Creature of Mad Enthusiasms

I started making a list of Things I've Accomplished This Week in my calendar, but it got derailed when I had a headache so bad that I ended up missing most of a day of work. Headache is still around, just not quite the killer, as long as I don't provoke it.

Also, I've scared myself because twice this week I went to "shut my eyes for a moment" -- sometimes if I eat too much too quickly I need to crash for about 10 minutes -- only this time, instead of waking up myself a few minutes later, someone else wakes me up hours later. This is... not good.

Still.
- I've walked the Run You Clever Nerd race
- I've put in 10 miles on the Road to Hogwarts*
- Despite all that racing, which tends to overwhelm the other stuff I need to get done, I've started rearranging the library to get the still-to-be-read books off the floor.**
- I did a good clearout and took 6 boxes/bags of books to The Book Thing
- I've ordered and received the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes books for Gridlock. Now to print and add "Courtesy of Watson's Tin Box" labels to them.

Today I need, at minimum, to
- prep the questions and the quiz prizes for tomorrow's Tin Box meeting
- load the car for same
- sweep and mop the floors; wipe the counters
- clear off the rolltop desk in the hope of finding my MIA Watson's Tin Box business cards. I know I have something like 200 already lying around from 221B Con, but they're not where I thought I put them.

There are other things I would like to get done, but that's the bare basics.


* This puts me just over half way to Hogwarts and by finishing it, I also earn my first rank in MoonJoggers. Having both so close puts me into a strange OCD loop: the OCD points out that I can crank out that last 24 miles by GridlockDC (true) but as the Hogwarts race runs until the end of September and Moonjoggers is lifetime cumulative, I should rush to do it now-now-now... why?

** This is the first time I've had to redo a room for "right now" and it's weirding me out. But presumably I can get to the point where it won't take two bookcases to hold the to-be-read stuff and can repurpose those shelves. For one thing, the books come under the same "get rid of 1/3 to 1/2 of your portable property" mandate as everything else.

THIS WEEK
Time I start these back up. There's some stuff from work that I've gotten done that I'm pleased with, and I'm starting to gear up for Scintillation of Scions. And, as you know, I've discovered the whole Virtual 5K thing and thrown myself in with the evangelical zeal of a recent convert.

Hey, I'm fat, 50, and with assorted bad joints. The v5Ks allow me to participate as a full and equal member. That's important!

( What I want to accomplish by the end of the year )

( 5K schedule )

SELF CARE/PLEASURE:


READING:
Fanfic: none

Audio:
- Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan (actually better in audio than reading)
- Rin Tin Tin: The Life & The Legend, Susan Orlean
- Pagan Summer, G.M. Malliet

Print:
- Inspector Spectre, C.J. Copperman

Very Quick Wrapup:

Went to 221B Con. Had great time. Came home to find endless wank online that is, when you parse it out, all over a single panel and 5 shit-stirrers out of 700 people. So put that in perspective.

At least two of the stirrers are now banned from 221B (and, if they have sense, Sherlock Seattle and GridlockDC) for taking video of an 18+ panel without the panelists' knowledge, and hosting it on YouTube.

So there's that. What there was also was a very good con that I hope will be well over the wank by next year.

Since then, however, I've had to adult at Full Speed Ahead. The night I came back, Mulder ate a piece of tape and we had to catch him and pull it out with forceps. Then Sherlock (who had so prettily told me she missed me and wanted my attention) was discovered to have nasty weeping crud on her ears - bad enough that when I took her to the vet on Tuesday, the vet freaked out and started shouting "Is there anything like that on you? ANYTHING AT ALL?" (.... No....) Should there be? He thinks it's ringworm and now Sherlock is furious I'm home because her ears get wiped with hydrogen peroxide and antibacterial fungicide twice a day. It's been 6 days and one ear is still slightly bleeding. That's freaking me out.

Pause for Scintillation of Scions meeting and forgetting to get the meeting announcements for Tin Box out for a full week and we catch up to a guy delivering mulch to M who decided that he just couldn't put it where it was last year, so he was going to dump it all over the driveway.

Seriously. There's a huge load of mulch cutting off my driveway. M says she's dealing with it, but I really want to know the name of the company so I can grab the phone and snap "I am the homeowner at X address and who gave your personnel the authority to cut off my house from emergency services? Get his ass over here with a shovel and an apology IMMEDIATELY."

And if this wasn't enough, I've got some bizarre flame war going on in a blog. Basically, the blog posted something with the word "whinny." There was a thread of horse jokes. By the time I posted, I more or less said "Point, point, comment, [quote with whinny] "The horse joke has already been made, so I'll go on to" point, point, comment."

To my utter befuddlement, someone has chosen this as their hill to die on. Multiple comments to me and others focus not at all on the points I was making but the bit about "the horse joke has already been made." Apparently this means that I lack imagination, am angry at the other people on the horse thread (which I participated in), am trying to hurt all their feelings, and have fiat declared that There Can Never Be Another Horse Joke Ever. Trying to explain has only made this person double down - apparently saying "someone else said it first and better" is... insulting? To that person? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Why the fuck I do I have to deal with bullshit like this, I'm busy with real shit.

Oh, and I have con crud. Although not the super special deluxe con crud, which at this con was stomach flu. I credit taking lots of Vitamin C at the con and a vitamin C plus a berroca a day after the con for not being knocked on my ass.

On the upside, I've sold another essay. On the downside, the editor would really like to see it in 72 hours. A week, max.

And that's the wrapup, kids. I highly recommend you read Breakthrough: How One Teen Innovator Is Changing the World by Jack Andraka. A complex story thinly told at about a 12-year-old level, but you'll never get a better description of the hurdles of science and high school nerdery.

I haven't done anything to change my weight, so I'm not going to post that number.

Also, I feel like the bottom of a bird cage this morning and I wasn't even drinking last night! (I was running pillar-to-post in a surprisingly strenuous day off, though...)

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Stress test says I have a healthy heart, and some sympathetically stern advice from the doctor to lose the weight because I still have time to get into shape.

Set time for garage to be repainted.

FUN:
Yesterday turned out to be all about the fun, mostly on wild impulse as Friday was full of slush and snow and poor driving. So Saturday, when it had all washed away and the temperature was nice, I:
- Went to the Southern Comforters quilt show & sale.
- Saw "The Metromaniacs." It's a cute play, but not quite worth the ***ZOMG EXTENDED TWICE, SEE THIS PLAY!!!!11!eleventy1*** of the advertising
- Saw Blithe Spirit with Angela Lansbury. THAT one was worth every bit of the hoopla.

STUFF DUMPED:
I've started making a list; it's nice to see it get bigger. One of the things I did was give a quilt pattern to a friend; she priced it and slapped it down on the charity table at the quilt show. I think I'm also going to take redpanda13's charity idea about the guitar. It's a good one.

THIS WEEK
It's been a strange week. Two days were snowed out, so you'd think there would be more done on the accomplishment side of things, but still, work has been done.


ACCOMPLISHED:
Learned how to poach an egg in the microwave. Coincidentally learned how to explode an egg in the microwave.

( The rest of it )

READING:
Fanfic
Flatmates (and lizards) should know the worst about each otter Bonkers, bittersweet, and beautiful. I'll let the pitch talk for it: John is an undercover alien agent and it's time for his mission to end, but he can't bring himself to leave Sherlock behind. That turns out to be a mistake

Audio
-- Finished Pagan Spring, G.M. Malliet
-- Snowflake, Big Finish
-- podfic of A Trope Too Far (John is traveling between fanfic trope universes trying to find his way back home. NSFW.) And let me just say that I loooooooooove a world where you can get audiobooks of fanfic!

Today: planning to listen to BBC Radio 4 Drama of the Week (As You Like It)

Print
-- Finished: Guns and Roses by Taffy Cannon.
-- Started: Death Under the Dryer, Simon Brett

THIS WEEK
-- I'm not even pretending to add counting points on top all the balls I'm juggling up in the air. Weight reflects that.

By the way, Doug still needs help dealing with David's expenses; every little bit helps. It's $5000 just to bury his brother.

Adding to my stress, the company that was so good about painting my house two years ago flaked repeatedly on even getting me an estimate on painting the garage to match. So I need to research more companies and make more appointments, because that's an aggravation I wanted.

ACCOMPLISHED:
Went to PA last 3 Sundays to help loot clear out David's apartment.

( The rest of it )

READING:
Fanfic
The Montague Street Doctor (longfic combining BAMF!John while Sherlock is "dead" & The Empty House)

Print
-- Deadly Choices
-- The Panic Virus (what can I say, I've got vaccines on the mind.)

Audiobooks
-- The Silkworm, G.M. Malliet
-- Big Finish: The Rani Elite
-- Big Finish: The Avengers Lost Episodes, Volume 2

Plans for today: update/make all the meeting announcements for Tin Box, try to fit what I took from David's into my place. Over on Facebook, I'm putting up photos of teddy bears trying to figure out which will become a John Bear. This house desperately needs to be cleaned, but I have 0 energy.

239.8 pounds and the only relevant information is that I'm helping a friend clean up/clear out after his brother unexpectedly died.

"Sunday 7" is a misnomer these days, but I'm going to return to the week-end name-and-shame because it helps me focus.

THIS WEEK

ACCOMPLISHED:
-- car got 100,000 mile service. (I bought it with 10 miles on it!)


HEALTH:
Walked: 0
Flexibility: 1 basic yoga class.
Strength: Started wall pushup program, preparatory to doing 7 Weeks to 100 Pushups
Weight: baseline
Other Health: started stretching 2-3x a day at work desk

I started doing puzzles as a mental sharpening exercise, but I secretly think they're just a time suck. It doesn't help that my favorite, something called "What's Left" is actually just an exercise in editing.

Also, I joined Weight Watchers in December and planned on sticking with it through April, the full first quarter of the year. However, I had underestimated both how it reminds me of Whose Line Is It Anyway ("where everything's made up and the points don't matter") and how much it exists to sell WW-branded things. No wonder they're getting their corporate assets kicked by My Fitness Pal and other less expensive weight-loss programs! Which reminds me - when I finish typing this, I need to pull the 3v battery out of my WW points calculator and put it into my electronic scale.

OUTSIDE WORK NEEDED:
-- garage fix
-- -- fix door
-- -- repaint
-- -- regutter
-- pave side of porch

CHRISTMAS WISHES/CRAFT PROJECTS:
-- Have ability to hold 6-person dinner party in library
-- Make "experiences gallery" of photos and badges from events
-- Make collage of poppy installation photos
-- Make Holmesian Lanyard & nametag for events that don't have permanent tags
-- Make Holmesian and Austenite bangle bracelets
-- Schedule regular structured "adult days" to focus on paperwork, mending, etc.
-- 2 full sets garb & accessories for Kitchen Guild
-- collect and keep ready 3 days emergency blackout supplies
-- Organize Christmas materials (lists, decorations, etc)
-- Clear bedroom
-- run at least 3 5K fun runs by fall (Dead Man's Run, Gobble Wobble, Ugly Christmas Sweater run)


LONG TERM GOAL:
Follow Mystery Dishcloth knitalong all year; turn results into lap blanket

LEARNED THIS YEAR:
- purl through back loop


SELF CARE/PLEASURE:
- saw The Tempest with Ger Wyn Davies
- rejoined Booksfree (sort of the audiobook version of Netflix)

READING:
- You, Impossible You series (fanfic second-person followup to Man and Beast, Sherlock AU)
- A Gift from Bob (Christmas story about a down-and-out London busker who adopted an ally cat)
- Persuasion (being read to me, thanks to Booksfree)

This week has been an exercise in "don't plan." I've got nothing to report about doing episodes of The Walk, days I've picked up items, etc.

I need to learn to deal with reality intrusions without feeling that I've somehow deliberately blown off my chores.

On the other hand, I've started slicing my sprints into 3 goals: the top priority for the sprint (red), the longer-term medium priority job (orange), and the "this week I must" small task (blue), and despite snow, cable outages, and other kerfluffles, I have accomplished all of them.

1) RED: finish and deliver essay. Done 2 days ahead of deadline due to snow day.

2) ORANGE: resume redo. I'd renewed an excellent book twice from the library and just gave up and ordered my own copy. This one I'm rereading with a highlighter and post-it tabs.

3) BLUE: I'm holding to the sprint idea but the plan of tracking it along the side of my refrigerator, not so much. So I created Day Timer pages for each task, listing definition of done, materials needed, sub tasks, etc. and put it in my calendar. I also write weekly "to dos" to myself and at the top of the page are now red, orange, and blue highlighter stripes so I know what most to focus on.

I also added a list for very short-term jobs, the kind of thing that would only take a couple of hours to do with materials on hand, so that the next time reality intrudes, I'll have something that I can cross off a list and feel better about.

And speaking of feeling better, on a different-colored page in among the sprint pages is the You Done Good page, where I write down what innovation or chore I've done to be proud of. I didn't do that last year and that was a HUGE mistake!

And finally, speaking of innovations to be proud of, the idea of putting the month's bills in an envelope with what you paid when written on the front has proven to have another excellent benefit -- when my bank statement came in and I was all "What is that massive amount of money I don't remember paying" on it, I could pull the previous month's envelope and go "Oh. That's what that was" just by looking at the list of numbers. Such a simple little thing - a wire file basket with letter-sized envelopes with notes on the front, but it's proving to have so many benefits!

This is going to be one of those get my life in gear/resolutions posts, so if they're not your cuppa, scroll on by. I'm posting anyway, because I think I need to articulate this for it to be real, if that makes any sense at all.

So: socks. I have a lot of them. Thin ones, thick ones, ones that don't match anything I wear but are cute, ones that do match something, ones that are loitering around, mate-less, because sooner or later I'm going to lose/ruin another sock of the same type and the two survivors will make a pair.

And for ages, I've had them all in one place, because they're all socks. That's how organizing is supposed to go, right, like with like? That's the proper, grown-up way to do it.

Except my socks have been drifting into different areas and I just realized today that it will actually, seriously, define-ably make my life better if I just flat out accept that my socks belong in 6 different places. Possibly 7.

I moved their location and didn't have room for them all, so now all the thick winter socks are separated from the year-round socks, and that means I can target what I want. (That's 2 places)

Some ratty all-cotton socks were pulled out and put with my kitchen guild stuff, on the basis that they wouldn't melt if scorched and I didn't care if they got smokey. (3 places)

It made a difference of ~7 minutes a day to stop digging in the sock basket and simply pull out 5 sets of socks that match the clothes I wear to work and keep them separate from the others. (4 places)

It took me up to an hour last time to find the hiking socks that I wanted to wear on a frigid clinic shift, so now all the hiking socks live in the same drawer as the vest and hat. I know where they are if I want them for other purposes, but they promptly go back with the vest and hat after washing. (5 places)

I'm seriously considering creating a convention/travel drawer for all the little things that I take when I travel, and since I generally wear the same 4 pairs of jeans when I'm on the road, it's extremely tempting to take all the socks that match and add them to the travel drawer. Like the hiking socks, I'll know where they are if I want them between times. (6 places)

And I'm still keeping the solo socks because I do buy 'em in batches and thus I actually can and have created frankenpairs from survivors of other sets. But they don't need to be cluttering up the place, they could live in the mending area or something. (That's 7 places)



Yes, I *KNOW* that "organize things by use" is a standard organizing principle. But I still had to write it down to internalize that the "by use" principle makes better sense than determinedly keeping like-with-like just *because* it's alike. That it surprisingly is a better and faster use of my time to sort socks into 7 places on laundry day than to put them in one place and have to dig like a prarie dog.