Polyphasic Sleep and Better Thinking

Well, either I bit my lip or something in the night (possible), or I have a real honest-to-Pete cold sore coming on.  ::stifles panic::  Now, I know that cold sores are normal — they're expressions of Herpes Simplex 1, which something like 80% of the population carries and is one of the viruses associated with the common cold — but I've only ever had one mild one in my life, and even then it scared the pants off me.  Not sure why, but those things give me the creeeeeeps.

I do have a cure for them, which I used last time and worked fantastically well (gods I love herbalism)…but do I have any slippery elm bark on me?  Um, no, I do not.  So I read about six web-pages full of possible cures, most of which sounded horrendous, and settled on "likely to work and available":  A dose of ibuprofen (swelling), a packet of Emergen-C (immune system boost) and a slice of fresh garlic, which I rubbed on the proto-sore and then ate, to clear my mouth of nasty virus-stuff.  (Garlic, for you uninitiated, is a phenomenal anti-viral, -fungal and -bacterial.  Be careful putting it on your skin though — prolonged exposure will give you chemical burns!  Garlic is such a strong medicine that if you rub some on your foot, you'll taste it shortly thereafter — I've used it to remove warts and skin-tags, all by itself! — so treat it with respect.)

It would make some sense for me to get a cold-sore now…I've been traveling, been around new people and sharing food and stuff with them, and due to being with family for the holidays, not eating or sleeping terribly well either (always a bad idea in the middle of winter!).  Sometimes I lean on my awesome immune system too much; a performance vehicle needs careful care!  I wouldn't be surprised if, due to the stress of the last few weeks, I got a sniffly cold-cold for the first time in almost 2 years (though I would be angry at myself, lol), and I shouldn't be surprised if I get this.  But hoooooooly cow do I hope I can stave it off!  ::shudders::

Hope everybody out there is healthy!!  More useful posting soon; after a long period of just being slammed with daily life (moving right before the holidays was such a great idea) I'm finally thinking and writing more again.  *WHEW*

Peace (even while at war with viruses!  ;)

*thank you to the University of Maryland Medical Center for their clear summaries of herbal remedies!  Nice to have that to link to.

UPDATE:  Everybody who looked at it (including Nurse Mom) said it was a cold sore, and if they're right then I stumbled on an awesome way to kick a cold sore's butt!  All I did besides the aforementioned single dose of vitamins and ibuprofen was to continue to apply and eat fresh garlic.  Whenever it became sore or bothered me, I'd cut the end off a clove of garlic (nice and portable; I took it on the train) and rub it right on there.  When I felt it sting I took the garlic off, and the stinging went away after a minute — and after that, it would stop bothering me.  It stayed the way it was for a day, then faded in a day; today it's pretty much gone and I haven't needed the garlic at all.  Also on the first day I ate a clove of garlic, and the next day I chewed up a few of the end-pieces I was cutting off.  But that seems to have done it — woo!

…Of course you do.  But just in case you don't, or haven't been motivated enough to do anything about it, here's a lovely little metaphor to hammer it home.

(You know why corporations have more freedoms than you do?  Because they're fighting for theirs.)

No naps yesterday due to work craziness — my last day in the office for a couple weeks, plus a major datacenter operation.  Then the operation itself last night, which got me woken up about three times, though thankfully just for questions and such and not emergencies or failures.  

Today I have to pack for a long trip in ways that are both inclusive of lots of Xmas presents, and that can be fit on a train.

This afternoon I have one last chance for swimming/hockey training and I won't get anymore until mid-January, so I'm taking it hell or high, um, water.

Tonight I have one last non-family-intruding date with my dearest.  Taking that too.

Tomorrow at 8am I have to be across town for one last taiji class before I miss 2 weeks!  Not missing that either, thank you.  ;)

And then tomorrow at noon I have to catch a loooooong train.  It will be dull, and I don't have a sleeper car (not much sense since I can almost never sleep on moving vehicles anyway), so I'm hoping I'll spend it writing!

(Err…did anybody see anywhere in there that I can catch a nap??)

((Kidding, kidding!  I'll get one eventually.))

(((THIS is why I hate holidays though. >,< )))

Be aware, this is a whole post that I could have just filled with quotes from wiser men, but my own lobes needed the exercise, so you get mine.  It's been a gobsmacker of a series of lessons lately, and I just wanted to get the bones of them written down, now that I can somewhat think straight again.  ;)

1.     Lesson one, the big one:  Don't confuse fun with happiness.  One feels good all on it’s own and that’s all; the other is a deeper condition of health and positivity that makes everything feel better.

2.     Lesson two:  Do pursue happiness, and don’t be surprised when you can often find it in different places than fun.  For example, working out for an hour every day might not be fun, but being in great shape will bring you happiness.

3.     Lesson three:  Pursue fun too, but only when you can afford it.  Fun that you can’t afford – in money, time, or damage to other things – is never fun for long enough to be worth it.

4.     Lesson four:  Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.  (OK, so I am stealing some quotes for this.)  Watch out for your natural tendency to value good-feeling fun over not-so-good-feeling acts (and restraints) that bring you happiness.  To do so is equivalent to valuing a pound of coal over an ounce of diamond.  Also, don’t automatically recoil from pain:  It serves a purpose that nothing else can serve, and its presence is a reliable hint that there’s a lesson nearby which can bring you closer to happiness – but you must have the courage to look right at it and see it for what it is. 

5.     (Because there are always five ;)   Fuck guilt; we are all flawed and our lives are supposed to be affected by those flaws.  Don’t hate yourself; instead, know yourself and do your best to steer accordingly.  Apologize to others when you screw up, and fix it if you can, but don’t apologize to anyone for being a person who screws up – they’re one too, guaranteed.

Alright, time to continue reeling into the holidays – hope it’s going well for all of you so far!   And for a little holiday cheer:

I love that look you get when I've really crossed a line.  I love how your eyes go wide and how your breath catches for a moment.  Sometimes you muster, and give me a wry smile or shake your head; but sometimes I manage to stop you completely, make you mutter into your beer-glass and blush.  

I confess, I kind of live for those moments.  They're why I sometimes drop the c-word in casual conversation, and why I almost never let a potential filthy joke go by without at least a meaningful pause.  I take every opportunity to meet and hold your eyes while I say something outrageous, because I freaking love to see that reaction.  And I do it whether or not I think you like it, too.  There have been times that I was sure you would just walk away and never speak to me again if I "went there", but all that does is make me watch you extra carefully when I do — because if this will be the final rise I get from you, I want to make sure I enjoy it.

Is this a rather mercenary use of one's fellow man?  Perhaps.  And it's not that I don't value you, personally; but there are a lot of people in this world, making a lot of demands and being, by and large, a whole lot of boring.  If there's no burning practical necessity otherwise, I'll risk the continuance of our relationship in order to remember you as spectacular, as living, as full of flash and spark.  (And if you look at the people I *do* have long relationships with, you'll see that uniformly, they don't mind being constantly poked this way — and they probably do it to me, too.)  I believe in the value of "short and beautiful" over 'long and dull" any day.

Anyway, I wanted to take today to say thank you, if I've made you think WTF? and you've stuck it out, even a little.  I'm not actually, functionally, half as crazy as my love for blushes and stammering may make it seem — I just love to shock a little, to keep things uncertain and exciting, and I'm not very sympathetic to "but that's uncomfortable" as a reason not to.  Most things are uncomfortable.  The look on your face while you try to figure it out — am I hitting on you?  Did I just seriously challenge you to a fistfight?  Why am I buying you dinner? — is so, so worth it.  

Sorry!  ;)

I've been very, very lucky:  This Thanksgiving, I've been able to spend time with both my parents and my brother, my husband, and my daughter too.  Every single year I look back and see some point where one of us nearly died — and I look back and see the people who have died, too.  When that happens, I feel the whole Universe stretch out above and below me, like I'm tethered to a mountain-top in a high wind, with space-pteradactyls whirling around and knocking people off left and right; yet somehow I'm still here, still able to breathlessly watch the whole thing while holding hands with my dearest. 

We will all fall — it's just a matter of time — but until we do, we got to be on this rollercoaster together.  Billions and billions of lives, most of them never so much as flickering within sight of each other, but there are a few (not perfect, not even enjoyable a lot of the time, but lives, and love) that I got to hold tight to.  No matter how hard this year was or is, or what things happened to me or to others, I look at that and I'm just gobsmacked by how lucky I am.

So yeah.  The gush of stunned gratitude that arises when faced with the awe-ful forces in the world and their power, and the blinding luck at the losses that skipped you again this year, is, I think, the essence of the holiday for me.  And I'm happy with that; it feels very…human.  Honest.  And honest things, even when they're not pretty, comfort me.

Here's my takeaway from all that:  Even the most stripped-down gratitude feels marvelous, if it focuses on what you have.  And as we know, all great truths have as their opposite other great truths, which is borne out by the fact that even the most extravagant circumstances will feel bitter and cold, if you focus on what you don't have.

Gratitude, thankfulness, is being AWARE of what you HAVE.  (There's that "awareness making the difference between good and bad feelings" thing again!)  Even if you had nothing but your breath, if you focused on that, you would be happy to have it.  (Heh, an elegant little lesson from underwater hockey maybe? ;) 

But it's shockingly easy to wind up wallowing in what you don't have:  Emo is cool, commercials preach dissatisfaction 24/7, and let's face it, it's a lot easier to excuse all your worst behaviors if you just focus on how wrong you been done, by gods or men. 

Many, many forces exist to encourage you to focus on what you don't have, and it takes strength and presence of mind to decide not to think that way.  Is it valid?  Sure — I can formulate my life in negatives too, and trust me, they'd bring you down pretty handily.  But the positives are just as valid (or more so — I think I can pretty easily argue that that which exists has more pull than that which doesn't!) — and staying focused on them keeps you feeling (not just talking) grateful.

I love the feeling of gratitude.  I hope that over this coming year I remember to be grateful even more often.  The feeling of gratitude — the feeling that's a direct result of focusing on the things you have, rather than the things you don't — leads directly to calm peacefulness, humility, compassion, and joy at being alive, no matter what the circumstances are.  I BELIEVE THAT'S WHAT'S KNOWN AS A TOTAL FREAKING WIN.

May you remember too, and may we help each other remember when it's hard.  Life is full of good and bad, positive and negative, but which way you orient your thinking most of the time has way more effect on your happiness than the actual content of your reality, which can always be interpreted in different ways. 

Good and Bad is in your head, to put it succinctly.  Keep Thankfulness close and your head will be an awesome, awesome place.

Peace!

…poop.  And sometimes it's not poop; sometimes we lay a golden egg and then just sit there being baffled for a moment before the necessity of cleaning up and going to check on the guests again intrudes.

Ah, life.

So I'm horribly, desperately, probably-will-not-recover-ably behind on NanoWriMo; I'm mad that I didn't get my 30 in this year but in nearly-retrospect, I suppose it was sort of inevitable, especially once one of "my" datacenters decided to start flummoxing about.  I was already moving apartments, traveling twice, and leading a team to speak at a conference this month, after all; and that's a lot even before you start pulling night-shifts and weekends on a regular basis.  (I refuse to actually complain about the nights and weekends…I have a ridiculously awesome team of geniuses working alongside me now, and mostly I just send emails and keep the hounds off so they can fix things.  This time last year it was me and one other tech, and those were some brutal night-shifts!)

But for all that I've only got, let's see, eight-and-a-half stories to show for this month, some of them are, once again, not half bad.  I'm posting this one (the eighth, of course) because it isn't very good as a story, but I still enjoyed writing it and reading it and figured somebody else might too.  It's like what I imagine would happen if I took up writing Hallmark cards!  ;)

There’s a spot on this road where the path diverges eight ways.
If you see it, and you know that eight is the number of possible paths, you may be able to choose the correct one.  But if you do not realize that you’ve reached the eightfold split, then there is very little hope you’ll go the right way.  But maybe I can help.  Here is how you’ll know you’ve reached the eightfold path:
One optional path will always lead left, but there will not always be a right option.
One will certainly be rocky and slant upwards.  Consider this one carefully.
One path will appear to lead straight ahead, but if you look closely you’ll notice that it isn’t really a continuation of the path you were on after all.  This is a deceptive path that will seem appealing because it looks like no choice at all, but in fact it is a significant divergence.
One may slope downwards, and if it does, you will often see a pleasant resting-place with water in this direction.  Beware this path; it never leads where it looks to.
Two, sometimes three paths will lead backwards.  Take one of these if you must, but keep in mind that none of them actually head back to where you came from.
The crossroads is often occupied by an older person who wants you to stop and talk.  They may have wisdom, or only doubt; but before you decide to talk to them or not, consider that doing so is a path in itself:  None of your other options will remain exactly as they were when you’ve finished.
And lastly, if you find yourself faced with seven paths similar to the ones above, confirm that you are in fact at an eightfold crossroad by looking up.  The final path, or the key to which path to take, is often hiding right in the open, just over your head.

…for all you fellow "grammar nazis"   ;)

Apologies for the lack of updates; I've been kind of holed up in my mind lately, even while I run my physical arse off in the outside world.  Big difficult questions like "how to be true to your annoyingly unique self without fucking everything up?" abound, and none of it is even remotely ripe for writing or even too much pondering yet; I'm still just trying to get through a tough time as relatively unscathed as I can.  Have gotten some fairly crushing bad news and fairly dizzying good news right on top of each other, and the world is suddenly full of way more people who like me and people who are angry with me than I'm pretty sure I've ever experienced before.  Whatever happens, I know for a fact that I'll be older — and wiser, though in the forwards or backwards sense yet I don't know — on the other side of it.  In the meantime, it's all about the duration of your breath-hold, and not just in hockey.  ;)

Back with you on the other side — may your year-end activities be lovely,

PD

[Many thanks to Albert Einstein for the title.]

Found this neato (and huge!) infographic about naps, and it's interesting enough that even I learned something!  Check it out if you'd like.

I know you can't hang much on search terms, but it still weirds me out that the second most used search term to find this site is…."women what the fuck happened".

Then again, on another level that makes me a fierce sort of happy.  And I like the fierce happys.  You get those from hockey too!

And speaking of underwater hockey, I'm now doing that twice a week in addition to weekly taiji (and its attendant should-be-and-nearly-is-daily practice).  This has caused me to back off of P90 a bit, but not to abandon it — the cardio workout, specifically, is really useful for hockey and I can feel it helping, so I'm keeping that at least 3x a week, even if I miss the other one.  Oh, and on Mondays, when I have both taiji and hockey?  Er, no P90 that day, thanks.

I could try to describe what has kept me away from the Internets almost entirely for half a week, but I seriously don't think you all want to know.  Think phrases like "production downtime" and "24-hour shifts" and you'll start to get the idea.  My job is awesome, but the piper she does come collect sometimes!

So my favorite short story that I have ever written got its rejection letter a few days ago — right after I worked a 24-hour shift actually.  I mean to say this with the same half-bruised nonchalance that your rather wild friend may say to you one morning, "So last night a cop kicked me in the ribs."  There's nothing you can say back other than a sympathetic "Ow", and that's ok.  I'm angry that the story is a) too specific to really publish anywhere else (it was for a particular anthology) and b) being held onto by said anthology in case they want to use it for a future one, so I'm not even sure I ought to publish it myself, i.e. here.  Annoying, world.  We can do better than that.

Speaking of "better" and "writing", it's also NanoWriMo finally!  I love Nano — the 30-flash-fics version of NaNoWriMo — because last year I could feel it making my writing better, and this year, even though I'm behind by 3 stories already (see: 24-hour shifts), I'm already impressed with what's coming out.  Flash-fic is so useful that way, for making you write beginnings and endings, focus on revealing and concealing, and burn the dialog into the tabletops because it has to stand out in a sub-1K work.  ::shivers with awesomeness::

Anyway, I am sorry that updates have been shit this week…sleep kind of flew off the rails (again, see: 24-hour shifts — though I should add that my ability to snag a nap, and to wake up after 3 hours pretty reliably, came in amazingly handy too), and I'm only really just blinking my way back to coherency (and even so, wondering why it's Monday and not Saturday…I spent the whole weekend working!).  I'll come up with something useful to say soon, promise.  In the meantime, everybody have a great day/week/etc.!

P.S.  Oh, because I always forget to mention stuff like this:  I got interviewed!  Um, like, three times last week, if you count the one that was for underwater hockey too.  (I'm a newbie, but they wanted to interview me…why?  Because of my "bright, interesting" tattoo.  And probably the fact that i was the only girl there.  Ah, well; fame she is fickle. ;)  …The two that were for polyphasic sleep were encouraging, though; the quality of information seems to be going up, if one can take interview questions as an indicator.

OK, off to try and catch up on those stories!  Then nap, taiji, work, nap, hockey and a sleep that will probably feel blissfully like being in a coma.  ;)