Tuesday, twelfth week of Winter
Plan Ιγ achieving solid results. There was a brief hiccup around the time of the Folk Festival, of course, but I'm getting back on track. I'm happier, the house is cleaner, but there's one part that is not working like it should.
Monday and Tuesday are my 'weekend', and I had scheduled the same hours I would normally work as 'work time' for personal projects, programming, finishing the second bedroom, et cetera. The trouble is, Claire has her own plans for this time. She wants to do things together, which I like, but what she wants to do together is almost always plan, shop for, and cook a huge meal together; this can be, and generally is, a bit trying.
Justifiably nervous about appearing to complain about my wife online, let me explain: I enjoy cooking with Claire, very much. I enjoy eating the food we cook together, VERY MUCH. I am willing to go shopping, since a woman with a baby cannot carry much by herself and she likes to have me with her. And of course, it is frustrating to me to burn an entire evening (with much dilly-dallying) helping, at best, on one project, especially on what is nominally my day off. But I do all this with a glad heart and a smile on my face.
Menu planning, though, is fast earning an unredeemable black mark in my book. If I initiate the menu planning, whatever I propose is immediately thrown out. If I offer suggestions or criticisms along the way, they are ignored or dismissed. I am made to read cookbooks, a medium difficult for me to process and rarely edifying outside of the historical notes and personal anecdotes of the authors. This results in me sitting, eyes glazed over, hunger gnawing at my belly, for an hour or more while Claire pulls volume after volume off the shelf, makes notes in her notebook, chews on a pen while staring into space, and taking frequent cigarette breaks. And remember, this comes at the beginning of the evening's ordeal.
"Why not tell her how you feel?" one might ask. Oh, I have. Her passion to involve me in her favorite activities is admirable, and I do love her for wanting to share what gives her so much joy. I just... would rather get something done, you know?
Especially when I'm hungry.
Tuesday
"They knew that I was special when I came out spitting verses; my first word was 'Word!' and the rest of them were curses."
Iota sub gamma not formalized yet, mixed results so far. This is good: mixed results definitely trump no results.
Translation: My living room is so clean! I'm preparing something to eat that takes longer than five minutes! The website is fixed! (Well, fixed-ish... there's a weird jiggle on some links if the text is resized. It's weird. I think it's a rounding error that happens when the browser tries to also resize the padding around the text.)
Cats, however, remain very ill-behaved.
Saturday, second week of winter
"I'm feeling sad and depressed and I don't know why. ...Maybe because I'm looking at this cake that I don't have?" -Claire, 09/26/2011
"One flat out begs me, the other one entices."
Read a series of articles today (blog responses to some earlier articles, the most relevant of which I read at the time of its publication) which made me consider how little I've implemented Plan Iota sub beta in my life. Plan Iota in general is about making better use of my time. The beta revision emphasizes production over consumption and maintenance. I think it needs more work, because I still spend way more time consuming than producing.
Maintenance is a hard word to spell.
So, God help me, let's turn this car around. I am a creative person, and I used to be prolifically creative through a few narrow outlets. Now I have the world at my fingertips, and I pour all my creativity into making mountain fortresses in Minecraft. The fingertips are only used for WASD, LMB, RMB. The world they mold is inside someone else's baby. But I can narrow my focus again - and when I do, I have no doubt that I will be prolific once more.
Granted, prolific does not mean good. But I don't need it all to be good. If the frequency of good stuff over volume is low, that's fine. I want a high frequency over time, and who cares about the dross.
Let's do this.
Some day, somemtime
I see the site is all messed up. Hm.
I was going to post about how messy the apartment is, and how I'm too depressed to clean it, only to find the site messed up and in need of fixing. Hm.
No promises.
Wednesday, first week in the new apartment
New plans! Plan Iota sub delta, which is basically Iota with an emphasis on spending more time producing than consuming. And Plan Omega, which is much less sinister than it sounds. (Plan Omega is a housewarming party.)
Sunday after Independence Day
"That baby! THAT I made in my body. It wasn't even very hard. I mostly just ate a lot." -Claire, 07/08/2012
Claire and I took Margot out for her first concert last night, Judson Claiborne at the Hideout. We both really needed a night out, and we also thought it would be special for Margot's first show to be the band that brought us together. We held the baby up to him and said, "You brought this about." He dedicated the last song of the set to her.
Sunday?
Right now, I'm taking out my frustration with my search for a halfway-decent IDE or editor for python. Finally found one that doesn't seem to be a kludgey mess, but I'll wait to pimp it until I'm a little more familiar.
Saw some good shows recently for free: Jon Drake and the Shakes at the Double Door, and Amy Ray at Lincoln Hall. Now, my love of the Double Door is well documented, but those who know me well are equally familiar of my distrust of anything to do with Lincoln Park, especially 'cultural' whats-have-you. I'm glad to say, though, that I can recommend the Lincoln Hall for several reasons. They are as follows, in the order which I noticed them:
- Easy to find and get to. Helpful with groups, I'm sure, and the red line is right there.
- The staff are both knowledgeable and nice. Generous, even. I mentioned getting in for free; well, that was because I got there after Amy's set was half-done. The doormen encouraged me to go in and enjoy the rest of the show, no worries. Just, you know, buy a beer or something.
- No ridiculous rules about dancing. I'm looking at you, Metro! In fact, I saw several peeps dancing vigorously.
- Green line on tap, 'nuff said.
It's nice to know that not all mass venues are hateful.
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