trochee: (resolute)
trochee ([personal profile] trochee) wrote2007-10-15 05:40 pm

updating...

I'm so slow to update here.

I usually write these "I've been away" updates from bottom-to-top, usually because the stuff that's easy to write about first is the least personal, and I'd like to have the record in the other order. there's a little dark secret for you.

This weekend was tough for me. For reasons I don't get, I find myself frequently stuck with feeling like I'm not okay to be doing what I want to do, especially when I'm at home. It's not [livejournal.com profile] imtboo: I'm doing my best to accept and listen openly to this sense of insecurity and not-belonging. But I was shutting down when I really wanted to listen to myself -- and the shutting down just made the anxiety lurk for longer. Yuck.

Last night, I started reading Radical Acceptance again, and I was really struck by the reminder to stop and say "This, too" to the sensation of fear and not-fitting-in and I'll-do-it-wrong. Today, at any rate, that pause has helped me relax. I hope that I can remember this when I feel crap, like I did for much of this weekend. In happier events, [livejournal.com profile] imtboo and I did go to the beach on Saturday, but so much space was taken with my wound-up-ness that I didn't really get to have a lot of fun. [livejournal.com profile] imtboo was super in both expressing her frustration and in letting it go.

Trying to "get" it hasn't helped much. So here's my note-to-self: shush, just sit and listen to where you are.

Last night I went to have dinner at [livejournal.com profile] eldan and [livejournal.com profile] nein09's, along with three other folks (C, S, and B). I didn't quite catch how everybody was connected -- other than we all know the two hosts. [livejournal.com profile] imtboo didn't make it -- she had a Unicycle Collective rehearsal -- and it's too bad. Lots of yummy food, including excellent stuffed squash and a pumpkin pie. (yum).

I've finished a new draft of one of the last two papers before I move on to a new research task (the first one that belongs exclusively to my dissertation). The other paper remaining is in Advisor's hands, but today and tomorrow are fully booked up and I probably won't get to that last draft of editing until later this week. But the good news is that after a meeting with my advisor last week, I've got a good idea for the next thing, involving machine-translation and a new idea about a way to handle words that can't be directly aligned between languages.

I've been thinking about listing some of the finer webcomics, because I can. Here's, for a start, some top-quality SF-ish ones:Girl Genius. Dresden Codak. Dicebox. The inimitable Finder. Huh, they're almost all written by women! yay for the changing face of SF and comics.

A little profile-identification:
I am "trochee" on Last.FM (listening now) and Twitter (updated several times today) and del.icio.us (updated frequently) and Flickr (long time no update), if you're there.
I list books on Library Thing (my whole catalog) and BookMooch (the ones I'm happy to unload) as "trochaic".

[identity profile] eldan.livejournal.com 2007-10-16 01:49 am (UTC)(link)
re angst: this sounds like a familiar feeling. If what you describe is what I also get, I haven't found any 'solution' to it, but as you've observed it does pass.

re dinner guests: we are the only connection between the guests. For small gatherings at our house we try to invite people who don't necessarily know each other but seem likely to find some interests in common; so far this has worked quite well. It seems to work less well with a bigger crowd, because if a few people know each other they tend to cluster, and I'm not sufficiently socially skilled to induce mixing.

re dinner food: I'm glad you enjoyed it! I wish I had thought about this yesterday - we could have given you a care package for boo.

[identity profile] beckyb.livejournal.com 2007-10-16 12:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Hi! Yay for progress and awareness and sitting with things and dinners with friends.

[identity profile] boobirdsfly.livejournal.com 2007-10-16 05:32 pm (UTC)(link)
so this made me weepy for many reasons but mostly because i am moved by your willingness to share again on here and because i am glad you have these cool new friends.
also, while you are reading radical acceptance, i am reading the power of now and there's gotta be a short comic strip in that.
breaking news : being where we're at !
my willingness to be here now wavers a lot and while i don't get caught in the long past or the future , i sure do stay stuck in the recent past very easily ( working with that at the moment)

i love you, oh , husband of mine.
let us be less dramatic and more pneumatic ( um, i have no idea what that means, but it sounded right).

[identity profile] trochee.livejournal.com 2007-10-16 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
aw. thanks, boo-ness. I love you too.

"less dramatic and more pneumatic" sounds a little dirty and a lot fun. ;)