Handy Polymath

The skinned knees and thousands of stitches are implied, but totally beside the point.

“Nothing is always absolutely so.” Theodore Sturgeon

Sturgeon is more often quoted as saying that 90% of everything is crud, but I find the above concept more useful when trying to cobble together the framework of a project. Nothing is always absolutely so. For a disenchanted ex-lover of stability, who’s decided that terrifying freedom is preferable to staid certainty, it’s good to have a reminder that making it up as you go along doesn’t mean recreating the cage you’ve left behind, be it a life or a plot line.

Writing comes down to words on a page: buttons, ink, peck and scrawl. The utter simplicity of the act serves to hang a hat on the maelstrom of emotion and ego a writer must swim through and wrestle with in order to tell a story through such a narrow channel. It’s the closest we have to telepathy, sharing our thoughts soundlessly across miles, millennia and languages. It requires having something interesting to say, being able to distill it into mental pictures that feel true (which has nothing to do with photorealism), and then presenting them to the reader like a well-edited film for their mind’s eye. The fact that you’re using tools that were put into your hands around age six is either a small mercy, or the cherry on top of a cruel joke.

Writing is hard! Whine, whine! This was easier when I didn’t have time to even think about writing, when the sheer time commitment of sitting down quietly for a hour, or pacing around talking to myself uninterrupted was painfully hilariously impossible.

Now, not so much. Cue existential terror. Or something.

I still get caught in the groove that I need to know how a story ends before I can begin it, even though this has never worked for me with any story, ever, whether it came out in the order of telling or not. Even stories where I had an idea of the destination beforehand have taken me somewhere else in the end. Maybe I’m just out of practice, rolling wobbly-ankled before the muscle memory kicks in and I get back to gliding on these wheels.

Things are gonna start happening to me now.

I’ve fed new batteries to my 16 year old TI-82 calculator and have headed back to school. Alas, the very nature of the Science Upgrade means that even an ancient graphing calculator would be cheating, so I’m spending another ten bucks for a basic scientific calculator that won’t do the algebra for me.

In the dark nadir of my Cube Farm days, I used to picture going back to school as a charmed and relaxing lifestyle. When you think going back to school requires having extra money, it adds accessories to the daydream. My kit would be as sparkling and new as my grand endeavor. Instead my kit is as quirky, unstable and re-purposed as the Dirty Dozen.

Like Lee Marvin with the condemned, I’ve taken bent spoons and made them into whip-smart shivs.

My laptop is relatively new, though that’s almost luck of the draw as I’d driven several computers into the ground. We just knew this was probably going to go to school, and so chose against another tower. It currently travels in a 13 year old computer bag.

I need a slipcover for the laptop, since I snagged a free sturdy canvas portfolio bag I’ll probably use for school, but I may end up making a neoprene envelope for it myself if I can find the raw materials cheap. This is the mobile HQ.

The thumbdrive is the advance force, with a Portable Apps platform and vast amounts of space. This 30G USB drive was a nice Amazon.com score, and makes Handy Polymath possible.

Next is the Soviet iPod: a 5 year old iRiver H320 .mp3 player running Rockbox firmware. This thing is only 20G, but with the open source firmware plays nearly everything (including video), has a new battery with three times the staying power, and records sound very well with a button mic. With a radio-adapter plugged into my car stereo (and permission of instructors), I have an alternate way to review lectures while driving.

Kevin Kelly thinks that in the future software will be so good that folks will be able to run artificial intelligences on the hardware we made in the 90′s. I think he’s totally right, so why wait?

Last is the PDA, which is 7 years old, but bless it, has Adobe Reader, WiFi and Google Mobile apps. And yes, MahJongg Solitaire, because all work and no play make anyone a dull boy. It’s even got a little spectrographic analysis app, because people made a few nifty things for Windows Mobile 5 back in the day. One day, I may see if it will upgrade to WM 6, but it’s in a happy place so I’m not pushing it this year. Along with the ability to review any online class docs from a pocket sized hand-held, this gives me even more access to the software component of the team.

Google owns you, but (so far) it means well.

I’ve uploaded my course schedules into a Google calendar, and anything with a due date is now a task. Online classes have their trade-offs, which is that you only have to be on time in your seat for tests and lab, but without someone droning every few days about deadlines, you must have your shit together solo.

Between weekly packets, practice problems, homework, quizzes, discussion boards and textbooks with company-based web components (not to mention navigating the online quirks of two different schools), I’ve been front-loading time this week just collating info.

*sketches diagram differentiating ass from elbow*

Bookmarks (both Firefox and good old binder clips), Google calendar and Google tasks will save me, I think. Being able to check it on the PDA, the thumbdrive, or the laptop means that anywhere I have ten minutes I can check in and complete something.

Aggregate Futzing. It’s a beautiful thing.

Last year was the Year of Stagnant Suffering (his and hers wicked job stress, weaning & potty-training for the child, his and hers broken bones, his and hers pneumonia).

This is the year Everything Changes.

The Laundry List (January to July)

* Grandmother moved to nursing home, due to swiftly progressing dementia. She no longer recognizes me as an adult.

* Two rounds of physical therapy to rehab a broken foot and resulting weaknesses and imbalances.
Helped brother and sister-in-law move house.

* Refurbished parent’s bedroom.

* Helped mom sort through grandmother’s paperwork and household.

* Purchased domain and began website.

* Began developing store in etsy.

* Had to put down my sixteen year old dying cat.

* Changed child’s daycare arrangement.

* Turned in leased car, moved to a beater car purchased from my folks.

* Went back to school, classes starting in 5 weeks.

* Fridge died, luckily the day before grocery shopping–lost condiments and cheeses, but not two weeks’ worth of food.

* Partner lot job, ditching wicked job stress (pro) as well as paycheck (con).

* Partner embraced drastic lifestyle change to lose extra weight and get healthier.

* Started exercising again myself.

* Finished the first chapter of novel I’m writing.

* Beater car stolen, down to one car for family (good morning!).

Right, then.

So my nagging desire to hole up with a big pot of tea and a blanky and watch Arrested Development all day is probably not the hallmark of dire slackerhood I’d assumed. Perhaps a mental health day is warranted.

As a person who lives more in the left side of my brain than the right, sometimes I have to do a little social/emotional VSE (Visual Surveillance of Extremities).

“There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.” Winston Churchill

Losing my cat hurt. Seeing my grandmother fight and fade into confusion, watching my mother lose her mother, hurts like a sonofabitch. We’re taking care of those we love in the ways we can, as the generation wedged between the old folks and the kinder.

We’re both in better health today than we were six months ago. That’s huge. That makes everything doable instead of a crushing anxious weight.

Losing infrastructure sucks. That’s a big bite in the ass to deal with. But we’ve got a track record of bouncing up from the bottom, of adversity often being the first step to trading up. I’m holding us to it, because the alternative is to give up and hell, that’s not happening.

“Things are gonna start happening to me now.” Navin R. Johnson, The Jerk

There’s a weird excitement in all this upheaval. Things are cooking and coming into fruition. There’s been a lot of hard work, but also some real improvements.

When inertia breaks more things become possible, like a new round of musical chairs. Just a little concerned about exactly what will remain standing when the music stops.

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!

I’m a twisted person in many ways.

Each of us is bent and dented, with scars and knots in the trunk. We grow and heal in the manner of catch as catch can, and that shows in our bodies and minds. Aside from the black humour and odd thinking patterns embedded in my cerebral pudding, I’m also a bit physically twisted in the main mast.

I’ve never had to be braced, but I’ve landed in physical therapy for it and it’s a habit and tendency I’ll have to counter as long as I inhabit this body. If my ribcage were the lid and my pelvis the jar, I’m overtightened and mis-threaded. Throw in rounded shoulders and a weighty D cup rack, and the resulting imbalances pressed my lumbar-sacral disc like Giles Corey.


Like a lumbar disc at the base of a badly managed spine, Mr. Corey bears the weight of his community’s sins.

I’ve remodeled my shoulders in the last few years, digging them out of my ears and rotating them back toward where they belong. I’ve also straightened myself with respect to forward and backward curves (the sagittal plane, for those of you playing the A&P version of the game). The three cues which helped the most with this phase:


Recent events have illuminated similar problem habits in the directions of side-to-side and rotation (coronal and axial planes, respectively). Specifically, I busted a bone in my foot in autumn, and unleashed holy hell on poor Lumbar Giles.

Lessons learned:


So after a few months in a walking cast, a few cortisone injections, and a course of physical therapy to eliminate the limp, I figured I was finally back in the saddle. Except for that nagging lower back thing. Which spread around the right side and knotted up my glutes. And throbbed at night. So what if I could only relax and sleep if I jammed a tennis ball under my right cheek like an overstuffed wallet?

Again with that third lesson: I am not qualified to judge my own disability or pain. Being threatened with therapy yet again when I was still working the home exercises for the latest round, much less paying the bills for it, I took a serious look at the situation. I had four weeks until my physical to make an improvement.

Next time on Handy Polymath, Grouse, MD Part 2/2:

"It's the pelvic thrust that really drives her insane; revenge of the rectus abdominus catawampus"

The lag time between posts is due to some internal ambiguity about the nature of this journal. Beginnings set the stage for the evolution to come, and so I want to be clear on my intent for this space as it builds.

After the beginning, chaos ensues. If you’re ready, chaos encourages growth in directions you’d never expected. If you’re not ready, well, let’s simply say that chaos is painful and distracting even under the best of circumstances.

I’ve kept a lid on future content until I could be sure of what filters I’m running it through; what’s fit to print. The flotsam, whining and random shiny thoughts are shunted to Twitter @handypolymath. And so I’ve been keeping this journal so pure as to not even post at all.

I will start now: this is a work log, a lab report, and a status check. Today’s update is on Physical Fitness.

Physical Fitness

I’ve been working the weights slowly, but even at a snail’s pace I’ve increased my strength 25%. An impressive percentage, never mind that it’s going from 30 to 40 pounds.

I made the mistake of trying to shift my diet at the same time, toward more protein and less refined carbohydrate. I will not be attempting that again until I’ve adjusted to the exercise. I’m not a dieter, have very few food issues for an American woman in middle age, and I respect when the Worm inside of me rebels. Millions of tears of evolution cannot be fought, only persuaded, and the gut is a powerful entity of hormones, nerve cells and sheer intestinal fortitude. Screw the Id; the gut, the Worm is the deepest animal foundation of human existence because it’s success long-term is the basis of everything else. In fetal circulation, the liver gets dibs before any other organ–and the liver is the brain of the Worm.

The Worm liked the extra protein. It did not like the dearth of carbs. It restored the balance with obsession and cravings, small scale but persistent. This season of spring, emotional stress and growing muscle is not the time to mess with the Worm, but to give it what it needs. Which is a couple Samoas, some eggs, spinach and steak, and to be left alone.

I’ve had more success lately with tweaking my hip, which is another story. Next time on Handy Polymath:

“Grouse MD; How breaking a foot can cause debilitating menstrual cramps.”

Here is what drives me: I have one life in which to experience the world, express my ideas, and enjoy the company of those I love.

This is my aim: to do work I love, am good at and find interesting; in a respectful enjoyable atmosphere; with enough pay to afford good resources and experiences for those I care about.

Everything running through my head, every notion, task, obligation or goal is either FOR that purpose, or AGAINST that purpose. The surface difficulty comes in the sifting and sorting, arranging my life and the web of ties I am bound by so that this purpose is more served than thwarted, both in the moment and in the trajectory of where I am headed. The deeper difficulty is simply enjoying the place where I am right now.

To attack the surface difficulty, I’ve spent the last year sorting through impulses, anxieties, wishes, daydreams and plans. I’ve put together systems to capture and catalog all the flitting desires that, left to their own whims, have paralyzed me into inaction, starting a thousand projects and completing none.

To attack the deeper difficulty, I have begun to acknowledge and wrestle with the deep pit of fear that keeps my engine racing in neutral.

I’ve determined that this fear is not to be out-waited but out-witted. It’s part of my wiring to see the countdown clock, picture the worst case scenario and hear the snide commentary of a Greek chorus of Failure. So fucking what? Dwelling on these things has net me nothing, so let’s try a new tack.

Any frank appraisal of what I want or how to get it must be merciless and short, in comparison to the diligent hard work spent getting out there to achieve it. Because doing is where the fun of this world is found, not in the thousand over-baked plans of a life never lived.

Daydreaming is merely the first spark, it should launch and not consume. It’s easy but fruitless to stay mired elsewhere in your mind while life is happening around you. While the Rainbow Connection is made of the lovers, the dreamers and me, I’ve got a commando mission strategy of Get In, Get Goal, Get Plan, Get Out.

I’m saving the mental capital for making myself stick to the basics I’ve outlined, instead of constantly futzing with the details.

The right conditions are created by action, the right moment seized by a body already in motion and trained to see and catch each break that comes.

I want to write, create, make people better, and enjoy and take care of my loves. Yes, I have lofty versions of these activities that I am moving toward, but more importantly I pursue the humble versions at hand every day.

The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

I went back to the weights yesterday.

I always do go back. I began over a decade ago when bad knee mechanics had sidelined me from not only the gerbil wheel known as cardio, but from walking more than a block at a time. I began with a few dumbells and some chest flys, and gradually a new world opened up where exercise wasn’t a long hot boring slog. It was energizing, focusing, gratifying. There really is nothing like moving a great deal of weight under your own power.

This time I’m working with the Strong Lifts 5×5 program, which comes with a spreadsheet and an ebook, but best of all is free. Mainly I just need an outline to easily follow, I don’t have the spare mental cycles or time to devise my own, follow a book or check a website.

I need to concentrate on form, on diligence, and just moving weight three times a week until both my body and my habits are stronger. Then I can play around with my options. Right now, options are only distractions and reasons not to get to the work.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t tweaked the spreadsheet a little. But only after I’d spent quality time with the barbell.

So yes, I wander away. I get distracted by other demands, I get lazy, I get sidelined with a virus or an injury. But I always come back, and I pay the late fees, and I court the weights once more.

The price paid: falling prostrate on the stinky old carpet, panting after 5 push-ups. Not even full push-ups, which are currently beyond me, but push-ups from the knees. The benefit earned is that I’m already walking straighter, my body reacquainting itself with proper alignment by negotiating squats under a seven foot, thirty pound bar.

In plumbing the depth of my weakness, I begin the journey to strength. That’s the theory.