(no subject)

Family

( the trials and tribulations of Mother's Kidney Stones continues )

Apartment
Took the recycling to the basement, ended up sharing the elevator both ways with a neighbor, who I rarely see, big heavy set blond woman in her thirties who is married to a big heavy-set black man in his thirties. He's a lot friendlier than she is. Neither has ever worn a mask.

Then during dinner - I heard heavy knocking on the neighbor's door catty-corner to mine.

"Open up the door please. We want to see if you have two children here. There are supposed to be two children in this apartment."

I'm thinking WTF? Right? So I look out the peep hole. There are three big burly police officers in the hallway.

This goes on for about twenty minutes, they knock, the neighbor tells them to go away, they knock, the neighbor refuses to open the door, they knock and threaten...and then finally the neighbor responds.

Near as I could figure, his ex-wife or the mother of the kids, called the cops to check and see if they were actually there. They were supposed to go to school today, and hadn't shown up, the school called the mother, and the mother called the cops. Finally she got hold of the kids, but didn't follow up with the police. [ I did not open my door to check. I decided it was best to stay out of it - not my business.]

Crazy workplace

Workwise...I've made progress. ( Read more... )

I feel overwhelmed and silly for being overwhelmed. Like somehow I'm a wimp for feeling this way. It's an odd feeling. I feel like I'm screwing up, without meaning to. I'm not entirely sure who these imaginary people are that are judging me all the time - but I wish they'd stop.

And I just want to work on the many books in my head and in my computer, but also now headspace for it. I've been meditating again - and it's working for the most part - in dislodging negative thought loops and story loops. I don't know if anyone else does this? But I can create an entire narrative in my head, complete with dialogue. It's as if I've played out the conversation or various scenarios long before anything has happened.
Meditation has helped put a halt to that. Telling myself a story is another way to halt it - but it also makes it hard to focus on work or anything really but the story.

Books

Almost done with Spin the Dawn about the Tailor who goes on a journey to capture sunlight, moonlight, and the blood of the stars to make three of the Goddess Amana's dresses for the bride of the Emperor - in order to become the Imperial Tailor, and save her family. If she fails, the bride has condemned her and her family - mainly because the bride doesn't want to marry the Emperor and is a spiteful bitch. Anyhow, the Emperor's Enchanter (a Jinn) goes with her on her journey, and along the way they fall in love. But things go awry, and now he's made a deal with his former teacher, a demon, to take the teacher's place as the Guardian of the Isle of Ghosts for Eternity, in order to free the Tailor from the demon's clutches. It's at the 80% mark, I have a feeling this is ending on a cliff-hanger. Dammit. I don't want to buy the sequel.

I've discovered there are audio memoirs with music on audible. Sheryl Crow, Sting, Common, Smokey Robinson all have them - and they appear to be free.
Interesting.

I was talking to a co-worker about this last week - how I am having issues concentrating on things. Wales is in love with James Baldwin's Another Country, which Chidi was trying to get me to read in 2019. I just don't have the attention span. I can barely concentrate on reading for more than ten minutes at a stretch without my mind wandering. And nothing is really that compelling. It's not grabbing me.

Co-worker told me that a lot of people were having the same issues. He was as well. Difficulty concentrating or getting into a book.

Music Memage

Music Twitter (which along with Art and Cat Twitter) is among the least toxic and least obnoxious of the Twitter groups. Music, Cat and Art fans just like to show-off, they don't appear to want to do much besides that. They aren't nuts like soap, sports, sci-fi, comic book, or film fans. Well, I take that back, they are nuts - just in a different way.

Every once and awhile they do these..."which is your favorite" contests. Most of them are easy, the one's that aren't - are when I have absolutely no clue who the band is or who the singer is or that they even exist. The hard-core Music Fans level of obnoxious - is trying to come up with obscure bands that most people have never heard of. Which is actually kind of charming, if you think about it. I mean you come away from that with a new band to check out. [Or, most people have heard of, and I've even listened to, but I can't remember the name of the band or the singer, and forgot that I had listened to it. This is not a commentary on the band or singer - the fact that I can't remember them has less to do with how memorable or good they happen to be, and more to do with my insane memory, which appears to be horribly indexed, and kind of random.]

Anywho...I went to look and damn twitter is filled to the brim with Liberal Political Twitter, Cat Twitter, and Soap Twitter...with a bit of Book Twitter for good measure. (Spoilers from Soap Opera Digest and Biden spoke so Political Twitter and Soap Twitter took over. Which is the problem with social media - something goes viral, and you don't see anything else. It takes over the board.

My own...from memory:
( which one would you pick? )