![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Work, lipstick catastrophe, Mindsight...
Mar. 10th, 2018 01:11 pmI didn't tell you all that I have a new director and she's a woman (!), and she's dumping an interesting amount of responsibility on me; testing me, or sponsoring me, or both. Work was both rough and exciting this week. Aside from having to turn tomorrow into a full workday in order to meet Tuesday deadlines, I'm feeling OK about it on balance. One of the things is that the big internal survey results came back, and my unruly horde of minions still likes me as a manager. That's really good.
Today I didn't work and I did do tons of chores, including installation of a shelf in my bathroom and assembling as much Elfa for my closet as I could (still missing the brackets). I was doing super well at everything until I ran a dark red lipstick through the washer/dryer, and, well, ugh. I've already spent over $100 replacing my best socks and panties. Thank goodness I was able to use dish soap to get the stains out of the two really nice things in that load (my favorite leggings and a good hoodie). Dish soap scrubbed into the fabric with an old toothbrush, followed by a wash with regular detergent and hot water, is the best for grease stains... it won't save socks though. SIGH.
I've been reading a book called Mindsight that I want to write a cogent summary of one day, but in the meantime: it feels to me like the missing second half of Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis. Haidt concludes that "happiness comes from between", and Mindsight (though it uses the word "integration") is all about pairs and sets of things that need to be getting along well, so that their between is harmonious. It's really good. I haven't yet hit the chapter that discusses my particular mental steeplechase, but I know it's coming, and I already have had one useful insight about it.
One of the pairs of things is the left & right brain, which itself isn't a new concept to me. One bit I liked, though, is the notion that writing about feelings is itself a way to force left and right to work together: taking the stuff of right-brain experience and pushing it through the left-brain sieve of language. Maybe that integrative aspect is one reason it's so freaking useful... and maybe I should write about feelings more, here.
Today I didn't work and I did do tons of chores, including installation of a shelf in my bathroom and assembling as much Elfa for my closet as I could (still missing the brackets). I was doing super well at everything until I ran a dark red lipstick through the washer/dryer, and, well, ugh. I've already spent over $100 replacing my best socks and panties. Thank goodness I was able to use dish soap to get the stains out of the two really nice things in that load (my favorite leggings and a good hoodie). Dish soap scrubbed into the fabric with an old toothbrush, followed by a wash with regular detergent and hot water, is the best for grease stains... it won't save socks though. SIGH.
I've been reading a book called Mindsight that I want to write a cogent summary of one day, but in the meantime: it feels to me like the missing second half of Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis. Haidt concludes that "happiness comes from between", and Mindsight (though it uses the word "integration") is all about pairs and sets of things that need to be getting along well, so that their between is harmonious. It's really good. I haven't yet hit the chapter that discusses my particular mental steeplechase, but I know it's coming, and I already have had one useful insight about it.
One of the pairs of things is the left & right brain, which itself isn't a new concept to me. One bit I liked, though, is the notion that writing about feelings is itself a way to force left and right to work together: taking the stuff of right-brain experience and pushing it through the left-brain sieve of language. Maybe that integrative aspect is one reason it's so freaking useful... and maybe I should write about feelings more, here.
