Back To Shore

And just like that Christmas, i.e. the two public holidays in Germany have passed. Either some of my neighbours had to head back into work or they wanted to hit the shops before everyone else, because there was at least one person leaving the house super early. Well, early for me who was lying in bed on the ground floor close to the stairwell, which means if I’m in a sort of half-awake state I hear people coming down the stairs and the door closing. I turned around, hit play on my go-to-sleep-audiobook again and rested for a while longer. At least the DIY gardening (? sounds like a saw at least) didn’t start until this afternoon.

Dreams | I don’t often remember my dream not even the super weird ones. Which is a blessing most of the times, I guess. I don’t know why the dream I had yesterday morning stayed with me though. It wasn’t nightmarish in a fearful way, but the emotions of anxiety and embarrassment / shame I went through still left me rattled for a bit. In that dream I was on my final day of a vacation in Scotland and on my way to drive the rental car to Inverness airport to fly home (I would never fly up to Inverness, so that was a sure sign, it was a dream). I don’t recall why I had planned one stop before that, because the place where I parked my car and walked around was a weird, almost nightmarish (in a dream, go figure) huge amusement water park / casino / pleasure cruise port. Lots of weird shops and amusement vendors, complicated pathways to navigate and just all over weird. When I wanted to leave, because I had to be at the airport in 15 minutes time, I didn’t find the way back to my car. Or didn’t remember where I had parked the car. I was running out of time and got frantic and even though most people I talked to were (trying to be) helpful I still didn’t find the right way back. Some staffer showed me alternative flight times back to Germany that day, because by the time I asked him for help, my flight had already departed. 15 minutes window and all that. Shortly after that I woke up, quite befuddled. No idea where that all had come from…

Flood | Yesterday for the first time in days the rain stopped and the clouds cleared long enough to actually dare to venture out for a short walk. I almost didn’t, because I felt so lethargic, but in the end I’m glad that I did. I thought I’d try the new camera and I admit it also was a bout of “disaster tourism”, because I wanted to see how the constant rain and flooded rivers would play out in my town. Not too bad (yet), but still impressive.

Antisemitism | I used the time off to watch a documentary (from 2021) on antisemitism in Germany: from the left, from the right, from people with muslim background and from the plain old average German. Definitely worth watching: “Die Sache mit den Juden” (ARD Mediathek). I don’t know if it was that, that made me report a graffiti I saw on my walk yesterday to the mayor’s office. The slogan “Stop Killing People” next to a large snake felt sort of antisemitic, but I wasn’t sure. Let them look into it.

Catching up | I used quite some time over the past two days to finally catch up with all the articles I tend to save in my bookmarks app to read later. Links to articles I see in newsletters or on social media. So so many articles. I need to get into a routine to not just save and save – like a squirrel before the winter comes – but to actually read those articles in time. Some were so out of date that I deleted the link unread, because global politics moved much faster than I read sometimes.

These day it is newsletters from various independent news organisations and social media (their accounts and others) were I get most of my news (articles) from. I also check and read what mainstream media, because I still mostly trust them. I only pay for one of those though whereas I have a paid subscription for at least 3 or 4 of the independent ones.

Books | When I wasn’t reading news articles on my laptop or phone, I was a deep into a proper book, ink on paper and such.

Here are two of my current reviews on Goodreads. Note that I made good on one of my (never publically shared) resolutions to start writing proper reviews on the website and not just a few words through the app.

Thieves’ Gambit: “A fast-paced YA thriller about a cutthroat competition for the world’s best thieves, including the teen girl who must win to save her parents’ lives.” My review ★★★

We Are The Brennans: “We Are the Brennans explores the staying power of shame―and the redemptive power of love―in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets.” My review ★★★★★

I thought I should use the remainder of the long time off (a whole week still from today) to delve into one of the bigger books on my to-read-shelf. I sort of liked “Fourth Wing” and thus bought “Iron Flame” when it came out this summer.

Last night I read the first few pages of both of these books and came to a quick decision. “Homecoming” it is and I might just sell both the “The Empyrean” series in the near future. Because I did not remember a lot of the first book when I read those pages in the 2nd one last night. It all felt quite foreign to me and I didn’t feel the urge to skim through the first book again for a recap.

Other Entertainment | Bits and pieces of various podcasts, but my mind just couldn’t settle on one for long. But also Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (Netflix), because I was planning to and will in fact tonight watch “Wonka” at the cinema. I found the trailer interesting enough when I first saw it this summer. But I thought I probably should watch “Charlie and…” first at least once, because I hadn’t done that yet. Neither have I read the book. I liked the movie fine, typical Tim Burton stuff. My first though when I saw Helena Bonham Carter and more so Johnny Depp was “They look young”. And then I looked up the year of the movie. 2005. Of course they look bloody young, they filmed it 20 years ago. And then I felt rather old, but I guess that’s just the way of life.

Solitude vs Loneliness | Over the past few days / weeks there were a few news items on the health risk (mental and physical) of loneliness, especially for older people. Probably because of Christmas and all the family festivities. Since Christmas Eve I have only visited with / talked to one of my brothers for a short moment, when I went over to him to “borrow” some ingredients for the meal I had planned to cook. I exchanged the occasional text message with friends. But I haven’t interacted with / talked to a single soul for almost 48 hours. Did it make me feel lonely? Not at all. I’ll happily run errands, grab a bit to eat and go to the movies on my own later as well. I’m usually fine on my own. Am I on my own too much sometimes? Food for thought maybe…

That’s not a current photo of my window, but it looks the same today. As it has for the last few days. Weeks? I lost count. I’m sure I could find out if that is the wettest Christmas in my parts of the world since the beginning of time. I can’t be bothered though. It feels like it anyway.

Plans | I’ve got the next week off from work and in fact won’t be back until Thursday 4th. had / have a few plans for that time off and even though I didn’t actually make concrete plans as in “do this on day X” I still feel like I’m failing on follow-through. One of the plans was to spend more time on looking inwards. Reflecting on what I know I don’t do the way I want to do it. If that makes sense. Reflecting on a lot of things like why I so often tend to loose focus and switch from one activity or thought or interest to another? I’m not going to share how many other tabs I opened while I was still mid-typing of the last sentence.

Communication and a bit of Psychoanalysis | On Monday / Tuesday I attended an online seminar on communication and moderation (groups at work and such). It was a bit different than I had expected, but in a good way. Super interesting with a big focus on the psychological aspects of communication, as in all the underlying stuff (the underwater iceberg so to speak) that affects the way we communicate much more than the seemingly factual way we think we do. We also learned a bit about “the five drivers”, which is a concept from a psychoanalytic theory called “Transactional Analysis”. The idea is that everything we do / say is driven to varied extend by one or several of these thoughts / emotions:

Be Perfect!
Be Strong!
Try Hard!
Hurry Up!
Please Me!

According to the theory – and from what I can attest for myself – these all are messages we have received while growing up. And it helps in communication and life and everything if we all were a bit more aware of what or drivers are.

I still need to go through the tons of notes I took during these two days of seminar (see plans above). But there was so much that made me think or what I would like to explore a bit more. For instance the instructor mentioned that 80% of our thoughts each day are negative one. And 50% of the thoughts each day are about the past (day, weeks, years). Again speaking from my own experience this might be true on both counts, but REALLY? Everyone? Each day? No wonder we humans are such a complicated mess.

(Expensive) Distractions | Work was rather stressful for me these past few weeks. Something else I might / should reflect on these next few days, maybe. So much reflection needs to be done ;-). My not – recommended – way of stress-relief was retail therapy. Books, of course. Pens and such for my doodling, but also writing. For the longest time I shied away from fountain pens and used ballpoints or gel pens and such. I can’t quite say why I tried a fountain pen again. The main reason at the moment might have been that they feel more ecological as in less waste. Because you “only” need to replace an ink cartridge which feels like less waste than ballpoint refill. But just like I don’t have just one ballpoint in my home / pen case / bags, I’ve now bought several – trying to find the best fit for me – so for the time being that might have been less ecological as I might have thought. We all live and learn, right?

Another distraction was that I replaced the compact (point and shoot) camera I had just bought (second hand) this summer with a different more expensive model. I re-sold the “summer” one and at least made a bit of money from it, but still. I never really felt comfortable with it, maybe because it wasn’t a Canon one, which were the ones I used to have and which all my good camera equipment is from. So I spoilt myself with buying an expensive high-class compact for all the moments (like gigs, birthday parties) when I don’t want to lug around a bigger camera.

Social Media (Networks) | I know it took me a long time, but I’m slowly coming to terms, that the times where I was able to build a connection and a community with other people on a social network, are over. A lot of the people I used to follow on Twitter (that’s the one I used the most) have left for greener pastures. I tried to keep track, but especially since Threads was finally available in Europe as well, I asked myself: “Why?” And “Is it even possible?” The answers: No idea and No. So, I’ve deactivated my Threads account. Put a “Find me elsewhere, I’m not using this account” message in my BlueSky profile.

Except for Instagram I had deleted all apps from my phone a while ago. I’ve now also deleted links to Threads and BlueSky from the browser I only use to check on those networks. I’m using the browser to check a list of 46 accounts on Twitter and sometimes re-post something there. I’m still on Mastodon and sometimes think I might / should get a bit more active there. But right now I’m not really motivated to get back into the socializing on social media aspect of it all. We’ll see. I will still share links to these posts on the networks I’m still using for whatever that’s worth.

I think I’m having such a hard time letting go of the social aspects of those networks, because I was in contact with and met so many lovely people through it, online but also on ocassion in real life. It was a connection and for someone like me who had and still sometimes has a difficult time meeting people / opening up or making friends in real life, social networks were a great way to meet and get in touch and form bonds with other people. I know a lot of folks “offline” say these connections aren’t real or can’t be as valid as the bonds you form offline, but I always knew that to not be true. Far from it. So… I’ve finally come to that stage of grief about the death of social networks as I knew them.

And now I’ll be heading over to my family’s home to socialize with my brothers, because it’s Christmas.

For the last hour or so the female neighbour from two stairs up seems to be hanging out with the neighbour in the flat above me. How do I know? Because her voice carries! I think she / they might have been drinking? Her husband probably is there as well, so it’s all above board and even it weren’t I wouldn’t care. It’s just that I’m annoyed that I hear her through the floor / walls. Not clear enough to know what she’s saying, but loud enough to hear she’s saying something. For hour(s). I turned on music on my laptop, but the volume I consider neighbour friendly wasn’t enough to drown her out, so I’m sitting here with my good headphones on. Which is fine, just weird. Anyway… how has my week been? Busy!

Work | This was the 2nd week I worked overtime in a row. Not that much, but still something I usually try not to do that often. Our team had a day off for teambuilding and next week I’m off two days for communication training. All lovely stuff to do, but not helpful when you have deadlines and stuff to finalize before Christmas break / the end of the year. I don’t like the fear of missing deadlines and such. I managed fine this week in the end, but still it felt like I constantly running behind and I don’t like that feeling.

I’m still very happy about the new people on our team and the support they provide now. Still very content to work in this department to be honest, especially when I see how in departments left and right people leave for one or the other reason. Frustrating when it’s good folks being driven out. Not so frustrating when it’s people I didn’t quite get along with. Frustrating still when it’s someone we are supposed / need to work with a bit closer and only now by chance hear that the person is leaving mid January and no idea when the position will be filled again.

Over the Christmas break I hope I will be in the right mindset to do some introspection in regards to some aspects of my work situation. Basically it’s fine, but I think I need to be or at least want to be a bit more assertive in some aspects. With my supervisor mostly. We’ll see how it goes.

Shopping in the 21st century | I took the train to the next town over which has a decent shopping area. I needed to buy a new umbrella and was looking for a certain brand, because I know their stuff is reliable and durable. I was also looking for some stationary stuff. I had ordered quite a few pens for my doodling online recently and I try to not do that all that often but instead support local or at least brick & mortar shops. But they make it hard, don’t they? Or online shopping makes it too easy? I know I ordered an insane amount of books online recently. Most of them were 2nd hand though, so that’s at least a small bit towards sustainable shopping.

The department store I was heading for is closing down soon. I was afraid it might be one of the stores from that chain being closed down. Or do they all close down because the company went bust for the 2nd or 3rd time? I lost track to be honest. Anyway, I wasn’t able to buy the umbrella I wanted. I was looking around the store to see if I could find anything else as a bargain, but I don’t really need anything of the stuff still on the shelves. A lot had been cleared out already and it was quite a sad sight to see. They also offered the store furniture (shelves and such) for sale, which I’ve never seen done before.

I will try to get the umbrella I want in a local shop in my town tomorrow or in a still open department store of that chain in a mall on Wednesday. If I don’t manage to I might need to order it online after all. And I know this makes me part of the problem of dying high streets and inner city shopping areas, but what are my options? It’s a mess, isn’t it?

On the streets | Something else that has been weighing on my mind / conscience since that shopping trip yesterday is, that I noticed much more beggars in that shopping area. Or rather what’s weighing on my mind is how I reacted to it and that I didn’t give money to any of them. In most cases I caught myself thinking they – often women – probably are part of an organized begging network and that I don’t want to give any money to criminals. But those out there on the streets more often than not probably are just poor souls being forced into it. Will giving them a bit of money make their lives better in the way that at least they might not be punished for not bringing in money? Should that reason enough for me to give some? Then there are the obviously homeless or destitute – often men – who I still didn’t give any money to? Why didn’t I? In hindsight I can’t really say and I’m a bit ashamed about that as well.

In an attempt to not end this post on such a miserable not I switch prompts and now end instead of start with a nice memory from this week. Today in fact:

Running | I haven’t been active in any way for weeks except for walking the odd distance to a shop or in the shopping area on my lunch break. Since my last proper run on 22 October, I went to Denmark for a long weekend, got COVID, had been busy with work and doctor appointments and lots of other stuff. Plus it was rainy and cold and just not running friendly weather. It was around 8 °C and sort of sunny today, so I thought “No time like the present”. I did a 3K and it went alright, which made me quite glad to be honest. I was afraid not doing any kind of proper physical activity would set me back quite a bit cardio wise, but it was fine. I will definitely try to head out next weekend as well.