elainegrey

Last night's dreams were fertile ground for stress: the setting was urban, with a waterfront, temperate zone -- more Charleston, SC than Baltimore, though. My appointments included a medical provider where no one, including myself, was wearing masks and i was very confused. I knew i'd forgotten mine. And then i realized that there was a class i'd been forgetting to attend all term, and i had no idea when drop was, and the turn restrictions in the routes kept me from getting to the meeting with the professor in time.

Late and forgetting, which is current stress. Forgot my mask driving over to my parent's on Thursday.

I remain wondering about just how similar everyone's pandemic experience will have been. Part of my rural privilege is the lack of worry And thank heavens this disease was not fomite transmitted. And, i discover today that the "fomite" is the package and doorknob, etc, NOT particles on the package or doornob. Did we really need a New Latin word for "stuff"? Hrmph. Anyhow, thankful.

I did not develop handwashing habits like the rest of the world seems to have.

I woke with the name "Khashoggi" on my mind. I had a vague memory of the dream, with the usual focus mainly on logistics -- something about selling a car before traveling or emigrating to act as a correspondent. There was someone in discussion identified as a reporter who had been the initial person to reveal [what?] about Al Qaeda.... i really don't know why my brain was leaning on journalism for a dream.

It wasn't an easy night's sleep. Christine had helped dig the holes for trees on Sunday afternoon, and she dug a huge hole for the two mulberries. I sure hope one is male and the other is female. I suppose if they are both female i can graft male branches to one of the trees. She also dug a nice hole for one of the paw-paws. I dug the other paw-paw a hole with the post hole digger: it wasn't as large. I think she overworked herself and by bed time she was feverish. Fortunately, she woke feeling much better this morning.

Anyhow, i hope we find paw-paws and red mulberries somewhat appealing. The main goal is getting a native plants "ark" within the fence from which to repopulate the woods, but having fruit we like would also be lovely.

I am hoping for fewer aches today. ( whine )

Anyhow. Gosh, i'm going to be excellent at being an unpleasant old lady. Anyhow: chiropractic or massage asap? Or new shoes? I hate buying shoes. Sigh.

There's a frost warning out and i'm just hoping it had nothing to do with my yard, because my special holy basil is sitting out under the dogwood acclimating and the peonies have more buds than you would believe.

I dreamed last night of seeing a tiny lot for sale for a dollar beside a road. The landscape was sort of industrial brown field near wetlands-ish, perhaps like in Fremont, CA. The narrow lot had a singlewide trailer on it (which would be going away when the lot was sold). The lot was encircled with a chainlink fence, and by the road the fence was wide enough for lost things to be sitting on top of it. My old sewing machine, cellphone, and keychain were there. I asked after buying it: there were two scientific study sites (possibly superfund monitoring sites>) that had easements. I was still interested. In the fuzzy mind of waking up i realized it would be a perfect site for a little house and i started planning what i would plant there.

It's been almost a week since i was all burbly with happiness at my last therapy session. It's definitely worn off. I blame the aching, but also the sense of being too busy.

I dreamed office HQ was eight hours of driving away. Did the basin and range and the rockies disappear? At least dream geography got I-80 correct.

My new year is in the spring, the beginning of March with my birthday. I've tried to use January and February as a dreaming time, a time to evaluate and set course. I'm not sure i want to change course this year, though.

The Elephant in the Room has been an overwhelming aspect of the past few years. We're in a phase where Christine is slowly assembling a vessel from shattered pieces of the past. I can see the progress, remember when all there were were shattered pieces. I know she's making progress, but it's still a difficult task.

I note that, because i feel aware of how the antidepressants i use cut me off from a treasured part of myself. Maybe i will see about reducing the medications, replacing with caffeine as necessary. Still, i make significant effort to keep an even keel with the Elephant in the Room shifting its weight unpredictably. I trust that the antidepressants keep my resources available to me and provide a type of predictability.

The focus on building habits, finishing projects, releasing the things we've accumulated that marked last year still seem valuable. I can't help but start new creative efforts, but the scope seems more focussed.

One lesson of the past year is that i am incredibly challenged when it comes to developing habits of doing things. I think it was a year ago i tried starting some basic intentional habits of the sort that most people have had since they were small children. I must still make a conscious effort.

The phone battery died in the night. I woke on my own, a good bit later than i intended and presumably with enough sleep. I had dreamed dense detailed dreams before waking: driving the same urban off ramp over and over into a museum and university district, radiation therapy for some cancer at the base of my spine (and everyone's attitude was this was about the same as getting dental fillings: dream cancer was not cause for grave concern), music that embedded a subtle message about how to produce music independently of corporate interests, moving digital files around repositories, crowded rides over hills, hat shops, modern buildings of steel, glass, and concrete. I'm sure my brain worked out something.

--==∞==--

As the kettle came to a boil, i watched the birds instead of doing any kitchen tasks. The new feeder seems to be successful at holding smaller seed than sunflower seed. I'm monitoring how much spills past its tray. The tray is a new feature that seems to have gotten the towhee's attention on an occasion. The goldfinches and chickadees have been delighted by the feeder: it's three conic sections of wire mesh, tiered together. The top two are an hour glass shape, and there's a baffle at the bottom of the middle tier to guide seed to the sides, but allow some to spill down into the third tier which repeats the top of the hourglass form, and then ends in a tray. At the narrow neck in the hourglass shape there's a circumscribing wire perch.

The chickadees and goldfinches make use of all the features, clinging to the mesh, perching, sanding in the tray. Housefinches, however, seem to still find the structure a challenge compared to the previous tube with the stations at set intervals. I watched one arrive and then backflutter -- hovering in the air as if aghast at the change. He landed on the porch rail as if to get a sense of the structure. He then slowly landed on the tray and craned his head back to look up at the shape. It seems the overhang of the feeder perplexed him. He considered, and i marveled that i don't think i've ever had to watch figure something out. I'm not sure if that makes him slower than the other birds that just land and feed, or if he was a more reflective bird, cautious so that he will live another day. Eventually he fluttered up to the middle tier, clasped the wire and began pulling seeds through.

Christine notes that it is more generous to assume he was a cautious bird. (As if we weren't generous enough with the expense of the bird feed.)

--==∞==--

Sleeping in has not put forward my morning plans. I need to recalibrate my intentions.

Yesterday evening i puttered with genealogy and confirmed a switch between our authorization service and an institution's. Usually, these encounter some headache or another, so i was prepared for a long evening of poking at changes. In late June we'd had the headache of an institution that had first kept our servers blocked at their firewall, then had a round robin system for their LDAP servers and the certificate needed to successfully connect to the servers only worked for some of the LDAP servers, causing intermittent failures. Furthermore, they wouldn't give us testing credentials that would work completely.

Last night, it just worked. Testing credentials went through. Success. No hiccups. Hurrah!

Christine laughed as she looked at the two of us on the deck. She had my iPad and her iPad as she tried to get my iPad set up to test our app. I had my work laptop, my own laptop, and the genealogy book by my great aunt. We do use the tech.

As it cooled off we retired inside to watch the Gettysburg section of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary and i knitted (knooked). I'm doing a square as a washcloth, practicing a tighter knit, and practicing the right angle turn. I'd made up a right angle turn in my last project and liked the result, a raglan yoke for the top, but didn't think the turn was the best ever. So when i saw the Templeton Square i thought i'd give it a go. One thing, the column clarifies for me why this raglan technique is used in crochet and not knitting (traditionally): the number of needles to keep a growing diameter is probably a challenge. Crochet doesn't need the stitch holder and knooking trails a cord, similar, i suppose, to the "newfangled" circulars. I'm not making the lace, just the square, and i started with a crochet circle in the center. It worked from a construction point of view, but it is a more dense bunch of knots in the center of the more fluid knit.

I just ordered a bunch of rivoli crystals and earring mounts from Fire Mountain for the Meeting fund raiser. $45, a tiny bit of time, and a $100 profit, at least. $255 profit, if they sell well and at full price.

Some years ago, in October, i deeply examined whether i wanted to raise children and decided not. For some years after that, around All Saints and All Souls, i let myself mourn the might have been. Not all potentials can be fulfilled, and i only late came to the realization i *could* be a mother. (That is a story of my relationship with my mother and what i'd been told i could and could not do.)

Last night i dreamt i was looking for a way to have a child. Some of the looking involved riding on horseback through forests and a decaying cityscape where concrete roads above subways and conduits were crumbling, leaving patches of just rebar to support passage. Conference-like meetings and then looking for people directly to ask for help, including looking for someone to be a sperm donor.

I can't help but link the dream to the anniversary, but i suspect the symbolism of bearing a child stands for some other process. The dream mainly had the feeling of sorting out a problem that did not have a strong emotional motivation. What should have been treacherous and frightening -- passing over crumbling concrete -- was more of a tactical puzzle than a risky situation, the meetings were tactical negotiations.

Dear Subconscious, thanks for the memory of what you were up to, but could you be less cryptic? Thanks, the curious self

 Ten minutes and change until a conference call that will be very frustrating. There has been a nightmare of a contract signed by my company with a large client, promising lots of stuff that doesn't exist. Last fall i saw some slides made up by someone not on my team to present the capabilities of our implementation of how identity and personal information is handled. The slides depicted something that does not exist, and is actually quite problematic. 

"Look," i'd say to anyone i could get my paws on, "do you know if [client] bought with an expectation of provisioning on demand, because we don't do this, and it's problematic with how the current implementation of [the borrowing module] works."

"I haven't seen the contract, " replies my product counterpart and the over-all project manager and the over all technical release manager and everyone else. 

Haven't decided if i'm working an eastern timezone day or not yet. I suppose i shall. Yet, ugghhh, not ready. Also, i wish i could spend time pulling out some of my dream memories. A very peculiar landscape. I think it was supposed to be North Raleigh. Land was for sale enclosed in an old gym: a sort of tardis-like trick, to fit so much in a gym.  There was a rushing river i waded into and found the current terrible, as if the water was rushing down a 35 degree incline. The lots were all raw dirt, and tiny, and terraced -- but enclosed in the hangar-like gym-like structure. And then the strange shopping and eating areas, and wandering about at early hours.... 

Oh, mind, your dreams are so weirdly uninterpretable.

Yesterday i did not overwork by any stretch of the imagination. I took an afternoon break, trying to avoid the craving for a sweet, and took the kick scooter for a couple mile scoot to the bay and back. I missed my return path and added a good bit to the route as i continued on to the next return path.

I still engaged in sweets, and at home craved the friend onion bits and then charged through corn chips. I'm not sure what has me craving sugars and salts again, other than having treats through the holidays. As we made dinner, i told Christine about my day and that i felt like i'd forgotten something, that something was hanging over me, that i was going to be hit with it on the following work day.

Christine had evening plans to install Windows 7 on the laptop of a good friend and her first subcontractor (allowing Christine to be engaged in a start up project while also engaging in this year's adventure). I hope to get "things done" but had set the expectation that i would have a phone call about planning a memorial service. I'd left a message.

We were starting the documentary Obscene and starting our take out meal from Chipolte as we waited on others when the phone rang. It was my call, i expected -- and it was, but not from Meeting. No, i ended up on the phone for 143 minutes as we struggled to roll back the changes that went in at 6 pm PDT. I'm not looking forward to the post mortem at all.

I really really really HATE the component that was having problems. And it's not my team's component. It's like that component doesn't have anyone to care for it, and i don't have nurturing feelings towards bad code/architecture/planning.

Last night's sleep was fitful. I know i dreamed there was an earthquake off the shelf of antarctica in the southern Atlantic, leading to tsunami that would inundate the southern half of Africa (I know there are some upland regions, but the dream treated the whole southern half as a great coastal plain). We knew that Europe and the east coast would be hit, too, but for some reason didn't have the details. I was concerned about my horses which were living on the banks of the Schukyll in Philly. (What horses?) Meanwhile, the night sweats were not helping me sleep well, either.

--==∞==--

In other mildly cranky news, when i checked the State of the Union website at Whitehouse.gov yesterday, there was a typo in the big banner image: Ameircans. How embarrassing. I'm reading Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World, where the author recalls a 2000 era Times Literary supplement review in which the reviewer asserts that all the competent proofreaders had been shot, given the profusion and proliferation of errors. I live with one of the folks who has an eagle eye for these errors. I don't. But i'm even finding things now (and although i fight the its/it's error i've found myself committing it, oh the horror). The typo was corrected at whitehouse.gov. Ghost of W, i suspect. (The "ei" must sound like a, as in neighbor. ah-MAYR-cans, is my guess.)

The living room is quite chill, as the sliding deck doors allow for much air exchange overnight. The east rooms are pleasant, but not as cool as outside yet. The lowest temperature has been just in the past hour.

--==∞==--
Email to MS

Happy belated birthday! I'm feeling more and more resistant towards interacting on Facebook these days. I still love getting the news of folks' day to day lives (although i fail to know what to share, myself), but i distrust the business. There was another technology to communicate with folks -- smoke signals? no.... telegraph?... E-mail! It's not the same as the hand written letters we exchanged while you were in the Czech republic and i was studying for my quals, but my penmanship has gone south since spending so much time at a keyboard.

I have a peculiarly complete memory of the desk and room i wrote you from, the cool dim light in the narrow little room which was my space in the apartment i shared with the Greek-American woman and her Roman boyfriend. Thinking of writing you letters brings back a flood of sense-complete memories of that space. I tend to spend my mornings now journalling, pseudonymously on the web, tracking irritations to my flaky immune system and giving myself pep talks as i try to manage depression without meds. My spiritual life goes through shifts and turns, but the practice of Friends has been well suited for me. One year was filled with rich meditation with visions of healing as being broken: instead of scabbing and scarring over the wounds, letting the wounds heal in such a way that life and love stream through. I remain slightly uncomfortable with this understanding as i resist the notion that one needs to be wounded: it becomes a fulcrum on which oppressive theologies can be levered. Yet the truth of my experience, of opening those wounds up and letting myself feel more flow, is convincing. Christine and i were talking one day about my discomfort with the entire spectrum of labels: theist, deist, agnostic, atheist. She sees me acting as an experimentalist, testing practice to see how it affects my life.

Today's a Meeting for Business day, one of the practices that is core, and it will be a hot day to sit and be open. I'm off to North Carolina on the 19th, fortunate a work conference takes me to visit family, just as my brother's work had him in town so we could have dinner with him on Friday night.

I hope you are thriving, and do keep sharing the photos of your and A----'s adventures! I do appreciate them.

--==∞==--

I chose not to take the antihistamine last night,( itchy details )

I haven't been that hungry lately. While on vacation i started the day with a slice of toasted and buttered gluten free bread made by L. I'd have an egg, my usual breakfast, later in the day (and each day of vacation, i added more to it). Chips or nuts while hiking or out, and then a dinner. Essentially i was skipping a meal. I did that on Friday, and i think i essentially did that yesterday as well. I can't blame the heat while we were up the coast: i was often cold. I suppose there's something to be said about my stress eating.

Overslept. Curses! Dreamed the Meeting was using JIRA and of other Quaker data elements. Easily explained, as Christine and i made a THIRD trip to the Meetinghouse last night to extract membership data from Filemaker Pro. She is creating a map of where people live so that Oversight can recommend neighbors (for varying values of neighborhood) get together and support each other. I spent much of the evening listening to Christine's continued observations of data jumble.

Teensy bug report at LJ this morning: http://www.livejournal.com/support/see_request.bml?id=1082819

Morning curiosity was tracking down the company that used this logo. I'd seen a boxy black delivery van cruising down Central Expressway Sunday afternoon. The distinctive look of font and phoenix, the martial black and red, got me curious. I experience a cognitive dissonance as i look at the logo and remember the van. There's an elegant power to the lines, yet a resonance with Third Reich iconography. Oh look, their graphic designer loves their van.

Yesterday morning, right before i drove to work (and right after i arrived), i wrote a list of things to do and planned to set an alarm to remind me to look at the list. I looked when i arrived, but otherwise did not until, blistered, i was leaving the building. I did a few things on the list that were evening related, but sheesh, i am back to the challenge of juggling lots of little tasks with the sense i don't have time to breathe. I take this as yet another sign my brain is thawing out from the frozen depressed dullness, and i trust i will acclimate to this level of "yikes" awareness.

Monday evening i was feeling the weight of so many management things that had slipped through my fingers, yesterday some anxiety about the next two three week programming iterations and a delivery date at the end of May. Today is more planning. Somehow i must find a little balance, keep from overwhelming my staff (i may have committed that sin yesterday), and attend to things like extremely overdue Amex payments and peoplesoft entries. April 15th. April 15th. Hmm, something about that date, too, seems familiar....

Hmm, reading the two entries tagged "overwhelm-cruft" show me i did, once upon a time, juggle with some grace.