I went to a paper store today. The last couple weeks have been rough for me, for various reasons including upcoming, somewhat uncomfortable changes. While I would like to say I'm dealing with everything well, I'm not. Upside: learning opportunity! Chance to take care of myself! Something to laugh about years later! Adventure!

Right.

All that.

Perhaps unsurprising to anyone including myself, on a whim this afternoon I went to a paper store. I did my usual walk around the entire store to get a feel for things, before going back to pick up an item or two that caught my eye. Good paper stores are just delightful for me. I use paper stores as one of the five items to check out in a new town to rate the town's quality (the others being chocolate stores, tea shops, and book stores, which a bonus of cupcake stores). This one was a recent discovery, small and well stocked.

I bought a number of comfort items:

The socks completely crack me up. I mean, walking around with "f--- this shit." around your ankles? Priceless!

The journals, yeah, well, the journals are lovely. The bigger one has a stitched binding. While the line spacing is bigger than I like, I do like the journal itself. I am thinking about commissioning some notebooks for myself, have a couple hundred printed and bound just for me, just the way I like it. For now, the larger journal is available. The smaller journal is a Paper Thinks journal. It's a new brand for me. I have a smaller one, of the same goldenrod yellow colour. I like it a lot, so thought I'd try the larger one, too.

The green Chiyogami paper just made me smile when I picked it up. I really love the pattern and the feel of the paper. The page itself isn't large enough to be of much use for me other than an insert that makes me smile when I see it, or maybe a ribbon on a notebook. It's lovely.

And the color origami Tant squares. They are in shades of yellow. I'm going to use them for cranes when I head to Orange county. I'm not sure the grandparents are really going to appreciate the yellow cranes. I'm hoping they won't mind my folding them during quiet times, as a way to settle myself, and comfort myself a bit.

So, that was my journey to the paper store. I like my growing collection of notebooks and books. Each one notebook is an invitation to write a story. Each book is an invitation to read a story.

I'm glad for the comfort.

Somehow, I have to believe if your house hasn't sold in four months, raising the price by 30k isn't really the way to sell it faster.

Maybe that's just me.

I went to play ultimate tonight. I've been finding playing very difficult these days, for a number of reasons. I'm out of shape. I'm not playing with people I've known for years, so my jokes fall flat and, let's face it, there's no butt smacking or tan line comparisons or group hugs when the people you play with are also your coworkers. I'm also not nearly as committed to playing as I used to be, so my energy level is surprisingly low.

That, and the field we usually play on doesn't have a toilet anywhere handy.

Crushing.

Today, a teammate needed nail clippers and I had mine in the car, so I ended up warming up beyond my usual lap or two around the field. Instead I warmed up by running back to the car to grab the clippers. It gave me time to think about my fitness and enthusiasm levels. It gave me time for Sage Kitt to surface and talk to me in a way I needed, in a way I would listen.

I reminded myself that how I used to be able to play isn't really relevant to my playing now. Yes, I remember what my body used to be able to do. It can't do that now, and holding on to the used-to-be doesn't help my game today. It's okay to be slower and less skilled. It happens. It happens to everyone. I'm still on the field. I'm still moving around. I'm still having fun at this game. I'm still losing myself in the moment of going for the disc, and that is all okay and that is all wonderful. Being out there is what matters, not how good or not-so-good I used to be. Just now. Not the whole game, not the whole point, just that moment of cutting, catching, throwing. That's what matters.

And with that, I went out to play.

I started playing fairly well. I had a couple of good swings and lots of good disc movement with three players from Kevin's regular team. They play competitively, more than just in the recreational league we're in, so it was fun to be able to connect with them, to know they know not to clog, to know they know to clear, to know they know how to cut to open spaces, to know they know how to read a floating disc, to know they know how to switch defences, to know they even knew advanced defences and offences. Was great.

And then, I realized we were playing that team.

I was marking a woman who dumped the disc. She had turned back downfield to dump the disc, and turned into me as she turned to go back upfield. "Whoa, too close!" she yelled at me. "Yeah, because you ran into me," I responded as we ran down the field. "You were already too close before," she responded. "Then call it when it happens, please." After that comment, there was a turnover, and I ran away from her to score with the assist on that point.

And then I realized who that woman was.

She was the "a disc width is six inches" woman from last year.

Wellllllll shit.

Talk about a game spoiler for me. I had been having a good time chatting with the other women on the opposing team. The disc-width chick just pissed me off. My game suffered. I dropped disc after disc after disc. I'd pick up a turned-over disc, then turf it. I stopped cutting. I stopped playing well.

And games are pretty crappy when you're not playing well.

So, I did the best thing I could think of to do.

I played hard on defense.

When a guy cut deep and I was deeper and had position, I turned and ran hard deep with him. When my woman cut for the disc, I cut harder to prevent the throw. When my woman had the disc, I marked as hard as I could to stop the continuation. I ran as hard as I could to stop my brain from overthinking my frustration from over a year ago.

It mostly helped. I played better. We won the game, which was nice.

In the end, I left having had a good time.

And I left with the decision it's time to put forth the effort to get back in shape.

Well, shit.

With this goal of "read more" my site has become a book review site.

Which, again, bites.

Really, I've been doing more than just read books. I've been uh.... writing one! Co-authoring, actually. It's going to be great, if only because of the intense work, and the hack-days approach of GETTING SHIT DONE that is just so awesome.

I've also dealt with the house, oh god, overwhelming the house. In doing so, I managed to address a conflict head-on, which worked out pretty well. I've been trying the discussion techniques presented in Crucial Conversations, and really appreciate how much they have helped me in conflict resolution as well as personal well-being. I'm not at 100% excellent, but I'm closer to being able to have conversations when I'm 98% pissed off, which IS excellent progress.

Before that was the company holiday party (read: volleyball day). I navigated this day particularly well, giving myself permission to be an introvert, venturing forth to interact with people, then retreating to recharge before venturing out again for social activities. We threw the disc a number of times, having several coworkers come into the mix then wander back out. I had enough sunscreen and a baseball hat that I was sun happy, too. Was a great, deliberately short, day.

Before that, I managed to finish a work task that's been going on for a while. Feels good to put a stake in the ground, spit in the hole, done.

Before that, I had the day off and spent it in FULL-ON HOLIDAY MODE. Aw, yeah. Barbeque and HULK SURPRISE. That was fun.

And before that, I was social! OMG look at me! I'm being social!

Jman and I went over to Shannon and Denise's and made homemade tortillas, something I hadn't done in years. They turned out well, everyone rolling and cutting and cooking. Afterward, we played cards. At first, when Shannon suggested Hearts, I didn't recall which game was which, so said, "As long as it's not Eject-A-Queen, I'm good." Well, it was the game where I was Eject-A-Queen, sending the queen out as soon as I could. Go me, not remembering my favorite game from 15 years ago. The games did bittersweet reminded me of sitting around playing hearts with Ben & Lisa, having enough wine that the sweet was stronger than the bitter.

Before that, I was eating the most amazing chocolate chip cookies at work. OMG I have to find where they come from. They are 6+ at a time amazing.

Yeah.

Not a book review.

Hi, Mom!