Salon post: September 14

[jenett]

Welcome to this week's salon post!


Useful notes
Consider tracking this post to get notifications of new comments. Select the bell icon (or the words 'track this'). More help over here, and more about notifications in general here.

Comments are welcome whenever you get a chance - even if that's hours or days later. Feel free to jump into whatever sub-threads intrigue you. More discussion is the point of the salon posts!

Got a question you're trying to sort out, or a thing you'd like to discuss? Lots of thoughtful interesting people with a wide range of interests show up here! Feel free to ask about things you're thinking about or trying to solve, as well as other kinds of chat.

Topic of the week
What are your favourite coping mechanisms when you're dealing with a situation that is not horrible, but is definitely cranky-making.

(We have a researcher visiting at work this week, and I am definitely on the cranky side with him. Today is his last day, fortunately.)

What I've been up to
I am currently rather distracted by the news reports on the gas explosions in northern Massachusetts. (I have good friends in one of the affected towns: they're fine and there were no gas lines in their neighborhood, but no idea yet when they'll have power again.)

Tomorrow, I am going to wander our Town Day with a friend, which will both be amusing and exercise.

(Um, for people where this might not be a thing, basically it's a town-focused street festival. Some vendors, some information booths, library book sale, etc. My town library has beehives on the third floor balcony, and if you buy books at the sale, you also get an entry in the raffle for honey. Performances. You get the idea.)


House rules:
This is a public post, feel free to encourage other people to drop by, just note the 'if posting anonymously, include a name people can call you in responses' rule.

* Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to.

* If you don't have a DW account or want to post anonymously, please include a name we can call you in this particular post. (You can say AnonymousOne or your favourite colour or whatever. Just something to help keep conversations clear.)

* If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.

Comments

[tiger_spot]

Coping mechanisms: I grumble to uninvolved parties and, if it is a situation that has a time limit, remind myself that it will be over soon and maybe plan something nice for when it is.

[jenett]

I am definitely with the grumbling. (My coworkers have been great: I get the brunt of visiting researchers.)

Time limits, definitely also helpful.

[witchchild]

For such annoyances, keep breathing through them and try to wrap them up as quickly as possible.

On another topic entirely, something came up in a FB group this week which you might be able to answer given your job. Someone who is visually impaired was asking about doing online neoWicca classes (and not any sort of good one, alas) to become an HPs. In the course of comments someone mentioned that the group reading list does not include resources for visual impairment. Would you happen to know if anyone has put together such a list? Like already available audiobooks and such.

[jenett]

I don't - I periodically rummage through some of the available resources to see what texts exist in accessible formats, but a lot of them just aren't available as audio. (Or at least not except through speech readers.)

If you'd like to point the person at me (will ping you with contact information in a private message), I'm glad to see if I can figure out some options, though. (And think about pulling together a list of options that are accessible, though I don't want to commit to a timeframe on that.)

[jazzyjj]

Also, BARD might have something and there's a good chance that BookShare would as well. I will give the addresses for both just in case. BookShare: http://www.bookshare.org . BARD: http://nlsbard.loc.gov . At least one of these might be https now. I should probably find that out at some point, lol. But both these services require registration, and BookShare is only free to members of qualifying entities. Information on this can be found on their site. Hope this helps and good luck.

[silveradept]

Often times, the cranky-making situations are things that make other people in my circles cranky, and we can all gripe together about it, or it's something progessional, where my co-works are usually fairly empathetic about having to deal with that particular thing or the way that went.

Failing those things, I have been known to take my cranky out on various pixel configurations through the use of ludicrous amounts of overpowered special effects.

[alexseanchai]

Silver play video game, make BIG boom? :D

[silveradept]

Very big booms. Or soaring past the damage cap to deliver a significant amount of beat down to small-level mooks.

[elisem]

Indeed! Pixel configurations can be such useful places to take that. (I need more pixel configurations, come to think of it.) And booms are oddly soothing sometimes.

[alexseanchai]

coffee

music

art

(some of these are more doable than others depending on the nature of the cranky situation)

[jazzyjj]

It depends on the situation. I used to just gripe about these things to family and friends, but once I started my first journal/blog I began writing my thoughts down. Btw, Dreamwidth wasn't my first of these blogs/journals but I'd have to say it's proved to be the best to date, in terms of both accessibility/usability and responsiveness of management.





I'm at my parents' place this weekend, for a number of reasons. My father came to my apartment earlier this week to help trouble-shoot an issue we were having with a new savings account for me. I think we got it resolved though. The short version is that I hadn't logged into our primary bank's website in a little over 2 years due to being busy with other things and just putting it on the back burner. But as a result of my negligence my account was shut down due to security reasons. But I think I'm all good to go now.





The rector at my church accepted a similar position elsewhere, and her last day is Sunday. So there's a party this evening for her, her husband and their daughter. I also have to discuss some things with my parents this weekend, one of which is probably finances.

[autumnesquirrel]

I used to got buy lip balm after work. I do not use lip balm. I would apply it one time, decide that I still did not like lip balm, and add it to the pile of other lip balms. Eventually I identified this pattern and stopped buying lip balm.

Generally in the moment I compose long missives inside my head addressed to the offender, or sometimes posts. I rarely ever write any of it down. There is also sometimes extensive internal swearing. It is good people cannot actually read minds.

[auroracloud]

Music is often good, as is movement, going outdoors if that's an option, focusing on your breathing for a while. I find that crankiness gets into your body and tries to settle down there, and it's good if you can drive it away by doing something else with your body. Another much-used option: distract distract distract. Sometimes all I need to forget cranky-making things is to lose myself in a story or read about awesome astronomical discoveries or something like that and things fall into proportion and the irritation is purged out of my mind and body.

Obviously sometimes it's a while before I can do these things, or (especially) before it occurs to me that's a better idea than seething on whatever has made me cranky.

Oh, and my icon reminded me: TEA. Because I love tea and it makes everything better. Usually.

[swingandswirl]

When I was still doing Krav Maga, punching things was often an excellent remedy for stress. Now that I don't... killing video game beasties, or whumping fictional characters. Or just screaming into a pillow. /g/

[havocthecat]

I have many and varied coping mechanisms. Sometimes I dance my way through it and pick up an extra class. Sometimes I listen to music and tune out. Sometimes I avoid everything and read a terribly escapist paranormal romance. Sometimes I just gripe and vent to uninvolved parties. It all depends.