I have never loved The Simpsons more

📶 4/5, 6:30 am

I continue to make the mistake of going to bed 6-6.5 hours before I need to get up, never remembering that the stupid cat(s) will probably wake me up before my alarm. Milo thinks it's his God-given right to be in a bedroom by 5:45 and he starts becoming a major pain (Major Pain! Salute!) if he is denied. It's pretty irritating.

You know what else is irritating? When someone sits next to me when there are other empty seats on the train. Then I have to balance this bag on my lap while I type.

A third thing that's annoying is how dreadful the text-prediction is when you're swipe-typing on a Kindle. Maybe I should just do a full post where I don't correct the errors.

Composed Tuesday, April 4, 6:30 am on some device or in some location where I didn't have a signal.

📶 4/4, 6:30 am

I have mixed feelings about "sensory issues" - a catch-all term our family uses when a texture, noise or light source causes us problems of some sorts. I realized this morning that when Rachel tries to avoid touching dirty dishes in the sink without wearing gloves that I am resistant. But when when I have to flee the house because someone is coughing and it's making me furious (it manifests as undetected fury, bubbling up until something happens - usually I can put on headphones or earplugs, or if possible, flee the area entirely), yeah, when noise is impacting me to that degree, it's a lot more real to me.  Memo to self to apologize to Rachel, she's not simply trying to shirk helping with the dishes. 

Our train is being held - they're checking some open door in the tunnel that shouldn't be open. And we're in motion again. Nice and quick. 

But, yeah, sensory issues - plenty of people would declare them things you just need to get over.  Bright sunlight hurts your eyes? Wear a hat. Or sunglasses. It's not that bad. For me, there are times where if I'm driving and I've forgotten sunglasses, I have to pull over and stop and take a break. It is that bad. For Ben, he has trouble with wearing hats of glasses, so it can be even worse. (Though we try to put his hat on him when we can, hopefully he can grow to tolerate the hat as a way to combat the brightness.)

So, anyway, why am I thinking about this? Our family is suffering with colds right now. The coughing makes me so angry - the particular sound just affects me. I'm not angry at the person who's coughing, but I just get to angry. I have nowhere to direct the anger and it makes it difficult for me to show how bad I actually feel for the cougher. But if I weren't aware of sensory issues, would I be angry with the person coughing? Would my desire to flee the situation be worse, or negatively impact my contributions or desires to remain with my family? I think it would. So I'm grateful to have had a chance to learn about sensory issues - not only does it give me a new kind of empathy for what my children are experiencing (and appreciate that it is real) but it also impresses on me that there is a need to consider my verbal and nonverbal responses. I suspect that without an understanding of sensory issues my responses would be far different and probably detrimental to my family or my part in it. 

And thinking about that makes me sad all over again about my parents who we don't really have any contact with. The final straw may have been politics but out decision to move here (away from them) wasn't held up in any way by feeling a need to remain geographically close to them since they had stopped making any active efforts to be close to us or to connect with their grandchildren, declaring our children's issues to be parenting issues - if it's not a broken leg, it's not real. If it's not bleeding then it's a behavior issue.

I've rambled enough. Good news is I know why I react the way I do and why I must carefully consider my responses when an outside stimulus causes me harm or reactionary emotions that are best not shared.  

Composed Tuesday, April 4, 6:30 am on some device or in some location where I didn't have a signal. If there's typos, I blame the Kindle Fire. Worst autocorrect ever.

📶 3/24, 5:15 pm

Reading a book at work about influence. One of the first things it talks about is identifying behaviors. That you can usually influence change by simply getting people to change one or two behaviors. So if I want to lose weight, I need to identify one or two key behaviors vital to success. Essentially that's easy - stop eating unhealthy crap. Boom, done. I need to study the book more because if this is really the case, maybe I don't want to lose weight. To be sure, the book is about influencing change in others, but if I can't do it in myself, why should I even try to change other people's behavior? When they talk about addictions, they say to change your environment, stop hanging around with people who are still caught in the lifestyle you're trying to get out of. Sadly, our house and office are filled with the very stuff I love to eat which is coincidentally the precise things I need to avoid if I want to lose weight. All hope is not lost but the struggle is real.

Composed Friday, March 24, 5:15 pm on some device or in some location where I didn't have a signal. If it was the Kindle Fire, that explains all the typos.

📶 3/22, 6:10 pm

On the train home. Busy day. Kinda quiet, but still a lot to do and not enough time.I guess that's nearly always the case but right now my work inbox is suffering. I can't seem to get it down below 320 and right now I have no idea how full it is but I'm guessing it's close to one thousand. My home inbox is pretty full too as is Feedly. But I guess it's the result of how I've been prioritizing (or not). I am looking forward to the single-day vacation tomorrow - maybe sleep in and then just spend the day with the family, go to the Huntington and just be still and chill. That's very appealing.

Composed Wednesday, March 22, 6:10 pm on some device or in some location where I didn't have a signal.

📶 3/20, 7 am

Everything feels different. I slept poorly after 3:30 am, and since everyone else is on spring break I snoozed the alarm for 30 minutes. But sure how much that did, but I'm glad I did it. Except that I had to park in the dreadful overflow, there's a bunch more cops hassling people and the timing is all off - I will not win any awards today for travel-times, at least not with the 10 minute wait and extra time waking from the overflow lot. People on the train also seem to be more chatty at 7 versus 6:30. Weird.

I don't understand why sleep continues to be horrible. I had no problem falling asleep but once I woke up I couldn't get back to sleep. Amazing - this train car is full already and we're at the first stop with still a minute or two before we depart.

Composed Monday, March 20, 7 am on some device or in some location where I didn't have a signal.

📶 3/16, 6:30 am

I try to work from home once a week, usually on Thursdays. That gets me back the 3 hours I otherwise spend commuting or allows me to work late on days with a deadline without then having the commute after that. Not today, I find myself again on the train heading in. Read a report last night about the new proposed budget. I was surprised to learn that even though California puts more into the federal pool than it takes out, that federal remit is still a third of California's budget. And because we've diversified our workforce and aren't primarily reliant on the military for all our jobs, we stand to lose quite a bit when it comes to the new budget - a lot of our federal money goes to quality of life issues (education, environment, transit) especially for those marginalized or on the edges (elderly, disabled, poor, homeless). But, I think there is safety in numbers. When they say "the Great State of California," it's not just a catchphrase - this is a place of compassion, empathy and care for all its citizens. We will have to tighten our belts, but we will still survive, and prosper. But - I fear we will lose some of our young men and women to an unnecessary future war because you don't increase military spending unless you're planning to use it.

Composed Thursday, March 16, 6:30 am on some device or in some location where I didn't have a signal.

📶 3/15, 4:50 pm

It was a good work day. I got caught up in some stuff and I advanced some other stuff and I fixed something that's been broken for some time now. I didn't mean to skip my oatmeal, but that was fewer calories this morning. It it's an amazing day out right now, blue skies with a light breeze. Cool - got a seat today.

Composed Wednesday, March 15, 4:50 pm on some device or in some location where I didn't have a signal.

📶 3/15, 6:20 am

Thirty-seven point five. 37.5 damn pounds. 37.5 dumb pounds. 37.5 reminders that I have not been exerting the control I possess. 3.5 months into the new year and I pretty much weigh what I did when the year started. There's no excuse for that. Sure, I tried to take on too much... lose weight, keep up with chores, email and Feedly, floss every day, hit my step count, read a book for at least five minutes a day. Jumping jacks. Situps. Pushups. Write a blog post. And so on. While I have flossed every in 2017, everything else has been allowed to stagnate. No more. 37.5. I'm coming for you.

Composed Wednesday, March 15, 6:20 am on some device or in some location where I didn't have a signal.