yesterday i stated that the paw patrol game was worth every penny... this morning made me change my mind. by the fifth hour mr smear had completed all the missions, been awarded most of the badges and was totally bored - i've never seen him bored by an expensive game before, it was very disappointing.
lego harry potter, on the other hand, is brilliant - we played together yesterday (he really doesn't *get* how to use arrow keys properly), i found the puzzles entertaining and challenging and he loved just wandering around randomly or watching me play.
gd's big discovery yesterday was that our cousin's amazing pumpkin pie isn't vegan. i think it's even more disappointing when it's an intelligent person who forgets that eggs don't grow in the ground...
shadowslight and i played thunderstone last night, just the two of us, and it was the first time i've ever played with traps. and i got hurt by them, big time. i made a few mistakes but overall i played well enough and had fun.
...
i have spent the vast majority of today setting up a project that allows me to locally test lambda functions using dynamodb, and i'm perpetually shocked that i haven't been able to find any guides or projects online to doing things as simply as what i've arranged. i'm *this close* to getting my sample function up and running (i ran into an IAM issue after sorting out all the other bits and pieces), and then my next step is to create a separate repo so that others can Do The Thing without the headache and hassle i've been stumped by for the past couple of weeks.
lekker vegan for dinner was a great idea. a hot bath was a great idea. the 2014 teenage mutant ninja turtles movie is becoming a family favourite.
what about bob? i found the characters so distastefully unfunny that after half an hour i had to call it quits.
Monday, May 25, 2020
Saturday, May 23, 2020
calm down
it's mid-saturday now, and to be honest i haven't really worked since wednesday. i went to bed so late on thursday night that i didn't take mr smear outside for his daily yard time, and my biggest achievement of the day was posting the gif i made.
not to suggest that i'm working now - it is the sabbath, after all. it's just that the past day has been a bit of a blur. is it because i'm only having a coffee a day? is it because my neck's been really sore and i'm not comfortable working anywhere in the apartment at this point? am i still slightly foggy from last week's procedure? i am feeling much better, at least.
the temple service last night was better than usual, and we enjoyed video-conference kiddush and dinner with some friends before settling in to a couple of episodes of gargoyles and bedtime. we're getting used to bedtime reading with my mom using caribu, they've got great books and the experience is... usable.
i passed out immediately after putting mr smear to bed, woke up a couple of hours later and decided to stay down. i definitely felt better for it this morning.
mr smear and i took a walk to grumpy & runt, picked up a couple of doughnuts and sat at a bench outside making a complete mess eating them. it was one of those very rare moments for which i'm gushingly grateful.
my mom arrived MUCH sooner than expected with my upgraded machine, and mr smear has spent the last couple of hours playing the paw patrol game we bought so many weeks ago - worth every penny! in particular because he could play over *there* while i captioned a comic page, went through reviews of a piece i submitted to my creative writing group last week, bought tickets to next week's live online steampunk production of a midsummer night's dream, donated to support a fight against our government's tyranny, and was generally distracted by Random Things.
it's been a good saturday, so far. except for the bit where i learned that a good friend was robbed at gunpoint this morning. another not-so-gentle reminder that it's best if we go live somewhere else.
not to suggest that i'm working now - it is the sabbath, after all. it's just that the past day has been a bit of a blur. is it because i'm only having a coffee a day? is it because my neck's been really sore and i'm not comfortable working anywhere in the apartment at this point? am i still slightly foggy from last week's procedure? i am feeling much better, at least.
the temple service last night was better than usual, and we enjoyed video-conference kiddush and dinner with some friends before settling in to a couple of episodes of gargoyles and bedtime. we're getting used to bedtime reading with my mom using caribu, they've got great books and the experience is... usable.
i passed out immediately after putting mr smear to bed, woke up a couple of hours later and decided to stay down. i definitely felt better for it this morning.
mr smear and i took a walk to grumpy & runt, picked up a couple of doughnuts and sat at a bench outside making a complete mess eating them. it was one of those very rare moments for which i'm gushingly grateful.
my mom arrived MUCH sooner than expected with my upgraded machine, and mr smear has spent the last couple of hours playing the paw patrol game we bought so many weeks ago - worth every penny! in particular because he could play over *there* while i captioned a comic page, went through reviews of a piece i submitted to my creative writing group last week, bought tickets to next week's live online steampunk production of a midsummer night's dream, donated to support a fight against our government's tyranny, and was generally distracted by Random Things.
it's been a good saturday, so far. except for the bit where i learned that a good friend was robbed at gunpoint this morning. another not-so-gentle reminder that it's best if we go live somewhere else.
Friday, May 22, 2020
holiday
was it a day off? not intentionally. i spent the majority of my morning dealing with various government agencies and then the afternoon setting up my mom's windows machine (which i'm effectively buying from her) so that i could complete a form for my new bank which is behaving badly (okay, and also so that i could set mr smear up with the paw patrol game). that took forever, and eventually i realized that it's got considerably less memory than we thought, so we need to sort that out.
i ran out so quickly to pick up our special delivery that i forgot to put on a mask. so much for not attracting attention...
i spent the evening - after another pleasant bedtime - turning the pictures urchin took of me once upon a decade ago into a stop-motion animation. my hands are stiff from drawing on a touchpad but i'm as happy with the result as i could be considering we didn't know what we were doing and it ends rather abruptly. although that could well just be because it's been so long that i couldn't remember precisely what it was i wanted to do in the first place :P
Thursday, May 21, 2020
clearer
yesterday morning began with a pickup of hebrew children's books across the road from a couple of soldiers who either didn't notice or didn't care, so we were glad for that. i had one main job to do, and my work day involved a variety of tasks distracting me from that one thing until i was totally run down and unfocused... and then i realized that i didn't know if my mother had managed to pick up mr smear's school pack. i walked most of the way there before she called to say she'd got it, so the mission became one of a pleasant exercise and giving away a bunch of energy bars to random beggars. i thought i'd treat myself to donuts on the way home but they were sold out.
i arrived home in time to let the physio in, while she treated gd i taught mr smear some boxing and kicking, which was fun. then it was my turn, and after a quick examination she informed me that i'e got to re-learn how to stand and walk - i've been doing it very wrong. she was horrified by how stiff my neck and lower back were, and spent the rest of my session hurting me.
after dinner / shower / putting mr smear to bed early, i went straight to bed myself (around 8.30pm), zero energy to do any of the things i'd expected to.
i slept well for the first few hours, then woke up feeling bruised, sore and uncomfortable. i feel like i barely slept the rest of the night.
another early morning walk with mr smear, this morning he karen'd out over some markings on the pavement then became distressed when he saw the ice cream shop closed - i feel like this is the first time he's really registered what lockdown means.
i was pretty productive work-wise today, nystire providing a welcome distraction in the morning, and the afternoon not being quite as mind-numbing as some of the previous days.
dinner and gargoyles, shower, a failed attempt at reading with my mom, and then a miraculous moment reading a book about a sleep fairy which had mr smear relax and drop off in the span of about two pages!
lots of paying bills and cleaning my desk this evening, followed by an episode of rick and morty and now, finally, after a long posting from my phone, going to bed.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
the dream
i woke up this morning with my heart beating in my throat from a particularly vivid dream: i managed to convince the commander of the space teams to let me switch from the ground forces moments before the city came under attack. our position was on an enormous concrete rooftop far beneath a massive bridge, and we watched as gigantic battlemechs in decepticon livery came over the distant mountain accompanied by lines of artillery and infantry. we were amazed to discover that we had our own 'mechs, one hiding behind a skyscraper just in front of us, and then suddenly the battle was on and we witnessed it close in frighteningly quickly. i suddenly realized that i only had a single ammo clip and there was a distinct possibility of being flanked.
i semi-awoke just after getting the magazine in and realizing that i was seriously out of practice, and spent the remainder of the half-asleep state contemplating how the space teams should have been launched immediately before the fireworks started. anyway, the scale of the battle was mind-boggling.
...
i'm feeling much less foggy today, but still foggy and i felt dazed until mid-afternoon. i spent the day working on things that were much more interesting than what i got stuck with the past couple of weeks, and i was inspired by a guy i studied with in tel aviv to get hold of the first season of gargoyles so we all enjoyed the introductory episodes.
i finally finished my workday around 10.30, and i'm feeling overwhelmed by the stack of todos that just keeps growing with more and more urgent stuff. i'm freaking TIRED, man. i even missed a community meeting this evening and only realized two hours later. three different entities want me to go out and pick up loads of heavy items to carry home when i don't have a car and we're not allowed out for non-essential travel anyway.
wtf.
i semi-awoke just after getting the magazine in and realizing that i was seriously out of practice, and spent the remainder of the half-asleep state contemplating how the space teams should have been launched immediately before the fireworks started. anyway, the scale of the battle was mind-boggling.
...
i'm feeling much less foggy today, but still foggy and i felt dazed until mid-afternoon. i spent the day working on things that were much more interesting than what i got stuck with the past couple of weeks, and i was inspired by a guy i studied with in tel aviv to get hold of the first season of gargoyles so we all enjoyed the introductory episodes.
i finally finished my workday around 10.30, and i'm feeling overwhelmed by the stack of todos that just keeps growing with more and more urgent stuff. i'm freaking TIRED, man. i even missed a community meeting this evening and only realized two hours later. three different entities want me to go out and pick up loads of heavy items to carry home when i don't have a car and we're not allowed out for non-essential travel anyway.
wtf.
Sunday, May 17, 2020
foggy
i underwent a minor procedure on friday afternoon, the sedation included opioids. the first four or five hours afterwards were horrible, but i've been feeling alright since. except for the brain fog, i'm really not very functional right now.
it's been almost two weeks since i last posted? these past few weeks have been mad, the last one particularly frustrating with a lot of work hours being sunk into a project that's past deadline and we still haven't ironed out all the kinks. it's a devops project, and while i appreciate that it's all related and a real part of my job i'm *so* over fiddling with shit that really should just work.
mr smear update: some wins, some losses, mostly okay. we've all played through the story mode of little big planet, which just got better and better, crazier and crazier, and last night we finished the harry potter movies. i sobbed uncontrollably at the end, for two reasons in particular: the first, neville longbottom growing into such a Big Damned Hero, and the second, the naming of harry's child. *all* the feels.
gd's been having a really rough time, and she's panicking more and more about the political situation which has continued its relentless descent into comically villainous madness. the ANC have taken the pandemic as an opportunity to introduce a traditional african dictatorship, and while there have been some legal attempts to rein them in nobody knows how far things are going to go. people are starving, for the first time in decades kids are showing up at hospitals with malnutrition, and the only acquiescence to rationality has been that on thursday they finally allowed all e-commerce to operate instead of just their arbitrarily selected product categories.
it doesn't help that sorting out our documentation is a bureaucratic mess, and we're fortunate enough to have places to run to. and then our dishwasher packed up, which significantly added to our stress levels, but luckily a technician made it through yesterday and we seem to be okay again.
i'm tired, i'm going for a nap.
it's been almost two weeks since i last posted? these past few weeks have been mad, the last one particularly frustrating with a lot of work hours being sunk into a project that's past deadline and we still haven't ironed out all the kinks. it's a devops project, and while i appreciate that it's all related and a real part of my job i'm *so* over fiddling with shit that really should just work.
mr smear update: some wins, some losses, mostly okay. we've all played through the story mode of little big planet, which just got better and better, crazier and crazier, and last night we finished the harry potter movies. i sobbed uncontrollably at the end, for two reasons in particular: the first, neville longbottom growing into such a Big Damned Hero, and the second, the naming of harry's child. *all* the feels.
gd's been having a really rough time, and she's panicking more and more about the political situation which has continued its relentless descent into comically villainous madness. the ANC have taken the pandemic as an opportunity to introduce a traditional african dictatorship, and while there have been some legal attempts to rein them in nobody knows how far things are going to go. people are starving, for the first time in decades kids are showing up at hospitals with malnutrition, and the only acquiescence to rationality has been that on thursday they finally allowed all e-commerce to operate instead of just their arbitrarily selected product categories.
it doesn't help that sorting out our documentation is a bureaucratic mess, and we're fortunate enough to have places to run to. and then our dishwasher packed up, which significantly added to our stress levels, but luckily a technician made it through yesterday and we seem to be okay again.
i'm tired, i'm going for a nap.
EDIT: oh! and i read infinite vacation this week, it inspired me to read stuff i actually enjoy because the last book has been dragging for months and i should've quit it a long time ago.
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
good start
i've been tired the past couple of days, i'm feeling like i need a vacation... i'm pretty sure everyone is, at this point.
highlights from the past two days:
1. i've just published a new version of my simple-free-encryption-tool that includes signature handling, and i'm stunned by how hard it was to find gather all the bits and pieces i needed to get it working for all three cases. considering all the open issues and forum posts i've encountered, i'm pretty sure i'm not the only one who needs this.
2. donuts! vegan cinnamon donuts from the deli next door, i know i shouldn't have gotten a whole box but there're only two left for tomorrow anyway...
3. the plumbers finally came in, we're lucky we insisted because it turns out the drip tray they installed was broken...
4. some minor work successes, even though it's another two half-days in a row
5. we're all enjoying the harry potter movies. no, they're nowhere near as good as the books, but they're still excellent in their own right.
right, now to see who's going to be the most uncomfortable about going out in the early morning. mr smear will probably fight to stay inside, but he'll probably enjoy it more once we've walked out the door.
highlights from the past two days:
1. i've just published a new version of my simple-free-encryption-tool that includes signature handling, and i'm stunned by how hard it was to find gather all the bits and pieces i needed to get it working for all three cases. considering all the open issues and forum posts i've encountered, i'm pretty sure i'm not the only one who needs this.
2. donuts! vegan cinnamon donuts from the deli next door, i know i shouldn't have gotten a whole box but there're only two left for tomorrow anyway...
3. the plumbers finally came in, we're lucky we insisted because it turns out the drip tray they installed was broken...
4. some minor work successes, even though it's another two half-days in a row
5. we're all enjoying the harry potter movies. no, they're nowhere near as good as the books, but they're still excellent in their own right.
right, now to see who's going to be the most uncomfortable about going out in the early morning. mr smear will probably fight to stay inside, but he'll probably enjoy it more once we've walked out the door.
Monday, May 04, 2020
6-9
oh! i almost forgot, our ingenious government has decided that we can go outside for exercise, but only between 6 and 9am every morning. not only is that utterly counter-productive (everyone's out at the same time), but it's still dark at 6am and it's freaking hard getting my kid out the house that early. it's tough enough for ME to get out that early. i want to smack everyone responsible in the mouth. with a brick.
time warp
it's sunday night / 00.30 on a monday morning, i've just finished a game of thunderstone with shadowslight and vfmp, another week's calendar pages have flitted by and the weekend flew past even faster.
i managed to last week's money stuff sorted out, there're still a couple of minor things to be taken care of but things are generally feeling positive.
we had haircuts this week: gd cut mine, and then her own. i've uninstalled bacterial takeover again, it's a dangerous waste of time...
another sonnetcomix page is up!
it was a weekend of harry potter (movies 2, 3 and the beginning of 4), two bedtimes in a row have been chapters from the magician's nephew, and mr smear (with one or the other of us) has spent a lot of time doing pretty cool things on little big planet. one remarkable moment: we haven't played it in months (at least), and when i arrived at the grappling hook level he yelled "go over there! go get the grappling hook!"
"grappling hook" is not a term we throw around in the household, how the $#@! he remembered that word or where i was going to find it just blows my mind.
otherwise, i've spent a fair amount of time looking into various cloud solutions for my bank card application, it was really hard choosing a platform and it's a bit frustrating that i have to get the hang of managing the component services manually before i'll know what i need to be able to put together infrastructure-as-code scripts.
anyways.
the last work-week was broken again, but one thing stood out: i hurriedly put together a presentation on security and customer privacy that i felt was trash, and it was received surprisingly enthusiastically. then i spent hours reviewing code and had a lot of criticism, which felt pretty good considering that it was code by the guy who's been giving me a relatively hard time and i got to feel like i'm a bit more on an equal footing.
hopefully this next week will be more constructive.
i managed to last week's money stuff sorted out, there're still a couple of minor things to be taken care of but things are generally feeling positive.
we had haircuts this week: gd cut mine, and then her own. i've uninstalled bacterial takeover again, it's a dangerous waste of time...
another sonnetcomix page is up!
it was a weekend of harry potter (movies 2, 3 and the beginning of 4), two bedtimes in a row have been chapters from the magician's nephew, and mr smear (with one or the other of us) has spent a lot of time doing pretty cool things on little big planet. one remarkable moment: we haven't played it in months (at least), and when i arrived at the grappling hook level he yelled "go over there! go get the grappling hook!"
"grappling hook" is not a term we throw around in the household, how the $#@! he remembered that word or where i was going to find it just blows my mind.
otherwise, i've spent a fair amount of time looking into various cloud solutions for my bank card application, it was really hard choosing a platform and it's a bit frustrating that i have to get the hang of managing the component services manually before i'll know what i need to be able to put together infrastructure-as-code scripts.
anyways.
the last work-week was broken again, but one thing stood out: i hurriedly put together a presentation on security and customer privacy that i felt was trash, and it was received surprisingly enthusiastically. then i spent hours reviewing code and had a lot of criticism, which felt pretty good considering that it was code by the guy who's been giving me a relatively hard time and i got to feel like i'm a bit more on an equal footing.
hopefully this next week will be more constructive.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
ticking
i can barely keep track of the days. today was monday. freedom day. but none of us are feeling particularly free at the moment.
this evening we began yom hazikaron, and i spent most of the hour of the live ceremony from latrun with tears streaming down my face. this was a heavy enough day before i had a son who will probably serve when he's old enough.
gd started a point system for him a few days ago, it's been pretty effective... except when it isn't.
the last three days of last week were super-intense, i was overwhelmed and it didn't help that gd and mr smear were having a hard time too. we've been in lockdown for a long time. we're exhausted.
the three of us dancing madly after watching sing last night was fantastic.
mr smear got the hang of hooks and uppercuts today, it was awesome! he totally failed at the jump rope, though, which is frustrating because he pretty much got it the last time we tried.
there's been a lot of toy story 3 going on this past week. we desperately need another ps3 controller as soon as they lift the restrictions enough.
my initial foray into programmable banking has been a success! my initial foray into clearing my paycheque with my new bank? not so much :(
i've allowed myself to get hooked into bacterial takeover again. it's like a mathematical meditation.
the past two weekends have seen two tabletop simulator games of munchkin, the first one i messed up with antisocial behaviour, the second was a lot of fun and i not only won, but got the hang of importing / creating objects and i now have a much greater appreciation for how awesome TTS is!
i've gotten involved with the temple's technical team, and the past few services were a great success but it's been quite an experience learning the etiquette of how to be online in a meeting that's being streamed live...
on friday we received notice that the lockdown, which until now has been bearable largely because we've had use of our building's common areas, is now being enforced fully and we risk fines and arrest if we go down to the garden. so things are now a bit harder than they were before :(
i'm tired. i'm supposed to be "doing stuff" but i really need to go to bed, so i'm doing that instead.
oh! the latest page of the graphic novel is available! i'm loving the artwork but i wasn't happy with the artist's take on the speech layout, it took an hour or two of (for me) hard work to put together a decent outline of what i wanted but the result he returned is excellent and i'm really pleased!
this evening we began yom hazikaron, and i spent most of the hour of the live ceremony from latrun with tears streaming down my face. this was a heavy enough day before i had a son who will probably serve when he's old enough.
gd started a point system for him a few days ago, it's been pretty effective... except when it isn't.
the last three days of last week were super-intense, i was overwhelmed and it didn't help that gd and mr smear were having a hard time too. we've been in lockdown for a long time. we're exhausted.
the three of us dancing madly after watching sing last night was fantastic.
mr smear got the hang of hooks and uppercuts today, it was awesome! he totally failed at the jump rope, though, which is frustrating because he pretty much got it the last time we tried.
there's been a lot of toy story 3 going on this past week. we desperately need another ps3 controller as soon as they lift the restrictions enough.
my initial foray into programmable banking has been a success! my initial foray into clearing my paycheque with my new bank? not so much :(
i've allowed myself to get hooked into bacterial takeover again. it's like a mathematical meditation.
the past two weekends have seen two tabletop simulator games of munchkin, the first one i messed up with antisocial behaviour, the second was a lot of fun and i not only won, but got the hang of importing / creating objects and i now have a much greater appreciation for how awesome TTS is!
i've gotten involved with the temple's technical team, and the past few services were a great success but it's been quite an experience learning the etiquette of how to be online in a meeting that's being streamed live...
on friday we received notice that the lockdown, which until now has been bearable largely because we've had use of our building's common areas, is now being enforced fully and we risk fines and arrest if we go down to the garden. so things are now a bit harder than they were before :(
i'm tired. i'm supposed to be "doing stuff" but i really need to go to bed, so i'm doing that instead.
oh! the latest page of the graphic novel is available! i'm loving the artwork but i wasn't happy with the artist's take on the speech layout, it took an hour or two of (for me) hard work to put together a decent outline of what i wanted but the result he returned is excellent and i'm really pleased!
Monday, April 20, 2020
survivalist
this is a weird time to be alive.
last week was a bit of a wash as far as work was concerned, but a lot of things fell into place and the weekend was mostly good. the highlight of the weekend was friday evening in the playground, mr smear and our neighbours' six year-old daughter were having a very serious debate about monsters and the lion king, and it gave me a wonderful insight into his inner world as much as it brought delight to the adults witnessing it (her grandmother and myself).
i made a bit of progress on one of my personal projects in spite of losing two hours trying to solve a problem that didn't exist, and last night's tabletop simulator game of munchkin was great in spite of me almost destroying it by playing a badly timed curse for shits and giggles.
today wasn't too bad, in addition to my new bank card arriving (which lets me participate in the dev beta programme) we had some major rage / anxiety over some idiot parents in our kid's class and the principal did a fantastic job of allaying our concerns. gd had a bit of a breakdown last night - five weeks of lockdown have been getting to her - but we seem to be making a good go of things and we're mostly okay.
we're very, very grateful. i have a good job, we live in a great building, we're not completely disconnected from my mom, mr smear's mostly managing the new reality and we're finding our groove as a family sharing every waking minute of the day.
horseman and i had a very interesting chat last night, and a crypto-buddy and i turned that conversation's inspiration into something with a lot of potential.
my biggest issue is that it feels like there are considerably less hours in the day, these days. i'm halfway through my work day, it's 10.30pm and mr smear only recently went to sleep. here we go.
last week was a bit of a wash as far as work was concerned, but a lot of things fell into place and the weekend was mostly good. the highlight of the weekend was friday evening in the playground, mr smear and our neighbours' six year-old daughter were having a very serious debate about monsters and the lion king, and it gave me a wonderful insight into his inner world as much as it brought delight to the adults witnessing it (her grandmother and myself).
i made a bit of progress on one of my personal projects in spite of losing two hours trying to solve a problem that didn't exist, and last night's tabletop simulator game of munchkin was great in spite of me almost destroying it by playing a badly timed curse for shits and giggles.
today wasn't too bad, in addition to my new bank card arriving (which lets me participate in the dev beta programme) we had some major rage / anxiety over some idiot parents in our kid's class and the principal did a fantastic job of allaying our concerns. gd had a bit of a breakdown last night - five weeks of lockdown have been getting to her - but we seem to be making a good go of things and we're mostly okay.
we're very, very grateful. i have a good job, we live in a great building, we're not completely disconnected from my mom, mr smear's mostly managing the new reality and we're finding our groove as a family sharing every waking minute of the day.
horseman and i had a very interesting chat last night, and a crypto-buddy and i turned that conversation's inspiration into something with a lot of potential.
my biggest issue is that it feels like there are considerably less hours in the day, these days. i'm halfway through my work day, it's 10.30pm and mr smear only recently went to sleep. here we go.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
still standing
we watched sing the other night, so that song's still stuck in our heads...
mr smear needed me again in the middle of the night, on my way back to bed i groggily decided to try getting up earlier. turned out to be a good idea, i was actually quite productive today in spite of a few big interruptions. i also managed to take mr smear out in the rain with the umbrellas, and get in a big grocery run with my mom's help. and the evening was mostly enjoyable, except for the bit where he ran over and smashed me in the groin and i had to put him and his mother in timeout because neither of them could stop giggling hysterically.
it's late. i'm tired. if it wasn't for the rest of code 8 i'd definitely go to bed right now.
mr smear needed me again in the middle of the night, on my way back to bed i groggily decided to try getting up earlier. turned out to be a good idea, i was actually quite productive today in spite of a few big interruptions. i also managed to take mr smear out in the rain with the umbrellas, and get in a big grocery run with my mom's help. and the evening was mostly enjoyable, except for the bit where he ran over and smashed me in the groin and i had to put him and his mother in timeout because neither of them could stop giggling hysterically.
it's late. i'm tired. if it wasn't for the rest of code 8 i'd definitely go to bed right now.
relaxed
[EDIT: published the following day when i realized i hadn't pushed the publish button]
i was going to get some more work done after putting mr smear to bed, but then gd started watching code 8 and it's amazing.
today had some rough edges, but was mostly positive. i got my new bank account opened! in time to invoice my employer with the new details! so that's cool. also, i ended up being right about something at work after my difficult coworker disagreed with me, so i got a little in-your-face bonus in addition to actually solving the problem that's been plaguing me for a day or two :D
oh! and we watched small soldiers this evening, i didn't remember there being a few phrases that aren't so good for kids but overall we all had fun.
i was going to get some more work done after putting mr smear to bed, but then gd started watching code 8 and it's amazing.
today had some rough edges, but was mostly positive. i got my new bank account opened! in time to invoice my employer with the new details! so that's cool. also, i ended up being right about something at work after my difficult coworker disagreed with me, so i got a little in-your-face bonus in addition to actually solving the problem that's been plaguing me for a day or two :D
oh! and we watched small soldiers this evening, i didn't remember there being a few phrases that aren't so good for kids but overall we all had fun.
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
better
today was a good day. i had a two and a half hour chat with the difficult teammate that went well, and resulted in me feeling like i have a good understanding of what's going on and what's needed. my conversations with another teammate were constructive. i've applied for a new bank account in order to participate in a really exciting beta programme, i had a (virtual) face-to-face 1:1 with my boss for the first time in weeks and he's renegotiated the terms of my contract in my favour.
the dusk game of tag in the garden with mr smear before bath-time was great. the end of season 2 of con man was amazing.
how is it almost 1am?!?!
the dusk game of tag in the garden with mr smear before bath-time was great. the end of season 2 of con man was amazing.
how is it almost 1am?!?!
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
the easter bunny keeps laying chocolate eggs
today seemed better than yesterday, although i'm not entirely sure why. some of my engagements with mr smear were very positive, some were unpleasant, but at least gd and i are settling on the strategy that our therapist advised and so far it doesn't seem to be a terrible one.
as for me, i completed my blog post resurrection project, although sadly the blogger api doesn't support uploaded comments so i'm keeping those to myself. there's something immensely satisfying about the fact that it's done, and i did enjoy going through some of them. i also put a bit more time into my little media tool project, the big effort was getting my samsung to play ball and i was very lucky to stumble across an article dealing with the fact that samsung has ditched the standard media camera / mic stream interface and provided a code sample that worked... or, at least it did once i realized that it would only work over https and spent a long time fiddling until i understood that the latest version of OS X doesn't play nicely with self-signed certificates.
we're almost done with con man, and it is utterly magnificent. amazing cast, brilliant writing, absolutely fantastic.
i feel like there was more, but it's now past midnight and i need to go to bed soon. i'm just going to finish up reviewing one of my new creative writing group's pieces and then i'm done.
as for me, i completed my blog post resurrection project, although sadly the blogger api doesn't support uploaded comments so i'm keeping those to myself. there's something immensely satisfying about the fact that it's done, and i did enjoy going through some of them. i also put a bit more time into my little media tool project, the big effort was getting my samsung to play ball and i was very lucky to stumble across an article dealing with the fact that samsung has ditched the standard media camera / mic stream interface and provided a code sample that worked... or, at least it did once i realized that it would only work over https and spent a long time fiddling until i understood that the latest version of OS X doesn't play nicely with self-signed certificates.
we're almost done with con man, and it is utterly magnificent. amazing cast, brilliant writing, absolutely fantastic.
i feel like there was more, but it's now past midnight and i need to go to bed soon. i'm just going to finish up reviewing one of my new creative writing group's pieces and then i'm done.
colonial psychopathy
So, I'm up, wondering if a psychologist somewhere is doing or has done their dissertation, asserting that the behaviour of 16th-19th century monarchs, "explorers", and settlers meets the DSM-5 criteria for sociopathy (ASPD) and that white supremacy is simply a manifestation of the disorder, as it is known to have genetic factors .
me: this is precisely why it's important to teach postmodernism widely and not just for a select few, we end up ascribing ideological aspects to physical traits or personal deficiencies because we have little appreciation for how powerful beliefs and narratives can be. you don't need genes to explain a history of human beings justifying being awful to one another, and those people doing horrible things don't even need to be assholes or sociopaths or evil. many of the biggest tragedies in history were caused by good but misguided intentions borne out of a warped world view.
I absolutely get that. Many "good" people have gone along with horrible things because it was dangerous to go against the flow, or personally convenient, or popular. Lately, maybe because there's a poem coming, I've been reading about European royal families and the degree of generational intermarriage. There are well documented stories about the effects of inbreeding, the Habsburg jaw, hemophilia, etc. Why not the cognitive issues, mental illness and the rest of the potential delays and disorders? These are the people whose worldview got us here. They funded the "exlplorations", had flags planted in their names, and still have their faces on our money. At best, they and their issues were complicit in how we got here through direct or indirect manipulation. At worst, the world's order has been formed by the ideas of sociopaths that then trended and now have a body count in the millions. If we just ask the question, who has killed the most people on the planet, there are clear numbers. Why not look at the source of that genocidal behaviour through a different lens? It's a question. Badness can be bred or born. Both can have influence over large numbers of people.
me: the monarchs and explorers, whatever else may have been wrong with them individually, were products of their time. if you look at the history of genocides in europe, you can make an argument that europeans are a sociopathic and genocidal race. if you look at the history of genocides in africa, you can make that same argument about africans. the idea of exploration is as old as we are (it's how the native americans got there in the first place), same as conquest. what made that behaviour so popular in those centuries was technological advances that enabled it, not sudden psychopathies, and the winners of that era (in particular the british) didn't win because they were somehow worse people, or better people... they won because they had the right tools, the right strategies and a fair amount of luck*
there are plenty of mental disorders that have physical causes, but the behaviours you're describing aren't the product of anything physical, they're caused by good ol' human nature. and that behaviour isn't all good or all bad, it's filled with grey areas. what aspects you pay attention to are dictated by your own ideology, and how you interpret any data you might come across as well. clear numbers don't tell any particular story until you drill down deep into their context.
* if you're interested, one of the most fascinating non-fiction books i've ever read is max boot's "war made new", in which on of the many topics he covers is the naval advances that led to successful british conquest.
Of course there have been genocides all over the world. The difference is that Europe exported theirs for enormous capital gains and murdered and empoverished people all over the planet, particularly the people who look least like them. The idea of race is a creation, but who created it and why? Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, better tools or not. Again, back to the original post. If we look at the colonial mentality as pathological, some might be less likely to accept all of the manifest destiny BS and call it what it was, so we can get on with the business of making things right, and healing the damage, instead of pretending it didn't happen and telling folks to get over it.
me: pretending it didn't happen and telling folks to get over it isn't right, but finding a DSM category for that behaviour isn't going to fix things or help with the healing. colonizers colonized because they stood to gain immensely, but racism isn't confined to colonizers and it's not confined to any one race or set of races. the europeans did horrible things because their ideologies justified it and they could get away with it, not because they were europeans (as opposed to any other race) and not because they were mentally ill.
"the idea of race is a creation" - that's technically true, but it's an organic idea that comes out of seeing differences and having brains that categorize by stereotype and otherness. there's no one race that can take responsibility for racism or xenophobia, it's totally natural, just as it's natural that in every battle or contention one side will win or another. that doesn't make the winner "right", and it's important to teach our kids not to use mental shortcuts like racism (another thing that should be taught to everyone), but to blame any one race for all racism is absurdly racist.
if we want to heal the damage, we need to start by acknowledging what we've done, understanding why we've done it (which is why postmodernism studies are so very important), and then learn how to behave better than our instincts and our ancestors. the first step to achieving that is cognitive contamination, sharing culture and learning to communicate across ideological boundaries. that's hard work, extremely hard work, especially if you're coming from the side of the victim, but it's a war worth waging and every individual win makes you more powerful (which is why so many racists are so defensive these days). what's amazing to me is that we all tend to focus on the bad news and pay relatively little attention to the positive side of things (because we're biologically wired to do that), but if you look at the general state of the world as far as ignorance and racism and homophobia and xenophobia etc are concerned, and compare it to the world twenty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand years ago, you'll see that our ideas are evolving pretty dramatically since we all connected over the internet and things are actually improving. there will always be bigots and assholes and sociopaths, but they're fast becoming pariahs in global culture and the more we all keep talking and posting the more ideas of equality and compassion and mutual respect will become mainstream.
there is no blaming of one race here, only the desire to call a thing a thing, finally, after 500 years of gaslighting. If the exploration of the conquest mentality that brought us here sheds brighter light on the path forward, I think it's worth it. The way my ancestors have been seen and depicted needs to change too. I just want all of the lies to end. As for guilt, if the shoe fits...let folks wear it, and then do something about it. Guilt alone does nothing. If there was no focus on the good, none of us would be here anymore. We'd have died of broken hearts ages ago. We can focus on the good and acknowledge the bad. Maybe we just do that differently.
me: i 100% agree with what you're looking for, all i'm saying is that you're not going to find it with a DSM label. in a way, a DSM label would do more harm than good as it would excuse bad behavior as an unavoidable consequence of a mental illness rather than what it was, and continues to be: borne of choices we make and ideologies we can be educated out of
me: this is precisely why it's important to teach postmodernism widely and not just for a select few, we end up ascribing ideological aspects to physical traits or personal deficiencies because we have little appreciation for how powerful beliefs and narratives can be. you don't need genes to explain a history of human beings justifying being awful to one another, and those people doing horrible things don't even need to be assholes or sociopaths or evil. many of the biggest tragedies in history were caused by good but misguided intentions borne out of a warped world view.
I absolutely get that. Many "good" people have gone along with horrible things because it was dangerous to go against the flow, or personally convenient, or popular. Lately, maybe because there's a poem coming, I've been reading about European royal families and the degree of generational intermarriage. There are well documented stories about the effects of inbreeding, the Habsburg jaw, hemophilia, etc. Why not the cognitive issues, mental illness and the rest of the potential delays and disorders? These are the people whose worldview got us here. They funded the "exlplorations", had flags planted in their names, and still have their faces on our money. At best, they and their issues were complicit in how we got here through direct or indirect manipulation. At worst, the world's order has been formed by the ideas of sociopaths that then trended and now have a body count in the millions. If we just ask the question, who has killed the most people on the planet, there are clear numbers. Why not look at the source of that genocidal behaviour through a different lens? It's a question. Badness can be bred or born. Both can have influence over large numbers of people.
me: the monarchs and explorers, whatever else may have been wrong with them individually, were products of their time. if you look at the history of genocides in europe, you can make an argument that europeans are a sociopathic and genocidal race. if you look at the history of genocides in africa, you can make that same argument about africans. the idea of exploration is as old as we are (it's how the native americans got there in the first place), same as conquest. what made that behaviour so popular in those centuries was technological advances that enabled it, not sudden psychopathies, and the winners of that era (in particular the british) didn't win because they were somehow worse people, or better people... they won because they had the right tools, the right strategies and a fair amount of luck*
there are plenty of mental disorders that have physical causes, but the behaviours you're describing aren't the product of anything physical, they're caused by good ol' human nature. and that behaviour isn't all good or all bad, it's filled with grey areas. what aspects you pay attention to are dictated by your own ideology, and how you interpret any data you might come across as well. clear numbers don't tell any particular story until you drill down deep into their context.
* if you're interested, one of the most fascinating non-fiction books i've ever read is max boot's "war made new", in which on of the many topics he covers is the naval advances that led to successful british conquest.
Of course there have been genocides all over the world. The difference is that Europe exported theirs for enormous capital gains and murdered and empoverished people all over the planet, particularly the people who look least like them. The idea of race is a creation, but who created it and why? Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, better tools or not. Again, back to the original post. If we look at the colonial mentality as pathological, some might be less likely to accept all of the manifest destiny BS and call it what it was, so we can get on with the business of making things right, and healing the damage, instead of pretending it didn't happen and telling folks to get over it.
me: pretending it didn't happen and telling folks to get over it isn't right, but finding a DSM category for that behaviour isn't going to fix things or help with the healing. colonizers colonized because they stood to gain immensely, but racism isn't confined to colonizers and it's not confined to any one race or set of races. the europeans did horrible things because their ideologies justified it and they could get away with it, not because they were europeans (as opposed to any other race) and not because they were mentally ill.
"the idea of race is a creation" - that's technically true, but it's an organic idea that comes out of seeing differences and having brains that categorize by stereotype and otherness. there's no one race that can take responsibility for racism or xenophobia, it's totally natural, just as it's natural that in every battle or contention one side will win or another. that doesn't make the winner "right", and it's important to teach our kids not to use mental shortcuts like racism (another thing that should be taught to everyone), but to blame any one race for all racism is absurdly racist.
if we want to heal the damage, we need to start by acknowledging what we've done, understanding why we've done it (which is why postmodernism studies are so very important), and then learn how to behave better than our instincts and our ancestors. the first step to achieving that is cognitive contamination, sharing culture and learning to communicate across ideological boundaries. that's hard work, extremely hard work, especially if you're coming from the side of the victim, but it's a war worth waging and every individual win makes you more powerful (which is why so many racists are so defensive these days). what's amazing to me is that we all tend to focus on the bad news and pay relatively little attention to the positive side of things (because we're biologically wired to do that), but if you look at the general state of the world as far as ignorance and racism and homophobia and xenophobia etc are concerned, and compare it to the world twenty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand years ago, you'll see that our ideas are evolving pretty dramatically since we all connected over the internet and things are actually improving. there will always be bigots and assholes and sociopaths, but they're fast becoming pariahs in global culture and the more we all keep talking and posting the more ideas of equality and compassion and mutual respect will become mainstream.
there is no blaming of one race here, only the desire to call a thing a thing, finally, after 500 years of gaslighting. If the exploration of the conquest mentality that brought us here sheds brighter light on the path forward, I think it's worth it. The way my ancestors have been seen and depicted needs to change too. I just want all of the lies to end. As for guilt, if the shoe fits...let folks wear it, and then do something about it. Guilt alone does nothing. If there was no focus on the good, none of us would be here anymore. We'd have died of broken hearts ages ago. We can focus on the good and acknowledge the bad. Maybe we just do that differently.
me: i 100% agree with what you're looking for, all i'm saying is that you're not going to find it with a DSM label. in a way, a DSM label would do more harm than good as it would excuse bad behavior as an unavoidable consequence of a mental illness rather than what it was, and continues to be: borne of choices we make and ideologies we can be educated out of
Monday, April 13, 2020
breathing out
i'm not even certain i have the public holiday off today (it's monday already). this has been a long, long, looooooong long weekend.
i've spent large chunks of it fighting python to write the scripts to resurrect my old blog posts, i finally pulled the trigger a couple of hours ago and still ended up having to do a significant chunk of it manually... and that was just the second third.
oh, well - at least i gained some python experience.
shadowslight, his brother, vfmp and i got in a great game of thunderstone last night, and even a game of evil apples!
we've all be trapped in the apartment for a month now, and it's taking its toll. we had a couple of massive regressions yesterday and today, loads of tantrums and much tougher love than we'd like. this shit is not trivial.
everything's exhausting. everything's costing extra. lots of usually insignificant things are moving front-and-center.
and the long weekend away from work (mostly) hasn't done anything to lessen my anxiety about what tomorrow (or tuesday) are going to look like.
i've spent large chunks of it fighting python to write the scripts to resurrect my old blog posts, i finally pulled the trigger a couple of hours ago and still ended up having to do a significant chunk of it manually... and that was just the second third.
oh, well - at least i gained some python experience.
shadowslight, his brother, vfmp and i got in a great game of thunderstone last night, and even a game of evil apples!
we've all be trapped in the apartment for a month now, and it's taking its toll. we had a couple of massive regressions yesterday and today, loads of tantrums and much tougher love than we'd like. this shit is not trivial.
everything's exhausting. everything's costing extra. lots of usually insignificant things are moving front-and-center.
and the long weekend away from work (mostly) hasn't done anything to lessen my anxiety about what tomorrow (or tuesday) are going to look like.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
mortified me
i slept alright, still feeling drained but not totally exhausted. the morning was going well until after i finished reading from the torah, when i realized that i'd actually prepared and read the wrong piece. nobody said anything, i checked in with the rabbi who confirmed. oy.
i've uploaded some more of my old posts, mr smear and gd are sitting in front of despicable me 3, and i'm finally going to finish up the writing i started three weeks ago and did have space for until... right now.
i've uploaded some more of my old posts, mr smear and gd are sitting in front of despicable me 3, and i'm finally going to finish up the writing i started three weeks ago and did have space for until... right now.
horrible week over
this is really hard, even though some of it's quite rewarding. i've just read this excellent article and it rings very, painfully true.
this work week did not feel good, i think mr devops has lost patience with me and i've been miserably trying to piece things together from what he's told me but have just been overwhelmed - hopefully i can make a rescue next week. i even took yesterday and today off, partially for passover but partially just to give myself room to breathe. i wrote python scripts while doing chores and managing mr smear. it's been... fun. okay, some of it really has been fun, but i've been completely drained.
the good news is that i've now written scripts to upload my lost blog posts to blogger! there's a limit, though, which i hope is daily so i can continue upload over the course of the next few days. it was mainly to manage my ocd anxiety, the niggling irritation every time i see those posts in my backups and think about how many years they've been there waiting to go back online. it's a silly, probably meaningless thing but it's making me feel a bit better.
pesach has been remarkably successful. our first night seder on zoom worked pretty well, my only regret was that everyone disappeared for the second half and mr smear was already over the evening and in bed. but he did enjoy it and participate! for the second night there was a kid's seder and he got into that too, so i feel like he's prepped for next year. he loves matzah. he really, really couldn't handle the chrain (horseradish). poor kid looked like his face would implode.
today's big wins were toy story 3 (and hopefully fixing the remote), a long time spent kicking a ball around the garden, carcassonne, two hours pitching some business ideas to my cousin, kiddush with my mom, watching sing as a special treat and then negotiating the resulting "i don't wanna go to bed!" to "i want a story! a movie is NOT a story!" to reciting a poem to him that calmed him down enough to say goodnight and let me and gd watch a couple of episodes of con man.
now i've practiced some leyning and i'm pretty sure i should have called it a night about an hour ago. the last few days i've been waking up almost as tired as when i go to bed.
this work week did not feel good, i think mr devops has lost patience with me and i've been miserably trying to piece things together from what he's told me but have just been overwhelmed - hopefully i can make a rescue next week. i even took yesterday and today off, partially for passover but partially just to give myself room to breathe. i wrote python scripts while doing chores and managing mr smear. it's been... fun. okay, some of it really has been fun, but i've been completely drained.
the good news is that i've now written scripts to upload my lost blog posts to blogger! there's a limit, though, which i hope is daily so i can continue upload over the course of the next few days. it was mainly to manage my ocd anxiety, the niggling irritation every time i see those posts in my backups and think about how many years they've been there waiting to go back online. it's a silly, probably meaningless thing but it's making me feel a bit better.
pesach has been remarkably successful. our first night seder on zoom worked pretty well, my only regret was that everyone disappeared for the second half and mr smear was already over the evening and in bed. but he did enjoy it and participate! for the second night there was a kid's seder and he got into that too, so i feel like he's prepped for next year. he loves matzah. he really, really couldn't handle the chrain (horseradish). poor kid looked like his face would implode.
today's big wins were toy story 3 (and hopefully fixing the remote), a long time spent kicking a ball around the garden, carcassonne, two hours pitching some business ideas to my cousin, kiddush with my mom, watching sing as a special treat and then negotiating the resulting "i don't wanna go to bed!" to "i want a story! a movie is NOT a story!" to reciting a poem to him that calmed him down enough to say goodnight and let me and gd watch a couple of episodes of con man.
now i've practiced some leyning and i'm pretty sure i should have called it a night about an hour ago. the last few days i've been waking up almost as tired as when i go to bed.
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
addendum
also, making serious progress on two of my personal projects, as well as rearranging the furniture over the weekend and actually having space to work for the first time since we moved in a year and a half ago.
and being grateful for our dehumidifier now that it's getting colder. and our bed.
another 6 days
our isolation began on the 12th of march, it's now (technically) the 8th of april and we're hearing talk of this lockdown being extended for longer than the next two weeks. we're doing okay. mostly (gd's neck's been causing her a lot of pain for about a week now). in general, we're very fortunate.
work-wise, i've been very frustrated, working with a co-worker who's tough to communicate with and dealing with parts of a system i've no experience with or context for. these three things are coming together to make me feel pretty slow and useless, which is not good. another potential concern is that due to the coronavirus pandemic my employer's dropping our maximum hours to 80%. i guess i'm going to be filling the other 20% with my own projects, which is more of a benefit than a stressor.
on friday evening i got into my sound-engineer neighbour's car studio and recorded three poems i've been trying to get out of my head for years, but the last few months in particular. it was a really cool experience! and humbling. and generally a lot of fun.
i don't know how we'd manage these weeks without toy story 3 (ps3). absolute godsend. and we've been gearing up for our first online pesach seder, which is going to be strange. mr smear's been struggling this past week or so and doing a lot of acting out - mostly towards me, which has felt awful. but between yesterday and today we seem to be getting through to him and this morning i scored a "good morning" in addition to a lot of other nice moments.
i've been investing a lot of time in transferring money again. it saddens me that there's so much incompetence in the financial world. every digital institution i've come across makes the traditional banks look more and more attractive, and i can't stand how useless and backwards the traditional banks are.
con man is bloody brilliant. watching the 2014 teenage mutant ninja turtles with mr smear was a trip. watching willow with him was pretty cool, too, and then suddenly it became insanely violent (i was fine with the troll scene, but then watching people getting shot in the chest with arrows and realizing that... perhaps not so good for a four year old...
his response to willow was to make a sign for his bedroom door that says "no evil queens allowed". i haven't the heart to tell him that if his existing signs that say "no mommies or daddies allowed in the morning" hasn't worked...
oh! on sunday morning vfmp and i spent an hour or two setting up thunderstone on tabletop simulator, which was fun. on sunday night his brother, shadowlights and shadowslight's brother joined us for a thunderstone game that went on until 2am and was great fun!
work-wise, i've been very frustrated, working with a co-worker who's tough to communicate with and dealing with parts of a system i've no experience with or context for. these three things are coming together to make me feel pretty slow and useless, which is not good. another potential concern is that due to the coronavirus pandemic my employer's dropping our maximum hours to 80%. i guess i'm going to be filling the other 20% with my own projects, which is more of a benefit than a stressor.
on friday evening i got into my sound-engineer neighbour's car studio and recorded three poems i've been trying to get out of my head for years, but the last few months in particular. it was a really cool experience! and humbling. and generally a lot of fun.
i don't know how we'd manage these weeks without toy story 3 (ps3). absolute godsend. and we've been gearing up for our first online pesach seder, which is going to be strange. mr smear's been struggling this past week or so and doing a lot of acting out - mostly towards me, which has felt awful. but between yesterday and today we seem to be getting through to him and this morning i scored a "good morning" in addition to a lot of other nice moments.
i've been investing a lot of time in transferring money again. it saddens me that there's so much incompetence in the financial world. every digital institution i've come across makes the traditional banks look more and more attractive, and i can't stand how useless and backwards the traditional banks are.
con man is bloody brilliant. watching the 2014 teenage mutant ninja turtles with mr smear was a trip. watching willow with him was pretty cool, too, and then suddenly it became insanely violent (i was fine with the troll scene, but then watching people getting shot in the chest with arrows and realizing that... perhaps not so good for a four year old...
his response to willow was to make a sign for his bedroom door that says "no evil queens allowed". i haven't the heart to tell him that if his existing signs that say "no mommies or daddies allowed in the morning" hasn't worked...
oh! on sunday morning vfmp and i spent an hour or two setting up thunderstone on tabletop simulator, which was fun. on sunday night his brother, shadowlights and shadowslight's brother joined us for a thunderstone game that went on until 2am and was great fun!
Wednesday, April 01, 2020
six days under
the past few days have been super-stressful trying to move my money from there to here so i can pay my rent, i've burned at least a day of work in the process (and i'm paid hourly wages, so it stings a lot), and i've *still* had to borrow the money because every damned entity between my bank accounts has served as a spoke in the wheel. i've been champing at the bit for cryptocurrency to take off as an integrated payment method, the moment i can use it for paying rent and bills i'm all in.
aside from that madness, the past few days have been a mixed bag. i've been exhausted, i'm working weird hours again. trying to keep some semblance of normal for my kid, ironically arranging days that are anything but. we had a music hour this evening. we're playing catch and kicking around a soccer ball regularly. i got him back on his skateboard yesterday. we kind of got him to dance a little this afternoon.
the center of cape town is eerily empty, except for the occasional group of homeless, and it seems much nicer without mad drivers all over the place.
gd's been doing the housework, and daily discovering more shit that our cleaning lady hasn't touched ever. this seems like a story that's just going to keep playing out, over and over, and i'm not looking forward to the drama.
mr smear's been all over the place, which is kind of the usual now. fine. the good times are really good, he's fast becoming a gamer, he's spending a fair amount of time amusing himself, he's obsessed with numbers and he *hates* us telling him he's good at maths. go figure (pun not intended).
work's been busy, somewhat satisfying. i've been forced to resurrect my windows machine and it's kinda okay. i'm been making great progress with one of my personal projects and i'm looking forward to sharing it with friends, hopefully soon.
aside from that madness, the past few days have been a mixed bag. i've been exhausted, i'm working weird hours again. trying to keep some semblance of normal for my kid, ironically arranging days that are anything but. we had a music hour this evening. we're playing catch and kicking around a soccer ball regularly. i got him back on his skateboard yesterday. we kind of got him to dance a little this afternoon.
the center of cape town is eerily empty, except for the occasional group of homeless, and it seems much nicer without mad drivers all over the place.
gd's been doing the housework, and daily discovering more shit that our cleaning lady hasn't touched ever. this seems like a story that's just going to keep playing out, over and over, and i'm not looking forward to the drama.
mr smear's been all over the place, which is kind of the usual now. fine. the good times are really good, he's fast becoming a gamer, he's spending a fair amount of time amusing himself, he's obsessed with numbers and he *hates* us telling him he's good at maths. go figure (pun not intended).
work's been busy, somewhat satisfying. i've been forced to resurrect my windows machine and it's kinda okay. i'm been making great progress with one of my personal projects and i'm looking forward to sharing it with friends, hopefully soon.
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
lockdown imminent
it's been almost two weeks. it feels like almost three. other parents aren't playing ball, so mr smear's pretty much been stuck with us. it doesn't seem to be the end of the world, but it's really hard to get work done sometimes. it also doesn't help that today and tomorrow got messed up because a physical playdate from a few weeks ago left us with ****ing fleas, so we had our place sprayed this morning and we're having my mom's done tomorrow.
it's been hard getting work hours made up, the world seems more demanding than usual (it's probably not), every time i go out and see people i come back more happy about being isolated from them. people are ****ing stupid and nuts, half the people outside are acting like there's nothing going on and the other half are wearing masks that aren't really covering their faces. ffs.
but hey, we're (as a species) learning to operate remotely. this is good. very good. i'm giving a talk to some other parents tomorrow about tech literacy and parenting, mr smear's learning to amuse himself (mostly) for hours on end, and we're making a point of taking him outside (yard time) and being very grateful that we live in a complex with a foresty garden and a swimming pool. this past weekend we experienced an historic series of moments with an online temple service and even a barmitzvah. i've finally bought tabletop simulator and we're gearing up for a game on saturday night. the toronto poetry slam has been online for two weeks now, which would be fantastic if i was able to watch it (2am on a monday morning, nuh-uh). the world's getting smaller, in a good way.
we're still paying our cleaning lady, but we (mostly gd) have to do the actual work. i don't know how this is going to work out. protoplasm was telling me he's paying his hairdresser regardless of whether he sees him, i've just sent an email to my tattoo artist to see if i can purchase a voucher now and cash it in when the lockdown is over.
stay safe, everyone. look out for each other. we need to get through this.
it's been hard getting work hours made up, the world seems more demanding than usual (it's probably not), every time i go out and see people i come back more happy about being isolated from them. people are ****ing stupid and nuts, half the people outside are acting like there's nothing going on and the other half are wearing masks that aren't really covering their faces. ffs.
but hey, we're (as a species) learning to operate remotely. this is good. very good. i'm giving a talk to some other parents tomorrow about tech literacy and parenting, mr smear's learning to amuse himself (mostly) for hours on end, and we're making a point of taking him outside (yard time) and being very grateful that we live in a complex with a foresty garden and a swimming pool. this past weekend we experienced an historic series of moments with an online temple service and even a barmitzvah. i've finally bought tabletop simulator and we're gearing up for a game on saturday night. the toronto poetry slam has been online for two weeks now, which would be fantastic if i was able to watch it (2am on a monday morning, nuh-uh). the world's getting smaller, in a good way.
we're still paying our cleaning lady, but we (mostly gd) have to do the actual work. i don't know how this is going to work out. protoplasm was telling me he's paying his hairdresser regardless of whether he sees him, i've just sent an email to my tattoo artist to see if i can purchase a voucher now and cash it in when the lockdown is over.
stay safe, everyone. look out for each other. we need to get through this.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
time flight
this week has been a bit of slog, though it's had some good points. i'm feeling a bit disconnected work-wise, and i've got lots of hours to make up, my torah reading for the weekend is alright but not fantastic, it's tough making sure mr smear spends enough time outside (it's fun to do it, but gd's not in a great state at the moment so it's feeling a bit single-parenty), and i'm really struggling to find time to do the other things that need doing like taking the UPS in for repair and writing. and there's two hours scheduled tomorrow for our front door being reconstructed, which will hopefully go a long way to reducing our electricity bills.
i'm starting to wonder if it's not a good idea to throw coronavirus parties for young healthy people who subsequently quarantine themselves and are then pretty much guaranteed to not be a disease vector. am i losing it?
i'm starting to wonder if it's not a good idea to throw coronavirus parties for young healthy people who subsequently quarantine themselves and are then pretty much guaranteed to not be a disease vector. am i losing it?
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
the witching hour
hmmph. that's how i feel about the workday. hmmph.
it was tough to keep focused - a million distractions now that i'm stuck at home, and mr smear and i have both started an unpleasant cough and we're praying this isn't it. but it's theoretically possible. so there's that. some of today was heartbreaking, but most heartwarming. in particular, the good night hugs; i had a flashback to our midnight corridor walks when i was having a flash-forward of hugging my much older son, and there was something about tonight that seemed to connect the two moments.
travel plans? holy shit that's a lot of money. maybe... maybe not so much.
i've finally got my side-project pretty functional! needs a fair amount of TLC, but the bones are solid ^_^
right. bed.
it was tough to keep focused - a million distractions now that i'm stuck at home, and mr smear and i have both started an unpleasant cough and we're praying this isn't it. but it's theoretically possible. so there's that. some of today was heartbreaking, but most heartwarming. in particular, the good night hugs; i had a flashback to our midnight corridor walks when i was having a flash-forward of hugging my much older son, and there was something about tonight that seemed to connect the two moments.
travel plans? holy shit that's a lot of money. maybe... maybe not so much.
i've finally got my side-project pretty functional! needs a fair amount of TLC, but the bones are solid ^_^
right. bed.
Monday, March 16, 2020
you know you're the a**hole when...
that previous post actually got me blocked from the amitheasshole subreddit, what i *should* have done was report the dude for harassment but instead my response was read as threatening (which wasn't the intention, but it was poorly worded). anyway.
the rest of the week was a bit nuts, lots of frustratingly slow going at work and mr smear's school shutting down due to the covid-19 story made things very complicated. not helped by the fact that gd has had a bad cough / lung infection for a week.
i'm not impressed that she decided to test a food allergy last night with everything that's been going on, she ended up in the hospital again :/
this weekend's been... full. i've spent a lot of time writing, i've finally (as of a few minutes ago) brought the personal project i've been working on to a point where i can actually use it for its initial intended purpose. i've had some good times playing outside with mr smear, but also a lot of really unpleasant moments - mostly him just being mean or rude to us. but the good times have been good, and being stuck indoors (bad weather + no playdates due to "social distancing") we've watched star wars iv, spiderman into the spider-verse, the nightmare before christmas and toy story 2 together.
we also played about three hours of samorost 3 this morning, which was excellent.
i didn't mean to go to bed so late. damn.
the rest of the week was a bit nuts, lots of frustratingly slow going at work and mr smear's school shutting down due to the covid-19 story made things very complicated. not helped by the fact that gd has had a bad cough / lung infection for a week.
i'm not impressed that she decided to test a food allergy last night with everything that's been going on, she ended up in the hospital again :/
this weekend's been... full. i've spent a lot of time writing, i've finally (as of a few minutes ago) brought the personal project i've been working on to a point where i can actually use it for its initial intended purpose. i've had some good times playing outside with mr smear, but also a lot of really unpleasant moments - mostly him just being mean or rude to us. but the good times have been good, and being stuck indoors (bad weather + no playdates due to "social distancing") we've watched star wars iv, spiderman into the spider-verse, the nightmare before christmas and toy story 2 together.
we also played about three hours of samorost 3 this morning, which was excellent.
i didn't mean to go to bed so late. damn.
Friday, March 13, 2020
press my buttons
go on. do it.
i tried to back out of being harassed on reddit:
i tried to back out of being harassed on reddit:
you might be surprised to learn that your opinion, based purely on a few lines of text written in a reddit thread, is missing a whole lot of facts and nuances that provide context. honestly, as enticing as it may be to respond with all the details, i don't feel that this is going to be a constructive endeavour as you're clearly not interested in learning anything that might change your mind, so i hope it's okay with the gods of the internets that i walk away from this encounter.but the asshole was insistent. so i responded as follows:
damn, you're unpleasant - i'd love to have a chat with you face-to-face, see how ugly your behavior is when you're faced with potential consequences.
1. my wife has character, agency and backbone, we discuss everything and we debate constantly. you might not know this, but it is actually possible to convince people with data and by setting an example (until she got pregnant and needed me around more, i was in MMA training and in incredible physical shape... now i've been out of the gym for a few years and i'm just in good shape)
2. the tension during pregnancy was due to the fact that she insisted on eating things that are known to harm a foetus in utero. seafood, in particular - with the amount of mercury having long surpassed all safety limits, children whose mothers eat seafood during pregnancy are born with significantly smaller brains. pardon me if protecting my child's future cognitive abilities took priority over keeping the peace. i learned over the course of the pregnancy how to share data and then keep my opinions to myself, and we figured shit out, which is what responsible, mature adults do.
our son has two parents, i'm not just a sperm donor.
3. by the time our son was born i did not insist on him being vegan, and sadly that decision led to him developing a life-threatening dairy allergy. no, soy milk is not a replacement for breast feeding or formula. neither is cow's milk, so that's a strange twist you've got going on there. soy formula is as nutritious and much safer than dairy, but my wife chose to supplement breastfeeding with dairy initially until she realized there was a problem and from that point he became a soy-formula kid for the months it took for her to be able to breastfeed exclusively*. which was fine. i pretty much left her alone with the solid food decisions when the time came, until she eventually had her "ah-ha!" moment. once she understood that there was nothing in animal products that he couldn't get more and better from plants, that was when SHE decided that we should all be vegan. some important information that she learned in those documentaries were a part of that "ah-ha!" moment. if incorporating new facts into your life is "brainwashing", well, that's your problem.
* and because you're so *good* with parsing what i write, i feel like i need to specify here that she had a *really* hard time breastfeeding to the point where *i* was encouraging her to give it up, but she insisted and persisted and courageously pulled through
4. we have had excellent pediatricians, and we regularly do blood-work and check in with dietitians to ensure that we aren't missing anything. i came to veganism through a desire to learn - i was actually anti-vegan when i started reading research papers on nutrition because i began my journey with a b12 deficiency (on a decidedly animal-based diet) - and it was only after i realized that the more i followed an evidence-based diet the more plant-based it became that i was able to let go of the cognitive dissonance surrounding our food choices and started becoming vegan.
like most parents we care deeply about our son's health and welfare, and while he's the only vegan in his last three preschool classes he's usually among the biggest, toughest and most active. he's also really smart, constantly impressing his teachers and other parents, so i don't think we're completely failing.
5. if you're going to call the aforementioned documentaries brainwashing, i suggest you take a step back and consider where all your dietary information is coming from. who's informing you? who's informing your doctors? we've all been brainwashed by about a century of marketing, we have to train our kids to deal with the dissonance of eating animals that we'd otherwise befriend, and watching my non-vegan friends deal with these issues with their own kids has been eye-opening. it's easier to teach compassion when you're not being a hypocrite.
next time you're reading an article demonizing plant-based diets and promoting animal products, do yourself a favor: check the sources. and when you read the sources, read the abstract, and the conclusion, and then look at how the study was done. you might actually learn something.
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
a full week
highlights and lowlights. a whole bunch. some more memorable than others.
1. the saturday morning reading. i have learned not to say "sure!" when i have only two days to prepare. i practiced until i arrived at the synagogue, kinda had a handle on it. then i went up and had forgotten... everything. it was super embarrassing, less because i cared about what others thought and more because i felt like a proper idiot.
2. the financial advisors have been really pushy, generating a lot of drama. i'm inclined to figure shit out myself.
3. an uncomfortable event that took a day to sort out.
4. i was late to post my creative writing submission, but i ended up quite happy with it.
5. i left work on friday feeling really good about my week's achievements. i'm quite satisfied overall.
6. mr smear has been testing us really hard. but he's also been really cool. in particular, we've had some interesting bedtime conversations about the nature of god (i already need to correct some oversimplifications he's gotten from the school); yesterday i picked up the first seasons of batman: the animated series, x-men and the fantastic four from 2006 and we watched an episode from each this evening, he was over the moon :)
7. mr smear swam by himself yesterday for the very first time! the combination of pride and relief made me emotional, and then the teacher came over to comment on how fast he's learning ^_^
8. purim was fun! i took mr smear to the wynberg temple and he really enjoyed it, i had a couple of interesting conversations and the little musical play before the megillah reading began had the desired effect on him. it was only yesterday that we received photos from his teacher and discovered that the "secret" he'd kept from me the other day when i asked him how his day went was that he was haman in the class play :)
9. oh! we finally got the projector up and running, it's awesome having it back again.
1. the saturday morning reading. i have learned not to say "sure!" when i have only two days to prepare. i practiced until i arrived at the synagogue, kinda had a handle on it. then i went up and had forgotten... everything. it was super embarrassing, less because i cared about what others thought and more because i felt like a proper idiot.
2. the financial advisors have been really pushy, generating a lot of drama. i'm inclined to figure shit out myself.
3. an uncomfortable event that took a day to sort out.
4. i was late to post my creative writing submission, but i ended up quite happy with it.
5. i left work on friday feeling really good about my week's achievements. i'm quite satisfied overall.
6. mr smear has been testing us really hard. but he's also been really cool. in particular, we've had some interesting bedtime conversations about the nature of god (i already need to correct some oversimplifications he's gotten from the school); yesterday i picked up the first seasons of batman: the animated series, x-men and the fantastic four from 2006 and we watched an episode from each this evening, he was over the moon :)
7. mr smear swam by himself yesterday for the very first time! the combination of pride and relief made me emotional, and then the teacher came over to comment on how fast he's learning ^_^
8. purim was fun! i took mr smear to the wynberg temple and he really enjoyed it, i had a couple of interesting conversations and the little musical play before the megillah reading began had the desired effect on him. it was only yesterday that we received photos from his teacher and discovered that the "secret" he'd kept from me the other day when i asked him how his day went was that he was haman in the class play :)
9. oh! we finally got the projector up and running, it's awesome having it back again.
Tuesday, March 03, 2020
tuesday
i'm feeling a bit... tired? not really, certainly not like the past week or two. antsy? possibly. anxious? hmm, a little.
the anxiety is partially fueled by insurance broker drama that's been unfolding and folding and unfolding again over the past couple of days. also, by my almost posting a submission to the AITA subreddit and receiving a clear YTA from my wife regarding about five years of taking every opportunity to remind her that once upon a time she told a burly hardware store dude that i wasn't good with my hands. i didn't realize just how bad i've been making her feel, so i feel kinda shitty now.
the trigger for this whole thing was that yesterday evening i attached a shelf to the top of our bookshelf for the projector, and this morning i put up another shelf for our router which i've been talking about doing for at least half a year now. the resulting wifi coverage is very satisfying.
at work, i've been the git police since thursday - it panders to my ocd and it seems to be appreciated, so double win!
sunday: after shelf shopping with my mom, we took mr smear to the big herzlia school 80 year celebration thing. it was exhausting, but he had a lot of fun and we enjoyed running into some people we haven't seen in a while. it was crazy hot, so we swam for a bit when we got home although the water was surprisingly cold.
i think tattoo season is on its way.
last night i got down to some writing, i'm loving the concept but not keen on writing dialog. huh.
okay, now i'm tired.
the anxiety is partially fueled by insurance broker drama that's been unfolding and folding and unfolding again over the past couple of days. also, by my almost posting a submission to the AITA subreddit and receiving a clear YTA from my wife regarding about five years of taking every opportunity to remind her that once upon a time she told a burly hardware store dude that i wasn't good with my hands. i didn't realize just how bad i've been making her feel, so i feel kinda shitty now.
the trigger for this whole thing was that yesterday evening i attached a shelf to the top of our bookshelf for the projector, and this morning i put up another shelf for our router which i've been talking about doing for at least half a year now. the resulting wifi coverage is very satisfying.
at work, i've been the git police since thursday - it panders to my ocd and it seems to be appreciated, so double win!
sunday: after shelf shopping with my mom, we took mr smear to the big herzlia school 80 year celebration thing. it was exhausting, but he had a lot of fun and we enjoyed running into some people we haven't seen in a while. it was crazy hot, so we swam for a bit when we got home although the water was surprisingly cold.
i think tattoo season is on its way.
last night i got down to some writing, i'm loving the concept but not keen on writing dialog. huh.
okay, now i'm tired.
Saturday, February 29, 2020
weird week
i'm not sure where to begin, so this will be a jumble.
last night i was keeping an eye on the kids at the temple, and witnessed nasty little boy throw something suspicious at mr smear's head and hurt him. i found it... a thick metal washer. jesus. i'm pretty sure my response left an impression, but it's really disturbing that this is the second time i've witnessed him taking cruel suggestions from older boys and his mom seems a bit... disconnected. or despairing. it's hard to tell.
this morning was a memorial service for my mom's brother, and gd - in spite of her misgivings regarding the orthodox separation of men and women - came along and seemed to have a positive experience. our lunch at bobo's was good, but not so incredible as to justify the price. it was great spending time with gd's friends, not so great hearing that 2020 hasn't been particularly kind to them so far.
we have stuffed ourselves on a variety of delicious breads today.
swimming would have been nice but it was a bit cold. i suspect tattoo season is on its way.
i worked out of the gym two days this week, i finally picked up a decent headset.
having my life insurance broker and potential broker trying really hard to keep / get my business is a pain in the ass. the doctor's visit was entertaining, though:
"did anyone ever name your syncope?"
"you mean, like 'bob'?"
aligning people on good git practices and manipulating git repos is really good for my ocd.
gd's first bat mitzvah lesson was this week, she managed to resolve an issue with someone we had a fight with years ago who didn't realize that *she* was the one making things uncomfortable. this in conjunction with last week's playdate with the class bully and gd telling his mom exactly what she thought made for a good week.
i've been really tired this past week, and going to bed pretty damned early. i've also accepted that i'm out of shape, can't exercise, and am likely to be like this (slightly overweight, feeling on the weak side with a bum knee) for a long while to come. it's okay. so i'm getting older. i'm mostly good.
poetry. i'm finding it hard to record my poetry. i have three pieces i want to put out there and i need the time / space / energy to do it. it's playing on me.
gd and mr smear went to check out the school i was so excited about last year, and now they're both excited about it too. win!
last night i was keeping an eye on the kids at the temple, and witnessed nasty little boy throw something suspicious at mr smear's head and hurt him. i found it... a thick metal washer. jesus. i'm pretty sure my response left an impression, but it's really disturbing that this is the second time i've witnessed him taking cruel suggestions from older boys and his mom seems a bit... disconnected. or despairing. it's hard to tell.
this morning was a memorial service for my mom's brother, and gd - in spite of her misgivings regarding the orthodox separation of men and women - came along and seemed to have a positive experience. our lunch at bobo's was good, but not so incredible as to justify the price. it was great spending time with gd's friends, not so great hearing that 2020 hasn't been particularly kind to them so far.
we have stuffed ourselves on a variety of delicious breads today.
swimming would have been nice but it was a bit cold. i suspect tattoo season is on its way.
i worked out of the gym two days this week, i finally picked up a decent headset.
having my life insurance broker and potential broker trying really hard to keep / get my business is a pain in the ass. the doctor's visit was entertaining, though:
"did anyone ever name your syncope?"
"you mean, like 'bob'?"
aligning people on good git practices and manipulating git repos is really good for my ocd.
gd's first bat mitzvah lesson was this week, she managed to resolve an issue with someone we had a fight with years ago who didn't realize that *she* was the one making things uncomfortable. this in conjunction with last week's playdate with the class bully and gd telling his mom exactly what she thought made for a good week.
i've been really tired this past week, and going to bed pretty damned early. i've also accepted that i'm out of shape, can't exercise, and am likely to be like this (slightly overweight, feeling on the weak side with a bum knee) for a long while to come. it's okay. so i'm getting older. i'm mostly good.
poetry. i'm finding it hard to record my poetry. i have three pieces i want to put out there and i need the time / space / energy to do it. it's playing on me.
gd and mr smear went to check out the school i was so excited about last year, and now they're both excited about it too. win!
Monday, February 24, 2020
tired
it's been a weird weekend. i've been tired and grumpy for most of it. i feel like i'm not getting shit done. i feel like i don't have time for me, even when i do but i'm not using it constructively.
friday was a bit of a downer, i worked from the gym and i just couldn't get my head right. the new children's service at the temple was brilliant, and it set a really good vibe for the regular service.
i struggled with saturday morning, both being tired and not as well-prepared for the torah reading as i'd hoped to be. it was a pleasant morning nonetheless. i came home to swap with gd as she went off to a birthday party, mr smear and i had a pretty good afternoon together.
this morning gd went off to her monthly hypnotherapy course and i took mr smear to a birthday party. it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. and the freaking snake dude, man - jesus, you'd think the parents would have warned us that they'd brought someone in to do a goddamned reptile show. we're trying to teach our kid compassion for animals, there i am at a birthday party explaining to my four year old why it's not cool to be imprisoning snakes and then passing them around to be handled by screaming children.
my mom picked us up, she didn't hang around for long but she and mr smear shared some sweet moments. by the time gd got back home it was late afternoon and i was desperately in need of a nap, but i'd had coffee to cope with keeping mr smear entertained and so i just lay in bed feeling like crap.
the evening was fun, though, after we got back from the jungle gym we introduced mr smear to TNMT (both the original and the 2003 series), mr smear totally beat me in a memory card game and shower and bedtime was pretty chilled. then gd and i watched most of dogma, and it's now past midnight and i'm going to be a wreck in the morning.
friday was a bit of a downer, i worked from the gym and i just couldn't get my head right. the new children's service at the temple was brilliant, and it set a really good vibe for the regular service.
i struggled with saturday morning, both being tired and not as well-prepared for the torah reading as i'd hoped to be. it was a pleasant morning nonetheless. i came home to swap with gd as she went off to a birthday party, mr smear and i had a pretty good afternoon together.
this morning gd went off to her monthly hypnotherapy course and i took mr smear to a birthday party. it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. and the freaking snake dude, man - jesus, you'd think the parents would have warned us that they'd brought someone in to do a goddamned reptile show. we're trying to teach our kid compassion for animals, there i am at a birthday party explaining to my four year old why it's not cool to be imprisoning snakes and then passing them around to be handled by screaming children.
my mom picked us up, she didn't hang around for long but she and mr smear shared some sweet moments. by the time gd got back home it was late afternoon and i was desperately in need of a nap, but i'd had coffee to cope with keeping mr smear entertained and so i just lay in bed feeling like crap.
the evening was fun, though, after we got back from the jungle gym we introduced mr smear to TNMT (both the original and the 2003 series), mr smear totally beat me in a memory card game and shower and bedtime was pretty chilled. then gd and i watched most of dogma, and it's now past midnight and i'm going to be a wreck in the morning.
Thursday, February 20, 2020
1 step up, 1 step down
i'm in a weird space this evening, not actually sure how i feel and my mind's all over the place.
today:
feeling much better this morning, the pushy financial consultant arriving at our door (the security guard failed completely) just as i was rushing mr smear out to meet my mom and drop him off at school. afterwards we grabbed coffee and tea and then i got a ride to protoplasm's new workspace to drop off his birthday present, we had a good chat and then i went to work.
work was pretty darned satisfying. i closed the day by delivering the work i was originally tasked with, and now i'm on to the next mission. and my briyani lunch was fantastic.
i came home too late to swim, had a bit of a mixed-feelings evening.
yesterday:
a tough and tedious workday. coming home late from a very pleasant post-work barbecue after mr smear had already fallen asleep, trying to get to bed early but still awake until at least midnight
tuesday:
the last part of the day was baffling and gave me a headache, and then after i left i learned that i was late because gd was going to a talk. after getting mr smear to bed early after a pleasant evening, i completed a writing assignment in a completely different way from what i'd planned and i was really happy with it.
monday:
i was still awfully tired on monday, and only started coming right this morning.
now it's late again and i haven't done the one thing i was supposed to be doing for the past couple of hours. not good.
today:
feeling much better this morning, the pushy financial consultant arriving at our door (the security guard failed completely) just as i was rushing mr smear out to meet my mom and drop him off at school. afterwards we grabbed coffee and tea and then i got a ride to protoplasm's new workspace to drop off his birthday present, we had a good chat and then i went to work.
work was pretty darned satisfying. i closed the day by delivering the work i was originally tasked with, and now i'm on to the next mission. and my briyani lunch was fantastic.
i came home too late to swim, had a bit of a mixed-feelings evening.
yesterday:
a tough and tedious workday. coming home late from a very pleasant post-work barbecue after mr smear had already fallen asleep, trying to get to bed early but still awake until at least midnight
tuesday:
the last part of the day was baffling and gave me a headache, and then after i left i learned that i was late because gd was going to a talk. after getting mr smear to bed early after a pleasant evening, i completed a writing assignment in a completely different way from what i'd planned and i was really happy with it.
monday:
i was still awfully tired on monday, and only started coming right this morning.
now it's late again and i haven't done the one thing i was supposed to be doing for the past couple of hours. not good.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
sunday
so. that was a day.
i tightened up the base functionality of my new app, after which we went to the waterfront to take care of some chores. between opening a service query for gd's phone number, purchasing a mini-ups for our modem, lunch, some playtime for mr smear, gift shopping, handling phone insurance, a pharmacy visit and a couple of toilet runs, we ended up WAY over time and late and our cousin arrived at our front door for a visit while gd was still in the queue at the grocery store.
no stress. fortunately, my mother was able to help out which was amazing, and the afternoon with the two cousins who came over was very well spent.
we finished watching the thundercats reboot, which overall - aside from a couple of uncharacteristically lazy deus ex machinas - was superb and fun for the whole family.
gd's obsession with the 5 differences online game has become infectious.
i tightened up the base functionality of my new app, after which we went to the waterfront to take care of some chores. between opening a service query for gd's phone number, purchasing a mini-ups for our modem, lunch, some playtime for mr smear, gift shopping, handling phone insurance, a pharmacy visit and a couple of toilet runs, we ended up WAY over time and late and our cousin arrived at our front door for a visit while gd was still in the queue at the grocery store.
no stress. fortunately, my mother was able to help out which was amazing, and the afternoon with the two cousins who came over was very well spent.
we finished watching the thundercats reboot, which overall - aside from a couple of uncharacteristically lazy deus ex machinas - was superb and fun for the whole family.
gd's obsession with the 5 differences online game has become infectious.
one, two, skip a few...
wednesday & thursday:
a blur of work, very interesting architecture discussions and right now i don't recall much anything that happened at home except that i was practicing for yesterday's torah reading and time just felt like it was slipping away. and while i can't recall specifics, this whole week has been filled with feeling very proud of mr smear and having quite a lot of fun with him. oh! it's been really cool reading him the jungle book as well as stories and poems by miriam yelen shtekalis.
friday:
it was a slow start to the day, i worked out of the gym and while i remembered to take a sweater i managed to leave it at the door. it was freaking COLD. halfway through the day, though, i realized that i can (and should) take my swimming trunks with me whenever i go, and just jump in the jacuzzi a couple of times a day! and take a sweater.
i finally completed my first task (pending integration testing) and spent a good chunk of the workday fiddling with git branches. note to the world: setting up sourcetree and meld on a mac makes an enormous difference to resolving merge conflicts!
yesterday:
my neck's really started hurting again.
i got to the temple a little less late than last week, the first part of the service was nice but then someone sat down near me (not sure which of the someones it was) who smelled like perfumed BO, it was a struggle not to gag and i had to move away. after the torah was taken out i sat down thinking "i have some time to go over my verses", not realizing that the rabbi had assigned me the morning's opening verses and when he called me my heart started pounding in my chest, throat and temples. stage fright again. so i started reading, and then something seemed to happen to my eyes and it became difficult to make out the words.
it was only after the barmitzvah that i learned the reason: the torah scroll we were reading out of is actually a holocaust survivor; it was stolen from a synagogue in czechoslovakia, and after world war ii was sent to london, fixed up about twenty years later and then made its way to cape town. so that's a thing.
i came home intending to rest a bit, other stuff happened and then eventually we all went down to the pool for a really nice hour or two. between the pre-pool and us leaving for protoplasm's 40th birthday party, i managed to make some good progress on an app i've been building for the last couple of weeks and i'm really happy with it so far!
my mom came over to deliver a few new superhero books for mr smear and babysit, we went out to the birthday party and had a lot of fun! we ended up having to leave in a hurry around midnight, but not after meeting some very interesting people and possibly making a fantastic connection for the sonnetcomix project!
this morning:
mr smear woke up around 4am from a nightmare, and wouldn't go back to sleep so i stayed with him for a couple of sleepless hours. load-shedding kicked off at 6am, at which point i learned that the UPS i've hooked the modem up to isn't working at all. as it was light, i moved back to my bed and let gd handle mr smear and his new beloved collection of books, waking up a couple of hours later to find the two of them passed out on the other side of the bed with the books stacked neatly next to them.
a blur of work, very interesting architecture discussions and right now i don't recall much anything that happened at home except that i was practicing for yesterday's torah reading and time just felt like it was slipping away. and while i can't recall specifics, this whole week has been filled with feeling very proud of mr smear and having quite a lot of fun with him. oh! it's been really cool reading him the jungle book as well as stories and poems by miriam yelen shtekalis.
friday:
it was a slow start to the day, i worked out of the gym and while i remembered to take a sweater i managed to leave it at the door. it was freaking COLD. halfway through the day, though, i realized that i can (and should) take my swimming trunks with me whenever i go, and just jump in the jacuzzi a couple of times a day! and take a sweater.
i finally completed my first task (pending integration testing) and spent a good chunk of the workday fiddling with git branches. note to the world: setting up sourcetree and meld on a mac makes an enormous difference to resolving merge conflicts!
yesterday:
my neck's really started hurting again.
i got to the temple a little less late than last week, the first part of the service was nice but then someone sat down near me (not sure which of the someones it was) who smelled like perfumed BO, it was a struggle not to gag and i had to move away. after the torah was taken out i sat down thinking "i have some time to go over my verses", not realizing that the rabbi had assigned me the morning's opening verses and when he called me my heart started pounding in my chest, throat and temples. stage fright again. so i started reading, and then something seemed to happen to my eyes and it became difficult to make out the words.
it was only after the barmitzvah that i learned the reason: the torah scroll we were reading out of is actually a holocaust survivor; it was stolen from a synagogue in czechoslovakia, and after world war ii was sent to london, fixed up about twenty years later and then made its way to cape town. so that's a thing.
i came home intending to rest a bit, other stuff happened and then eventually we all went down to the pool for a really nice hour or two. between the pre-pool and us leaving for protoplasm's 40th birthday party, i managed to make some good progress on an app i've been building for the last couple of weeks and i'm really happy with it so far!
my mom came over to deliver a few new superhero books for mr smear and babysit, we went out to the birthday party and had a lot of fun! we ended up having to leave in a hurry around midnight, but not after meeting some very interesting people and possibly making a fantastic connection for the sonnetcomix project!
this morning:
mr smear woke up around 4am from a nightmare, and wouldn't go back to sleep so i stayed with him for a couple of sleepless hours. load-shedding kicked off at 6am, at which point i learned that the UPS i've hooked the modem up to isn't working at all. as it was light, i moved back to my bed and let gd handle mr smear and his new beloved collection of books, waking up a couple of hours later to find the two of them passed out on the other side of the bed with the books stacked neatly next to them.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
tuesday
i felt better this morning, it might be because i slept more. so of course, i'm going to bed later tonight...
it was a solid day grinding, with a couple of strategy discussions, and i feel good about what i achieved. and then i took on more torah reading for the coming weekend, and then had a haircut, and came home. it turns out mr smear has figured out counting in / multiplying by tens. how?! when?!
i don't even know what i've been doing this evening, to be honest. i had plans. i think.
it was a solid day grinding, with a couple of strategy discussions, and i feel good about what i achieved. and then i took on more torah reading for the coming weekend, and then had a haircut, and came home. it turns out mr smear has figured out counting in / multiplying by tens. how?! when?!
i don't even know what i've been doing this evening, to be honest. i had plans. i think.
Monday, February 10, 2020
mondaze
yesterday:
a little bit of book promotion, picking up a UPS (loadshedding's here to stay, at least we'll have internet access), and representing my family at the tu b'shvat seder (mr smear's still sick, he can't return to school until wednesday)
today:
rushing out of bed groggy, life insurance forms before work, arriving exhausted to the office. a lot, grueling day (though not entirely unpleasant) with a break for an excellent vegan schnitzel lunch, coming home to entertain mr smear, rotate our mattress, be thoroughly impressed by the janus plug design, enjoy shower and bedtime with mr smear, complete more paperwork and now go to bed.
i received a bitcoin tip on reddit yesterday that introduced me to the bitcoin.com and jaxx liberty apps - i think we're heading in the right direction!
Sunday, February 09, 2020
mid-weekend
WELL.
day 5 crossed paths with gd's birthday and lost. her birthday present? i took her to the visa authority and she picked up her passport with a renewed visa in it. hooray!
after a meeting with a financial advisor, i met up with her again and we went to lekker vegan for lunch. then did a quick grocery shopping, and THEN i went to the workspace to rejoin and get an hour and a half of work in before grabbing a beer with a friend, picking up gd and mr smear and heading to the temple.
mr smear had been feeling sick or drowsy the whole day, he spent most of the evening in my arms. he's heavy, and my neck's noticeably busted, but it's fine.
today began with pancakes and making a bit of a start on a web app i've been thinking about for the past couple of weeks. then i went to the temple for my first time reading from the torah since my barmitzvah (it's been 26 years). i knew there was a batmitzvah happening, but i was *not* prepared for the temple to be packing to overflowing and i had serious stage fright. par for the course, i guess, fortunately i only made one mistake (that i know of, at least) and overall i really enjoyed the experience!
mr smear was falling asleep again, so we scrapped our plans and went home for a relaxed afternoon, most of which i spent on my app which i got to a point where we were able to have fun with it - it's very simple, but hugely entertaining!
after taking mr smear down for a quick swim my mom came over later with The Delivery... the copies of my book i ordered! it's one thing seeing a preview, quite another holding them in real life and seeing that the real thing is even more impressive. SO SATISFIED. please consider purchasing one ^_^
gd and i took my mom's car to the balducci's for her birthday dinner. it was an excellent dinner, we had ourselves a really good time and we both ate too much (as usual).
i've spent the past couple of hours fiddling with the app (lots of cosmetic work to be done now), clearing large attachments from my email (i did a lot last night, too, there's a lot of memory lane stuff which i enjoyed going through), and now i'm way beyond being ready for bed.
it was a great week, and it's been a amazing day.
day 5 crossed paths with gd's birthday and lost. her birthday present? i took her to the visa authority and she picked up her passport with a renewed visa in it. hooray!
after a meeting with a financial advisor, i met up with her again and we went to lekker vegan for lunch. then did a quick grocery shopping, and THEN i went to the workspace to rejoin and get an hour and a half of work in before grabbing a beer with a friend, picking up gd and mr smear and heading to the temple.
mr smear had been feeling sick or drowsy the whole day, he spent most of the evening in my arms. he's heavy, and my neck's noticeably busted, but it's fine.
today began with pancakes and making a bit of a start on a web app i've been thinking about for the past couple of weeks. then i went to the temple for my first time reading from the torah since my barmitzvah (it's been 26 years). i knew there was a batmitzvah happening, but i was *not* prepared for the temple to be packing to overflowing and i had serious stage fright. par for the course, i guess, fortunately i only made one mistake (that i know of, at least) and overall i really enjoyed the experience!
mr smear was falling asleep again, so we scrapped our plans and went home for a relaxed afternoon, most of which i spent on my app which i got to a point where we were able to have fun with it - it's very simple, but hugely entertaining!
after taking mr smear down for a quick swim my mom came over later with The Delivery... the copies of my book i ordered! it's one thing seeing a preview, quite another holding them in real life and seeing that the real thing is even more impressive. SO SATISFIED. please consider purchasing one ^_^
gd and i took my mom's car to the balducci's for her birthday dinner. it was an excellent dinner, we had ourselves a really good time and we both ate too much (as usual).
i've spent the past couple of hours fiddling with the app (lots of cosmetic work to be done now), clearing large attachments from my email (i did a lot last night, too, there's a lot of memory lane stuff which i enjoyed going through), and now i'm way beyond being ready for bed.
it was a great week, and it's been a amazing day.
Thursday, February 06, 2020
day 4
today went by pretty quickly. i was mostly focused. i made progress. i handled a bunch of chores. i let a bunch slide. i think i need to go to bed soon.
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
day 3
i feel pretty hammered, but i guess it is 11.30pm and i have actually been working pretty hard.
yesterday got off on the wrong foot because i had to jump off the toilet for my son, who then proceeded to sit and swing a fool around until he was late for school. i left work after an unexpected lunch (i'd eaten a bit beforehand) to go to the hospital for my MRI, there's nothing like being told "don't swallow" when you have to lie still on your back for twenty minutes during allergy season and you've forgotten to use your nose spray. i had one "incident", the rest was kind of okay.
home - dinner - bedtime routine - bedtime in the dark, due to load-shedding, but it was a good excuse to read more wind in the willows and get to bed relatively early.
today mr smear was quicker to get started, it might be because it was their first real school outing and he seemed excited. i admit i was feeling a bit nervous, but it went well so i'm glad. it was slightly cooler, i was still sweaty when i got to work but less so. another busy day, with a break around lunchtime to meet with the neurologist who explained that my neck's damaged enough to warrant a chat with a neurosurgeon. fantastic. at least i know to avoid all upper body exercise now. wonderful.
i was hungry, i picked up a fair amount of food and shovelled it down before returning to the office for another unexpected lunch. i suspect that's why my stomach was sore and a bit distended this evening. we put our new chairs together, which was a fun team-building experience, and i knocked out my first (extremely minor) change. i'm getting into the meatier parts of golang, i quite like it.
home - dinner - bedtime routine - bedtime, then a mix-and-match of the responsible and the irresponsible and now i think i need to go to bed.
yesterday got off on the wrong foot because i had to jump off the toilet for my son, who then proceeded to sit and swing a fool around until he was late for school. i left work after an unexpected lunch (i'd eaten a bit beforehand) to go to the hospital for my MRI, there's nothing like being told "don't swallow" when you have to lie still on your back for twenty minutes during allergy season and you've forgotten to use your nose spray. i had one "incident", the rest was kind of okay.
home - dinner - bedtime routine - bedtime in the dark, due to load-shedding, but it was a good excuse to read more wind in the willows and get to bed relatively early.
today mr smear was quicker to get started, it might be because it was their first real school outing and he seemed excited. i admit i was feeling a bit nervous, but it went well so i'm glad. it was slightly cooler, i was still sweaty when i got to work but less so. another busy day, with a break around lunchtime to meet with the neurologist who explained that my neck's damaged enough to warrant a chat with a neurosurgeon. fantastic. at least i know to avoid all upper body exercise now. wonderful.
i was hungry, i picked up a fair amount of food and shovelled it down before returning to the office for another unexpected lunch. i suspect that's why my stomach was sore and a bit distended this evening. we put our new chairs together, which was a fun team-building experience, and i knocked out my first (extremely minor) change. i'm getting into the meatier parts of golang, i quite like it.
home - dinner - bedtime routine - bedtime, then a mix-and-match of the responsible and the irresponsible and now i think i need to go to bed.
Monday, February 03, 2020
day 1 was pretty good
hot, though. and humid. mr smear gave us a hard time when we left, our therapy session seemed to have gone well, and aside from an hour or so struggling to keep my eyes focused the work day was productive.
also, whoever invented hudson's "the stomper" burger is an absolute genius.
i'm not really sure what i've done this evening after mr smear's bedtime, a bunch of random things. now for bed.
also, whoever invented hudson's "the stomper" burger is an absolute genius.
i'm not really sure what i've done this evening after mr smear's bedtime, a bunch of random things. now for bed.
Sunday, February 02, 2020
tomorrow is a new beginning
friday:
mr smear starting a cold (or something like one).
a visit with a neurologist to schedule an MRI, my neck's been in trouble until this morning and it's still a bit finicky.
brownies & downies was an interesting experience, i was awkward with the waitresses but they managed just fine.
an enlightening and entertaining conversation with a financial advisor.
shopping and the lion king. both of them.
going to the temple alone, meeting the family at my cousin's for a really nice family dinner. while mr smear watched the lion king again. his comment that i still don't know what to do with: "simba doesn't need his daddy because he's dead."
jesus, they don't train us for this.
saturday:
mostly indoors. did we go outside? i don't know.
today:
a grumpy start to the day, a walk through the company gardens (and some good hide-and-seek), a relaxed visit to my mom's coffee shop, a nap, a nice swim, a visit to plant for dinner.
moment of the day: mr smear saw a little girl in the restaurant, and informed us that he would let her know that she could be his friend if she wants. he proceeded to run off to play with her, came back five minutes later, sat down awkwardly next to me, thought for a bit and then said - very seriously - "umm... i don't think that was a date".
a brief chat with horseman before lights-out (meaning load-shedding), and mr smear passing out halfway through the first chapter of the wind in the willows. then lying in bed and redditing for a while, getting up and watching the first episode of silicon valley, watching an episode of rick and morty that i don't remember and then trying to make some progress on the next podcast episode before giving up to write this and go to bed.
and tomorrow... tomorrow is going to be interesting. i'm very excited to be start the new contract!
mr smear starting a cold (or something like one).
a visit with a neurologist to schedule an MRI, my neck's been in trouble until this morning and it's still a bit finicky.
brownies & downies was an interesting experience, i was awkward with the waitresses but they managed just fine.
an enlightening and entertaining conversation with a financial advisor.
shopping and the lion king. both of them.
going to the temple alone, meeting the family at my cousin's for a really nice family dinner. while mr smear watched the lion king again. his comment that i still don't know what to do with: "simba doesn't need his daddy because he's dead."
jesus, they don't train us for this.
saturday:
mostly indoors. did we go outside? i don't know.
today:
a grumpy start to the day, a walk through the company gardens (and some good hide-and-seek), a relaxed visit to my mom's coffee shop, a nap, a nice swim, a visit to plant for dinner.
moment of the day: mr smear saw a little girl in the restaurant, and informed us that he would let her know that she could be his friend if she wants. he proceeded to run off to play with her, came back five minutes later, sat down awkwardly next to me, thought for a bit and then said - very seriously - "umm... i don't think that was a date".
a brief chat with horseman before lights-out (meaning load-shedding), and mr smear passing out halfway through the first chapter of the wind in the willows. then lying in bed and redditing for a while, getting up and watching the first episode of silicon valley, watching an episode of rick and morty that i don't remember and then trying to make some progress on the next podcast episode before giving up to write this and go to bed.
and tomorrow... tomorrow is going to be interesting. i'm very excited to be start the new contract!
Friday, January 31, 2020
restless
i was falling asleep on the table, but since saying good night to mr smear and going to bed myself i've been struggling. i've slept a bit - and had a couple of strange dreams - but a lot of the night has been me tossing and turning and physically uncomfortable.
today: gym, council parents' meeting, the airport run in rush hour, strategy meeting with my mom, a quick swim
Thursday, January 30, 2020
a strange day
the PTA thing meeting this morning was a wash, it's pretty much all about fundraising and that's really not what we're interested in. then gd dragged me to the mall for a couple of things, after which we went home and relaxed a bit. which would have been fine, but i forgot that i'd scheduled a meeting with my insurance broker's fiancée who's trying to become a software developer. it was an entertaining meeting, although i did feel bad for rocking up late.
it was a strange day, which i spent a fair chunk of "arranging" the cantillation, and have just finished recording what i hope is me doing it correctly.
it's now past midnight, another day down having taken care of lots of random things but none of the stuff i originally intended these two weeks for.
oh, well.
it was a strange day, which i spent a fair chunk of "arranging" the cantillation, and have just finished recording what i hope is me doing it correctly.
it's now past midnight, another day down having taken care of lots of random things but none of the stuff i originally intended these two weeks for.
oh, well.
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
two days feeling like a month
my neck and back are still sore, and it's definitely a part of me feeling exhausted. our new bed finally arrived, which i think has given us a bit of rest, but there's lots more needed.
yesterday:
i finally took the projector - which we haven't operated since mid-december - to the repairman, who a) informed me that resetting the lamp timer put us at risk of dealing with a lamp explosion and b) confirmed my experience that there's no real reason to own a large, expensive tv when projector price and quality are so much better. our lens broke a couple of years ago, which affected the focus a little, and it seems like we may as well have it replaced while we're there. still way cheaper than getting a flat screen of even half the size.
mr smear's second swimming lesson, then driving him to a playdate, then enjoying our new bed.
a friend from the shared workspace picked me up in the evening and we went to a tech talk; it turns out i knew a lot more about both the subjects than i expected but it was still interesting. unfortunately, it went way over time and we had to leave... but the exit was right next to the speaker and there was no way out without disrupting everything. so that was awkward.
oh! and another page is up. and mr cat's begun on the updates to pages 2 and 3 ^_^
today:
it was a pretty relaxed morning, although i've been reading kent heckenlively's plague: one scientist's intrepid search for the truth about human retroviruses and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), autism, and other diseases over the last couple of days and it's as disturbing as anatomy of an epidemic and regardless of whether mikovits' theories are correct it's a truly horrifying examination of politics in science.
i went to the temple to meet with the rabbi for another cantillation lesson, it was very positive.
we picked up mr smear, i dropped him and gd off at home and went to get some printing done, spent an hour or two in bed again (trying so hard to fix my neck and failing), we played death squared, had a fantastic dinner and then gd left for a friend's birthday party. i put mr smear to bed and then watched this old interview with bill hicks, which is fantastic. gd's just come home, i'm about done with my evening and definitely ready for bed myself.
...
i went in earlier to check on my boy. the last couple of days i've seen and heard about him doing things that have really made me so damned proud. i have a ton of doubts about myself, my behaviour, even some of my life choices, but every now and again i get to look at him and feel like i'm a part of something really good. like, this evening we watched the first half of princess mononoke, possibly for the first time. we had to stop it halfway for shower and bedtime, and he was really sad. but he was sad for all the right reasons, and he responded with a maturity and an understanding of our roles and responsibilities in this world that i can only pray will strengthen as he gets older.
yesterday:
i finally took the projector - which we haven't operated since mid-december - to the repairman, who a) informed me that resetting the lamp timer put us at risk of dealing with a lamp explosion and b) confirmed my experience that there's no real reason to own a large, expensive tv when projector price and quality are so much better. our lens broke a couple of years ago, which affected the focus a little, and it seems like we may as well have it replaced while we're there. still way cheaper than getting a flat screen of even half the size.
mr smear's second swimming lesson, then driving him to a playdate, then enjoying our new bed.
a friend from the shared workspace picked me up in the evening and we went to a tech talk; it turns out i knew a lot more about both the subjects than i expected but it was still interesting. unfortunately, it went way over time and we had to leave... but the exit was right next to the speaker and there was no way out without disrupting everything. so that was awkward.
oh! and another page is up. and mr cat's begun on the updates to pages 2 and 3 ^_^
today:
it was a pretty relaxed morning, although i've been reading kent heckenlively's plague: one scientist's intrepid search for the truth about human retroviruses and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), autism, and other diseases over the last couple of days and it's as disturbing as anatomy of an epidemic and regardless of whether mikovits' theories are correct it's a truly horrifying examination of politics in science.
i went to the temple to meet with the rabbi for another cantillation lesson, it was very positive.
we picked up mr smear, i dropped him and gd off at home and went to get some printing done, spent an hour or two in bed again (trying so hard to fix my neck and failing), we played death squared, had a fantastic dinner and then gd left for a friend's birthday party. i put mr smear to bed and then watched this old interview with bill hicks, which is fantastic. gd's just come home, i'm about done with my evening and definitely ready for bed myself.
...
i went in earlier to check on my boy. the last couple of days i've seen and heard about him doing things that have really made me so damned proud. i have a ton of doubts about myself, my behaviour, even some of my life choices, but every now and again i get to look at him and feel like i'm a part of something really good. like, this evening we watched the first half of princess mononoke, possibly for the first time. we had to stop it halfway for shower and bedtime, and he was really sad. but he was sad for all the right reasons, and he responded with a maturity and an understanding of our roles and responsibilities in this world that i can only pray will strengthen as he gets older.
Monday, January 27, 2020
busy busy busy
these past few days have been very productive in spite of my intentions to be doing very little. and in spite of the fact that i hurt my neck really badly.
friday:
an interesting re-introduction to cantillation, resting, taking mr smear to the temple in the evening, a good dinner with my mom
yesterday:
we were too slow to enjoy the nice morning, the afternoon was very rainy and i don't recall us leaving the apartment except for going to say goodbye to yin and her boyfriend. reformatting the kindle and direct-to-print offerings until about 2am.
today:
approving the paperback, dropping off my mom at the airport, taking mr smear to the green point park and mary-ann's emporium for lunch, returning home to rest then driving out to pick up gd from her hypnotherapy class, ice-cream, a short walk, death squared with mr smear, a very nice dinner with great live music at plant, home for bedtime and posting page 5 of the graphic novel (patron-exclusive), celebrating the paperback going live!
friday:
an interesting re-introduction to cantillation, resting, taking mr smear to the temple in the evening, a good dinner with my mom
yesterday:
we were too slow to enjoy the nice morning, the afternoon was very rainy and i don't recall us leaving the apartment except for going to say goodbye to yin and her boyfriend. reformatting the kindle and direct-to-print offerings until about 2am.
today:
approving the paperback, dropping off my mom at the airport, taking mr smear to the green point park and mary-ann's emporium for lunch, returning home to rest then driving out to pick up gd from her hypnotherapy class, ice-cream, a short walk, death squared with mr smear, a very nice dinner with great live music at plant, home for bedtime and posting page 5 of the graphic novel (patron-exclusive), celebrating the paperback going live!
Thursday, January 23, 2020
off days
well, i at least succeeded in publishing the book on the kindle platform, it's pending review on google play and i've no idea what the deal is with apple books. i do know that i'm going to have to completely reformat it for paperback publishing (apples pages is completely unhelpful when it comes to that) and i had a bit of hoop-jumping to do with the goodreads page.
i also have more work to do to be able to sell it directly from my own website, but after all the above and generally feeling tired i decided to take a day or two off and relax, guilt-free. i've been busy, mind, but doing Not Much has been pretty good.
the furniture company called this afternoon, they've finally agreed to exchange the bed. once last time. we're praying this last one is actually a good one.
i also have more work to do to be able to sell it directly from my own website, but after all the above and generally feeling tired i decided to take a day or two off and relax, guilt-free. i've been busy, mind, but doing Not Much has been pretty good.
the furniture company called this afternoon, they've finally agreed to exchange the bed. once last time. we're praying this last one is actually a good one.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
questionably fatigued
i've been trying to figure out since last week why i'm feeling so tired all the time, not sure if it's the lack of sleep, a nerve thing, psychological, or some kind of deficiency - but my bloodwork came back great.
we had an uncomfortable talk with the preschool principal today about teaching kids in line with established science, who seemed a little put out when she discovered i'd already spoken to the school network's education coordinator... hopefully things will move in a good direction.
mr smear and i are LOVING death squared.
i've been back in the gym a couple of times, hopefully it's a trend but i'm not sure how i'll make it work with the new job.
this evening i said some things at the temple council meeting that i thought wouldn't go over well - and my fellow council members surprised me!
...
the last few days have been spent working really hard on publishing the podcast book. this is HARD WORK. and there's LOTS of it.
we had an uncomfortable talk with the preschool principal today about teaching kids in line with established science, who seemed a little put out when she discovered i'd already spoken to the school network's education coordinator... hopefully things will move in a good direction.
mr smear and i are LOVING death squared.
i've been back in the gym a couple of times, hopefully it's a trend but i'm not sure how i'll make it work with the new job.
this evening i said some things at the temple council meeting that i thought wouldn't go over well - and my fellow council members surprised me!
...
the last few days have been spent working really hard on publishing the podcast book. this is HARD WORK. and there's LOTS of it.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
faster
i fasted, i went for the blood tests, i hope the surprisingly literate woman who took my blood and was intrigued by my tattoos enjoys my podcast. i had a good breakfast, came home and spent a couple of hours making progress on the next episode and getting back into the book. and doing serious research into the games in the australia fire relief bundle, which we got our money's worth from this morning playing death squared with mr smear.
i'm a little hazy on the afternoon - i think we might have had a playdate, but it might have been on thursday - but i did take mr smear to the temple. the past few days have been insanely windy, and last night was properly scary. we went through to my aunt's for a really nice family dinner with yin (who's visiting with her boyfriend, i failed to mention swinging by thursday evening and having issues with one of the dogs at the house they're staying at).
today started off well, with the book and the gaming, and although i wasn't in the mood for it i took mr smear to a playdate. it was generally an excellent afternoon and we all had a good time.
we watched the first two episodes of soul music before mr smear's bedtime, and i've been doing random things or listening to dwayne perkins. now it's late and i'm tired. more book? sleep? who cares?
i'm a little hazy on the afternoon - i think we might have had a playdate, but it might have been on thursday - but i did take mr smear to the temple. the past few days have been insanely windy, and last night was properly scary. we went through to my aunt's for a really nice family dinner with yin (who's visiting with her boyfriend, i failed to mention swinging by thursday evening and having issues with one of the dogs at the house they're staying at).
today started off well, with the book and the gaming, and although i wasn't in the mood for it i took mr smear to a playdate. it was generally an excellent afternoon and we all had a good time.
we watched the first two episodes of soul music before mr smear's bedtime, and i've been doing random things or listening to dwayne perkins. now it's late and i'm tired. more book? sleep? who cares?
Thursday, January 16, 2020
slow week
it's hard to believe that the school holidays are over, it doesn't quite feel like everything's back to normal. mr smear's happy in his new class, we're still spending a lot of time in the pool, summer's turned up the heat. i've been meaning to do a ton of things and have achieved... not a hell of a lot. i'm not sure how much of my fatigue is psychological - finally being able to relax a bit before the new gig - and how much is a physiological thing. i saw a doctor this morning, tomorrow morning i'm undergoing a barrage of blood tests and i've got a neurologist appointment end of next week. let's see how all this works out.
lately mr smear's been having nightmares involving a "black queen" who wants to bite his head off. "please protect me, daddy". everything about parenting seems to be "winging it", so i've told him that his copy of me that resides in his heart will protect him as much as possible, by activating and controlling his arms and legs to escape or fight as needs be. unfortunately, the word "activate" in hebrew got lost in translation so i'm no longer sure what he thinks i've told him, but he's asleep now so i guess it must be okay.
then i had to tell him a story about 110 cows on a farm. so i made one up about a farmer who realized that killing his cows was wrong but didn't know what to do instead, and who accepted help to transition to crops and managed to feed his family and make a profit doing so, while letting the cows live out their lives. i might have been inspired by a new study that shows that we may well have been underestimating the impact of animal agriculture until now.
lately mr smear's been having nightmares involving a "black queen" who wants to bite his head off. "please protect me, daddy". everything about parenting seems to be "winging it", so i've told him that his copy of me that resides in his heart will protect him as much as possible, by activating and controlling his arms and legs to escape or fight as needs be. unfortunately, the word "activate" in hebrew got lost in translation so i'm no longer sure what he thinks i've told him, but he's asleep now so i guess it must be okay.
then i had to tell him a story about 110 cows on a farm. so i made one up about a farmer who realized that killing his cows was wrong but didn't know what to do instead, and who accepted help to transition to crops and managed to feed his family and make a profit doing so, while letting the cows live out their lives. i might have been inspired by a new study that shows that we may well have been underestimating the impact of animal agriculture until now.
Monday, January 13, 2020
a pretty good monday
not very manic, generally feeling good. the big news is that i had two meetings today with two new potential employers that were both extremely positive, and a few hours ago i received the signed contract from friday's negotiation... so i begin working in two weeks, and now it's time to shut down all the open discussions and focus on me-time.
kind of surreal.
this weekend was mostly spent relaxing by the pool and doing random things. it was quite nice, really.
kind of surreal.
this weekend was mostly spent relaxing by the pool and doing random things. it was quite nice, really.
Friday, January 10, 2020
a good run
thursday was tough, the couple of hours of sleep i got weren't particularly helpful. the morning meeting was very encouraging, though, it's the second time i've pitched one of my ideas to the guy but this time he seemed really receptive to it. i also got really good advice regarding salary negotiations from one of his employees.
i waited forever for gd at the sewing store, we picked up lunch from lekker vegan which was phenomenal, but which took a lot longer to prepare than expected so we were in a rush to get to the company gardens to meet my sister and her kids (and grandkid). being harassed by the homeless wasn't nice.
we had a good time in the gardens, then moved to our private garden for a really nice afternoon. the kids were all over the place and mr smear was misbehaving, but overall it was fun.
after finally getting mr smear to bed i settled down to race against the clock on one of the job applications i had open... but when i opened it, it was completely different to what i had expected and i was way to tired to be able to take it on. i sent them a message to say "thank you, but no", then crashed. i slept pretty well.
today: we're finally over our antibiotics, and it looks like they've done the trick. i am feeling much better.
i woke up to a three hour technical challenge, i completed the tasks in really good time, spent a further half an hour testing the shit out of them, and clicked the submit button. i nailed the first task, passed the second task with a decent score, and completely bombed the third - i clearly misunderstood or missed something important.
i walked to my hopefully new employer for the dreaded salary negotiation. first, the dog wasn't there when i arrived so my entrance was much more pleasant. second, we began with the contract terms and the more we talked the happier we both became. finally, he asked me how much i wanted, and i told him. he hesitated, punched some buttons on his calculator, and then agreed.
i walked out of there in a weird place: we're ready to go, but he still needs to ratify the contract and salary with what's effectively the parent company. if all is well, i'll be signing on with them and it looks like a REALLY exciting place to be.
when i arrived home i saw an email i'd received from the technical challenge in the morning, i was surprised to read that they're actually really happy with my results! now they want to test me for cultural fit. it's nice to have a backup plan.
when mr smear's new girlfriend left, gd and i took him swimming after which my mom gave us all a lift to the temple. after kiddush we headed to plant for a delicious semi-celebratory meal (i even had a cider), and then came home to put mr smear to bed. i've been doing random things for the last hour, i'm exhausted and a bit dehydrated and i'm not really sure how much of today was real. just like the fact that i still haven't internalized that after four years of grinding and anxiety, we're finally out of the debt we generated when we moved to south africa.
on the assumption that it was all real, i'm feeling like 2020 actually might be a good one.
i waited forever for gd at the sewing store, we picked up lunch from lekker vegan which was phenomenal, but which took a lot longer to prepare than expected so we were in a rush to get to the company gardens to meet my sister and her kids (and grandkid). being harassed by the homeless wasn't nice.
we had a good time in the gardens, then moved to our private garden for a really nice afternoon. the kids were all over the place and mr smear was misbehaving, but overall it was fun.
after finally getting mr smear to bed i settled down to race against the clock on one of the job applications i had open... but when i opened it, it was completely different to what i had expected and i was way to tired to be able to take it on. i sent them a message to say "thank you, but no", then crashed. i slept pretty well.
today: we're finally over our antibiotics, and it looks like they've done the trick. i am feeling much better.
i woke up to a three hour technical challenge, i completed the tasks in really good time, spent a further half an hour testing the shit out of them, and clicked the submit button. i nailed the first task, passed the second task with a decent score, and completely bombed the third - i clearly misunderstood or missed something important.
i walked to my hopefully new employer for the dreaded salary negotiation. first, the dog wasn't there when i arrived so my entrance was much more pleasant. second, we began with the contract terms and the more we talked the happier we both became. finally, he asked me how much i wanted, and i told him. he hesitated, punched some buttons on his calculator, and then agreed.
i walked out of there in a weird place: we're ready to go, but he still needs to ratify the contract and salary with what's effectively the parent company. if all is well, i'll be signing on with them and it looks like a REALLY exciting place to be.
when i arrived home i saw an email i'd received from the technical challenge in the morning, i was surprised to read that they're actually really happy with my results! now they want to test me for cultural fit. it's nice to have a backup plan.
when mr smear's new girlfriend left, gd and i took him swimming after which my mom gave us all a lift to the temple. after kiddush we headed to plant for a delicious semi-celebratory meal (i even had a cider), and then came home to put mr smear to bed. i've been doing random things for the last hour, i'm exhausted and a bit dehydrated and i'm not really sure how much of today was real. just like the fact that i still haven't internalized that after four years of grinding and anxiety, we're finally out of the debt we generated when we moved to south africa.
on the assumption that it was all real, i'm feeling like 2020 actually might be a good one.
Thursday, January 09, 2020
insomnia?
that awkward moment after a jolly good day and a productive evening when you get into bed and... just lie there. so eventually i got up, had a cup of hot chocolate and did something else productive. and now it's 2.45am and i have to be up early because i have things to do in the morning.
#winning
#winning
giddy-up
i woke up early and felt the morning slip away, went with gd to sort out her phone which - presence effect? - turned out to be just fine. had a seemingly-constructive chat with a manager at the furniture store about our bed situation. walked gd to a store for sewing supplies, rushed home to play chess (kind of) with mr smear, then scarfed down half a bowl of an amazing dish gd had made for lunch before heading out to a big interview.
a six hour interview that began with the dog jumping out and (properly) biting my hand, and ended with a big meal with the boss's family. i've got the job, if we agree on terms (ie salary), and if we do it looks like it's going to be fantastic. i walked home with a spring in my step, showered and said goodnight to mr smear, did nothing clever for a bit and then continued with another one of the job applications.
and now, i'm very much ready for bed. tomorrow's another full day.
a six hour interview that began with the dog jumping out and (properly) biting my hand, and ended with a big meal with the boss's family. i've got the job, if we agree on terms (ie salary), and if we do it looks like it's going to be fantastic. i walked home with a spring in my step, showered and said goodnight to mr smear, did nothing clever for a bit and then continued with another one of the job applications.
and now, i'm very much ready for bed. tomorrow's another full day.
Tuesday, January 07, 2020
frenetic
i got up really early this morning, drank a cup of coffee, and prepared for the first technical interview at a really cool place. i think it went well, even though it began with my just wanting to close my eyes and take a little nap.
my stomache's better, but still a bit problematic, and i'm not sure if the fatigue and fogginess is a symptom of the original infection or a side effect of the antibiotics.
i returned home, most of the following hour or two were consumed by me trying to get the delivery that was promised on friday and yesterday sorted out. eventually we came right, but not without things becoming a bit tense for all parties.
i rested a little, then took mr smear for a swim. he seems to be improving, but it's hard to tell. at least he seems to be enjoying the experience, and i'm hoping he's developing some kind of intuition...
i proceeded to take mr smear to the company gardens, which was mostly great - he seems interested in learning chess, and we spent a while going through basic moves on the board with child-sized pieces. he seems to be getting it?
trying to teach mr smear about honesty and keeping promises is turning out to be quite a long story. also, he gets tearful about the weirdest things. *sigh*
this is me "resting" before bedtime, i have a stack of assessment work to get through this evening and i'm nervous because my head's full of cloud...
Monday, January 06, 2020
headache
health-wise, i spent a lot of this morning emptying myself, and this afternoon developed a massive headache that's just not going away. gd has the same headache. whatever this is, it's a nightmare - and its timing couldn't be better, i have a 9am technical interview in the morning.
sunday:
i don't remember much aside from gd going to see the butcher boys (the demons mr smear's terrified of) before meeting mr smear and i at the museum.
last night i finally prepared the second draft of an article i've been working on, which is satisfying. i slept alright, had an amazing dream / nightmare in which rick sanchez employed me and a bunch of others to hunt and manage some weird cloaked aliens that were like an aggressive predator beak-beak from armikrog. the setting was bizarrely dystopian urban, i wish i could have recorded it. the next dream started with steve buscemi and a couple of other actors but just as it began my alarm went off and that was it.
today:
gd and i went to the vodacom store to sort out her new contract, then to the furniture store. the woman who's been dealing with us is on vacation, and after being helped by someone else it looks like this whole bed debacle comes down to her suggestions being terrible. now that we've tried a bed that actually feels good for both of us and seems solid, we have to go through the whole process of getting our current one evaluated again :(
we got back in time for gd's first consultation, i took off for my mom's coffee shop and got in some productive alone-time, then returned home just in time for a nice catch-up with an old friend of mine (tpj) who's working for a company that sounds amazing.
i spent some time working on my personal shop, then spent the afternoon and evening alternately playing with or struggling with mr smear. he's a great kid, but there's some stuff that needs serious work...
right, it's now much later than i'd planned to crash so i'm going to go do that now.
sunday:
i don't remember much aside from gd going to see the butcher boys (the demons mr smear's terrified of) before meeting mr smear and i at the museum.
last night i finally prepared the second draft of an article i've been working on, which is satisfying. i slept alright, had an amazing dream / nightmare in which rick sanchez employed me and a bunch of others to hunt and manage some weird cloaked aliens that were like an aggressive predator beak-beak from armikrog. the setting was bizarrely dystopian urban, i wish i could have recorded it. the next dream started with steve buscemi and a couple of other actors but just as it began my alarm went off and that was it.
today:
gd and i went to the vodacom store to sort out her new contract, then to the furniture store. the woman who's been dealing with us is on vacation, and after being helped by someone else it looks like this whole bed debacle comes down to her suggestions being terrible. now that we've tried a bed that actually feels good for both of us and seems solid, we have to go through the whole process of getting our current one evaluated again :(
we got back in time for gd's first consultation, i took off for my mom's coffee shop and got in some productive alone-time, then returned home just in time for a nice catch-up with an old friend of mine (tpj) who's working for a company that sounds amazing.
i spent some time working on my personal shop, then spent the afternoon and evening alternately playing with or struggling with mr smear. he's a great kid, but there's some stuff that needs serious work...
right, it's now much later than i'd planned to crash so i'm going to go do that now.
Saturday, January 04, 2020
saturday
jesus. i just watched the rest of racing extinction and it's an intense emotional rollercoaster, a fair amount of which felt like watching a snuff film. how does one react in the face of one's own extinction?
i'm feeling profoundly saddened by what we're capable of, deeply troubled by what i think can and should be done and what that would cost us.
...
most of today was spent driving to greyton, with gd and i struggling - her with nausea, me with a threatening belly. lunch with my mom's friend went on way longer than anticipated (although it was very good), and we arrived at the farm animal sanctuary so late that they were doing us a really big favour by letting us in at all. it was seering hot weather, but we got a good tour and got to connect with a bunch of the animals.
aside from us adults appreciating the visit, mr smear was very sad to be leaving and wished he could stay so that's a massive success in my book. he also spent most of the drive there and back staring out the window, i love that he loves seeing trees and mountains and rivers and animals because i used to hate family drives as a kid.
we think the antibiotics are working, i hope we sleep as well tonight as we did yesterday. i'm exhausted.
i'm feeling profoundly saddened by what we're capable of, deeply troubled by what i think can and should be done and what that would cost us.
...
most of today was spent driving to greyton, with gd and i struggling - her with nausea, me with a threatening belly. lunch with my mom's friend went on way longer than anticipated (although it was very good), and we arrived at the farm animal sanctuary so late that they were doing us a really big favour by letting us in at all. it was seering hot weather, but we got a good tour and got to connect with a bunch of the animals.
aside from us adults appreciating the visit, mr smear was very sad to be leaving and wished he could stay so that's a massive success in my book. he also spent most of the drive there and back staring out the window, i love that he loves seeing trees and mountains and rivers and animals because i used to hate family drives as a kid.
we think the antibiotics are working, i hope we sleep as well tonight as we did yesterday. i'm exhausted.
Friday, January 03, 2020
friday
nobody slept last night. i was having trouble anyway, then around 4am mr smear crept in and the rest of the morning was history.
gd and i both continued to feel horrible, so we went to the doctor and it looks like we've either got a mild case of food poisoning or we've picked up some kind of parasite. wonderful. thankfully it's just us, and it's not contagious.
oh, and we're totally over uber. there's a taxi service in south africa called bolt and it's both cheaper and better.
yesterday's ridiculous story about the mobile carriers was resolved in the middle of the night with the confirmation from the carrier whose employees denied that we'd receive one. it's a painful process, but we're moving forward. we sorted out a new sim card and picked up our meds, then walked home. i spent the day expecting to have to jump to pick up a delivery in person, but they never contacted me, and the following hours after getting home were consumed by phone calls with potential employers and recruiters.
some of it was positive.
i took mr smear to the gallery (overcoming his fear of the demons!), then the museum, but quickly left there when i realized i had no signal (because i was expecting that delivery). we returned home with me exhausted but failing to rest, as he kept me busy until my mom picked us up so that i could help her hanging paintings at her place. when we arrived there she realized she'd forgotten to bring an extension cable, so we returned to town to pick one up and went back again. mr smear passed out along the way, and was out like a light for a long time. i had a good chat with my cousin who's staying with my mom for a bit, we hung a painting successfully, and came back to our place for kiddush and dinner.
the antibiotics seem to be working.
i've been playing a lot of sudoku lately.
i've received some feedback on my article from a couple of people, so i've got a bit of editing to do, i've watched stand-up, and i'm sneaking a peek at racing extinction before going to bed.
oh, i started reading a bit of hijacked by your brain by dr julian ford and jon wortmann and it's looking amazing.
gd and i both continued to feel horrible, so we went to the doctor and it looks like we've either got a mild case of food poisoning or we've picked up some kind of parasite. wonderful. thankfully it's just us, and it's not contagious.
oh, and we're totally over uber. there's a taxi service in south africa called bolt and it's both cheaper and better.
yesterday's ridiculous story about the mobile carriers was resolved in the middle of the night with the confirmation from the carrier whose employees denied that we'd receive one. it's a painful process, but we're moving forward. we sorted out a new sim card and picked up our meds, then walked home. i spent the day expecting to have to jump to pick up a delivery in person, but they never contacted me, and the following hours after getting home were consumed by phone calls with potential employers and recruiters.
some of it was positive.
i took mr smear to the gallery (overcoming his fear of the demons!), then the museum, but quickly left there when i realized i had no signal (because i was expecting that delivery). we returned home with me exhausted but failing to rest, as he kept me busy until my mom picked us up so that i could help her hanging paintings at her place. when we arrived there she realized she'd forgotten to bring an extension cable, so we returned to town to pick one up and went back again. mr smear passed out along the way, and was out like a light for a long time. i had a good chat with my cousin who's staying with my mom for a bit, we hung a painting successfully, and came back to our place for kiddush and dinner.
the antibiotics seem to be working.
i've been playing a lot of sudoku lately.
i've received some feedback on my article from a couple of people, so i've got a bit of editing to do, i've watched stand-up, and i'm sneaking a peek at racing extinction before going to bed.
oh, i started reading a bit of hijacked by your brain by dr julian ford and jon wortmann and it's looking amazing.
the dumps
it's been a tough forty-eight hours, gd and i have picked up some kind of stomache bug and it's not showing any signs of letting up.
in spite of that, i've had some good swimming sessions with mr smear, gd and i Got Stuff Done* and i managed to get the first draft of an article completed that i've been planning for years...
* although it did require a lot of back-and-forth between the country's two largest mobile providers whose employees couldn't agree on the porting protocol.
when the nanny left, gd and i were lying down on our bed and after a couple of minutes i suddenly realized that we hadn't heard a peep from mr smear... i walked in to the living room to find him quietly devouring jelly beans from the jar he'd had to climb to retrieve. he doesn't usually consume much sugar, and spent the longest time afterwards bouncing off the walls and driving us crazy!
in other news, we're sad for my great aunt, she broke her femur today :(
Wednesday, January 01, 2020
renewed hope
this past week has been challenging, i've been dealing with depression and anxiety and struggling a fair amount to just do nothing. we've been doing a lot of housekeeping, physically and psychologically, and as a family we've had some pretty good moments alongside some pretty rough ones.
right now gd and i are ringing in the new year with a tummy bug and mr smear is developing his communication and drawing skills in leaps and bounds. also mr smear's made some progress in the swimming department in spite of his misgivings, and i think at this point it's less a question of technique and more a question of strength-building.
i stopped watching the witcher. i wanted to like it, and i managed to look past some of the shoddy writing and acting in the first couple of episodes and still enjoy it. but episode three is where all i can do is switch off, throw up my hands and quote the real queen: "another one bites the dust".
lazy writing is lazy writing is lazy writing, i'm always offended that people actually get paid for such cheap trash.
i've been playing a lot of sudoku. i finished leviathan wakes (incredible, from start to finish). i'm struggling to get into anything other than neil gaiman's don't panic (which has inspired me to do a bit of writing), and i'm doing little bits and pieces here and there towards interviews and projects but mostly i've been focused on figuring out what i really want to be doing and how to motivate myself properly.
after watching a bit of louis psihoyos on joe rogan this morning, i kinda want to do the pastafarian thing and become a pirate, attacking and plundering fishing vessels in an attempt to save the ocean and prompt government responsibility and regulation.
speaking of politics:
i found 2019 to be a rather unkind year. goodbye, 2019, i'm as glad to see the back of you as i am looking forward with renewed hope to a brand new decade.
happy 2020 everyone!
right now gd and i are ringing in the new year with a tummy bug and mr smear is developing his communication and drawing skills in leaps and bounds. also mr smear's made some progress in the swimming department in spite of his misgivings, and i think at this point it's less a question of technique and more a question of strength-building.
i stopped watching the witcher. i wanted to like it, and i managed to look past some of the shoddy writing and acting in the first couple of episodes and still enjoy it. but episode three is where all i can do is switch off, throw up my hands and quote the real queen: "another one bites the dust".
lazy writing is lazy writing is lazy writing, i'm always offended that people actually get paid for such cheap trash.
i've been playing a lot of sudoku. i finished leviathan wakes (incredible, from start to finish). i'm struggling to get into anything other than neil gaiman's don't panic (which has inspired me to do a bit of writing), and i'm doing little bits and pieces here and there towards interviews and projects but mostly i've been focused on figuring out what i really want to be doing and how to motivate myself properly.
after watching a bit of louis psihoyos on joe rogan this morning, i kinda want to do the pastafarian thing and become a pirate, attacking and plundering fishing vessels in an attempt to save the ocean and prompt government responsibility and regulation.
speaking of politics:
as a south african at what point can we expect public servants to earn the same kind of money as the rest of us? i suspect that'll free up an enormous amount of money for investment that doesn't rely on foreigners...i just need to say that the hogfather is one of the greatest christmas stories ever told.
also, if they had to use public education, security, transport and health services like the majority of the population i'm pretty confident they'd make more of an effort to fix things for themselves and their families.
i found 2019 to be a rather unkind year. goodbye, 2019, i'm as glad to see the back of you as i am looking forward with renewed hope to a brand new decade.
happy 2020 everyone!
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