Wednesday, February 22, 2006

 
I shouldn't do that.

I haven't gone in because I feel awful.
I feel awful because I haven't gone in.

And I'm not sure how much self-reinforcement is going on in that logic. Neither am I sure how much of the awfulness is viral, how much the result of lack of sleep, how much worrying about work, how much anxiety about something else, how much is deadline related (although usually I keel over after the deadline), how much is just extrapolated from an awareness of all this. Is it just my usual inability to cope with being reminded that I am not omnipotent, I cannot do everything, especially not all at once, and that sometimes its fine to know or understand or be immediately capable (I can't even write that sentence without the amending "immediately"; such is my level of assumptions. Competitive, arrogant perfectionist with external confidence and motivation issues seeks someone who will make it alright. Perhaps my response to how good I'll be at anything unknown shouldn't be "I'm me. I can do anything if I try [there are those provisos again, although that is an exceptionally good opt-out clause]. I just haven't tried yet").

I'm fully aware some of it is due to the way some people are treating me, which is of course their problem, yet technically I can't declare it not mine. It's just the tiredness which makes dealing with their stubbornness, foolishness and stupidity wearing. I have no energy with which to fight, no particular desire to either, yet I know I have to, and not just for their good.

But having to work where every word I say gets needlessly translated (she understands what I'm saying, but the self appointed interpreter is a patronising ass, who not only believes women should be in the kitchen, but assumes it too. But hey, he's a Cretin. Sorry, that should read Cretan), every idea spawns discussion in a different language, and is promptly deposed without translation. And the other member of the our international team I originally assumed didn't have quite enough English, but have come to realise, it's not that the message isn't getting through, it's merely that she's dim. And it wouldn't be so unbearable if Greek didn't sound like a machine gun, and each Greek person didn't have a default volume of 11.

My god, I hate opinionated people (said he with great aplomb, knowing full well that that sounds suspiciously like an opinion).

I'm feeling like that Ralph Nader ad, with every dis- under the sun (or unrelentingly amorphous grey, loving tinted with brown. Maybe the sky's just old, and that's why it's yellow round the edges).

But having the usual joyous combination of shivering and sweating, plus a gut which is firmly rejecting all offers, and mouth which is slowly and painfully digesting itself is not fun. The mouth I attribute to something scurvyish. The cure for which is a wide variety of invariably acid things. Why does citric acid have to be so painful? And why do my lips look like I've got half of Hollywood's collagen in there (either that, or they've been worked on by a very thorough wasp). When I start resorting to the logic of "if it hurts it must be good", I know it's pretty bad right? Guess who's been rubbing salt into the wound. It seems to help, although that might just be the pain receptors burn out after a while.

But surely all that can't be the effects of just thought? Can it? But thoughts aren't quite working right either, and I shouldn't be

Confidence always has been intermittent, but this time it feels like the tide draining to its lowest ebb, and magically I'm the curious whale, now stranded a mile inland.

I hate it when this happens. I hate being made to think "is that it?". And I hate when others ask that of me.

And does anyone else have a lot of eggs and milk that might last until next week because they forgot when Shrove Tuesday was? As I normally miss it (well, who put it on a Tuesday?) I sort of over compensated. And when are they going to make Easter decimalised (I'm fully aware that's the wrong word), but I can never cope with the endless bobbing about. I keep being told that apparently it's early, or late, this year but as concept of it is sometime Aprilish, early and late don't really help.

Anyway, I need to go in and show myself, so I can be congratulated on how ghastly I look.

Anyhoo,

Sorry for the lack of post, but I've done a Neil (IAF). Guess whose mouse has finally given up its very small ghost and now no longer functions. And guess who has just discovered that Blogger is impossible to use without a mouse. No amount of tabbing ever gets to the textbox. I can't even get the stuff surrounding it, so even if I could type there I'd never be able to save or post it.

Well done Blogger.

I've also discovered just how annoying it is to have to wade all the way through a sidebar of links to be able to read a post (which of course is the default for every single blog I read). And you can't just skip through them by holding down tab as then you overshoot, and landing on "trackback" when you wanted "comments" is no good, as the only way to get to where you want to be is to go through the whole cycle again (there being no reverse direction tab [that I know of]).

I'm now realising that I've got a lot of work to do, and I have a hunch I may need a mouse for some of it. But on the other hand, every single email interface is suddenly so much harder to use, which means I might actually do some work instead of emailing any one and everyone.

And why doesn't ALT>SPACE work in Firefox? Instead you have to use ALT>F>C (as Exit closes the entire program).

So what do I need to now for using Windows without a mouse?
So far there's:
ALT to get into the menus in a program.
ALT>SPACE to get into the corner-icon menu (or just use the arrow keys, but Firefox doesn't allow either).
TAB to move between links in HTML pages.
ALT+TAB to switch between windows (hurrah for things learnt under 3.1).
CTRL+TAB to switch between tabs in things like Firefox (and presumably wherever else they occur).
SHIFT+ENTER to open in a new window
CTRL+ENTER to open in a new tab
The usual collection of CTRL+R/N to do things in a browser.
The amazing Windows symbol button which opens the Start Menu (and without which I would be sunk, although I've just remembered CTRL+ESC).

Of course, I could just have thought about it and used Google (which is fairly easy to use. Not great, but reasonable) to look up the shortcuts.

Oooh, I like LOGO+TAB, and never knew CTRL+Z. But half the rest don't appear to work (I've got into the Quicklaunch bit of the taskbar once, but I can't find how).

And oddly, the comments section of Blogger is much easier to use (it even prioritises the TAB'd options).

Anyway, that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Anyhoo,
 
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