ice water and ocicats

Heh. I opened my LJ client up with no specific intention of what to write, and found this sentence already there:

I would like a life with a bit more elegance and a bit less rushing around.

Word up, my past self, it was a hectic weekend, with undone weekend chores sloshing over into tonight. (I like that only slightly less than the week sloshing over into the weekend.) Nonetheless, I got a lot of things done and had some adventures as well, so can I complain? Nope. I chose it, I'll own it, so here are some good things.

1) This made me laugh today.



2) I think I have found an excellent source of cute, probably comfortable clothing. I ordered, a smallish order, to make sure I get catalogs for a while.

3) Someone called me a hipster. Ha ha, it is great to be called a hipster. Do you think there's any truth in it, readers? I made peace with being a yuppie several years ago and feel that I'm ready for the next step, but also wonder if I might be a little... well, old... to be a true hipster. All I will say is that I do feel more confident lately with having my own sense of style, and it's nice to feel that way.

It's been a good day. My minion at work gave a wonderful presentation that was officially the last thing I had asked of him. So, he's graduated and is no longer my minion, he's just another Zillian cog and I think he's off to a fabulous start. Since I was tasked with getting him up and running, his success is a major success for me this quarter, and I now officially don't have to keep him busy anymore. Fabulous!

On the software side, I've clawed my way out from a pile of bugs and small tasks to get back to the major refactoring that is supposed to be my primary project, so that makes me happy too.

Had coffee with a good friend tonight, and we shared some commiserations... someone recently asked him "what's your five-year plan?" and he was caught a bit flat-footed. Well, I don't have a five-year plan either, and I too feel vaguely irresponsible about that on occasion. I sort of wish the universe was orderly enough that I could have one that made any sense, but in truth, every five years of my life has brought things I never anticipated, and some of those things have been wonderful.

So, my plan for the next five years is to be as smart, fit, kind and competent as I can be. As opportunities and problems arise, I plan to act on them with all the grace, savvy and wisdom that are available to me at the time. It won't be an entirely reactionary life, but some of it will need to be, because big things will happen to disrupt my original plans. And 95 percent of it will be ad-libbed. Tonight I feel okay about that.

Hahaha. Well, I'm done worrying about the ambition thing for now. I just had a perfect illustration of how and why goals don't always work for me, on Monday, when I went to see Flea the financial advisor. He and I had set some "goals" for me a few years ago, and those goals have been left in the dust... and frankly, I find that motivating. It's fun to be out ahead.

Later that night I also finished something I originally planned to spend a year on, after almost exactly nine months (cue the pregnancy jokes!), and that one was an ambitious project/goal indeed. I started it with LOTS of skills still necessary to acquire along the way.

People should, and probably have a moral obligation to, know what works for them. I have a growing belief that my style works for me. For one thing, since I do apply myself assiduously to improving the things I'm working on, I'm not sure what difference it would make for me to have longer-term goals. I stick with things anyway. And, not to burst into song or anything, but all one can ever do anyway is what you can do today. Now is when we live.

I don't know why I feel so driven to clarify myself, lately, given that it doesn't work very well. :)

I think I was unclear earlier today when talking to someone. I am not actually a crankypants, these days. I am saying no to a lot of things right now and I am often prioritizing without mercy... it's because things are going well and I want to keep them that way. I'm so strong, I'm doing such awesome stuff, I do feel awake and shaken out of stasis now -- my self-manipulation worked! -- and now I just want to keep doing it all without shaking my year apart. Rather, I want to keep doing the short list of stuff that's really worth it, and I'm working on compiling that list, and if everything else goes to hell this year that's okay. Let 2009 be the year of things that were worth it.

Acrobalance on Tuesday: the best front handspring I've ever done. Wow! It felt awesome. And I also based a two-high (got someone to stand on my shoulders, while I was also standing) successfully for the first and second times ever.

Walking around San Francisco with Tomcat last week: the people and the place where a lot of drama once occurred. But we're older and calmer now, and infinitely more secure (at least, I am), and now I just want to stay in touch forever cause it'll always be interesting.

And the girl on the train today who saw me knitting said: "Is that a sweater for a dog?" and then said oooooh when I said no and turned the piece around to show the nice side. So did the three guys who were with her. It was funny.

Work today and almost every day: the base of the pyramid of things I'm supporting. It's the heaviest load, and yet it holds up all the rest, so it needs to be held well and steadily.

Two very different quotes on the topic of sustained progress:

There is a distance between the person you are, and the person you never thought you could be. And you will discover it, step by step.
(Saucony marketing material)

The universe is shaped exactly like the earth

If you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were

(Modest Mouse lyrics)

I'm feeling a bit static -- actually, feeling like I put myself in statis, and for valid reasons, but I'm trying to start moving again. Sure, I'm still busy doing all the same things as ever, but I'm trying to be excited again and feel possibilities again. With annual bonuses in, my spending fast is over; I've bought one pair of new shoes and three new yoga tops so far (and counting!), and the condo refinancing is helping to make things seem fresh and new, but it's not enough quite yet.

Well, this weekend brings Daylight Savings Time, new sneakers and a visit from my father-in-law. I'm hoping my semi-planned trip to NYC in a couple of weeks actually happens, and if that doesn't work I'll consider something bigger. Trips to Iceland are seeming like a good deal right now, and spring itself should be exciting, and of course every spring brings kittens into the world...

Have I really not posted for over a week? I've been in a really strange and dreamy state lately... some of that is literal dreaming, as I have a cold (it got me eight days ago, Monday) and have been sleeping a lot. I'm way underexercised and undercaffeinated, generally not feeling like myself.

Which is not to say that I'm feeling awful. I've been sitting in sleepy amazement as great things happen on the world stage: President Obama is our president (and he can dance! and he fought to keep his Blackberry!), Guantanamo has been ordered closed, the FDA has approved the first human stem-cell experiments and the American ban on funding abortion abroad has been lifted.

Also with dramatic influence on my life, Zillian has decided to haul everyone's underwater stock options to the surface, which for the first time gives me a financial reason to stay there longer than this spring. (My strike price is 675, the current stock price is 327... so my options have been worthless since the beginning.) It's amazing. And this is why I can't seem to stick to a career plan -- Zillian changes things all the time, and not just little things, but big things too. Two months ago I wanted to take time off; now this job is going well and there's a really cool opportunity to work with friends in a building I was once very happy in. I'll have to keep my eye on that one and keep my mind open.



On the downside, raise your hand if you can believe 71,400 people lost their jobs yesterday. And these were manufacturing & services people -- average folks who just don't save much, or earn much unless they're in a quite high earning percentile. I read a number I didn't believe, the other night in Newsweek, about what percentile heisenbug and I are in... I guess I should have believed it. (And part of me wonders why that is and how long it can last.)

From wikipedia:


I am part of the economy's problem now, for the retail sector anyway. It's one more thing that makes me feel cut off from the world -- I've made the transition and am just not buying things right now. I was thinking lately about a daydream/daymare scenario I used to have when I was a kid (doubtless fueled by all that SF reading), the one in which I'm in a bunker or spacecraft, sometimes all alone, and surrounded by all the supplies I could need for the next X years but with no way to get anything else. Well, I looked around my house yesterday and realized I'm nearly in that situation. Not with respect to food and cold medicine, of course... but I have clothes, dishes, a stack of books I haven't read and hundreds more I wuld enjoy re-reading, yarn enough to knit for maybe a year or so before running out, video games I haven't played or have barely played that could keep me entertained for many hours apiece, exercise equipment (minimal, but I could stay fit at home if I had to), a computer that alone offers hundreds of possibilities. Huh. I practically have my bunker. Though they may be exciting, I don't need new physical objects. Sorry, retailers, I'll be more interactive after April.

I never thought I'd say this, but I start to see the point of Twitter. What happens when you DO have things to say, things that are postable, and you just can't scrape your brain and time together enough? ("Had we but brain enough, and time, this coyness, LJ, were no crime...")

I wanted to say, at some point, that I read an article about Senator Clinton that kind of enraged me. It was a positive article about her, and how she's been seeming more human lately and playing up her strengths. Somewhere near the end, it said "Until now, Clinton has been acting like a president trapped in a woman's body..." EXCUSE ME!? That's about the most ugly, sexist thing I've ever seen in a national magazine. Hillary has a woman's body... a strong, rather stubby, all-around presidential woman's body. And if I were in her body, I would use it to kick that writer's body wherever it would hurt the most.

Also, regarding my algorithms class: I hate induction proofs. They go like this: our algorithm works for an empty array. So now let's assume it works for a real array that is smaller than our array. Yay, it must work for our array too! Huh? Shut up.

Lastly, I hate when people bait-and-switch me.

I meant it about Twitterishness. I'm going to try to get more open to micro-blogging, because I'm NOT quitting LJ for the term. That was crazy-talk. I'm quitting gymnastics for the term instead.

It would be hard to express here how much I feel like knitting for a while. It's good for my productivity that I don't have a sweater-piece with me today.

I had people over for a craft night last night. I love having people over... there were 8.5 people there at the fullest point, doing everything from literary criticism to musical composition (some knitting, some dreamcatcher making and some beading occurred as well). It was basically old friends plus Apples, who I would perhaps like to be be old friends with someday, and of course the Galica who is simply not old enough to be old friends with. The hot spiced cider crossed all boundaries and was the most popular attendee of the evening. All in all, it got bigger than I thought it would and went better than I thought it would (I mean, I wasn't even the one who started the late-night acro!) and maybe I'll have another one after the holidays. (I'll probably still be working on the same sweater, too, though I got over 3" of the sleeve done last night and that gives me some hope for the future. What would it take to get that much done every weekend day? And how depressing is it that the same amount of knitting will be about 1" worth when I'm working on the front and back of the thing? Agh.)

Here's some yoga progress for those who are interested...( Scorpion pose through the ages )

I would SO LOVE to experience this with feet-to-head. I'm not sure I can do it safely, but today I may try to do this in such a way that I can lean the whole thing forward, shins on a wall, and get more leverage toward the final pose. (What's the worst that can happen, I drop myself on my throat? Eh, I'm sure that doesn't hurt.)

Weightlifting before that, though. And coffee before that.

I went to dinner with a friend last night who lent me the study guide (i.e. 700-page textbook) for NASM personal trainer certification. It looks really cool. I may end up reading about half of it even if I end up with no desire to take the test.

I've been thinking again about the idea of owning my own gym (actually, I never stopped). It seems like something that could reasonably be approached gradually; and the fitness industry seems like a very plausible backup career option, but it would be a huge risk to jump there directly from here with my current level of savings. It seems like a better idea all around to wait, enjoy my time in software, and save up money, while slowly creeping toward credibility on the fitness side of things. Personal training certification would be a great step in that direction, and would open the way to doing that part time (it could be REALLY part-time, like one client per weekend, or more, like one day per week) to see whether I enjoy that aspect of the industry at all. A weak connection in my social network recently pointed out that a lot of what clients want from you in that situation is your enthusiasm -- and while I do have that when it comes to fitness, it might be very draining for me to work with unenthusiastic clients. Let's not even get into how it would pay a lot less.

I'm reading The Book of Lost Things by Jonathan Connolly, which was given to me by a smartypants friend of mine who kept seeing it compared to Coraline and thought I might like it. I thought it started off slowly, but it's rapidly improving -- and it's covered about 10 things that could easily have given me nightmares when I was small. It has fantastic twists on a number of old tales, such as a version of Little Red Riding Hood in which the main character is smart and independent, and chooses to "lie with a wolf" rather than a human husband because she's intrigued by his wildness. It ends badly for her eventually, but in the meantime she seduces the wolf, and plays a very creepy part in luring other women off into the woods. Yeah. Let's hear it for adult fairy tales. :)

At home: yay, no more parents! Also, I lost 29 inches last night... of books, that is. Yep, a 29 inch high stack of books. Most of them already went to the Goodwill; the rest are in good enough condition to be sold on Amazon. It's hard to get rid of books, but after I occasionally do it I always feel so light. :)

At work: TBC's ivy plant died in my care (sniff), and we'll soon have some new neighbors; Silver Fox and his other team are all moving today to be near us, and Dan the Cat will be moving away to an office to escape the crowd. Work is starting to feel, not bad exactly, but less personal again, more like acting. I don't care passionately about the project I'm working on, only about whether our team is healthy. In a way this is nice, and simplifies things... like, I didn't get mad at that other team when they broke our build recently, just thought what should a team leader do now? and did those things. In a way, at work, we all play roles. But in a way, also, we want to be ourselves, and we want to care. There are tricks to be figured out here.