1: Looks like someone needs to take a nap!
What does it mean if you actually fall asleep during a meeting?
It's an effective demonstration of dominance -- more so if you precede the nap by saying "Wake me if anything important happens."
3: In the context of my status within this organization, that is quite hilarious.
I feel significantly more tired around people I hate. And when someone you hate keeps asking you "what's wrong? what's wrong?" the easiest answer is, "God, you know, I'm just really really really tired today. It's very weird how tired I am."
the easiest answer is, "God, you know, I'm just really really really tired today. It's very weird how tired I am." stab, stab, stabbity, stab, stab.
But truly, "What's wrong?" said in a "sympathetic" voice surely deserves a place in the Passive-Aggressive Top 10.
People reading aloud always sends me near-instantly to sleep. This was particularly bad when I was co-organising the mahkcO at Oxford, where I'd introduce the speaker:
"Everyone, this is assistant-professor Cholmondoley Grice-Tarski, from USC, and he's going to be talking about ..."
sit down beside them, and promptly start nodding off. I used to caffeine myself right up, to no avail. People talking extemporaneously from notes; that's fine. Discussions are fine. But something about the cadence and intonation of people reading something verbatim and I have to concentrate so hard on just staying awake I'm not really hearing what they have said.
People reading aloud always sends me near-instantly to sleep.
It's not just you. Every parent understands this.
11: Doesn't work for mine. He just asks 800 questions.
I also get really sleepy when I don't want to do something.
The most effective soporific I can imagine would be concentrated john c. ha/l\asz* from CT. Why read a big, boring book to lull yourself to sleep, when a single blog comment serve as well?
*If you're a mean-spirited person like I am, this is comedy gold. Be sure to read (well, glance at anyway) the two comments.
13: Back in the day when I would jog/run, going to my bedroom to change clothes was almost as likely to turn into nap as a run.
I fall asleep in the presence of music I don't like. A girl at work once inveigled us to a heavy metal pub, where I amused everybody by nodding off to a soundtrack of Def Leppard turned way up.
Christ, Def Leppard? I liked then, and still like now, a decent amount of heavy metal. But Def Leppard are beyond the pale. I had the misfortune to see them live, too. In the words of Manowar ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhMnYVr0RuY
People talking extemporaneously from notes; that's fine. Discussions are fine. But something about the cadence and intonation of people reading something verbatim and I have to concentrate so hard on just staying awake I'm not really hearing what they have said.
It doesn't make a difference for me. When I'm at a conference, from about 3pm onward, I really struggle to stay awake, even if it's a really interesting discussion. I've had to start sitting at the back so it's not quite so obvious to the panellists. This doesn't happen at all in meetings or in the ordinary course of work, but an afternoon panel? Out like a light.
he acts like he's super busy in a way that smells phony. It feels to me like he's actually a lazy person who believes himself to be really busy.
I have a friend (former friend?) who is Just So Busy all the time that we never end up seeing each other. I was sympathetic to her at first when this started happening, but then one day I had the flash of realization that wait, I'm really busy too.
So, what if you're really lazy, and put up a facade of being overworked out of shame? Is that grating as well?
I'm just checking on behalf of a friend.
20: I think it would be to me. Unless your friend is a master of subterfuge. I don't really care why you don''t make time to hang out- if seeing me is never important enough to make it happen (whether it's competing with working, or taking a nap, or staring out the window, or whatever) then at some point I'm going to take it personally.
I mean, I would, if your friend were my friend.
However, why don't we just stare out the window together? Problem solved!
What if you're so lazy that doing half as much as anyone else really *is* being busy and overworked for you? It's not a facade. What are you supposed to do then?
Uggggh, fatigue is a subject that I've thought about too much, and thinking about it always makes me feel somewhat out of sync with cultural norms.
I've feel lucky that I've spent most of working life where I've had some flexibility to organize my time and pace of work myself, and so I've had ample opportunity to experiment with what works and doesn't work for me. My observations:
1) I believe that I'm more fatigue-prone than average, but not excessively so. My alternate theory is that most people don't acknowledge their own fatigue levels very clearly.
2) The relevant criteria, for me, to judge how hard I'm pushing myself is the amount of time that I spend in a state of heightened focus/attention.
3) The productivity benefits, as a programmer, of being able to sustain heightened focus are non-linear. IF you imagine focus on a scale from 0 (asleep) to 10 ("Everything just stopped working, what happened?"), being at a focus of 8 or 9 is way more than twice as productive than being at 5 or 6.
3a) It's more productive to spend part of my time at high focus and the rest of my time at the lowest level of focus I can get away with than to try to maintain average focus throughout.
4) I'm an introvert, so socializing is not a minimal focus activity for me.
5) The more fatigued I am, the more effort it takes to achieve and maintain heightened focus, but when I do my error rate doesn't increase significantly until I am *very* fatigued. On the other hand, moderate fatigue + moderate focus is a recipe for lots of stupid errors.
5a) It's good to know when to stop working because it's pretty easy to find oneself doing negative work, if you aren't careful.
6) When I'm tired I'm way more touchy/cranky than I normally am. Whenever I see people in the world who are super touchy/cranky I wonder if they're just fatigued. I suspect there are a lot of people who have a serious sleep/energy deficit at any given time.
7) I definitely find that my general energy/fatigue levels accumulate over a 6-12 month window. If I've been working hard for several months straight then my baseline levels of fatigue are going to be increased for a month or two. A restful three day weekend is not enough to feel normal (it is hopefully enough to feel functional, but not always).
8) Work is fun, feeling brain-dead isn't. So it's easy to want to keep working to the point of burn-out. I haven't figured out how to avoid this reliably, but I have gotten better at recognizing just how unpleasant the feeling of burn-out is, and knowing that it doesn't help to try to fight it.
he acts like he's super busy in a way that smells phony. It feels to me like he's actually a lazy person who believes himself to be really busy.
I remember people in college who always seemed to make a big show about how incredibly busy they supposedly were. It sounds like this guy might have been one of those and just kept on with it.
21: Oh, my 'friend' doesn't avoid socializing out of faux-busyness. The facade is just for general purpose shame-avoidance.
21.1 is exactly the conclusion I had to come to about my former friend, though. I don't think she consciously went about trying to distance herself from me, but she clearly just wasn't putting forth any effort.
re: 24
I certainly used to know people who claimed to study an enormous amount. I wasn't sure whether they were lying, or just really shit at studying.
The "I'm So Busy" thing drives me mad. We make time for people and things we're interested in. I write people off for this after a while.
+1 to a lot of the tiredness comments above. I'm tired most of the time and assume plenty of it is a conversion of some anxiety. (Today it's because kitteh decided we hadn't been spending enough time together 1.5 hour before I would ordinarily have gotten up.)
The conclusion I came to about the people who say they study an enormous amount is that they read much more slowly than I expect.
29: I think I've mentioned my freshman roommate who assumed I was skimming when I was actually reading for detail. He lasted two semesters.
It's more productive to spend part of my time at high focus and the rest of my time at the lowest level of focus I can get away with than to try to maintain average focus throughout.
This is totally the new longstanding but heretofore never articulated guiding principle for my whole life. This, and "be nice."
My observation at my workplace is that when someone being "too busy" comes up as a reason for not getting them involved in something or giving them an assignment, it very occasionally means they are in fact really fucking busy but much more frequently signals, "'Danger Will Robinson, danger'; but not ready to deal with that problem at the moment."
I think some people (including me, when I'm on the depressed side of life) use the "I'm busy" excuse to avoid socializing because they need loads of time to themselves to function properly, and being marginally social really does take it out of them, even if they do enjoy being with their friends, etc. Of course, if a good friend can't ever make the time for you, it's time to reevaluate the friendship, but that very well could be part of what's going on.
He lasted two semesters.
A roommate that special, you don't eat all at once.
The "I'm So Busy" thing drives me mad. We make time for people and things we're interested in. I write people off for this after a while.
You know, sometimes there really just isn't time to make. I would really *like* to spend more time socializing, but once I take care of work and middle school and household chores (and let's be honest, that last one just barely, marginally ever gets taken care of...), I'm done.
23.3a: It's more productive to spend part of my time at high focus and the rest of my time at the lowest level of focus I can get away with than to try to maintain average focus throughout.
You realize you're talking to a group of people that presumably could put in a good showing at the focus sprint olympics. Just sayin'.
21.1 and 26 describe a distressingly large percentage of my interactions with my social circle over the past few years. OTOH I do make allowances for the number of parents I know.
This is totally the new longstanding but heretofore never articulated guiding principle for my whole life.
Thanks.
As I've said, it's a subject that I've thought about quite a bit.
You realize you're talking to a group of people that presumably could put in a good showing at the focus sprint olympics. Just sayin'.
Yes, I had hoped this would be a sympathetic audience (and 31 demonstrates that it can be worth articulating shared experiences).
And, of course, I don't believe that my experience is relevant to all people (or all types of work).
(out of curiosity, what did you mean by the "just sayin", I can't tell whether that signaled disagreement or not).
Sometimes being tired really is just being tired. I've tried to become more obsessive about getting enough sleep and it's incredible what a difference it makes in mood, including in being "up" for socializing after a long day. I suspect that most people, especially here, get way too little sleep.
I agree with Di's 25,, as I figure most of the lawyers will.
40.last Or at least most of the divorced lawyers with children.
I mean, 5 hours of sleep is just way to little for humans.
39.last: In this case it was meant to signal double secret reverse ironic understatement. It was not a particularly apt use.
41 -- yes! We could start a support group for divorced lawyer-parents called "bite me complaining child-free academics who say you're too busy". It's possible I don't understand the concept of a support group.
"'Danger Will Robinson, danger'
Three years ago or thereabouts I started chatting with a friend of a friend on facebook and we arranged to meet for one of those coffee-interview-for-a-date atrocities and on the way to meet him, I realized I had completely forgotten his name and the harder I tried to think of it, the clearer it was I wasn't going to remember. All I could remember was that it went with a TV catchphrase. Totally Seinfieldian, I realize, but it really happened. So I'm sitting there looking at the guy across the table thinking "Willis? Fat Albert?"
(His name was Will Robinson.)
once I take care of work and middle school and household chores (and let's be honest, that last one just barely, marginally ever gets taken care of...), I'm done
Seriously. I really hope my hermitish ways haven't offended all the people I know, but honestly I'm just worn out all the time from the daily grind of feeding, bathing, putting to bed, laundry, dishes, and the rest.
Today, you could look at Facebook on your phone.
the daily grind of feeding
I assumed your kids were old enough to chew.
It's possible I don't understand the concept of a support group.
Perhaps not, but you seem to have found the niche for marketing one to divorced lawyer parents.
When you walked up to him you should have said, "Norm!"
I believe the comment you are referring to, Heebie, was actually a reference to this article about post-operative fatigue. I had asked my doctor, why, two weeks after surgery, I still felt like I had been run over by a truck. He told me that different people take different amounts of time to recover from general anesthesia, and I shouldn't worry about it.
I worried about it anyway, and googled around until I found a paper that argued that extended post operative fatigue is a product of whiny malingering (although it didn't use those words.) This turned out to be exactly what I needed. I decided that my fatigue was a manifestation of the depression I had always felt and actually knew how to manage and got back to work the next day.
I didn't have internet at my house for a couple months a while back. I concluded that not being able to go on internet at home was worth two hours of sleep a night. It was winter, when I generally sleep more anyway. But pretty much, whether I turned on my computer was the difference between going to bed at 10pm and going to bed at midnight. I'd like to do that again, but don't know if I'll have the willpower to forego something I've got now, rather than not starting it up when I'd just moved home.
Get drunk, rent a backhoe. Maybe you'll get lucky.
3a) It's more productive to spend part of my time at high focus and the rest of my time at the lowest level of focus I can get away with than to try to maintain average focus throughout.
Aka "sprint and drift".
53: I read somewhere the looking at screens (TV or computer) before bed messes with some kind of brain thing and keeps you from sleeping.
It's more productive to spend part of my time at high focus and the rest of my time at the lowest level of focus I can get away with than to try to maintain average focus throughout.
THAT'S WHAT THE HARE THOUGHT TOO.
I don't have time for this thread.
I couldn't even get through the post without nodding off. Sorry, heebie.
I am very fatigued whenever my immune system is doing anything. I'm usually extremely healthy, but even the smallest task for my immune system makes me nap and grump. After I got a not-big tattoo I sort of lazed around the house for several days, and my roommate referred to it as "resting my tattoo." But I was! I think any real immune-system difficulty would be a big challenge for me.
37: I'm relieved, though probably unfairly, that you had that footnote. I've felt like an absolutely horrible friend (for whatever value of "friend" includes the fact that basically everyone in real life is more on the acquaintance-y side of things but including people I'd like to spend time with) for the last year because since Mara came we've had a babysitter once and I've only gone out on my own a handful of times for reasons other than going to the store or whatever.
I realize that's a choice and it was for a good reason, but I've gotten nasty comments from people in my knitting group about how I have my priorities all wrong and Lee needs to pull her weight. And lo, now that Lee is not teaching a night class that happens at the same time as the child-unfriendly knitting group, I'm able to attend but no longer all that inclined to after people talked about Lee "babysitting" and otherwise tried to tell me I'm inadequate about self-care, as if they'd fucking know.
I'll shut up now, or else I'll talk a lot more. I am having trouble finding balance to some degree, but that's because going out and socializing then wears me out enough I need to budget extra time to hole up and recuperate and I don't have time for that shit because there's a three-year-old who can't play by herself without mommy-mommy-mommy-blah-blah-blah for more than 20 minutes at a time.
53 My stolen wireless connection occasionally goes out for a day and I read something or play piano or fucking cure cancer instead of sitting there like a zombie clicking among a dozen pages and IMing with the same people I IM'd with all day at work. I've thought about having someone fuck up the wireless card on my computer (I'm clueless and lazy and wouldn't fix it) so I could get my life back, but then I always think of reasons it would ruin my life like ZOMG no streaming Netflix.
See, this is why you should mentally categorize Unfogged as volunteering.
I think any real immune-system difficulty would be a big challenge for me.
I spent a year or two continually fighting off disease until I got used to whatever germs kids bring home after playing with toys other kids have tried to eat.
And ok, yes, I suppose I should note that parenting is an all-encompasing kind of busy. This is why I get sad when friends have kids. I know I'm losing them for a good long time, the same as if they were moving across the country.
62: Your knitting group was giving you shit about prioritizing childcare? There go all my stereotypes.
Also, you've made giant lace shawls. Should I try this, despite never having knitted lace before, on the grounds that I've never met a pattern I had much trouble with? Or will it take me years and drive me mad?
65: I finally got too tired to fight off infections, and gave up and just let them in, and, now, I'm much smarter!
68: The person giving shit was a non-custodial mom and her boyfriend and they were simultaneously slightly hitting on me in a way that creeped me out also. I'm guessing they've stopped liking Lee or something. There's only one current parent of a young kid among the regulars, although two just had babies and more will soon.
More importantly, you should absolutely make that shawl. Her patterns are great and detailed, and working a top-down lace lets you start with small rows and increase as you get the hang of things. If it did start driving you crazy, you could probably start the final lace border much earlier and just make a smaller shawl. And you'll even be competent to do the crocheted bind off, which I'm not.
This is why I get sad when friends have kids. I know I'm losing them for a good long time, the same as if they were moving across the country.
You can keep them if you don't care what you do. Run errands with them on a Sat morning? Sure. Go to the park for 40 mins, which could be cancelled at any point? Yep. I kept my good friends by being completely willing to tag along. But it is true that I haven't had their full attention at adult activities for a few years. That is starting to return, though.
And you'll even be competent to do the crocheted bind off, which I'm not.
If you're noticing it as a lack, you could teach yourself all the necessary crochet skills in an an afternoon. Crochet is really, really easy, manually, compared to knitting. (Actually, NYer's interested in learning to crochet, I'm volunteering at some needlearts booth at the MakerFaire in Queens 9/17. I mean, if I know you, I'd teach you to crochet anytime, but I'm kind of psyched about the volunteering.)
72: Okay, I can crochet well enough to manage a bind off, but I don't enjoy it and still find it very physically awkward.
Speaking of awkwardness, I don't particularly care about most of the people in my knitting group and just joined it because I felt like I ought to be getting out of the house and socializing more. I've been hoping some better activity would present itself eventually, but I haven't found anything that clicks yet. So if I stop going to knitting, it'll be their loss. Or something.
That lace pattern is terrifying. It would take me twenty years.
Probably not. You've been turning out a lot of scarves quickly for someone who's been knitting (damn, I lose track of time. Less than a year?) I mean, it'd take a long time for anyone, but you're pretty fast, and probably only going to get faster.
(I, on the other hand, am not fast. I bow to none in my ability to follow a pattern, but my actual manual dexterity it pathetic.)
Smearcase, the thing about top-down triangle shawls like that is that the first half of the pattern takes six days and then you have 6000 stitches on the needle and the rest takes twenty years, but the first part at least is fun fun fun and sometimes that gives you the right sort of inertia to finish the whole thing.
Hm, since February or March. I've slowed down a little lately, and I guess I haven't made that many. Six months=8.5 scarves and a Cthulhu.
See, the merest of hats can take me a month. And then my ungrateful children scorn them. I'm giving up knitting for the children, and only knitting for my parents. (Buck is useless. I ask him what kind of hat he'd like me to knit him, and he wants a sheepskin pilot's helmet. I can't knit leather.)
78: You could knit something and barter it for a sheepskin pilot's helmet.
Or try to argue that wool is sort of sheeps' outer skin.
re: 29
Yes, definitely that. Also some people seem to have really inefficient strategies [or have poor memories]. I'm lucky enough to read quickly and retain information quite well,* as is, I expect, probably quite common around here.
The strategy thing, though, seems to be an issue.
'Why are you reading and then laboriously rewriting that chapter now? There are three months to the exam and you'll have forgotten it. Why not skip doing it now, and just do it once, right when you need to?'
* in the medium term. I've been shocked how quickly stuff gets dumped from memory after exams.
Semi-OT: By 9 this morning I had identified that if absolutely nothing else got done today, I at least had to send two not-long emails and schedule two meetings. Progress report: one email is half-written. And it ain't because I'm too busy.
I'm fucking knackered this week. And whilst I am sure that I DO have emotional needs that aren't being met this week, it's probably more to do with only getting 4 hours sleep on Sunday night and then getting up at an unaccustomed 6.15 am ever since. (Kid B started school (age 13) on Tuesday.)
The one thing that will send me to sleep quickest is reading aloud in the daytime. At bedtime, I'm fine. But snuggled up on a sofa in the afternoon and I'm slurring my words before the end of the chapter.
In light of 33 I might have to resurrect the rejected hypothesis that Paren and I are the same person.
I was considering going to a potluck today, but I just woke up after falling asleep for about an hour sitting at my desk (at home) at the computer and the potluck is about 15 minutes away and ends in 30 minutes. I don't think it's worth going; I wasn't bringing anything anyway.
I confess to doing the "OMG, I'm so busy!" thing. I've been up to it this week, coming to grips with the fact that there's a lot on my plate for September and having a series of minor freaks-out before realizing that, yes, there's a lot but it's manageable, so chill out.
But duly noted that it's annoying. I suppose it rather annoys me, too, that it happens.
Regarding post-operative fatigue, the points about getting over general anaesthesia and your immune system working hard are good. But as a surgeon remarked to me, there's also the point that somebody has just done something to you which, if they hadn't taken you to a hospital and scrubbed up first, would have got them sent down for five years for Grievous Bodily Harm. Surgery really is a vicious assault on your system.
I have a horrible auto-immune system problem that means I am tired pretty much all the time. if I don't set the alarm I can go to bed at 10 pm and wake up at noon. I have to set the alarm to do things at 11. also I am in chronic pain and now I've developed this retarded gay shitty rheumatoid arthritis in my knees. my shoulders are making weird noises but I don't want to tell my doctor about it because then he'll tell me I have some other dumb-ass problem, and I don't want to know. I'm already taking like 16 pills a day, what are they going to do.
I'm WAY less sick than my sister, though, and I have to stay grateful for that; she was dislocating her shoulder in her sleep, repeatedly, causing her to sit bolt upright in the bed and scream in agony. I just do things on sheer willpower. I feel tried and shitty whether I do anything or not, I might as well get shit accomplished. but I really can't do anything at night unless I take way more pain pills than I'm supposed to; I have to turn down invitations a lot.
but this lyrica has been pretty great in terms of giving me energy, although I have to take 3x the recommended dose, even if it summons cthulu and was putting the damper on my sex life (that's improved, you'll all be relieved to know.)
Cthulu is always happy to be summoned.
Cthulu feeds on the agony of nocturnal dislocations. (Ow, and, seriously, ow. Poor sister!)
I know! she dislocated her shoulders maybe 15 times each before the surgery, or more! and then she went and tore her rotator cuff cleaning the house to get ready for me and the girls coming. and just now during the hurricane she dislocated her hip and didn't even know right away because she is in so much pain anyway. she put it back in herself. shudder. she has that thing venus williams has, sjögrens, but also lupus and ehdlers-danlos. it sucks. she is about to turn 30 on 11/11/11 and I want to party but she feels like she's going to be in a wheelchair soon and what has she done with her life? so not feeling the party spirit. I think I'll buy her and my mom a ticket to narnia and take her to villa qunci on lombok. they have amazing massages and you get to sit in a giant bathtub full of frangipani. slightly selfish because I promised to be wherever she was on her birthday, so I'd like it to be closer to me. poor sweetie, I love her so much, it horrible to see her suffer so.
whenever I'm feeling sorry for myself being in pain I think of her and remember how lucky I am, and that I should be grateful for all the amazing stuff in my life. plenty of people are just as sick as me and they're broke with no money for medicine! I have so many resources to fall back on, and a beautiful house, and a loving family, and a growing business, and a fucking live-in maid to do all the things I can't do! I really need to remember to be grateful. I'm scared and sad for my sister that she can never have children. if I were younger and healthier I'd be a surrogate for her.