All posts in: life maintenance

life maintenance
12 Nov 2012

2012: week forty-four

November 4 – November 10

A sad week, a tired week, a grumpy week.

Out of curiosity, I browsed through my weekly posts past. I conjectured that I would find the following pattern – 3 weeks good, 1 week bad.

And that is exactly what I found.

Oh, hormones.

Also see: indoor allergies, rain upon rain upon rain, and daylight savings

Reading:

Watching:

  • An episode of Homeland, which everyone has said is amazing, and although it sounded like the opposite of a show I would like, well, I liked it.

Listening To:

  • Libba Bray read Beauty Queens, which is, so far, quite an enjoyable pursuit
life maintenance
08 Nov 2012

the view from 50,000 feet

I am feeling so scatter-shot lately. My planning is half-assed, my execution is a quarter-assed, and what-exactly-am-I-doing-with-my-life-anyway?

Constantly trying to assess my predicament – am I saying “yes” too much? (Probably) Not listening to my body and my Inner Jessica (Probably). Submitting to procrastination and distraction and laziness and clutter and half-assed-ness? (Probably).

Last night, I had things to do – a social work event, a cool kid-lit event – but I was out late watching poll results the night before and away from my office all day and far from where I needed to be and even before it started snowing, I decided not to go. It felt like the right thing to do, to take a night off to recover.

It felt nice.

But sitting at home is the quickest route to feeling scatter-shot, for feeling like I’m not doing the right activity, procrastinating too much, indulging, distracting myself; when my mental game is off, free time is sometimes what I need but feels like a spotlight is shining on everything that is wrong.

But smart, happy people know that moments are moments, nights are nights, weeks are weeks; your life is more than the sum of every self-disappointment.

If I were to chart out my nights for the past few months – the feeling good nights and the feeling bad ones alike – the boxes would be filled with…

– Reading books, lots and lots of them, re-reading, new reading, fiction, nonfiction, “required” and fun. Almost thirty books since August 1, while working full time, without a syllabus.

– Taking care of myself and my home and my relationships and spending time with friends

– Writing. Writing books, writing book reviews, writing posts, writing emails, writing good versions of all of these things, writing bad versions. Writing that feels good and writing that feels bad.

In Getting Things Done, David Allen talks about looking at your work from different perspectives, in order to keep the day-to-day and the short-term and long-term in some semblance of harmony. My day-to-day – my “runway” in GTD-speak – feels hectic, scattershot, and this is not ideal.

But that imaginary chart of my nights, the one where it looks like Jessica spends her time not worrying, procrastinating, being lazy, being messy, but writing and reading and socializing and just being a human (not a super-human)? That is what I want my life to look like.

The view from 50,000 feet is pretty okay.

 

life maintenance
06 Nov 2012

gone votin’

No blogging today because I’m busy getting my ass out the door early enough to go VOTE!

Hoping there aren’t any outdoor lines at the polls because it’s 31 degrees outside.

See you on the other side of this election!

life maintenance
05 Nov 2012

2012: week forty-three

October 28 – November 3

I have to say, in the absence of multiple jobs and assignments and school breaks, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to recall the activities on any given week.

If I was being entirely straightforward in these weekly posts, they would all be a cut-and-paste version of the following:

Wake up, make coffee in the dark, try to get warm, try to wake up, try to write.

Go to work, do work, listen to podcasts.

Come home, make dinner, watch some TV, call some people, read some books, clean some things.

In bed by 10:30.

That’s it.

And this is what I look like for most of it, because it is perpetually fah-reez-ing in my house. Brr.

Reading:

  • Books about war, being a gay teenager, and Chuck Close.
  • Smashed by Lisa Luedeke
  • Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin

Watching:

  • Breaking Bad
  • On Sunday night, we had a highly enjoyable viewing of Hunger Games on our couch. We’ve had this couch for over a year now, and I don’t think we’ve ever sat down to just watch a movie on it, since we are perpetually on laptops and sitting at computers and in our old apartment we had a futon and a couch in the living room. HOWEVER, I just wanted to say that despite our couch’s ugliness and free-from-the-curb-ness and leather-y-ness, it is ideal for two people to lay down together and watch a movie on a Sunday night.

Listening To:

  • All sorts of Genius playlists, musical soundtracks, random Spotify CDs, and basically I am out of control. Anyone reading, please tell me what CD I should listen to, I’m running out of ideas.
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books
19 Oct 2012

home sweet home

I am a commuter with a bad shoulder and a secret desk drawer full of library books. I have to be choosy about what I take home and when, as to not over-encumber myself, aka trigger pain, whininess, and potential migraines.

Last Friday, I had a full bag of Cybils nonfiction ready to take home for the weekend, when one last hold appears on the shelf…

… seven pounds of Martha. Martha Stewart’s Homekeeping Handbook, to be exact.

I stuffed it into my Desk Drawer of Shame, of course, and saved it for another day, a day when I would bring a rolling suitcase into my office and heft this baby home.

But of course, that is a lie. I wasn’t even sad to learn that this book was so ginormous – I was giddy, and I stuffed down seven other books on science and history and took it straight home so I wouldn’t have to be without it for an entire weekend.

Martha, where have you been all my life? And where were you when I was trying to be a better housekeeper last month? You have lists of what to clean and when, and how! And after twenty-seven years, I now know how to do  the dishes properly, despite the complete lack of counter space to do so.

Maybe I threw out my shoulder. Maybe I tried to read this in a the subway station on my commute before I realized what a crazy person I would look like trying futilely to shove a Cleaning Bible into my purse as the train pulled up. But I also voluntarily purchased cleaning products, did seven loads of proper dishes, finally scrubbed my stove-top that has been impenetrable since Sept 1 (the final solution: Brillo pads), and my apartment almost looks like grown-ups live here.

Well, at least it did for a few days, before we went back to work and cooked and lived and shamed Martha and spray bottle and her giant tome. Maybe this weekend I’ll redeem myself by scrubbing some baseboards and vacuuming curtains.

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life maintenance
17 Oct 2012

seven things i still love from seventh grade

 

In this-book-that-I-won’t-stop-talking about (aka The Happiness Project), Ms. Rubin spends a month and a chapter ruminating on what kinds of leisure activities lead to greater happiness – what hobbies she really likes. Although begins this chapter with a treatise on how, despite the fact that she is an capable, educated adult, she has this strange and inexplicable passion for (gasp!) children’s literature!, this little struggle hit home.

Do you remember when everyone and their brother was writing up 101 in 1001 lists? I wonder how many of those 101 things ever got done, and not because people are lazy and content to watch 101 episodes of television in 1001 days rather than get off the couch – maybe it’s just impossible to WANT to do that many things with enough passion to actually do them. My own 101 list was a 30% aspirational randomness I had no control over, 30% hobbies and activities I though would make me smarter or more well-rounded or some other college application bullshit, 30% travel destination checklist items, and maybe 1% things that I actually wanted to do.

How do you distill out that 1% when your brain is full of 99 things you don’t quite like. In The Happiness Project, Ms. Rubin asks a friend for advice and the answer she gets really stuck with me.

“What you enjoyed as a ten-year-old is probably something you’d enjoy now.”

The only activities I really remember enjoying at ten involve watching music videos on VH-1, watching TGIF with my sister in my parents bedroom, and buying new Beanie Babies. So I thought about seventh grade instead, when I was a bit more mature. Ahem.

So without further ado, here are seven things I loved as a seventh grader that I would be happy to do any day of my twenty-seven-year-old life.

1. Cutting and pasting pieces of paper

2. Staying home on a weekend night, doing nothing in particular, and going to bed early.

3. Making up imaginary people.

4. Reading on the couch. Has to be the couch.

5. Playing with Legos. I pretty much only want kids so I can play with Legos again.

6. Writing things down, preferably while practicing different types of handwriting.

7. Oh yeah and that reading-books-for-kids thing.

So cheers to spending weekend nights watching MTV while scribbling in notebooks, making collages, and reclining on soft pieces of furniture with books. If I’m lucky, I will be doing all this when I’m 80.

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life maintenance
15 Oct 2012

2012: week forty-one

October 7 – October 13

Today is Day 29 of my Whole30 challenge. For those of you living under rocks, who don’t click links, or who otherwise prefer me to explain things, Whole30 is an paleo-like elimination eating plan, meant to be followed for 30-60 days.

Things you can eat:

  • Meat of all sorts
  • Vegetables of all sorts, except for white potatoes
  • Olive oil, coconut oil and milk, and animal fats
  • Some nuts and fruit

Things you can’t eat:

  • Rice, pasta, corn, quinoa, wheat, bread
  • Dairy
  • Sugar and artificial sweeteners
  • Alcohol
  • Beans

I decided to try it out for a number of reasons. Although I try to eat healthy most of the time, working many jobs really wreaked havoc on my eating habits and choices. I was eating a lot of junk, sometimes out of choice, sometimes out of necessity, but more frequently, just plain stress eating, which I didn’t realize was a problem that I’d kicked until it came back. Anywho, I thought that a prescribed, short-term plan would be a good way to remind myself that food=fuel and get back to having good habits.

I decided to coerce The Boy into joining me because I enjoy receiving text messages  that read “Can I eat XXX” and then replying “No,” and then getting a reply that says “A:@#$fin I HATE YOU,” repeated multiple times daily. Just kidding. I asked him to join me because I knew if I didn’t, every day he would eat some bread or something and then ask, very sincerely, what exactly is so WRONG about bread, and I can probably just have a little bite, right?

Anyway, I would definitely recommend a Whole30 challenge to anyone who wants to feel more in control of his or her health and food choices. It’s not as hard as it looks, and although you think you can’t live without X, Y, or Z, just take a deep breath and remember that you have lived many months and will live many more and THIS IS ONLY ONE OF THEM. Slow your roll. It is a little more expensive than normal eating, because cheap calories are cheap and real food is pricy, so be warned and budget accordingly.

I wasn’t a perfect Whole30er – I relied a bit too heavily on nuts and fruits, didn’t eat enough veggies, and may have willfully ingested some corn starch while on the quest to find the elusive crispy sweet potato fry (this recipe is the best I’ve found so far!). I also didn’t see any life changing, world-altering results… probably for those reasons exactly. However, I have felt the same general benefits I’ve felt other times I’ve given up sugar – the steady energy levels, the ability to differentiate between physical and mental tiredness, the absence of food cravings (save for the occasional dessert-related fantasy). I had fewer headaches and no stomachaches.

I generally feel more well-rested and healthy, less worried about what I eat, and more in touch with what foods are nourishing.

Also, I learned to eat olives, embraced flavored seltzer water, and had a happy/sad moment when all of the 30 dollar pairs of pants on the sale rack at Banana Republic were too large.

I will probably do this again, maybe 2 or 3 times a year, to reset.

Aaaaaaand on Wednesday, I am going to a bar after work to eat nachos and drink a beer.

 

Reading:

  • The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
  • The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
  • Books about tuberculosis, Charles Dickens, and Frederick Douglass

Watching:

  • Just realized that both seasons of Shameless are on demand. Heck yes.
  • Tried to watch The Wire, but had a little trouble paying attention enough to follow what characters were what, and then my DVD player stopped reading the disc.
  • Tried to watch Midnight in Paris, but it was really late at night and it was silly and I wanted to go to bed.
life maintenance
10 Oct 2012

life as a normal human: holidays

There is something civilized about holidays, especially if they are paid. Each holiday commemorates something seasonally specific, but I do not think it is a coincidence that these treasured days off appear regularly, almost monthly, like the national powers that be are aware that more than a month of working 40 hour weeks without a day off will make most folks a little nuts.

Last week was an off week, and it was certainly a comfort to think that I had a three day weekend awaiting me.

I honored the day by…

  • Waking up early-ish and trying not to play too much early-morning Skyrim
  • Spending my morning alone in a productive-ish manner – cleaning, scheduling, & running
  • Knitting approximately twelve stitches (slow but steady)
  • Doing laundry in a most pleasurable way – a cup of hot coffee at the cafe across the street from the laundromat, taken out of doors, with friends and even doing a bit of extracurricular writing.
  • Butternut squash & apple soup and the boy’s latest attempt at sweet potato fries
  • Reading a book about tuberculosis
  • Using expensive deep conditioner while washing my hair
  • Putting a blanket on top of a Rubbermaid and pretending it is a coffee table

 

life maintenance
01 Oct 2012

2012: week thirty-nine

September 23 – September 29

The month has drawn to a close with this week, this week which I have taken to calling September – Week Four, as according to my latest and of course greatest daily-life-plan. Would you care to hear about my latest scheduling/life maintenance scheme? Of course you don’t. Maybe one day I will gather all of these plans, these systems, and publish them in a volume entitled The Rantings of a Mad Woman.

Anyway, part of this current daily-life-plan is intentional focus on 3 aspects of my life for 30 days and letting everything else kind of simmer. For the month of September, I attended to the following:

My Health, because I was drawing ever closer to that “I can’t wear any of my clothes anymore” moment, and also I need to get married in a year and would prefer not to resort to an all-cottage cheese diet to fit into my dress next summer. I also wanted to work towards my two-5k New Year’s Resolution, aka stop running so sporadically.

I also focused on my Happiness this month – a term I use broadly to encompass any sort of emotional/mood/behavior/spiritual issues that I might be having. There is usually something going on. Which is probably requires a stronger course of treatment than “happiness,” and is likely related to why I feel a need to craft elaborate schemes to live my life, but I digress.

And last but not least, Life Maintenance. I moved and started a new job. I thought it would be wise to devote some attention to stuff like “moving,” “unpacking,” “signing up for health insurance,” “buying stuff for my apartment,” and “figuring out what to spend my money/time on.”

So this month, I budgeted and signed papers and filled up notebooks and scheduled. This month I re-read Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and while my original opinions still stand, oh, this book just makes me think differently. I learn a lot about learning a lot about myself, and I’ve been babbling about it to people for the entirety of September. I’m on an interminable hold list for Happier at Home.

And in this September – Week Four, I finished Day 14 of Whole30, ran a 5k in the rain without stopping to walk, and one room of my house is moderately decorated, mostly unpacked, and generally habitable.

A good month.

Next up, Career, Creativity, and (gag) Wedding.

Reading:

Listening to:

  • New Avett Brothers
  • New-ish Fleet Foxes
  • Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic”
  • 7,435 podcasts

Watching:

  • Checked out season one of Happy Endings from the library. Here is the problem with checking out season DVDs from the library – you have to watch them REALLY fast. I like this show, but I don’t really like any of the actors. Maybe one. Is that good enough to watch season two? Is this an Arrested Development situation where you are indifferent and confused during season one and then die of amazement and laugh at your past, ignorant self for hating season one? This is a lot of thinking about a television show – I should probably stop this now and use my time on something more productive.
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kitty pics
27 Sep 2012

life as a normal human: sick days

You go to sleep with a sore throat, wake up with a headache. Walking from bedroom to bathroom seems about all the walking you can muster at a time.

So you call in sick.

And it’s been a long time since you’ve called in sick. In school, you were prone to going to class ill, saving your absences for more relaxing/fun endeavors. In recent months, you maybe even “scheduled” sick days, staggered to miss different jobs, so you wouldn’t have to work fourteen straight days… but when you were actually sick? Have fun with a 12 hour day…

Waking up and letting your body just be ill. Sleeping in a little, drinking tea, taking medicine. You watch TV until you get too tired, you play games until you get too tired, feel unproductive and try to clean up your house until you get too tired.

You rest, you get a little better, a little less contagious.

You read a book.

A cat sits on your lap.

Life as a normal human.