talks when i was so out of my depth that i could barely understand their questions, let alone answer them.

...

i came home in fantastic spirits. mr smear argued with me about discussing summer day camp because he already knew what he wanted, at least until he saw what the make camp is offering. we were sad to hear that he and his friend who's going aren't getting along so well - apparently his friend isn't friending much better than before they made up after their fight...

i slugged a 4th coffee in preparation for the night blade, then mr smear and i put on our rollerblades and went to the park and back. firstly, he's getting the hang of tying his laces intellectually, though his fingers are struggling. secondly, it was back to square one, he was very nervous at first, but we got there eventually and the way back was fine.

we came back to find gd with a sharp knife (always scary, and she was right nervous as well) and a delicious sushi dinner, which we ended by dipping unripe apricots into wasabi soy sauce with astoundingly positive results 🤯

i said goodnight to mr smear, then headed out to join the rollerblading group. just before leaving the apartment my neck twinged, and it caused me trouble the whole time i was out. i was already sore halfway to the meetup point, which was kinda sad, and i had to split halfway because i'd been feeling faint for a while.

most of my ride was fun, though it would have been more fun if i hadn't let myself get sucked into a really ugly political argument.

i came home almost in pieces, watched a crazy update from farzad about the coming robotic revolution while eating a second dinner, showered, and now i'm just trying to settle before climbing into bed.