What a day, what a day... 2006

My shoulders are a wreck from being really tense at work the past several days. Beta test starting next week which coincides annoyingly with a conference I have to finish preparing for and the systems hardware was conspiring against us all the way. Disk failure! Swell.

Bleah. Good riddance to that hard week.

I am starting my weekend out right:

- My new and beautiful wool rug arrived. I will take pictures tomorrow when it is sunny (ahem, do you hear me, weather?). I expect to be very happy with this rug for decades.

- I have a Pimm's Cup to sooth my nerves.

- I have a big glass of water because it's always good to have a glass of water.

- I have Annie's mac & "cheese" with some Carrot-Ginger soup to fill my belly.

- I have some really good expensive cheese - Neal's Yard Berkswell - to please my tongue (see illustration of said tongue in Flickrstream).

- I have French cafe music playing.

- I have no intention of doing anything stressful all weekend.

So very busy. 2004

I've been quiet here since I've been crazy busy at work. I come home wanting something amusing to escape to and so I've been surfing the web, chatting with friends and watching DVDs. Not a huge amount of creative output in the evenings since I've been doing so much writing during the days. Admittedly, it is less fun to write & proof read documentation than posts about wonderful weird things seen on the web, but at least my writing muscles are getting worked out.

Not so much my physical muscles. Mental exhaustion can fool me into indolence when what I really need is to move around. The diet I'm on also leaves me with a little less energy, I suspect. Overcoming that pull away from activity is difficult. Today, though, I'll get a good bit of walking in. I have taken the day off to relax and see the geisha exhibit at the Asian Art Museum before it closes later this month.

Earlier this year I'd talked about taking a vacation, maybe up to visit my aunt & grandmother in Alaska, but then my company decided that one of the other product managers and I should put new versions of our products out twice a year instead of once and that made work fairly insane. I think we'll get good at it - already it's forcing us to be more efficient, but it is still a little crazy-making. On the bright side, I'm getting asked to present more at conferences, so that's giving me a little travel.

I'll be in Portland middle of next month and will get to take a 3-day weekend before the conference to play tourist. I'll be staying at the Jupiter Hotel and doing a lot of walking around downtown, visiting museums and parks, and, of course, hanging out at Powell's Books.

Now it's time to be a tourist in my own city. Off to ride the trolley to the museum!

Thank you, Sir. May I have another? 2004

It was great having a weekend, but it was too short.

Busy can be wonderful 2003

It's been a busy week, but a very good one. I had my review at work and it was mixed. I've definitely made significant mistakes in my first 16 months at this job, but I've also had great successes and my average work is good. It was a tough review because I really had to face some deep-seated bad habits. This time, with the support of my boss, my sweetheart, my family and friends, and some reserve of strength I found in myself, I've finally turned a corner. I recognized that I have been taking the lazy, painful way out by kicking myself and feeling shitty when I blow it, but not doing the much harder thing of actually changing my behavior. This time I decided to change. I didn't decide to try to change; I just did it. It feels really great. I am much less stressed, more productive and happier.

I just watched the special features about the Weta Workshop design team and the stunt team for Lord of the Rings on the extended edition DVD of The Two Towers (which finally came today) and I am so inspired and grateful and proud. These films make me proud to be human. We are wonderful creatures. To create something so amazing, so rich and deep and powerful, is the best thing in the world. It's the same feeling I get from seeing Cirque du Soleil or hearing incredible musicians. This is us at our best. And it doesn't have anything to do with race or creed or gender or nationality. The best happens when we set those things aside to make something together.

Yeah, of course I think "gee, if only I'd stayed a theater arts major, I might have ended up working on the costume team for these films". Sure I want to make magic. But then again, I make the gateway to magic. Librarians link people to ideas, to stories, to the tools that enable people to create. Making software for libraries isn't so very far away from other kinds of creativity.

And I never have to wear prosthetic makeup, work in the middle of the night for 3 months straight, and fall off 30 foot walls. There are some compensations for taking the tamer path.

Normal Work Symptom 2003

Nothing is going particularly wrong today. No one is shouting at me. I haven't been in numbing meetings. I've been getting things done and some of them are even the things I planned to do today. I like my job. All in all, it should be fine.

Still, inexplicably, my brain has spent much of the afternoon going "Aaaaaaaaaah!!! Get me out of here!!! Waaaaaarrrgghhh!"

"Shhh.... Shhhhh..." I say.

It tries to command my body to bang my head against my desk or go drink margaritas.

*sigh* Problem brains.

Zeigarnik Effect? 2003

I'm reading an interesting book called "How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason In Everyday Life" and came across this:

And, as any student of psychology can tell you, there is the "Zeigarnik effect," or the tendency for people to remember interrupted tasks better than those that have been completed.

I wonder if that's why I find multi-tasking so invigorating? I can feel more connected and awake when I'm switching between several tasks rather than focusing on just one.

The quote has a reference to Zeigarnik's 1967 work "A Source Book of Gestalt Psychology" and I may try to track down that section. Anyone (Mum? Paul?) know anything about Zeigarnik or this idea?

[December 22, 2003: This post has been noted by spammers and is getting repeated junk comments. I have closed commenting on it for that reason.]

MmHm. Monday. 2003

Some days your brain works.
Some days it doesn't.

Not my most productive day ever.

Thank goodness for mindless tasks that (sort of) need to get done.

One step forward, two steps back 2003

I took yesterday off to relax with Chris and celebrate being together for a year. It was good and I felt this morning like I'd had a weekend.

Unfortunately, unlike the day after a weekend, I had a massive amount of email to work through. It's noon and far from getting to the things I'd hoped to work on today, I'm still only partway through responding to all the stuff brought up in this chunk of mail.

The most comically frustrating sentence from my inbox?
"Do you have an assistant or can you suggest someone else whom I can plague?"
Alas, no and no.

Boy, I wish I was those white dreadlocked phase-shifting razor-wielding twins from Matrix:Reloaded. I'd get so much done. And I'd look lovely doing it.

Tired. So very tired. 2003

Friday through yesterday I was at my first visit to the annual users group conference for the company I joined last August. 1100 customers. Down in San Jose, so no flight this time, thank goodness. Stayed at the Fairmont, so the hotel was nice. Gave 5 presentations, attended at least half a dozen others, lunches and evening receptions with customers, getting stopped in the hall almost constantly with product questions. Very fun. Very hard (except the actual presenting which I love doing). Very exhausting.

Got home around 7:30pm last night. Stayed up reading email and some message lists that make me laugh. Visiting with Chris. Getting the lowdown on our new digital studio device for the electric guitar.

Today I slept until noon. Still sitting around in my bathrobe. Can't seem to muster the energy to do anything. Hoping I'll have enough energy to get through 3 workdays and take care of at least some of the piles of things that need to be done.

Tired. Very tired. But I like my job.