cocaine.
it seems like that's the answer to so many of these sort of quandaries.
Sleep. It's as close to a panacea as we have available to us.
Oh, I guess there's one thing closer to being a panacea.
Pretend like you totally meant to do it that way 'cause it's the new style, and laugh scornfully at all the poor saps in their super lame gym shoes. That is SO last year. Gym shoes! Puh.
I usually take it as a time that I need some time off—even a day or two—which, actually, is my current status.
I've just come to accept flakiness and hope that people are understanding.
sleep, simplify, and just try to roll with it.
3: Self-abuse
Longer Ben: Just follow your normal routine.
I also abuse ben whenever I'm feeling flaky.
Selenium sulfide helps me de-flake.
Use only as recommended.
OT:
This is interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/world/europe/25virgins.html?hp
Starting trying to figure out what's eating up such a portion of my cognitive capacity. If I'm that forgetful, it's probably because a serious amount of brainpower is being used to worry over, repress, or otherwise manage something big.
Or else I just need 12 hours' sleep.
I try to think of something routine and easy and completely unrelated to my most recent flake-out, think it through in my mind and then do that task in a low-key way as a kind of affirmation that I can actually function.
As the saying goes, if you don't know what you want, it's probably sleep.
Yeah, that kind of flakiness means I'm becoming ungrounded, most commonly because I'm heavily immersed in things far away from the tasks at hand. When I find that I've done something that absent-minded (assuming it's problematic rather than just funny), I actually physically stop, stand still, look around me, touch a few things.
If I can't shake it for days or weeks, it's time to think about going to lie in the grass, or walking in the rain, anything to find ground again and slow down. Robust's idea seems similar: slow down, baby steps.
Or sleep.
going to lie in the grass
eekbeat and I have been doing this lately at the end of the night to decompress. Lie down. Stare up at stars. Maybe share a beer or some wine, as we sit there quietly. It's really very calming.
Hippy/Hippie
Is there any standardization of this word? A slight difference in meaning?
Or do we think that variant spellings is appropriate for such an unstructured and amorphous concept?
IDP, obviously "hippy" is the spelling used by people who don't care one way or the other. (your 21.3)
I find "hippy" to be a little too amusingly like what my mother says of women who tend toward wide hips, such that "hippies" as a plural of that can lead to mental images that make me .. laugh.
What Witt said in 14, and stop taking statins.
|| This is a PSA for you young people: TAKE CARE OF YOUR TEETH. If you grind them, wear a damn bite guard. Otherwise they will start to crack, and at some point you will need massive work to prevent cavities in the cracks and eventual breakage.
Also, floss.
|>
Just have them all pulled. They're fucking useless except for smiling pretty. God damn teeth.
27: I *like* being able to eat nuts and caramels, dammit. You'll pry my teeth out of my cold dead head.
Stuff white people really like; their teeth. (I think Emerson is secretly a Mandan Indian—sometimes known as the "white Indians".)
It's "hippie", you relativists.
To remedy flakiness, which in my experience correlates strongly with parenthood, I can only occasionally push back against the tide of chaos. Today I cleared off my desk and library floor, and organized several years' worth of statements, bills, payment forms &c. For the moment at least, I feel like a million bucks. I love order.
Sometimes I get mentally flaky when I'm dehydrated.
Like most people, long term tiredness gets to me, eventually.
Only if you are into the whole supplements thang..
Try the herb ashwagandha (for the queasy, you get it in tabs as well).
Ugh. If I knew that I would end up as a person who talks up weird sounding herbs, like some new-agey chiffon-and-lace-wearing salvia-smoking chick, I would have been far less smug/judgmental in my twenties.
(Anyway, infomercial-like endorsement starts here) When I first started to take it at the recommendation of one admittedly, slightly kooky friend, I thought it was the placebo effect - I was both calmer and, well, paid more attention to detail. But I did some reading at Medline and other places (aided by new found smarts, OBVIOUSLY), and there are studies that show it works as an anti-carcinogen as well as in helping in anti-stress and alertness.
Its no substitute for sleep, of course.
close bracket.
Maybe I should double my dose.
Tokyo update: A Japanese company is portraying Obama as a monkey in its commercials. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is portraying a monkey as Obama.
Bonus: The link references Mandom and other racially dubious Japanese ads.
That one doesn't really bother me, but mostly because I don't think you can ever have enough monkeys on TV. Though it's unrelated to this ad, I will note for the record that Obama, like Bush before him, does kinda look like a monkey.
Of course, what with the common ancestorl, everybody does.
flaky, when I'm dehydrated.
so true, when i'm dehydrated or hungry i have headaches, after drinking some fluid or eating, it subsides
or coffee withdrawal could be nasty, during weekdays i usually drink coffee, on weekends try not, so recent observation was if don't drink coffee i feel excessive sleepiness, 16 hrs! and apathy like syndrome, i had even like muscle cramps which subsided after drinking coffee
i thought if this is all after missing only one cup of coffee or two mochas in the morning, not sure whether hot chocolate part adds caffeine or dilutes it, adds perhaps, then i can imagine a real drug withdrawal very like easily
and coffee seems shorten one's sleep, i mean should drink tea only instead
35 i remember a japanese tv ad which portrayed Chinese like locusts, like millions of them on the bikes coming towards the viewer and there someone applies a spray of something i forget what it was, the advertised item, and they go away
so so racist, i was so offended watching that even given my general dislike of Chinese
I've been flubbing things that defy even those remedies because they're so basic (like forgetting one needs to bring shoes to the gym).
Some of us are like that all the time.
Real Men squat without shoes. You ladies are welcome to try it as well.
I'm all for lying on the grass, looking at the swifts wheeling overhead as the day draws to an end. If I'm lucky the bat will come out before I go inside. A few minutes of this is incredibly relaxing.
looking at the swifts wheeling overhead
Man, a few weeks of cop school and gswift's whole family gets superpowers.
No no no! I've strung them up, by their toes!
When he gets down, he's going to taze you, bro.
I'm all for lying on the grass
Don't forget to check for ticks. And watch out for the chiggers.
Dude, Becks, load up the bong.
I can't believe nobody's suggested this yet?
Dudes. Rip some tubes when you got the blues! Spark some nugs for the nog! You with me, bros, ladybros? Yeah!
Pot for an excess of flakiness?
47: hell yeah! All your cares just wash away, and you can hella like beat Bowser or whatever you haven't been gettin' too. Even better if you have a beer or seven; that way you can really settle in for the evening and get to it.
47: Break on through to the other side. Further!
It's like you "wrap around" on the flakiness scale.
Pot: For an Excess of Flakiness. Try it today!
Even better if you have a beer or seven; that way you can vomit and vomit and vomit.
Pot for an excess of flakiness?
At least then you have an excuse.
25: I grind like a bitch at night and I hate my nightguard and never wear it. I'm doomed.
Brock have you tried filling your mouth completely with marshmallows before going to bed?
No. That sounds like a choking hazard.
No. That sounds like a choking hazard.
You won't grind your teeth at all after you choke to death! It's a big win all around.
Brock have you tried filling your mouth completely with marshmallows before going to bed and saying "chubby bunny"? It's difficult.
Chubby Bunny is a game we used to play as kids. You'd start with one marshmallow and say it, then add one at a time (no chewing allowed!) and so who is the last person who could say it recognizably. It gets messy.
To start with, quit making the lists and calendar items. It is creepy and makes people like me feel guilty about not doing it and I start thinking of the word anal which in this context is creepy.
OK, other people mentioned sleep, which is great, and personally I need a good solid nine hours of it to support my massive mental capacity. We all know that is a joke though, so let us laugh resignedly and a little bitterly about our collective sleep deprivation in modern life. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Barring sleep this is what you need to do. Start presenting an aura of mystery, infallibility, and mental superiority. Once that is in place people will stop seeing your slip-ups as goofs and instead will assume you've got some deeper reason for the slip-ups that they can't quite comprehend. That way when they think of a reason you'll get credit for their genius!
Works for me.
I was forced to play that game in school a few times. I can't recall its purported educational value. I was fairly good at it, though.
63: and how were your teeth then?
62: That way when they think of a reason you'll get credit for their genius!
I forgot the most important point. Never let on that this is what you are doing!
OT: Since ogged is no longer with us, I'll have to link to this Tony Karon article for him.
How come you always manage to do that on Becks's non-politics threads, stras?
let us laugh resignedly and a little bitterly about our collective sleep deprivation in modern life
I slept for about 11 hrs last night. It was great.
To solve forgetting to bring your shoes to the gym, collect your gym clothes and accoutrements the night before. When packing the morning of, I routinely forget my swim shorts or running shoes or what-have-you.
You just took a longish vacation, right? Then more sleep is a good suggestion.
eekbeat and I have been doing this lately at the end of the night to decompress. Lie down. Stare up at stars. Maybe share a beer or some wine, as we sit there quietly. It's really very calming.
This sounds calming. And then I remember that leaving the safety of the great indoors after dusk inevitably results in my spending the next week swollen, red, and itchy in the aftermath of mosquito feasting. Pardon the gratuitous pun, but mosquitoes suck.
Non-politics threads anger stras. Stras smash!
I grind like a bitch at night
My gaybestfriend goes through 2 to 3 nightguards a year. He hates 'em too, but seeing the way he completely shreds them is a pretty good motivation to keep wearing them.
70: before settling in, pour citronella oil over the entire lawn and set it ablaze.
teeth grinding,
it could be caused by some amalgam fillings they say, so maybe you can try to have all those amalgam fillings changed, if you have any, to something not containing mercury
But it's a music movie link. In theatres July 25, and soon to an Internets near you! And get offa my lawn!
Yes, I have amalgam fillings, but how exactly would that "cause" grinding?
Sigh. It must be nice to be only occasionally flaky & forgetful.
How come you always manage to do that on Becks's non-politics threads, stras?
There wasn't an active politics thread, other than the one that had two comments on it at the time, and I felt it was better to post an off-topic link that would probably be mostly ignored on a non-politics thread than to potentially derail a politics thread on an unrelated subject that had just gotten started.
i don't know exactly the mechanism but iirc it was something about some static generated by those amalgam fillings, coz metal and mercury containing etc and causing the muscles go spastic or something
that mercury part was very worrisome for me so i had mine changed a few yrs ago
I put stuff I need to remember where I have to see it in the course of doing my normal daily routine. Like, if I have to take papers to work, I'll put them in a folder under my shoes. When I put my shoes on to leave the house, I see the folder and take it with me. That kind of thing.
the dentists'd assure you of course that it's completely safe, only traces of mercury etc, but i prefer to err on the cautious side
78: I think you just have a middle-school-style crush on Becks, and this was the equivalent of putting a frog in her lunchbox. That's what I think.
Just say you care, stras, and invite her to the High School Musical viewing party/pregnancy-suicide pact signing. That's the adult thing to do.
80: yeah that works for me; if I have to iron my shirts in the morning, I'll hang the iron so it rests a foot above my head as I lie in bed. That way when I get up I can't help but notice it.
Has anyone other than you indicated that they've taken offense at my posting an off-topic link in 66, Sifu? I certainly haven't heard anything from Becks so far.
84: I didn't take offense, stras. I'm just feeling whimsical. Becks is, I imagine, seething, her face streaked with tears of rage.
I sleep with a sword suspended overhead by a thread from the ceiling to remind me of how fragile life is.
The worst is being so sleepy that I forget coffee-- slow motion bumbling rage, confusion.
I post off-topic links in everyone's threads, incidentally, not just Becks's. I'm not the only one to do so at Unfogged, certainly.
I know you do. I just think it's funny in Becks's threads, because she had that whole thing about it that was so heartfelt.
Hey, that Tony Karon article is really good. It's always bugged me that Afghanistan remains the "good war" as it becomes clear that that gambit, too, is failing.
One way to reduce flakiness? Read political articles. See? Not OT anymore.
she had that whole thing about it that was so heartfelt.
What whole thing?
That was before the election was over. Now that it's over, we can freely disrupt Becks' threads.
I just think it's funny, is all. You can't take that away from me!
We already have, Sifu. We already have.
91: Wasn't that specifically referring to Obama/Clinton drama, though, and the nastiness that tended to ensue?
I'm finding it somewhat ironic that this thread is now being quasi-derailed by a meta-discussion on thread-derailment.
94: fiend.
Sometimes, to focus, I comment on unfogged.
95: Stop trying to derail the thread-derailment thread with your attempted thread derailment about thread-derailment threads.
93: I think the Funny Needle is hovering between King of Queens and Two-and-a-Half Men levels. Roughly 100-120 milliRadners.
Hey, that Tony Karon article is really good.
For shame, DS, you are contaminating non-politics with your filthy filthy politics! HA HA I'M JUST KIDDING HA HA BUT NOT REALLY.
98: we have to fight to preserve what we have left, DS.
stras, Sifu was teasing you good-naturedly.
98: Wow. Even Shoah is funnier than that.
The article is good, of course. I actually really want to talk about it, now, but I won't! HAH!
Actually maybe I'll post about it. Could be!
78, etc.: In Stras's defense or exculpation, I too have posted political links on a Becks non-political thread. I hadn't been aware of a rule. Maybe it's a new rule.
What about carp? Are their carp and non-carp threads?
All Heebie threads are carp threads. And I haven't even gotten started on the burbot yet.
Maybe it's a new rule.
One that will be observed as rigorously as the analogy ban.
Pardon the gratuitous pun, but mosquitoes suck.
When I proudly told my Dr that I am no longer allergic to mosquito bites and they no longer swell and itch he said "Yeah, the immune system starts to shut down in old age."
Nice.
And Becks is female?! Crap. I may have been rude to her, breaking one of my rules.
Sorry Becks. Lists and calendar items are just one of those things that make you, um, organized and efficient. Yeah. And when I said "anal?" I meant "an alarmingly bright person."
Yeah.
I've never been allergic to mosquitoes, and my immune system is fine. The right person to live in MN. I was bitten 20 times or so yesterday, and it was annoying, but no signs today. I once slapped 7 mosquitoes with one slap, as per the children's story.
Mosquitos fill by capillary actian, not sucking, and pull out as soon as they're full. If you stretch the skin tight around their stinger while they're filling, they can't pull out and they explode.
I've never been allergic to mosquitoes, and my immune system is fine.
You just don't remember You are old.
I've tried that skin trick a couple times but I was pinching the skin instead of stretching it and that didn't work.
Have you actually had the trick work?
Here is a MN trick I have tried. On a bitterly cold calm morning, like after a blizzard, blow soap bubbles and they will freeze in the air. Some won't shatter on the snow. Cool.
Have you actually had the trick work?
Straight Dope says it's true: "OK, it can be done. The unanswered question is why you would do it. Looking at the big picture, you wouldn't call this a cost-effective method of mosquito abatement, and the entertainment value of watching a mosquito leak has got to be down there with watching your sunburn peel. But if it helps you pass the time on a dull summer evening, have at it."
The Straight Dope is a party pooper. He probably doesn't think it was worth it to put a man on the moon.
We used to have contests to see who could grow a wood tick the biggest, too.
Heaven knows I love Cecil but he has obviously never been a father.
I mean c'mon - why would you do it!? Why do we say "pull my finger?"
Sheesh, I know I am arrogant but isn't this like really totally obvious?!
And Becks is female?! Crap. I may have been rude to her, breaking one of my rules.
Forgot to tell you, Tripp: All of Unfogged is female. Now you have to stop being a monster to everyone.
I'll combine answers. Self-abuse, followed up by sleep. Believe me, it's a winning combo.
Tripp, "gentlemen" like you are really all rapists. Treat women the same way you'd treat anyone else. They're people too.
As though that were a good thing. People!
People are made of Soylent Green.
Now you have to stop being a monster to everyone.
Sexist.
John, not to put too fine a point on it but every human is a potential rapist. Luckily we are defined by what we do, not by what we are capable of.
Your jealousy is unbecoming. Chicks dig me. Deal with it.
Forgot to tell you, Tripp: All of Unfogged is female. Now you have to stop being a monster to everyone.
May I still be arrogant if I do it in an amusing way?
Tripp, you're an actual rapist. I only use words in their literal meaning. You rape the air you breathe. You rape the breakfast you eat. Little drops of rape collect on your forehead on hot days. Every piece of mail you receive is raped. You rape your laundry.
Why do you find this so hard to understand?
Little drops of rape collect on your forehead on hot days.
Hey, Tripp and I have something in common after all.