stardate: now

[llcoolvad]

Hmm. Feel compelled to post, but have not much to report! Haven't been to the gym much at all. My back has been pretty sore, which I've used as a convenient excuse. It's also the reason I haven't been using my CPAP machine. To use it I need to sleep either on my side or my back, and both positions have been causing me pain. On the other hand, I'm not doing much to solve my back pain either, so I am basically just marking time doing not much at all, health-wise.

On the other other hand, I've still been eating better. Still tracking on LoseIt!, still staying under my daily allotments, still losing weight. I'm at the 40 pound mark since the spring, 30 pounds since July. I only lost about three pounds this month, which was a little discouraging, but I am still thinking of it as progress since it's going in the right direction.

Been a little down this last week. My forgetfulness is bugging me. The Red Sox and their giant spectacular collapse is bugging me. My aforementioned slow-motion weight loss is bugging me. Living with Brian has been fine, except I still get sad, so that's bugging me too. I am a lot more reactionary at work, lately; normally I am filtered, and lately I am not. I watched that happen to my coworker when she went through a divorce, and now here I am, trotting right along behind her. Stress is very interesting.

Did a few fun things: Went with Mom to visit my aunt and to diagnose and/or fix her elderly computer. Installed a couple of new CD drives, then determined she really needs to buy a new computer since hers was 11 years old (!). I will set it up for her once it arrives.

Saw "Contagion" — totally my kind of movie. Disease of the week! Gives me scary survivalist fantasies again. Awesome.

Went to a play with P last week — not the best thing I've ever seen, honestly. Could very well be in the running for maybe the worst thing I've seen, actually! The performers were very good (most of them, anyway) but there's only so much you can do with maudlin, unedited drivel.

Watched Doctor Who and enjoyed this week's ep. Love Craig. Why can't Craig be the new companion? He's almost as good as the panda Patrick proposed (there needs to be six-year-old twin British schoolgirls along with the panda, of course! "The panda just peed on the floor, Doctor! And now he's eating the sofa!" THAT would be some excellent television right there).

Watched some bad baseball this weekend. While being stressed about the game, did a lot of unnecessary cleaning. I've taken some Metafilter advice to heart, all about how to get through stress or heartbreak or whatever: clean the bathroom.

"You can take advantage of your time in pain by doing something that would have hurt a LOT before, but pales in comparison to what you're feeling now.

I was in a long distance relationship for a year or two, and there were a lot of goodbyes, and we couldn't afford much phone time, so there was a lot of loneliness and worrying about how to keep the relationship alive. During a particularly mopey period, my roommate said "You know what you could do? Clean the bathroom." I said "that won't make me feel better." She said "It won't make you feel worse, and we'll have a clean bathroom." Whenever it looks bleakest, I clean the bathroom."

So I've been kind of throwing myself into cleaning, more than I usually do. I realized this evening that, if asked, I could lay hands on pretty much any item that I own within seconds. I have vacuumed my furniture. I am organized and tidy. Which is weird. But hey! Productive. (please note: that was not my posting on mefi, either the answer OR the original question!)

My next project is my lifetime of paper. Starting that one this week. Sigh.

Read since January 1, 2011:

1. Gone Tomorrow, Lee Child (13th Jack Reacher book)
2. 61 Hours, Lee Child (14th Jack Reacher book)
3. Worth Dying For, Lee Child (15th Jack Reacher book)
4. The Monkey's Raincoat, Robert Crais (1st Elvis Cole book)
5. Stalking the Angel, Crais (2nd Elvis Cole book)
6. Lullaby Town, Robert Crais (3rd Elvis Cole book)
7. Free Fall, Robert Crais (4th Elvis Cole book)
8. Voodoo River, Robert Crais (5th Elvis Cole book)
9. Sunset Express, Robert Crais (6th Elvis Cole book)
10. Indigo Slam, Robert Crais (7th Elvis Cole book)
11. L.A. Requiem, Robert Crais (8th Elvis Cole book)
12. The Last Detective, Robert Crais (9th Elvis Cole book)
13. The Forgotten Man, Robert Crais (10th Elvis Cole book)
14. The Watchman, Robert Crais (1st Joe Pike book)
15. Chasing Darkness, Robert Crais (11th Elvis Cole book)
16. The First Rule, Robert Crais (2nd Joe Pike book)
17. The Sentry, Robert Crais (3rd Joe Pike book)
18. New York Death, Stuart Woods (1st Stone Barrington book)
19. The Troubled Man, Henning Mankell (last Wallander book)
20. Several TOR shorts: Overtime, by Charles Stross; Black Swan, Bruce Sterling; Firstborn, Brandon Sanderson; In the House of the Worm, George RR Martin; and First Flight, Mary Robinette Kowal.
21: Serial, a novella by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch.
22. The Quickie, James Patterson Incorporated and some guy
23. Dexter Is Delicious, Jeff Lindsay (5th Dexter book)
24. Every Dead Thing, John Connolly (1st Charlie Parker book)
25. Dark Hollow, John Connolly (2nd Charlie Parker book)
26. The Killing Kind, John Connolly (3rd Charlie Parker book)
27. The White Road, John Connolly (4th Charlie Parker book)
28. A Season In Hell, Jack Higgins
29. The Redbreast, Jo Nesbo (3rd Harry Hole book) (first two aren't translated into English yet)
30. Nemesis, Jo Nesbo (4th Harry Hole book)
31. The Devil's Star, Jo Nesbo (5th Harry Hole book)
32. 7th Sigma, Steven Gould
33. Changes, Jim Butcher (audio)
34. Rule 34, Charles Stross
35. Side Jobs, Jim Butcher (audio)
36. The Neon Rain, James Lee Burke (First Dave Robicheaux) (audio)*
37. Ghost Story, Jim Butcher (audio)
38. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway (audio)**

*The James Lee Burke was read by Will Patton, who I gather does all the audio books in the Dave Robicheaux series. Quite good, once you get past the casual racism, sexism, and any other -ism you can think of. Set in New Orleans, so it's very very southern. And written in 1987, so it's very very 80s.

**I read a ton of Hemingway when I was a kid, and although I am certain I read this before, I basically only had a few vague images of it — bullfighting, impotency, hot sun, drinking. Then again, that's basically all of it, so maybe I remembered more than I think I did! Took this one out of the library and ripped it to MP3. It was a pain to rip it (took a while) but I made a playlist out of it and it seemed to work fine, didn't lose my place or anything. Audible is way easier, but this will help tide me over month to month.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Comments

[istemi.livejournal.com]

I watched that happen to my coworker when she went through a divorce, and now here I am, trotting right along behind her. Stress is very interesting.

Word. And now you know the secret handshake, and how weird is that? Now you suddenly see this thing, like hobo marks or Masonic recognition phrases, that was hiding in plain sight all along.

Good on you for keeping it pointed in the right directions.

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Yeah, much like the mourners club, it's the club you don't want to join. All this "with age comes wisdom" thing is really just that you've been smacked around more than younger people and you know what bruises to expect, now.

Sigh! And thanks.

[istemi.livejournal.com]

And you know how to recognize the bruises on others, and how to be kind while they're wondering what the *(&@#(*@& just happened.

[daniel c. parmenter (from livejournal.com)]

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3455

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Hah! Feel the wrath of the linguists, Lee Child! You ignorant BASTARD!

Stress and Thanks

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

I've been having stress at work. Some of it is based on suddenly needing a filter that I never needed before. I've held my tongue three times in as many minutes before. And what's the point of having a tongue if you have to hold it? (Oh, right. Chocolate.)

Anyway, my best stress plan is called Take Care of Myself. By which I mean get to bed at a reasonable hour. Drink enough water. Exercise. Brush and floss. And try to eat more reasonably. Boring. But it helps. Partly because I'm lucky and don't need a CPAP or have an aching back.

Congrats on three more pounds even during this down time and on still eating better!

And thanks for the Metafilter quotes. Funny. Also, Robin didn't know about 7th Sigma yet, and so he just ordered it, so thanks for that too!