that post from yesterday, without plants

Just finished: Lloyd Alexander, The Prydain Cycle (mostly an excuse to reread Taran Wanderer)
Currently reading: Norman Spinrad, Child of Fortune
Possible next-to-read: John M. Ford, Growing Up Weightless

My main preoccupation these days is left as an exercise for the reader. Additional suggestions welcome, since the Ford isn't really all that thematically appropriate. (I may not be mentally eighteen anymore; I'm definitely not thirteen.)

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So far 2009 has been a Learning Experience. To wit:

• Finding a social group that I'm happy with and that I feel like I Belong to is important for me.
  
• I can get by on fiveish hours of sleep a night [plus somewhat more on weekends] during 'crunch time' at work, for nearly two months, with assistance from naps and tea.
  
• However, this is not all that conducive to trying new things. Such as, say, being sociable with people I don't know well but would like to get to know better. (To be fair, three different groups of people in four days isn't a light schedule for me at the best of times.)

If these Lessons seem to be somewhat at odds with each other, you have grasped the central difficulty of my last two months.

I run myself at the ragged edge of exhaustion because that way I feel like I'm making the best use of my time, getting in as much as possible. Usually the quality of the experience doesn't suffer either. Coraline was a lot of fun. Luray, despite being paved over and brightly lit, managed to wow me several times. (The Lake of Dreams is a huge 18"-deep still pool that perfectly reflects the cavern ceiling above. You know how mirrors are supposed to make spaces look larger? This one actually does.)

But interacting with people, particularly new people, is difficult. Participating and making connections takes effort, requires energy. If I've just not got that energy, I wind up feeling vaguely (or sometimes specifically) dissatisfied with myself for not getting what I wanted out of the interaction. Not to mention even more drained than before.

Thankfully "crunch time" (including not only that old favorite "it's a month before the deadline, so here, write about a completely new set of features!" but also "it's three weeks after the initial deadline and some unspecified time past the most recent deadline, so can you get us a few more pages on how we just changed that feature set?"), however, has subsided as of Friday. And I'm starting to be a bit better about getting closer to six hours sleep.

I have no idea if Getting More Rest will actually help. I figure it can't hurt, in any event.

tea!

merseine0613 asks:
So what, besides Bigelow, is drinkable in your estimation? And what is "good" tea?

Oh dear. Where to start.

I drink non-flavored black tea almost exclusively. I'll have green or oolong if I'm at an oriental restaurant where they're serving it with the meal, but I rarely make a cup or pot for myself.

I want strong tea. Flavorful tea. Tea that I can taste.

WARNING: DO NOT OVERSTEEP THE TEA. This will force me to come to your house and flay you with a mesh tea ball. Also it makes the tea undrinkably bitter. Boiling water, three minutes. Maybe less; the Assam Golden Rain that Teavana sells is done after 2'30", for instance.

So, with that out of the way:

Good tea is single-estate loose tea. (To be fair, I've not tried many blended loose teas. I suppose some of those might be good as well.) If you want to get specific, my current preference is for a northeastern Indian variety called Sikkim or Temi. I'm also partial to Assam or Keemun, and not such a fan of Ceylon or Darjeeling. I think I've tried and been unimpressed by one or two other Chinese varieties as well.

(Lapsang souchong is not tea. It is essence of smoked bacon dipped in hot water and served to unsuspecting gweilo.)

However, I accept that most normal people don't have loose tea, or good teapots. And when I travel, it's far more convenient to just have the individual bags. So, I'm more or less resigned to drinking bag tea when not at home.

Stash is pretty good, as is Tazo. Bigelow will do in a pinch. Lipton is surprisingly decent; I'm never sure if that's because it really is okay or if I'm just constantly expecting it to be awful and impressed when it turns out to be drinkable.

I don't like Twinings at all. Not the stuff they sell in the US, anyway. I'm told their UK tea is better. I would hope so.

At the bottom of the barrel we have Tetley. This is a tea that advertises itself as "the tiny little tea leaf tea." Tea is graded for quality based solely on the size of the leaves: larger leaves, higher grade. What Tetley is saying is, in essence, "Our tea sucks! Drink it!" I cannot argue with the first part of this, and try very hard to avoid complying with the second.

And now you know more about my tea preferences than you ever wanted to.