Probably won’t have a full-on post today folks, I’ll be doing a little of the stuff in the picture, possibly followed with sledding.
Happy weekend.
#NaNoWriMo: Taking my Own Advice
In which we make plans.
So I’ve noticed something.
Wait, let me back up.
I’m in one of those ‘twitchy’ creative stages right now – not a downswing, definitely not a low point, but also not one of those flurries of creative activity — in the vast, unending sine-wave of my life, the creative moon is waxing, but hasn’t quite hit the zenith. I feel like I’m about one ounce of inspiration short of super-saturation, at which point in time, DOING something with said energy will become a self-fulfilling prediction.
The problem is, there aren’t ‘good’ gaps in which I can use this energy right now, so rather than allowing myself to hit that super-saturation point, I’m bleeding off some of the energy in drips and drabs in various ways.
(Yes, I know; if I REALLY wanted to do something seriously substantive with this energy, I’d clear the distractions and get to it. I’m not at that stage yet, and believe me when I say that when I am, distractions get cleared. For now, just accept that’s not happening and move along.)
Some of it gets used on gaming. I call that a win. Some gets used on mini-stories that I jot into my notebook – another win.
Some of it’s getting used on Planning. I’m not sure if that’s a win.
What I mean is that, when I’m cooped up, can’t write, and don’t have another creative outlet immediately handy, I start planning stuff. This can be kind of frustrating, because such planning starts to fill up my calendar, perpetuating the situation in which I continue to not have blocks of time in which to do proper creative work (especially when some of my planning is for stuff to do in an MMO, where there’s ALWAYS something more to do). What shall we do on Monday night? Tuesday? And let’s figure out what we’re doing on the Wednesday game night. And THAT thing won’t work on a weeknight, so how about we put that in for a big six-hour block on Sunday? And we need to finish up the deck painting, so let’s do that on Saturday. Date night, we should go see that new movie… and Friday night we’ll do something with our friends whom we haven’t seen for weeks.
And the week is gone.
I’m not complaining — it’s enough that I (finally) notice that I’m doing it; it’s the first step to curtailing the activity — but does anyone else do this? When you can’t actually create something, do you reach for your daytimer?
Cheers
Here’s to my parents, celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary today.
They are the best parts of me, as well as the most… colorful. My first teachers, first storytellers, and first friends. I love them, I’m happy for them, I’m proud of them, and I’m unaccountably lucky that they were able to spend the weekend with us.
Even if they did kick my ass at both bowling AND mini-golf.
Periscope up?
Yeah, I know I’ve been a little “periscope down” for the last couple weeks, but I’m in a bit of a bind — I’ve got two things I really really want to talk about, and I really can’t discuss either of them out here on the big bad internets.
So, instead… how about a video of my daughter winding herself up (literally) for dance class? Spinning Spinning Spinning. (open with quicktime)
Yes, that’s pretty much what she’s like all the time.
More later, once I feel like I can talk about it. Until then, I’ll take suggestions on somewhat safer unsafe topics to discuss; let’s hear it.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Habituals Update
It’s been relatively quiet around Casa Testerman for the past week or so. There was a trip to Philadelphia, thick with unexciting wardrobe malfunctions, but otherwise I’m plugging along with writing, reading, and trying to get these damn habits locked in. Lemme sum up:
Reading:
It’s been a very good month for me as far as new reading experiences go; first there was Terry Pratchett’s Nation, then Neil Gaiman’s wonderful Graveyard Book, and I had the pleasure of catching up with all the cool kids and read The Lies of Locke Lamora on the Philly trip. Great book. Just enough ‘new’ in the fantasy world, with great characterization and plotting. Capers are capered, swashes are buckled, and a great many skulls are duggeried. I came fairly close to sleeping on the couch a couple times, thanks to interrupting Kate’s own reading with chortling, out-of-context excerpts. Recommended (as are the others I mentioned – highly).
Writing:
The “Adrift” story continues, in which Finnras seems to be engaging in some kind of Cunning Plan. We’ll see if he’s as good at such things as Locke Lamora. Odds are not good.
Habit the First – Tracking what I Eat
This went very well in the first week – I even dropped a few pounds. (Actually, according to the website on which I track such things, I dropped too much in one week, and now they want to me to eat more this week — as in… a lot more… “I can’t afford a whole cow!” more — it’s confusing.
Habit the Second — Getting up an Hour Earlier
This one isn’t going as well. Yes, I’m getting up earlier, but I never have to use an alarm clock normally, and I for damn sure have to right now. Also, I’m dragging through large portions of the day, short on energy and long on nap-tropism.
I think part of the problem is that I haven’t set up any kind of reward for when I succeed at this each day (the other part of the problem is that I have no personal desire or investment in this – it’s wholly external) — so I need some help with that: what kind of reward should I be giving myself for getting up at the crack of dawn every day?
Suggestions need to be something concrete: that early in the morning I don’t think highly enough of my fellow humans for “a sense of moral superiority” to mean anything. Gimme some ideas in the comments.
In May, I will form a habit.
I’m not always fantastic at practicing what I teach.
For instance, a number of my classes have to do with modifying your own behavior (time management, giving feedback, verbal communication, how to not be a pain in the ass for everyone who reads your email, et cetera), so when I talk about what needs to change, I also talk about how to change that habit or, more to the point, how to make the change stick.
Changing a habit is always the hard part, after all, and it’s why people fail at things like ‘keeping the house clean’ or ‘saving money’ or my personal weak spot, ‘maintaining a healthy weight.’
Usually, this failure stems from one simple thing: none of those goals involve changing just one habit; they require changing a lot of habits and frankly people aren’t very good at changing a lot of habits at the same time. In order to make progress, you need to pick one habit out of the whole mess, and focus on that.
There are, in fact, steps.
1. Commitment. Commit yourself to a habit change, big time. Make your commitment as public as possible.
2. Practice. Changing your habits is a skill, and like any skill it takes practice. Commit yourself to a 30-day Challenge and try to do your new habit every single day for 30 days.
3. Tracking. It’s best if you log your progress every day. This will make your habit change much more likely to be successful.
4. Rewards. Reward yourself. Do so often, early on — every day for a week or so, then every three days, then the end of every week, and then at the end.
5. Focus. It’s hard to do more than one or two habits at a time — you can’t maintain focus.
This is basically what I tell people. I even coach them through it.
Sometimes, I make use of this for myself.
— I wanted to find the time to do at least a little creative writing every single day. This led me to the Adrift story, via twitter, which I’ve now written an entry on every day for the last three months. This simple fact makes me goofy-grin happy.
— I went a long while without blogging very regularly, and I wanted to change that, so I told myself I’d try to write a blog entry every single day in April. With the exception of this last Saturday, I succeeded, and I believe I can continue that habit. (I didn’t write every single blog entry for this blog, but I did always write one.)
Sometimes, I don’t do this for myself, when I should.
As I’ve already mentioned, one of my personal goblins is weight gain. I don’t gain weight fast by any means (I kind of wish it did, as the problem tends to creep up on me, unnoticed), but over the course of the last two years I’ve managed to put on roughly 1 pound a month. I’m nowhere NEAR as bad as I have ever been – my Medium shirts and some slacks have just gotten snug, but that’s it – but about two months ago I decided enough was enough.
So… it’s been two months. And I’ve put on two pounds.
*shakes head*
I’m failing at this because I’m trying to re-institute all the habits I had two years ago – tracking my intake and daily exercise and all that – all at once. It goes for a couple days, and then it falls off my radar for a week. Not for lack of trying, but just because there’s too much “Habit” there to handle all at once.
So, here and now, I am getting a Habit going: During the month of May, I’m going to get back to tracking my food intake. As I have said before, paying attention to what you’re putting in your mouth is far and away the most important thing you can do for yourself, so I’m starting there.
1. Commitment. Well, this is about as Public as I can make this commitment. You can also expect me to add little addenda to my regular posts, mentioning my point totals for the day. (Or possibly tweets.) I use Weight Watchers (the online service – which I’ve been paying for and not really using for over a year). *shakes head*
2. Practice. As I said, every day in May. For June, I think I’ll … well… let’s keep that for June.
3. Tracking. This shouldn’t be a problem as “tracking myself” is actually the point of the whole project.
4. Rewards. I’m a little hazy on what I’m going to do for this, but I *think* what I am going to say is “no computer or TV after work until you log your points.”
5. Focus. I will worry about getting back to a regular exercise schedule until June, though I have some small hope that the points tracking will also remind me when I need to do a little something extra.
And that’s it. Is this an interesting post for you? I can’t say – in this case, it’s really all about me; taking that first step of commitment and aiming the giant whupping stick of PUBLIC FAILURE at my ass.
If nothing else, watching me slog through this process should carry a faint whiff of schadenfreude. Enjoy!
Nekkid
A few weeks ago, I was explaining to Kate why I prefer to keep the shades down in my office when I’m in there. People can look in… I can’t see them… et cetera.
“It all boils down,” I said, “to the Old Nekkid Guy story.”
“The what?” she replied.
I just stopped and stared. I thought everyone knew the Old Nekkid Guy story. I for damn sure thought my wife knew it.
Apparently not.
So I went digging around my old blog archives… and… nothing. Then I went digging in my really old blog archives.
THEN I went digging in my really, really old blog archives. You know the ones I mean: dusty html files with no css code, from the two or three months in early 2001 when you were using Blogger, but Blogger was so overwhelmed with new users (cough*Twitter*cough) that you finally gave up and just installed MovableType v0.7 on your website and started over? Yeah, those old blog archives.
And, finally, I found the story.
Which I will now share. Again.
Because I think it’s important for everyone to have something humbling sitting out there on the internet.
So, I was checking out some stuff online tonight (“Why, that’s amazing, Doyce… that almost never happens.” — shut up, you). To do this, I have to sit at my computer; to sit at my computer, I must face the window in my office, which faces the street. Are we all clear? Geographically oriented? Good.
There I sat, pointing and clicking, muttering to myself about downtown Denver’s ability to completely confound Mapquest, when I heard a group of kids passing by on the sidewalk. Ahh, walking nostalgia. They were speaking in the particular tones used only by teens and people who are talking to themselves and scared of being in alone in the cemetery/empty parking garage/jail — I think high school illicites this behavior.
I was starting to smirk at the conversation, remembering similar ones in my (distant) past, when suddenly I became their new topic.
“Look, there’s a guy.”
“There’s a guy.”
“Is he naked?”
“He looks naked.”
“A naked guy? We can see him.” (Apparently, being naked might render one invisible, I have to check on this.)
(calling out) “Hey naked guy, are you naked?” (nervous laughter)For the record, I was clothed; wearing gym shorts and no shirt. This is how I normally dress around my house in the summer, and the number one reason I can think of to CALL before coming over.
You can’t see the shorts from the street, though, at least not while I’m sitting at the computer… thus, Nekkid.
(Also for the record, I’m not making the kids sound any more assinine than they did on their own.)
Needless to say, this turn of conversation eliminated my nostalgia. Sure, I’m aware that I’m thirty-mumble years old and thus unspeakably ancient to the teen set, but I still play the wacky video games, I still listen to that rock-and/or-roll, and I don’t want to be the next funny old guy a pack of kids taunts at 10 pm.
What the hell do you shout back? “No?” “Not yet?” “You kids get off my lawn?”
What did I do? Nothing. I kept staring at my old-nekkid-guy screen, clicking my old-nekkid-guy mouse, muttering old-nekkid-guy things about RTD, a frown creasing my wrinkled, whiskery, gonna-die-of-old-age-soon-enough face. I waited for them to keep walking. I prayed fervently for them to keep walking.
Then I crawled back into the house and got a shirt. I’m still wearing it.
I might never take it off.
All weird old guys have that one polo shirt that they wear every weekend for lawn work, beer drinking, and barbequeing, right?
Well, now I know why that happens.
Happy Friday, everyone. Remember to wear your polo shirts this weekend.
Earth Day Reflections
Earth Day caught me a little bit by surprise this year, so I confess I haven’t planned to do anything particularly profound today.
Since the last time I checked this carbon footprint calculator, I’ve made a lot of changes in my life (comprehensive recycling, CFL bulbs, 100% windfarm-based electricity, a vast reduction in the number of flights I was taking – though that had more to do with getting married than anything else, but still…), the result of which is a total household carbon footprint of 12.2 tons per year, which is FAR cry from the day I first ran the numbers and got a 20 ton carbon footprint.
Yes, it’s a reduction, but more notable is the fact that the 20 ton footprint was just for me, and the new and improved version includes the whole Casa Testerman (call it 2.5 people). So… go us? not too bad.
Here’s my the original list of “things to do to stop fucking up the earth”, with some notes on what’s been checked off and what still needs doing.