Whine in ’09

Brain Wave Theory of Machines

/ wvfurandroot / 7 Comments

brains

The Brain Wave Theory of Machines is really very simple. If the user of a machine is experiencing frustration and/or active stress, any machine in contact with that person will malfunction. It is simple neurophysics – the brain runs on electricity as do most machines. When brain synapses fire signals of frustration and haste, a machine in use will mirror the former and oppose the latter.

The formula looks something like this:

Y=(A/D)(SC) 2

 

For the mathematically impaired:

You Banging Head Against Wall and Threatening to Move to a Mexican Beach is equal to Abject Dismay Provoked By To-Do List divided by Impending Deadline which is then multiplied by the squared sum of Hours of Sleep Deficit added to the Critical Nature of Task (expressed to two decimal points).

 

In real life, this is represented by yours truly needing to mail 640 fundraising letters which are already 3 days behind schedule. The printer, usually a sweetheart, is jamming on every envelope and, like a good overachiever, refusing access to the paper tray.

It’s a simple task. I should be able to feed envelopes in the printer, take them out of the hopper, stuff them with the already printed letter, and toodle on down the road to the post office after which I could cross off the most pressing thing on my task list.

During my sojourn in academia, I never quite believed the students when they arrived with increasingly bizarre stories about computers and printers the night before a paper was due or new cars that wouldn’t start the morning of a final exam.  Their obvious sincerity gave me pause, but still. . .the stories were just too over-the-top.

Then one day as I was fighting with the copy machine moments before a midterm, it all clicked and the Brain Wave Theory of Machines was postulated.

Normally, the best way to handle one of these events is to close the door on the machine and go to lunch for 4 hours, returning whistling and cheerful with a sense of having all the time in the world. This strategy will spread the cheer to the machine, but in the inverse relationship, alluded to but not expressed in correct scientific notation, encourage the machine to complete all tasks in record time.

Instead, I spent 4 hours printing 11 envelopes including time spent dismantling and reassembling the machine, two hours in tech support chat, 1 hour cursing, 20 minutes kicking the machine, and 19 minutes eating chocolate. As the day wound to a close, it found me explaining to a live-action-in-my-office-service-tech the nature of the problem.

Contrary to a typical Brain Wave Machine Event, the service tech immediately identified the problem, but, in more typical fashion, is bumfuzzled as to how to fix it.

It was my mistake. I was so stressed, I failed to apply the correct strategy to resolve and reverse the brain waves. My bad (<– an expression I despise).

Tomorrow, I will try again. [Cue Tomorrow from Annie here.]

Misery Diet

/ wvfurandroot / 13 Comments
If spending hours on the damn thing, it's best to have a book.
If spending hours on the damn thing, it’s best to have a book.

Introduction (with TMI)

Since I have lost about 20% of my bodyweight in 8 months without trying, I thought I would share what I know about the Misery Diet. (Consider this a public service.)

The Misery Diet is not for wusses.  There’s a reason it is named such.

About two years ago, I was in a car accident that appeared to be minor. Nonetheless, I enjoyed dozens and dozens of doctor’s appointments, two surgeries, multiple prescriptions for pain pills, a walker, and what appears to be an incompetent attorney.

Since all that wasn’t enough drama, my family behaved badly including, on two occasions, suddenly dying, my significant other failed to remember who the drama queen in the relationship is, and my job got nutso. Then the stress really started. [Insert tales nobody will believe, but happened nonetheless.]

Add in an incorrigible gallbladder, menopause, financial difficulties, seasonal affective disorder, ADD, and a couple glasses of wine; stir, strain through a cheese cloth and voila! The perfect conditions for a successful Misery Diet.

One cannot just have a hang nail, a cheating spouse, or a retirement fund tanking. An effective Misery Diet must possess circumstances that even soap operas steer clear of in an effort to mimic reality. The individual situations can vary, but must be marked by a broad spectrum of disasters that little, if nothing, can be done to alleviate them save waiting out the Universe. (Chanting This Too Shall Pass won’t really help, but it’s kind of comforting.)

There is an enormous savings on groceries.

The gallbladder factor is crucial to the Misery Diet grocery savings. If stress is sufficient, even if one has previously been a stress eater, there will be a complete disinterest in food. A malfunctioning gallbladder will make it impossible to eat (or to keep food down) if bearer of the organ decides eating is necessary to keep up strength for stress battles. A truly incorrigible gallbladder does not play well with stress.  Meals become a cup of green tea, a couple spoons of green beans, and the occasional boiled egg. Oatmeal is a perennial favorite. If menopause is a factor, faux morning sickness will add color and drama to the situation.

Exercise becomes more about toning flab than burning calories.

Until strength gives out from malnutrition, exercise shifts from a calorie-burning activity to a desperate effort to maintain muscle tone. It’s a losing battle, but the Misery Diet isn’t complete without the insult-to-injury of mind-numbing, repetitive exercise. Mental health professionals will insist it helps mood and physiologists insist it maintains muscle mass and bones. You can’t argue with those folks. (Well you can, but it gets you about as far down the road as a recumbent exercise bike.) There’s no aesthetic benefit to reducing one’s BMI if arm wattles sway in the breeze and thighs sag to the knees.

Archaeological excavations of closets for skinny jeans, etc. are enlightening.

As poundage slinks away, the search for something that fits is complicated by the financial difficulties inherent to an authentic Misery Diet. Buying new is out of the question. The first places to reduce in size are the places you least want to lose mass. Packrats will enjoy some walks down Memory Lane while searching for their 5th grade training bra and maternity underpants.

Packrats will further enjoy reliving their youth from the Wannabee Hippy, Disco Queen, Professional Mom, Bringing Home the Bacon and Frying It Up in the Pan, Earth Mother, Diva, and, finally, Wild-Eyed Menopausal Running with Wolves Harpie fashion eras. This aspect of the Misery Diet can be fun especially if you start mixing and matching genres and blocking out the PTSD aspects of the Misery Diet by spending hours pondering what part of sequined turtleneck with loaf-of-bread-sized shoulder pads was a good idea. Non-packrats will further accelerate stress levels by realizing a need to learn complicated sewing techniques to facilitate alteration of clothes.

Not exactly Freudian or Jungian analysis, pondering early fashion choices will, if allowed, shine a light on parts of one’s psyche better left moldering in the dark.

Nutrition needs eat up savings on groceries.

An effective Misery Diet needs months to mature. As soon as it becomes evident that this is an authentic Misery Diet, it is necessary to buy various vitamin and herbal supplements lest one’s hair fall out and eyeballs turn yellow. Hydration is also an issue and bottled water can be damned expensive. (See note about financial distress.) To add further insult, the body may occasionally agree to be hungry, but will crave only out-of-season fruit, Godiva truffles, or leg-of-lamb with imported mint chutney.

Summary

The weight loss can be considerable and becoming a flamboyant anachronistic dresser does provide some amusement. Even so, I cannot recommend this method of weight loss. Proceed with caution.

Sowing

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments
morning glory and moonflowers

morning glory and moonflowers

I’ve had a very strange day.

I believe the term is gobsmacked.

I never saw it coming.

The story is complicated and not all that interesting; I’m far more intrigued with my reaction.

My biography is one of twists and turns, coincidences, joys, tragedies and so on that are not necessarily uncommon, but unusual in their frequency and persistence. If my life were a novel, no one would believe it. I know not to say never.

Even knowing that, I think we all have some experiences that we feel quite confident when putting it into the never column. That will never happen. I would never do that.

Today, I got hit with a never that I had felt comfortable with. I had examined it, studied it, and decreed, definitively, that this would never affect my life.

Here we are.

I am not upset – I’m actually a little amused though it’s not really a subject that is fodder for comedians. Still, as this post exhibits, I’m not willing to share this never and that in itself is unusual. I’m pretty open about things. I need to process, cogitate, mull, consider, research and niggle on it for a bit.

The timing of this is even stranger. I woke up to news that saddened me, but didn’t really affect my life other than to be concerned for a friend. Several hours later, that news now potentially applies to me, but I wasn’t saddened by the learning of it. The experience was more of an ah-ha…that explains it.

This may prove to be a seminal moment in a life of seminal moments.

Lest anyone fret, I don’t have some deadly disease, didn’t lose my job, am not pregnant, and my external life will not change to the casual observer. My inner life will be very different. I think.

I’ve mentioned several times that I can’t get morning glories or moonflowers to grow. They’re both common flowers that are considered invasive and many folk despair of ever getting rid of them once they plant them. I am uncommonly fond of both of them. They speak to me of home and hearth, comfort and simple pleasures. Common though they may be, I an enchanted by them.

Changing seeds, seeds of change.

Changing seeds, seeds of change.

I’ve followed the directions at least 50 times and, at most, got a couple of straggly morning glories and not one moonflower. I say, frequently, that I’m never going to get them to grow for me; that I’m cursed. Every year, I try again. Usually, I try twice each growing season.

Yesterday, I noticed the moonflowers had germinated and were poking up. Today, the morning glories emerged. I think this is the year.

While my never is not a garden variety invasive plant, it is a negative for many people, yet  I’m  enchanted. It explains a lot. It’s one less why in my whiny laments. Now, I understand.

This year, I went about germinating moonflowers and morning glory a little bit differently. I isolated the seeds in a pot, half drowned them for the first few days, and treated them with far more care than most people do. I was rewarded,

Change is not only inevitable; change is good. Following directions only works when it works. Never say never.