Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Crash
December 28, 2007

It’s frequent over the last few years that between early November and mid-January I enter a kind of soul-numbing melancholy. I’d managed to avoid it last year with the new job, and I was doing so well this year, not really thinking too much about it, but I think it’s sneaking up on me. I can kind of feel its approach.

Interestingly, I think that it’s nothing to do with the holidays, which maybe it used to be. And it doesn’t have anything to do with my birthday, which I will once again not be celebrating on the actual day. I guess it’s that I’m bothered by work stuff more these days, which is shocking considering what an influence it was last year to staying out of the funk. Now it’s most of the cause. If I think about it too much, I just want to crawl into a hole somewhere.

It’s a weird mix of feeling underutilized while also feeling ineffectual; overburdened while simultaneously not doing much. For things that I’m supposed to be expert at I frequently feel like that expertise is being eschewed. Things that I’ve volunteered to learn more about - things I don’t already know much about - to help out in areas that we’re weak seem to be things that I’m already expected to know, and when I don’t, I feel worthless and like I’m not doing my job well.

I’m missing opportunities to work on things that might have a finite scope because I have other work that is consuming me - things I know I’m not great at, don’t like to do, and have no end that I can see. It might be nice to start, finish, and be praised for something to have some simple success. My schedule seems to not allow this, I guess. Or I just suck too much to actually be given tasks like that.

I keep wondering if I’m telling myself that I am good at this, but really I’m mediocre. Or worse than mediocre. I’m questioning a year’s worth of thinking that I’ve ever been good at this. Again.

Something Neat About Online Dice
December 23, 2007

I just realized something interesting about rolling dice online. Forgive my geek side for showing for a moment.

I’ve been messing with modules for JibbyBot (a phenny bot for IRC), trying to pick up a little Python here and there, and something I thought to possibly implement is a dice-rolling module that would let you specify die-rolls in D&D format. I suppose a brief tutorial is in order.

Week in Preview
December 17, 2007

There is no Christmas shopping done. I think we’ve just about given up this year. My only enthusiasm for this holiday so far is for it to be over. Of the bazillion lights we bought last year to put outside, we’ve hung exactly zero.

I think we blew through our Christmas enthusiasm on the weekend after Thanksgiving when we went tree shopping, couldn’t find the usual place, and ended up with a decent but pre-cut tree. I wasn’t home when Berta and the kids decorated both trees this year. The one in the family room still isn’t done being decorated, I think. And thinking about it now, I wonder if I’m going to have the stamina for two trees worth of holiday.

Stinky Ladies
December 07, 2007

I took Nana and Riley out to lunch today, something I’m thinking of making a regular Thursday outing. Today we went to Cheeburger Cheeburger (note the surprising lack of “s”) in Frazer, and had some yummy burgers. Nana said she hasn’t had such a good burger in years, and I learned that she likes mayonnaise and fried onions on her burgers.

After we sat, a group of ladies came in and sat at the table behind me. I don’t know if it was just one of them, or the whole group, but the terribly overpowering odor of baby powder slammed into my nostrils. It was so powerful, I nearly gagged and I could occasionally (depending on wind shift) barely taste my food.