IntenseDebate - freshwaterpearl

6 years ago @ Clever Manka - Mid-week check-in · 0 replies · +3 points

I'm sorry you don't get that birthday cake! It would have been epic. With you on current world affairs being too much.

6 years ago @ Clever Manka - Mid-week check-in · 2 replies · +2 points

Thanks! Crafts can be a beast. I hope you have success tackling the craft room (and, like, have something interesting to listen to while you do it).

6 years ago @ Clever Manka - Mid-week check-in · 0 replies · +2 points

Yes, this all sounds so familiar! I have similarly been saving correspondence about my retirement account without looking at or doing anything about it, but that's a whole other topic.

I've been reasonably good about hygiene-type cleaning, but it took me a long time to notice that it's worth sweeping the floors, for example, even if I haven't tidied--like even if I have stacks of stuff around, it's still nicer to have stacks of stuff and clean floors, rather than stacks of stuff plus hair and dust.

6 years ago @ Clever Manka - Mid-week check-in · 0 replies · +2 points

It's true!

6 years ago @ Clever Manka - Mid-week check-in · 2 replies · +3 points

Yeah, I think I do have to face this as a bunch of discrete tasks instead of staring at the whole room having feelings about the state it is in. For example the photos are from a year abroad; I ordered prints of everything I'd uploaded to Flickr, after my hard drive crashed and I lost everything that *wasn't* on Flickr and I panicked about not having records of things. But the prints arrived all out of order, so organizing them into albums (which I do have waiting for the purpose) is a bigger task than I had anticipated.

So yeah, emotions about stuff every way I turn, plus feelings about the mess itself (of the "this is why I don't have people over" variety). But at least I have a shiny clean bathtub, and the tile floors have never looked nicer (thanks Jolie Kerr!).

6 years ago @ Clever Manka - Mid-week check-in · 13 replies · +8 points

A home-life thing: I'm trying to keep my house cleaner, but I'm having trouble making progress on accumulated mess and not just maintaining. I keep cleaning the bathroom again instead of tackling the enormous mess that is the living room. (Cleaning the living room means making decisions about the unread books and outdated laptops and unsorted photographs that are in there, so it's a lot harder than scrubbing a counter.)

7 years ago @ Clever Manka - Mid-week check-in · 3 replies · +13 points

I've been kind of stuck in a rut all year, and lately I've realized that one thing that is making me sad is how much I miss the Toastie community, so I'm going to try to come around here more often.

Today I'm actually doing very well! I did a bunch of volunteering for the mayoral race in my city, the first time in twelve years we haven't had an incumbent running for re-election, and my candidate won in a landslide. Also I have some writing getting published this month. I haven't gotten much sleep, and the month is jam-packed with obligations; the political ones start up again immediately, since I'm having a house meeting next week to help recruit people to get engaged in the February caucuses. And I'm kind of stumped on what to do about my career. But the electoral success helps a lot.

8 years ago @ Clever Manka - Friday Open Thread · 0 replies · +3 points

It might--I'm not sure how noise-canceling headphones actually work, but white noise does help. It's an idea worth trying, at least!

8 years ago @ Clever Manka - Friday Open Thread · 1 reply · +3 points

Maybe I will. I think I'm learning a lesson about not trying to be all Zen about something as soon as it happens--it just makes me feel guilty for feeling sad.

8 years ago @ Clever Manka - Friday Open Thread · 5 replies · +3 points

I've developed a little bit of tinnitus, a fuzzy staticky sound in my ear. I went to an ENT and they said I probably just have to live with it. It's very quiet, and I'm trying to keep it in perspective, but right now reminding myself how very mild my case of tinnitus is (compared to, for example, the guy on This American Life who has two dissonant tones playing loudly in his ears at all times) just makes me worry about it getting worse. I think this anxiety is adding itself to my worries about US politics, so that I wake up in the morning with my stomach already in knots and then lie there fearfully listening to my own ears, after which I fearfully get up and check 538.

I'm a Quaker, the kind who worship in silence, so this has a potential bearing on my spiritual life that I'm sad about. I'm listening to Indigo Girls right now and trying to calm myself.

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