The fight for diverse and conscious voices

...is to write more. So I'm going to write some words now and maybe write more words later. I also likely will do at least one music post.

How am I? Physically healthy. Anxious a lot. Crying now and then.

Still unemployed. No serious prospects on that front - came in second on Friday for the last place I'd had an actual interview with. They were very nice about it, but second is still no job. I've expanded my job search outside MA for the first time since I moved here. Right now I'm looking at NYC and Philly areas and I expect to expand down to DC and then add Seattle and Portland. Pygment has vetoed Silicon Valley.

Beyond that? I dunno, maybe Vancouver and see if emigration is possible? Austin and RTP are also things I might consider but so much of my stress is based on the politics and one-third of this country that is actively hostile to me and my family that I'm not sure it would help to move to either of those places.

We're actually doing OK at the moment. My 'ant' brain is the biggest part of me doing the "told you so" dance. Pygment's work is good, and I've got unemployment so all the bills are getting paid. We're pushing off or cutting expenses as we can. I'd like to be able to spend attention on things that are not money-related - that would certainly ease some of the stress.

Life With Teenagers remains an adventure, though a different sort from the friends I see who have younger children (sometimes literally) crawling over them. Thing 1 is a troglodyte. We see her only when she needs something, usually food. That needs to change but trying to have that conversation with her is also a big source of stress so I'm avoiding it, mostly.

Thing 2 is bored beyond words and resentful that I won't play more games with them. I've realized the fundamental difference in our styles: they want games where they get to press buttons constantly. I want games where I get to think and make choices about which button to press next. Neither is right or wrong - just incompatible.

This week I finally finished a thing that I should have done like 8 weeks back. Inside me the "yay" voices are drowned out by the "see that was easy why didn't you just do that two months ago?" voices.

And so it goes. How are you?

Most of my friends chat me on gchat/hangouts. I'm also findable on Discord, Twitter, and am in a few Slack instances. If you poke me enough I will log into Skype and if there's a specific day/time I can be convinced to go onto Facebook to talk with you there.

If having one or more of these things would help you connect with me, I'd be happy to give you contact details you don't already have. I also do very well with asynchronous chat - I don't expect people to dedicate full time to talking with me. Just message back when you can and tell me when you're away or ending the chat for the time being.

Yesterday people actually showed up for game and it was nice having other human voices around. I'd like more of that, please. It was really nice to talk about things like our kids and media we had watched and odd jokes and things that are not occupying 90% of the news.

None of this is normal; none of this is OK. We adapt.

Rest in play, Holly Wex.
Born 9/9/09
Came to live with us 9/28/2013 which, I'm pretty sure, was yesterday.
Died 1/2/2020 by our choice when her body wouldn't keep her going. I'm blaming it on 2019.

Thing 2 wrote this, lightly edited by me:

Today, 1/2/2020 at 11:05 AM EST, Holly Wex, our beloved dog took her last breath. She was suffering from total kidney failure, and was euthanized in my arms by lethal injection of sedatives. She was 10 years and five months old.

Holly was a wonderful dog. She loved licking faces and handing you toys to hold while she chewed on them. She loved cuddles and would let anyone take care of her. She loved the outdoors and futilely chasing all manner of critters. She liked spicy foods, chicken, and most of all, cheese. She loved barking at anyone and everyone who walked in the door, and would try to herd people. If you were in a group of people and went to go to the bathroom, she would try to cut you off and bark gently to get you to go back with the rest of the people.

She loved napping in the sun, and talking long walks in nature, sometimes unplanned ones. She loved being around people, especially when it was most inconvenient. And most of all, she was a comfort dog. If you were sick, or sad, or angry, you’d have Holly at your side in no time at all. She was both the most chill dog you’ll ever meet and the most hyper, energetic fluffbal.

Holly, Princess puppy face, fuzz head, Mrs barks-a-lot, who strained her ankle running down the stairs at a mail truck no fewer than four times. You will be sorely missed.

She is survived by two siblings, and two parents. All human.

Home today sick with noro. Bad day yesterday, bad night, including two frustrating hours of sitting in an ER waiting room (in pain) and getting no help. I'd rather be miserable at home in my own warm bed than on a cold bench in a bright lobby - though to be fair they did bring me a heated blanket on request. Pygment was her usual awesome self. After two hours I felt better enough to walk steadily down the hall to the bathroom so I said fukkit and left.

This is far from my first rodeo, for which there is a story...

Once upon a time I went to undergrad at UPenn (aka Not Penn State). Student Health there was part of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP). At that time, and generally whenever I check, HUP is rated as one of the best teaching hospitals in the US. This means that you get a lot of older staff - who have seen it all and are pretty damned jaded - and a lot of younger staff. This dichotomy later will lead to the "two out of three doctors surveyed" incident, but that's a different story.

To tell this story I have to start Freshman year. Those of you who've known me in person know that I have a full beard. Back then, though, I did not. My beard (at age 18) was pretty scraggly, so I shaved. Often I shaved the sides to give myself what we called a "Klingon beard". Kind of like this dude - https://www.writeups.org/wp-content/uploads/Klingon-soldiers-b.jpg particularly since I had long hair at the time and there were several (original) Trek nerds in our social group.

Problem was that I was an absolute spaz with a razor. I'd nick myself on Day 1 and then on Day 2 I'd scrape it and make it worse. Scraggly or not, my beard grew pretty quickly. On a bad day I'd look like I had tried to go nose-to-nose with a feral bobcat.

Scroll forward to Sophomore year. By now I've learned that I can get all my classes stacked on M/W/F. This gave me two days mid-week to catch up on homework and assignments (leaving my weekends free for D&D and drinking - see "why do I never drink rum&coke"). This also meant that I only shaved three days a week, leaving four days for healing.

Then came November of that year; I distinctly remember I started feeling bad and left SCA Dance Practice early. By the time I made it to my dorm I headed straight for the bathroom and... just eww. In those days we didn't have the word "norovirus"; we called it the "running runs" because you were constantly running for the (gods help us shared dorm) bathroom in order to evacuate both ends.

After a few rounds of this it became clear that it wasn't just a one-time thing and I called Student Health, where the gent who answered... well, I could hear the grizzle in his voice. He told me to stay put, try to drink water or flat ginger ale, and come in when student health opened at 7. This is also where I learned that when your mouth tastes like metal you are really dehydrated.

So I did the shelter-in-place thing, didn't sleep at all, and dragged my exhausted ass down to SH before it opened. They had unlocked the outer airlock door but not the inner so I could at least stand in a foyer out of the cold. And I must have passed out briefly because I leaned up against the locked inner door. The next thing I know I am literally _falling_ into Student Health because the junior resident apparently decided I was giving him a hard time about being five minutes late and just unlocked the door and stepped back.

Once he realized his mistake he was all the apologetic and gave me many good drugs, including my first experience with a suppository. Turns out that if you want a medication delivered to the lower colon this is a super-effective way to do that. A couple hours later I was sufficiently hydrated and under control to drag my ass back to my dorm and pass out. I slept through most of Wednesday, waking up long enough to shower and drink a little water then go back to sleep. By Friday I was able to manage some Saltines and felt pretty good about that.

Then it was the weekend and by the time Monday rolled around again I looked in the mirror and I had a full week's worth of beard, which was actually pretty good and past the scraggly stage. I threw my razor in the trash and haven't shaved since.

----------

I hope you've enjoyed this story and I have a question for you. If you are the sort of person who kisses people who shave, does stubble bother you? I find it irritating as heck, but maybe it's a thing you get used to?

Somehow forgot to mention this - our dog Holly has been sick with some kind of kidney condition.

We noticed she was drinking a lot and peeing a lot. The vet measured some minor weight loss, and she wasn't eating regularly. So far we've done a couple urine samples and one ultrasound, which have been not particularly conclusive. We've switched her to a special kidney diet(*) and started her on a nighttime med per the vet's prescription.

Since nothing has been definitive about what has caused the problems the vet wants to do a biopsy, which is going to be expensive. The new diet (which she loves) and med seem to have improved things somewhat but she's still guzzling water and peeing a lot. She put the weight back on quickly, though. She went through a couple days of accidents on her bed so we've switched to twice-daily dog walks when we're all out and to more frequent walks when we're home and that seems to have fixed the accidents.

She's still our slightly crazy protective mutt and we love her. But she's getting to be an old lady dog and facing some of the ailments that old lady dogs face. Part of me is convinced she won't be around much longer so I make sure to crawl into her crate with her every day and have snuggles and scritches. Sometimes she still wants to play, but most of the time she just comes by to get her petting and then go back to lying down again.

(*) Anyone relatively local to us who wants an unopened bag of dog food let me know. We'd just gotten a new bag when we had to switch her. The dog food company refunded our money but doesn't want the food back so we need to find a good home for it.

I've been trying to use Daylio (https://daylio.webflow.io/) to track my daily activities and mood. And it offers some options to rate how my day was, like "good" and "bad" that you'd expect. But mostly my days aren't all good or all bad. They also offer "meh" and you can set up your own, like "complicated". But if everything is one category that category might as well be "day" - amirite?

For example, this past weekend.

Friday I work from home, (good, no commute). Working remotely has some drawbacks (meh) but nothing compares to finding out, mid-afternoon, that the hot water heater has sprung a leak (bad) and soaked the garage (bad). Did I mention that the garage is so full you can kind of not really navigate it? It has like five half-finished projects and some furniture that really should go to a storage unit that we haven't gotten around to renting and... yeah, it's one of those things you look at then turn around and close the door. Except now we can't.

Oh, and we're supposed to be hosting a party Friday night. Should we cancel (bad) or postpone (impossible) or just go ahead (good). We pick the good option, send out a "no hot water" warning and proceed to have a fabulous party. It got a little crowded and I felt bad that some of my friends couldn't easily find a place to sit at points but it wasn't quite enough people to start a second cluster downstairs. But I got to sample some very nice new Scotches and meet some very nice new people so overall, good. But if I look at the day? I really would rather not have had a major appliance go bust and not be fixable until Monday. "meh" doesn't really cover it.

On to Saturday when I get to sleep in (good) but have no hot water for showering (bad) and we kind of vegetate for a while (meh). Then we buckle down and spend about 2.5 hours mucking out the garage. Fortunately there's less actual damage than expected (good), but we still have those five half-completed projects (ugh). Those turn into two giant piles of "give this shit away" and "throw that shit away" and a smaller pile of "figure out what to do with this shit". So progress on projects (good) and more work to do (bad) and it doesn't actually solve the problem (meh) but it makes a path big enough that the old tank can go out and the new tank come in (good).

Then we get cleaned up (no hot water still, bad, but heating water on the stove is not entirely terrible, meh) and go out to a friend's party (good). I ended up spending much of the party talking to current Lab people. and getting caught up on the goings-on there (very good). I'm normally not that social but ended up spending a couple of very pleasant hours and met some interesting new people (good). The day as a whole wasn't good - just the evening part was good, and yet it wasn't bad, or meh either.

Sunday we couldn't have game (bad) because Arisia Concom (good) and the meeting went well and we got some things decided. Plumbers were set to show up Monday (good) and I had to work at home (meh). Also, tired (meh) but managed some good adult fun (good!). I mean, that's only like five things which isn't a very busy day and it's still complicated.

Coda:

Plumbers showed up (good) only an hour late (meh), Pygment is an awesome packrat (good) and managed to dig up the receipt for the still-under-warranty water heater (good) that was replaced for merely a thousand bucks (bad) but they did give us a free detector (good) because code now requires that and I did manage to get some work done (good) despite network issues (bad) and the dog (meh).

Daylio? I can't even.

As noted, I actually went to synagogue this year. Many years I've not religiously observed the holiday at all. Pygment and Thing 2 found a synagogue they liked and go to hear Torah and shofar. This year I went along and it was nice (except for the ongoing allergy attacks; we are the household of sneezes and watery eyes).

The rabbi's sermon was interesting; she took on the idea of "random kindness" and urged people to make kindness less random and more a regular part of everyday life. Worthwhile to think about. It's interesting to see a connection drawn between "walking in G-d's path" and enacting values in our everyday lives.

Listening to her I thought about how the notions of kindness and civility have been weaponized against marginalized people and had this thought-stream. It's not "civility" per se that's the problem. It's that the complaint of lack of civility is used by those in power to demand performance from those with less power. I am reminded that slave owners demanded that their slaves be civil and yet felt no need to behave with compassion toward these other humans. If we stop demanding things of others, and instead focus on our own actions, then civility can return to a more reasonable place. If I behave in a civil manner, speak civilly toward others, then that is its own value. The idea of "random kindness" is that it's given without expectation of return. We are kind, compassionate, or civil as we enact our values. These are not things we demand of others.

I know I could stand to be more compassionate, more civil. I'm... working on it.

As always at this time of year, I ask that if I have harmed or offended you please tell me about it and if I may apologize or make amends I wish to know that as well.

May you have a good, sweet year, and also a just and inspiring year.

Work is stressing me out. Yesterday I had a meeting with Boss #2 in which he productively suggested some ways of responding to the things that are stressing me out. This morning I have mail from Boss #1 in which he agrees we should meet to talk over those components of the stress that need to be addressed at his level.

I don't know if any of this will solve the problem, but damn it's nice to feel like there are other people willing to help me push these boulders uphill.

Thing 1 went back to Florida today for her second year of college. I've been unable to sleep as I'd like, very active dreams. So while lying there unable to sleep I thought through what I wanted to say to her.

I got it down to 11 words, short enough that I hope she'll remember. So, dear readers, if you had 11 words to give your child or other loved one, what would they be?
( Here are mine )

I've started a tweet series on small observations of things from my commute, but this one won't reduce down to Tweet size just yet so I'll write it here...

I've discovered that buses are highly anxiogenic for me. I'm not entirely certain why that is. Some combination of "busses are always late" and I hate being late, particularly when a bus segment is needed for me to make a deadline or hit a transfer somewhere. There's also an immersive element to busses that isn't present on trains or subways. Those things run on fixed tracks and have well-defined and posted lists of stops. Bus stops are erratic and unknown and subject to the vagaries of traffic and road repairs.

So last evening I traveled from my workplace to Union square for a much-needed haircut and subsequent dinner with MizA. That involved "walk to State St" (*) take T to Sullivan, take bus from Sullivan to near-enough. It was that last bit that sort of stressed me, kind of helped out by the fact that Gmaps now marks bus stops on its provided routes.

So I'm chugging along on this bus, checking every so often, and I discover that, according to my map/GPS at least, we are well off-course. I walk up to the front to speak to the driver who confesses that it's his first day on this route and there's a closure that he was supposed to go around and he's missed a turn.

I explain that he can get back on course by turning left at the intersection we're presently approaching.
Him: "I don't think I can turn left here"
Me: "You can definitely turn left here; turn left here."

I show him the map on my phone and where we are and where the line is showing the route he ought to be following. He turns left and we sort of noodle back toward where we ought to be. Fortunately for all concerned, this is a part of Somerville I know pretty well, especially with an interactive map in my hand.

I get him pointed in the right direction and decide that with this level of traffic it's going to be faster for me to get out and walk. I confirm that he knows where he'll be once he gets to the next intersection and makes the appropriate turn, and off I go.

Me, the anxious one, having rescued the bus, driver, and passengers because I'm anxious and keep checking my phone. G-d is an iron.

Haircut managed, MizA and I had mediocre margaritas and excellent food followed by extremely new age ice cream. By that point I had sort of missed the semi-convenient train and I was faced with another bus-to-bus-to-train route. And I had well over 12,000 steps for the day.

I decided that was enough for the day and called a Lyft because I have money and can do this kind of thing. Also, MizA was nice and bought me tasty Mexican food in honor of my birthday so I bought myself a ride home.

I need to figure out how to tell Lyft "Please don't give me drivers who are playing right-wing talk radio. Like, ever."

(*) Why are the entrances to this specific station so much worse than all others? Like, the signage is nil and if you're about a block off you can't really see where the station is by glancing around. Terrible.