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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 25 of 40. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by noa on February 1, 2004, at 15:41:07
I'm going nuts. Feeling tired and lazy--the usual weekend thing--but antsy and stir crazy at the same time.
Only did two tiny little productive things today (put faceplates on the electric outlets in one room--it only took 20 months since moving in here!!!LOL, and changed the heat filter--egads that thing was dirty). Goofed off the rest of the time. Bored, lonely. Not into Super Bowl stuff. Can't seem to get myself to stop and focus on reading--which is a shame because I'm in the middle of a damn good book.
I should go exercise--it would be good for me and besides, I've been supporting that darn gym without using it for way too long now. And it's only a short walk from home.
Posted by Racer on February 1, 2004, at 15:53:37
In reply to Laziness is unbecoming, posted by noa on February 1, 2004, at 15:41:07
I'm feeling the same way myself, and with only one computer *monitor* in the house, there's a pretty constant wrestling match over who gets to use it. Instead of doing anything useful, I'm typing long emails and even longer Rants here.
Oh, well, I did clean the catboxes...
You know a trick I've learned that helps me with this sort of feeling? I have found two things that help: making a list of Useful Things I Could Do, and taking a nap. The first provides me with ambitions, so when I have energy and no focus for it, I can just pick a name out of a hat and go. The second, of course, helps me get over my ambitions, but satisfying ambitions isn't always the best goal. Sometimes just having unsatisfied ambitions is enough to keep us going, right?
(There's a wonderful scene in a novel by Orson Scott Card about this. The novel is called "Treason, Card". The hero tells a government secretary that he wishes to see the king. The secretary responds, "It is good for us to have unsatisfied ambitions." Hard to describe out of context, but great in the book.)
Posted by Racer on February 1, 2004, at 15:55:37
In reply to No, Was is UnBecoming » noa, posted by Racer on February 1, 2004, at 15:53:37
Posted by allisonm on February 1, 2004, at 16:12:23
In reply to Laziness is unbecoming, posted by noa on February 1, 2004, at 15:41:07
OH Boy, and Holy Cow!! Can I relate!!
Lots of things to do, no energy. Exercise machine has been deposited in the living room of all places, but it is collecting dust. I did finally plug in the paper shredder I got for Christmas and tried it out on some very old bill receipts... even filled up a big black garbage bag of old papers, which is still sitting on the floor next to the shredder. I'll get it in the garbage can some day...
I'm not into the Superbowl either, but even watching the Superbowl ads sounds more interesting than doing real work.
What "damn good" book are you reading? I've just started the 2003 winners of the O'Henry Prize for short fiction. I don't think I have the attention span for a "real" book.
Posted by noa on February 1, 2004, at 16:51:03
In reply to Re: Laziness is unbecoming » noa, posted by allisonm on February 1, 2004, at 16:12:23
Ya, short stories are great! They're good for short attention span times, but they're just good stuff anyway.
I'm reading "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides.
Posted by noa on February 1, 2004, at 16:57:38
In reply to No, Was is UnBecoming » noa, posted by Racer on February 1, 2004, at 15:53:37
Racer,
The list would make me very anxious right now. I know the list in my head, too.
The nap is tempting. But I resisted today because I awoke late anyway and don't want to have difficulty going to sleep tonight, which would make getting up for work tomorrow morning all that much harder. But it was so tempting.
I did a couple of little spasms of housework. Spasms is the right word. They come unexpectedly and last just a few minutes. This time was a load of laundry and picking up some of the many empty brown paper grocery bags that are lying around in the kitchen.
You have to see my kitchen! It is all set up to be a great set for a movie about one of those crazy loner psychopath types who live with piles of mixed debris! Hey, now there's an idea! I could rent it out for movie shots. Hmmmm....
Near the apt. door I have lined up all the recycling and trash bags I've been too cold or lazy to walk thru the snow to the trash or recycling bins to take out. It's unbelievable. But more than that, my table is covered in mounds of mixed debris, mostly junk mail and just stuff that I have unloaded from my tote bags, etc. and just left there, and it is all just cascading onto the floor, to mingle with the shoes and other odd assorted things including all those crumpled empty brown bags, etc......
Posted by noa on February 1, 2004, at 17:01:44
In reply to Re: Laziness is unbecoming » noa, posted by allisonm on February 1, 2004, at 16:12:23
Another shredder person!
I shredded a bunch of stuff but now I just have another bag of shredded paper that I haven't gotten rid of, LOL!
Not to mention the bags and bags of newspapers, and tin cans and plastic and glass bottles for the recycling bins, etc.
I'm drowning it it all!!
Posted by Racer on February 1, 2004, at 21:09:02
In reply to Re: No, Was is UnBecoming » Racer, posted by noa on February 1, 2004, at 16:57:38
> Racer,
>
> The list would make me very anxious right now. I know the list in my head, too.
>
Hm... See, for me, the anxiety goes down when it's not a mental list any more. Once it's on paper, and it can be counted somehow, it gets a little easier. Of course, I've had to learn to make Really Small Chunks on my list: never something as nebulous as "Clean guest room," it has to be separate steps of what makes up the concept of cleaning the guest room. One step for stripping the bed, another for washing the sheets, another for making the bed, another for vacuuming, etc. Too nebulous raises anxiety, specific ten minute tasks help relieve it. And having it in my head always leads me to start into one of those spinning things: I gotta do this, and this, and this, and the first this again, and this other, etc. Pretty soon, I'm so overwhelmed, I can't do any of it.So what's the damn good book, already???
Posted by shar on February 1, 2004, at 23:30:53
In reply to Re: No, Was is UnBecoming » noa, posted by Racer on February 1, 2004, at 21:09:02
My day started out with my usual laziness, BUT my niece moved back here today and I helped the family unload the 18' u-haul truck. Taa Daaaaa! I actually was moving, dressed in something other than what I slept in, and lifting things. That is a REAL coup for me!
AND there's more!! I returned a call to my racist aunt who is trying to track down my mother who is out of town and I don't know when she's getting back, or really where she went. We're not all that communicative. So, I returned the icky aunt's call.
Wow! That's about seven or eight weekends of activity for me. But I don't want to brag or anything....
:)
Shar
Posted by allisonm on February 2, 2004, at 14:04:15
In reply to Re: Laziness is unbecoming » allisonm, posted by noa on February 1, 2004, at 17:01:44
For some reason, the garbage men have not taken away the recycling bin stuff two times in a row. I am chalking it up to laziness and too-tall mountains of snow. Their negligence allowed me to give myself permission to throw everything in the garbage until spring.
The paper shredder is pretty cool. I think I filled its bin at least four times to the point where it would stop working until I emptied it. I started being more descriminating in what I shredded because I got tired of having to keep emptying the stupid bin. (Talk about lazy...)
Today I am in a quandary. I have a Snapple cap on my desk that says that it is a "Real Fact" that licking a stamp burns 10 calories. Yet, when I went halfway around a round on the exercise machine, it said I'd only burned 38 calories. How could that be when licking four stamps would not make me so terribly out of breath? Somebody is lying here... I hope it is the exercise machine.
Posted by allisonm on February 2, 2004, at 14:05:56
In reply to At last, I win!, posted by shar on February 1, 2004, at 23:30:53
Posted by noa on February 3, 2004, at 13:02:45
In reply to Re: Laziness is unbecoming » noa, posted by allisonm on February 2, 2004, at 14:04:15
>Today I am in a quandary. I have a Snapple cap on my desk that says that it is a "Real Fact" that licking a stamp burns 10 calories. Yet, when I went halfway around a round on the exercise machine, it said I'd only burned 38 calories. How could that be when licking four stamps would not make me so terribly out of breath? Somebody is lying here... I hope it is the exercise machine.
ROFL!!!!
>I started being more descriminating in what I shredded because I got tired of having to keep emptying the stupid bin. (Talk about lazy...)
Not lazy...emptying the bin is actually a skilled task! It's not just emptying like emptying any old bin. You have to try to get it in the bag without having the little shreds fly all over the room! After I emptied it the other day, my floor was a mess!
It's kind of like trying to clean the filter on the vacuum cleaner. I mean, someone in vacuum cleaner design business has a sadistic streak about them, don't you think? OK, so you take the filter out of the cannister. Empty the cannister into the garbage bag--ok, so far so good. But then, have a look at the filter and all its little crenelations and folds and all and how the dust is now not just dust but rather a more CLINGY substance that seems to have taken up in the folds like some kind of colony of living creatures or something, so now you have to actually BANG the filter to loosen the dust colonies, but of course, you have to try to hold the filter inside the trash bag while trying to hold the mouth of the bag closed in order to seal in the dust. OK, so it's like a three-hander, this task, but I only got two, right. OK, so bang bang. Loose dust is a determined little creature and it finds the little crack in the opening of the bag--oh, and did I mention that in order to do this maneuver, one's own hand and half of one's arm need to be INSIDE the trash bag? But little dust particles--they manage to find the hole in the seal, they do. So dust comes FLYING out into my face and all over the room that I just vacuumed! Then, to make matters worse, I check the filter and see that not only is my forearm covered in clingly dust particles, but the amount of dust colony that got loosened from the filter is highly negligible!! And what makes all of this rather flabbergasting is that the vacuum companies' advertisements seem to accentuate the fact that these vacuum cleaner models are "bag-free"!!! I never did the bag type of cleaner, so maybe it has its own drawbacks (I seem to have vague childhood memories of my mother wrestling with the vacuum bag), but I gotta tell you, the bag free version isn't so great, either.....
Posted by noa on February 3, 2004, at 13:04:31
In reply to Re: No, Was is UnBecoming » noa, posted by Racer on February 1, 2004, at 21:09:02
>So what's the damn good book, already???
Look up a couple of posts---it's there.
Ok, you don't have to look back (but it is there!!)
"Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides.
Posted by shar on February 3, 2004, at 14:41:28
In reply to Re: Laziness is unbecoming » allisonm, posted by noa on February 3, 2004, at 13:02:45
> >Today I am in a quandary. I have a Snapple cap on my desk that says that it is a "Real Fact" that licking a stamp burns 10 calories. Yet, when I went halfway around a round on the exercise machine, it said I'd only burned 38 calories. How could that be when licking four stamps would not make me so terribly out of breath? Somebody is lying here... I hope it is the exercise machine.
>
> ROFL!!!!.........Me, too. LOL Shar
>crenelations..............What a most excellent word that is! I don't think I've heard it before; very impressive.
Shar
Posted by noa on February 3, 2004, at 16:11:01
In reply to Re: Laziness is unbecoming, posted by shar on February 3, 2004, at 14:41:28
Thank you, Shar. You know, I have no idea how that word made it into my vocabulary!! I don't know that I have ever used it before. And probably, had I not ventured into that little vacuum cleaning filter rantlet (sorry Racer, I really need to reserve the right to rant, too--but mine will be in small-case letters, as you, m'dear are the queen of the Rant with a capital R, Racer), who knows if I might ever in my lifetime would have used the word crenelations!! And to think it was in there, in my head somewhere, waiting to come out and I had no idea it was in there and poof! I do a little vacuum cleaner rant and out comes crenelations!! How bizarre language is that way, isn't it?
But when reading your post, I suddenly felt a clutch of self consciousness, thinking, "did I use the word appropriately?" After all, I really didn't know for sure what it meant. So, I went and looked it up and the official definitions seem to be
1) a battlement, like in the crenelated tops of fortified castles--I hope this comes out right---
__HH__HH__HH__HH__HH__HH__
and 2)indentations
Mostly it seems to refer to the architectural meaning, both in the medeival sense of fortresses, but also in modern architecture, where there are echoes of the old castle-like indentations on all kinds of buildings.
But further searches on the internet yielded uses of the word to refer to geological crenelations, like in the folds and indentations of mountains. There was even a reference to crenelations that the NASA scientists saw in some images from Mars! And, google images yielded a picture of an elephant jaw with crenellations.
It is a great word, isn't it?
Posted by Racer on February 3, 2004, at 16:38:53
In reply to Re: Words can be so intriguing... » shar, posted by noa on February 3, 2004, at 16:11:01
OK, if I can stop laughing long enough to get this out, I hereby do give, bequeath and confer to you the right to all the ranting you like! Consider it the reward for such a wonderful post. I enjoyed it greatly.
By the way, I've heard the word a lot (don't ask -- just trust me here: lots o'weird words in Racer's past...) and it's often used exactly the way you used it. It's a great word, and I'm very happy to learn that there's a chance -- no matter how slim -- that I will someday find a use for some of my weird words, too. I'd hate to think they were just cluttering up my mind and collecting dust -- although some of them no doubt are. (Anthelmintic comes to mind...)
Posted by allisonm on February 3, 2004, at 17:48:43
In reply to Re: Laziness is unbecoming » allisonm, posted by noa on February 3, 2004, at 13:02:45
That's a wonderful word, as is rantlet. Terrific descriptions, too. You're right about the shredder-bin emptying technique. I failed miserably the first time, but now have got a system down that nearly eliminates those naughty strips of paper from springing out all over the floor.
I have both a bagless and a bagged vaccuum cleaner on the premises. (Oh, happy day.) I had the bagless one first, but now I think I prefer the bag. When trying to clean the filter from the bagless one, I gave up on the arm-in-the-garbage-bag technique, opting solely for the bang-the-damn-thing-against-the-inside-of-the-garbage-can-outdoors-while-breathing-upwind technique. It coats the inside of the thing (mine is plastic with wheels, so static electricity probably plays a part) with the very fine dust, and that will never go away for the rest of the life of the can. But at least it keeps the stuff from reinfecting my house.
My gosh, are we all becoming Junior Heloises?
Posted by noa on February 3, 2004, at 20:15:07
In reply to crenelations » noa, posted by allisonm on February 3, 2004, at 17:48:43
> have got a system down that nearly eliminates those naughty strips of paper from springing out all over the floor.
Do tell!!!
> the bang-the-damn-thing-against-the-inside-of-the-garbage-can-outdoors-while-breathing-upwind technique.
Yes, I guess I might have to bring the operation outside. But I live in a condo, so it isn't that convenient.
> My gosh, are we all becoming Junior Heloises?
HAH! I'm kind of like a student in the Sweathogs class at Heloise school!!
Posted by shar on February 3, 2004, at 21:57:57
In reply to Re: crenelations » allisonm, posted by noa on February 3, 2004, at 20:15:07
I have several vacuums (a soliloquy about 3 dogs, a cat and the carpet is for another time) and I use a bag one to vacuum the filter of the bagless one. I vacuum everything (that is, when I clean, which is sort of a rare event).
I'm more of the Sweathog ilk, myself, but I do love reading the Heloises (you know daughter took over after mom retired).
Ok, Racer...give...what does your word mean?
Shar
Posted by coral on February 4, 2004, at 3:02:36
In reply to Re: crenelations vacuums, posted by shar on February 3, 2004, at 21:57:57
You mean vacuums are supposed to be emptied????
Coral
Posted by shar on February 4, 2004, at 12:16:41
In reply to Re: crenelations vacuums, posted by coral on February 4, 2004, at 3:02:36
Posted by allisonm on February 4, 2004, at 12:46:48
In reply to Re: crenelations » allisonm, posted by noa on February 3, 2004, at 20:15:07
>> have got a system down that nearly eliminates those naughty strips of paper from springing out all over the floor.<<
>>Do tell!!!<<
Gee, I dunno. It may not be perfected yet. I slip my hand into the bin and under the shredder (preferably when it isn't running) and I pull out all of the hanging, loose pieces out of the shredder works and leave them in the bin. Then I put a plastic bag over the top of the bin (after removing shredder, or course), turn it over and empty the bin into the bag. It seems to work better than just grabbing handfuls of the shredded paper and stuffing them into a garbage bag...
Posted by noa on February 4, 2004, at 20:27:55
In reply to Re: crenelations vacuums, posted by shar on February 3, 2004, at 21:57:57
>I use a bag one to vacuum the filter of the bagless one.
Shar! This is brilliant. In this tiny sentence, you have neatly and elegantly illustrated the grand conundrum* of matter in the universe as we know it!!!
*and here I refer to definition #2 of the word conundrum (I confess I only really looked it up because I didn't know how to spell it correctly, but I liked this definition and example):
2. A paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma: “the conundrum, thus far unanswered, of achieving full employment without inflation” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.).
Posted by noa on February 4, 2004, at 20:31:12
In reply to Re: crenelations » noa, posted by allisonm on February 4, 2004, at 12:46:48
OK, see that sounds logical--it does. And I tried it, but in execution, for some reason, it didn't work. The blob of shredded bits didn't really want to find the bottom of the bag, so when I had thought they had all made their way into the bag, I pulled the bin out. But much of the shredded stuff was clinging to the bin and therefore, spilled out.
I just wasn't cut out for cleaning, I guess. Too bad my budget wasn't cut out for maid service.
But I'll try your method again. Maybe practice will make it better.
Posted by noa on February 4, 2004, at 20:39:45
In reply to Re: crenelations vacuums, posted by shar on February 3, 2004, at 21:57:57
>I'm more of the Sweathog ilk, myself, but I do love reading the Heloises (you know daughter took over after mom retired).
I never have had much patience for the Heloise column. I mean, there are some good suggestions, but.....
I mean can't you just picture some of these people's homes??? Think...of all the reused useless objects cleverly recrafted into other useless objects!
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