Nail-Biting Experiences

We had a pretty quiet weekend. Bridge Friday evening, preceded by dinner at the Duke of Edinburgh pub, highlighted by battered deep-fried bangers. Mmmm.... sausages. They were so good we got seconds. Their cornish pasties rock, too. Saturday we went for a bike ride and otherwise hung out. Sunday we drove over the hills and spent some time sitting on the beach. We took a new (for me) route over the hills, up Page Mill Rd and down Alpine and Pescadero roads on the other side, passing through some stunning redwood forests on the way. The road down is very windy and narrow, though; not something I'll do again unless we're going to said forests.

Debbi's off this week at her company's annual area meeting in Tahoe, so I'm on my own. My plan is to read The Snow Queen. And then my friend Karen's coming to visit this weekend. That I'm looking forward to!

I've had some unexpected good fortune lately, but also some stressful times. I'm trying to deal with them both gracefully. It's good to have Debbi to vent to... alas I can't often do so here, since some matters aren't for public consumption.

I'm quietly working on some self-improvement projects along the way. For instance trying to be a bit less of a smartass when it's really not appropriate (and no, "not appropriate" doesn't mean I should try to make fewer puns during Bridge or gaming nights! Nice try, tho).

I've been an incurable nail-biter most of my life, despite several attempts to quit. I do bite them when nervous or stressed, but mostly I bite them I think for a reason that was mentioned to me a few years ago: I'm bored, and waiting for something interesting to happen. "Waiting for more input," I think the source called it. This is often my problem with meetings: In a meeting of more than about four people, there are going to be stretches which are uninteresting, or irrelevant, or way beyond the scope of my knowledge or experience. I've never been very good at sitting through meetings... mostly I've just learned to become patient. Some part of my goes off into hyperspace during the stretches that don't engage me. I've tried to look at those stretches as a learning opportunity, but since some other part of my mind knows I can't do everything, it hasn't worked.

Another response I have to those times is that the part of my brain that handles verbal wordplay kicks in, and I start looking for witty or cutting remarks to make. And that's the sort of thing I'm trying to cut back on, since I sometimes feel like I go overboard in inappropriate situations. Though mostly I think I worry about it more than is warranted. But better safe than sorry.

The worst, I think, is when a social experience - such as lunchtime - turns into some sort of ad hoc meeting, about some subject to which I have nothing meaningful to contribute. Then I either end up staring into hyperspace, or making snarky comments, or waiting desperately for the opportunity to make an interjection about something that does interest me (which these days mostly seems to be baseball [the irony in the fact that I know many folks at lunch have no interest in baseball isn't lost on me]). This sort of thing happens regularly, though not every day. Makes me wonder whether I should bring my book and just start reading if the conversation heads off into la-la land.

So basically I'm trying to be more tolerant of all this. And I guess more mellow and accepting of a variety of things. I keep my stress level down, mainly. It's not a bad goal.

Then there's the part of my brain that wonders how I can work to make more meetings more interesting and useful... but that's another topic.