the (slip) knot

 "i push my fingers into my eyes..."

i need to breathe out this rage, slow my fight response, and get ready to face the day. last night on my way home i was plagued with fantasies about how to deal with mr smear's bully and his parents, some of which involved things that would most certainly get me imprisoned. eventually, i settled on composing a farewell to the class parents and publishing it as an open letter, which i guess is becoming a thing for me, but after gd and i just talked about i think the best way forward is to post it privately to the parents' group, give it to the school team, and then if any of them decides to share it then the blowout will be on them, not us.

there were things in the letter that i put together that gd hadn't even realized was going on, and she's been angry enough without those details.

i'm torn between rage at the situation, at the bully parents, and the bullies, and a deep pride in my son and how he's been handling all this. and gratitude and admiration for his friend, who has been no less than an angel in disguise.

...

tuesday:

the past couple of days have been intense, and it's been difficult to Get Stuff Done. tuesday was all about managing gd's anxiety before her dental appointment, which ultimately turned out to be a planning session for the series of upcoming treatments. honestly, the receptionist explained the plan to me no less than three times, and even wrote down a summary in illegible handwriting, and i still haven't a clue what's going on. what i do know is that we were able to separate the costs into two phases, and each phase can be made in installments, so it's an enormous cost but we can get through it.

after the dentist, we went to hummus ashkara and "opened a table". it was a really good experience.

yesterday:

tuesday and yesterday's workdays were hard. and long. and full of discomfort. my manager and i had a talk, and while he understood the concern i raised about our team culture (a couple of us had had a pretty serious disagreement on sunday evening, things were mostly respectful but still uncomfortable), he made a good point that in some things i need to remember: "when in rome..."

then yesterday, one of the "big boys" in the team announced that he's leaving, hot on the heels of the other one, apparently because he disliked the bosses' choice of manager promotion. what's really got me gobsmacked is that he doesn't have anywhere to go, no specific plans, he just decided he was done and that's it. during a time when the hi-tech job market is a complete shit-show.

the man's got balls, i'll give him that. and the loss of the two of them is definitely going to hurt.

...

after a nice dinner completing the second men in black film and getting mr smear into bed, i sat down and churned out the letter. then i played some crying suns until my eyes started to shut, and then i read a few paragraphs of count zero before turning in for the night.

today so far:

i guess - i'm afraid to type it - i've been sleeping relatively well lately, when i've been able to. we had a pretty good morning, but after dropping mr smear off at school and getting home i read the letter to gd and that's what set off all the feelings again. but the letter's done, and i've posted this now, so i'm feeling calmer and i'm ready to do a mold sweep and airconditioner clean and then head back to the office.

...

my mom's in the hospital already, i really hope her day goes smoothly.

eating (us up inside)

 yesterday:

after a night filled with anxiety and running through conversations and arguments in my head - i had to get up on multiple occasions to just try and calm the storm, but for the most part i couldn't sleep no matter how exhausted i was - i woke up yesterday morning and immediately got to work contacting his homeroom teacher and their "integration teacher" (whatever that title means).

i ended up writing a small wall of text during the day, both to the "integration teacher" and mr smear's therapist, because they didn't have time to actually talk, and i think i conveyed pretty much everything. i have a meeting scheduled with his homeroom teacher this afternoon, hopefully it'll be constructive.

at the same time, i spent a fair amount of time yesterday trying to arrange for someone to pick up our old washing machine, but it ultimately turned out to be too complicated. there really needs to be a service for this sort of thing.

work itself was a long day trying to understand the mysterious failures we saw on thursday, but which have presented themselves entirely differently. it's been driving us all nuts.

...

ultimately, when i got home and interrogated mr smear i learned that he'd had himself a pretty good day. that was a huge relief. and i believe it's in large part due to the idea of him working to get out of the school, and the conversations we've been having in which we've made it abundantly clear that we understand what he's going through and that we're on his side.

...

last night we finished re-watching spider-man: no way home, and we disconnected and wiped down the washing machine. i expect this morning is going to be complicated, i'm relieved that it's a monday and that i'm working from home for it.

...

in other anxiety news, gd's been diving down a despair spiral worrying about tomorrow's dental work. it's really hard to confront someone else's demons and *feel* supportive and not confrontational at the same time. i've made it clear that with all her hypnotherapy training, i expect her to *immediately* prioritize either finding a way to treat herself, or finding a therapist, to deal specifically with a stress response issue she's been suffering from since childhood that really messes with her - it's a big part of the reason she's been struggling to eat for the last couple of weeks and it's really scary.

...

speaking of unintentional weight loss, i'm still struggling with intentional weight loss, along with accumulated financial losses. it doesn't help that our friday evening plans were cancelled last-minute leading to us eating an expensive meal in a restaurant right after we just dropped a couple of thousands shekels on a new washer/dryer and before a day of car rental, and that left our freezer with three tubs of delicious vegan ice-cream in it. it doesn't help that mr smear left saturday's birthday party early after we bought two large bags of marshmallows and two slabs of dark chocolate,

we're being as careful as we can be to ration these desserts. as careful as we can be.

the rollercoaster intensified

 thursday:

thursday started off well, and i'm pleased to say that mr smear received another glowing report in the afternoon about how well he behaved!

confirmed: it's not that he can't cooperate and get the job done. it's that he lacks the proper motivation. you don't need to medicate a child and potentially handicap them into order to get them to comply. speaking of which, i think chatgpt was lying to me when it said it would process the PDF i uploaded and get back to me, but in the meanwhile, i got it to translate chapter by chapter and compiled it myself.

so i just checked in with the PDF production:

omg, chatgpt is even worse than a real human! 🤣

work was alright, it was harder to implement my boss's feedback than i'd anticipated but i'd made good headway by the time i left. along the way, we had a frontend emergency in production and it was really nice to be able to figure it out and fix it quickly.

i was disappointed to learn that the art school we want to enroll mr smear in is in such high demand that it works on a lottery system, so even if he does everything perfectly he might still not be able to get in...

yesterday:

waking up to news of the pogrom in amsterdam. and the horrific online shit-show that followed. of course the jihadists can justify it. of course. of course the police didn't intervene. of course.

our enemies have always liked to compare us to vermin. we're the one "protected group" that the woke don't care to protect.

just a head's up though: when us "rats" start fleeing, it means your ship is sinking.

gd's been taking things really, really hard.

otherwise, it was a quiet day, continuously punctuated by that anxiety.

i woke up from the following dream: i left my bag on a train after a post-lecture lecture in which everyone around me couldn't see me, only gd in a swimsuit instead.

panicked about losing my computer, i tried to understand what to do while whoever had it easily unlocked it and was messing with my company. i got a call from a threatening encoded voice but it didn't say anything helpful, i called my boss, and he told me he'd been receiving the same calls. 

i tried to brush my teeth in an outside sink but this homeless-looking mime wanted toothpaste. he did something weird with the toothpaste and i got angry with him, as in a almost clocked him, and gd got between us to stop me from getting into trouble.

all of a sudden he stopped his performance and took me to show me that he'd somehow managed to retrieve my computer. i helplessly and humbly expressed my gratitude, and asked him, incredulously, "how?!"

he took me to a secret spot on the hill about the square, dug up and opened a container, introducing me to a giant flea that he appeared to regard as a pet.

we had some drama when picking up mr smear from school because we thought he'd lost his pencil case - that would be the second time in a few months, and it's a really expensive thing to replace - but it was a huge relief to discover that his teacher had found it and put it in his locker...

we did some cleaning in the afternoon. at some point, mr smear cut up a mango by himself for the very first time. also, i soaked some dried pineapple (unsweetend) in lemon juice and it was a surprisingly good experience.

sailor came over for dinner. it was an enjoyable evening, we ate too much and it was great, and we even had coffee afterwards, in part because i didn't want to fall asleep too early, again.

but i totally fell asleep too early, again. not even the caffeine could stop it.

today so far:

we all slept in this morning, and it's a beautiful, beautiful day so far. mr smear's still snotty and coughing, i think we're going to take it pretty easy on ourselves after such an insane week.

more rollercoaster

 i think i slept well last night. i'm already beginning to nod off now, but i wanna post this and drink a cup of chamomile before hitting the hay.

...

the US election took up the majority of my brain-space this morning:

omg i never thought i'd feel so relieved to hear a US election result, and especially to see trump returning to the white house. america, you and the free world just dodged, not a bullet, but an RPG.

i expect all the UN ambassadors from their anti-west totalitarian regimes must be feeling deeply disappointed right now. i don't know how much trump will get done over the next four years, but at least this gives us a window to take down the ayatollahs and make peace in the middle east an actual possibility.

assuming *we* don't manage to screw this up, of course. best of luck to us all 🫡

i was a little distracted still by the election noise when i got to work, but i managed to find my groove. a couple of new companies have moved in to our floor, so it's much brighter and more welcoming.

...

everything was fine until lunch. on my way to joining my coworkers, i received a call from mr smear's class assistant - he was having a very scary asthma attack, and he'd apparently told her he didn't have his pump. in retrospect, i think he misunderstood the questions, but i told her it was in his bag and immediately alerted gd that she'd need to hurry to the school.

then another panicked call - she couldn't figure out which pump to use.

so i called gd, also panicking, and she told me, and i called back and told her. also, i told her it should take a few minutes to work.

more panic, because it didn't working. at this point i was sitting at the table, staring into the distance, praying for my son and thinking about a guy a couple of years ahead of me in school, one of my youth movement councillors, who just suddenly died in his sleep one night from an asthma attack.

fortunately, i got a call soon afterwards informing me that it did seem to be working, and that his coughing fit was calming down, and he was able to breathe between coughs.

holy shit, that was terrifying. truly terrifying.

...

i was still unsettled an hour later, when i went to go and make myself a cup of turkish coffee. i poured the boiling water into the glass, and heard a *crack*. some of the coffee was seeping onto the counter. nystire has a thing about cups cracking due to temperature differences, so, relieved that it hadn't been worse, i took a step back and pulled out my phone to take a photo for him

just as i did that, the glass exploded. i was fortunately just out of range, so aside from the shock i only had to worry about cleaning up the mess (how did the coffee get under the counter ledge??), find a safe way to dispose of all the shards, and then making myself a much safer mug of instant coffee.

...

i was - understandably, i think - restless for the remainder of the work day. at least i feel like i got a couple of important things done.

at some point in the afternoon i received another report from mr smear's teacher: apparently, he's understood the mission. today was a really good day for him, asthma attack notwithstanding, and he was cooperative and worked well!

i did some quick shopping on the way home, mainly for toilet paper but gd's really scared about her other fragile tooth cracking so i picked her up some soya yoghurts and desserts. puddings. or, in our family's parlance, pudignes.

anyhoo, i came home, hugged my son tightly (to his chagrine, he was playing minecraft online), and overall the evening went smoothly. and gd made her delicious new cottage pie recipe (mushrooms and leaks and beans), and we watched some x-men, and then it was bedtime for mr smear.

i, on the other hand, spent the last couple of hours doing another run of kaycee's mod, and then working on using notebooklm and chatgpt to produce a useful summary booklet for anatomy of an epidemic and translate it into hebrew. i don't understand why the translation of the 12 pages would take hours, but that's what i was told so i'm hanging in. i also discovered that you can (now) prompt notebooklm when generating an audio discussion, and that's really powerful!

dum, dum dum dum, dum dum dum...

 i gave clickolding a try, and it crashed every time it hit dialog, so i uninstalled it and requested a refund. i was pleased to see that i'd received the refund before i went to bed.

today:

mr smear had pancakes for breakfast, so that he wouldn't have to eat walnuts.

i took him to school, then continued on to our pharmacy to pick up a couple of prescriptions. the pharmacy was completely empty, and there was no one ahead of me in the queue, so i only had to wait for ten minutes. they had one of the items i was looking for, but not the other.

i walked down to the mall pharmacy, where i waited another ten minutes or so (thankfully, i had my "kindle" with me for both waits), and picked up that prescription, although the pharmacist was concerned that the doc had prescribed it differently to what she's used to. that caused stress, but when i looked it up when i got home i discovered that there's a range of "configurations".

the work day started off pretty relaxed, and i was saying to a coworker that it's the first time in many years that i've been back from a ny sort of vacation for an entire week and i'm still feeling relaxed! at noon we all went off for a farewell feast at a nearby restaurant. sadly, i burned off some of my tastebuds on the delicious onion soup, but the pad thai was still exquisite.

i ate far too much.

the next few hours were hellish, because my tummy had decided it was time to move and it was relentless. in addition to that, gd and mr smear and i had a few dramatic phone calls because he'd had an incident at school, and it wasn't clear if he'd kicked the other kid back or not. i was relieved to hear that he had.

we also learned that some of the kids employ a nasty tactic of hitting mr smear and then claiming that they've just consumed dairy, and we've explained to him that aside from that not being likely, it's also not a big enough concern for him to not defend himself :/

eventually that calmed down, and i finished the week on a constructive note.

after dinner, mr smear wanted to show me something on the keyboard, and he did it really well. then i reminded him that we'd discussed him trying to figure out the tetris music on his own, and - holy shit - he got it! i can't describe how excited i am, and he was excited himself, that he figured out how to play the tune by ear and by feel ^_^

i was disappointed - and embarassed - to discover that the keyboard we bought can't connect to a computer. i'm going to speak to the store tomorrow and see if we can arrange a trade or something...

after we got him into bed, i had a quick chat with my sister, mostly about her status between jobs.

i've spent the past couple of hours doing lots of not much, and i'm considering heading to bed now and reading a bit. i'll be surprised if i last more than a minute or two :P

back to school

yesterday:

mr smear's first day back at school (albeit fridays' "school lite")

a shopping mission gone wrong (gd panicking, and then feeling bad for not checking in with me before paying)

picking up mr smear and continuing on to a shoe-shopping mission down dizengoff just as the dust storm started.

trying out the 3D movie with the PSVR and being blown away, and ordering a bunch of 3D glasses on ali express.

another not-great experience getting mr smear to do his homework, but gd sitting with him and coaching him and getting through it.

replaying celeste all the way to where i gotten before. that game is hardcore!

sailor coming over for dinner with a lot more dietary restrictions than we were antipating, but gd managed to rustle something up and we had a great evening anyway. mr smear suddenly developing a pretty hectic cough.

today:

waking up to learn about our attacks on iran, and feeling disappointed that we've left the ball in their court again.

a VR start to the day, with a very enthusiastic mr smear. afterwards, i discovered a way to watch downloaded 3D movies using rad tv and the result was awesome!

spending most of the day reading articles and playing crying suns, with my family reading behind me - i think gd's just finished the wave, and mr smear's deep into the bone comics collection.

we had the usual fight about going out in the evening, but gd and i managed to get through to him eventually and we took the basketball to the high school courts with adult-height hoops. he didn't shoot a lot, but he got the ball in quite a few times and we were both very excited ^_^

then i had a turn, and i didn't do so well but i definitely got exercise. i didn't do so badly, either, but mr smear wasn't watching and decided that, absense any evidence to the contrary, that physics was against me and that i hadn't succeeded at all :P

overall, the outing was good and the evening went well. we started watching men in black over dinner, and after putting mr smear to bed gd finally watched the rest of demolition man while i passed out on the couch beside her. i woke up a couple of hours ago, groggy and sore, and have finally gotten up from either trying to stretch or doom-scrolling to make myself a cup of tea, post this, and play something before heading to bed.

i'm disappointed that my vacation's over, because i could definitely use a couple more weeks off, but i think it's been good for me. if nothing else, i've had less pressure and less juggling and that's made the world seem less overwhelming. and i think i've done a good job of not stressing about not Doing All The Things, while still doing a whole bunch of things.

out of office

 yesterday:

starting the day at the mental health clinic, for an appointment which took most of the last year to arrange. heaven forbid that should be drama free - mr smear and i were waiting outside when we heard lots of shouting, and it turned out that the psychologist, who's supposed to be dealing with people with psychological issues, greeted gd both rudely and aggressively.

WTAF?!

so gd was upset, the "doctor" was behaving like gd had done something wrong, and i had to jump in to the rescue... fortunately, the manager made every effort to fix things and, miraculously, an english-speaking shrink with a good attitude and a free slot arrived and the morning (and months of waiting) weren't lost. mr smear and i parked ourselves outside, reading and chatting, and gd was able to use her time and we're one step further down the road.

...

a surprisingly productive day at work in spite of the fact that i did *not* want to do any work. also, i was still in a mind-blown state from the vr experiences from the previous evening. i did have an argument with a coworker in the afternoon, and i was honestly really irritated by him not seeing things my way, but eventually i was able to put my finger on why each of us felt the way we did and realized that he was, ultimately, in the right.

it was a huge relief to leave the office, and (on-call notwithstanding) switch off for the next ten days.

i don't remember whether we tried to watch anything last night.

today:

i slept a bit better last night, but that's off a really low bar.

today was a big day, we set out to buy mr smear a proper synthesizer and we achieved our goal! we also tried to pick up some vr games along the way, but nobody seems to be interested in stocking them. we also looked at some books, then decided to get the entire bone collection on kindle instead.

the afternoon was spent playing with the new toy, and trying to watch a 3D movie on the psvr. that proved way more complicated than i was hoping... no success yet :/

mr smear played a vr space simulator that made me queasy, which led to a shitty mood, but eventually i got over it. kiddush for sukkot with my mom (virtually), followed by a nice dinner, interrupted by a hilariously crazy call from my sister who got herself into a particularly dramatic situation with multiple job applications and in addition to being entertained, i was actually able to give her some useful advice.

i hope she takes it :P

we put mr smear to bed, and i mindlessly/compulsively played did an idle run through kaycee's mod (only the final challenge enabled), and now it's anyone's guess what's next for the evening.

...

i've been doing holidays wrong, so i don't know how this one is going to turn out. my first priority is to rest my mind, kind of. and spend some quality time with my family. my second is to make some progress on the side project that i discussed with dod. my third is to try to arrange some test prints for my comics.

anything else is bonus.

back to front

 yesterday was a bit shit, i'm really hating working with pure frontend and for the entire sprint every time i've resolved an issue another one has sprung up. i haven't been this unhappy with not-exactly-coding since i quit my job with mmf at the end of 2011.

anyway, it's not my usual job. and i had a conversation with my manager wherein i explained that i understand frontend dev enough to know how much i don't understand, and that while everything the contractor did makes sense within the confines of his employment the solution wasn't built in a way that inexperienced frontenders like ourselves would be able to make massive changes to its scope. none of us are really qualified to work on this, nor interested in it, and we're burning money and demoralizing ourselves. if we really feel like this is something we should be investing in, then we need to hire a frontend dev. if not, then we shouldn't be offering to build this stuff for our clients when it's far outside our competence.

in the middle of the day i left the office to pick up mr smear and taking him to his therapy session. while he was occupied, i tried to find a place with coffee that i could get some work done. the aroma's bathroom was unusable, and then i witnessed one of the kitchen staff walk out without washing his hands, so i noped on out of there. the next place didn't sell coffee, then the next place did have a place to sit and the employees were smoking right at the entrance. the next place, cafe taizu, doesn't sell coffee, and i finally landed on maafiyat lechamim. the atmosphere was cool, but the service was really shit and the coffee mediocre at best.

i'd spent so much time looking for a place that i got about five or ten minutes of "work" done before i had to get up and leave to pick up mr smear. i didn't really get anything of value done.

...

our financial situation's better, but not good, and i was really hoping to be able to put down the money for a proper keyboard for mr smear this month. and now i've been looking at vr video games and equipment as well. and gd wants a clothes dryer. fuck.

...

mr smear was only too happy to continue watching the original x-men series, but that's because he's seen the trailer for x-men 97 and he's really excited to see that... aaaaand i just realized we still have two more seasons we haven't watched, and everyone's groaning :(

...

i just went on-call ten minutes ago. hopefully it'll be a quiet day.

down

 i'm tired. i'm still feeling shite, and there's a definite edge of depression slicing into everything. i slept on the couch for most of last night, mainly because i was too tired to get up until around 4am, and then i spent a couple of hours flooding my brain with war and politics.

i was tired today. i took mr smear to school, then stopped at home to pick up gd and my bag and we went to the therapist. it was a pretty good meeting, i think? then gd and i got breakfast at the azrieli food court before i headed to work and she took a taxi home because her legs are hurting again. on the way pissing off an oversized dog owner who was dragging his little greyhound behind him on his scooter with the leash around his neck.

fucker.

i was alone in my room at the office today, and i spent the day squaring off with the particularly ugly frontend jobby i've been landed with. the more progress i make, the more i understand where i should have started - too late :/

my mother was informed today that one of her contracts won't be renewed, so she's stressing about that :(

mr smear had a couple of rough moments today, so when i got home we sat down and talked - gd's right, though, we definitely talked for too long, but i feel like he got most of it.

i'm really struggling to stay awake so that i can sleep, but i'm completely uninterested in anything. i've just picked up a copy of gibson's count zero, hopefully that'll help.

the longest year

 in six and a half hours, it will have been one full year since the beginning of the october 7th attacks. it's hard to believe that it's been a year, that we still don't have our hostages back, that we've accomplished amazing things but suffered painful losses, that there are large numbers of people around the world calling for our destruction, and that includes pro-palestinian jews who have absolutely no understanding of the forces they're aligning with.

it's all insane.

...

this morning was alright. mr smear informed gd and me that in retrospect, pantheon isn't appropriate for him. after his initial enthusiasm died down, he found it disturbing. fair enough.

i sorted out some financial stuff - hopefully this month will be more stable, but who knows? - and then realized i couldn't find an important medical document of gd's. i walked to work past the hospital, where i got them to print it out and discovered that the previous receptionist i'd dealt with had entered something completely wrong (and seemingly incoherent) as gd's email address...

the work day was alright. i didn't feel like it, but it was productive nonetheless. i might have eaten too much - i finished off what remained of gd's challah, and that was most of it - and my biggest frustration of the day was that there wasn't any non-barista non-dairy milk alternative for me. so it wasn't a bad day.

i had a good chat with vfmp on my way home, and a short but meaningful talk with mr smear about the current war situation and what tomorrow means for us. the rest of the evening was pretty chilled, and my biggest issue right now is kinda the same as it's been for a few nights: i think i might be depressed, because i'm tired, but i can't sleep, and i don't feel like doing or watching anything.

i guess i'm just going to try stuff (like shadowrun) and see what i can do to run out the clock and go to bed as late as is reasonable.

overload

it's past 1am, and i'm just slowing down from high-frequency vibrations, most likely caused by a couple of hours in the bloodlines mission that was ridiculously intense for the entirety of the run.

at one point i switched to my browser and read about the mission on the shadowrun wiki, and it became quite apparent that as invested as i am, and as successful as i've been so far, i'm really not particularly good at this game.

meanwhile, i've become convinced that a shadowrun: dragonfall tv series would be epic.

...

i had a hard time getting up this morning. mr smear wanted me to keep my distance on the way to school so that he could prove (to himself) that he can handle the roads, but on the way out the building he started a conversation about roblox that clearly took priority. roblox - to my mind - is much like oasis in ready player one - and the scale and range of games available is simply mind-boggling.

roblox might just be the future. i feel confident that there's a way to make roblox games in which players do real work for real pay.

i came home, and gd and i wrote rosh hashana cards for mr smear's teacher, their class aide (who used to follow him around to make sure he didn't come into contact with dairy), and for him. i was super awkward about writing them, because i'm always super awkward about writing cards or birthday messages or dedications.

it used to be that when i got embarrassed, my face would flush and heat up, but as i've gotten older, my flush has moved down to my armpits. it makes awkward things even more awkward, but at least it generates endless amusement for my wife :P

work went pretty well today. we toasted the new year with a plate of dried fruit and really nice baklawa. i had lunch with the CEO, who jumped both times my phone went off and so i changed the ringtone from the x-men theme back to a soothing track from rayman: legends. the afternoon was super productive.

...

midway through the afternoon i had to rush off to the paediatrician to get a referral for an "attention examination". after expressing relief when i assured her that we wouldn't be medicating mr smear regardless of the result, the paediatrician had quite a story to tell - when she made aliyah, they tried to force her to put her kid on ritalin and she ended up going into debt in order to fight the authorities in court.

what was particularly tragic about that story, is that she did what she could to protect her son, but still wonders if she did the right thing. i explained to her that, having read robert whitaker's anatomy of an epidemic, unless her son struggled through life and wasn't able to succeed in anything, then 100% she made the right call.

she definitely made the right call. on my way out i called gd, and when she expressed concern (again) that doing the test would enable the authorities to force us to medicate our boy, i explained that under no circumstances would i ever let that happen. and beyond that, i believe that taking anyone who tries to court, and making the case public, would be an exquisitely constructive way to take a stand against a system that promotes drugging kids instead of adapting teaching practices.

...

in retrospect, it would have made more sense to go straight home afterwards, but i returned to the office, completed the task i've been working on and geared up for an argument with my boss, to convince him that it made sense to change an API that we have that's really poorly designed.

the boss is being moved sideways (we're not quite sure what that means yet), so he delegated to my coworker... i mean, i guess he's now my boss? i'll start referring to him as my manager. so he delegated to my manager, who heard me out and then immediately responded with "do it".

that was easy.

i left the office on that note, walked home, spent half an hour kind of helping mr smear with his prep for tomorrow morning's math test, and then signed on to a zoom call about sailor's idea. sailor was fifteen minutes late, and the tension that generated was palpable.

we love him, but he really has no respect for other people's time and he has no idea how much it hurts his relationships, personal and professional. i feel like i need to say something, and not in a friendly hinty sort of way.

i left the call feeling like my brain was melting, just in time to wish mr smear a good night.

now, four and a half hours later, it's time to say good night to the rest of the world.

beep beep two

oh, wow! yesterday i forgot to mention something amazing - they've finally assigned a new therapist to mr smear, and we're meeting her early next week. this is a huge relief!

...

i went to bed late again, i did play some shadowrun but i also - finally! - managed to get my website working properly again. i learned some stuff.

getting up this morning was rough, but it was a pretty smooth morning. the scale reported 80kg for the second day in a row.

i took mr smear to school, and on the way back called dod and synced - he's had a hollywood-esque kafka-esque year or two, and when he started telling me some of the details that's he's uncovered recently it's looking like someone in the industry has somehow had him blackballed, and all he has to go on are suspicions and an investigation by a recruiter he knows.

wtaf.

anyway, as awful as his situation is, the combination of it with what i learned over the weekend means that he's in the perfect position to help me make one of my side projects profitable, and quickly, and if we can get that right we'll both be in a better place.

i rollerbladed to work, which was fine although my neck's been giving me trouble the past couple of days - i think it's got to do with the weight of my backpack and a bad strap configuration :/

the workday was good. three highlights:

1. there was generally a really good vibe in the office, it was fun.

2. we had an insane experience when i found a dead lizard on its back next to my desk. we then - as a team - spent the following five or ten minutes fighting over whether it was a real lizard or not. the poor lizard's corpse (i'm convinced it's real) suffered abuse at the hands of a coworker convinced that it wasn't real, and then ended up in an absent coworker's empty mug. the whole thing was just ridiculous.

3. after a lot of time spent troubleshooting my github user not being able to see a repository i definitely had permissions for, one of my coworker's suggested chatgpt. the first couple of suggestions weren't helpful, but the third? i'd never have considered it, and it saved the day!

here i'll note that there was a second attack on hezbollah this afternoon, in some ways even more robust than yesterday's. this is amazing.

it was darker than i would've liked by the time i left the office, but the rollerblade home was pleasant. the evening went well, although i literally started falling asleep while reading to mr smear and the sentences i was reading were blending with dream images...

the past couple of hours have been a blend of talking to my mom, watching random things, taking care of admin stuff, playing some inscryption, and reviewing my podcast feeds. i'm starting to feel like maybe i should skip doing anything further and just go to bed.

the false sense of security

 yesterday morning (it's the middle of the night already) was a bit less restful than i expected. after a solid week of mr smear playing ball in the mornings, he regressed, and then gd got upset, and then i rolled in to back her up and the whole situation got entirely out of hand.

so that was a shit start to the week.

...

unrelated, i'm about a kilo up, although apparently 1 or 2kgs is a standard fluctuation? it's a little discouraging.

...

so anyway, i left for work on a sour note. on the way, i stopped by the mental health clinic to inquire - literally - if we'd done something to offend them because it's been four months with no continuation or contact. the receptionist very kindly informed me that the guy who was going to take over left just when the handover was supposed to take place, and they've been unable to find a replacement :/

work was a bit awkward. the first task of the day turned out to be more complicated than my boss was happy with, and then we got hit with a complication on top of that - the customer documentation service we're using is poorly designed and very broken. at least i managed to document some workarounds for my teammates before my tasks got reprioritized.

the second task is a big one, and it took some digging and some assistance before it was clear what's actually expected of me, but i'm pretty sure i have a handle on it now. it was just as i decided that, that i discovered - by happy accident - a bug in our new release, and i caught it just in time for us not to have to re-release with a patch.

it turns out, using javascript's array flat() method inside a push() method with a spread operator can lead to call stack size being exceeded on large arrays... (so we used concat instead)

that wasn't fun to debug.

i walked home, buzzing somewhat. i strongly suspect that the two decaf coffees were to blame, but i prefer drinking those to too much chamomile tea. too much chamomile tea is boring.

i was listening to some really solid psytrance on the walk home, and between that and the buzzing i was literally bouncing for the last stretch, and as much as i was enjoying it i was also trying to keep it low-key but i did notice random strangers staring...

mr smear apparently had a decent day at school, and he'd been good throughout the afternoon. we had a quick chat when i got home that wasn't unpleasant, and the evening and bedtime went pretty smoothly. 

although i did eat more dinner than i should have, but i guess it was better than eating more dessert than i should have :P

...

after reading to mr smear, i watched some random videos on youtube and then went to bed pretty early, feeling stuffy and praying not to be sick. [sneezes - i really hope i'm not getting sick]

...

and then woke up around midnight, lay in bed restless for a while and then got up to stretch. inspired by a really shit playthrough video of inscryption, i continued my previous run in kaycee's mod - i've been trying to play the hydra deck, and i've been trying to do it without save scumming (although without any additional challenges set, either).

the hydra wasn't the most impressive card in my deck, but i'm really pleased to have finally done it! i think i can now say i've achieved everything i could want to out of the game ^_^

in the middle of the night

 it's 4am. i've spent half the night tossing and turning, mostly responding to a message from a friend about whether or not canada is dangerous for jews. i don't know how dangerous it is right now if you don't openly identify, but i do know that gd and i both know people who've gone off the rails on pro-hamas / antisemitic propaganda, we have friends and family who either don't feel it's safe, or have cut off communication. did we make the right decision to stay? we didn't really have many options. financially, we definitely wouldn't have managed... 

also, i've been physically uncomfortable and restless. so i got up a while ago, and have been doomscrolling social media.

now i've responded to that message, and am left just feeling sleepless and sad.

*sigh*

back to front

 yeah, it wasn't a great night's sleep, but it was definitely an improvement. so that's good.

i started the day with a walk to the hospital, after discovering that gd and i had completely missed her appointment we waited months to be able to make. by months. the appointment was mid-may.

mid-may.

goddamn.

anyway, i managed to secure one for only a couple of weeks' time, and i managed to sort out some more stuff at the clinic along the way home.

...

mr smear's drawing is incredible. he drew a knight on a horse, waving a flag, in motion, yesterday, and today he doodled (on a computer with a mouse) detailed images of among us characters that completely blew us away.

...

i spent most of my work day involved in frontend fuckery. i've managed to get the results i wanted, under very particular circumstances, and the underlying code is ugly and i have no idea what it's actually doing.

it's kinda embarrassing.

i went over all the extracurricular activities the school is offering, misread how much it would cost, got both gd and mr smear excited about them, and then realized we couldn't afford it. i'm struggling to wrap my head around how the arts and music programmes cost between the same amounts as the school fees and double the school fees, and that's on top of the school fees.

where are the other parents getting all this money?

anyway, gd took mr smear to his hebrew tutor, and i took him to his jiujitsu class. for the most part, his day went well and mine was pretty successful. and gd's doing well enough emotionally that she's actually been able to read for the first time in ages. so that's good.

it was fun chatting with a cousin my mom was visiting while putting mr smear to bed. afterwards, we continued reading the goblet of fire but i had to stop because the book's version of events at the quidditch world cup were far too much like what's actually happening with us and hamas/hezbollah.

holy shit.

compulsions

 i'm really not sleeping well. friday night was a bit better, but still rough, and last night was pretty horrible. i did have some really weird dreams, though, when i finally did pass out a few hours ago. in one of them i was being harrassed by an "undercover" black man when i saw his red-haired manager plant something in his bag. that ended with me physically attacking the manager, but although i was beating him up we had that weird dream-thing going on where my attacks were doing a lot less damage than they would have in real life.

there was another dream, too, but the moment i described the first one that one melted away... something about a sandwich named "jamothy" and a vegan tuna wrap named "vuna vovegood".

yesterday was all over the place. firstly, i got up with a bee in my bonnet about obtaining the missing inscryption achievements (666 damage and deleting the captive file). that didn't take very long (thank god i tried the stim mage tactic, because the ouroboros one was extremely tedious), but even after obtaining them i continued playing through the end of the game again because i was enjoying the deck i built.

the afternoon was mostly spent relaxing and napping.

i had a talk with my mother about our argument the other day, i hope what i said landed.

in the evening, mr smear and i walked to the climbing wall. the walk there was nice in itself, but there were a lot more kids than usual so mr smear had to queue to get on walls, and by the third one he got emotional. i tried to talk to him after he calmed down a little, but he said some really hurtful things and i needed to walk them off.

we met outside, and started on our way back, and i was trying to find a way to tell him how he made me feel without making him feel the same. it looks like i succeeded, but that opened up a proper fight over him going to the summer school and after school programmes, and i sat him down on a bench and talked (okay, there was some yelling) him through what we, as his parents, saw and went through.

suddenly, the look on his face changed and he apologized for what he'd said, and we both took some breaths and had a very grown-up conversation about it all. that continued into the walk home, and the rest of the evening went well.

this morning was going well until he thought i was teasing him about his accent (i wasn't), and we had a whole different shit-show. eventually resolved, but not without me stress-sweating. and it turns out the new anti-persperant that gd insisted on me buying doesn't work well for me, and she subsequently insisted on me getting rid of it :/

...

anyway, i've just arrived at work and am about to begin my day. everyone's nervous because we stopped a massive missile attack aimed at tel aviv, and i just cannot figure out why we're supposed to be more worried today than yesterday, before we stopped it. or the past two weeks, when they've been threatening it. or the past eleven months, when they've been attacking us non-stop.

if it was up to me, i would've dropped flyers on quatar and tehran weeks ago, waited a few days, and then bombed the shit out of them.

the feelings

tuesday:

my boss didn't like my approach. we argued about it for a bit, after which he decided to put the work on hold while he thought about it. it's frustrating, but the fact that i've seen that one of my coworkers is working on fixing an underlying issue, the discovery of which was through my efforts and which i've been saying needs to be taken care of, is at least a little comforting.

our new sprint began, and almost all of my work is frontend. i'm strangely okay with that.

on tuesday evening i took mr smear with me when i went to the school to pick up his books for the next year. the summer holidays are almost over...

after putting him to bed, gd told me she'd been feeling really sad. i didn't know what to do with that information.

yesterday:

yesterday morning was going alright until gd said something that triggered a fight, a fight about how she's been dealing (or not dealing) with the past 11 months of war and trauma, but really a fight about how and when she communicates (or doesn't) with me about it.

so the day started off really shitty for both of us, but by the time i got to my office building i'd managed to transform my anger into something more constructive and we both found ourselves in a better place.

the work day was alright, which was a big deal considering how not alright it's been for week or two prior. everything was okay, everything was put on the table during the retrospective and the vibe was less tense in general.

when i got home, gd and i had a talk. a lot of the time, i say things and she says things and we talk past each other, but last night we not only heard each other, but i managed to put things to her in a way that she clearly heard, and not only did she immediately feel better about things but she's been doing a lot better over the course of today.

and even that is more than either of us expected.

i passed out on the couch immediately after putting mr smear to bed. nothing knocks me out faster than reading to him.

today:

around midnight, i was able to drag myself off the couch and get into bed. doing that, however, woke me up just enough to be too conscious of the stiffness around my hips to be able to get back to sleep, but i was also too tired to get up. even for a little bit. that went on for a few hours, and although i occasionally had the strength to get up and move around it would wear out within minutes and i'd need to lie down and suffer again.

i don't know how long it was before i finally fell asleep, but i'm guessing three of four hours of that.

my alarm clock woke me up at 7am, and i rushed everyone else up, grabbed a cup of coffee in a takeaway cup and walked to the post office. i arrived there just past eight, picked up gd's shoes, then walked back. it was hot, and i was pretty sweaty by the time i got home.

i didn't even take my shoes off, just gulped down a cup of water in the entrance and then we all went to the bus stop with gd's sewing machine to head down to the sewing machine repair shop. it was a long ride, with some very... interesting... people, and gd regretfully informed me that i need to start wearing deodorant 💀

we arrived at the shop just after 9am, and we were out of there in about ten minutes. i took a bus to work and they took a bus home.

the work day was - socially - good. all good. the work itself was difficult, parts of it quite unpleasant, really, and it was really hard to focus on it. but i eventually got it 98% completed, and my boss agrees that if i can't finish it within the first couple of hours on sunday then it'll be good enough as is.

i had a long chat with our cape town community director, and it was a huge relief to hear that by and large they've shifted (ideologically) to a stronger (and right) position vis-a-vis the war and zionism. gd still has reservations, but i'm glad that they didn't cater to the pro-palestinian nonsense.

i ate too much cake during our happy hour.

on the way home, i contacted urchin who informed me that she's finally signed a contract with a new employer! we're really excited for her, she's been miserable for ages and the new gig (on paper, at least) sounds way better in every respect :)

the evening was mostly good, although we had to stop watching harry potter during the scene in which bellatrix interrogates hermione because gd couldn't handle it. our national PTSD with the hostage situation is very real.

before and after putting mr smear to bed, my mother and i had a really heavy argument about her and aliyah and a lot of it was really unpleasant. at the very end, i feel like she at least heard me, but i don't know what good that'll do.

if she chooses to stay in south africa, or at least not prepare to make aliyah before the universe forces it on her, the most likely outcome is that we'll all be in big trouble. but she's a big girl and only she can make that call.

the snap

 this morning started alright, but went downhill fast from the moment i looked at our upcoming expenses. i know where they come from, and i know why they're necessary, and it doesn't help me breathe any easier.

i went past the hospital to start organizing insurance authorization for gd, and then past an office depot where i picked her up a small book of plastic sleeves.

the work day seemed to start off alright, but by lunchtime we had some drama about what my ticket is all about, and i struggled to communicate with my boss. the afternoon was a mixed bag of agreements and disagreements, and then in the evening my boss and i had a one-on-one which went... not badly, but not great either.

i think we covered all the things in a constructive way, but one thing that he said to me has really made me feel shit and i've been down in the dumps all evening: i said something to my coworker the other night that was taken completely the wrong way, and i can't fault him for taking it that way even though it's absolutely not what i intended.

fuck.

ironically, after all the arguments of the day, my boss finally sat down and looked at what i was doing, and finally understood what i'd been trying to explain to him.

*sigh*

anyway, it looks like my approach might work, but i have some big testing to do tomorrow.

i wallowed all the way home, had a not-unpleasant evening (or, at least, nothing further unpleasant happened), mr smear (who seems to have had a good day) is now in bed, most of the dishes are done, and i'm feeling utterly done for the day.

oh, and gd found her headphones this afternoon.

oh, and both gd and i need root canals and crowns, apparently, and we can't afford the dental work.

oh, and along with everything else we're in a really stressful situation regarding the war. or not-war. i feel like we missed an enormous opportunity to outright attack iran today, specifically because it was tisha b'av and they were threatening to attack us. i believe that strategically the worst thing we can do, and it's what we're doing, is listen to our allies telling us not to escalate. the west is making a big mistake, and every day we don't take them down is another day closer to doomsday.

...

gd's progressing really well with her sewing, at least. hopefully she'll be able to start selling stuff soon.

getting real-er

or, at least, it feels like it.

this is not an easy time.

this morning a motorcycle accelerated for a long time on the nearby highway, and mr smear yelled and jumped off the toilet in a panic. it's even harder seeing him affected...

today was an odd sort of a day, but also fairly standard too. gd and mr smear went to the pool that they discovered on an outing with my mom before she went back to south africa, and although gd's foot started hurting so badly they had to come back in a taxi, mr smear's swimming's getting stronger and he was having a great time.

my work day was pretty good. i had a good opportunity to apologize to my coworker in front of our boss, and i seized it, and i feel that smoothed things over. lunch was excellent - i had my usual salad, but i also ordered fries with the team so i could do the salt and vinegar thing (apparently one of my coworkers has been silently wondering for months what the heck i've been keeping in the plastic bottle on my desk).

i made progress on the big ticket i'm working on.

because of gd's foot, i had to take mr smear to mma today. all in all everything went well, both in getting there and back, and in the class itself. on the way home we went past the supermarket and i picked up a bunch of stuff, and for the first time mr smear actually helped me carry things home.

after watching some harry potter (we're on the sixth film), and reading some harry potter (we're on the fourth book), i settled in to complete a new medium article for the first time in a while, and in order to do so made the changes i described to our work repo (so... that was a personal-time contribution/favor). i'm very happy with the results.

war anxiety is stabilizing at extremely-high / wtaf-is-going-on-levels. life is feeling pretty surreal right now. we're making plans to go to the shuk tomorrow, but we're also waiting for the sirens to go off at any moment...

...

so, i've just completed challenge level 12 in kaycee's mod. with an AMAZING deck + totem. an infinite bee/ant generating machine. and i have to admit - i'd read about the final final boss, but there's an angle here (at the beginning of the run) that i really didn't anticipate and i'm not sure how to process it.

divine potential

why do i have the chorus to איש קש bouncing around my head?

i slept better last night, though not great, and took a much-needed easy morning. well, that's partially true. some of the morning was spent supporting gd with her war anxieties and trauma. i initially responded in a very unconstructive way, but i managed to get my head together pretty quickly and talk her through my perspective, and it seems to have helped. my perspective being that it's my job to do my job, and to keep abreast of what's happening, and hers to take care of herself and our son. the conversation ended on a very interesting spiritual note - she's been experiencing sporadic episodes of intense spirituality lately and i'm happy to accept and support anything that keeps her sane.

then i went to work, which turned out to be a very busy, but odd sort of day.

i needed to merge something which my coworker was certain would cause him trouble, and i was certain wouldn't. i merged it, and it messed his work up completely :(

i never fully trust git's merge strategy, but i've never seen it fail to abominably as it did today.

...

i came home in time for an early dinner with the family, and then at 8pm jumped onto a call with gco, sailor and gco's partner-in-crime that has the potential to be life-changing. the call went on for a couple of hours, and i feel like everyone dropped off with a greater sense of purpose.

now i've done the dishes, showered, and am trying to decide whether to try to go to bed, or let the buzzing in my head die down a bit first.