Corner of Bourbon & Division

I suppose it might be less difficult to come up with original subject lines if my days were a little more varied. Alas, I am leading a very staid and boring life these days, at least to the outside viewer. I myself am not bored for most of the time, which is the main point. It's not to say that I am never bored, of course, because I am in possession of a human brain, and human brains get bored. I was about to say 'a normal human brain,' but that is patently not true, not to mention that there isn't really such a thing as a 'normal' brain anyway.  


Anyhoozle, I discovered today that I am NOT ready to start running. I kind of forgot that when I haven't done any proper training in a while that I get really painful inflammation in the tendons (or something?) in my ankles when I try running right off the bat. When I did the C25K thing five years ago I first started out by walking every day (it helped that I was off work for an entire summer, but I think I can still manage), and even then when I started the running I'd have to do a minimum of 30 minutes of walking to "warm up" before my ankles stopped hurting so that I could run. So I'm going to set myself the goal to "just" walk every day for two weeks. I'm also rather fatter than I was then--not by much, but at my age and weight every extra pound does take its toll--so that's bound to affect things as well. On top of that, I have crossed the threshold of 40, and like it or not, the human body does change as it ages. That doesn't mean I'm unwilling to continue, of course, it just means that I have to remember to maintain a certain amount of mental flexibility about it.

The good news is that I am finding it reasonably okay to get up early-ish in order to get some exercise these days, although I have yet to manage getting up early enough to take Peggy for an off-leash run in the fields and be on time for work. I took her with me on my walk today, though, so that's something. Maybe I will take her with me for the walks in the morning and try to get her out to the fields in the evenings after work instead. The system will require tweaking as I go.

In work news, I had a better day than Tuesday and Wednesday, so I am pleased about that. I still wasn't as productive as I could be, because I've been procrastinating on my very last employee evaluation. I did about half of it today, and I'm pretty confident I can finish it tomorrow and just have done.

I am having a lot of negative thoughts and feelings about this evaluation, because this is someone who has long been considered a "problem employee." Among other things he tends to throw temper tantrums when he feels as though he hasn't been praised enough. He can't take even the slightest criticism, and is of the opinion that he is owed "respect" by the other employees because of his seniority and experience. He keeps falling into the fallacy I saw best described in a meme online: "If you don't respect me for my position I won't respect you as a person." The other employees don't respect him because he is condescending and often rude. He's also very close to retirement (he'll be 60 next month), and over the past year especially he's been doing less and less of the regular day-to-day work, even though he has never been particularly gung-ho since I've worked with him, and his coworkers understandably find it very frustrating when they perceive him not pulling his weight. (I say "perceive" because the situation is a touch more complex than that, but still.) Every time I've had to give him feedback or do performance management with him over the past six months or so, he has pitched hissy fits that lasted for days, sometimes weeks. So my resistance to doing his year-end evaluation is 100% down to the fact that what I write will reflect his performance, which he is not going to like, and then I will have to deal with yet another tantrum. *sigh*

What I should do is do a "thought work" model (or ten) about this, in order to feel at least neutral about this whole thing. The basic principle of thought work that would apply here is that almost everything I said about him in the previous paragraph isn't a circumstance, or an objective truth of some sort, it's just a bunch of thoughts I have about him and his behaviour. So if I work on changing how I think about all of it, then I will feel less terrible about it, and if I feel less terrible about it I won't procrastinate to avoid the feelings I don't like. Maybe. Or possibly I won't feel less terrible about it, but it's also okay for it to feel terrible: I am not going to die if I write the evaluation while feeling terrible, after all. It will suck, and then it will be done.

Okay. Time for bed, I think. Tomorrow's plan is to get up early again and take Peggy for a walk before work. Then I will leave work ON TIME, DAMMIT, and take her for a run in the fields. Side note: it makes me laugh when I say "early" because after years of shift work and getting up at 4 am, it seems ridiculous to think of anything after 6 am as "early," but since I'm aiming for 6 am I think it's okay to qualify it as such. But yeah, I remember reading all sorts of articles about productivity, back in the day, and all of them would say ridiculous things like: "The most productive people are up early, so try getting up an hour before your usual time. Some people get up as early as 5 am!" and I would just lolsob because nothing on God's green earth will ever convince me to wake up at 3 am before a 12 hour shift in the name of "productivity."

Work resumes tomorrow. I didn't realize when I took my vacation the week before last that it was right before two four-day weeks, so it kind of feels like I haven't been at work at all. It's been nice but also part of me is stressing out because fewer days at work means getting less done.

I declared tomorrow a "work from home" day because I actually need to take a few hours of personal time to get some government paperwork sorted out, and of course government offices are only open during the hours I'm actually working these days. One of the advantages of shift work is getting multiple days off during the week, so now I have to contend with "normal people" problems since I'm no longer working shifts.

I'm going to bed in the next few minutes, because I've set my alarm for quite early tomorrow. I tried getting up at 6:00 this morning in order to get Peggy out to the field by 7:00 for a run, but I ended up leaving closer to 6:50 than 6:30, and it takes 30-35 minutes to drive out there. So now I know that I need to either get up earlier or move a lot faster in the mornings, and I have a better chance of getting up early than I do of moving faster, so here we are.

I also want to start running again. Back in 2016 I actually did a Couch to 5k program, and while I can't claim to have ever actually run 5k, by the end I was running for a full 30 minute stretch, and I'd like to get back to that. So the plan is to do the Week 1, Day 1 run tomorrow after work. I shall come back with a progress report!

 

So, yeah, I really should found that company called "Good Intentions Asphalt and Cement."

I keep telling myself I should update more, and then more life stuff happens, and then I get overwhelmed with how much I'd have to write to get everyone up to speed, and so I just... don't post. Not my most shining moments, let me tell you.

( Cut because of triggers for mental illness and weight/body image issues )

Did I tell you my plans of taking dog training courses and eventually opening up my own business? I think I did. Anyway, the first semester is over, and the theory is going really well. The practice? Not so much. We're observing one of the puppy classes (which is going fine), and then doing basic obedience with our own dogs, following the new curriculum. The problem is that poor Sergent's anxiety levels go through the roof when he's in that class. First he has to sit or lie quietly for an hour during the puppy class behind a board so the puppies can't see him, and that stresses him out (because he can hear the high-energy puppies and can't see them and isn't free to move around). By the time obedience class comes around he's a nervous wreck. On several occasions he nearly pulled my shoulder out of its socket trying to get to the exit, poor thing. Of course, when he's that stressed he can't learn, and having him learn is a big part of how I'm being evaluated. So I have no idea if I'm going to pass this class or not. I also need to take Sergent to the vet, because I think the anxiety is making him chew his paws and his side, but I want to make sure it's just that and not a sign of something worse.

If I do pass, I've decided to skip the spring semester and do the fall semester instead. I've found it extremely punishing on my body and my schedule to do these classes, and I could use the break until September. Not to mention the finances. These classes are extremely expensive. In the meantime, I'm going to educate myself on how to start up my own business, and see if it's something I can realistically do.

Anyway, I have to jet to work. See you on the flip side!

After being off the bandwagon for a year, I'm getting back up on the horse, in order to properly mix my metaphors. ;)

First off, I'm going back to healthy eating, roughly following the guidelines of the Paleo diet. I will let fearsclave extoll its virtues to you at length. For me, suffice it to say that the idea of eating mostly fruit, vegetables and sources of protein seems like a pretty healthy choice.

Also, at fearsclave's prompting, I signed up for Fitocracy, which so far is quite a lot of fun. The basic idea is that it treats your fitness activities and workouts like a video game: you get a certain amount of points for your activities, and at a certain number of points you level up. There are also quests and achievements, which is a nifty feature. I'm levelling up slowly, and right now have to be careful not to push myself too far lest I do myself some sort of injury that would sideline me for weeks. Still, it's fun to come back after a long walk and find that you've gone up a level because of it.

I've been going for walks/runs with Sergent, who is thrilled with the added exercise. He's of the opinion that we're not going fast enough, and I'm doing my best to increase my speed little by little. I'm hoping that by the time spring rolls around I'll be able to run for 30 minutes straight with him, and increase that to an hour by the end of the summer. We shall see. Right now we're doing a sort of prelude to the Couch to 5K program, because my ankles are not yet up to running even the few short intervals required for the first day in the program. I figure I can probably start running in earnest next week.

In related news, I bought myself a small bench press with some sand-filled weights from a guy on Craigslist. I loved weight lifting when I was going to the gym regularly: it was by far my favourite part of my workout. Therefore this weekend's project is --while I'm not passing out from working a nightshift-- to clean out the basement enough to set up a small area to use as a home gym. I bought myself some coloured foam mats for the floor, and with time I'd like to set up a bunch of equipment down there. I have a few free weights as well and a small TV, so I figure I can make it a pretty appealing little area. I need to find some mirrors to hang so I can keep an eye on my form, too, but that will come later.

In short, I am getting a kick out of getting back into shape. I promise I won't bore you with all of that here, except for sporadic and non-specific updates. If you're interested, I'm writing more in-depth about it at rocking_thing, but it's mostly numbers and tracking and whatever. Not all that interesting. ;)

Or, hey, if you're interested in Fitocracy, I am happy to figure out how to send out an invitation. Just drop me a line. :)