queneva

Six more working days on my contract. I think we'll call it a learning experience. I'm looking forward to a bit of a break after this, with some travel and some sound recording and generally some more time to fix things and explore. Learning more about the things I value more than money.

Singing again, and consciously developing that more than I have in a good while. After all these years I've realised that if I'm to deliver a soloist-level performance I have to select the right range to sing in, and not try to fit within someone else's preferred key for a piece. I can be adaptable for ensemble or choral work, and I tend to sing higher for that, too. Sometimes it feels like "I wish I'd known this stuff earlier". Part of me wonders about taking singing lessons again, while another part recalls them as tense and throat-tightening, concentrating on technique for "other" styles of singing (and trying to extend range upwards). Right now I'm trying to focus on the things I can do. It's good.

Gamewise and storywise I'm staying with EVE Online until at least Easter. We're heading off to EVE's Fanfest, although that's as a focus and motivator to travel and not "My life will be bereft if I don't go to this". After that... we'll see. The hasty end to a plot arc that had run for more than a year has left me once again thoughtful about how I spend my time and energy; why; and with whom. I still like the idea of the stories we've all made together, and the corporation (read "guild" or "clan") we built together is still something special to me, but I'm finding it a little hard to get enthused enough to go out there and make connections and start other plotlines and interactions. There's a fair bit of burnout and a lot of brownout in the circles I used to play with, which in turn makes it harder to get a critical mass together to do new things. If I had to describe a trend I'd say that the themes that I want to explore just now are more suitable for either fiction or life than for roleplay.

Webstock was fun. Going back to the well. Seeing the underlying themes, and spotting the ones that oppose each other. Seeing this year's reaction against the wonderful new idea of two years ago (gamification). Seeing the way tablet computing has spread. Singing with Kristina in corridors and halls (I must record something in the street-side corridor of the Town Hall). Being lectured to by very wealthy people about how money isn't everything. :)

Finally made it to one of Joy's Craft Days. Hemmed trousers and made more progress on My First Sock. Thinking about craft projects that might be fun and have portable parts for future such craft days.

Watched my first rugby game of the Rugby World Cup, mostly as a social thing. Not a bad game for it.

Daylight saving is about to urge us forward.

A beautiful day in Wellington. From my office window I watched yachts playing follow-the-leader in the harbour while listening to a tui warbling in the kowhai.

I'm training about as hard and as often as I've ever trained. It's a six-week focus thing. The endorphins are good and I'm minding the climb up the hill to work less.

I feel like I'm finding my voice at work. The last few days have been head-down, door-closed, trying to finish a report. Today it started to flow. I like that. I'm home now and I'm going to do some normal home things, but then the thing I want to do is more work.

Last night my work team went out to dinner with partners. Beloved came along to, in his words, "be my trophy husband". It was a remarkably pleasant evening, with good conversation and a good bunch of people.

I've met someone intriguing who, in a different landscape of emotion and circumstance, could take quite a bit of my attention for a time. We shall see whether this sort of thing can be danced and debated into a friendship.

I've found a special hidden hook thing in a part of my overlocker which means I can now thread it properly so it works.

I've been spoiling myself a bit by buying clothes.

We're finalising details for our travel to Iceland and other parts of Europe in March-April next year.

There are some most excellent ways to wake up when you sleep beside the one you love.

Life is good.


(To make this sound a bit less like the endorphins are rose-tinting my life, work is a long way from perfect. There's a reason they hired me: to help work out why they're stuck and how they can get un-stuck. But that's full of challenge and possibility and I'm quite enjoying the fixed-term event horizon. Although this week two people did mention future events as "depending on what happens with your contract".)

Beloved and I have just returned from a three-nights-away mini-holiday in Turangi and environs. Gorgeous weather, pleasant walks, Huka Falls (I've been a dominatrix for many a year...), shopping in Taupo, hot pools, and more of our much-enjoyed pattern of Beloved reading aloud while I do something crafty. This time that has involved the Joy of Sox. Well, actually, just part of one sock so far, although I'm rather enjoying what I'm doing with four slender bamboo sticks and a ball of sock yarn. This can definitely go on the list of craft projects to travel.

Drove home today for a scheduled dinner at the local Cafe Polo. Excellent. Really, really excellent. :)

And, since I haven't mentioned it here, I'm back at work (when I'm not taking a pre-arranged week off for anniversariness), this time for one of the local universities helping sort out their intranet woes. Fixed term to the end of February, with plans to travel in March-April (barring international financial meltdown and reversion to cannibalism in the meantime (you think I jest!)).

Currently pretty happy. Fifteen years. (Wow.)

My grandmother died last night. She was 99, had been reasonably spry until a series of falls this year, and the end came with a day or two's warning.

She's also the last of my grandparents.

It feels like a kind of slow-motion Tetris of the family tree, with rows disappearing but no new blocks falling.

"Content". Accent on the second syllable. Also "Nesting".

And about to stir some of that up a little. :)

The things I've been doing in my job in recent years -- for which I've received status and income -- many of them are things which I have doubts about. Put a little bluntly for emphasis, am I good for anything that's actually useful? If I don't have the constraints of rulesets, platforms, political appetite, risk appetite... do I know what to advise and to do?

I've been sorting some papers. Found my notes on a talk by my last CEO. "We're not here to save the world. We're here to create the environment which means the world can be saved." I saw it as an attempt to address the True Believer sector of the staff (who leaked like a sieve to the Greens). And I tried to believe (because although I didn't leak I was on the pragmatic end of the True Believer spectrum). We put mechanisms in place which we knew achieved nothing, but the mechanism was there, and that meant that some day (soon?) the parameters could be changed, and then there'd be change...

I'm slowly teasing this out because it's one of my obstacles going forward. I've been fortunate in that I've spent most of my working life working for causes I've believed in. In slogans those are "public information", "stopping people dying on the road and rail networks", and "saving the planet". I can cast quite a few things in ways that highlight the good in what I'm doing, but when that becomes too much of a stretch for me, or when the focus of the work shifts to things that are not "yes", I'm unhappy. I spent quite a few years hanging out for the projects which I felt changed and achieved things (and I'm proud of those), while focusing on procedural stuff which was more within my control but was pretty grinding.

I'm also aware that I'm extremely fortunate to have the luxury of time to contemplate this. In light of what's going on around me it seems kinda frivolous to say I've been in recovery mode since I left work. That's how it is, though.

And, while tidying/grouping/throwing stuff out, I've found photos of my paternal grandparents from their wedding day to their 60th anniversary: granddad dapper in his somewhat-more-formal-than-strictly-necessary suits, and grandma remarkably stylish in her asymmetric-closing suit jacket and cloche, or another suit jacket with bold Schiaparelli-influenced laid braid. I enjoy the obvious pleasure they took in their attire.

Our somewhat difficult gardening conditions seem to grow wild fennel and mustard just fine, so let's see what we can do with our "weeds".

Foraging for and cooking wild fennel looks promising, with the penne/sausage/fennel mix of its Pasta con Finocchietto Selvatico e Salsiccia. I'm going to head to the butcher for some sausages to try in this.

The info I've initially found on wild mustard greens reminds me a little much of the boiled silverbeet I detested as a child, so that might take a little more research and experimentation. There are some possible leads around in places like Beneficial Farms CSA: Wild Mustard Greens, but it still seems very much like a dish you have because it's good for you, alongside and on the same forkload as a dish you enjoy.

EDIT: The pasta-with-fennel dish was actually rather tasty, although we halved the pasta and will serve two people twice with it. It needs something to cut the heavy fennel/aniseed and oil: we found fresh tomato worked well. Next time I'll halve the oil to match halving the pasta.

The initial tranche of electrical work is now done. This is mostly 'small' stuff like a lot more power outlets in places where we want them, but it also includes some CAT5 and some work on the switchboard to reorganise our circuits, replace our old Bakelite switches and add RCD cover for the lot. We can finally run the electric toothbrush charger in the bathroom rather than the hall. Our computer-room power is now less concerning. And some stuff that didn't quite work right now seems to work. All good.

The next moves in the electrical line depend on research and decisions. Given our cooking preferences the house needs some sort of stove-top air extraction, but there's not a lot of width-space to install something. Then there are light fittings: when we first walked into the place we looked at the chandeliers and said "They'd have to go", and yet here we are nine years later with those same chandeliers. Our haphazard search for replacements hasn't gone so well, so there will be a more active search in our future.

The next thing to grab my attention is landscapey stuff, including finding out whether it would be viable to replace some rather loose crib walls with (at the close-back) gabions and (at the uphill-side) anchored logs.

The next things I should probably be looking at are insulation and more new heavy curtains. Don't want to do the curtains until the air extraction is sorted. Not excited by the insulation. I'll work on that.

It's been five months since I took redundancy. I've been having a break, which has in many ways been a very good thing. There is, however, a huge list of stuff that I was going to get done in this break period, and so far a lot of it hasn't.

Until this week.

I thought about my "obstacles", in the way I used to get my team to tell me theirs in scrum meetings. I did stuff to overcome those obstacles. Things are now happening. Some of these are things we've talked about for years; some of them since we bought the house, about nine years ago.

(Warning, this now gets into the minutiae of house-fixing stuff, and is a dull read mostly designed to help me remember stuff.)

And stuff is just working now. Checked the recommendation for a plumber that I'd gathered some months ago and contacted him to see if worked over this side of town. He did, and came out later the same day to fix the bath outflow that had been dumping water under the house and that we'd got around by just not using that bath for... two years? That led to finding that we had sewage backing up the wastewater drains on that side of the house, which explained the smell from the previous couple of days. The plumber doesn't do drains, but has a contact who's a specialist drains person. I get on the phone to him. He comes out and we work  out what's going on and where and how parts of our drainage system are put together. Eventually, he deals to some tree roots, and things work again. Beloved even manages to put the siding back on the bath pretty much as it came off. Yes, we have raw sewage that's come up the gulley trap in the front garden (let it weather for a couple of weeks: spread a bottle of cheap disinfectant -- neat -- on it if the smell bothers you), but a series of things got fixed, and problems that became apparent are now dealt to for now. (Tree roots -- especially pohutukawa roots -- are one of those things. Chances are that every five years or so the drains will need some internal flossing/re-boring to remove regrowth. Digging it up and replacing stuff isn't likely to make it noticeably better.)

Having a bath that works means I wash the woolly electric-blanket underlay that we use, which is currently trying hard to get dry on the line (and has been trying all day).

Have been working on some stuff about getting my bike back on the road, as well. That's a bit complicated by me having a batch of dodgy spokes on the wheels which are snapping and unsafe. Working on it.

Asked for recommendations for electricians, which converged on a local place. Made my plan -- complete with X-es on the house floorplan -- for the work I'd like done. Took it in to visit them yesterday, and stopped off on the way home to buy some fancy power boards for our computer room. Had a guy around today to look at the electrical work we'd like, and expect an estimate in the next day or two. That, again feels like it's dealing to stuff that's been annoying for ages: a collection of slightly dodgy fittings and Needing Moar Power in some places. Glad to have found a way to get the *ahem* 20-ish powerpoints we want for the computer room without looking like complete nutbars if we ever sell.

Had another look at a broken window catch which had previously baffled me: couldn't get the broken bit off and couldn't find a replacement at either Placemakers or Mitre10, so i thought I'd have to drill it out and order something special of make a big change. This time around I realised I'd mixed up Phillips head and Pozidriv screws, the screws came out beautifully, the new local Bunnings had replacements that fit beautifully, and it's fixed.

I have plans for the next things. I'm remembering that I'm usually the competent person who can make things happen, on time and to budget, and feeling capable again.

Also wondering what's changed. I've changed a couple of things in my priorities lately, after a fairly unpleasant week in February reminded me that I've been modelling "dealing with other people's shit" a bit too much lately in my RP life. Trying modelling some very different approaches with another alter-ego, and enjoying the things that reminds me to do and think. And just pin-pointing my obstacles and dealing to those.

But also... it feels like the mental dimmer switch, which has been in slightly subdued watching and thinking mode for a while, is now turned to 'action'. It's kinda cool. (And no, I don't think this is the first sign of manic-depression. Yes, I have considered it. :) )

One glitch: right now I'm having the visual disturbances which precede my weird migraines. I'm writing this in haste -- and with shifting tenses and all which I'm not going back to fix -- because I may lose words soon. But that's okay. I'm looking forward to some more active getting-stuff-done after this speed bump.

Life is looking rather interesting just now. I can change my world. After internalising the sense of thwartedness that went with the last phase of my last job that's a really powerful feeling.

Very much so. Not working. At Webstock again: once again enjoying it, but the messages I take away aren't always the ones offered.

From the last months and days I have observations to make about group dynamics, identity, privacy, do-it-right vs iterative development, management, confidence, the street-performer approach to making money from art, online friendships, aging, aspiration, success, and back to group dynamics and shared aspirations as a bonding mechanism. But they'll keep. For now, some snippets to remind me what this blogging thing is like.

I'm wrestling with the sense that Elizabeth's Bishop's fish was several days old, not just pulled from the water. Then I re-read the "tarnished tinfoil" passage and wonder why my mental image -- so clear -- is of that, and of my grandparents showing me as a young girl how to identify fresh fish, when the words don't necessarily have to go that way.

I found a Diptyque perfume that starts out with orange groves and very quickly becomes Fanta. Another that combines elements I used to love and which are now too heavy-sweet. Still others that I'd buy if I were earning.

Home after being in the audience for recording the Webstock edition of Russell Brown's Media7, humming Amanda Palmer's Map of Tasmania [NReallySFW, but very catchy].