Le Vide?

 Saw that the French nickname for this part of the year is the void (le vide) and yes, I've experienced the 'what day is this anyway' already.  Because, two days off is something I just don't get anymore, much less two days off, two days on, and another day off!  So I woke Friday night and had no idea what was going on or what I should be doing Saturday morning.  Even though I do the postal route every Saturday.  What is this.. Saturday?  What is time?  Where am I, even?

Enough of that.  Studying a lot more Latvian, using bern istaba and tuta lietas, ba ba dum and baltoslav.  I often forget the names of those things and can only remember the flavor - so I post here what they are so I can look it up again later.  I love Tuta's style - and my daughter just recently noticed the hats.  Why does she have an airplane in her hair?  So I had to explain it to her.  

One of the most useful things towards learning is to have the subtitles on in Latvian, stop it, open up a second window, try to type the word I saw (without peeking) and then find out the translation of it.  I have to remember the word and remember what was said about the word, find out the translation, then try to relate it back to what I heard - quickly, and then maybe replay the sentence or wait until the next time they say the word again with better knowledge of it.  It is very real learning.  When I am playing baltoslav in Latvian, after studying a lot on ba ba dum in Lithuanian, I stop and three-point-translate the words that are different, like 'pillow' is different in Latvian and Lithuanian (a lot of words are almost the same, too) and recognize what the word is in English, Latvian and Lithuanian all at once to make contact points between the languages.  I can feel 'brain burn' during this, like when I started learning Catalan (in Spanish).  It actually feels great :)

I studied Greek on the other platform, and have been improving my Spanish to French score on the third platform.  That contributes perhaps, to 'le vide'.

Other than that we are eating leftovers, and I am trying to clean a thing here or there.  There is always laundry.  I say I won't take down the Christmas tree until after January 5th, but most years I am still forgetting to take it down come April.  

I've planned to go out and spend a gift certificate that was gotten on the postal route from one of my residents.  We don't often go out to restaurants at all, and there is some social anxiety about it.  I talked to E about the social anxiety (and I had a lot of it yesterday morning after giving a gift back to that resident in return, and all the social 'did I do that right' etc. insecurities about that kept me beating myself up for two hours or more) and told her it really helped when my dad finally told me that he did that too.  

The biggest thing is you always feel it was silly and didn't matter that much after it - but when you're inside it, and you can't break out from it, it feels even worse to tell yourself it is silly, it doesn't feel silly.  The only thing that helps, as my dad also said, was to 'plow through' it - do other things that need to be done, find something like a book or music to distract you for a moment - and eventually the 'reverberation' of the anxiety will die down some.  THEN, after it did ease up a little, THEN remind yourself that you made it through to this point, that it feels silly but only after the fact, and that life goes on and things need to be done.  You're the person that is there to do them, and then go do them.

As I said on another site : Some days I have to remind myself that it is okay to have difficulty with being a singular entity inexplicably residing in a corporeal form that is adherent to the laws of space and time.  Other days, I have to just admit that I am (anxious / impatient / annoyed / frustrated) and get myself up and do some chores.

 

well it's here

Long contemplative moments this morning before anyone else was really truly awake.  I played Vivaldi.  Esme woke up about halfway through the disc (which involved other classical, too), and came upstairs saying her ears hurt with the music.  That makes me sad - as she plays noisy computer music all day - but can't stand great pieces.. or anything really that isn't a cartoon.. on the overhead speakers.  It was nowhere as loud as Daddy plays his music at times - she just has his supersonic ears mixed with something else - that dislikes classical.  I like the innate geometry in it - I see it in my mind - it was nice for contemplating the sunlight struggling through the mist, the air currents that are barely visible to me only when filtered through a sunbeam and all of the tiny fibrillation movement in the branches outside my window.  I tried to do so without the music and it did not last long before her noisy game was breaking my concentration.  So it is as it does. Before long, she is off to her room to make Krabby Patties for my little ponies... and Mark is up and bustling with the pork roast he put in the oven the night before.  And I have the day off - no work... but what I will do is not making itself apparent.  I'm in a thinking mood.

Beyond the contemplative moment - there is a new year stretched out before us.  And all I know with certainty is that I want to be productive, and would like it to be a little warmer than it is right now... and to try to reduce the clutter both in my mind and in my workspace.  This swirling air around me is full of time and possibilities that may or may not come to be.  The clutter I spoke of in my mind before - audiovisual noise from hours past - spikes happily now with orange and yellow violins from Vivaldi... it is a nice echo to have.

I sit at my workstation and sort out fluff and dander - attempting to find something to inspire me.  I have projects started all over, and one or more of them could have time spent upon them...   Little one returns now with apple jack pony recently escaped from some catastrophe of pretend.. and making more sandwiches at my elbow.

Esme's Immunization Appointment

Happy New Year everyone! I hope it is a great year for all of you and for all of us as well :)

Tomorrow we go into the doctor for Esme's immunizations. It was supposed to be on Friday, but I called the doctor today and they moved it up a day. That is because Esme has what could be the beginnings of a cold. She has had junk in her nose three days in a row and been 'snorting' when she eats. I'm feeding her more often, whenever she will nurse, and that seems to be helping her a lot. If the doctor says she is well enough to get her shots they'll give them to her tomorrow after checking up on her cold. Of course I'm a paranoid first-time-mother, and it might not be as bad as it seems. I hope it isn't ;}

It snowed here a little bit yesterday and today ;) but not even enough for a snowball.

I ordered the reprint copy of the Voynich manuscript the other day from Ebay. Apparently there are a lot of people very interested in understanding what it is about... codebreakers and such. Glad to see other people see this as a valid form of entertainment as well. I've been making little books of obscure plants, animals, math formulas, mechanical diagrams and 'secret' pictographic languages since I was a kid. I was a very bored but also very imaginative little kid. In college I found a well-bound set of Leonardo's Notebooks in our college library and spent many days sitting there looking through all of his varied studies in math, science, anatomy and art. Even now, as an adult, looking through my sketchbooks would produce things quite close to Voynich, strange creatures and plants doodled on pages with phonetically encoded text of quotes I'm not sure I want other people to read... musings and poetry and the like.