elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
[personal profile] elainegrey

So where have i been? I think there are two things going on. One is i am changing my diet to try and meet some of the MIND[1] diet criteria: being more disciplined about leafy greens (which i like, wasn't quite at a serving every day), trying to get three servings of whole grains -- there were a few places i could easily switch, daily berries serving (twist my arm), regular eggs (instead of poultry). The legumes and fish were already part of what i was doing. And then i looked into how much protein i should be getting and there was a gap. So now sorting that. And meanwhile my already unreliable digestive system had some behaviors that seemed odd, and then addressing that made other things odd, so now i'm learning the difference between insoluble and soluble fiber.

Meanwhile, my indirect wish, that i would loose the weight i put on during the fatigue of the last couple of years, isn't quite being met -- but i have pushed back some of my cravings and binging. Maybe "do you want the yogurt, herring, lima beans, or peanuts" choices helps: i know what the snacks are instead of gravitating to something sweet. (Lima beans are kinda like edamame in my opinion, and can be snacks.)

This preoccupation is boring.

Then there's been some emotional stuff: the third anniversary of Mom's passing is aligning with my Dad's wish to downsize. He's got some urgency, and it's triggered me. I could recognize part was that i've been waiting for this but he's postponed so many times that the urgency is a little maddening. But that didn't seem to be all. I finally realized that her stuff -- her thrifty shopping of high quality things -- was a way we connected. I felt seen in the sense that she taught me certain skills and values (lasting quality vs trendy style). Other teaching (housekeeping) was fraught with her anger and conflict and my lack of skill. So i need to balance my wanting to honor her through respectfully handling her stuff, and my sense i don't have time to deal with the mountain of stuff.

Oh, and there was a stretch of nesting at home. We've gotten a 25 year old bedframe passed on to someone, and got rid of a mattress, moved the couch into the front office, and now need to get rid of the old rug and replace it with one i will like. (I hope.) I thought we would be receiving the new Amish-made recliners soon, but what we know now is that a shipper picks them up on the 11th, and then has a three week circuit during which it will arrive.  We are currently sitting on lawn chairs.

[1] https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-weight/diet-reviews/mind-diet/ -- it's about getting a certain amount of certain nutrients but isn't a "complete" diet. There are whole swaths of foods that it's neutral on. Also, every source seems to be slightly different which makes me want to scream.

Things

Jun. 5th, 2026 12:54 am
vass: Small turtle with green leaf in its mouth (Default)
[personal profile] vass
Books
Since last I posted one of these, of course I read Ann Leckie's Radiant Star. I loved it. Leckie's doing something different with narrative voice this time around, so mark that off your bingo card, and if you enjoy Victorian novels then this narrator might be particularly enjoyable for you. It goes very hard.

Having read that (and then a friend's annotations, which I then sent on with the ARC to the next person in the chain) I decided I wanted to take some space to recover with T Kingfisher's fourth paladin book, Paladin's Faith. Which, as it turns out, is also going much harder than I expected.

I am also making my way slowly through Nick Walker's Neuroqueer Heresies, and finding it unsatisfying. I'd be less critical of it as polemic (although still annoyed at the prescriptivism and the exhorting readers to police other people's language too if they don't use "neurodivergent" and "neurodiversity" according to Dr Walker's preferred definitions), but when she's stating outright in the book that she intends to use it as a textbook to teach in university, I want more rigour and citations.

Fandom
Enjoying a resurgence of Radch discussion on Discord.

More ephemeral fic in the Nine Worlds fandom. May was good for that.

Crafts
Finished the table.

Tech
Wayland and gnashing of teeth.
That said, I learned how to use xargs in Bash, which made Android backups easier for me.

Garden
Harvested what is, amazingly, not the last of the tomatoes. Semi-dried all the ripe tomatoes I had in the oven, and froze the results. Did a little weeding, and sowed pak choy and calendula seeds.

Cats
They don't like the cold weather, but Mighty Hunting continues.

ADHD and work

Jun. 4th, 2026 05:07 pm
claudeb: Just a lonely orange cat watching the moon from the windowsill on a starry night. (personal)
[personal profile] claudeb
It took me a long time to accept I probably have ADHD (autism was easier, go figure). For decades prior, I simply thought of myself as lazy and scatterbrained. And you know what? Had to cope somehow anyway. Learned to double- and triple-check that yes, the stove is off. Yes, the door is locked. Yes, the keys are in my pocket. Learned to fight my own brain when this pesky body simply wouldn't bend down to grab that piece of litter from the floor. Gave up my last shreds of mental comfort to do all of the above for two people, because guess what.

I don't know about others. Just saying.

Speaking of which: wish I could spend all day being creature with my online friends, pampered by sci-fi robots. And never mind that's likely not possible with any amount of high tech1. Doesn't it sound creepy?

All I ever accomplished in life was by gritting my teeth and scraping my hands. Call it a tragedy. Call me broken. I literally never saw anything get done in any other way. What am I supposed to do? Pat myself on the head? Life is just behind the corner in clown shoes and boxing gloves. Ha ha.

Corollary: if you can't or won't do the thing for any reason, someone else will have to, or it won't get done. Blame, guilt, judgement, cost: these are details. In other words: you deserve help and support, but someone has to provide it.

Automation is an euphemism for shifting work around while obscuring the trail.

1) No, really: there's growing consensus that tasks like housekeeping and caring for the elderly are too complex, varied and delicate to automate, unless your robot is no longer a robot, but a person. In other words... a personal assistant. One might ask why so many people have to toil for a billionaire instead of being available to help their less fortunate neighbors. The real sci-fi here is imagining a society organized to make that possible.

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