Back To Shore

Two more long days at work. Sort of busy, but also sort of dawdling and not as productive as I could / should have been. Yes, the thunderstorm-y weather and the change in atmosphere (I guess) that comes with it, didn’t help either.

Yesterday I lay down for a nap of sorts, just to have the alarm set for 10 pm to watch “Back To The Metal” – Frank Turner chat with Jaret Reddick on Instagram, like I did for the last three months. Not a sensible plan, because I actually slept and I need the sleep. That’s why I’m off to bed after typing this quick post as well.

Also yesterday on my way to work and back I listened to Frank on a podcast (too lazy to look it up and link it now), where he talked a lot about his mental health issues and self destructive behaviour in form of self harm (as a teen), substance abuse as a grown up. And so much of what he touched on felt so familiar. Not in a substance abuse / addiction kind of way, butself destruction comes in so many shapes. I know very well what my ‘wrong’ behaviours are, but I still can’t stop myself. And it might not be harmful in a physical way (as drugs and alcohol are), but I know it’s unhealthy in other ways. And still… *sigh*

There is definitely stuff to think about in the next few days. I’ve officially got days off from work from next Monday till the Tuesday after. Yay! I will have to work a little bit from home still (making up for all the dawdling I did these past few days), but besides that I have a few tentative plans. Pracitcal ones like new book shelves. Sorting through the mess of my apartement. More introspective ones like having a proper look at why I act / react the way I do. Vague, I know. But I still haven’t quite found the right words yet.

Positivity 2020

Vacation is signed off ★ Being able to afford to buy books in bulk (on a whim) ★ 

Hah! In the last minute of the day – sort of – Frank Turner provided me with a fitting lyric for this post after all. He did the Disney Set, long announced (and also being badgered about quite a bit, I think) on Instagram this evening. Lovely 15 minutes of a few classic songs and lots of laughter.

I’ve been rather busy all day, working from home. Team meeting via conference call. Bits and pieces to tie up in one project. Meetings to set up for after the summer break. Trying to get as much done and coordinated and confirmed before my supervisor takes time off (and so will I next week, hopefully). 

I used the lunch break to run some errands in the vain hope that maybe at that time of day there are less people around. And it was true for the shops mostly, but not on the street. Woah. I guess every family who couldn’t go on holiday and are doing a ‘staycation’ were out and about today. Plus the regular business and delivery traffic. I’m stil not used to all those people again, even if they are all sitting in their cars.

Really not much more to say. But that’s ok… I think I’ll keep the Digest format for a weekly thing. Still trying to figure this all out here.

Positivity 2020

Fixed t he date for a workshop (kind of) thing at work after the summer break ★ The mayoral candidate campaign I’m involved in is coming together nicely ★ Frank Turner singing classic Disney songs 🙂

Another lazy day, I’m afraid. I’m in a bit of a funk as so often and the weather isn’t helping. At least the annyoing pressure (weather and in my head) lifted a bit.

[It’s going to be interesting to see for how long I can title my posts after Frank Turner lyrics…]

Fake News & Conspiracies: When I checked my mails (and feeds and such) in bed this morning – as you do on a weekend – I came across an email adressed to my Green account. It was adressed to many more Green politicians from head to the national party down to lowly local members like me, but also to various people / institutions in the health sector. Subject line: “Real virologist reports Dr. Drosten [German’s top virologist on SARS etc] to the authorities + what are the professional idiots doing?”

The mail included two Youtube links to interviews and a link to some website. This morning in bed I didn’t have anything better to do than google the names of the person who sent it and of the ‘experts’ interviewed and to look at that website. Didn’t bother watching the youtube clips. Summed up content and mission statement: Health-threatining viruses don’t exist. At all! Coronavirus is a conspiracy and big fat lie. But OMG beware of chemtrails, 5G, New World Order, Satanist and so on. I knew there is a dark, disturbing world out there in conspiracy land, but this was the first time I was confronted with it directly. WTF?!?

Minor annoyance: All these ideologies obviously also prevent them from learning just a tiny bit about modern web design. There are services and templates for that. That site used five different fonts in various sizes and about 4 different colour schemes and just… Yickes. Made my mind hurt just looking at it.

Voter registration: For breakfast I decided to finally continue with “The Good Fight”, a show I stopped watching, because the anti-Trump plot got so ludicrous even before the pandemic. The pandemic which for some reason erased all my interest in or attention span for any new-ish TV shows. And by God I tried to watch new / different shows. Anyway, I had only got a few and a half episodes left of that show, so I started with the half. And I got dropped right into a conversation between Diane (white) and Liz (black) about how far each of them would go to ‘re-balance’ the obvious suppression of democratic and especially black votes that had happened in the last US election. And Liz made many valid points about why this matters more to her than it could ever to Diane and how it wasn’t a history Diane could ever understand. It was all so true for me as well and watching it made me a bit uncomfortable. As it should! So many black voters in the US are purposefully disenfranchised and it’s a shame and crime and I absolutely understand people fighting tooth and nails to change that.

German “Gründlichkeit”: Years ago I was always a bit baffled when I learned how very differently other countries handle elections and voter regisrations / notification and in the same context resident registration. In Germany everyone has to be registered at the city they live in. Yes that means it is a governement database, but to me that actually is a good thing if you want the services said govnerment / state / authorities to work seamlessly. Like: Get a postcard telling you about the next election. You don’t have to do a thing to get registered to vote. You just are. Elections take place on a Sunday so most of the people can vote easily because they don’t have to work. Mail in voting is very easy to do as well. There are a lot of things to criticise in Germany and the administrations, but all in all I’m quite happy I live here to be honest.

This weekend I was also reminded how German I actually am, as much as I sometimes like to believe I’m European or even Cosmopolitan. I printed out the form for the refunds for the Lost Evenings tickets. And I was quite annoyed that Eventim didn’t use the German standard norm (DIN 5008) for that letter, which would have made it so easy to fold the letter in the standard “letter folding style” and put it into a windowed envelope with the address fitting into the window and thus save me form writing it on the envelope. Here is the letter. And the way it should have been done, as Eventim obviously know how to do (because it’s the fucking norm here!).

My English friends, who would have joined me for Lost Evening and whom I ranted to about this, thought my indignation was very entertaining. Or to be more precise: they laughed at me. And they had every right, because it is just a minor blip and no big deal and I’m usually not such a stickler for rules and such. But… We have that norm for a reason, for crying out loud! Anyway, typical German, I guess. Interessing to find that out about me.

My Peak Challenge: I really need to get back into this. ASAP. The number on the scales this morning told me. Seriously. That might have been a bit of a wake up call. I can’t even blame it all on lockdown, far from it. I must have put about 30 pounds back on in the last two years, after I had lost most of those in the years before, when I followed the MPC plan and was much more active. I really need to figure out a game plan in the next few days and get back into action. I’ll probably have the next week off from work, which will help. Hopefully.

Prime: Some time ago I was in a mad “lets rent some movies” phase, hoping that I’d get in the mood for those soon. When I was going through the list now I realized that I only have got 35 hours left to watch them. Oh, I’m so stupid. I might get another one in tomorrow night and I guess the other two were just a waste of money. That will teach me though. Hopefully.

Daily Digest

Sleep: 7 hours. Okayish. Medidate: Just a few minutes in the evening. Hydrate: Not too bad. Steps: ~ 3500. Read: Nothing really except Twitter and some other online sites. Watched: Some vintage “Gilmore Girls”. Some “The Good Fight” and “Knives Out!”

Positivity 2020

The fact that I bought the Frank Turner lockdown merch in a bigger size than usual, which helps in two ways: Having merch at the moment that fits, but also motivates me to get back into shape for the old merch when gigs will be back next year. ★ “Knives Out”. Soooooo good. ★ Being in a strangely optimistic mood now at the end of this post. Can’t explain it, but I’ll take it.