Training story - sketch

      A while back, I had the opportunity to go to a very nice training that included a section on relevant case law. The teacher was amazing - super high energy, but not exhausting to introverts in the way that many high energy people can be - and actually got us excited about learning statutes and reading court decisions. At one point, they wanted to illustrate a couple cases that talked about communications privacy law, and asked for a volunteer to draw on the whiteboard at the front of class. Exactly zero people put their hands up, so, knowing I can at least draw a mean stick figure, I offered to give it a go. 

     The teacher asked for a simple house where you could see someone on the phone through a window, and then an old-fashioned phone booth down the street, and finally someone listening in on the call in the bushes nearby. Here's a reproduction of what I drew:

Calm down

      When I was young, one of my life goals was to be a calm, wise, old-soul type person who didn't panic when things went haywire - just assessed the situation and dealt with it, unruffled. Since that was a tall order for someone who was excitable and prone to overreaction back then, I broke it down into smaller bits like "take a deep breath first, then react," "consider your options, then react," and "consider that the worst option probably isn't the most likely, then react." By never taking out the "then react" part, I avoided feeling like I was not being true to myself, and (with some amount of backsliding now and then, of course) just kept working on it.

     I don't know that I had a time frame for that goal per se, other than a vague sense of "before I'm old and retired and don't have energy to do things;" it was just a "someday" idea. To my surprise, I realized recently that I seem to have attained it without even noticing. Work has been a little rough this year, starting with changing positions and feeling like an utter newbie where I had been the go-to person on the team, to finding out one of my goals would be delayed for a few years due to a pre-req I'd overlooked, to finally getting into a very rarely offered training and then falling sick the week before (I masked up and went anyway, because it's that infrequent). Each time, though, I realized that the urge to get angry and rant and rave or seethe about the injustice of it all just... never arose. After literally decades of internal work, my reaction was more a sigh of acknowledging the situation wasn't what I wanted, and then looking at how I could make it work.

     It is weird changing your image of yourself. You know, that quick boxed summary of yourself that you give when meeting someone new that you'll probably be around a lot. I knew I had a temper when I was younger; I knew that if something pushed me over the edge, I'd run the gamut of loudly angry, quietly angry, then simmering resentment until something overrode it, so I'd include that in my self-intro. It wasn't until someone on my new team pointed out that they'd never seen or heard of me being angry (it's not a huge office, so gossip gets around) that I realized they were right; I wasn't that person anymore. And while it's cool to see how years of work has paid off, and I'm a generally happier person overall, it's weird knowing there's a different you that no longer exists. 

Silly sketch - Mooooood

      I miss making sketches; my perfectionism got in the way and made it a chore. So here, without excess fussiness or explanation, is a silly sketch. Enjoy.

Intentional (plant) killing

      I have inadvertently killed a lot of plants in life. Sometimes it was hubris (see: orchids, cinnamon tree, etc.), sometimes it was neglect - ok, a lot of times it was neglect, because I'd get caught up in something else and forget about plants. A couple times, it was even legitimate disease/illness of the plant, like when a cherry tree contracted a fungal disease in the main trunk. Generally speaking though, I've tried to keep the plants in my care alive and thriving as much as possible.

     Last year, I met a woman at work who had a whole line of plants on the windowsill near her desk. She taught me a couple things about taking care of plants but the lesson that stuck the most was when one plant started really struggling despite no change in care, so she just picked it up and dumped the whole thing in the trash. I was floored. Seeing the expression on my face, she shrugged and said something like "It was old. It'd had a good life. Potted plants aren't forever."

     What a wild thought. It made me realize I have a tendency to want to hold onto things forever, even when it's pretty clear they should just go. 

     On a related note, I bought a houseplant a while ago that looked pretty, nice white and green streaked leaves, but was SO. DRAMATIC. Like if I was a day late watering it, it would literally droop all its stems over and act like it was horribly neglected, but then spring right back up once it was watered. Might be melodramatic of me, but I don't need that guilt in my life, so I made a conscious decision to kill it. I watered the plants around it, but not that one, and it slowly fell over and skeletonized without much fuss. 

     And you know what? I feel fine. I'll get something else to replace it eventually, but for now, it's just nice not having drama. 

Gratitude to myself

     I've debated writing here again so many times, and each time I thought how much work it took to write and draw each post here, and decided other things in life took priority. Also, looking back, I feel like a good chunk of this blog was trying to explain myself and/or write to make others happy, neither of which I want to do now. So to anyone reading this, or maybe just to myself, things before/after now have changed. Without further ado, here's what prompted me to resume:

     When I was young, I decided I wanted to grow old gracefully, and develop smile lines instead of frown lines. There are times I've fallen into fear of aging, fear of no longer being attractive, but the more I meet other older people with crows feet and big grins, the less I worry about those things. I am so grateful I made the decision to be happy, and worked hard to be where I am today. 

Plans

I wish there were a way to communicate the feeling when the words stop. When the constant turmoil of seeing, comparing, judging, assessing, planning, and noting for later just fades away, and nothing matters but the moment. Plans were made to bring me to this place. Obstacles arose, were assessed, and were overcome – or the plan was modified – so I could keep moving forward. Deviations from the plan were noted and accounted for. Research finished, knowledge assimilated, tweaks and redesigns slid into place. After interminable hours, weeks, years of constantly herding a million aspects of a plan into place – distractible cats that move at different speeds, or can only get started after other cats are done – the papers are signed, the hubbub is done, everyone leaves, and I want becomes I am. 

It doesn’t last long. Sometimes it’s interrupted by glee: that an impossible plan actually worked. Sometimes it morphs into space for long-denied emotions, releasing pent-up tears or pain so that healing can start. Sometimes it becomes a re-ordering of reality, fitting the new piece into a foundation that will support larger plans, and the brain is off again, making lists of new research, assessments, and things to consider. But the memory of that moment, that beautiful, silent, balanced moment when struggle unfolds quietly into accomplishment, is worth everything that went into it. 

Thumbkin rhyme

      Randomly, my brain started singing the children's rhyme "Where is Thumbkin" the other day. There wasn't anything particularly pressing, so I sang it all the way through. If you don't remember it:

This is then repeated with the pointer, middle, ring, and pinkie fingers, each one bowing or nodding to each other on both hands.

     It occurred to me that this was more than just a children's rhyme to identify fingers - it was a story of how to properly check in on your introvert friends. The singer goes looking for their friends, says hello and how are you politely, and then leaves them alone because that's what introverts need! 

     Or maybe it's just a children's rhyme...

Peace

      She took a final look around the house and nodded, satisfied everything was in order. The laundry was done, folded, and tucked away. Every surface had been cleaned, and the trash bags put out on the curb. The fridge and cupboards were stocked with basic items, but nothing perishable was out. It had been a long, hard day of cleaning, and she was tired, but pleased. She stepped out the front door, locked it, and slipped the key under the doormat, then turned and walked to the road. She looked both ways before crossing, chuckling at herself for being so cautious on a quiet, residential street. 

     A five-minute walk brought her to the edge of the neighborhood, where the forest began. A walking trail, well-used, continued off the end of the cul-de-sac. She'd walked this trail many times, keeping fit as she aged, and she reminisced about the neighbors she'd met and gotten close to on the path. It was a popular route for introverts to wander, and she'd had many good, quiet conversations here with people who needed a non-judgmental ear to sort out their thoughts. 

Mood

      Today's sketch was supposed to be about how other people view crickets (peaceful, calming) compared to how I view them (tiny, demented insects screaming nonstop (which is disturbing to anyone listening)). After six hours of finding absolutely anything to do other than try to sketch crickets shrieking, I decided to let it go and this came out instead:

Addendum to spring

 

Spring!

Random conversations

     I've never really felt like a people person: I'm definitely an introvert, I don't enjoy being in crowds, I'm a very private person, and I hate small talk. Yet somehow, people always end up talking to me - people I don't know at all. I even had this happen the first time I was in Russia and could barely speak the language. Curiously enough, several of those encounters ended well because I'm really good at expressing things without words and I always had a map on me, so at the very least, if I heard "where" and a questioning tone, I could say "I'm sorry, I don't speak Russian well," while holding out the map. The one where a guy handed me a rose and started declaiming poetry, however, did not go so smoothly. 

     On the whole, though, in English-speaking countries, I think people just talk to me because I try to be polite and honest, and I keep my eyes up and aware of my surroundings. People will catch my eye in a store line and start commiserating about the wait. I reply politely, so they keep going. Pre-pandemic, I even had someone connect with me on a class webconference: she decided I looked interesting and started sending me snarky comments on a private chat, trying to make me laugh while the professor was talking (we are still friends to this day). Another time, I tried out a surfing camp, and someone started telling me how horrible the camping conditions were. She seemed like a nice person, so I mentioned I had an extra bed in my hotel room she was welcome to share. Twelve years later, we still write each other several times a year. 

The Undead Amaryllis

We're making some changes to how things are stored at work, so I figured it would be a good time to get some of the personal stuff I'd stored there back home where it belongs. I pulled all the folders out, dumped them in a zip drive, and started unpacking them at home, where my filing system is a bit more involved than just by year. Ran across the below blurb I wrote for a friend/(now ex-)coworker's blog, and figured I'd share, because it still amuses me.

My erstwhile and enthusiastic coworker has, I think, a bit of an elevated opinion about my gardening skills, which tend more toward the “let’s see what happens… hey, it worked!” side of things than the “I know what I’m doing, and it worked because of that” end of the spectrum. Still, I will admit that things do tend to work out for the most part, such as when we received an amaryllis bulb at work. 

Typically, when contractors or consultants send us Christmas gifts, it’s along the lines of chocolate, cookies, or treats – consumables and temporary items. For whatever reason, one of them gave us an amaryllis bulb in a pot two Christmases ago [2015]. I claimed it for my desk (logical, since I’m the only one not sitting next to a window, very smart), and we got a month or two of lovely red flowers out of it. 

Stories

     As mentioned in my previous post, I've gotten away from telling stories about myself. Telling stories in general, however, continues. Here's the first part of one I've been working on lately:

Sylvia Bishop, Chapter 1

Rhymes and recipes

     For some reason, the witches' speech from Macbeth was going through my head the other day, and it occurred to me that making a recipe rhyme would probably be very handy back in the days before writing and recipe boxes were common. Without more ado, then, here's a modern recipe in rhyme form:

Trail Mix Cookies

Laughter, love, and lots of kisses,
Time to fill some cookies wishes.
Foil cover a cookie sheet,
Set the over to 350 heat.

Painting

     So they've been painting the new kitchen for the past few days, and apparently they're using a special kind of applicator for a special flecked paint, which is REALLY LOUD. Again, my brain went other places... (it really did sound like something roaring).

Attempt #1

     I've been trying to write something a little longer than blog posts over the past month or so. And while I usually like to keep things to myself until I feel I've perfected them, I'd also like to make sure I'm on the right path (or at least, not making too many huge mistakes) before I get too far. If you've got some time (since the story is already over 23 pages), please read and give feedback on what I've got so far, posted here. Thank you!

Keep it short?

     One of my French teachers once told me that, as a graduate student, she was given a very specific writing assignment. First, the prof had them write a five-page paper about a topic of their choice. After being turned in and graded, they were given back their papers and told to condense it into a 3-page paper. The same thing happened again: break it down into a one-page paper. Then three paragraphs, one paragraph, five sentences, and one sentence. The last stages of the assignment were to get the ideas conveyed in the original five-page paper across in five words, three words, two words, and finally a single word. What an incredible challenge.
 
     That story has stuck with me since, and I finally realized the importance of it this week while (where else?) in the shower. I've been wanting to get back to writing stories again for a while- not these blog posts, but actual "make up a world and everyone in it" stories- but I'm having troubles writing. Remembering my teacher's story made the light go off in my head: Our society has trained us to be as succinct as brief as possible. Granted, many people are not effective at it, but we all still strive for it. Hurry, hurry, be brief, get to the point, stop beating around the bush, summarize, use abbreviations, shortcuts, text speak, hashtags, keep it less than 160 characters.

Being sick

     Three weeks ago, I started getting a sinus infection.
     Two days in, it became apparent it would be a bad one, and I got medicine.
     That night, I realized I was one of the 12% that got insomnia as a side effect of the medicine.
     But if I didn't take it, I got headaches from the sinus pressure and couldn't breathe through my nose.
     Two weeks ago, my gentleman brought home the cold bug that's going around.
     And gave it to me.

     For two weeks, I slept less than one hour every night, usually on the couch, because I didn't want to wake my gentleman up (also because, once he got sick, he was snoring like a chainsaw). The first few days were the worst, because I kept hoping it would get better, or the other medicine I was taking to try to get some sleep would kick in, and I'd be able to pass out. After a while, though, it caught up to me, and I spent both days and nights in a mostly-coherent zombie state. I literally hated everything, living or dead, and had to move slowly in order to a) understand anything, b) not run into walls more than usual, and c) not start lashing out at things that really weren't the cause of my problems.

     A week ago, I felt well enough to just take the cold medicine, not the sinus stuff that was giving me insomnia. The first night, I slept for four hours, and life started looking better. My gentleman was still in the middle of being sick, though, so I was still mostly sleeping on the couch. By the middle of the week, I was sleeping for eight hours, and even ventured back onto the bed for some of that time. Finally, a couple nights ago, I was able to sleep not only all night long, but also all night long on the bed. And suddenly, literally overnight, my perspective changed.

     They say you get sick as a reminder to appreciate what you have when you're well. I have to say, sleep deprivation is a darn good way to realize that. There have been problems gnawing on my consciousness for a while now, and finally getting a good night's sleep helped put them in perspective. Sometimes, you just need a solid wake-up call (heh) to reorder your priorities. So while I'm not thrilled that I was so horribly sick and sleep-deprived, I'm glad I got things straightened out. And I really, really appreciate a good night's sleep now. Cheers!

Best friends, for 15 minutes.

     A couple months back, my gentleman and I bought an automatic laser kitty toy to keep his cat busy. She is decidedly of the portly persuasion, and we figured that we'd be able to turn the toy on while we were busy, and she could chase the laser around for exercise. There was a bit of a problem at first with getting it to sit correctly so it didn't either go all over the wall and furniture (where she'd either ignore it or claw the furniture to pieces), but a convenient roll of duct tape serves to keep the thing balanced nicely. While it's a little loud, it's nice to know that kitty can play on her own while we get things done.

     Kitty has learned that the "click!" of it starting means there's a red dot to play with, and comes running. She's oddly shy about batting after it when we're around, but since the toy has a 15 minute timer on it, we just turn it on, walk away, and let her at it.

     The other day, I happened to be just one room away while the toy was working its magic on kitty, and I'd tuned out the noise it makes. I was pretty engrossed in what I was doing, and was slightly disoriented when the noise suddenly stopped. It took me a second to realize the timer had been tripped, and the toy was turned off. I was about to get back to work when I heard a single, soft, sad little "meow…" of kitty realizing her playmate had vanished again.

     Who knew an automated laser could have such an affect? I went and turned it back on, and she promptly ignored both it and me. At least until I left the room.