Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

Super Burnout.

I’m not talking about the video game here, I’m burning out.  The holidays are always tough – I don’t have a lot of that family or shopping stress – it’s just that because we have a bunch of students working here who all disappear around the holidays I end up working a crazy number of hours.  Plus I end up dealing with other peoples holiday stress as we get people in here last minute shopping for random gifts.  Then there’s all the running around after work because around the holidays everyone wants to get together, or go out and do this or that.  I don’t really remember what my living room looks like anymore.

Today is a half day for me.  The parents are in town so I’d like to see them for a little bit rather than always be at work while they’re here.  Tomorrow though will be a full day of working.  Saturdays are crazy days to work. Between tours and large groups, and just generally being just slightly more busy than two people can handle its going to wear the last bit of me out I’m sure.  Fortunately Sunday there are no plans other than sitting on the couch.  Maybe I’ll treat myself to a new XBox game and spend the whole day blowing up aliens or some such.  It will be a good relaxing day.  Life should return to some sense of normal around January 12th once our student staff get back in town.  But for the time being its zombie mode for me.

Merry Christmas!

For those who celebrate Christmas may it be merry and bright!  For those of you who don’t I wish you much happiness and joy, and hopefully a wonderfully relaxing day off spending it in whatever manner you choose! While I don’t have much time off (just today in fact) I plan to use it wisely – doing as little as possible, eating good food, and enjoying the company of friends and (new)family.  Here’s to hoping that the end of this year will start in motion the beginning of a brilliant next year!

Going Lo-tech.

As I had mentioned earlier I’m trying to bring a little more organization in to my life and I had been looking at various methods of doing so. One of my biggest hurdles has always been remembering things. I tend to remember I need to do something pretty much minutes before it needed to get done by. Things without a firm date have a tendency of sliding out of focus for me. Obviously this was the first thing I knew I’d need to address if I were to have any hope of bringing a little more order to my life (not too much order mind you, I do enjoy some amount of the chaos).

I had been pondering getting a PDA again, though I never used it as much as I should have – for whatever reason I just felt uncomfortable carrying one around so it was never with me when I needed to keep track of something. A few people have recently suggested I try using a Moleskine notebook. I looked at them a couple of times and they are very nice, so I made a mental note (ie, a bookmark in my browser) so that I might come back to that idea at a later date. Well yesterday I was reading some article on Lifehacker during a particularly slow moment at work and lo and behold they had a link to an article about converting a small Moleskine notebook in to your own custom day planner. This person actually made the decision to go from a PDA to a more simple approach to things and it inspired me. So last night I made a trip to Borders and ended up picking myself up a couple of the notebooks. One of the smaller ones (grid paper because they were out of the lined notebooks in that size) and one of the larger lined ones for jotting done story ideas, random observations, anything at all that might help the good ole’ creativity start flowing again.

I broke out the ruler and a drafting pen last night and started dividing the notebook, one week over two pages. Right now it only goes up until the end of June 2008, but I’ll add several more months to it. Then the last 60ish or so sheets will be used for todo lists, notes, etc. I bought some post-it note reinforced tabs so that I can divide the sections in the back accordingly.

Now I’m armed with my new lo-tech PDA and feeling ready to get something done! Or maybe just refill my coffee cup, it’s still early.

Day off.

Since I have to work this Saturday I got today off instead.  While the thought of just being lazy and not really doing a thing crossed my mind more than once, I did some productive things as well.  I applied for a passport – a first for me.  I’ve never been out of the country (other than several trips to Canada), but I’m hoping to fix that sometime next year.  Hopefully after the wedding we’ll be able to go somewhere fun, like Ireland.  We’ll see how that goes.

I’ve also been doing some cleaning around the kitchen, and am making my chicken soup.  Chicken soup is one of my favorite foods of all time.  I make the stock from scratch – it’s really an all day activity so I have to do it on a day I don’t work.  The weather looked sufficiently gloomy for chicken soup so I’ve got the stock pot in the kitchen boiling away.  The aroma is already making me drool.  I don’t really have a recipe I follow, it’s more just done from memory though I should write it down at some point so I can share it with others.  It’s a slightly modified version of the chicken soup my mom always made.

That’s another thing to add to my todo list: make a page for recipes and make a page for homebrew recipes.

Phone Phear.

I couldn’t tell you what exactly it is about phones that freak me out, but there is something. It takes a great deal of physical and mental effort on my part to work up the ability to make a phone call. Answering the phones isn’t a huge deal – more often than not it’s a slight annoyance (though in fairness to those who call once I’m actually talking to them I’m fine, it’s just the fact that the phone is ringing that triggers some sort of negative response in my mind). I’ve literally spent hours sometimes trying to make a call. When I’m calling someone I care about it doesn’t take as long, but it’s still a difficult process for me. Like I said, I can’t explain why it’s this way. There’s no particular feeling of dread – it’s more as if a physical barrier has been errected that impedes my progress the closer I get to making that call. There’s been times I’ve hung up the phone before I even finished dialing all the digits in someones numbers. Fortunately most of my friends are perfectly fine communicating with me over such means as e-mail or instant messages, both of which I thrive on. I like others. I love communicating – it’s just that the phone is not a medium I am adept at. To complicate matters I have trouble hearing what people are saying on the phone. On average I’d say in a given conversation I don’t actually hear every third or fourth word. When talking to someone I am familiar with its not so much a problem as my brain sort of anticipates what word would best fit there based on who I am talking to, so I comprehend what is being said. When answering the phone at work, however, often times I have to get people to repeat themselves a few times… especially with names. For instance someone with an easy name like Bob Clark calls and I go to take a message and to me, at first, his name sounds like blahblahblaaaahblah. Fortunately its rare that people call here with terribly complex names – like if I didn’t know her and my friend Shoshi Kamholtz called I swear I’d have to get her to repeat herself about ten times – and likely she’d just get annoyed and hang up. I know I would.

So for all my friends out there who I neglect to call as often as I should I do apologize. This is in no way meant to be an explanation or a cop out – I just wanted to share my perspective with you. Does it change anything? No. But a little understanding sometimes can go a long way and fortunately my friends are quite understanding.