Ninth salon: for the bad days.

[jenett]

Welcome to our ninthsalon discussion thread. Wander in, invite a friend to come along, and chat! (Not sure what's going on? Here, have a brief FAQ.) You can find previous ones in my salon tag. Please take a quick look at the reminders at the bottom of this post, too.

I have been having the sort of week where there's nothing exactly wrong, but wherein I have no energy, spent four hours napping on Sunday (the cat considers that 'right' and approves highly, but it's not very productive) and I feel like I am not making progress on useful things. (And actually, today is worse than yesterday, and it's the fact I really have stuff that has to happen at work that has me here.)

So. Today's discussion. What do you do when you have a bad week? (Or weeks?) What stuff do you keep handy?

Me: I try to have food around that I will eat (and is sensible for me to eat) even if I'm not very hungry. I try to remember to listen to music, because that generally helps, really. I keep stuff to read that is interesting but not demanding. I keep a stock of Awesome Bath Stuff For Bad Days (my purveyor of choice tends to be Fantasy Bath, but y'know. Bath stuff is good.)

And I keep links. (Um. If you are reading these at work, they reliably make me crack up out loud. You are forewarned. My humour is probably not your humour, but all of these have the kind of content you'd expect from the brief descriptions.)
* Folksongs are your friends: A long digression (comments are worth reading) on useful things one can learn from folksongs.
* I has a sweet potato: One dog. Several sweet potatoes. Much laughter.
* Gaming group meets hellhounds Ursula Vernon's gaming group encounters some hellhounds. Who need rescuing. (the rest of that tag is also excellent, but the first one is good even if you're not a gamer.)
* And because it still makes me crack up, nearly a year later, I present a discussion of the Alternity-verse's version of 50 Shades of Gray which shares a title with one of the assigned Dark Arts/Noble Arts books. (For this, you basically need to know that alt_antonin is the subject's professor, and he's just started teaching at the beginning of term, less than two weeks before this.) Once you've read that, his discussion with Narcissa is also deeply amusing (or you can back up and read the whole set of comments in general.)

Comments

making certain habits things that always happen instead of things I choose to do

[jjhunter]

The short answer is, I make habits during good weeks and do my best to stick to them regardless of whether a particular week is good or bad.

Some examples that can make all the difference during hard weeks:

- regular vigorous exercise, especially running

- doing as much as possible of my computer time at work / home standing up

- sticking to a regular wakeup time regardless of how early / late I go to sleep

- hosting occasional 'How Are You? (in Haiku)' days at my Dreamwidth journal (am doing one today, actually - everyone & anyone is welcome to come participate)

- making bits of space for the enjoyment of simple sensual pleasures - food, hot or cold drink, positive human touch from friends/family, the quality of light as I commute from A to B, short phone calls, snippets of poetry, fun outfits to wear, scrubbing my scalp in the shower, 3 minute chunks of meditative breathing, flying down hills or churning up them on my bike, giving furry beings scritches until their tails thump or their paws start grow warning claws because so much good how can even, applying fire / sharp knife to ingredients and making new variations of food om nom nom, being in easy silence or relaxation with people, did I mention breathing?...

- articulating if only to myself what is hard & what I'm feeling

- de-escalating to 'make the job smaller' when 'get all the jobs done' starts to reek of magical thinking / avoidance

Re: making certain habits things that always happen instead of things I choose to do

[jenett]

Huh. I do totally get you about the habits that always happen. But so many of yours totally don't work for me. (Since my bad weeks tend to involve movement being exceedingly problematic, and due to asthma and other lung issues, breathing-stuff is a thing I can never actually rely on as a touchstone.)

I am totally with you on the furry being scritches, though. (My previous cat liked them, but my current one is a 'throw self on side and writhe if you look at her for more than 3 seconds' sort of adoring, and petting is EVEN BETTER.)

Re: making certain habits things that always happen instead of things I choose to do

[jjhunter]

Yay scritches! argh bodies, why so complicated sometimes.

p.s. Another thing that does work for me - and I often forget it's not something everyone does - is that I made a personal UFYH playlist that I play to stop thinking & just do if I find myself getting stuck.