A Very Quiet Day
Jan. 5th, 2023 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI had a visit with M. We did not walk because it was wet. I did do 1 mile by myself.
I had to bring some folders into school for A. after she left them at home and was then chastised for not having them. I don’t think there was even anything in them. *shrug*
I did some future vacation planning — garden grocer order, looking at DVC points, stuff like that.
I finished reading _Sleep No More_, book 1 of the Lost Night Files by JAK. It was fun. It’s recognizably in the Jayneverse, but a really different angle on it. Burning Cove is mentioned, and there’s a career counselor named Gabriella Jones who very much sounds like one of the Jayneverse Jones. 3 women — I’m assuming 1 per book in a trilogy — had an extended transient global amnesia episode, a “lost night” and after, their already strong intuition is much more developed as a paranormal ability. Together, they investigate related phenomena as part of a podcast called the Lost Night Files. In this book, 1 is contacted by Ambrose Drake, who similarly lost a night and similarly developed a much stronger ability to perceive auras.
All of this is quite recognizable, and the behind-the-scenes to our hero and heroine (and friends) villain is a recognizable Jayneverse type as well. But by telling the story from the perspective of an almost normal in the middle of it, vs. someone born into the Jones family or descended from Sylvester or whatever, is a really different trip through this world. (Feels a bit like the sons of Anson Salinas trilogy in some ways.)
I made a deal with T., when we put together his wish list for the holidays, that I would buy the stuff on the list that no one else bought, wrap it, and he could open it in January, so we went over the list together and figured out what to get. Then he had lots of unrelated questions so we talked for a while.
Yesterday, he drove out to Palmer to visit a friend from CASE days, whose father recently passed away. He brought flowers and a condolences letter. I told him to call and make sure they knew he was coming. They had a nice visit. He took the van, because I’m still not letting him drive the i4, and it’s too far for the i3. We weren’t sure about the gas status in the van; T. decided on his own to stop at Charlton plaza on the way back to get McD’s for dinner and put gas in the van. Good for him! That’s meaningful maturity, right there.
A. had her reschedule portal playdate; she missed the original reschedule when our flight was canceled and then we missed the initial rebooking and got in too late and too tired.
I’ve also been uploading cell phone photos to Flickr and deleting them — the Florida trip, the Niagara falls trip, the trip to Holyoke to go to the Children’s museum.
We stripped sheets and washed them for three of the beds today, too.
ETA:
I also finished reading _The Blind Spot Effect_ by Kelly Boys. While there are all kinds of things I could complain about, on balance, it is a really excellent book, and the last third is far and away the best of it, so if you get about halfway through and are thinking, is it worth continuing, well, I would encourage you to do so.
This is one of those here’s an idea, here’s variations on a theme, here are some exercises to try it out books. The book as a whole is intended to help the reader accept themselves more completely, become more in-the-now, and generally have more compassion and empathy for themselves and for others. At both a high level, and at a detailed level of the exercises, I have zero significant issues with this book. In the middle, I could complain about some wording and presentation choices, but honestly, she is who she is, and she’s quite fine.
It’s a very strange experience reading this book, because at several points along the way, I had to stop, and think about it, and talk to R. about it, because it made me realize just how important things I had done earlier in life were to the course of my life leading to now. I mean, there are really obvious things that lately have forcibly made clear to me, goddess, I’m so glad I quit being a JW when I did and the only possible regret I could have would be that I didn’t quit sooner. But _this_ book reminded me of so many periods in my life where I felt incredibly aggravated and that I just didn’t understand something really important and I read books and I pestered friends to talk things through with me, and I made changes in relationships and blah blah blah.
Those periods of change were obviously worth it to me; this book bizarrely manages to generalize a lot of those experiences and distil them to fairly straightforward exercises. I applaud.
_At the same time_, I think she somewhat oversells just how great one will feel in the wake of these changes. I mean, _yes_ this is all wonderful. And also, life still definitely sucks at times, and she very clearly acknowledges that at points. But also I still feel like she oversells flow (but, you know, everyone always does).
I had to bring some folders into school for A. after she left them at home and was then chastised for not having them. I don’t think there was even anything in them. *shrug*
I did some future vacation planning — garden grocer order, looking at DVC points, stuff like that.
I finished reading _Sleep No More_, book 1 of the Lost Night Files by JAK. It was fun. It’s recognizably in the Jayneverse, but a really different angle on it. Burning Cove is mentioned, and there’s a career counselor named Gabriella Jones who very much sounds like one of the Jayneverse Jones. 3 women — I’m assuming 1 per book in a trilogy — had an extended transient global amnesia episode, a “lost night” and after, their already strong intuition is much more developed as a paranormal ability. Together, they investigate related phenomena as part of a podcast called the Lost Night Files. In this book, 1 is contacted by Ambrose Drake, who similarly lost a night and similarly developed a much stronger ability to perceive auras.
All of this is quite recognizable, and the behind-the-scenes to our hero and heroine (and friends) villain is a recognizable Jayneverse type as well. But by telling the story from the perspective of an almost normal in the middle of it, vs. someone born into the Jones family or descended from Sylvester or whatever, is a really different trip through this world. (Feels a bit like the sons of Anson Salinas trilogy in some ways.)
I made a deal with T., when we put together his wish list for the holidays, that I would buy the stuff on the list that no one else bought, wrap it, and he could open it in January, so we went over the list together and figured out what to get. Then he had lots of unrelated questions so we talked for a while.
Yesterday, he drove out to Palmer to visit a friend from CASE days, whose father recently passed away. He brought flowers and a condolences letter. I told him to call and make sure they knew he was coming. They had a nice visit. He took the van, because I’m still not letting him drive the i4, and it’s too far for the i3. We weren’t sure about the gas status in the van; T. decided on his own to stop at Charlton plaza on the way back to get McD’s for dinner and put gas in the van. Good for him! That’s meaningful maturity, right there.
A. had her reschedule portal playdate; she missed the original reschedule when our flight was canceled and then we missed the initial rebooking and got in too late and too tired.
I’ve also been uploading cell phone photos to Flickr and deleting them — the Florida trip, the Niagara falls trip, the trip to Holyoke to go to the Children’s museum.
We stripped sheets and washed them for three of the beds today, too.
ETA:
I also finished reading _The Blind Spot Effect_ by Kelly Boys. While there are all kinds of things I could complain about, on balance, it is a really excellent book, and the last third is far and away the best of it, so if you get about halfway through and are thinking, is it worth continuing, well, I would encourage you to do so.
This is one of those here’s an idea, here’s variations on a theme, here are some exercises to try it out books. The book as a whole is intended to help the reader accept themselves more completely, become more in-the-now, and generally have more compassion and empathy for themselves and for others. At both a high level, and at a detailed level of the exercises, I have zero significant issues with this book. In the middle, I could complain about some wording and presentation choices, but honestly, she is who she is, and she’s quite fine.
It’s a very strange experience reading this book, because at several points along the way, I had to stop, and think about it, and talk to R. about it, because it made me realize just how important things I had done earlier in life were to the course of my life leading to now. I mean, there are really obvious things that lately have forcibly made clear to me, goddess, I’m so glad I quit being a JW when I did and the only possible regret I could have would be that I didn’t quit sooner. But _this_ book reminded me of so many periods in my life where I felt incredibly aggravated and that I just didn’t understand something really important and I read books and I pestered friends to talk things through with me, and I made changes in relationships and blah blah blah.
Those periods of change were obviously worth it to me; this book bizarrely manages to generalize a lot of those experiences and distil them to fairly straightforward exercises. I applaud.
_At the same time_, I think she somewhat oversells just how great one will feel in the wake of these changes. I mean, _yes_ this is all wonderful. And also, life still definitely sucks at times, and she very clearly acknowledges that at points. But also I still feel like she oversells flow (but, you know, everyone always does).