#uncoffeed...

Skyfish - fancy goldfish I took the day off work so I could score tickets to a museum for my book club.  I succeeded. This may sound silly (and if you've met me you're unsurprised) but I assure you it was very serious.  Glenstone allots free tickets monthly, two months in advance, at 10 AM precisely on the first of the month.  By 10:03 they're gone. We do something like this at my day job.  There's a set opening date and time for convention exhibitors to book blocks of 5-50 hotel rooms.  Madness ensues as people all over the world vie to get into the preferred  hotels.  We usually have juice and bagels on opening days; we discuss strategies for moving phone conversations along because every second counts.  So when I tried on April 1 to get Glenstone tickets, and failed, I knew what had to be done. At home and unencumbered by other duties, I set my alarm for 9:55 and loaded the website. Hit snooze when the alarm went off, refreshed the ...

I've been living where I am for 2 years on February 1.  The timing was very intentional:  Joshua Bell was playing the Kennedy Center on February 11th.  I was still married until February 27th and I didn't want to go see my favorite violinist with a guy who was on his way out the door. I didn't want to have to come home and put on my game-face after such a wonderful evening. So I moved. The first year was like a jon boat at sea; sometimes the waters were calm, but in all cases the sides of the boat are unnervingly low and it's difficult to find faith in that flat bottom. I mean, even the Titanic sank, right?  After the one year mark I felt more confident, like getting out of the boat and hiking up into the trees. The idea has been, I think, to enter the jungle alone.  Sometimes I feel like I'm back in the boat, sailing for the New World with no shore on the horizon. For as long as I've lived in Tiny Cottage, the oven hasn't functioned properly.  I ne...

Today is a good day. In the middle of a discussion about how a clear mind and a high-functioning network reinforce each other, evidence was delivered on exactly how that works. Message well-received. I have been so much more productive in the last six months than I have in the past six years. Thirteen years.  Not every minute of the last six months has been productive, but enough has happened that I am learning to stop measuring in minutes and I can now measure days. I have a decent overview and can foresee measuring in months very soon. One path to a clear mind is a clear work-space. Clutter is representative of many things:  you are too busy, you are too receptive, you are hiding from something. Building a fort. I'm no hoarder, but I do tend toward hanging on to things that may prove useful later, in the belief that I won't have to waste resources going out to buy a whatever once I figure out what I need. I think my Scots-Irish Ewing genes have handed down this prag...