Day 65 of Project 365: emergence

Today I spotted new growth on our hyacinth bulb and Christmas cactus, and marveled at how an unassuming corner of the kitchen one day can suddenly burst.

That metaphor can go either way, from the exhilarating makeover of a once-plain person to an outburst of violence from a shy and retiring character.

I am neutral today, so either fits.

Day 64 of Project 365: fumbled

Tonight Judith and I turned the corner on our walk home and I yelled “holy crap!” because I did not expect to see that. I fumbled with my iPhone and here is the result.

I wonder when I will start expecting to see it, and if that expectation will mean that I am a little more at home.

Today was one of those all-around stellar days marred only a little by a nagging health issue (surprise surprise). Volunteering was just about perfect, with the added bonus of a conversation about personal productivity tools that made me very, very enthused and also curious if this is something I should be pursuing professionally while the library job market does its … adjustments.

A quick dash home and then back out again to meet Judith at the hair salon to take advantage of their bring a friend, get a haircut at half-price deal. It started to snow while we were inside, but we made it down to Wagamama for noodles without losing our Bond-girl blowouts, to paraphrase J.

We took a different route home, which helped me sort out another piece of the old mental map. It was a brisk single degree as Judith told me about the cherry blossoms and daffodils and crocuses that will appear all over the city in just a few short months. That tiny prediction made me suddenly and absurdly happy.

Hope is like that, I guess.

Day 63 of Project 365: blank page

I really shot myself in the foot with the 500 words a day challenge. Between homework, slush reading, and Project 365, the storytelling part of my brain is exhausted before I even sit down to write. My offline journal has suffered as a result; I’m settling for the little notes I leave in Moodscope each day. But that’s not exactly cathartic writing, and it sure as hell isn’t helping me finish a short story.

I’ve fallen into the old trap of meta-living.

Day 62 of Project 365: tiny fortune-telling pig

The tiny pig was adamant. Her new tarot deck had just arrived, and she could tell my future in her cards.

Who was I to argue?

• Present: Strength, reversed.
• Immediate challenge: Nine of Pentacles.
• Distant past: Knight of Swords.
• Recent past: Nine of Swords.
• Best outcome: Eight of Swords.
• Immediate future: Ten of Pentacles.
• Factors affecting this situation: Four of Pentacles.
• External influences: Three of Pentacles.
• Hopes and fears: Five of Pentacles.
• Final outcome: Queen of Cups.

That’s as far as the pig got. She is still learning how to interpret the cards. And needs to shuffle better.

Day 61 of Project 365: new recipe

FunkyPlaid and I stayed up very late to watch the Niners game. Actually, I was up already, finishing an assignment a whole day early — crazy, I know, but I just wanted it to be done already — and wandered in front of the TV for the last quarter.

The best part of the game was the chatter, and I don’t mean from the Sky Sports commentators.

Full samovar of tea and the 49ers coming right up. If you’d like to virtually scream over Gchat with me, hit me up on funky plaid@geemale.

— FunkyPlaid (@FunkyPlaid) January 22, 2012

When technology makes the world a little smaller, I fall in love with both all over again.

Day two of light therapy treatment went much better. I dropped the level down to 25% and felt pretty good. No naps today, either. And no crying. Those statements make me sound much more pathetic than I feel.

Tonight I tried a new recipe, pesto polenta lasagne. (Thanks for the suggestion, Trinkers.)

Purty, right? It tasted … okay. But I can’t blame the recipe. I made a number of rookie mistakes. I didn’t find pre-cooked polenta so I made it from a box and it was not great. The jar of gluten-free pesto I picked up was similarly not-great. Also, I mistook the amount of marinara sauce I needed, and that marinara sauce was also not-great. Next time I will try it with my own marinara and pesto and proper polenta. And maybe a glass of wine, so the mistakes don’t matter so much.

Food, I love you so much that you get your own category.

Day 60 of Project 365: boo-hoo-lean

My presentation went off the rails. I actually said “dire repercussions to the fabric of space-time.”

The day started out great. I woke up on time and got settled in front of my computer and new SAD light. During the fifteen-minute treatment at 50% strength, I felt pretty good, and immediately afterwards I was energized and excited about craft day later in the afternoon.

Less than an hour later, I was nauseous, headachy, and the energized feeling had worn off into a bad caffeine buzz feeling.

So no crafts for me, just grocery shopping and homework and a little crying in between those two because … well, no real “because”. I guess that is why they call it a disorder. Sadness for no reason is lame.

With the day I’ve had, talking about the fabric of the space-time continuum was a pretty logical endpoint.

So we’ll try the SAD light again tomorrow at 25%.

Day 59 of Project 365: blueglow

Sunrise today in San Francisco: 07:22. In Edinburgh: 08:31.

Sunset today in San Francisco: 17:21. In Edinburgh: 16:26.

I didn’t consider seasonal affective disorder to be a foregone conclusion after the move, but here it is. Exercising outside helps, but sometimes the weather prevents that from being a viable option in daylight.

But I’m not giving up. Last week, I began taking a daily Vitamin D supplement. A friend recommended this model of SAD light, and after a conversation with my dad about my lowered mood, he sent one as an early birthday gift.

Tomorrow morning I will embrace the blue glow of my new gadget, and hope for sunnier times inside my head.

Day 58 of Project 365: mood-cleaners

Sometimes a bad mood lands like bird crap on your shoulder, and sometimes it drifts in like a layer of pollen on a windowsill. Either way, you’ve got to clean it up.

My mood-cleaners in hand today: a beautiful card that just arrived in the mail, a luxurious Christmas gift, and the strangest cat I’ve ever met.

Here is a mood-cleaning quotation, from the ever-mood-cleaning blog of Jonathan Carroll:

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you … we are in charge of our Attitudes. –Charles R. Swindoll

Share one of your mood-cleaners in the comments.

Day 57 of Project 365: metroku

Someone left their half-done sudoku (sorry, metroku) on the bus today. I like doing sudoku, but I haven’t in a while. In fact, I haven’t since I read an op-ed piece in some newspaper I’ve forgotten that said sudoku was a waste of time. I started to wonder if it really was a waste of time … and then I was spending time wondering if I was wasting my time instead of doing sudoku.

The idea of wasting time has been on my mind a lot lately. Today, the news of Harvard Library’s massive reorganization and layoffs has me wondering if I have wasted my time with graduate school. Whenever I fool around with my website, I wonder if that is time better spent doing something else.

I don’t know. I don’t know, and I am beginning to suspect that worrying about wasting time is, in fact, the waste of time. The rest of it is just … spending time. Regardless of how you choose to do that, who decides if it is a waste?

Day 56 of Project 365: of the devil

The Web today has been a whole bunch of blackouts and protests and whinging and drama.

Tonight was a perfect time to unplug, even if just for a few hours, and play some games with friends.

Pictured is a two-player abstract game called Ponte del Diavolo. I snapped this quickly in the scoring phase, before all the pretty pieces were put away.

As a side note, I am enjoying the cameraphone filters in Path. If you haven’t used the app yet, I recommend taking a peek. It is a delightful “social journaling” experience, meant to be shared with just a few friends instead of everyone. There are options to post Path moments to the wider Web, too, but that isn’t its focus. So far, Path provides me with something more intimate than Twitter and less negative than Facebook.

Something else more intimate than Twitter and less negative than Facebook? Playing Strozzi and laughing about FunkyPlaid falling off his bike.