"New Year's Resolution: I am going to get the fluffy cat to enjoy sitting in my lap."
I knew one of the front page posters was Blofeld, but heebie wasn't the one I thought it was.
Boy, if I started praising myself for self-restraint in the face of provoking situations this year, I would never stop. I have self-restraint down to a science. My self is so goddam restrained I'm practically keeping it in a cage in the basement.
Lots of little toddler-related things. She's not making me feel very organized or on-top-of-things or well-rested, but she does take a lot of self-restraint.
You just walked right into that one, Heebs. I was duty bound.
4: Your ego and id are playing 50 Shades of Gray.
Like LB, I'm not sure I deserve praise for self-restraint. But this wasn't a bad year at work. We got new business in the fall which screwed up our schedules this year and made the last 4 months really annoying, but will pay off next year.
Managed to deal with my brother re. my dad's condition without murdering him, for my mom's sake. Politely told friends I didn't feel like talking when I didn't rather then feigning cheer. Left bad therapist for good therapist.
These are pretty solipsistic but shrug emoji.
No, you misunderstand me. I deserve all the praise in the world for self-restraint. The fact that I made it through this year without leaving a trail of carnage in my wake is remarkable.
Listing specifics would just be (a) really long, and (b) not so much fit for public consumption.
4, 7 re keeping things in basements I have been watching The OA and finding it a lot hotter that I'm sure I'm meant to.
I decided to make an early start on my new year's resolution not to insult my stepdaughter. I lasted about 2 days. So I'm back to telling her how stupid and annoying and lazy she is, and she tells me how mean I am, and she's doing her annoying laugh the whole time, so maybe it's not that big a deal.
The fact that I made it through this year without leaving a trail of carnage in my wake is remarkable.
Hooray for scattered, non-linear carnage.
No, you misunderstand me. I deserve all the praise in the world for self-restraint.
Yes, I wasn't thinking. I was considering a certain baseline level of self-restraint as a given, but remembering what your year has been like you do deserve all the praise in the world.
5 was me. I don't know why my phone doesn't save this.
10: your restraint is noble but deprives us of entertainment in the form of vicarious righteous outrage. (I have a weird fondness for well-told novels that have a certain sort of plot, eg. Siri Hustvedt's The Summer without Men, despite there being a different reason for the breakup of my own only really long term relationship (now broken up for longer than it was in existence).)
I continue to talk to my father almost every damn day, because he really does need it--despite the fact that he generally makes me unhappy and specifically that I'm disgusted with him for having 1/40,000th share of the blame for our Trumpian future. It's a close thing, though.
I have not been fired for yelling at people, despite yelling quite often and loudly. Received, in fact, quite glowing annual management feedback. But still not even close to praiseworthy non-yelling levels. As in, the decibel level of yelling surprises and scares me, as well as its objects.
I grudgingly acquiesced to spending precious vacation time visiting some places that were important to (a) my wife and (b) my sister. This exercise of self restraint shockingly was rewarded by my having a decent time at said places. I don't know what to make of it.
I think I'd have trouble if I yelled at people at work.
Did I mention the objects are tiresome students? They're tiresome students.
22: Pretty sure I would too. Good thing I don't have the energy or give a fuck to do that.
I also can't use my white board to write messages about who should go fuck themselves.
Or at least I can't use the one that is visible from the hall for that.
blunt recall games like this are unbelievably hard for me. Any of the year end recall-and-summarize tasks are impossible
Yes. It seems like magic when other people can do this.
That's why murder mysteries and such often have the witnesses giving a reason for why they remembered seeing whatever the saw.
You know what I notice that way? Jokes. I like telling jokes, and I know a fair number of them. If I actually try to recall one rather than just waiting to be reminded of one by something in the conversation, the only thing I can come up with is "What's brown and sticky? A stick."
I remarked of the new boss that you could bottle his charm and sell it as weedkiller but I have managed not to say this to his face. LB undoubtedly deserves the golden kris award for not running amok this year.
I'll take whatever praise is left over when LB is through. Lee will see the girls (all three!) for two hours on Xmas Eve day, then "travel" for the next week so we don't have to see her at all. She won't tell me where she's going because she wants me to ask, which I won't. She basically called me fat in a message copying our coparenting therapist after having both freaked out at me for other things and admitted to having done, uh, several suboptimal things as a parent that she'd previously denied. I wish I could show you how hilariously bad the messages are, but I'm taking the high road for the moment. (And apparently not missing any meals along the way, or so I'm told.) Probably the best thing I did this year was get communication switched to email copying the therapist, not that she always complies. I do have hopes for next year.
I have some praise and one more package of candy because I counted wrong.
I have becoming very good at actively repressing embarrassing memories. Something will happen and I'll think how I'll never forget how embarrassed I feel then a few weeks later I don't remember what it was, just that something embarrassing happened. Unfortunately I don't have any examples I can give.
33 is foreign to me. Embarrassing memories are like a bad burrito. I can't stop them from coming up again.
31 is remarkable.
... after having both freaked out at me for other things and admitted to having done, uh, several suboptimal things as a parent that she'd previously denied.
She isn't related to ydnew's co-worker is she?
"What's brown and sticky? A stick."
My favorite dumb joke (which I genuinely love): "What sits at the bottom of the ocean and quivers? A nervous wreck."
34: Yes, very foreign to me as well. Embarrassing memories from elementary school still come back to haunt me from time to time.
The only joke I can ever remember is "Why is six afraid of seven?"
What's brown and sounds like a bell? Dung!
35: Yeah, that felt weirdly familiar for sure. (Which reminds me I should maybe be more prepared for retaliatory violence someday than I currently am. Oh well.)
I never feel moved to stab anyone at work! In this department of life I am #blessed.
Some embarrassing memories, from childhood, recur at odd times, particularly in dreams, but it's very selective and random. I've no particular reason to feel shame over what I remember compared to what I seem to have forgotten. I guess it depends on how much of an impression it made on me at the time. So we remember harmless things and forget things that aren't, willy nilly.
Xiaoping's voice was a little squeaky, but that's just rude.
34/37 here, too. Every awful or embarrassing thing ruminated upon, horribly, forever.
I am of course with those who blame themselves and think about it forever.
I also ruminate always on every embarrassing thing you've done.
48: How do you know about every embarrassing thing Thorn has done, armsmasher? Or were you talking to LB?
49: By RTFA, mostly. I see what y'all're doing.
There is one thing that I was really embarrassed by at the time when I was a kid that I do remember but I no longer consider it very embarrassing so it doesn't count. My brother's friend called and I said he can't talk now, he's in the bathroom, and my brother got super mad at me and said you're never supposed to say that you're just supposed to say he's not available.
Explain in comments which particular example of self-restraint you are most proud of.
It hasn't come yet: I'll be making an excuse not to attend the Christmas gathering of my sort-of in-laws on Monday. Why? I'm told they have a Trump sign on their lawn.
Since I heard this (just a few days ago) I've spent the odd half-hour or two imagining conversations I might have with them, asking myself whether I'd be able to keep my mouth shut, wondering whether I'd be able to avoid sarcasm, or god forbid, a curling of the lip ... were I to attend. Which I will not.
The only remaining question is whether I'll say that I can't be there because of the, uh, Trump thing.
I guess it wouldn't be proper self-restraint unless I avoided doing that as well. Right? And yet! We keep hearing that we blues and reds should start talking to one another.
I don't think I want to review my own year really because I am (a) still in the same place job-wise but massively internally resistant to attempting to move (b) nowhere romantically, even less so than a year ago (c) slightly fatter and likely to be more so by the time Christmas is over (d) still doing the lazy/procrastinating stuff in work which ultimately led me to having lots of anxiety last spring and which I can kind of feel starting up again. Family and friends remain great and the time-consuming extra curricular courses that I started too many of at the same time are rewarding. I am a much better student than I was twentyish years ago - perhaps by the time I ought to retire but can't afford to I will have developed good work habits.
Damn, I missed the real point of the exercise. Actually I think over the years I have been too self-restrained and I need to stand up for myself more. Hence my rebellion in the form of work-to-rule of sorts.
53: Tell them you can't come because you're too busy in fighting in the War Against Christmas.
52: Or "He went to see a man about a horse."
Or "Shaking hands with the unemployed."
I'm with SP. All of the shitty things I do just get compartmentalized and tucked away, and I can't retrieve them. If I didn't write them down I'd be an arrogant, self-righteous, charming adult with a swell sense of style.
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Got dream job callback even without jorteralls. Interview process is wretchedly substantive so I'm going to be doing practice hypotheticals this holiday.
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54: "Obtain good work habits around the time it doesn't matter anymore" is my goal, too. Procrastinator comity! You struck me as tremendously smart and on-point, so de-self-restraining yourself could be good.
(By the way, we went back to that pub a few days later to listen to music, but it was a weekend and too crowded. Had to leave because the fellow American near us, hogging a seat close to the musicians, was loudly explaining her experience of being a delegate to the Texas Republican primary.)
60: *looks up jorteralls* That's an aggressive strategy, only to be used in the most fraught negotiations. Congrats!
Supposed to present on a complicated legal issue I know well and all I can think of is "custom of the sea" which is an actual thing they taught us in law school which dictates how long you have to be lost at sea before you can kill and eat the cabin boy.
45 freaked me out because that's my stepmother's actual name (the whole famous name), we don't get on, and for a horrible second I thought she had showed up on unfogged.
68: Depends on if you have diabetes or not.
68 ...and I don't even remember how long it was because it became a joke with friends where we'd invoke custom of the sea if, like, the bus was late.
"Eat the cabin boy" is the lawyers equivalent to the actors "break a leg".
69: Weird!
71: Given R v Dudley and Stephens apparently never. At least if you're Commonwealthian.
73 I forgot how wrenching the facts actually were. I mean I suppose I could have inferred because you know, in extremis cannibalism, but still, rereading, oh dear. (Also source material for Moby Dick IIRC.)
74 last is wrong since Moby Dick was written 30 years earlier.
Melville could have been ahead of his time.
I think Melville had heard of the Essex wreck. Cannibalism there, too.
People who read people who eat people are the luckiest people of all.
This is -all- going in my presentation for my interview. "Teach us about an interesting problem in Constitutional law." "No."
73: What about Timothy v Joe (1971)? NE Pennsylvania represent!
"Joe was looking at you."
Also apparently a problem in Dudley was that they killed the cabin boy without drawing lots so it WASN'T even proper custom of the sea, but this was kind of a problem cabin boys had, they were poor urchins & not easily missed so they were kind of around just in case for cannibalism? This sounds wrong? Why we were taught this on like the first day of law school idk.
82: that is so unfair! Cabin boy was in a coma.
roger has been awfully quiet these last few days. Maybe Halford ate him.
For the first time I wonder if perhaps I should have been a lawyer.
Also, The I'm Alone is both a really important law of the sea case and a great band name.
And the subject of a good folk song (as is The Golden Vanity).
http://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=6479
Cabin Boy in a Coma: one of the lesser Smiths tracks.
Though vastly superior to Cabin Boy Meat Isn't Murder.
I Started a Cabin Boy I Couldn't Finish
Cabin Boy in a Coma
Could be a variation of "The Golden Vanity"
Also, congratulations on the job news!
And how could we forget The Boy With the Fork in his Side?
(Kobe!)
Thank you for the well-wishes, everyone. Even if this job doesn't work out it's encouraging to be reminded that I'm competitive, and that I have skills that people doing good work want. The process of looking is draining and so dependent on *clicking* with a place, not totally unlike dating except you know, way more coerced.
All praise upon all of you for your acts of restraint and self-discipline this year.
Hooboy, self-restraint. I had my HR meeting today. I was as restrained as possible. Somehow, the HR rep scheduled me first, which I suppose gives me an advantage. At one point, I was describing how he talks to me vs my older and more male counterpart (respectful and friendly) and ended with, "But it's fine. Seen it before, will see it again, nothing to get excited about" and she said, "No, that's really not fine." She might send us to a class about how to get along with people. There were personality tests. He fucked a bunch of things up this week, including dramatically undercounting our hazmat stocks for an emergency response survey. Hilariously, he listed both water and saline as hazardous materials. Go figure.
Living right near the MIL is also excellent. She is the world's strictest grandmother. She signed one of the grandkids, age 4, up for T-ball with the parents' permission, agreeing to take him to games half the time (the parents have shifting work schedules). We went along to a game on a really hot day. It was in the high 90s. They let the kids leave after three "innings." The kid had drunk all his water and was parched. He asked my MIL if he could get lemonade at the concessions stand. She told him she left her purse in the car. I had, too. I had brought a Thermos of ice water, so I fished out some ice for him, and he brightened. I had more cold water in the car, so promised him we'd refill his bottle ASAP. My MIL said it wasn't neccesary, he could wait, the ride home was only five minutes. I just ignored her and refilled his bottle from mine, because fuck that, it was hot and he was thirsty and FOUR. Later, I learned that the concession stand gives free lemonade to all the kids for free after games. I guess she just found it unhealthy and didn't want him to have it. I gave the boyfriend an earful but managed to keep my temper in check and get the kid a drink. So many stories like this!
She is now trying to weasel into my parents' turn for Xmas. We alternate years, and she keeps asking if we're around on X day. Last year, we were going to split because the distance is not so bad anymore, but she signed us up for three different celebrations, all with, "And it's MY YEAR this year, so you can do all of them!" This year, when it's the year we get to have the easy, chill family (my father, basically), she keeps asking stuff like, "but when can we exchange gifts?" and "when EXACTLY will you be with ydnew's folks?" The boyfriend is a champ and suggested we have hers shipped directly to her house. We told her the plan after we made arrangements. That was NOT the answer she wanted!
At Thanksgiving, we had to go around the table (at a child's behest) and say what we were thankful for. She was grateful for having her son back "home." She cried tears of joy. We were mortified. Like, all these other folks, who cares? Step-kids, whatever. Thank god her baby boy was home. I suspect she didn't do this for his sister, nor did she seem especially sad to see her move out of state this spring.
She's quite nice in limited doses, but man does she have a gift for setting our teeth on edge.
Re: embarrassing or awful moments, many years ago I read that the more you replay something like that, the better you'll remember it. When I found myself thinking about my lastest faux pas, I started aggressively distracting myself in hopes that I'd forget rather than remember every time I woke up in the middle of the night and had the blues. It turns out this works really well for me. I can't remember too many completely mortifying things I've done in the past ten years or so. Either that or my memory is full of previous stupid and awful things because I hit my lifetime memory quota ahead of schedule.
103 is really good advice. I should try to take it some time instead of replaying everything embarrassing on endless loops in my head.
I've been restrained. At work. Oh boy have I been restrained. Which is why I've taken up drinking as my new hobby.
Even if this job doesn't work out it's encouraging to be reminded that I'm competitive, and that I have skills that people doing good work want.
Yeah, that's a really good feeling and a very good thing to know.