Handy Polymath

Some days you're in Close Encounters; other days you're in Jaws.

Wish You Were Here

This place started as a gardening journal of sorts, as I approached my life the way an urban farmer looks at an abandoned lot. Then two things happened; I got into a mental snarl regarding the depth of my pseudonymity which torpedoed many half-written posts, and life exploded in a manner thoroughly encompassing the good, bad and ugly.

I filled out a life stress scale for shits and giggles, and anything over 300 indicates a major crisis with great risk for subsequent health effects. I scored 734, and would have gone higher if you could check items multiple times. I racked up 581 of those points in the last two months.

Though I must say, I hope the current scale has been updated not to speak solely to married het men–there’s no way in hell pregnancy is less stressful than a personal injury or illness. A comfy pregnancy is far better than chronic pain or a debilitating condition, but in my experience an average pregnancy is more to handle than, say, the average bone break.

A New Machine (Part 1)

Three months ago:

worked full time in cubeville
lived in the burbs with my spouse, kid and ancient cat
no school schedule
spouse in unstable job

Today:

dad’s had surgery for a minor bout of cancer
grandma passed on and I spoke at her memorial
started 9 credit hours of physiology and chemistry
quit job in cubeville and worked full two weeks notice
spouse took job four states away
culled, sorted and packed a small house full of stuff
kid started preschool
had a going-away party
moved a U-haul full of appliances to parent’s house
set up camp for kid and I in parent’s stuffed unfinished attic
said goodbye to spouse and cat for 70 days
spent my 13th wedding anniversary on a leaky air mattress with a four-year-old lodged in my armpit

A New Machine (Part 2)

Meanwhile I’ve been trying to salvage this term after spending half of it checked out academically, focusing instead on dismantling my life and cobbling together a series of temporary solutions. For the first time in my various careers as a student, I went to a prof’s office hours and threw myself on her mercy. I felt like a jackass, but I did it, and it seemed to have helped–I know where I stand and what I need to do, instead of flailing in a pit of loathing and self-recrimination.

I got the feeling very few students who come to her like this also sobbingly proclaim, “but I really like chemistry!” It’s this disconnect between interest and achievement that makes struggling harder, even though I know I’m only struggling because I’m making up all that study time I didn’t have earlier in the term. And my life exploded. Objectively I should give myself major credit for actually asking for help–this is a huge uncomfortable step for me even if I need to repeat these classes later. Old habits don’t simply die hard, they die messily with ruptured buboes.

Outside the Wall

This weekend features chemistry, laundry, a trip to the Ohio woodlands to scatter ashes, and–with the accompanying hotel stay–the chance to sleep on a real mattress.

In a little over a month I’ve got a 12 hour road trip to my spouse, my ancient cat, my new home and this new life we’re making out on the east coast.

Tweet This Post

Employees are required to power down brain before clocking in.

What’s becoming readily apparent is that running in high gear is not nearly as difficult as constantly shifting from high to low. In fact, the time spent running in low gear is the principle cause of frustration. It’s exhausting to spend eight hours a weekday in a role that not only doesn’t fit, but like a glass slipper made for someone else, requires one to sever a few toes to wear.

Thing is, I could easily complete my work duties in half the time if I could simply then move on to my homework until the phone rings again. Or leave and hit a coffee shop to crank out a few chapters of math before heading home at the usual hour. If I were actually held accountable for results and given the authority to produce them. But in my current role the appearance of work is far more important than results, because honestly there are very few metrics in the cube farm to begin with, and I’m not even close to a level that would require them. There’s little else to judge performance on than whether I look cheerfully busy until 5pm.

What if Bruce Wayne really worked in the secretarial pool of Wayne (no relation) Enterprises?

School has been a tremendous boon in this respect, because I now have marks to hit, a reason to work hard, material that engages my brain, and goals to meet that I give more than a passing damn about. Intrinsic motivation, baby, it’s what makes the world spin. The downside is that I can no longer deny the hours and weeks of wasted time waiting for each shift to end, saving each mindless task until its very deadline because once it’s complete I’ll have absolutely nothing to do.

Work expands to fit the time given to complete it. Currently I’m shoving 8.5 hours of college work into the niches and cracks of a 40 hour workweek that has, at most, 5-10 full hours of busywork in it. Without being able to do any schoolwork during business hours (save for a half hour lunch). The constant adjustment of time dilation is surreal.

I do not get paid nearly enough to waste time that could be spent getting closer to where I want to be. This has always been true, I admit. But now that I’ve cleared through the mental baggage and know that this goal is real, this is the path I need to take, and success needs only my hard work to make happen, the absurd reality of where I’m stuck is painful. It’s like volunteering for a lobotomy each morning and trying to shake it off on the drive home. It’s like working in a crawlspace all day and then trying to run. I’ve got to figure out better methods of self-care.

Endure, Grasshopper. Then snatch the pebble and run like hell.

I’ve got at least a year of this, probably two. A different job might help but between the economy and the fact that I’m not technically qualified for any job of sufficient complexity to engage me, have no interest in most of the types of work I am qualified for, and only in the last handful of years have I even thought myself capable of year-round sustained effort in any field–honestly even if I didn’t have this vocation burning a hole in my chest I’d be a great candidate for total career re-boot.

In other words, figure out some good self-care so I don’t burn out, check out or flake out. This is the new normal and the reason it hurts is that the anesthesia is wearing off and the stretching and exercise must begin. Work it, let it hone your purpose, and don’t let the cognitive dissonance define who you are or what you do.

“When Alexis Arguello gave Boom Boom a beating
Seven weeks later he was back in the ring
Some have the speed and the right combinations
If you can’t take the punches, it don’t mean a thing”
–Warren Zevon, “Boom Boom Mancini”

There’s a short list of traits I can point to that have served me extremely well. Some of them are native to my personality, like stubborn perseverance and a logical bent. Others are the result of conscious study, like not taking failure as a final answer. Fragile new skills like applying the power of aggregate futzing, are far from instinctual traits, and therefore they take a moment to kick in. Considering the work and aggravation involved in changing a habit, a trait, or an ingrained response, only a conscious appreciation of what’s at stake will keep a person on track.

It’s easier to scramble back onto the wagon when you know that your rest in the mud will soon be interrupted by the next wagon bearing down on you. Going fetal with your arms around your head is not an option. What do you do then? Roll onto your feet and try another tack.

So it’s been a while since the last update but I’ve been busy. Unlike your average apologetic blogger I won’t wax hysteric about how crazy it’s been and how I’ve had no time to write. I won’t ever waste your time with that, or with filler posts when I’m low on content.

I’m back to catch you up on the results since my last post.

Learning to Fight Hamster-style

I’ve gone from swimming 100 meters with clicking shoulders and feeling like I’m dying, to swimming a full kilometer without clicks and feeling spent but good afterward. My new driver’s license documents the vast improvement I’ve achieved in my shoulders in the last three years, which no longer slope up and forward to my chin, but spread out lateral and level and even with each other. I’ve started shedding some of the padding I’d acquired since breaking my foot last November. And for the first time since I sprouted this stupendous rack at age thirteen, my midback is no longer the bane of my posture.

Trudging up the Mountains to the Temple

I’ve applied as a post-bachelor to Wayne State, much earlier than I had planned in the Science Upgrade It turns out I may qualify for loan aid, and if I can eliminate the headache of transfer equivalencies then hell yeah. This doesn’t change the fall semester of math and chem at two other community colleges, paid for and starting in two weeks–but those are cheap, mainly online, and simply ramp me up to college level anyway. Partner is also considering school of some stripe, a mental retooling for the new economy we’re all expecting to come off backorder one day.

Right now we’re like Roadrunner, walking across air because we’re too focused to look down.

It Takes Years to Become Batman, yo

In other news, we got the beater car back. It now starts with a bottle opener (partner’s key) and the Leatherman large screwdriver tool (my key). Grandmother is having more lucid intervals, which totally rocks. Mom is dyspeptic and will likely have her gallbladder yanked soon, but our muddling through is infamous and so we keep on truckin’.

So there’s the update. Currently on the docket:

* finishing my review of beginning algebra, before intermediate algebra begins
* getting the second chapter chemistry under my belt before class begins
* revising the Science Upgrade plan: no longer a personal document, but a vital part of my financial aid application
* sharing birthday cake with the kiddo, who is three today

I hope to finish her present by this weekend, which is technically late. But after 43 weeks of pregnancy and 48 hours of labor, I think taking a few extra days to make something for her is simply par for the course.

Storyboarding as Project Management

I’m untrained in the bureaucratic voodoo of Project Management, the business practice of herding cats through red tape. But I know these are the folks who have a spooky handle on both petty details and grand workflows. I’ve got goals up the ying-yang and am in danger of losing my balance of yin and yang as a consequence. I don’t have to corral a staff, but I need a handle on petty details and grand workflows. In lieu of traditional Project Management, I’ve been using PM tools to craft a narrative.

Except There Is No Second Draft–Ha!

The Happy Ending (keeping in mind that beginnings and endings are always arbitrary points in time, only meaningful because of what they bookend), the Happy Ending of this narrative is a parting shot of me, in the fall of 2010, with everything in hand for a great application to my favored PT program. However, like a novel, I cannot keep all of this straight in my head for any length of time. Frankly, at any given point in time the vast majority of it is fore- and backlog I can (should! must!) forget while completing the task at hand.

Yet too much focus and deadlines can (and will!) go whizzing by without even leaving a manly bullet graze on my temple to make me look heroic.

You know those dreams where you have to take a test and you forgot you even had the class? In my version, I have to go back to elementary school in order to get credit for my high school diploma, in order to get credit for my bachelors. I’m wedged in a tiny desk with fifth-graders trying to do ten chapters of social science homework before the bell rings. I’m getting a flop sweat just typing this.

This creates the need for a solution: How can I move through this period of time and this mountain of work so that I have prompt delivery of the necessary ingredients–and tasks–to begin tackling each piece as I need to?

Another Tool for the Utility Belt

In the past, this would be a job for Office Supplies! and her trusty ambidextrous sidekick Hours N. Hours. Alas, they’ve been downsized and replaced with a virtual assistant in the form of “what free software can I load on a USB and stick in my pocket?”. Not a good superhero name. Which is why I named the USB “Bat Cave”. That way I get to be the superhero. That is, if Bruce Wayne is a wage slave in the white collar ghetto, married to a devious combination of Alfred Pennyworth and Lucius Fox.

Back to the Bat Cave. For someone who grew up with a Smith Corona and graph paper, open source software is almost like having a keycard to the sublevel labs of Wayne Enterprises.

I’m using a copy of Open Project, a free open-source project management program that’s been friendly so far–after I figured out how to set up the calendar to calculate constant time, instead of 8 hour days, 40 hour weeks, and 20 day months. If nothing else, I like the ability to link tasks sequentially and see them marching across the screen in a Gantt chart like a choreography of relay racers.

Deadlines are Useless if You Don’t Know When to Go Live

I will never be able to properly estimate time, which leads to the following given: I will never be punctual. The choices are to be either tardy or wildly early–wildly early being the result of accounting for every possibility that could make me late, and having only one or two of them happen. This plan for a happy application ending is an exercise in choosing wildly early, and so it’s not focused on a single deadline for anything. Instead, each item or deliverable has an organic ripening described in a series of dates:

when’s the earliest I can start this?
when’s the latest I can start this?
when should I have the bulk of this done?
when’s the earliest this can be done?
when’s the latest I can finish this?
when is this actually due?

At any given point I can clearly see what I need to get done, what I can work on if I have extra time and mental capacity, and what I can put out of mind until the time comes. I also have dynamic timelines that give scope, can motivate me if I’m lethargic–or can be ignored if I’m anxious without shooting myself in the foot.

Even if it doesn’t output a pretty graph, it’s helped me organize my thinking ‘on paper’ so I can indulge my natural ability to focus without risking a Rip Van Winkle incident of, “Holy crap, I forgot to take physics!”

Among other communications, such as coining the word “cosmopolitan”, masturbating in the marketplace, and telling Alexander the Great to step off, philosopher and civilization critic Diogenes is quoted with the following:

“Solvitur ambulando.”

“It is Solved by Walking”

Which is another way of saying the road is paved with experiments. Plan and theorize all you want, but you only find out how the world really works when you get off your ass and interact with it. In the same vein, no plan will never encompass all of the minutia and set-backs that inevitably pop up and derail you. They must be wrestled in real time at the height of their inconvenience, the sharper your focus and the more flexible your approach, the better.

This can easily become a sentence to hard labor at whack-a-mole, flailing at every distraction, constantly refocusing, and constantly being torn away from the prize. There is no plan that will save you from the unrelenting erosion of real life upon your dreams, no binder can protect you no matter how stuffed with details.

So when beginning the journey of a thousands steps, the first thing is to shuffle your dupa off the couch and pick a destination. Then get to walking.

Ditch plans. Think strategies. Think tactically.

Be Dogged in Pursuit of the PT Plan

Diogenes was a Cynic, which comes from the Greek word for ‘dog’ and was a likely descriptor for a guy bent on simple living and brutal honesty. Civilization corrupts our nature, and returning to basics increases both morality and happiness. Dogs scratch where they itch, and they know who their pack is (and isn’t). Dogs have a short list of things they care about.

Where are you headed? Work back from that to find the marks you need to hit when. Enable quick re-aiming by picking one target at a time.

Task: break down the time line for the Science Upgrade and the application tidbits. Know the drop-dead dates, build in a cushion for all hell breaking loose, make it simple to consult, and retire the binder of madness.

What is vital? How do you recognize a distraction vs. a priority? Priorities are only as strong as they are few. Pare down to a bare minimum the number of claims to your attention. Be ruthless. Get used to a different lifestyle.

Priorities alongside the PT Plan: Be engaged with your family, and provide for them. Pay it forward when possible.

Everything else is a distraction.

Luctor et Emergo: I struggle, but I’ll survive

The solution is elegant, a simple frame that offers a very different perspective. There are drawbacks to be dealt with. Adjusting to lower standards in non-priority areas. Losing the option of camouflaging a lack of progress in high-priority areas with busyness. Getting used to the diligent practice of re-aiming to the target, instead of scurrying back to the drawing board.

This is the year when Everything Changes.

In the words of the spouse, “We’ll muddle through. Famous muddlers.”

“Robot! Commence Science Upgrade!”

Last week I began the Science Upgrade, enrolling in Chemistry and First Aid & Lifesaving for the fall term. More classes to follow as cash flow determines.

I think I’m still in shock that I’m actually doing this. Or perhaps I’ve dithered so long that I’m simply relieved to finally get moving.

This is my hammer. There are many like it. This one is mine.

If it’s true that insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result, then it follows that when you decide to ditch insanity you’re also deciding to try something else instead.

Presumably something difficult and/or daunting, or you’d have been doing it already. Especially when the rewards are not immediately forthcoming (and they won’t be, or you’d have been doing it already), this feels like borrowing trouble.

In truth, it’s more like exchanging a rock for a crappy hammer; you still need to swing it, and you’ll get splinters in your palm, but it sure beats driving nails with your knuckles.

The situation cannot stand, so let’s stop pretending it can and get this going, shall we? It’s going to suck. I’m losing time with my family over the next few years, in hopes of gaining far more flexibility and time with them in the long term. I’m greatly increasing my workload right now, with the aim of changing the very nature of my contribution. I’ve set a time bomb on the cube job, and it’s going off in 18 months.

In a very real sense the mortgage is a bet placed on our earning power, and grad school will double that bet.

Grad school will also bring me into my vocation. And I’ve waited for that far too long, it’s time to make it happen.

This is going to change everything.

Previously, I’d described the recent change in my cognitive style, going from the punctuated drama of Fits of Conan to the more sedate but powerful Aggregate Futzing. The latest application is to the career path.

Where I am (the cube farm) and where I want to be (physical therapy) is separated by a deep chasm of time and money. I have been unable to solve this problem for years now, no matter how hard I try to will myself across the gap.

So, um. What if I built a bridge? Seems kind of obvious, right?

In other words, take a year of night school and train in massage therapy. Begin with a skill that is related, offers flexible hours, decent pay and gives me the opportunity to start developing people and clinical skills before I even enter a PT program. There’s also the advantage of developing entrepreneurial smarts and a clientele now, and having the business grow with me.

And so this is the next experiment: stop trying to will myself across the gap and start building a bridge. Yes, this means walking away from the precipice to gather lumber. That’s not necessarily going backwards.

Another Good Idea Bites the Big One

I’ve become unconvinced about the interim step of becoming certified in massage therapy. It’s intriguing, but I doubt it’s the best method for leveraging myself into the place I want to be.

Needed: Escape Hatch That Doesn’t Lead to Space

I figure I have a year (two tops) of being able to handle the cube farm without collapsing under burnout. Every day is a struggle to keep engaged with the menial business of being an underling with no career path and no real added value. There’s no question I will wig out if I stay, if the only parole I can look forward to is a lateral shift to a different paperwork stream.

In this year or two I could jam several classes. Massage certification totals 35 hours. The prerequisite classes I need to enter a program for physical therapy (the Science Upgrade of math, chemistry and physics) total 40 hours. The proposed pathway for using massage therapy as a launch vehicle for physical therapy would still require the Science Upgrade. As they do not overlap at all, this becomes 75 hours.

This would be worth it if massage therapy was sparkly and exciting, but the more I read the paler the colors get. It’s doesn’t go deep enough into the biology, and it only rarely addresses the root causes of pain and dysfunction. It’s great icing, but I want the cake.

Upon Catastrophic Failure, Disassemble for Spare Parts

As a failed plan it still has great merit. The feeling of momentum the idea gave me has jumped tracks, making great progress on the Science Upgrade instead. I’d registered with the school that has the best massage program–but they also offer a slew of Science Upgrade courses in off-hours and have a bazillion short and online terms each year, aimed at the non-traditional student.

The Science Upgrade: How I Learned to Stop Fearing Math and Became a Polyamorous Student

I used to have math anxiety, in part due to bad math teaching (endemic in the US) and binary thinking (if I’m really good at verbal skills, it makes sense to be bad at math–never mind that I also rock at spatial relations and scientific reasoning). I had an epiphany during a required Statistics class where I realized math was simply logic in the language of numbers (why did no one tell me this before?!), and have never been the same since.

Alas, the knowledge was too new and tender to influence the course of my BA. When I started back-filling algebra into my brain it wasn’t just the lack of anxiety that surprised me, but the moments of sheer joy. Understanding many of the concepts felt like finally putting into words something I’d been puzzling over forever. My brain was thirsty for the language and tools of math.

And so I embark on the Science Upgrade at two different schools, not only a non-traditional student but also a polyamorous one, negotiating transfer credits like emotional baggage between four different institutions (Ye Olde University where I got the BA, two community colleges, and the eventual grad school).

Wheee!

Do Not Bend, Fold, Spindle or Give a Damn

I found my diploma last night. Stowed in a drawer, still in the “Do Not Bend” mailer it came in. Ten years and a few months old. I knew the sheepskin was somewhere in the house, but I would have sworn this mailer housed an x-ray film.

And I think to myself, “How did I ever think vanity was one of my motives for going to grad school? Seriously?”

Depending on how far afield ones looks in my family tree, I’m either the first or third person to complete a bachelor degree. I have an aunt on one side and an uncle on the other. My dad has an AA and my mom half a BS. My brother and his wife have gone on to their own bachelors in the interim, in the same manner that I did: working part and full time while plugging away at university, married non-traditional students too stubborn to quit.

In short, I earned the hell out of that piece of parchment, and then kept it in the mailer for a decade. Because the journey and the accomplishment are part of me, and the sheepskin is a souvenir to store somewhere cool and dry.

Garnish Is Meant To Be Superficial

So perhaps the little zing of glee I get when I think about adding letters after my name on a business card, or wearing a velvet hood to pick up something I can frame on a wall (a decade later, probably) is nothing remotely big enough to be mistaken for the actual motivation spurring me onward: this is what I find satisfying, this is what I’ve found interesting for years now, this is big enough and wonderful enough to be my playground and my workshop and my contribution.

Physical therapy, rehabilitation, working with folks as a mechanic of the body (and somewhat of the mind) is the best combination of my interests and gifts that I’ve yet found.

My brain has run through a long string of passing fancies and chronic passions. The two things that I have never burned out on are writing and biology. Everything else is an expression of curiosity, or a drive to add another creative skill. At the very bottom, reverberating through all the layers above are these basic truths: I am a writer, and I am fascinated by the miraculous mechanics of people. Everything else is an interesting overflow.

Got My Mind Right, Boss

When I finished the bachelor degree, I had recently decided not to continue on to clinical psychology. This felt like admitting failure at the time, but in retrospect was the point when I started listening to myself and acting accordingly. I had no idea where I was going, only that I wanted to find something I didn’t have to force myself to do. In time, I figured out what that could be. Then I slowly began to believe I could hike over to that playground one day.

That’s when I let myself finally see and confront the doubts I had about myself, my motivations, my reasons for choosing this path. My motivations are not always pure; neither are they as terrible as I’d assumed. Some of them are pure confabulation, randomly-chosen forms to camouflage the real issue at hand: fear. Fear of all sorts of things. Lately I’ve been working up strongman muscles in the dual fields of “scared shitless and doing it anyway”, and “not worthy/ready/prepared but fuck it — failing is learning, right?”.

Plan B, For When You’re From Outer Space

A vocation is not a calling to be a good person, or training for your better angels. A vocation is an opportunity to channel a lot of your true self into something worthwhile, both strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes the demon on your shoulder is a problem child bored out of her fucking gourd. Sometimes, maybe most of the time, your weakness is a strength suffering by being in the wrong context, clashing and sticking like any gear would out of place.

A great deal of my problem these days comes from the context of where I am. I have two methods to deal with this.

Ignore the clash between my context and myself, and anesthetize against the dissonance. Ultimately, the hurty parts will die and drop off. At least that’s the theory. Hasn’t worked yet, and it’s been a decade spent taking a few classes to spice up the daydreams of escape.

Plan B is more painful each day, but is more promising. It means cultivating the dissonance. It means jamming what I want to do into each day’s worth of what I have to do. It means being Bruce Wayne and Batman and Alfred Pennyworth and treating this enterprise like a start-up where I work like a dog but get somewhere because I’ll change tactics, I’ll use a whole utility belt full of skills, I’ll even ask for help, but I won’t give up.

I put myself through school once, with stubborn will, resourcefulness and the support of my best friend. I can do it again. Especially when the alternative is the self-lobotomy of the cube.

Increased readability thanks to a simple yet fundamentally brilliant tweak.

Paragraph spaces, how I’ve missed you!

*revels in the white space*

Free your ass and your mind will follow

My first series of posts, namely about working with the continuing faulty body mechanics taking over my whole frame after breaking my foot last fall, has been aborted. The daily pulsing pain in my ass (right cheek), the vicious trigger points in my lower abs flaring like tiki torches when Aunt Flo came over for a BBQ, the whole gamut of twinges, aches and restricted motion has driven me into the arms of the profession I’ve been admiring from afar.

I feel like a PT groupie.

I’m also getting it kind of rough, though the hurt is productive despite the fingertip bruises on my butt. To paraphrase Trent Reznor:

My god
shoves my sacrum back
to the midplane.

The next step of course is to snag a volunteer opportunity and become a PT roadie. Then one glorious day – I dare to dream – cabin boy!

A good plan followed now beats a perfect plan followed later

Calling in the professionals is yet another lesson for me in the fine art of “take action already.”

1. identify the problem
2. choose a solution
3. get working
4. then tweak it as feedback is generated.

As a person who likes puzzles, plans, systems and tools, moving from phases 1-2 to 3-4 is something I need to practice. For example, in the past few weeks I’ve put together a watercolor kit and painted half a picture; compiled the notes for 2 novels and written about 500 words; set up an RSS reader for my PDA and dug up the portable keyboard; produced monthly color graphs of my priority tasks through 2009 and added them to my hipster PDA; fixed a bent USB drive and added BlogDesk to it; found a WordPress theme I like better (coming soonish); and updated my flagging Hivemind task list.

Yes, I have a USB portable workspace, a PDA and a hipster PDA. Though my hipster is 3×4, made from 4×6 cards cut in half. It’s smaller for my hands, and the lines go the right way to use it in portrait orientation. Tool geek.

Things I need to do, to focus on results instead of tools: finish the watercolor; write a whole chapter of either novel; update this journal 3x per week; finally list something in the Etsy shop I created four months ago.

Yes, it’s pretty–now work it

The last incarnation of my priority list was overstuffed and messy. Everything competed with each other, generated tasks like kudzu, and I floundered. In contrast, this lens is simple and clean. I turn my hand to one of two areas, based on where I am in physical space at that moment.

Workhorses have blinders. I've got a pretty graph.

In my Cube I focus on the job, and any overflow of resources goes into writing. Outside with the kidlet I focus on the garden or my rehab exercises. Inside the house I work on the Etsy store set-up or inventory. In Downtime I read or play.

The lens doesn’t show parenting or house-holding, so in actuality most of my time In and Out is already spoken for in ways both mundane and profound. And Downtime is flexible by design, since habitual effort punctuated by rest is a pattern I’m trying to learn. But so far the lens has helped parcel out an otherwise daunting task list by helping me focus on what’s At Hand, instead of being paralyzed by the enormity of Shit I Need To Do.