Three Things About Archer Shelle Klein Houser 2/11 '15

1. He made Honor Roll for the second marking period.

2. He got his first detention.  He was one minute late to Consumer Science Class (Home Ec, basically).  His Mother thought it was a stupid detention, but also emphasized the importance of treating teachers with respect, even when they do things we think are stupid.

3. There's a sound in Sweeney Todd, I call it the "razor scream".  If you've ever seen the show, you know what I'm talking about.  If not, it's in the first three seconds of this video.  It sounds sort of like a human scream, but there's also something mechanical about it, and they play it during the Ballad of Sweeney Todd and also when he slits someone's throat.

Anyway, I have never been able to figure out what is making that sound, not which instrument, but what actual thing in the story.  Last night we were talking about the play and Archer said, "That's the sound of the razors screaming in his head, driving him mad and urging him to kill."

Yep, that's what it is all right.

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2/11 '15 15 Comments
1. Love that kid.

2. Love that kid.

3. Love that kid.

Hmmm... noticing a theme here.
Matt Lichtenwalner
He loves you too.
Shelle Klein Houser

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I read that as "Home Egomaniacs."
Thomas Boutell
Home Animaniacs.
Shelle Klein Houser
Home Macroeconomics. Final exam: estimate the number of butterick patterns that will be botched this year in Home Economics classes.
Thomas Boutell
That's a great idea - making the punishment part of the class. Actually it was pretty much his Dad's fault that Archer was late - Archer's boots were at Cora's, Cora didn't want to drop them off at the house so he told Archer to take them to school. Archer's backpack is already really packed with school stuff and they have small lockers, so managing all of the stuff in the locker with the volume of the boots added took Archer longer, hence the lateness. It kills me that I actually saw this coming (not the detention exactly, but a problem w/the stuff management) and asked Cora to bring the boots over when she picked up Archer tonight, but she had him pack them in his backpack anyway ...

Archer is currently doing a unit on manners and the fact that most fascinated him was that 5000 people/year go to the hospital because of injuries due to falling into toilets when people don't put the seat down. It's terrible, but also hilarious.
Shelle Klein Houser
I completely believe that statistic.
Rabbit

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In another life I would be a history teacher and sneak down to your home ec class (both of you) on cookie day.
Shelle Klein Houser

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Thank you. We talked about the play a lot, actually - about which characters were most evil and least evil and why, which characters were the sanest, which characters were the craziest, which characters had each of the seven deadly sins (his idea) ... it was a really fascinating conversation. We rarely get the time to sit down and discuss a work of art in depth like that - we're usually too busy with homework, chores, other crap.
Shelle Klein Houser
yep. That's what I was going to say.
Beth Adele
 

The Adventure Begins! Matt Lichtenwalner 2/9 '15

A breakdown of the trip thus far...

Friday February 6th, 2015

Left northern Florida (JAX) via Southwest. Stopped in DEN and then on to LAX where I was met by my buddy Jason who swept me off to his place to crash. The slight headcold / congestion did very little to dampen the experience.

The Denver stop was a bit of a tease. I have some really great people in Denver and I've been wanting to go for a visit for some time now. So being in their city and not able to visit was a touch frustrating. I, of course, find this to be one of those scenarios where "If that's my biggest problem in life..."

Saturday February 7th, 2015

I had breakfast with Jason and his family at a place called Country Deli in Chatsworth CA. Delightful family place which serves a yummy sausage breakfast burrito. After breakfast we visited local fish/reptile shop because they were looking for some things to fix their aquarium.

Post pet store, I had a planning session with Mark via Google Hangouts in order to go over some of our plans for the first adventure one I'm in the country. First up? Tropical jungle camping/hiking on one of the southern islands of Japan - Iriomote.

Chilled out with Jason and his son while his wife and daughter were off having some girls only chill time. Then the boys made their way to a swanky steak house for a really satisfying meal.

Funny side note: I'm planning on using Japan as a jumping off point to improve my diet. Content of my diet, sure, but the primary focus is portion control. To that end, I was proud of myself for ordering 'only' the six ounce steak. Of course, the the portions on everything else about the meal were so ginormous as to render my herculean effort null and void. C'est la vie.

At the end of the night, Jason and I watched John Wick starring Keanu Reeves. Stop laughing - it was surprisingly entertaining. (And not in a "I can't believe how awful this is..." sense.)

Sunday February 9th, 2015

Woke up fairly early and reduced / repacked my bags in order to get rid of some of the 'excess' that I had collected. Yes, I felt like I had too much stuff with my two bags loaded.

I explained to one adorable little girl and her very awesome brother that "That Boy" would come back soon.

Jason and I made our way to brunch with some dear old friends (Patty and Mike) at a place called Pann's just outside LAX. Patty and Mike are great human beings. They scratch a very specific itch I have for chatting with crazy creative people who also have more than enough brains to support that creativity. While I'm really blessed with so many folks of that particular mix in my life, Patty and Mike have a different flavor to their creativity that I feel like my life would be greatly reduced without. A chance to hang out with them is something I will never pass on. I also got to  consume one seriously yum Louisiana Omellette. 

Once Jason dropped me off at the airport, my check in went easy on a ridiculous scale. My only objection there was the fact that they forced me to check my backpack because it was a couple kilograms over the weight limit. Not the end of the world, certainly, but I work really hard to keep it to carry on only, so this frustrated me. On the plus side, the woman who checked me in and made the request couldn't have been more gracious. I suspect that's a taste of things to come, and frankly, I'm looking forward to that.

My take off was a different story altogether. My flight was originally scheduled to leave at 2:20pm. Due to some technical issues with one of the engines, and the need to replace some component therein, we didn't actually take off until 6:30pm. End of the world? Far from it. It was  a little bit stressful, but mostly from the fact that my brain wouldn't let go of the idea that "there's something wrong with one of the engines". Still - they fixed the part, the staff was gracious and responsive, and eventually we were on our way.

A side note about the staff of Singapore Air flight SQ011 - I don't know if I simply 'lucked out' or if they have some sort of attractiveness requirement for their staff, but pretty much every crew member on this flight is of model level attractiveness. The men are handsome and the women are beautiful on a 'my chest aches just looking at this human' level. None of this really matters for anything, but as it's a first in my air travel experiences, I thought it noteworthy.

More soon from this Aimless Drifter...

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2/9 '15 4 Comments
This was really fun to read (Hi Jason! My Pitt Buddy.) and I am looking forward to more. You write great travel narratives.
Shelle Klein Houser
Thanks gang! I finally got around to posting another update today: http://rideoffintothesunset.com/landing-in-japan/
Matt Lichtenwalner
Looking forward to reading more.
Lindsay Harris Friel
I like this!
Rabbit
 

On autism and assisted suicide and measles dan brown 2/8 '15

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled that people who are of competent mind and have a terminal illness and consistently have indicated their desire to end their life should be able to employ the assistance of a physician in doing so.

This, this is hard.  The autonomy aspect of this is crucial; we don't believe (much) (yet) in this country in sentencing people to life in prison without parole, and if someone has decided that life isn't worth living, that's a kind of life sentence of possibly a very, very long duration.  It also has to be said that without legal assisted suicide, people will end their lives earlier, as they'll have to do it themselves, when they are physically more well than when they'd need to rely on assistance. 

And yet, it's really hard to listen to this whole narrative and wonder why it is that we as a society have made getting old or disabled so unappealing that people want to end their lives, and why it is that we don't devote more resources to fixing this problem.  (Instead, we have wars.  Yay.) 

In particular, a friend pointed me to this article on Facebook, and it notes something that should be obvious in the midst of this whole stupid measles outbreak: the people who are not vaccinating their kids (because they incorrectly believe that the measles vaccine causes autism) are valuing the possibility of their kid getting measles (measles!) over the (incorrect) fear of having someone autistic in their family. 

The narrative goes on and on.  There's the late Harriet McBryde writing one of the best articles I've ever read, about her arguments with Peter Singer about the validity of disabled lives.  There's an almost infinite amount of research that shows that community living makes old people's lives better and makes their decisions about end-of-life care ones that they are more satisfied with.  And so on.

I do think that on balance, letting people make decisions around their own lives is the only reasonable choice.  But the context of our society in which they make that choice?  It's pretty dreadful.

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2/8 '15 9 Comments
I often feel old. Like not on the edge of assisted suicide old - but old enough that even though I received all of the immunizations available at the time, I had : chicken pox, whooping cough, both types of measles and the mumps. I vividly remember Rubella actually - my eyeballs had measles on them - my sister, who mostly made my life miserable, read to me for hours. My fever went up to 104F, and I remember my mom coming home from some fancy event she had to go to and kneeling beside me to sponge me down, while still wearing a long green gown. Man, I was sick. :shudder:
Janelle
Wow.

And I had none of them, except for chicken pox (obligatory photo: https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~browndg/with_pox.jpg), and <em>that</em> I had because of a doc who "assumed" that I'd probably had it in my childhood and just didn't know about it and didn't need the vaccine. (Now, thanks to him, I'll also probably get shingles later in life.)

Actually, looking at it, it's one of those clear generation markers: the vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella all date to the decade between when you were born and I was. I know I had a recent pertussis booster (before I went to India five years ago), but now I'm wondering if I might need an MMR booster.

I'm glad you're not on the edge of assisted suicide old. :-)
dan brown
The Harriet McBryde Johnson piece is amazing. And causes me to wonder about my own reasons for being favourable toward the assisted suicide law change.
Daniel Allen
Yeah, it's just brilliant. And then a few years later, to its eternal shame, the NYT had Singer (of all people!) write her obit.
dan brown
I do understand the concern that the availability of assisted suicide could turn into an expectation and even a cost-saving measure.
Thomas Boutell
Since the ruling requires a terminal illness be present, I'm having trouble making the leap from that to talking about the desirability of life while disabled. Cancer may be disabling but more to the point it's often intolerable — hmm, I'm going to pause here and let you clarify instead of doing the Internet hulk-out thing.
Thomas Boutell
Much of the argument comes from the degree to which disabled people are treated as though their lives aren't valuable, and their routine experience of having people ignore them when they express their preferences about how their care will work. They fear their ordinary lives will be deemed terminal, and they have some justification for that fear.
dan brown
Another aspect of this is that people with terminal illness often find that good palliative care makes their lives better. It's interesting how little access to, for example, hospice care exists in Canada. Bizarrely, healthcare structures in Canada short-change hospices quite a bit more than they short-change hospitals, which leads to poorer end of life care than we might otherwise have.
dan brown
I think we vehemently agree with each other.
Some people have justifiable concerns that a patient with a terminal illness may be encouraged (or have their substitute decision maker choose without full consideration of the patient's wishes) to end their life instead of adding burdens to an already overloaded palliative care system. While I believe viscerally that the ability to die with dignity is of great value, that ability or right may result in premature death for some who want to live.
It's a hard problem that needs social and cultural work to be done as well as legal standing.
Dawn Keenan
 

Where is the creative explosion of yesteryear? Thomas Boutell 2/7 '15

Well, I have a cool job now. And I go dancing when I can. And that leaves... not a metric ton of spare creative energy.

Creativity strikes, but I rarely come home eager to write something epic outside of work. I tend toward the bon mot; the long-form stuff tends to flow at work. This is not uncommon for people in creative jobs.

But, when I read some of my past LJ posts, I am flabbergasted by the outpouring.

I was hungry, and angry, and excited, and amazed, discovering and rediscovering things. Right now I'm in a different sort of place.

That's okay? I guess? For now.

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2/7 '15 6 Comments
What sort of long-form writing do you do at work?
dan brown
This is strange to read because in my mind, you invent the world. You're like our very own Tesla except not batshit.
Shelle Klein Houser
I sometimes wish my online postings were as flabbergasting and outpour-a-licious as they once were.

Deep creativity looks different in different contexts and at different ages.

And here's an analogy I often think of, when I find I don't have the patience to sit down and hammer things out at the keyboard: You know when folks go to an event, and instead of watching the event and participating, they hold up a recording device of some kind? We all know those folks. We've even been those folks. At some point, though, we put the devices down, because we realize that in framing the experience we are putting ourselves outside the frame.

For me, online writing is a little like that. I'm so engaged in *being* creative that I don't want to put a keyboard between me and how I am living and processing that creativity. Or that life change. Or any big moment or shift.

After I've moved through those spaces, I might sit down and make note of it, but in the moment I'm generally choosing to savor events in ways outside of journaling and blogging.
Anne Mollo
Hey, right, the Heisenblogging problem.
Thomas Boutell
You're SO CUTE.
Anne Mollo
It's all the open source stuff, and all the "client communication" (i.e. talking to customers), and all the internal discussion at work that takes up my "longer than 140 characters" capacity right now, I think.
Thomas Boutell
 

Tell me a story. Lindsay Harris Friel 2/6 '15

Please?

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2/6 '15 4 Comments
I was the youngest of three kids, and the only girl. My brothers were 5 and 7 years older than me, and they delighted in finding ways to mentally torture me. <i>"Leave that child alone!"</i> my mother would shout. <i>"She's going to grow up twisted!"</i>

Well, maybe.

One day, my oldest brother Harry sidled up to me and stage-whispered, "Don't tell Mom, but I killed John!" Now by this point, I was somewhat wise to their ways and so demanded proof. "C'mon," Harry said. "I'll show you the body." He pulled me upstairs and into my own bedroom. We knelt on the floor, and he flipped up the side of the bedspread. John was sprawled on his back under the bed. He had a 1970's embroidered headband, the sort you only find on Etsy these days, wrapped once around his neck, with the ends tucked loosely in the palms of his hand.

"Why does he have a headband around his neck?"

"I wanted to make it look like suicide."

I reached under the bed and used my thumb to flip up one of John's eyelids. He rolled his eye around in its socket.

"Aha! See? He's not dead!"

"No, Anne. All dead people's eyes roll."

Hey, I was four, maybe five.

The funny thing is, I knew for a fact that John wasn't dead, that Harry hadn't killed him. But I also still lived in that world of the very young, where the line between reality and fantasy is blurred—if it's there at all.

So of course I marched downstairs and into the kitchen, to announce to my mother in a loud voice that Harry had just killed John.

Both of them, standing in the doorway behind me, cleared their throats and batted their eyes innocently.
Anne Mollo
Once upon a time there was a boy who refused to eat his vegetables, so he died.

The end.
Kevin Niemi
Lindsay Harris Friel
I will, but not right now. Sadly, I HAVE to get to sleep asap.
Matt Lichtenwalner
 
 

Untitled Matt Lichtenwalner 2/4 '15

Small post for today. I'm electing to go to the gym now rather than write for multiple reasons. The main being that I can feel the bare tickle at the back of my throat that I always get just before a throat cold/thing. This is something I DO NOT WANT as I prep for Japan. So? Time to beat up my body in a good way and get to bed early.

That said, I didn't want to not post anything, so here's a mini update:

Got a good day's work in. The boss will be happy. Found a new issue with the system that I need to report, though I think it might be an oddity for just my car. (Storage drives not showing newly added sessions despite having recorded them. Rebooting the laptop resolves this. Happened twice. Tested twice. Resolved twice.)

Throat thing. Fraaaaack!

I listen to a crap-ton of podcasts. A large number of them are 'self help-y' enough that I'm embarassed for folks to learn of them. (Though obviously not that embarassed if I'm going to mention them here.) One of those is Michael Hyatt's "This Is Your Life" podcast. While I don't mean to badmouth the man, it's not really my bag. He's a religious dude (I'm not). He's high up the proverbial 'ladder' (I'm not). And he tends to look at things from a vantage point that I don't.

But every once in a while... Like today. Since I took some time away from podcasts (and was listening to audio books only) I have some catching up to do. Today's episode was Season 3 Episode 1: How You Can Better Control Your Time. Given my recent frame of mind / planning efforts, this is an episode I'm likely to listen to more than once. The big thing I took away from the first round: Creating an 'ideal week' in Google Calendar (since I use that anyway) to use in my planning/scheduling of things. Seemed like a Really Good Idea.

There's probably more that I should write here, but I really do need to get my ass into the gym so I'll queue this up and come back to it if there's time.

* * * * *

Back from the gym. 1/2 hour on the hard setting on the elliptical. 60 x 20lb reclined butterflies. 30 x ... curls? (It's a cross chest curl thing that I created.) 30 seconds (in 10 second chunks) of isometric arm extensions with 20 lbs.

Not quite as "Rar!" as I was with Sunday's workout, but good. Now? Shower.

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2/4 '15 1 Comment
My suggestion: Go to a walk-in doctor and tell them you're about to fly to Japan, and could you please have something in case your head cold turns to the dark side. You'll want a round of antibiotics which you'll only take if warranted, you'll want a prescription-strength decongestant so you don't go deaf when you fly because your stuffy ears won't pop, and something for the pain of your ears not popping. Please, please please... it'll take an hour but will save you SO much pain & suffering at a time whe you should be happy and comfy (or as happy as someone can be on a 72862826-hour flight to Japan).

Feel better, sleep well!
Jill "xtingu" Knapp
 

and your little dog too, autocorrect Lindsay Harris Friel 2/2 '15

I was trying to type the sentence, "I swept the slush outside," and instead got  "I swept the slash outside."

Yes. Jesus, there were giant piles of pages of poorly written fan fiction all over the sidewalk and steps! It was horrible. They were falling from the sky! One of them stuck to the windshield of the car and I couldn't scrape it off at first. Something about The Tenth Doctor and Sherlock being completely exhausted from a rough battle with Helen A and her pet Stigorax Fifi, and needing to relax in the TARDIS' jacuzzi with a couple of shots of Sentarion rekkar. 

I SWEAR I DIDN'T READ IT. 

Edited to add: I watched The Interview. I expected it to be on a par with Anchorman or worse. I may have been in a mood. 

It was better than I expected. I actually laughed, really, really, really hard at the climax. I can also see why North Korea was a bunch of pissy little bitches about it, but that just proves how dumb they are. 

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2/2 '15 3 Comments
We were making bad Gronkowski (Houser-sized football player) and Cumberbitch slash fic jokes on Sunday. Even better, the position Gronk plays is "tight end".
Shelle Klein Houser
I wish you had recorded this for me.
Lindsay Harris Friel
I also know that the minute someone turns on any kind of recording device to try to capture spontaneous funny in its native habitat, it dies instantly.
Lindsay Harris Friel
 

Control + Alt + Delete * format C: Matt Lichtenwalner 2/2 '15

All the things.

All of them dammit.

Looks like I'm getting a jump start on the whole "Write a Crap-Ton in February" thing some of us are doing with L. M. Lopez. 

I want to accomplish a lot. Not just with the writing. With life. When I look back over my lifetime, (yeah - pull up a chair - it's like that) I see a lot of wasted time. I'm not here to make excuses or anything, I just want to fix it. I like to think of myself as a problem solver, and not a 'problem talker abouter'. Sure, I appreciate some good planning, but...

Anyway. I think that I've figured out the reason. Call it ADHD, call it ping-ponging, or call it whatever you like - I don't finish things. All my life I get really excited about some new project or some creative concept, I start it, and then a few things happen:

1. I get bored with it. Really bored with it. And I drop it.

2. I think of some other new project/concept, get really excited about that thing, and drop the current thing.

3. I tell everyone about what I'm planning on doing, feel like I've done it, and say "Ahhh - eff it." and drop it.

Before you say anything - I know that I'm not alone here. The world is chocked full of peanuts. Errr... of people who do the same thing. (Peanuts just goes with 'chocked full'. I had to.)

But that's just it - it's long past time I do something more. It's time I started to accomplish some things. This has been a large part of the end of my last two serious relationships, and each time it... built in intensity. I've made steps since then, but not enough progress for my liking.

I need to keep myself on track. It's way too easy to fall to the side or be distracted by some new shiny thing.

Okay, okay. Shut up already and tell us what you plan to do about it.

You may not have actually said it, but you were thinking it.

So here's the deal: I'm going to re-focus myself. At first, my intent is to do this three times every day. Those times will not be specific hours in the day, but after specific events:

1. First thing in the morning. Before I head out to work every day, I will review my list. Then I will meditate. (Duration TBD.)

2. When I get back to my hotel room, I will review my list. 

3. Just before bed, I will review my list.

So what's on my list?

That's actually what I'm here to discuss. I'm looking for broad categories to put things under.

The format that I'm currently picturing is this: Separate sheets in a spreadsheet. Physical Health, Financial Health, Creativity, and Work/Career. Something like that. Then on those sheets I can do the breakdown of tasks and goals. The details aren't too important for the purposes of this conversation though. I just need to work out the basic 'infrastructure'.

Simplicity is key, of course. I want this to be about doing things, not spending time working on the spreadsheet. I do, however, want to be smart about this start.

So what do you think? Have I covered all the 'primary categories' with Physical Health, Financial Health, Creativity, and Work/Career? If not, what do you feel I'm missing?​

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2/2 '15 22 Comments
I hate to say this, but, speaking as someone who scored Really High for ADD, I have to say this, only because you asked for opinions:

Strategies can be a distraction in and of themselves and can distance you from Getting Shit Done.

Have you ever thought about getting tested for ADD or ADHD? Getting the meds?

I say this because I tried strategies, schedules, lists, spreadsheets, everything, for 42 frigging years, when I could have just gone with medical science.

i also know, from my own experience and from pushing undergrads to finish writing their first play, finishing projects is its own skill set which takes practice. Once the initial creative buzz wears off, and it's Just Work, and there's no cheerleading squad, finishing a project is a skill in itself.
I think you can do this.
Lindsay Harris Friel
"Have you ever thought about getting tested for ADD or ADHD?"

Many times. Was tested twice.

I'm not a 'severe case', but I am a case.

Second time around, I talked to the doc and he (not being a psychiatrist) recommended someone. I then proceeded to get distracted by something shiny and never followed through.

In the end, I very much prefer to not use meds if I can get away with it. Not being a severe case, I've made my way and feel like I'm in a pretty great place now, so I'm good for the moment. If I can improve things from here, I'll be happy. If I get into a more 'stable' or 'traditional' place in life (read as: living somewhere consistently and having a normal 'job') I will most definitely reconsider.

"Once the initial creative buzz wears off, and it's Just Work, and there's no cheerleading squad, finishing a project is a skill in itself."

Yeah. I've never heard it put quite that way, but you're spot on. I think that this is the particular hurdle that I'm most trying to climb.

And for the record? You're one of my people. I will _always_ want your opinion. I consider myself fortunate to have such council.
Matt Lichtenwalner
Aw, thank you.
have you ever seen the movie Ryan? It's an animated short film about an animator & his process.
Lindsay Harris Friel
https://www.nfb.ca/film/ryan/
Lindsay Harris Friel
In answer to your question, what's missing - perhaps "Travel" because Travel is more immediate to you than to many of us. Eventually you will want a page for "Home" and you will start thinking about what that home looks like and what people and animals you want in it. We already want to pet your dog. He or she will be a Good Dog.

Regarding meditation - you may want to do the 'wake up in the morning and write before your dreaming self comes to full consciousness' thing. Sometimes ideas both for life and for fiction come to the surface that way. It's not exactly meditation. Or for you, you may want to draw instead of write, see what's under the surface before your practical mind takes over.
Shelle Klein Houser
I second the "draw on waking" motion.
Lindsay Harris Friel
Funny you should mention that. I added a tab for Adventure just before you posted this. Gmta

I'm going to think about the write/draw first thing... err thing. You're right, of course, but I have this mental picture of gathering myself, waking calmly, and preparing for the day that speaks to meditatio. Stay tuned.... ;)
Matt Lichtenwalner
Good stuff.

I attended a company retreat recently. The boss has been reading (as always) and came across the idea that making a list of goals sometimes make you feel like you've "already done it," which can be counterproductive... so he asked us to make lists of impediments to our goals.
Thomas Boutell
OOOHHHH!!! I like this!
Lindsay Harris Friel
Yeah - me 3. It speaks to "You're smart enough to figure out the tasks - focus on getting over/around/through the hurdles."
Matt Lichtenwalner
First of all, the comments on this post are a festival of "some of my favorite people who didn't know each other before now know each other and like each other! eeeee!!!" for me.

So, with regard to the schedule/goals/etc ... I think it's a great idea. I haven't done one yet (but I might) because the idea is overwhelming to me, so I started thinking about what would make it less overwhelming. The Wildcard category definitely makes it less overwhelming - you can put stuff there that you know you want to do and that you don't want to forget about, but that you don't want to focus on now. Writing stuff down like that keeps my brain from constantly bringing up the tickler, "Better do that thing, you'll forget it, or write it in a good place, we don't have a good place, better do that thing ..." loops of time-wasting. Also, keep your goals measurable - so for example "get in shape" - not a goal. "Work out 3x/week" - goal.

Regarding ADHD - I have it. I don't take my meds. Here's what helps me w/success, and your mileage (haha) may vary. I reduced my coffee intake to one cup of real joe per day - always. I have decaf, sometimes I have tea (even caf tea, but usually green tea or decaf), so when I sleep, I SLEEP. Getting a decent amount, but more than that, good quality of sleep makes me less distracted. It took a week or so to kick in, but when it did - it was AMAZING. I am still distracted, of course, but distraction doesn't OWN me the way it used to. Typing this out is actually the first time I have thought about this. I originally reduced the caffeine to take the meds, because the meds are stimulants and caffeine + meds was making me jumpy. Then I forgot to take the meds (I know, I am a supergenius!) and I realized that I was more focused than I was before and I was getting a lot more done at work ... the caffeine reduction helped, and also ... we come full circle ... a task list of measurable items. Ta-da!
Shelle Klein Houser
Reduce my coffee levels? Are you MAD woman?!

Writing things down definitely helps me. That's one of the reasons I feel like this could really help.
Matt Lichtenwalner
I know, it sounds like madness ... but it made me significantly less scattered, at least here at work where there are no toddlers, so I figured I'd mention it. :)
Shelle Klein Houser

This comment has been deleted.

Rock and roll! I'm very happy to hear that someone's already doing this sort of thing successfully (which shouldn't really be a shock I suppose).

You don't sound crazy. Or, if you do, I don't detect it, which may or may not say something about me.

I like the idea of a Wildcard. Going to add that.

I also like the idea of date/time references, but I predict that may be less important for me overall. The idea for me is to keep making forward progress and I suspect that 80% of that battle will be fought in the repeated 'checking in' with my list. It will keep me honest.

I can just picture the mental conversation now "Hmm. Haven't made any progress on Project X in a loooong time. Need to get on that before the thing..."

What? I don't REALLY talk to myself.

Much.
Matt Lichtenwalner
In a relatively unrelated note: I just finished the biggest workout I've done in a long time. I spent an hour on the elliptical on a tougher setting than usual. Then I did some significant lifting.

By the time I was done, my Inner Biker/Viking Warrior was roaring. I haven't felt that good at the end of a workout in... ever. I left there (as some say) 'energized'. I wanted to smash things.

And it felt gooooood...
Matt Lichtenwalner
This gives me hearts in my eyes like a cartoon character.
Shelle Klein Houser
So this is my fourth comment on this post and I'm leaving it to tell you how excited I am for your reforMatting. You've been poking at this for a long time ... oh wait, that was my last thought - if you are like me, if you talk too much about a project, you get bored with it. So don't talk about it, do it. Talk about other stuff. Then you can talk about the project later when you're working on another one. :)
Shelle Klein Houser
I resisted the first three times, but on upon the fourth time of seeing your icon, I have to say I frigging love you with long straight shiny hair! I have no idea how you did that, or if it's a lot of work, but dayam you look fantastic! (Yeah, totally unrelated comment, sorry.)
Karen Kuhl
Thanks Karen! The hairdresser did it, so it is now long, but not straight or shiny. Next time I get it colored, she'll be nice and do it again, I'm sure.
Shelle Klein Houser

This comment has been deleted.

I look forward to reading them!
Matt Lichtenwalner
 
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