Done day before yesterday (20091203 Th)

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Thursday was a fairly productive day, both at work and on LJ. At least, it felt that way: any day that includes a highly productive meeting at work, a River post that got lots of good comments, and dinner out with the Cat has to have been pretty good.

I was also in a pretty good mood -- I'm not complaining.

Done yesterday (20091204 Fr)

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A good day. I actually noticed that my mood was somewhere on the positive side of neutral, though I usually didn't know exactly by how much, and have no idea why.

It was certainly relief, when I took a closer look at my Visa bill and realized that the $4000 I had seen when I'd glanced at it a week ago was the balance and not the last month's charges.

I have no word for what I felt after an IM conversation with A, who I thought could use a friendly wave. Positive, certainly, but... ?? It still surprises me sometimes that some emotions don't have names. It makes them that much harder to think about.

Thought of the day (on going out the door the second or third time): "it isn't 'just one more thing', it's an excuse for another kiss."

My copy of Fitting In Fitness, from the American Heart Association, arrived from Powells. More on that downstream.

I got in a half-hour walk (all I felt up for, given the recent leg cramps and not wanting to push my luck). The rest of the afternoon was taken up by a brainstorming session. Useful.

Also downstream, probably later today, is my post linking to ysabetwordsmith's recent posts: Fighting Loneliness, Part 2: Very Basic Steps, and Fighting Loneliness, Part 3: Friendship Tips for Introverts. I'm finding them incredibly useful.

More cool links: a fabulous steampunkified house, and a cute bit of flash fiction: Fluffy and the Terrorist

Yeah, a good day. Two in a row. Weird. Again, I'm not complaining.

River: Fighting loneliness

A couple of days ago I posted a link to ysabetwordsmith's post on Loneliness and Fraying Social Fabric.

She has since followed it up with Fighting Loneliness, Part 2: Very Basic Steps and Fighting Loneliness, Part 3: Friendship Tips for Introverts. Wow! I'm finding these incredibly useful.

It's hard for an introvert like me to learn how to function around people, especially when they were raised by introverts like my parents (Dad was, certainly. I'm not sure about Mom). And especially when they're shy and have learned to avoid people. All of the role models the media present us with are extroverts. At least all of the really conspicuous ones. Because, well... extroverts.

It occurs to me that if social interaction is anything like a language (either programming or human), the only way to learn it is to get a lot of practice. Programming languages are easy for me -- computers are patient, and I can practice programming any time I like. They're not likely to get upset at me when I make stupid mistakes, and I'm not likely to get upset at myself. And there are lots of useful manuals to read, to help learn computer languages.

There's a lot to read about interacting with people, too, but it's difficult for a novice to tell what's useful. And of course most of it is written by and for extroverts.

More on that later, perhaps; it needs a longer post, and it's getting late.