There was even one segment of extended playing together. H- pretended to be a doctor, A- pretended to be a nurse, and I was their poor beleaguered patient who was not allowed to get well. (“Thank you for the medicine. I feel all better now.” “No, you’re still sick.” “Oh no! I’m so sick.”) We kept at it for quite a while.
We stayed all the way until the science centre closed. A- slept soundly on the way home, all tired out from six hours of fun. I like going to the science centre with friends. A- seems to enjoy it too. The science centre is an hour away, but conversation makes the trip shorter. It’s fun to see the kids interact, too, and I’m learning to enjoy interacting as well.
I’ve been making an effort to be more social by inviting people for field trips or food. A- will learn about social interaction from how I interact with other people, and she’ll develop her own friendships. I hope that when she goes to school, we’ll already be on good terms with a few of her classmates’ families. I can see how friendships have contributed to my sister’s happiness, and I see how I’m slowly getting the hang of things. Not that I feel that friendships are instrumentally good, mind you. One of the things I like about people I consider friends is that it’s nice that they exist. I like that there are people like them. But it does sometimes help to remind myself of the good things about friendships when I’m feeling all homebody-ish or when I’m talking myself out of worrying about rejection.
A- will probably turn out all right no matter what I do. I might as well take advantage of this opportunity to learn a few things that parenting can help me with. Cooking makes sense because I feel strongly motivated to help A- develop good eating habits. Social interaction is another big area that makes perfect sense, since parenting introduces me to lots of people with lots of common ground. Early childhood education is a natural fit, too. So much to learn for both of us!
]]>But my friends are my friends because I like who they are as people. I learn from their lives, and I appreciate that people like them exist. I don't want to move out of their orbits permanently, or even wait until A- is old enough for me to leave her for an afternoon or an evening. They're also grown-ups who can make the most of the moments when A- pulls me away. A- generally takes one nap these days, and I can usually get away without napping along with her. She doesn't have a particular schedule. If we have company, I might be able to get her to sleep in the carrier.
The ideal situation is when child-free friends are also good friends with parent friends. Then we can all hang out, and despite divided attention and fragmented conversations, we can usually manage to talk about interesting things.
Home is the best place. A- is comfortable. We've got space to spread out and let her do things on her own whenever she wants to. I'm a little intimidated by the thought of hosting with food, since it's still a bit hard to get groceries or cook with A-. But maybe I can find a few forgiving, freezable recipes that I can make ahead (zucchini muffins!), and I can ask people to bring things they might enjoy. Afternoons are best because A- is awake and we can keep our evening routines smooth. Most people aren't available during the week, though, so maybe I can see about setting up a Sunday afternoon thing once a month.
I'm still looking for places in Toronto and Manila that can serve as a good base for grown-up socializing. During good weather, the parks in Toronto are great for picnics and walks, so maybe I should see if there are parks/playgrounds like that in Manila too. (And what time to go, considering the heat.) She's a bit too small to play independently in public playplaces like those occasionally found in fast food restaurants. Big, uncrowded spaces work better for us, so she can explore while I remain close by. The Mind Museum in Manila and the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto are among our favourites.
Meals are another possibility: restaurants with high chairs, food that A- likes, and my own grab-bag of crayons, paper, and other things for kid entertainment. I prefer to not have her confined to a chair for a long time – and she usually clambers out of it quickly anyway – so that's more for 30-minute charts. I'm mostly distracted by feeding her and keeping things from spilling, though, so I'm not much of a conversationalist.
Hmm. That gives me a few things to experiment with:
Hmm. Reviving my social life also ties in with helping A- get to know and interact with more people. I think it would be a good use of my opportunity fund. I like the things I've been learning from friends' lives. Since people generally don't write as much as I do, it's good to talk to people more regularly. The limiting factor is probably me more than other people or A-, so if I rejig my thoughts (yes, people can bring stuff, I can pay for delivery, people can be flexible, and I can trust that I'll hold up my end of the conversation), that might open up more possibilities. Let's give it a try.
]]>I think there’s often a lot of leeway in how to solve a problem, especially if you try changing perspectives. Just like in tech, some ways are much easier and some ways are much harder. It’s easier to work with a system than against it. Asking different questions opens up other possibilities. That’s been my experience with tech. Human-centric fields are even more fungible. If you can get people to want to help you, they can bring their creativity and resourcefulness to the table. Conversely, if you get on someone’s bad side, they might drag their feet, or they might follow the letter of the law but not the spirit of it. And you can’t just keep testing until something works!
To make assertive communication easier, I like doing my homework. I research the possibilities and the trade-offs so that I can make better decisions and ask for specific things. I like knowing alternatives and having backup plans, because that takes the pressure off. I like reading policy manuals or getting the inside scoop from people because that gives me an idea of the structures that people work in, what tools are available to them, how they’re evaluated, what makes their day better, what makes them look good to their boss. I find systems fascinating, even when they don’t work perfectly well. We’re going a little outside the mainstream for a number of things, so it helps to know what’s out there and how to support any exceptions we want.
I’m working on getting better at dealing with different communication styles. Fortunately, this is rarely a problem. I minimize encounters with aggressive people, and I’m pretty comfortable disengaging from things I don’t like. I’ll dig into conflict resolution a bit more when I run into things I don’t want to work around, but in the meantime, there’s so much potential in yes-es that I don’t have to chase after any no-es.
Rather than conflict resolution, I mostly want to focus on understanding the systems here. What resources can I draw on? What’s easier and what’s harder? How can I work around any bumps? How can I give back and make things easier?
For A-, here’s what I anticipate needing:
Based on the stories of other people in the microphthalmia/anophthalmia support group, it’s possible that she’ll enjoy school and develop a great sense of humour about her eye, but it’s also possible that she might have to deal with rejection or even bullying. I’m looking forward to learning how to work with or around whatever I can.
]]>The way it is now works okay for newcomers. I imagine the experience for newcomers is mostly like: Wow, I'm not alone! I'm not weird! There are other people who track stuff! (I know, I get that feeling each time I go too. =) ) If they work up the courage to share what they've been learning, they often pick up plenty of tips and ideas, and they can connect with other people tracking similar things.
From regulars, it's great to hear updates or find out about other things they're tracking.
The talks do tend to be a little repetitive. Often it's about people sharing data collected using apps or devices with predefined visualizations, and the occasional self-promotional bit. Sometimes we get new analyses or unconventional experiments, and those are the kinds of talks I enjoy the most.
The repetition is understandable – good, even. I think that's mostly because each person has to go through an individual journey. Even if two people present the same topic and have similar conclusions, it's good to recognize each of their experiences.
Still, it might be interesting to think about how we can increase the value for regulars and long-time trackers…
Mmm. If I could selfishly redesign this community to be even better-suited to my interests, what would it be like?
I go to Quantified Self Toronto meetups because I like the kind of people who use data to make better decisions about their lives. I particularly like it when someone's curious about something off the beaten track, whether they're collecting data on paper or they've built their own tools. Experimental manipulation is also interesting for me. I also like having the occasional nudge to design, conduct, and report on my little experiments. I've talked about a lot of odd things over the years (like cat litter box use, and more recently, sewing), and I like resonating with people in an unexpected way.
If I were to tilt Quantified Self Toronto to be something more personally useful for me, I might focus on:
At the Quantified Self Conference I went to in 2012, I gravitated towards people who tracked their own questions or even built their own tools. I don't expect the majority of Quantified Self Toronto to be creatively technical, but it might be interesting to attract and retain a core of people like that. What would make 2-3 hours worth it for them, and what would make it more worthwhile for me? Alternatively, what are other ways I could build that kind of tribe? I think education, inspiration, and shared experiments might be interesting to play with. Hmm… The same combination could help encourage newcomers to develop along those lines, too. Might be worth looking into.
]]>2015-04-19f Small talk shifts – index card #small-talk #growth
It's also fun building up little chains of stories with the kinds of hooks that make people say, "Wait, what?" Some examples of things that are incongruous or that provoke curiosity: semi-retirement, step-parenting a 17-year-old, combining laser-cutting and sewing, disassembling a washer/dryer, wearing a vest with an unusual number of pockets.
Weirdness is useful. Ideally, this weirdness brings out disclosures of other people's weirdness, or prompts them to connect me with someone else they know, or demystifies something and encourages them to explore it. As for me, I like finding out if someone is the kind of person I might want to get to know further – perhaps collaborate with or mentally model. I look for people with shared values, interesting experiments, and a sense of growth.
2015-04-19e Different worldviews – index card #small-talk
Experiments are good because we learn from the divergences. That said, sometimes I can be too weird – when something I do or something I experiment with is just too far from someone's worldview to relate to or understand. For example, sometimes I talk to people who just don't get Stoicism, simple living, homebody-ness, tech customization (especially Emacs), quantified/experimental thinking, or blogging.
That's cool. I don't need other people to validate me and I don't need to convert other people to my perspective, so it's really more of an opportunity to explore.
When people ask questions about one of my experiments, I've been leaving it up to them to drive the conversation since I'm happy to answer questions. Sometimes these end up in unproductive loops. It occurred to me that it might be fun to take a more sociological/anthropological approach to this: to deliberately explore other people's perspectives and dig into why they think the way they do, possibly from the position that I make perfect sense to myself and it's other people who are odd and deserving of study. ;)
2015-04-19d On talking to non-Stoics about preferences and value judgments – index card #stoicism
Here's a more detailed example. I talk about value judgments surprisingly often because people often press for information on whether I'd like to have kids, which I suppose is a standard small-talk question for women around this age. Harumph. They usually have strong opinions one way or the other. This is one of the things that I'm careful to not have strong value judgments around or be attached to specific outcomes for. Sometimes I use this as an opportunity to prod people to be more considerate about things by considering a wider range of scenarios. Sometimes I frame my response in terms of being happy either way. It's pretty rare to find people for whom this position makes sense. Many people are quite boggled by it. But I talk about equanimity anyway in case that resonates with someone who's been looking for that concept, and even if it doesn't sink in, I can rest in the knowledge that it makes sense to me.
On the other hand, my favourite kinds of conversations are with people who have deliberately cultivated their own differences from the mainstream and who can reflect on those experiments. Then our conversations become a high-bandwidth sort of brainstorming and swapping of notes. =) We might be doing different experiments, but we can understand and learn from each other's perspectives.
So, small talk. It's an opportunity to discover interesting things about people (captured in quick notes after the party, because who knows), play with sharing aspects of myself and messing up people's mental models, and learn more about things I do differently. Even when I'm talking to people who find it difficult to understand external perspectives or whose conversational skills are somewhat impaired by alcohol, I can pick up useful information about other people and myself. As I meet more interesting people and as those people grow through their own experiences, I trust that small talk will become even more fun. =)
]]>On Monday, I laser-cut pieces for the simple tops that I’ve been sewing. I’ve been skipping the pleat, since it doesn’t make any difference to the fit of the garment and skipping it makes the top easier and faster to sew. The pattern fits the laser cutter if I cut it on a fold, and I can cut registration marks on a sheet of paper to make aligning that fold easier. I cut the pieces for one top out of the peach broadcloth that I’d salvaged from my box cushion prototype. (Waste not, want not!) I cut the pieces for another top from a black gingham check that I wanted to experiment with, since it’s supposed to be one of this season’s trendy patterns. I was delighted to find that the laser-cut pieces actually matched up – not just in terms of the notches (which I can take credit for), but even in terms of the pattern. (Probably more coincidence than skill.)
I didn’t pay attention to the direction of the gingham check because I assumed the stripes were the same visual weight. It turns out one direction is a bit heavier than the other, so now my shirt has horizontal stripes when it looks like most of the commercial gingham shirts I’ve seen had dominant stripes (if any) running vertically… Ah well! I cut bias strips and wrappers for another experiment out of my excess yardage, so I don’t think I have quite enough left to make a new shirt. I’ll finish and wear what I have. If I decide it’s worth doing another gingham thing, I might be able to get half a yard and do another one.
On Tuesday, I came early so that I could get some bread dough rising while I went for a massage. (Knead and be kneaded?) That worked out well, and we had some lovely crusty bread for the open house dinner. Eric and I also checked out this community garden in the neighbourhood. Our chances of getting a plot are probably pretty low (long waiting lists), but apparently they have a small herb area that could use more volunteers, so we might give that a try. Alternatively, Alex says it’s okay for us to set out planters in the back, and he even has an automated watering system. It would be great to grow lots of basil and other herbs for cooking.
Today I went to Hacklab to talk to a friend. Since I was in the area anyway, I also took the opportunity to pick up some bamboo fabric from Designer Fabrics so that I can look into making a pair of yoga pants.
I wanted to laser-cut the bias strips for the gingham check. I thought about using the 10″ square continuous method, but I settled for making long bias strips instead so that I could fit an extra square in there for another project I’m working on. While I was sorting that out, Alex came in with a MIDI keyboard, a laptop, and a projector. He proceeded to set it up to project the keyboard training program onto the keyboard itself, which was really nifty. We had fun playing around with different pieces.
Mmm. I like this. Going to Hacklab nudges me a little more towards making stuff and talking to people, I think. Let me see what next week is like. On the flipside, it means less time at home and less time preparing meals, but if I leave Hacklab earlier and I plan what to cook, I can probably still have that in place by the time everyone’s ready for dinner.
On another note, Designer Fabrics didn’t have any polyurethane laminate (PUL – waterproof, breathable, washable in hot water; often used for diapers, but good for general waterproofing and even making food-safe lunch bags and other containers). Fabricland has some, but it’s a bit pricy at $33/m. It seems people tend to order that online, so I might give online shopping a try.
]]>Fortunately, people around me tend to be geeks who don't mind when I reach for awkwardly technical phrases like "explicitly negotiated communication protocols" (the phrase "talking about talking" doesn't quite fit). I enjoy exploring questions, perspectives, and ideas. I tend to combine pessimistic planning with optimistic belief in people and a large dose of loving-kindness and acceptance. It's not always easy – sometimes I catch myself wishing away the challenges that other people face – but I learn a lot.
Now that I've been reaching out to other people, more, I've started noticing this strange little quirk. I want to explore it in writing so that I can point to it and see it more clearly, and maybe I can learn from other people's experiences along the way too.
2015-04-08e On keeping the bigger picture in mind – index card #connecting #support #ego
Sometimes, after I've shared a reflection, I find myself hoping for an equally thoughtful response: another disclosure, another follow-up question, another exploration. I understand why part of me feels that way. It's part curiosity, part (still!) that slight orientation towards recognition, towards knowing what things are useful.
But I can also see a freer part of me that thinks and reflects and shares without needing reciprocal gifts, and this is the part that I want to encourage in myself. This is the part that is indifferent to being needed, that celebrates when people have found their own stillness for reflection or their own strength to stand.
Even writing about this is something I might distrust a little. I might be writing this mostly for my understanding and long-term memory (having learned the hard way that private notes tend to disappear), but receiving a comment or an e-mail or a blog conversation feels good because of that moment of resonance with someone else.
Still – loving-kindness and acceptance, especially towards myself. It's okay if I want that moment of shared humanity, that resonant thrum of thoughts in sync. And it's also okay if I make it a gift, to let the people I want to support choose how much support and when and in what way.
To never need to be needed, but to share life out of generosity – I think that's one of the freedoms I want to cultivate. Hmm…
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