Sticks and Stars

I’ve been feeling bad about how little I’ve blogged this month, especially since I haven’t even been faux-blogging, you know, drafting posts but never finishing them. Usually, that’s a daily occurrence for me but I was so blue at the beginning of the month and then, although I started feeling better, my life got messy in other ways that felt too overwhelming to blog about, and now I feel like so much has happened that I can’t possibly blog about it all, and that in and of itself is rather stifling.

I’m realizing at this very moment that the explanation-justification-for-why-I’ve-not-been-blogging is just like the explanation-justification-for-why-it-took-me-so-long-to-respond-to-your-email that seems to always preface my emails these days (okay, not just “these” days, but every day, always, for the history of my email-(non)writing life).

Anyway, on to other (non)thrilling topics.

We just rolled out Firefox 3 at work this morning. That’s one thing I love about my job, the fact that I spent the first hour of my day poking around the new features and exclaiming and configuring and that that process was actually considered important and relevant to my job.

Other parts of my job are going less well, however, mostly in that I am not ascending my learning curve as quickly as my boss would like. He hasn’t yet addressed it with me, but I feel it in comments he makes and questions he asks. I don’t feel bad, like I’m slacking, because really, I have lots of work to do that doesn’t involve me increasing my PHP knowledge and that’s the work I do because I can. But I think he expects me to come along with PHP like I did with SQL and after almost five months in this job, I definitely am not even remotely as skilled in PHP as I am in SQL. It’s all about the context though. With SQL, that’s all I did. Writing SQL queries was what I did all day long so it was easy to learn and master because I was constantly immersed in it. That’s not at all the case with PHP. Writing code in PHP makes up maybe 20% of my job (more, of course, if I actually had a better grasp on it) and there’s a ton of work I can do that doesn’t involve PHP at all, so when faced with two projects, a relatively easy PHP-related project that will take me two days and much assistance to do, or a relatively complicated database-related project that will take me half a day and no assistance, I choose the latter. Not an unreasonable choice, but definitely not one that is advancing my PHP skills.

I feel worried about this and not entirely sure what to do about it. Really, I suppose I need to make it a higher priority and take time away from my other projects to focus on it and figure out the best way to learn and blah blah blah. But that is easier said than done. And “easier” is continuing to get work done and continuing to avoid projects that involve more than my basic PHP skills and continuing to feel stressed out and anxious about this whole thing.

In other work news though, the guy they hired to replace me in my old position, the one about whom I’ve bitched incessantly (if not on this blog, then certainly in real life), gave his notice last week. We were all pretty surprised and while I was frankly glad to hear it, I also feel pretty guilty, like maybe I drove him to it. I never said anything mean to him but I’m guessing he saw my impatience shining through my helpfulness. I actually like helping people, really. I like showing them how to do neat things or explaining something so that they understand. It’s just stupidity that I have no tolerance for. It’s just explaining over and over and over and over and never seeing the light dawn in their faces telling me that they actually get it.

But soon we will be down a team member and then training someone new, and of course the bulk of the training will fall on me, which is fine, but will further detract from me working on my PHP skills. Not to mention the fact that they are hiring for my old, old position, the one I left to start my techie career, and since I did such a good job in that position I’m being asked to fill in a few little desperate gaps there as well. It’s nice to be valued and to be useful, but I also kinda wish people would leave me alone and let me get my work done for the position for which they actually pay me.

*******

After I wrote the above I went on to tackle a PHP project all on my own. Not only did I get it done with very minimal assistance, but I really gained a better grasp of some of the logic and syntax. So I feel better, at least a little, and especially in light of the fact that I have two more similar projects to tackle. Both of which should show my boss that I am learning a thing or two and should help me to, indeed, actually learn a thing or two.

I must say that one thing I don’t like about going to the gym (or even thinking about it), aside from my irritation that people will pay for something they can get so easily for free, is the idea that I will walk in there with my big fat self and all these tiny little spandex hardbody types will stare and maybe even laugh a little as I clamber onto some groaning piece of machinery or belly flop into the pool. It did not help when I talked to the gym membership guy and, completely out of nowhere, he said, “I know [this particular gym chain] has a reputation for being a meat market, but we’re not like that! Really!!!” Nikoline mentioned joining a women’s gym and I wish I could do that, that would at least be slightly better, but alas, the nearby women’s gym not only does not have a pool, but they also don’t offer childcare. Because, you know, women aren’t really the ones who need childcare, it’s the children who need the childcare and if that’s the case then they should probably just find their own gym.

However, yesterday, in a rather rageful moment with my children (or one child in particular, the five year old who is currently dabbling in the very worst of all behaviors adolescent), I was thinking about how nice it would be to rip a book-on-CD to my iPod, dump the boys into the car and go spend an hour peacefully listening to someone read to me while taking a long, treadmill-facilitated walk, and I could see how that might be potentially a very glorious thing.

Plus, the swimming! That’s how I really justify this idea to myself, by reminding myself that I can swim whenever I want. Because while I could theoretically go for a walk around my neighborhood instead of walking on a treadmill, or I could workout with weights at home instead of at a gym, or I could buy an aerobics/pilates/yoga/whatever video instead of taking classes at the gym, I have no such alternative for swimming. There is a pool not too far away, but not only is there no one to watch my children while I swim (unless I am doing the watching…which prevents much of the swimming), most of the available swim times are times that don’t work for me. And the 8′ hard plastic kiddie pool we have in our yard really is not so conducive to laps.

So the gym, it is! My excuse for not going this very minute is that I don’t have anything with which to entertain myself during such an excursion (no immediate means for getting books-on-CD onto my iPod and music is not enough), but my hope is to have that resolved by the end of the week, so maybe Saturday will bring the lucky day of trial membership and the subsequent automated removal of $36 a month from my checking account.

In other news of the cheering-up variety, I made a major breakthrough in the efforts to get my damned media server working and as always (and to the great amusement of my children), I danced a happy victory dance around the living room. Now I can proceed with planning my home network and figuring out what I need and to implement solutions. I brainstormed a list of all the purposes that I want technology to serve in my home and larger life, and all the gadgets that could possibly perform those functions, and then I narrowed down a list to a tidy few and outlined the kind of specs I would need for each. It’s very exciting! A guy at work who collects and refurbishes old computers brought me a new(-to-me, but otherwise pretty old) laptop to try out for a week in order to see if it meets my mobile computing needs. If it seems good he’ll sell it to me cheap and then I’ll be able to move forward with getting everything finished!

Computers are so much fun!

I’ve decided to stop dating for a while. I actually make this decision all the time and proceed accordingly until my loneliness gets the better of me and I give in and start myself along the miserable path once again.

My dating is pretty lazy, I must admit. I have a profile on an online dating site, people contact me, and if they look interesting I respond, we chat, and occasionally we make it as far as meeting. Even more occasionally, we meet more than once. I never initiate contact with anyone, I just let them come to me and weed them out from there.

Although I might think I have an interest in dating, in reality I do not. Every person who contacts me gets shot down eventually. I can always find a reason why someone doesn’t meet my high standards. When I’m chatting with someone new I’m generally simultaneously chatting with another friend and my entire conversation with her is pointing out all the flaws in this other person. The length of time I spend talking to them is related almost entirely to how lonely I feel, nothing more. I see this so clearly, how this obviously means I am not in a place where I should be dating, and so I resolve to stop, but then my loneliness steps in and whimpers and whines until I give in, thinking that who knows, maybe this time around I’ll be luckier.

But today, after I got yelled at by some jackass who felt insulted when I dared to suggest that we were interested in different things, I realized that this is so not worth it and that all I’m doing is giving myself this stupid, unsatisfying crutch that allows me to avoid more serious problems in my life, like actually addressing this loneliness. So I deleted my account and that’s that. It feels scary to give up my crutch, to give up this easy way to make myself feel attractive and compelling to others, but I know it’s the right thing. I’ve put it off far too long.

I also think I’m going to give therapy another go. This time I’ll just use the sessions that come with my insurance benefits (instead of paying out of pocket for someone who meets my therapy-snob qualifications) and instead of going in with no specific purpose in mind except to maybe feel better about myself or something, I’ll go in with the intent to figure out how to make friends, how to deal with this loneliness. I blogged about my friend who quite successfully used therapy for this purpose and I think that having someone to keep me on track, having someone to keep encouraging me, to keep helping me determine next steps and to help me keep things in perspective could be really, really useful.

I also think I might join a gym. I can’t say that I feel very comfortable making that statement as I’ve always been fairly critical of gyms (um, get outside and walk) but there’s a gym near my house that has a pool and includes childcare in their membership prices, and doesn’t require any sort of contract. I miss swimming a lot and given how blue I’ve been lately (and how nothing tastes better when I’m blue than lots and lots of fresh baked cookies) my clothes are starting to feel a little more snug than I’d prefer. Right now I rely heavily on my elliptical trainer for my daily workouts, but my trick is watching movies and tv shows during that time so that I actually look forward to it. Since my laptop died I’m kind of without options in that respect and I like the thought of being able to swim at the gym instead. Plus, it’s nice to have an option for those times I really need a break from my boys. I can get my frustrations out through vigorous exercise and they can play in a new environment, so everyone wins.

I’ve been feeling so blue lately and I can’t seem to shake it. I was so happy not too long ago, so contentedly pleased with my life. There must be a way for me to get back to that place and now it’s time to try some stuff.

I wrote a few posts while I was on vacation, along with the expected assortment of unfocused, boring-if-you-weren’t-there-(and-maybe-even-if-you-were) photos, and I was going to post them yesterday when I got home, but instead my laptop decided to give up the ghost and so now everything is trapped within its cold, electronic guts. Thankfully I saw enough very concerning warning signs that I was able to do a quick backup, so assuming that I can find another mac with which to read my files saved in various mac-only formats, nothing should be lost. It was only about six months ago that I made my first backup and I am so very thankful that I got into the habit because otherwise I would have lost so very many important items, like all off the photos and video clips of my boys. The other items lost (lots of writing, resumes and such, financial records, my music collection, etc.) would have been missed, but nothing like those photos and video clips.

But now I move on to deciding what the hell I’m going to do. Easiest would be to just shell out $1k+ for another iBook and admittedly, if I felt that I had a thousand dollars to spare (um, no) I might well give in to the glorious high that is something new and shiny (especially when the height of the high is directly correlated to dollars spent). But the wiser (and much more fiscally responsible) choice is to take the final step toward making my house all linux all the time. If I make better use of my Ubuntu media server (i.e. letting it actually serve out all my media), I can get by with an older (and much cheaper) laptop (presumably also running Ubuntu) for all my mobile computing needs.

I won’t deny that it’s exciting to take this step (and let me tell you, this drives my geek cred through the roof!) but it also makes my shoulders immediately slump under the weight of the hassle. Remember way back when I was so proud of having built my own computer (which would be the aforementioned media server)? Well that was more than six months ago and it’s still not working. I mean, it’s “working” (it’s what I’m using at this very moment), but I can’t get it to do half the things I need it to do and every time I try to get things to work, I wind up breaking a bunch of things that were working correctly. I don’t mind so much except that moving entirely to linux means that I not only have to get this shit figured out, but I have to deal with a whole new round of problems on some old laptop, not to mention the hassle of creating a network in my house and I certainly don’t know shit about networks.

*sigh* There’s a lot of work between here and there. I don’t have a clue what kind of resources a laptop would need in order to meet my needs, nor do I know how to make sure it’s compatible with Ubuntu, nor do I even know how to get my files off my backup drive, not to mention the whole network business…not to further mention all the problems I’m having with my main linux box to begin with. At least having less than optimal internet access will be a good thing in terms of curbing my internet addiction usage.

It’s an hour earlier than my usual insomnia witching hour but I guess it makes sense to give in to it now rather than laying in bed tossing and turning for another hour before doing so. I think I’m up tonight because I had salty, salty pizza for dinner and so my body feels dehydrated and overheated just enough to disrupt my usual blissful slumber. I am so sensitive to being dry and overheated at night! Or rather, I am so sensitive to the feel of the comforter-turned-burlap against my dry, hot feet. Usually getting up to run cold water over my feet (yep, one foot in the bathroom sink at a time) and then making sure my comforter falls no lower than my calves when I return to bed helps, or getting up and staying up for a while, until my body has a chance to get nice and chilled, at which point returning to the burlap is a welcomed change. I already tried the former to no avail, so now I’m working on the latter.

Tomorrow morning (well, this morning actually) we leave on our trip. Somehow I managed to have my shit together enough that my house is clean (or will be) and my yard is freshly mowed/weeded, so I will be greeted upon my return later this week with nothing to do. That’s particularly nice in light of the fact that I took an extra day off from work (but not from childcare) so I will have a play day just for me. Of course, I’m sure I’ll have find plenty of less-than-fun tasks with which to occupy that day, but at least it won’t be the usual obvious drudge.

I am kind of excited to be away from work for a few days. I always like going to work but I am really tired of dealing with the guy they hired to replace me in my last position. Finally my boss is going to be the one he comes to when he can’t (as always) meet his deadlines, and my boss will be the one to have to pick up his slack. It’s not that my boss is ignorant of the problems, but he’s been away for several weeks and has little more than my incessant bitching as immediate evidence, and I think that he and I are both tired of my bitching. It will be good for him to have some first hand experience with the issues at hand.

In other news, I signed my five year old up for swimming lessons and soccer this week and I’m struggling with whether or not to continue with ballet. He definitely likes ballet but it’s more than four times more expensive than, say, soccer, and I worry that he might like something else better, something else that he’s going to miss out on because I don’t think I can manage more than one activity at a time (swimming lessons start the end of this month and go until the end of summer; soccer starts when those end). I also worry that ballet is too “refined” for him, that his exuberant energy outweighs his prancing grace and that he might be better off in something like gymnastics. Or maybe swimming and soccer are enough and I should instead focus on his recent requests to learn violin (no idea where that one is coming from)…although I have a really hard time imagining that as the best extracurricular activity for a very, very active five year old. I just want him to have the opportunity to find the things he likes so that he can pursue them but there are so many things and he likes pretty much everything. It’s so stressful to decide what should stay and what should go and what else we should add to the plate. And of course, he is just five (thank god I have three more years before dealing with this for my two year old. Perhaps I will have gained some wisdom by then).

In final news, my children both look like someone has beaten on them pretty severely and I’m feeling terribly paranoid that everyone (who questions us about it over and over and over and over) is casting suspicious eyes toward me as the likely culprit…or at least a strong supporting character.

My five year old gave himself a truly horrendous looking black eye when he fell from our rickety piano bench (no, we don’t have a piano) while trying to reach a toy he had hidden from his brother atop a bookcase. I don’t know what he he hit (as I was making dinner at the time…or doing dishes…something in the kitchen anyway), I just came running at the screams. At first it merely looked like a small reddish bruise on his cheekbone, but it grew to a full black eye that stretches from eyebrow to cheekbone and from nose to hairline.

Then, on Friday, my boys were playing outside when my two year old took a nose dive off the top of our porch steps and landed face first on the concrete walkway below, resulting in a huge bruise on his forehead and a wide, bloody scrape that stretches diagonally from his eyebrow to his hairline.

Everyone, every single person we encounter, asks how the boys got their terrible new markings and I find myself very anxious that they aren’t going to believe me, that maybe I sound a little too desperate as I cling to their shirts and plead, “You believe me, don’t you?? Don’t you???” And now that they both have been damaged, it looks so much worse. Truly, they either look like they’ve been in a serious car accident or were beaten up. Of course, they are pleased as punch with their terrible owies and don’t hesitate to display them proudly.

And then one last little bit: tonight before going to bed, my two year old asked if he could use his potty when I was changing his diaper. He walked naked down the hallway, giggling anxiously (very nervous about trying new things, that one) and then happily sat down on his little potty and chatted it up with his brother. Of course, the potty functioned as nothing more than a not-terribly-comfortable chair, but it’s very exciting that he initiated that step all by himself and even asked for it by name.