off a low base

 well, to be fair today was easier. but i felt completely exhausted, and disorganized, and my brain seems to be seeping down my spinal column and into my butt.

i started the day with a walk to the post office to pick up my new phone covers - the three of them cost less than gd's failed one, and they're all awesome. so i'm proudly sporting the hunter license:

(ugh, those nails 🤮)

on my way home i stopped by a mor clinic. it was uncomfortable that i couldn't even get a number for the receptionist because i didn't have an appointment. when a receptionist did become available, she informed me that they can't help me with what i'm looking for. when i asked if there was anyone i could speak to about gd's cannabis story, she shrugged and complained that she, too, has difficulty getting human assistance and she works there.

i came home, completed the deployment i'd triggered on my way out, picked up my gear and walked mr smear and gd to the clinic (he was supposed to get blood tests done, but we hadn't realized he'd needed an appointment). i bussed to the office, where my future team was already waiting for me, and we spent the following few hours strategizing and getting some work done.

two jumpy dogs + a bunch of jumpy kids = distraction.

i spent the remainder of the day being set upon by various coworkers, constantly context-switching and generally feeling worn out and slow. i did get some good stuff done, a few good things, actually, but at least twice i got told off by my boss about not having taken a holiday.

i definitely need to take a holiday. it would be nice to not literally be the only person holding the devops fort right now.

at 7pm i told gd i'd be leaving in ten minutes, and ten minutes later it was 7.30pm, so i don't know what the hell happened... i came home, joined my family for dinner (accompanied by a shot of rum) and some of the fifth harry potter movie, was shown some of my son's amazing artwork (his "realistic" minecraft characters), and after showers and toothbrushing (i'm being very cautious about brushing as softly as i can) i read a little more of the neverending story.

sometimes mr smear isn't in the mood, but tonight he was upset when i stopped reading.

it took me a little time to decompress enough to write this, now i'm not sure if i'm ready to crash yet.

crash

 i woke up early to go to the hygienist. the experience was less painful than i anticipated. apparently i need to use a softer brush.

i bussed (very actively enjoying my music) to work, where i made the regrettably awkward decision to not go for coffee with our CEO because i'd just been at the hygienist (like, i didn't have to buy anything).

my new coworker and i spent a good ten minutes troubleshooting the coffee machine, and i was shocked to discover that he'd been unwilling to toss the extra trial-and-error coffees so he was drinking them (O_o)

i spent a chunk of the day completing the 1am story, and for the most part it looks like i succeeded. and, for the first part, it looks like the work i was doing before i encountered that stuff was good. the central part of the work day was a meeting for our algo team that i'd initiated, which was generally productive. unfortunately, bigtalk kept suggesting solutions to problems nobody has, which was a bit awkward.

amusingly, i found myself unwittingly describing the act of connecting, enabling and disconnecting as "tune in, turn on, drop out". two people in the meeting laughed, for everyone else it went over their heads , which would have been fine but they demanded an explanation. fortunately that was only a little bit awkward and passed quickly enough :P

the salad group's salad was great. the post-salad leftover chocolate-and-peanut-butter cake was also great. i feel like i'm doing a pretty good job of getting others to help me with it.

the most important piece of the work was a bit intimidating, so as part of gearing up for it i made myself a non-caffeinated drink; the only one i could find that tasted good was a vanilla chamomile tea, and then all of a sudden (probably because drinking chamomile is my go-to i'm-going-to-bed-soon move) i felt really drowsy as the previous couple of days caught up with me all at once.

so i left early.

it was hot.

the tech ops guy called me as i was about to get home, already feeling faint, with more problems.

i was feeling faint, and in desperate need of a nap, but i was so sweaty from the ride home that i had to shower before i could nap. i napped to the first episode of hunter x hunter, and woke up to mr smear playing insanely difficult levels he configured for himself in spiderheck.

dinner was delicious. afterwards, while mr smear prepared for bed, i ran tech support for my mom whose old email address had suddenly stopped working. we eventually came right, but not without some big feelings. then i read some more of the neverending story to mr smear and gd, and then arsed around as an excuse to drink another chamomile before finally going to bed.

...

and then getting up at 3.30am after being restless for a fairly long while.

...

the incoming manager reached out to me for an update, and i found myself in the weird position of trying to explain to him that the situation with bigtalk isn't entirely straightforward. i think i have a pretty good handle on him, he's not a bad guy and his work - when he understands the requirements - is excellent. but his ability to understand the requirements is clouded by his ego and inexperience, and his second-languageness in both hebrew and english, and his attention disorder. while at present it's safe to say he's better off as a one-man show, it's not going to be good for him in the long run to not have proper mentorship.

long weekend started

 i think an apt description of my mental state over the past while is "spiritually exhausted". i'm just coasting from one event to the next, living from coffee cup to coffee cup and trying to maintain sanity in the face of increasingly difficult challenges. some things are great. some things are amazing, even. but years and years of perpetually living on the edge of a chasm have really worn down my nerve sheaths.

...

yesterday was a particularly intense work day. and although it end with a surprising success (i'm code complete even though i didn't get to look at my planned work until two hours before leaving) it also ended with a shit feeling about a stupid, entirely avoidable incident during the day that may have done damage to my relationship with our devops guy :(

at lunch time i walked to pick up my new knee pads, and i bought an inflatable mattress and an automatic pump. the mattress is perfect, but the pump turned out to be with a car charger which isn't apparent at all from its packaging :/

one of my coworkers came to work *clearly* sick and infectious. i really, really, *really* hope i don't get sick like everyone else in my home.

fortunately, after wasting many minutes hurting my arms trying to inflate it with a bicycle pump, gd found the old automatic pump that she'd apparently looked hard for earlier...

... f***ing troll :P

anyway, the evening was pleasant, after mr smear went to sleep we all watched another episode of unchained, and then i went to bed.

today:

mr smear and i looked into fortnite's creative mode, which i've agreed to let him play. his argument for letting him play the battle modes? "violence is already in my head, you let me watch hunter x hunter".

he's got me there :$

gd admitted being too sick to come with to the museums, but my mother refused to. in retrospect, that was a big mistake and it was hard for her to get from the bus stop to the museum in the heat. i left her and mr smear there to go to the october 7th "exhibit" at the intelligence center, but i'm still not sure what that means because halfway there gco contacted me and asked if i would prefer going on sunday or monday instead. so i agreed, hopped off the bus, and then spent the next half hour frustrated waiting for buses that weren't coming or walking a long way in the heat.

public transportation outside of tel aviv sucks.

i joined my mom and mr smear for a short walk through the museum, he'd had and continued to have a very enjoyable time (aside from not liking being "helped" by the volunteer with no sense of personal boundaries on the fourth floor).

we caught a bus home, and have spent the past hour or two resting (my mother's been passed out on the couch for most of that time).

what's in store for the rest of the day is anyone's guess.