Done day before yesterday (20091116 Mo)

( raw notes )

I seem to have been calm and contented most or all of Monday; I noticed on the way to work that what I call the "scrim" of dysthymia seemed to be gone. (I have since wondered whether that's just due to having washed my glasses, but it wouldn't hurt my mood to do that every morning anyway.)

I greatly enjoyed Gizmodo's series This Cyborg Life. Fun and fascinating. A few other links in the raw notes.

Basically a good day, and a "good mood", whatever that means. I can't complain.

Done yesterday (20091117 Tu)

( raw notes )

A pretty good day, for the most part. Started with Kaiser's "Avoid Avoiding" group, which promises to be very useful. Had to leave early because I'd managed to double-book myself for an appointment with a long-term care insurance broker (http://www.barbarahansonltci.com/). Appropriate enough because I'd been avoiding that particular item for over a decade. Bottom line: Colleen is uninsurable, and I'm borderline; I may be able to get coverage for about $3.5K/year. If we'd signed up 5 years ago we could have covered both of us for less than that.

... which is undoubtedly why I'm still awake after waking up at 2:30 for a bathroom break.

Link: http://psychcentral.com/, which advertises itself as "the Internet's largest and oldest independent mental health network, providing reliable, trusted information & self-help support communities for over 14 years."

River: social life

A somewhat delayed insight from a comment Naomi made to me in IM when I told her that I didn't have a social life in high school: all this time I've been defining "social life" in a way that focussed on dating and other activities where the point was to have or find a romantic partner.

I've also been very shy, for as long as I can remember, so of course I didn't have one, by that definition. I did have some fairly close (male) friends. But that didn't count, by that definition.

Even now, what I've been calling my "social life" (what there is of it) consists mostly of the handful of parties I go to, and things I do with Colleen. I don't think of conventions, late-night conversations, song-swapping sessions and filk circles as part of a "social life".

Silly old Bear.

Fortunately, my background in science and software makes me familiar with the idea that changing the way you describe a problem can drastically simplify it or even make it go away. It's never too late for a paradigm shift.

Not that knowing that I had a social life after all would have helped me get dates...