Sandy & Recovery
Hurricane Sandy has really messed up my sense of what day of the week it is, which was already endangered by being unemployed. Monday was always scheduled as a recovery day from the marathon. Tuesday was a particularly pleasant weekend day, as I played Monopoly, ate chicken, and watched Chopped with my Manhattan siblings. Weds was spent in the car with a superb rope top and Midori. Thurs was sort of a work day, as I think Julian got something done, whereas when I asked him at the end of the day how many shinies he thought I'd earned, he said 30-45mins. *le sighs* Friday was a very alas typical pre-marathon day: I took care of a few miniscule annoying things, read some emails, worked out, didn't do the big important things. ugh. So yeah, while I'm sad I won't get to snuggle my bunny, exercise with my partner, or play a restrained game of Monopoly with Lucky, it's probably not crazy to have another week day.
The good thing about Sandy is that, if you're living in the lucky parts of Manhattan - where even the unlucky parts are better than third world places like the outer boros and the suburbs - the whole world is on pause at the same time as me. I tend to focus on the next tough thing in my schedule and ignore everything after: well, after the marathon, I have nothing planned for the rest of my life. Some day I will have a job again and some day my boyfriend will be free to make plans with me, but those feel about as real as Middle Earth.
After talking to Julian and cogitating, I realized the guiding principle for my post-marathon workouts is to work on things I'm not good at. Don't worry, I'll put my ponderings on actual workouts in a fitness filter-locked post. But the reason you're getting this post this morning is that I'm just so annoyed with how little I got done this week, despite having not only power and water, but people cooking all my meals and rubbing my feet. Some of it was not focusing on important things - my career coach and I haven't managed to meet in the past two weeks, but I still haven't finished my first set of assignments. Some of it is that I've been killing time (willpower?) in low utility pleasures like stupid iPhone games instead of high utility pleasures like tv or books. Admittedly some of it is that I've had headaches most of most days and a bug bite whose itchiness now covers half of one arm.
I think some of it is figuring out what's important. Like, despite being part of a large organization with corporate accountability, my career coach is turning out to be kinda flakey (like the rest) and anyway, talking about getting a job doesn't actually get me a job. I think some of it is better conservation of willpower/energy. For example, I look at how much logistics and planning went into not going to Brooklyn last night and I want to throw up at the inefficiency. I think some of it is not taking on high cost, low return open loops, like if I'm going to take on a prickly queer partner, zie better be the most kickass person I've met to date. Or not going after higher-hanging fruit bc one of my fave people commented that if I worked at it for 6 months, I could hit a level of achievement (and incidentally improve a gender imbalance that irks me). I believe the difference between people who have great success in their lives and those who get by is focus, which is picking the right targets and not wasting energy. I want to start being awesome at things that really matter.
Anyhow, it's not question month, but it is a time of transition, almost like the beginning of the year for me. I welcome your thoughts and advice.
The good thing about Sandy is that, if you're living in the lucky parts of Manhattan - where even the unlucky parts are better than third world places like the outer boros and the suburbs - the whole world is on pause at the same time as me. I tend to focus on the next tough thing in my schedule and ignore everything after: well, after the marathon, I have nothing planned for the rest of my life. Some day I will have a job again and some day my boyfriend will be free to make plans with me, but those feel about as real as Middle Earth.
After talking to Julian and cogitating, I realized the guiding principle for my post-marathon workouts is to work on things I'm not good at. Don't worry, I'll put my ponderings on actual workouts in a fitness filter-locked post. But the reason you're getting this post this morning is that I'm just so annoyed with how little I got done this week, despite having not only power and water, but people cooking all my meals and rubbing my feet. Some of it was not focusing on important things - my career coach and I haven't managed to meet in the past two weeks, but I still haven't finished my first set of assignments. Some of it is that I've been killing time (willpower?) in low utility pleasures like stupid iPhone games instead of high utility pleasures like tv or books. Admittedly some of it is that I've had headaches most of most days and a bug bite whose itchiness now covers half of one arm.
I think some of it is figuring out what's important. Like, despite being part of a large organization with corporate accountability, my career coach is turning out to be kinda flakey (like the rest) and anyway, talking about getting a job doesn't actually get me a job. I think some of it is better conservation of willpower/energy. For example, I look at how much logistics and planning went into not going to Brooklyn last night and I want to throw up at the inefficiency. I think some of it is not taking on high cost, low return open loops, like if I'm going to take on a prickly queer partner, zie better be the most kickass person I've met to date. Or not going after higher-hanging fruit bc one of my fave people commented that if I worked at it for 6 months, I could hit a level of achievement (and incidentally improve a gender imbalance that irks me). I believe the difference between people who have great success in their lives and those who get by is focus, which is picking the right targets and not wasting energy. I want to start being awesome at things that really matter.
Anyhow, it's not question month, but it is a time of transition, almost like the beginning of the year for me. I welcome your thoughts and advice.