what I've learned from carrying a flip phone.

It is damn near impossible to navigate the world. 

You need to plan everything super well. 

Paper and bank cards are crazy important. 

A bus pass is essential. 

T9 texting still sucks. 

How nice it must be...

 ... to have a diagnosis that places all the burden for managing your illness on your friends 

AND 

confirms that anyone who suggest you may have a role to play in your behaviour is a Bad Person.

A short story I wanted to save

 An old man, a great painter, sells tickets on the street to see a gallery of his greatest works.

While he waits for sales, he doodles on the tickets with the stub of a pencil.

Word spreads that the great painter is painting again, and people throng to buy tickets.

When people buy a ticket, he is happy, but then he finds out they are keeping them and framing them, and he grows sad, because no one wants to see his paintings.

"Why do they not want to see my works?" he laments, and he hangs more on the walls.

Later, he stands in the empty gallery surrounded by his paintings and wonders why no one will come and see his work, while outside the excited queue for tickets grows longer.

A pun I want to save

 There was an A A Milne themepark in Kilburn for a long time and it had steam powered versions of the animal characters that you could rent for long rides. You'd fill them up with briquettes and fire up the boilers and they would walking, albeit stiffly, down the paths of the park. Much merriment ensued.

And in case they ran out of fuel, there was a cloth "hod" beside the saddle, full of spare briquettes. It was sealed by very strong stitches to keep the heavy contents from spilling out, as the animals lumbered clumsily on their merry ways.

Each animal was cared for by a specialised crew who knew the attraction inside and out and all its individual peculiarities. Changing teams was actively discouraged, and each team prided itself on the individual performance of the animal they maintained.

One day, while touching up the bright-coloured enamel gilding around the saddle of the Winnie the Pooh automaton, the worker noticed that the famous bear's cloth fuel sack was splitting and, as his hands were full, he shouted urgently to the crew working next to him at a donkey, "Hey you! Get over here and stitch up this fuel sack!"

Unfortunately team pride prevailed, and the seamstress shouted back "Don't call me, seat painter, 'cause I can't go, I sew my coal to the stumpin' Eeyore"

To the people who watched me do CPR from the restaurant window:

Fuck you.

and to the people who helped out, including the people who asked if 911 had been called, the lady with the dog who got the AED, the guy who ran into get naloxone, and the guy who held her airway open while I did my thing, thanks!

Trauma.

I know your trauma informs your attitude and your behaviours. 

It makes me very understanding and sympathetic for you. 

It does not make me accept your behaviours 

Horror Movies

 You know that moment in a horror or drama movie where everything could just be solved if everyone got into one room and told the truth?

That's astonishingly common in real life.

SIT DOWN

TELL THE TRUTH

EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE

Hazmat suits on!

 Ok, looks like I gotta wade through some muck. Maybe a lot of muck.

So:

Priorities: 

1. My own safety: If the muck gets too high for my PPE, or my health starts to suffer, I'm out
2. The muck is not anyone's fault. If we get distracted by blame, we need to refocus
3. The muck has to get removed, that has to be the mission.
4. The muck could affect innocent people. If I see that happening, I need to step in an redirect the muck, following priority 1, of course.

The purpose of a safety mindset is to prevent the hazard from impacting the worker. So the hazard here is getting involved in muck, getting muck on me, or making more muck.

So I will tell the truth about muck when asked. I will not make more muck, I will not bring muck home. 

Mood swings

 Twice this year now I've had massive negative mood swings. Just complete energy sappers that have lasted 3-4 days where I'm really really not fit for company, and I'm not sure what it is!

Is it low iron?

Is it that generally I'm better than ever so I notice these more?

Is it too much beer of the evenings?

Is it a lack of creative energy or production?

The heat?

Work stress?

Stay tuned while I work on this one...

Crossover between work and home skills

 I was unaware that all the skills for home and work would be so valuable

All these crisis management skills, and all these dealing with tantrums skills, are ALL THE SAME SKILLS

An upset supervisor and an upset pre-teen need the same skills.

Woo

Self-care enforcement

 

The old meat-sack here is under some stress these days; but it's manageable.  It's a bit funny that I'm in such good shape and treat myself fairly well by the standards of any previous century, but I'm still pushing myself to be healthier.

Looking at some bike trips for the summer, and trying to keep my energy up, so that should bear fruit, as well

My right knee is highly problematic right now, but I'm gonna try some anti-inflamamtories and see how that works out for me

a bigger thought

• In his classic book Homo Ludens, the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga (1955) summed up his elaborate definition of play as follows: "Play is a free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious,’ but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner."

• In his influential essay, The Role of Play in Development, the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) characterized children’s play as activity that is (a) “desired” by the child, (b) “always involves an imaginary situation,” and (c) “always involves rules” (which are in the minds of the players and may or may not be laid down in advance).

• In an often-referred-to article on play in the Handbook of Child Psychology, Kenneth Rubin and his colleagues (1983) characterized play as behavior that is (a) intrinsically motivated; (b) focused on means rather than ends; (c) distinct from exploratory behavior; (d) nonliteral (involves pretense), (e) free from externally imposed rules; and (f) actively (not just passively) engaged in by the players.

So I put it to you that worship, or church, is play. 

The only places I'm struggling with it is Huizinga's inclusion of 'not serious' which I think would chafe some worshippers, and Vygotsky and Rubin's inclusion of imagination and pretense, but I think those are very inherent in, in particular, the Eucharist. 

But if you google the purpose or the benefits of play, the case breaks down. So has religion stolen play from us?

Do we need to ensure that our worship meets the needs of play for adults?

Looking back

 https://stealthdachshund.blogspot.com/2013/02/what-i-learned-last-night.html

I went back and read what I was doing 10 years ago.  It was mostly taking care of, and loving, my children. Same same.

So on to work: What do you do when you start to realize your employer's values are not your values? Do you leave? Stay? Pretend? Show up every day, work hard, and get paid?

I think towards the latter, yes?  My expenses aren't going down, so it's not leaving time by any means

Hot Take on Parenting

 Just like a quick thought:

Becoming a parent is one of the ways, one of the points, where you stop being the hero of your life's story. 

It's not the only way, let's be clear, but it's one of them. Anyway.

Vice management... so far, so sustainable?

 

I am master of my domain, these days!

I've made good and steady progress in trying to be a healthier human, and I'm proud of those efforts.

It's not perfect, but man it is very close. Also, I am seeing the corresponding increase in productivity and happiness :D

New year... resolutions?

 Ok, gonna try and take on my vices, a bit, to a bit of a moderation, and increase my self-care as much as possible.

So far, so good! 

This isn't a saintly-virtue endeavor, it's to try and give my meatsack a bit of a rest after Christmas!

Random thought

There is not a mental illness in the world that justifies being abusive. Not one.

Angry me

 

I am tracking something... this is not important

Times you make it about you: iiiii i

Times you ask about others: 

Times you portrayed yourself as the loser/victim: ii

Times you ask for validation: 

See, told you it's not important.

Handling other people's garbage

 Oof, a three hour drinks session with A Friend who is struggling, and ... wow.

I knew it was bad, but it's badder than I thought, and it's A Lot for them.

It made me grateful for the Project Manager and her ability to regulate herself, to hold me to task, and to supporting our kids.

I didn't make any recommendations, but we did some deep work on some specific things that could be done, and that could be expected from the Friend's spouse. 

Trouble at Prairie University

 Dealing with a toxic person here at work, these days, and sorting that out.

SOME LESSONS I NEED TO REMEMBER:

1) Trust the opinions of the people you trust. If they warn you, listen to them

2) Don't avoid the bad news.  If it's bad, call it right away

3) Treat the probationary period very very carefully. It's all you've got.

4) Be clear about your bitching and complaining tolerances, and they should be low.  Like really low. I've been quick to allow a certain amount of complaining and worrying, but NO MORE.

5) Document every conversation with every staff person you supervise.