Brain reset

[mrissa]

Here's what I tried to get my brain out of its previous bad rut:

--writing to Grandpa L. as specified (this is markgritter's maternal grandfather, technically, but there's a point with each in-law where you shift from thinking of them as the other person's to thinking of them as yours -- at least ideally there is -- and with Grandpa Lyzenga and me, that took about 3.2 seconds, and he is just the very most you could ever ask a Grandpa Lyzenga to be)
--cleaning up a bit of my desk mess, which is there because I hate desk mess and will therefore deal with things put on my desk to drive me nuts
--working out
--reading a little of Blood and Iron, then stopping because getting all wrapped up in someone else's book wasn't really the point here
--drinking water
--showering
--drinking more water and taking an Advil
--playing with the dog
--putting on music
--putting on different music, and that finally did it -- thanks, markiv1111 (and thanks dd_b for being my supplier). Don't know why "The First Overnight Guest" did it, but there it was, "There's a chance of rain but no real chance of rest," and my brain went click click whirrrrr...and then it was behaving sensibly again.

And now I'm in late-afternoon crash and have learned not to beat myself up if I'm not useful for an hour or two, because I am definitely a morning person and sometimes an evening person, but what I am not is an afternoon person.

What are your favorite brain-reset tricks?

Comments

[zalena.livejournal.com]

1. Take a walk
2. Eat something
3. Brian Eno's Music for Airports performed by Bang on a Can.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Does Bang on a Can sound like it sounds like it would sound like?

Umm. I hope that parses someday.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

No, it's actually very soothing. They are an avant garde group, so I guess some of their music sounds like can banging (?) but this is very soothing, slow, ambient music, originally scored electronically, but played on real instruments.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I generally flee the building and sit somewhere else to work.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

there's a point with each in-law where you shift from thinking of them as the other person's to thinking of them as yours

Funny, though. With my four grandparents-in-law that worked as described, but with my parents-in-law, it's a bit different. It's not because I love them any less, it's just - do you remember the part in A Wrinkle in Time where Aunt Beast settles what Meg should call her, and settles on Aunt Beast specifically because "Aunt" is not a unique title? It's like that. The grandparents can be my grandparents because I grew up with lots of those anyway (7, counting fosters and steps and a grerat-grandmother) and am very happy to have more. That's especially but true because my original quota are all gone now, but not only because of that.

But I have only one mother and one father and don't really feel a need to expand those roles, so the parents-in-law feel like my relatives, but more like *my* MIL and *my* FIL. If that makes sense.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. I am pretty clear, even, on the difference between mattgritter feeling like my brother and feeling like my brother-in-law, for example, but both of those are different than him feeling like "markgritter's brother" in my head. I think this is probably due to life as an only child and being extremely wary of anyone who claims to be like a sibling, because they don't generally mean it. Sometimes they mean something better and sometimes something worse, but they don't mean it.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Switch to writing with a different text editor.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't mention sibs-in-law deliberately, because they're more problematic for me. I have one brother, one BIL, and the difference between the two is there but small. Maybe it's because I moved out to go to college when my brother was 13, and not surprisingly, he's changed since then. (I suppose I have too, but I've been here with me all the time so it feels like less change.) But what's really difficult is to figure out whether my BIL's wide, whom I don't much like, feels unrelated because of that - or just like a relative I don't like.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

What are your favorite brain-reset tricks?

I have not been assured that I have one... yet. I know I have guts, I have pictures and seen into them myself. But the brain issue, well the jury is still out on that.

P.S. I wish FireFox for the Mac had a spellcheck in it, coz ya know I can't speel.

Glad to help

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I'm not clear on whether you had the 90-minute tape also called *The First Overnight Guest* on, or whether you had the more acoustic version of the same song (which IMHO is a slightly better version) on my CD *Rainbow's Edge.* But in any event, I'm glad to have been of some assistance. This is, however, definitely not in with the reactions I hoped/expected to get when I wrote the song! Hang in there and use your own native strength and resiliency -=- I strongly suspect you have plenty of both.

Nate B.

Re: Glad to help

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's from the CD, yes, not the tape.

And "oh, my brain works now" is not the only reaction I ever had to that song. Just the relevant one yesterday.

[intrepida.livejournal.com]

Brain reset tricks? Kids books. Spring of my senior year at GAC, I was having issues. Reading "The Hampster History of Britan*" was what knocked me back to normal. I started studying in the Juvenile Lit. section of the library.

(*A picture book deatiling great moments from the history of Britan, "Founding of Londinium by the Romans," "Death of Lord Nelson," "Signing of the Magna Carta," etc. each illustrated with lovely colored pencil illustrations of hampsters dressed up as the main characters, riding rabbits instead of horses.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Spring of my senior year at GAC, if I'd had any more issues, they'd have to start publishing a morning and an afternoon edition. I think a lot of people have that sort of thing their last semester of college. But I didn't find their kids' section at all.

[mattgritter.livejournal.com]

1) Pick up guitar
2) Play chords that are in my head
3) Realize I've been playing for more than an hour already
4) Switch to violin playing or Get back to what I'm suppose to be doing

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

!!!!

When did you pick up violin? Has this been going on awhile and I just missed it somehow?

[mattgritter.livejournal.com]

I bought a cheapy violin last summer, it was I believe, and haven't made any progress playing it as of yet, most out of fear of the sounds it makes and partiality to the instrument I can already play.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I can understand this -- poorly played violin is up there with poorly played banjo in the category of abominations against wave mechanics -- but still, as long as you have one and all!

I promise not to start buying you cutesy wall-hangings featuring violins and roses. Still. Cool.