So I'm now midway through a particularly brutal working fortnight of playing expert in half a dozen subjects and trying hard to stay on the bucking bronco that's standing in for my normally placid schedule. But I had most of the weekend off so I won't complain about working conditions etc., at least not til I've finished the next set of meeting notes.
Today I genuinely think that I have nothing to say. Which, in the style of most bloggers, is really not going to stop me from saying that nothing in as much excruciating detail as I possibly can. So fact 1: I'm now out of Baileys, that deceptive fluid that cleverly disguises alcohol as christmas-pudding sauce. And fact 2: I'm worked off my feet, my house is in chaos, but I'm still managing to float around on a contentedly happy cloud. I appear to have discovered (without any conscious effort) the secret of being negatively depressed. As in the opposite of depressed: not just happy, but positively blissful without any conscious effort on my part. Maybe it's a karma thing: several years of depression have just magically gone into reverse and I'm about to spend years sporting a soppy grin. Maybe the thing that soaked up all my seratonin suddenly started rejecting it and leaving way too much of it floating round my endocrine system. And before anyone points out the Baileys, this is a sober thing too (and there wasn't that much left in the bottle). It's not love because there's been plenty of time to acclimatise to that lately; whatever it is, it feels good and I am very glad and deeply happy (maybe that's seratonin etc etc) that it's happening to me. Random whittering over. Roger and out etc. etc.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Sunday, 9 November 2008
How to do life - the video
I have a small plumbing problem to fix. So, since I was armed only with my laptop and a little light insomnia, I looked it up on the internet. And found a lovely little site - videojug - with helpful tips and videos on all the things your Dad would tell you if it was sociable to call and ask him about pipework at midnight. I like. I may even have to invent some problems to see if there are video-based fixes for them...
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Life plan for November
Things have been a little out of synch of late. So it's time to revive the life plan again.
Sleep is a given. I need 7.5 - 8 hours a day to function normally, and I wake up at 7am on the dot every day. So bedtime just fixed itself at 10:30pm. And tracking back from there I could spend half an hour reading before I sleep every night, so physically going to bed should be at 10pm. Good. That bit's sorted. Now for the rest.
Work is also a given: 8 hours a day will happen (5 on Fridays), with a minimum half-hour lunchbreak every working day. If I build sorting-out-stuff-for-tomorrow into my evening routine, I can get to work (cycling) by 7:30am. Which means that I can leave at 4pm if I want. So work from 7:30am (with a slip to 8am if needed) and leave between 4 and 5pm. I used to spend half an hour every morning on life maintenance (washing up, laundry, sorting through bills sort of stuff) before work because that was when I was most awake and most likely to actually do it. Maybe I'll try that again too. So life 7:15-7:45, work at 8am, leave at 4:30pm; I'll give that a go and see if the life maintenance slot is constructive or destructive.
Which leaves a half-hour lunchtime (20 minute run, 10 minute shower or 30 minute walk in the sun sounds good at the moment; with a walk to the bank or shops once a week on my rest day) and from 5pm (once I've got home) til 10pm every evening. 5 whole hours! Every day! What have I been doing with myself? Well, extra work, stressing and watching television for a start. The extra work can stay, but only if it's built into those hours. The stressing and television can go. This month, I am not going to watch television on my own. It's okay if I'm with someone else and we're doing it as a social activity, but I'm not going to do it on my own. And I keep saying that, I have half a chance of not needing to cut the plug off the thing to make it happen. I've also been going to the gym in the evenings. Not nearly enough though: our almost-daily sessions have withered down to once a week with our personal trainer, followed almost inevitably by an evening of slobbing out feeling tired or eating out until we're stuffed. This too must stop: I need to get a lot more stern about my gym routine. Starting with getting my frozen shoulder fixed so I don't break myself when I get it back together. So. Head for the gym at 4:30 every night. If there's a class (Thursday) then work in the gym lounge until the class starts; if there isn't then train from 4:45 to 5:45 and get home by 6:15.
So I have up at 7 for half hour of me-maintenance, cycle to work by 8, light exercise (run/walk) lunchtime, leave work at 4:30; gym from 4:45 to 5:45, home by 6:15, bed at 10, sleep at 10:30. That's a structure; now for the plan.
Plan 1: cook weekday meals in advance unless there's a special reason to cook fresh. On Sunday nights (yes, I've noticed that this is one), sort out my clothes for the week, plan out the week's meals and cook something up for at least 3 days. This means that I can pitch in from the gym, rev up the microwave and be fed by 6:3o most days. Leaving 3 1/2 hours of time to do the longer-term things.
Plan 2: decide on my next career path and go for it. Spend 2-3 hours a night reading, writing, coding, whatever it takes to head in that direction. Allow for one evening off a week; in practice this means that I have 10 hours basic study time a week, and must use the rest of my time as carefully as I can. And work to a schedule. 10 hours is not a lot of time to spare, so I need to use it wisely. I may even have to take some of my time off (I have 6 days to take before the end of November) to accelerate this plan a bit.
Plan 3: declutter. Make a list of useful things to do with that half hour, and concentrate on reducing the number of non-core things that I have to see or think of every day. This too will help... less stuff means less stuff to put away, less stuff to think about, less stuff to pack up and go.
Plan 4: don't be upset if the plan gets disrupted. It happens. Absorb the interrupt and get on with the plan.
Sleep is a given. I need 7.5 - 8 hours a day to function normally, and I wake up at 7am on the dot every day. So bedtime just fixed itself at 10:30pm. And tracking back from there I could spend half an hour reading before I sleep every night, so physically going to bed should be at 10pm. Good. That bit's sorted. Now for the rest.
Work is also a given: 8 hours a day will happen (5 on Fridays), with a minimum half-hour lunchbreak every working day. If I build sorting-out-stuff-for-tomorrow into my evening routine, I can get to work (cycling) by 7:30am. Which means that I can leave at 4pm if I want. So work from 7:30am (with a slip to 8am if needed) and leave between 4 and 5pm. I used to spend half an hour every morning on life maintenance (washing up, laundry, sorting through bills sort of stuff) before work because that was when I was most awake and most likely to actually do it. Maybe I'll try that again too. So life 7:15-7:45, work at 8am, leave at 4:30pm; I'll give that a go and see if the life maintenance slot is constructive or destructive.
Which leaves a half-hour lunchtime (20 minute run, 10 minute shower or 30 minute walk in the sun sounds good at the moment; with a walk to the bank or shops once a week on my rest day) and from 5pm (once I've got home) til 10pm every evening. 5 whole hours! Every day! What have I been doing with myself? Well, extra work, stressing and watching television for a start. The extra work can stay, but only if it's built into those hours. The stressing and television can go. This month, I am not going to watch television on my own. It's okay if I'm with someone else and we're doing it as a social activity, but I'm not going to do it on my own. And I keep saying that, I have half a chance of not needing to cut the plug off the thing to make it happen. I've also been going to the gym in the evenings. Not nearly enough though: our almost-daily sessions have withered down to once a week with our personal trainer, followed almost inevitably by an evening of slobbing out feeling tired or eating out until we're stuffed. This too must stop: I need to get a lot more stern about my gym routine. Starting with getting my frozen shoulder fixed so I don't break myself when I get it back together. So. Head for the gym at 4:30 every night. If there's a class (Thursday) then work in the gym lounge until the class starts; if there isn't then train from 4:45 to 5:45 and get home by 6:15.
So I have up at 7 for half hour of me-maintenance, cycle to work by 8, light exercise (run/walk) lunchtime, leave work at 4:30; gym from 4:45 to 5:45, home by 6:15, bed at 10, sleep at 10:30. That's a structure; now for the plan.
Plan 1: cook weekday meals in advance unless there's a special reason to cook fresh. On Sunday nights (yes, I've noticed that this is one), sort out my clothes for the week, plan out the week's meals and cook something up for at least 3 days. This means that I can pitch in from the gym, rev up the microwave and be fed by 6:3o most days. Leaving 3 1/2 hours of time to do the longer-term things.
Plan 2: decide on my next career path and go for it. Spend 2-3 hours a night reading, writing, coding, whatever it takes to head in that direction. Allow for one evening off a week; in practice this means that I have 10 hours basic study time a week, and must use the rest of my time as carefully as I can. And work to a schedule. 10 hours is not a lot of time to spare, so I need to use it wisely. I may even have to take some of my time off (I have 6 days to take before the end of November) to accelerate this plan a bit.
Plan 3: declutter. Make a list of useful things to do with that half hour, and concentrate on reducing the number of non-core things that I have to see or think of every day. This too will help... less stuff means less stuff to put away, less stuff to think about, less stuff to pack up and go.
Plan 4: don't be upset if the plan gets disrupted. It happens. Absorb the interrupt and get on with the plan.
Life. Prrr. Grrr. Prrr.
It's been a while. Nearly three months in fact. Which probably merits a smidgeon of explanation. It's just life. Some very good things have happened to me, mostly involving slobbing out with a particularly wonderful-frustating-incredible-annoying individual, and one of the memories I will hold forever in my heart is simply being together on a sunny afternoon in Paris, watching the lime leaves tumble down as the ugliest boats in the world pootled by. And some very bad things have happened too, mostly involving individuals who to survive in one arena have felt the need to destroy the one person who stands in their way - er me, in case you haven't guessed. So between legal tiptoeing and my life being engulfed in one long firefight, between trying so hard to be normal throughout this time and the practical love of my loved ones, there hasn't been much room for anything else.
It's been a horrid time, but. And it's a big but. Indeed a hippo-sized 'but'. I have learnt so much and have been forced to think so much. To take risks, to reach out, to consider the less-thinkable, to go places that I would maybe not dare from within my comfortable suburbanizing life (it's my verb, I can do what I want with it. Ed). And I've found the courage to face the loss of everything material in my life and realise that it signifies - well, quite a lot, but by no means everything. And I've made friends again with my past self, the S that would stand up and fight for her right to be, that considered injustice and hazard and risk then waded on in anyway because making just one little bit of the world (and occasionally surprisingly some quite big bits of the world) better was more important than psychological safety. But don't mistake this for rashness. The trick to risk (as my very learned friend might say) is to understand the cost, understand the odds, estimate the returns and *then* decide what to do. And the beauty of liars and bullies is that the first have to remember more than one truth at a time (which is difficult and will almost always eventually fail and not in a small way), and the latter only survive if they have victims.
And speaking of which, something quite amazing happened today. I was bullied every day in my mid-teens. Twice a day every day going to and from school; more if they could catch me in-between. It got more than a little wearing; I can vaguely remember doing exams and O levels, and my first snog outside the maths classroom (oh, and some serious research into the linguistic origins of Dorset placenames and the note structures in Belshazzar's Feast and lots of other interest things), but most of my school memories are of ridicule, damage, fear and the feel of rosethorns in my back whilst a much older boy hit me from above. And behind all this was one girl, one person I'd stopped bullying a friend in primary school years earlier (girls are wierd: they immediately became friends and ignored me completely) and who'd seen an opportunity when I joined a new school on my own at 14. Oh, the amazing thing? She's contacted me. Which given I've changed my name and moved from place to place for most of my adult life must have taken a not insignificant amount of detective work. 10 years ago, M tried to apologise to my mother (who responded with the maternal version of 'sod off'), and maybe just maybe she's feeling the need to tidy her feelings now. I've sent a not-unfriendly note back; we'll see what develops from here. The curious thing personally is that, despite the effects of what she did, I feel no malice at all. Not even the psychologically-buried variety. Not a smidge. I feel sad for the child that I was and the child that she was (she'd moved school because she herself had been bullied - mother dated headmaster, 'nuff said), but there's no anger or pain there anymore. If she needs closure and I can give it, then I will. I suspect we could even, in the right circumstances, become friends. But the most curious thing is that I find myself now, 25 years later, in exactly the same situation. Except the thing at stake isn't my exam grades (I passed, but didn't get the 14 A*s that were predicted; that's still a big thing to employers even now) but my livelihood. And again I have a scared little girl with a powerful gang of friends shoving me into the rosebushes because it's easier than facing up to and living with her own self (which probably isn't as bad as she secretly fears). I still live with the effects of the first girl - the lost opportunities, the life I didn't have (not that that's so terrible; I had a pretty good alternative one instead, just one with less easy opportunities) - and I need to deal with the second before that too gets out of hand. After all, I'm not sure that I have 25 more years to spare on the effects of this one. That said (and like buts, there is always a 'that said'), a disaster is always a thinly-disguised opportunity for those who have the courage and the heart to take it. So onwards. And a little more blogging this time.
It's been a horrid time, but. And it's a big but. Indeed a hippo-sized 'but'. I have learnt so much and have been forced to think so much. To take risks, to reach out, to consider the less-thinkable, to go places that I would maybe not dare from within my comfortable suburbanizing life (it's my verb, I can do what I want with it. Ed). And I've found the courage to face the loss of everything material in my life and realise that it signifies - well, quite a lot, but by no means everything. And I've made friends again with my past self, the S that would stand up and fight for her right to be, that considered injustice and hazard and risk then waded on in anyway because making just one little bit of the world (and occasionally surprisingly some quite big bits of the world) better was more important than psychological safety. But don't mistake this for rashness. The trick to risk (as my very learned friend might say) is to understand the cost, understand the odds, estimate the returns and *then* decide what to do. And the beauty of liars and bullies is that the first have to remember more than one truth at a time (which is difficult and will almost always eventually fail and not in a small way), and the latter only survive if they have victims.
And speaking of which, something quite amazing happened today. I was bullied every day in my mid-teens. Twice a day every day going to and from school; more if they could catch me in-between. It got more than a little wearing; I can vaguely remember doing exams and O levels, and my first snog outside the maths classroom (oh, and some serious research into the linguistic origins of Dorset placenames and the note structures in Belshazzar's Feast and lots of other interest things), but most of my school memories are of ridicule, damage, fear and the feel of rosethorns in my back whilst a much older boy hit me from above. And behind all this was one girl, one person I'd stopped bullying a friend in primary school years earlier (girls are wierd: they immediately became friends and ignored me completely) and who'd seen an opportunity when I joined a new school on my own at 14. Oh, the amazing thing? She's contacted me. Which given I've changed my name and moved from place to place for most of my adult life must have taken a not insignificant amount of detective work. 10 years ago, M tried to apologise to my mother (who responded with the maternal version of 'sod off'), and maybe just maybe she's feeling the need to tidy her feelings now. I've sent a not-unfriendly note back; we'll see what develops from here. The curious thing personally is that, despite the effects of what she did, I feel no malice at all. Not even the psychologically-buried variety. Not a smidge. I feel sad for the child that I was and the child that she was (she'd moved school because she herself had been bullied - mother dated headmaster, 'nuff said), but there's no anger or pain there anymore. If she needs closure and I can give it, then I will. I suspect we could even, in the right circumstances, become friends. But the most curious thing is that I find myself now, 25 years later, in exactly the same situation. Except the thing at stake isn't my exam grades (I passed, but didn't get the 14 A*s that were predicted; that's still a big thing to employers even now) but my livelihood. And again I have a scared little girl with a powerful gang of friends shoving me into the rosebushes because it's easier than facing up to and living with her own self (which probably isn't as bad as she secretly fears). I still live with the effects of the first girl - the lost opportunities, the life I didn't have (not that that's so terrible; I had a pretty good alternative one instead, just one with less easy opportunities) - and I need to deal with the second before that too gets out of hand. After all, I'm not sure that I have 25 more years to spare on the effects of this one. That said (and like buts, there is always a 'that said'), a disaster is always a thinly-disguised opportunity for those who have the courage and the heart to take it. So onwards. And a little more blogging this time.
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