Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"In the animal kingdom, I would sink my teeth just deep enough into the scruff of their necks to remind them who's alpha and what appropriate behavior is. And the matter would be settled on the spot. In modern times, we humans don't get to do that." -- harpwolf, 2004-01-31

Still feeling overwhelmed and under-energized; I missed both rehearsals this week due to my body's failure to cooperate with my plans and have shifted other things I'd meant to do this week a few times. Going through the past-due items on my Visor to-do list and re-scheduling several of them for next week helped a little emotionally once I "gave myself permission" to do that (yeah, I recognize the implied upfuckedness there; I'm working on it, but have made only small progress over the years so far). Not feeling especilally communicative despite knowing that's a bad thing right now.

But I did manage nearly five hours of sleep last night if one overlooks waking up "not long enough to count but long enough to notice" four times (and annoying Perrine because I did so in the cat-fur-free room, so she spent the night curled just outside the door). To say that I feel rested only makes sense in relative terms, but it does help.

And surrendering to how crappy I felt yesterday and just curling up with a novel (The Tyrant) much of the afternoon meant that at least I was doing something more pleasurable than just tossing and turning and feeling frustrated about neither being able to get to sleep nor feeling well enough to Get Things Done, especially when Perrine, who doesn't seem to have trouble getting enough sleep, stretched out against my hip and thigh to nap while I read. I've decided that as long as my financial situation is so dire, free e-books are a blessing. I can't afford to buy the dead-trees editions that I still find more comfortable to read, so I'm glad to be able to take advantage of the Baen Free Library and Project Gutenberg. I feel a little bad about not being able to support Baen's decision to make some current titles available for free by going with the "find out I like a series or an author and then go buy the rest of those books on paper" path to letting Baen make money off of this, but at least I can tell other people what I'm enjoying that I wouln't have known about otherwise ... (So far I've enjoyed The Tyrant by Eric Flint & David Drake, but the real gems have been 1632 (Eric Flint) and 1633 (Eric Fline & David Weber), which I'll get around to saying more about later, I promise. Next up is L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, which I've been meaning to read (probably the whole series, actually, unless I really hate the first one, which I don't expect to be a problem from what I've heard) for quite some time.

But oddly enough, what inspired me to sit down and write this entry (instead of a bunch of other things I feel I should be writing about (or rather, feel I should already have written)) was wanting to do a quick calculation and having my Visor already in my hand (otherwise laziness would have dictated using paper or doing it in my head), firing up a calculator program that's two thirds of the way through its free evaluation period, catching myself thinking in Reverse Polish Notation and reminding myself to translate to Algebraic Entry ("infix"), making a mental note to look for an RPN calculator app., noticing the program do something as soon as I tapped the division button, and realizing that the program I was did in fact have an RPN mode and was currently set to that. (Yeah, I was inattentive enough to fail to notice the presence of an "Enter" button and the lack of "Equals" at first.)

It made me feel really good -- satisfied, even reassured, as well as just plain tickled -- to do my arithmetic in RPN and to realize the tool I'd planned to search for was already in my hand. I'll have to look up how much it costs to register; I downloaded it because I wanted a graphing calculator, and it does that adequately but turned out not to be as useful for the problem I got it for as I'd hoped -- now I've got a different reason to want to keep it past the demo period. The three-numbers-two-operations calculation I did this afternoon would not really have been at all painful to do using infix (or, for that matter, on paper), but the times I really do want a calculator rather than just using it because it's already in my hand, I'd much rather use Reverse Polish ("postfix"). I do like having my comfortable tools. Usually when I want a calculator these days, if I'm near a computer, I open a telnet window and use 'dc'.

And that's what sparked an "it's the little things that cheer me up sometimes" journal entry. Being able to type "230 enter 24 / 1.9 *" instead of "230 / 24 = * 1.9 =" (well I did say it wasn't a problem that needed a calculator (or even really a pen and paper), didn't I?)), and being surprised by that fact, is just that sort of little thing.

Speaking of little things, I wonder whether I'll be able to scrape loose enough spare cash to buy one of those ... oh, I forget the name: little notebook thingies with two or more wooden leaves containing wax tablets, a convenient size to hang from one's belt ... at Pennsic this year. Now that I've got a PDA, I'm not sure which I want more, the real thing, or a lookalike that serves as a PDA case to make the modern toy less conspicuous in medeival settings (I first decided I wanted one when I was carrying a DayRunner instead of the Visor), but I think I still want the actual wax tablets.

Now if only I could lick some of the big things, like utility bills, insurance, government forms, carrying air conditioners upstairs without re-injuring my right elbow, and feeling well enough to get to Arlington and College Park more reliably.