In the building where I work, there are a set of elevator banks that take me to my floor. In each of the four elevators (on my side of the main lobby), every single loving one of them has at least two or more visible screws missing.
It’s been a busy few weeks for us. And, sad to say, I’ve neglected the backyard something awful. I feel like I’m approaching 3+ weeks without mowing. And while it’s not quite the jungle nightmare it used to be, things were definitely overgrown.
Liz and I had a series of errands today, and last night I was trying to “plan” how things would go. In our conversation, she mentioned a phrase to me that stuck with me – referring to adventures, not tasks.
The older I get, the more I believe that the world rises up to meet the expectations you set for it. Imagine anger and selfishness, that’s what you’ll see; imagine kindness and good intentions, that’s also what you’ll see. You get what you expect, so why not expect the positive?
Honestly, in addition to the process itself… the administration of this drug was also fairly unsettling to me. I heard stories of people emerging from this having said or blurted out all manner of crazy things.
Part of me wondered: what would I say? Horrible things about what I thought of others? Would I blurt out statements that would reveal me for the horrible person I am, deep down? Would something happen where I would lose all of my memories, and not just the ones during the procedure.
The day before my procedure, I was working from home. I dropped Liz off at the train station, picked up a coffee… and what I walked by the bathroom upstairs, I spotted this little gift that Liz had left for me.
My wife, ladies and gentelmen. God bless her.
“A simple way to get started training this ability is to frequently expose yourself to boredom. If you instead always whip out your phone and bathe yourself in novel stimuli at the slightest hint of boredom, your brain will build a Pavlovian connection between boredom and stimuli, which means that when it comes time to think deeply about something (a boring task, at least in the sense that it lacks moment-to-moment novelty), your brain won’t tolerate it.”
More than any other step so far, this decision seems to really alter and shape the tone of the Twitter posts I allow into my program. Rather than simply allow all legal two-letter words according to Scrabble, I’m finding by excluding some words… it results in more readable, self-contained sentences. They’re less informal.
Spotted this yesterday, as we were outside in the backyard. Guessing there was some promotional thing going on (I hate that my mind goes there first), due to the crowds downtown at Lollapalooza. But it still caused me to follow the instructions.
A quiet moment in the porch. While we were playing our game, Anne and Kirt were both out here just hanging out – reading a little, and working a bit on a puzzle. Later on, Liz and Isabelle both joined.
When I snapped this photo, the sun was pouring in, things were quite in the house, and NPR was playing in the background. It really was a lovely, late morning moment.
Fast forward a bit, and we’re all hanging out in the yard. Liz has changed and is back on land. And Anne and I decide to play a few rounds of string golf.
I didn’t end up taking a lot of photos this weekend. I was planning, originally, to start that sentence with “sadly” but I’m wondering now if this was a bad thing. I ended up enjoying the moment more, and wasn’t as focused on trying to document the moment.
We were able to make it on the road by 4PM, with our luggage stored in the back and a fresh cup of coffee for me up front. Though this was a vacation, the days prior to today have been very busy for us. I’d say that maybe an hour or two into the drive, I started to relax a little bit. And felt the grip of the previous week loosen, slightly.
Spotted this guy on my car, early in the morning circa 7:00 AM. I pulled in late last night, and over what seems like a small number of hours… this small guy created this large bit of work. Which I then promptly destroyed, as I drove off to get my morning coffee. The way of the world, I suppose. But…
We’re planning a trip out of town this weekend. And while that will be a nice, relaxing time (we’re taking time off Friday and leaving the city on Thursday afternoon), the days so far this week leading up to our deapture have been… full.
Apparently, the zucchini had been hit by some bugs, and weren’t really growing all that much. So she had been mostly ignoring them. But apparently not all the zucchini were impacted, as this guy just kept on gathering strength.