"like the end and the way"

[jazzfish]

Resolved: Stop Blaming the Pancake: "I'll go further and say that the repeated compulsion to resolve and resolve and resolve is actually a terrific marker that you're not really ready to change anything in a grownup and sustainable way. You probably just want another magic wand." Ow. (Metaphor quibble: for me the first pancake is no better or worse than the rest of the batch. The first crepe is consistently awful and has to be scraped off into the sink, though.)

Chip Delany, Part 2: The Miracle of Dhalgren. Pohl's whole blog is worth reading if you've any interest in the history of US SF in the twentieth century; this particular post is noteworthy for the people that show up in the comments.

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Wednesday already. Where does the time go.

(Recap: on Friday I got a tattoo or two, depending on how one counts. It's a taijitu, empty half on the inside left wrist/forearm, dark half on the inside right wrist/forearm. Inspiration from UKL's "Light is the left hand of darkness, and darkness the right hand of light," among other things.)

I spent all weekend in the apartment, cleaning and doing chores and writing and generally Not Doing A Damn Thing unless I felt like it. There was de-Xmasing and vacuuming and cooking, but mostly there was lying on the couch reading or talking or mucking with the computer. Very pleasant.

Monday was my first day in public, and hence the day of regrets: how could I do this? It's Unprofessional. I'll be looked at funny, or given a Talking To, or fired. I made it through mostly by reminding myself that a) I'll get used to it, and b) there's no going back, in any case, so I may as well get used to it. The only person who actually said anything was a complimentary coworker: we chatted briefly on the way back from a meeting.

I guess that was enough to get used to it, because yesterday was the day of I Screwed This Up Somehow. The left side looks fine. It's the right that's causing me all the grief. As the dead skin flakes off, it's revealing a tattoo that's exceedingly patchy and not nearly as dark as I'd wanted. Did I do something wrong? Not moisturize it enough, moisturize it too much, leave it wrapped too long, not wrap it well enough? I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING AND THEREFORE MUST BE DOING IT WRONG.

Today I'm a bit calmer about the whole thing. The studio offers free touch-ups (as they bloody well should, at their prices) so once it's done healing I'll go back in and have it repaired. And maybe more of the ink will stay in place this time: I started noticing the 'patchy' on Satyrday, but was hoping it was just an artifact of the healing process.

At this point I'm reasonably happy with how it will eventually turn out. And with the technicolor cloud cover out my window.

Comments

[thanate]

I make small fluffy pancakes, four at a time on the skillet, and I can't remember the last time I had an actual dud; I just learned how to do crepes (from the Cooking for Geeks book, which is awesome!) and so far the first one has come out best in both batches.

On the other hand, certain parallels could be made from that to my resolution keeping...

Will there be pictures of your wrists when they've stablized?

[jazzfish]

My parents could both make pancakes five at a time, but when I try that I end up flipping at least one of them onto another.

'Modest achievable goals' are, I think, serving me a lot better than 'giant sweeping resolutions.' Which I'm okay with.

And yes, definitely pictures at some point. I'd meant to have uilos take some on Friday night (it's difficult to photograph your own wrists if you're trying to get both of them in the same shot) but we were beat enough when we got in that we just fell over, and by the next day the patchiness had started.

[rbandrews]

I found that the pancake thing is a result of not letting the pan heat up enough before pouring the batter on. Not sure how that fits in the metaphor though.

Remember this xkcd. (have you ever noticed that as soon as someone links to xkcd in conversation, you know exactly which one they linked to, without reading it? Funny that there's no xkcd about that.)

[jazzfish]

Making sure you're prepared properly certainly helps, but it's not the whole thing. At least not with crepes. Maybe I'm using too much oil on the crepe maker or something.

Actually I didn't, but only because I wasn't sure which part of the conversation it was pointing to. It clicked after the first line, though. :)

[notmatt]

I've heard that about the first crepe before, but I don't seem to have that problem. I wonder what I'm doing wrong? Actually, I haven't made them in a couple years. This is a good excuse to investigate.

[jazzfish]

Huh. Maybe it's just me, then. Or just me and my antique crepe-maker.

[vond.net]

The concept of new year's resolutions has always baffled me. Not so much the idea of resolving to change something about your life (which I guess was really the thrust of the article) but linking it to some calendar date, even a significant one. I've never felt that the rolling of a calendar year was significant, everything is the same on January 1 as it was on December 31 except the incrementing of an arbitrary number that not even all humans agree on.

I seem to remember posting "holy shit, Fred Pohl has a blog" at one point. I've been subscribed for a while and have found his historical posts fascinating.

[jazzfish]

It's more an excuse to pretend to change than anything, a sort of "everyone else is doing this, i may as well too." Plus, everyone always resolves to lose weight, after gorging over the holidays.

Of course, everything's the same after a birthday as well.

It might have even been from you that I found Pohl's blog, although I don't remember. Regardless, it's one of the awesomest things I've found on the internet in quite awhile.

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

I know this has nothing to do with the article, but my first pancake is always the perfect one. The rest are crap because the pan is too hot at that point.

[jazzfish]

I had that problem for years. My most recent solution is to start flipping later batches before I think they're done. (This is kind of like PJ O'Rourke's guide to cooking the perfect steak: "Put it on the grill. Flip it over every few minutes so you don't walk away from it. When you think it should cook just a little longer, take it off.")