(no subject)
Mar. 31st, 2022 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI found this quote on Twitter just now...
Writing: sometimes the words flow like the sweetest of streams and other times they stay locked in your brain bashing it with broken glass covered fists of fury.
Yup.
Work is mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting at the moment. Co-workers have, however, been exceedingly nice to me this week. One even came by to check on me. So has management. I think they are afraid I might quit?
I definitely threatened to do so...repeatedly. Empty threats. For now.
The commute also is exhausting. I worry every time I catch the train about getting a seat, being safe, and getting to and from work on time. Plus there's an awful lot of stairs. Accessible, they aren't. I want ramps, not steps. Whomever thought steps was a good idea was an idiot. I may ask someone on the current project that I'm on - why they didn't go with ramps as opposed to stairs, escalators and elevators (I'm working on a project to make nine stations on long island accessible to folks with crutches, wheel chairs, disabilities...actually that's the project that's been taking up 90% of my time.) It's probably due to logistics, and icing conditions.
Hollywood is still whining about the slap on social media. Hollywood? It was just a slap, get over your entitled rich asses and move on. Sheesh.
My brother is annoyed with me for telling my mother that he stated she was very chatty.
Mother: Your brother disagrees, his chairs aren't that low to the ground.
Me: They are lower than my arm chair and yours.
Mother: Are they low like the leather recliner?
ME: Yes.
Mother: He doesn't agree.
ME: Look, you need to stop telling him everything I say - how do you expect us to get along if you keep doing this?
Mother repeats this statement to brother - about how she tells him everything I say and it's out of context. Instead of this being a bonding moment...
Brother: Like she doesn't do the same thing...
Mother: He thinks you tell me everything he says.
ME: I do not. (Frankly I don't remember everything he says, my memory isn't that good.)
Brother: You told her that I said she was very chatty.
Me: I thought it was funny. I didn't realize it was a secret.
Sigh. I was thinking of asking to visit him at Easter, but maybe not. I'm not sure I'd survive the experience. I think he's annoyed that I'm not down there taking care of mother - while he's spending time with his family. Trust me on this - I'd rather be down there than up here dealing with Crazy Workplace.
Mother also threatened me with her arthritis. Each month she reminds me that I too will suffer this fate. Just so I don't feel alone - my brother was also threatened with it.
**
At work - to break up the day a bit and while I was dozing off analyzing firm responsibility checks - I listened to one of Maurice Bernard's State of Mind youtube podcasts - this one featured an actor who became an alcoholic at the age of 9. He started by drinking the "extracts" in his mother's cupboard. (You know the Vanilla extract? He drank five bottles and got drunk off of them and loved it.) He's bi-polar, but it manifests mainly as the manic stage - and to cope with it, he drank. Apparently 80% of bi-polar sufferers are addicts - and mainly alcohol. His only drug of choice is alcohol. And it's the worst - it's poison. It has killed him several times. He has literally flat-lined three times due to alcohol poisoning. And at one point was even homeless for two weeks until a friend tracked him down and saved him. The latest? While he was going through alcohol withdrawl, which is horrible - he lost his balance and cracked his head on the bathtub - this resulted in his head filling up with blood, they had to drill four holes in his skull to drain the blood - saving his life. After wards, he couldn't walk, talk, eat, go to the bathroom, and had no memory of who he was. It luckily came back incrementally, so by the second day he was able to walk. But he had to retrain himself to do everything - and he was isolated. He'd lost all his friends, and his wife and family because of this.
He now sees his kids once a month. And they live far away.
The actor wasn't asking for sympathy at all through this. He blames himself for it. Now, he's been told that his brain can't handle alcohol - and if he drinks it again - he will die. It will destroy his brain.
This story moved me. It also provided insight into those who suffer from alcoholism and bi-polar disorder. The former boss at the evil library reference company (which no longer exists) was both bi-polar and an alcoholic. While this did not excuse his actions, it does in some respects explain them. I can actually feel sorry for him now. I no longer hate or resent him. I can feel empathy for him.
It's good to feel empathy for those who have hurt us - not for them, but for us. I think. I know it is for me - it releases that negative energy that felt like such a weight for so long. I had begun to let go of it way back in 2017, actually. Finally.
Don't hold grudges. They only hurt you. That's anger - it hurts the person feeling the anger, not the person they are angry at.
***
There's an awful lot of bingeable television series premiering on streaming now:
1. Bridgerton S2 - Netflix (scheduled for this weekend)
2. Moon Knight (on Disney +)
3. Julia - on HBO Max about the making of Julia Child's television cooking show.
Although it’s a story about her, it’s mostly interested in the creation of Child as a public figure, her transition from successful but invisible cookbook author into one of the most familiar faces on American TV. The story picks up with Child (played by Sarah Lancashire) and her husband Paul (David Hyde Pierce) as semi-retired former government employees now living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s an ideal framing: We meet the Childs as fully formed people, with Julia already coasting on the success of her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and with Paul settled into being a doting, sometimes too-underfoot husband. Within that framing, there are two inciting events that set the course for Julia’s interwoven approach to its subject’s public and personal lives. In one, Julia is invited onto a local public TV program called I’ve Been Reading, where instead of having a boring chat about writing a cookbook, she hauls out a hot plate and demonstrates how to make an omelet. In the other, a doctor informs Julia that she’s entering menopause.
4. Animals - that a coworker rec'd which is on Netflix
5. rest of The Gilded Age
6. Sandition
7. Killing Eve S4
And I may have forgotten a few. I keep meaning to watch Picard, finish Discovery, start 1883, and now we have The Offer (about the making of The Godfather) all on Paramount Plus. Plus, I've canceled my subscription to The National Theater Live Platform - but should at least finish watching various programs on it.
Ugh. A wealth of television shows, after a brief drought of nothing grabbing my interest (it was brief as in two weeks, let's face it this is the Golden Age of Television - we'll never run out of content).
People were demoaning the death of the novel again - somewhere. (It's the usual suspects - bored English Lit Professors, frustrated literary novelists, and bored book critics...one can't take them seriously any longer.) Barack Obama's response amused me - "we aren't in any danger of the novel dying, we're a story-telling species, it will always exist." He's right. It will.
[I know there's serious news stuff going on, I just don't want to talk about it or focus on it at the moment. It's not going anywhere, and me focusing on it - isn't going to change anything. I can safely ignore it.]
Writing: sometimes the words flow like the sweetest of streams and other times they stay locked in your brain bashing it with broken glass covered fists of fury.
Yup.
Work is mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting at the moment. Co-workers have, however, been exceedingly nice to me this week. One even came by to check on me. So has management. I think they are afraid I might quit?
I definitely threatened to do so...repeatedly. Empty threats. For now.
The commute also is exhausting. I worry every time I catch the train about getting a seat, being safe, and getting to and from work on time. Plus there's an awful lot of stairs. Accessible, they aren't. I want ramps, not steps. Whomever thought steps was a good idea was an idiot. I may ask someone on the current project that I'm on - why they didn't go with ramps as opposed to stairs, escalators and elevators (I'm working on a project to make nine stations on long island accessible to folks with crutches, wheel chairs, disabilities...actually that's the project that's been taking up 90% of my time.) It's probably due to logistics, and icing conditions.
Hollywood is still whining about the slap on social media. Hollywood? It was just a slap, get over your entitled rich asses and move on. Sheesh.
My brother is annoyed with me for telling my mother that he stated she was very chatty.
Mother: Your brother disagrees, his chairs aren't that low to the ground.
Me: They are lower than my arm chair and yours.
Mother: Are they low like the leather recliner?
ME: Yes.
Mother: He doesn't agree.
ME: Look, you need to stop telling him everything I say - how do you expect us to get along if you keep doing this?
Mother repeats this statement to brother - about how she tells him everything I say and it's out of context. Instead of this being a bonding moment...
Brother: Like she doesn't do the same thing...
Mother: He thinks you tell me everything he says.
ME: I do not. (Frankly I don't remember everything he says, my memory isn't that good.)
Brother: You told her that I said she was very chatty.
Me: I thought it was funny. I didn't realize it was a secret.
Sigh. I was thinking of asking to visit him at Easter, but maybe not. I'm not sure I'd survive the experience. I think he's annoyed that I'm not down there taking care of mother - while he's spending time with his family. Trust me on this - I'd rather be down there than up here dealing with Crazy Workplace.
Mother also threatened me with her arthritis. Each month she reminds me that I too will suffer this fate. Just so I don't feel alone - my brother was also threatened with it.
**
At work - to break up the day a bit and while I was dozing off analyzing firm responsibility checks - I listened to one of Maurice Bernard's State of Mind youtube podcasts - this one featured an actor who became an alcoholic at the age of 9. He started by drinking the "extracts" in his mother's cupboard. (You know the Vanilla extract? He drank five bottles and got drunk off of them and loved it.) He's bi-polar, but it manifests mainly as the manic stage - and to cope with it, he drank. Apparently 80% of bi-polar sufferers are addicts - and mainly alcohol. His only drug of choice is alcohol. And it's the worst - it's poison. It has killed him several times. He has literally flat-lined three times due to alcohol poisoning. And at one point was even homeless for two weeks until a friend tracked him down and saved him. The latest? While he was going through alcohol withdrawl, which is horrible - he lost his balance and cracked his head on the bathtub - this resulted in his head filling up with blood, they had to drill four holes in his skull to drain the blood - saving his life. After wards, he couldn't walk, talk, eat, go to the bathroom, and had no memory of who he was. It luckily came back incrementally, so by the second day he was able to walk. But he had to retrain himself to do everything - and he was isolated. He'd lost all his friends, and his wife and family because of this.
He now sees his kids once a month. And they live far away.
The actor wasn't asking for sympathy at all through this. He blames himself for it. Now, he's been told that his brain can't handle alcohol - and if he drinks it again - he will die. It will destroy his brain.
This story moved me. It also provided insight into those who suffer from alcoholism and bi-polar disorder. The former boss at the evil library reference company (which no longer exists) was both bi-polar and an alcoholic. While this did not excuse his actions, it does in some respects explain them. I can actually feel sorry for him now. I no longer hate or resent him. I can feel empathy for him.
It's good to feel empathy for those who have hurt us - not for them, but for us. I think. I know it is for me - it releases that negative energy that felt like such a weight for so long. I had begun to let go of it way back in 2017, actually. Finally.
Don't hold grudges. They only hurt you. That's anger - it hurts the person feeling the anger, not the person they are angry at.
***
There's an awful lot of bingeable television series premiering on streaming now:
1. Bridgerton S2 - Netflix (scheduled for this weekend)
2. Moon Knight (on Disney +)
3. Julia - on HBO Max about the making of Julia Child's television cooking show.
Although it’s a story about her, it’s mostly interested in the creation of Child as a public figure, her transition from successful but invisible cookbook author into one of the most familiar faces on American TV. The story picks up with Child (played by Sarah Lancashire) and her husband Paul (David Hyde Pierce) as semi-retired former government employees now living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s an ideal framing: We meet the Childs as fully formed people, with Julia already coasting on the success of her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and with Paul settled into being a doting, sometimes too-underfoot husband. Within that framing, there are two inciting events that set the course for Julia’s interwoven approach to its subject’s public and personal lives. In one, Julia is invited onto a local public TV program called I’ve Been Reading, where instead of having a boring chat about writing a cookbook, she hauls out a hot plate and demonstrates how to make an omelet. In the other, a doctor informs Julia that she’s entering menopause.
4. Animals - that a coworker rec'd which is on Netflix
5. rest of The Gilded Age
6. Sandition
7. Killing Eve S4
And I may have forgotten a few. I keep meaning to watch Picard, finish Discovery, start 1883, and now we have The Offer (about the making of The Godfather) all on Paramount Plus. Plus, I've canceled my subscription to The National Theater Live Platform - but should at least finish watching various programs on it.
Ugh. A wealth of television shows, after a brief drought of nothing grabbing my interest (it was brief as in two weeks, let's face it this is the Golden Age of Television - we'll never run out of content).
People were demoaning the death of the novel again - somewhere. (It's the usual suspects - bored English Lit Professors, frustrated literary novelists, and bored book critics...one can't take them seriously any longer.) Barack Obama's response amused me - "we aren't in any danger of the novel dying, we're a story-telling species, it will always exist." He's right. It will.
[I know there's serious news stuff going on, I just don't want to talk about it or focus on it at the moment. It's not going anywhere, and me focusing on it - isn't going to change anything. I can safely ignore it.]
no subject
Date: 2022-04-01 05:33 am (UTC)Hollywood? It was just a slap, get over your entitled rich asses and move on.
Exactly, it's not even the worst thing to happen at the Oscars, despite what they may try to claim.
There are so many things to watch and I'm bad with keeping with current stuff as it is. But it isn't a bad problem to have.
Totally agree with you on the serious stuff.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-01 10:12 pm (UTC)Agreed. Hollywood is over-reacting as is the media to the Will Smith thing. Honestly, most people would have wanted to or would have smacked Rock for doing that. He'd been doing it for years to Jada. The man is a bully and Hollywood and the media likes to enable bullies.
Also, they had a streaker once at the oscars, I also remember a guy with a gun trying to get on stage and they had to get rid of him. This is just the first time they didn't escort him out.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-01 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-04-01 10:09 pm (UTC)Mother keeps telling me that she's bored with Bridgerton S2...so not sure what that means.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-01 11:08 pm (UTC)