In lieu of a blog post, please accept this photo of a racoon up in a tree
(I wanted to draw you a picture of a goat hiding up in a tree (in order to escape piranhas), but it seems that even that is outside my capabilities at this present time.)
20 Questions as of January 15th 2025
Although I’d like to and intend to post something new and regular-blog-post-like to this blog on a semi-regular basis, sometimes I go for stretches where I seem to have lost access to any extra brain cells, especially the ones needed for coming up with anything even vaguely resembling ‘new.’ In fact, lately, I’ve been hovering near the borders of just such a state. And so, I’ve come up with an idea! What sort of prompt might require not very many…
fly-by-posting: 2024/09/25
My brain is like a bureaucracy. Sometimes it can take a very long time for new or unexpected inputs to work their way through the system. Not because they’re not important, but because there may be bureaucratic structural reorganization that needs to happen before movement can occur. And then ditto if you want some action output.
fly-by-posting: 2024/08/02
Guess what amazing and rare thing I did today? I properly indexed and labeled the lab book I finished with a few days ago. This is a task I haven’t managed in over 2 years (and I’ve finished with 8 lab books in that time period). Feeling hopeful there really is a Light at the end of the Burnout.
Light at the End of the Burnout
So, here’s a crazy thing. I’m writing this on a Wednesday, and as I left work today I was actually feeling a little excited about my job. This shouldn’t be a crazy thing. I work in Astronomy, as a Scientific Programmer, which is a combination of two things I really, really like and am good at. However, for a variety of reasons, not all of them to do directly with my job (you can probably guess one or two), the…
My Brain is Nauseous* – Can I Go Home Now?
(*) Well, dang. It looks like mental fatigue is a beast I still haven’t licked yet. That’s the thought that crossed my mind last year after I’d been hammering away at assembling a formal code update and found myself (once again) feeling extremely mentally rundown. Except that ‘mental fatigue’ and ‘run down’ really don’t cover what it feels like, and, taking another look at that sentiment from this perspective of a year later, there’s also this whole extra layer of…
fly-by-posting 2024/01/30
Okay, I don’t know quite how to parse this. I was feeling really out-of-sorts. And then sitting in on the (otherwise unremarkable) weekly status meeting made me feel better?
fly-by-posting 2023/12/22
I think my imagination space is getting too crowded. Not with cool ideas, but with just too many types of things. Like, I’ll think “What’s a cool story idea I can noodle on today?” And then, “Oh – an item from my housekeeping list. That is not what I was reaching for.”
Quick-Chores
Okay, friends. I think it is time to tell you about something I call Quick-Chores, which is a house-keeping tactic I’ve been playing with this year, to varying degrees of success. First, I should say that on the spectrum of people, I am the sort of people who neither enjoys housework, nor feels strongly compelled to do very much of it. I think I’m in a lot of pretty good company. Never-the-less, I do prefer a clean house to a…
Current Collapse?
Warning: This post contains thoughts about a big, existential sort of topic, triggered, in part but not in total, by the recent devastating fires in Maui. At the moment, I am able to approach it with curiosity, but that’s certainly not always the case, and it might not be the case for you right now. If you don’t want to be thinking about climate change and other slow-moving disasters, and what some of the potential follow-on affects might be, even…