CW: weird situations with strange men

Got home late last night after a truly bizarre and unsettling first experience with Lyft, wherein a ride home took way longer than necessary, and included:

• more bridges than necessary (Queens => Brooklyn does not involve the Williamsburg Bridge)
• an illegal u-turn in a fair amount of traffic (after attempted illegal left turns)
• repeated assurances that I would be there in however-many minutes
• the driver asking me if I could maybe look up the directions on my phone? then commenting that they looked the same as his, but asking if he could use my phone to navigate instead, and so he took my phone with 11% battery left and I realized I had no recourse if anything went wrong, and wasn’t sure I’d be able to make my way home from wherever we were
• getting home safely in about twice as long as it should have taken

Anyway, that + more loss yesterday didn’t exactly make for a rad night of sleep. Took forever to crawl out of bed, missed check-ins, figured I’d get in and get down to business…and didn’t so much. Mostly just read a lot about what folks have been saying about Sheryl.

Headed back to the Khan Academy SQL resources, which I was loving a lot this spring, even though I only got to do them an hour or so at a time. Looking forward to having more freedom with my time, and I think the structure will be really helpful for me right now.

Didn’t get a lot done, but did more than nothing.

Also hosted the inaugural RC Coloring Club, which is where you bring yourself and the desire to color something (and maybe something to color), and then you color it, and it was awesome.

Ended up having a really good conversation with a fellow batchling about grief, cancer, art, death, New York, comedy, and the advantages of a big city if you are, or are feeling, introverted. Not so much with the code today, but we do what we can.

Finished off the day with game night, where I learned MORE new games, which is both unlike me and super fun. Played Coloretto (and kept wanting to sing Bohemian Rhapsody with it; “I see a little coloretto”), and also Batman Love Letter, which is based on Love Letter, but instead of princesses it’s got Batman (five Batmans, in fact) and friends (and enemies). Both games are great and do not take forever, winning much favor with me, and I got to hang out with great people while playing them.

What I did:

• Studied some SQL for the first time in several months.
• Hosted coloring club.
• Finished the “You don’t have to be good at everything” page in The Affirmations.
• Talked about important things with a great person.
• Played games with good people.

What I learned:

• How to play two new games!
• Sometimes it’s better to talk about feelings than bro down and crush some code.

Questions I have:

• Nothing articulate. More weird handwavey “is there a way to predict what grief will do?” and “what happens when grief is compounded by more?”

Week 7! How is this possible? And am I going to say this every Monday from here on out?

New batch joined us this morning, so I’m trying to let go of that feeling that I should have Done Real Things with my morning. The supposed “real things” (involving bro-ing down and crushing some code?) didn’t happen. That’s okay. I’ve already met a handful of the new batch, and they’re awesome and have interesting and diverse backgrounds. Looking forward to getting to know them a bit better.

Brought in my new copy of The Affirmations Colouring Book (purchased at Bluestockings on a wandering post-dinner adventure with Melissa, Ian, and Nathan this weekend), which I’m leaving with RC, because coloring affirmations is pretty fabulous, and everyone here should get to do that if they’d like.

Went on an adventure to Soho Art Materials to pick up colored pencils & a sharpener to facilitate coloring the coloring book (also planning to leave them here). This last week has had a lot of “I want this crafty thing, but I do not want to own it and hoard it” (coloring stuff and also friendship bracelet materials: turns out they’re still a blast, because I am 7), and it’s kind of fun.

Wrote two blog posts (what!). Was baffled by reading the same programming resources I was working from last week, which wasn’t an awesome feeling. Went for a walk to acquire the aforementioned colored pencils. Partly colored one of the pages in the Affirmations book. Realized it was already about 6 pm, which seems absurd. Wanted to get More Code Done today, but hey, not all days can be mega productive.

In summary:

• What I did:
  • I shared a piece of advice with the new batch.
  • I wrote three blog posts (including this one).
  • I colored part of a page of the Affirmations book: “You don’t have to be good at everything.”
  • I led a little lunchquest to Sweetgreen (we had a gluten-free person in our group, plus me the vegan, and SG can feed both easily!), and I didn’t get us too lost, and I got to spend time with three new batchlings.
  • Went to the Monday night talk, which was awesome and went at about 300 mph.
• What I learned:
  • Focusing on code; trying to interact with a bunch of new people…Possibly mutually exclusive?
  • Just because I’ve understood something before doesn’t mean I understand it today. And that’s okay, because I suspect it might work in the other direction, too.
• Questions I have:
  • Not really anything outstanding at the moment.