life – Page 13 – p i x e l s c r i b b l e s

It’s been a struggle, and it’s still a struggle

Though I’m managing to write something each day, I’m starting to be dissatisfied with what I produce. I am at the point with my ongoing projects where I need to sit down and figure out where the story is going and how all the pieces fit together, and that kind of thinking can’t really be done in the 45 minutes to an hour that I have to write in the morning. Or at least, I haven’t found myself able to do it so far. Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough.

This week’s writing has been mostly posts to my blog. Yesterday wasn’t really a journal entry so much as a…prose poem, maybe? I don’t know. It wasn’t great. I wrote it at the end of the day, having put off writing till the last minute even though I know that’s a bad idea.

I did write a tiny little fan fiction story last Thursday that I liked. Then there are two blog posts that are almost-but-not-quite process posts, allowed into my word count on technicalities, and two actual journal posts.

Today is the last day of Writing Week Four. This process post doesn’t go into my word count. I will have to figure out something to write for today. I’d kind of like to just write a scene, something descriptive. A vignette. Just need to figure out the topic.

Writing Week Five will just be January 29-31, and then I will start on February’s Week One. February is a perfect month this year–look at a calendar, it is beautiful–so I’ll have four seven-day writing weeks that start with Sunday the 1st. I’m looking forward to it; it’ll be a fresh start, and it’ll be interesting to see how writing weeks that start on Sunday compare to writing weeks that start on Thursday.

Once February is over, March will mess everything up again. Alas.

A coworker told me that this past Monday was shown (through science!) to be the most depressing day of the year. It’s the day when, statistically, people falter with their New Years’ resolutions, and the weather is also generally bad (in North America). Monday was the day I posted about going to Little River Falls…I’d like to revisit that post, because I feel like the bits I wrote while I was actually at the falls are strikingly superior to the stuff I wrote the next day to fill the spaces between those bits. So I did end up going to work feeling dissatisfied that day, and the weather was dreary, and I was grouchy. There might be something to that study.

Things can only get better from there, right?

Awakened to the promise

When my eyes open, there is none of the usual morning fog. I have slept just enough, and now I am awake.

The blankets are warm atop me, but I don’t need to stay beneath them. I cast them off and roll over and up. I stand and unplug my phone and step into the master bath.

It’s chilly, but not uncomfortably so. It feels like expectation: bare feet on cool floor, cool air tingling against bare arms and legs.

I stand at the vanity and sort supplements into my pill box: D3 for Monday and Thursday, everything else every day. Multivitamin. Calcium. Probiotic. Iron. And birth control, not because I can conceive but simply to regulate my damaged system.

I think about how much longer this day will be for me than yesterday–yesterday, when I slept until midday and napped in the afternoon. I feel rested and ready for whatever I might do today. I feel excited. I feel the promise of the day. All the things I might choose to do sit out ahead, waiting patiently for my decision. I can choose whatever I want; I feel no particular pressure.

I shower, get dressed, eschew eye makeup. I pull on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and white socks and sneakers. I grab a protein shake and start a load of laundry.

At my computer, I review the things I’d thought of doing yesterday. Toward the end of the night I’d come across a beautiful photo of a waterfall. It’s two hours away in a national preserve. I think about going there. And again, I feel excited.

The day is so full of potential. I won’t waste it. I’ll wait until the load of laundry is washed. I’ll put it in the dryer. And then I’ll head out into the world.

To-don’t

I made a to-do list for the weekend, which guaranteed I wouldn’t do any of it today. The items on the list were:

see Selma
start reading a friend’s memoir
start reading another friend’s play
write each day, of course

Later, I added:

self-care, which so far has included sleeping for approximately 12 hours

The sleeping was glorious. I went to bed just a little later than my usual time, and I awoke naturally at 6am. After a bathroom break, I got back in bed and read social media, listened to a couple episodes of Welcome to Night Vale, and then went back to sleep. I slept from around 8am to noon, and when I finally got up for good, I felt well-rested and happy.

I guess I did manage to take care of myself today, insofar as I read a bunch of things that made me smile, and I ate relatively proper meals. I also did one load of laundry. But I did not see Selma, or start reading my friends’ stuff. I also didn’t write anything, other than a long comment on Facebook about people’s interesting reactions to rediscovering Friends, now that the series is available on Netflix. (I may rework that comment into a blog post.)

I think I need to get outside. Yesterday it was very rainy. I’m not actually sure how the weather was today, as I didn’t go out at all. Tomorrow, if it’s clear, I should at least go for a walk.

Sean went to grab us a late dinner from Steak ‘n Shake. He has been very sweet to me while I have been feeling low and unsociable. Earlier we discussed getting Chinese food, but I didn’t want to talk on the phone. He didn’t either, so he decided to go pick something up instead. He didn’t ask me to ride along, perhaps sensing my apparent need to live in a cave today. I told him I loved him, and thanked him for taking care of me.

And that has pretty much been my day. How are you?

Managing myself

As of yesterday, I’ve successfully written something every day in 2015. Sometimes it’s been a little, sometimes it’s been a lot, but it’s always been something. I’m pleased to be able to say that.

Unfortunately, all this sitting at my desk writing has resulted in a side effect: back pain. Something about the way I sit causes a soreness in my middle back on the right side. It almost feels like getting a stitch in my side, but on my back instead of my front. I’ve had this pain before. It makes it hurt to bend over or twist or carry things. When the pain suddenly flared up when I came home for lunch on Wednesday, I made two changes in response: I switched desk chairs at home, and I changed my desk at work to standing mode.

I worked the rest of Wednesday and then all of yesterday standing up, a day and a half, and it has in fact helped my back. It also made me feel very energetic for most of the workday yesterday. I told my coworkers that I felt “powerful”. I even did 20 standing pushups against the part of the desk that wasn’t raised, because why not?

I came home at lunch and wrote a tiny story, which is good, because I hadn’t written anything that morning. And then, when I got home last night, I was completely exhausted. I don’t know if standing up all day sapped me mentally, or if this week’s work, which has involved a lot of editing and providing feedback, has been more of a drain than usual. In any case, my brain didn’t seem to want to do anything. I couldn’t figure out what to do for dinner, let alone write. Worse, I kept feeling discouraging thoughts creeping in–that everything I have written and everything I’m trying to write is terrible, and that there’s no point to any of it. At about 6:30 I gave up on everything and went to bed, still wearing all my clothes.

Sean came in eventually and asked if I wanted to go to Sushi Huku, which I would normally love to do, but “I don’t feel like going anywhere,” I mumbled. He kissed me and left me alone, and I slept until midnight.

When I awoke, I got up, took a shower, and got into a t-shirt and yoga pants, my typical pajamas. Sean was asleep. I opened the fridge and discovered that he’d ordered pizza, which was a relief; I’d worried he hadn’t eaten anything. Then I teared up at the thought of having to feed both of us every day. It occurred to me that I probably hadn’t had enough rest yet. But I was still pretty awake, and I knew I probably needed protein too, so I made myself some hot dogs and got online to read for a couple hours. I didn’t try to write anything. I did try not to feel bad about that.

Around 3:30, I climbed back into bed and put on an episode of Welcome to Night Vale. Eventually I fell asleep, I guess around 4, meaning I got two more hours of sleep before my alarm went off at 6.

I think, I hope, that I am rested enough to get through today. At least I am able to recognize that the bad feelings I was having were due to being completely drained, and that I don’t have to feel that way.

It seems that after each sleep, I have a certain amount of energy. I’m not sure if I get the same amount each time. But I can certainly run out of it too soon if I’m not careful, and running out tends to plunge me into depression. I’m glad I recognize this and know what to do (go to bed, basically) when it happens.

Drowning in a torrent of memory

I knew that I had once fallen in love while already in love with someone else. But today I realized that it actually happened twice. I remember the second time best because I had to actively fight it. The first time was easy to forget. Distance did most of the work for me.

I wouldn’t even really remember it now, except slightly vaguely, if I hadn’t written a story about it a few months after it happened. I definitely wouldn’t have remembered how it felt. A dull ache, twisted, suffused with desperation.

It’s been so long. I had pushed it all away. I had forgotten. But I read that story today, and it all came back.

A glorious day in Midtown

Midtown skyscrapers

In my post about second homes, I mentioned that I hadn’t quite made that special connection with Atlanta yet. This past Tuesday, I realized that’s not exactly true. I do have strong feelings…for parts of Atlanta.

It only makes sense. Atlanta is huge. The sprawl just keeps going and going. Much of the city is strings and clusters of strip malls, businesses, and homes that are only accessible by car. Of course I wouldn’t find that homey, walkable, or natural.

But there are places where I can stroll around happily for hours and find plenty to do and see. As I rediscovered Tuesday, one of those places is Midtown.

Midtown skyscrapers

My friend and former coworker Stephanie just moved back to the Atlanta area–we met in Augusta, but she grew up here. We’ve been trying to get together and do something for awhile, and finally this week things came together. She and her baby Landon, who is just about to start walking but for this day spent most of the time in his stroller, met up with me at the High Museum of Art.

High Museum of Art with signage for Frida and Diego exhibit

Stephanie hadn’t been there since she was in school; as for me, the last time I’d visited was for the Picasso to Warhol exhibit a year ago. I acquired a photography permit (something I don’t recall them doing last year) and signed a statement agreeing not to post my photos online (alas), then we got to exploring.

We started in the Stent Family Wing, heading up the ramp to see European Art from the 14th to 19th centuries and American Art from the 18th to mid-19th centuries. We took a short break so Stephanie could feed Landon; I was impressed with how organized and thoughtful a mom she is. After a quick diaper change, we were able to take in the first part of the visiting Frida & Diego exhibit before Landon became too fussy to continue. All the while, Stephanie and I chatted about the art, and travel, and cutie Landon, and it was a lot of fun!

I wasn’t quite ready to leave yet, so after walking Stephanie and Landon down to the lobby, I headed back up to finish out Frida & Diego. I hadn’t heard of Frida Kahlo or Diego Rivera before this exhibit came to town, so it was an eye-opening experience. They both had such fascinating lives, their relationship with each other a pivotal point. One of Frida’s paintings in particular, “The Broken Column,” so strongly resonated that I had to fight burning tears. Frida suffered crushing injuries in an accident when she was 18. Her spine was broken in multiple places and her uterus was impaled. These injuries left her in a lifetime of pain and unable to carry a pregnancy to term. She died young, at 47. “The Broken Column” is a self-portrait. Frida gazes at the viewer, standing tall despite the exposed, fractured column that represents her spine, her body riddled with nails, her face streaked with tears.

All of the Frida & Diego exhibit is amazing and informative; I highly recommend checking it out before it leaves Atlanta in May.

After Frida & Diego I went up to the Skyway Level to see Gogo: Nature Transformed, a temporary exhibit of jewelry based on designs found in nature. Much of it was cast from molds of animal bones, and I didn’t really care for it. After that I wandered through the Modern Art exhibits, which were far more to my liking. I especially enjoyed the furniture designs; the High has pieces from Frank Lloyd Wright (instantly recognizable) and pieces that were sold by Herman Miller in the mid to late 20th century. One thing I also appreciated about the Modern Art exhibits, and the others that incorporate furniture or sculpture, is the way the museum has arranged all the pieces. Designing an exhibit is an art unto itself.

After Modern Art I skipped Folk Art and went straight to Contemporary Art. I remembered many of the pieces–Anish Kapoor’s untitled reflective dish, for one–but new items had appeared as well, and other exhibits and pieces that were on display last year are now gone. Then I went down to the Third Level and looked at American furniture, paintings, and sculpture from the 19th and 20th centuries. Items I found especially fascinating were an ornate cabinet, an intricate piano built for its looks rather than its sound, a group of face jugs from Edgefield, South Carolina, and two separate still life paintings featuring dead fish.

Finally I went down to the Lower Level, where I strolled through the Works on Paper exhibit and the African Collection. I found myself drawn to three paintings by Will Henry Stevens in Works on Paper and a display case filled with intricately detailed metal curios in the African Collection. And with that, my wonderful five and a half hours at the High were concluded.

High Museum of Art

At that point I was pretty hungry, so I decided to try and find food. I’d had a protein bar at around noon, but it was now 4:30. At first I thought I’d just go to the restaurant next to the High, but nothing on their menu sounded appealing, so I got on Yelp! to see what was available in the area. Unfortunately, the Midtown branch of South City Kitchen wasn’t open yet. I tried to go to a place called Article 14, but I couldn’t find it. (I ended up passing it later in the evening on a completely different street from where I’d been looking, but in my defense, the streets are both called Peachtree.) Eventually I decided to just keep walking around and eat whenever I found a restaurant that looked good. It took about 45 minutes, but I finally came across a pizza place called Vespucci’s, so I stopped there and had a delicious pepperoni calzone.

Pepperoni calzone from Vespucci's

Thus recharged, I decided there was still enough daylight to warrant going to Piedmont Park, so I headed off down the other Peachtree Street and then up 14th Street, all the while taking photos of beautiful Midtown. I got to the park at around 6:30 and spent about 45 minutes strolling through it, circling the pond and snapping photos of flowering trees and shimmering water. It was pretty out, though it was starting to get cold; I kept my hands in my pockets as much as possible.

Flowering tree at Piedmont Park

Midtown skyline as seen from across the pond at Piedmont Park

Detail of a flower on a tree at Piedmont Park

Pavilion on the pond at Piedmont Park

Visitors Center at Piedmont Park

I took more Midtown shots on my way back to the car. The setting sun made for some nice light.

Reflected skyscraper bathed in a wedge of sunset light

Sunset light washing over 14th Street

I was headed off for home before darkness had a chance to settle in, thanks to Daylight Saving Time. (I may be the only person who likes DST.) As I found my way back to I-75, the dwindling sunset painted Midtown pink.

Pink-hued Midtown skyscrapers

I’d had an awesome day, but somehow I didn’t want to go home yet. I called Sean to see if he wanted to go out to dinner, but he didn’t, so instead of going to the apartment, I drove to our local movie theater to see if they had anything interesting. At the time, my mood was swinging toward either Emperor or A Good Day To Die Hard, but neither was playing at that location. Oz the Great and Powerful was available, but I’d read a review that had somewhat soured me on seeing it…so I went back to my car and pulled up Yelp! again, deciding to just go ahead and have dinner. A search for nearby restaurants revealed a Thai/Malaysian place in an adjacent shopping center. Given my love affair with Penang, that sounded like a plan to me, so I hopped out onto Cobb Parkway and then right off again, heading straight back to Top Spice.

The ambiance wasn’t quite as cozy as Penang’s, at least not in the entryway. I felt rather like I was on stage, as all the tables were raised above the level of the front door and there was no half wall or anything to provide a feeling of privacy. Once I was snug in my booth, though, I was quite comfortable.

Interior of Top Spice

Rather than an entree, I decided to have two appetizers. This was mainly because they had roti canai and I love roti canai, and I knew if I got roti canai and an entree, I wouldn’t be able to finish. The second appetizer I chose was called martabak. It’s made with the same Malaysian “pancake” as roti canai, but it’s a beef and onion curry wrap. Somehow the flavor wasn’t what I was expecting, and I’m not sure I liked it. The roti canai was good, but Penang’s is better.

Then I gave in to temptation and tried their sticky rice mango, and it was amazing. The plate featured three separate items: a sticky rice patty with sesame seeds, a neat pile of mango slices, and a small bowl of coconut syrup. At first I tried alternately dipping the rice, then the mango into the syrup, but I soon found that assembling bites of all three at once created the ultimate flavor. Sticky rice mango is one of the most delicious desserts I’ve ever tasted. I devoured it all.

Sticky rice mango at Top Spice

With that satisfying conclusion to my meal, I was finally ready for my day of adventures to end. I headed home in sublime contentment, my belly full of yummy food, my camera full of photos, and my brain full of happy memories.

View more Midtown photos | View more March 2013 photos

Our Sammy

Sam

2012 ended with the death of our family dog, Sam, at the age of 3.

When Mom and Dad picked him from a litter of border collie mixes, he was tiny. He grew up fast, lean with beautiful markings, soft brown eyes and plenty of energy. He loved to fetch balls and frisbees, though he never quite got the hang of catching them in midair, and he never wanted to give them up once he had them. He’d try to keep them all, piling balls and frisbees in his mouth and carrying them to his favorite perch on a log near the picnic table in my parents’ backyard.

Then he got sick.

It seemed to be an allergy. Rashes broke out all over his body. He went on medicine, prednisone, and that made him hungry. He went from being a picky eater to wolfing down anything he was given and begging for more. But the skin problems didn’t go away. Mom tried everything: special baths, changing his diet, tearing out her carpet…nothing worked. The prednisone was all that kept the rashes in check, and then only barely.

Sam lost a lot of his energy and started spending more time lying around, less excited about going outside. When I saw him at Christmas, he was constantly leaking fluid from his eyes and had a smell. He didn’t move like a puppy; he moved like an old dog. He’d been that way long enough that I didn’t realize how strange it was until Dad mentioned his age to me.

After I went home, Mom called to tell me Sam had been diagnosed with diabetes. It was pretty bad. They started him on insulin immediately, but it don’t seem to be doing anything. Even if it had, Sam would still have his skin rashes, compounded by the fact that he could never again have prednisone, as it was the likely cause of the diabetes and would exacerbate the disease.

Five days passed. There was no change. He couldn’t get up. He was pooping himself and throwing up whatever he tried to eat.

Mom and AJ took Sam to the vet.The doctor mercifully came out to the van so Sam wouldn’t have to go inside. In a few moments Sam went to sleep for the last time.

That was December 31, the day before yesterday. Somehow it all feels unreal to me. I wasn’t there. I didn’t see it. I didn’t even see Sam’s sickness get bad. The last time I saw him, I thought he was okay, maybe a little uncomfortable, but not that bad. It seems so strange to me that in just a few days he would take such a turn.

I last saw him on Tuesday, December 25. He was unable to get up by the weekend. And he was put down on Monday, December 31.

And he wasn’t an old dog. He was basically still a puppy. I was so used to old dogs that his old dog behavior must not have registered. But he wasn’t old. And he never got the chance to be old.

Like AJ told me, he had a lot of things wrong with him, and we didn’t catch them all in time.

I don’t know if we even could have. Mom says the vet thinks Sam might have had “bad genes”, especially given the fact that our other dogs lived to ripe old ages.

If that’s the case, if it was all just luck of the draw, then what a terrible hand to be played. Our sweet Sammy deserved more of a life than that.

But he did live a life full of love, surrounded by people who loved him, getting spoiled, eating snow, playing with frisbees, enjoying big hugs and pets, shaking hands, barking on command, curling up on the pet bed in the family room, playing with squeaky toys, running down the stairs to see AJ or go outside, sidling up to Dad’s couch, snuggling up under Mom’s desk, chasing the cat, standing right in everyone’s way, begging for scraps, bolting across the yard after cats or visiting grandchildren.

I loved to wrap my arms around that big boy and give him enormous hugs, and stroke the hair on his head and scratch him behind the ears, and hold his face and kiss him on his doggy cheeks. I loved how excited he always was to see me and how he followed me around the house. I loved that he was a sweet, good boy who loved me and my parents. I loved how much joy he brought to my parents’ life.

He’s gone and there’s a hole. There’s just a hole.

A belated gift

There’s a box of beauty items in our master bedroom. I packed it when we first moved to Atlanta nearly two years ago. The items used to reside in a white cabinet I bought at Bed, Bath & Beyond, but there was no place for that cabinet in my new bathroom, and its current location in the master closet doesn’t quite lend itself to storing beauty items…so the box has remained mostly untouched all this time.

The other night I went looking for some cuticle oil I remembered owning. I never did find it, but seeing the box again inspired me to go through it some more today. I started to sort, pulling out things I might still use, tossing out things I’m not sure why I kept. A row of lotions emerged. Two bottles of sunscreen went under the sink. A perfume tester went next to my bottle of Sensuous Nude. And then I opened a white Beauticontrol eau de toilette box, and discovered a wad of $20 bills wrapped around the bottle.

Oh, Grandma.

My grandmother had this habit of slipping us cash whenever we’d visit. A $20 in the hand here, another in a purse or pocket there. One time a check while apologizing profusely for not having any cash.

She also kept and parceled out beauty items, canned goods, organizers, and any other treat she thought the people she loved might enjoy. Her stairwell was a treasure trove.

I knew when I found the eau de toilette that it was from her, even before recognizing my name in her handwriting on two sides of the box. I was excited to have one last present from her, and never imagined that she’d slipped another gift inside.

That’s so you, Grandma. Thank you.

I miss you.

Thanksgiving #1

Thanksgiving is pretty spread out for Sean and me this year. We spent Thanksgiving Day at home watching TV, then going out for sushi. Family Thanksgivings were scheduled for different dates.

Our first Thanksgiving of the year was really just mine. I was home in Kentucky for a visit from October 31 through November 8, and as we were celebrating Halloween, Connor’s birthday, and Daphne’s birthday, we decided to throw in a Thanksgiving dinner too. (Sean didn’t come on this trip as he had to work.)

I helped Mom decorate the dining room, setting up the dining table and the card table with placemats and accessories.

Mom made her signature rolls (and I helped). She also tried a different, faster way of cooking the turkey.

I made the corn casserole, a tradition we’ve had since I was a teenager and we first got the recipe from a lady at church. These days Connor often makes it, but as this dinner happened on a Thursday during the school year, he didn’t have time. I also made the pumpkin pie. I forgot to turn the heat down after the first 15 minutes, but it seemed to turn out fine anyway.

At dinner I sat with the boys at the card table.

Dinner was great. Mom, Dad, AJ, Faye, Connor, and Logan all came. (I got to see Ben, Manda, and Daphne the next day when I went up to the farm with the parents for Daphne’s second birthday.) While it wasn’t a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner, it was close: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn casserole, rolls, pickles, olives, pumpkin pie, and blueberry pie. An amazing spread and a wonderful time with family :)

Our second Thanksgiving of the year, the one with Sean’s parents, hasn’t happened yet. Stay tuned! ;)

Oops

I like just read that it is counterproductive to announce your goals, because the act of sharing makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something, making you less likely to actually work on steps to achieve the goal. So why did I go and write goal-related stuff in my blog? Argh.

Traditions and willpower

In the course of rearranging and organizing everything in my life, I’ve dusted off some goals and study materials that have been foundering or never even used and started making clear plan lists for using them. My Japanese language plan is the most robust so far; it includes steps for my WaniKani reviews, TextFugu, the collection of study materials I purchased from TheJapanShop, and reading and translating various Japanese-language manga and short stories I own. When I logged back into TextFugu for the first time in months, it reminded me that I had purchased the 30 Day ebook, a system for making oneself a better Japanese learner. So I added that to the list too and read Day 1.

The first day’s assignment is to make a task I dislike into a tradition rather than a chore. The idea is that if you have to force yourself to do something, you’re using mental energy that could be used elsewhere, and the more you can turn tasks into traditions, the more you’ll be able to achieve. I find this extremely interesting.

Since willpower is a finite resource (meaning the batteries only have so much juice before needing a recharge), being able to not use willpower becomes very important especially over time. If there’s a task you do every day with your Japanese, creating a tradition for it will essentially allow you to use your finite willpower to do something else, increasing the amount you can do and get done. Over time this adds up, so there’s no better time to start than now.

The mission is to pick any distasteful task, Japanese-related or not, set a time for it, and make it happen. I’ll probably go with “When I get up, I work out.” I don’t have a problem with doing laundry or the dishes these days…I just sort of do those things. (They’re already traditions!) But working out has always been a struggle. If I can turn that into something I just do, I bet I’ll feel a lot better about doing it, and I’ll have mental energy left over for other tasks.

I hope I haven’t chosen too difficult a task to turn into a tradition.

I like rearranging

I got home from a visit to family in Kentucky on Thursday and immediately started moving stuff around in the apartment. My brother lent me his electric piano, so I found a place for it in the second bedroom/office, moving the wingback chair to the master bedroom and the file cabinet to a new spot under a desk.

Yesterday I went a little crazier and moved my computer and standing desk to the office as well. I now have three desks in here: the lawyer-style desk my laptop is now on; my hutch desk for paperwork; and the standing desk, which is now a multipurpose project area. These desks are arranged in a three-sided square, and I sit in the center. The piano is off to my left, next to the bed. It would be ideal to have it right next to my computer, but this will do for now.

Then today I decided to clean up the set of shelves in here. I took Sean’s comics down and sorted them and ordered some more binder sleeves and backing boards. Then I started rearranging books in the living room to make room for the comics out there so I could put books more relevant to my goals in here. Now when I look past my monitor I see rows of Japanese-language manga and light novels, Japanese study materials, and a selection of English-language books I’ve been meaning to read.

In between bursts of moving and organizing, I’ve been playing the piano. I have a book of Clementi sonatinas, two of which I learned as a teenager, so it’s been fun revisiting them. I also have a copy of Clair de Lune, which is not coming back as easily as I’d like. I first learned that piece at the request of my late grandfather, so I definitely want to get it back up to performance level. Of course I still know Fur Elise, so I play that whenever I start to feel overwhelmed. There are a couple of other pieces from my former piano days that I halfway remember, so I’ve been playing what I can recall of those as well.

Today I also finished up the coursework for the introductory Python course I’ve been taking on Coursera. All that’s left is to take the final exam sometime before November 19. I’ll start reviewing tomorrow and see how I feel about my grasp of the material. As usual, I’m least confident about designing algorithms, but I think that sort of ability would come more easily if I spent more time learning the features of the language. You’ve got to know what tools you have to work with before you can expect to efficiently solve problems, after all.

I’m really happy with my office arrangement. I think this environment will be more conducive to getting things done. As I continue to add goals and plans, I’ll start looking at filing systems that can help me keep track of where I am and where I’m going.

A breath of fresh air

I spent this past week in Kentucky with my family, and while there I didn’t check ADN, Twitter, or Google Plus at all. I got on Facebook about three times total, to check private messages and make sure no one had posted anything important to my timeline. The day after the election I tried Facebook again, but a quick scan through the news feed made me wonder why I ever used Facebook to begin with.

I realize a lot of this is just election exhaustion, and that will pass. But I truly enjoyed spending a week not checking social media obsessively. I left my phone in my purse most of the time and didn’t use it for anything but one phone call and maybe three text messages. (I may have also played a turn in chess, but I don’t remember.) I also didn’t unpack my computer right away, and when I did I mostly used it to review Japanese on WaniKani and to watch lectures and do assignments for my Coursera Python class. I also added to my Goals document, which I started working on in October. It’s a simple list of ideas I’ve had that I want to see to fruition.

The rest of my time was spent with family members, talking or playing games or enjoying meals. I got to celebrate Halloween, Connor’s 13th birthday, an early Thanksgiving, and Daphne’s second birthday. I didn’t really go anywhere beyond my parents’ house and my brothers’ houses, but it was relaxing, and I didn’t get too stir-crazy. (When I started feeling antsy, AJ took me to a cool walking trail so I could enjoy the fall leaves. It totally rejuvenated me.)

While I was staying with my parents, I also wrote a few entries in a journal, by hand. It takes a lot longer for me to write by hand than it does for me to type. I found that I was doing more crafting so I wouldn’t write anything poorly. I also found that I had no desire to share the brief brags, complaints, and jokes that I normally would post to social media without hesitation.

I used to despair that all my thoughts were lost to the ether. When social media came around, I thought it was my salvation. Finally there was a way to chronicle everything that went through my head. This was important to me, for some reason. I’ve always wanted other people to understand me, but I’ve rarely felt like anyone does. I suppose I thought the more I shared, the more others would learn about me, and maybe eventually they would come to understand me. (This might be a large reason why I have such a problem with lying or with being misrepresented.)

I’ve gone overboard with sharing here on the blog, and I think my social media participation is probably even worse. It’s so much easier. Just taking a week off from it, I feel very different…like I have so much more time.

I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do. As a professional in the web world, I probably need to maintain a social media presence of some sort. And it would help to stay on the cutting edge with things like ADN. But of all the social media I abstained from this week, the only one I really worry about quitting completely is Facebook, due as I’ve said before to the possibility of losing touch with far-flung friends and family. Maybe I will find a way to limit my participation, perhaps by scheduling a time each week or so to “catch up”. Or maybe I’ll do something else. For right now, I’m putting that decision off, as I don’t really have any desire to get back on social media.

Juggling social media sites

I’ve mentioned before the problems I’ve had with various social media sites. In an attempt to see if I could improve my experience, I started using Google Plus and ADN, but neither of those could replace Twitter or Facebook…so for the past few weeks I have been using four social media sites instead of two.

This is a huge time suck, and I’m not sure I’m really adding much value to my life.

I’ve mainly found Google Plus to be a decent place for news links, but I’m flummoxed by the lack of a “send to Instapaper” button. I despise having to open the link in Safari, copy it there, and then paste it into Instapaper. There are also occasionally some interesting discussions on Google Plus, but I don’t have enough people in my Circles for this to be a frequent occurrence.

ADN is a different animal. There are plenty of interesting people there, but a lot of the ones I’ve interacted with seem to have a lot more time to dedicate to ADN than I do. I tend to dip in and out; they’re there for longer blocks of time, holding up numerous conversation threads with sometimes dozens of people at once. ADN sort of feels like a microcosm of a party, where the extraverts are flitting around happily and I, the introvert, am observing, trying to interact, feeling overwhelmed, and ducking out early. I often feel like I’m missing everything, that I am not “cool” enough for ADN. Sometimes I attempt to broach what I consider to be important topics there, only to be either ignored entirely, or briefly engaged and then ignored. I guess I wouldn’t say that I have made any real friends on ADN. There are a few people I enjoy chatting with, to be sure, but for the most part it just feels really hard to interact on ADN.

I do try to keep in mind that it took me many years to get Twitter and Facebook curated such that I was comfortable with them. At first I would just follow anyone on Twitter who seemed interesting, but after awhile I would feel left out because these interesting people weren’t following me or talking to me. Eventually I learned to follow people who would actually interact with me, which made the experience much better. I also learned to temper my expectations, so I could follow bigger accounts and know that they have so much interaction to deal with, there’s no way they could respond to everything people said to them. I kept my following list as small as possible, so I wouldn’t feel like I was missing the party. I have a sort of balance on Twitter that gives me information and interaction. I have to remember how long it took me to get there.

Facebook is a different animal. I use it to keep track of actual friends: people from school, people from IRC, people from the AMRN, people from work, and family members. These are people I actually want to keep up with, not just random acquaintances. I use Facebook as the contact list for my personal life, essentially, which is why it is always distressing when someone decides to close their account, and why I have so much trouble with the idea of closing mine. The archivist in me loves that I can collect information about myself and my friends all in one place, and this built-in need usually wins out over my privacy concerns. I realize this is probably bad, but I don’t know what else to do. There is literally nothing else out there that can replicate what Facebook does for me.

I’m starting to wonder, though, if there isn’t a way I could try and quantify the benefits of the various social media platforms vs. the drawbacks. As I said, checking these four services takes time. What might I be doing with that time otherwise? Couldn’t I use my blog to chronicle my life, rather than depending on Facebook? Couldn’t I create an address book of the people I care about and contact them in other ways? Couldn’t I use RSS feeds to read news? Would these things save time? Would they free my mind for creative endeavors?

I have a few options for evaluating my social media use. I could stop completely for a given amount of time and see what happens. I could limit my use to a certain amount of time per day and see what happens. I could continue as normal, but track my time on social media the same way someone evaluating their diet would track food. That last would be the hardest to implement, but it might provide the best data.

Ultimately, I think social media has become habitual for me, a way of having something to do when I’m not sure what to do next. (Chores are also like this for me.) It may be distracting me from achieving goals, because working towards something is harder than taking a routine action. To achieve a goal you have to come up with a plan, and you have to break it up into steps, and you have to constantly figure out what the next step is. With habits, you just do it. No wonder habits are so hard to break. You feel like you’ve accomplished something, even if you haven’t.

Maybe instead of focusing on social media, I should focus on my goals. As I invest more time into achieving goals, the unimportant stuff will start to fall away naturally.

Regardless of how I change my social media habits, I do know this: things can’t stay the way they are now.