Football, pshaw

A couple of weeks ago, my nephew (in-law) introduced me and my nieces to Slapfight, which more or less exactly what it sounds like. In this Russian/Polish sport--there are world championships, and if there's a world championship, surely it must be a sport, right?--two people take turns slapping each other. Yes. This is a thing.

Of course, the discovery of the sport of slapfight led to internet searches on strange and obscure sports, which I don't need to list here, because if you are reading this, you most likely have the internet and can do your own searches. And some of them are legitimately athletic, like Takraw. Talk about skill and athleticism! And underwater hockey probably takes a bit of athletic ability. But a lot of them are just, well, goofy. 

Like extreme ironing. There are extreme ironing world championships. And a Facebook page. And a documentary. Now, some of the participants are really missing the extreme part of extreme ironing, but others--yeah. Waterskiing while ironing? I think that counts. 

Other favorites are unicycle hockey, cardboard tube dueling*, ferret legging, shin kicking, hobbyhorsing, the giant pumpkin regatta, cheese rolling, toe wrestling, crokinole, pillow fighting**, cycleball, and slamball.***

Now, here's where the fun comes. As my nephew pointed out, most of these are sports that, within 10 seconds, we are all experts. If you are looking for a fun and cheap activity, here's what you do. Find videos of some of these strange sports. Find a friend or significant other or sibling or whatever. Watch the with absolutely NO comprehension of what the rules are (no cheating and looking up the rules online first) and no sound on and commentate as you go. Lean into it! 

For example, we did this with crokinole, which looks like it is flick checkers (you try to flick checkers to some spot on the board? Or past some spot? Or through a certain spot? No clue). Per us, you aren't even allowed to learn crokinole until you are 35, but there is an obscure exception where if you are the only descendant of crokinole players who have all died while playing crokinole, you can learn sooner. Which was relevant because the everyone at the tournament (including spectators) appeared to be over 35, except one of the players. Also, this explains why so many people in the US don't run for president. To run, they would have to confirm they are 35 and then they would be hounded by crokinole players to learn to play.**** 

And who knows? If we all take up this little activity, maybe improv commentating can become a sport, too!

*I know, we've all done this. But not as members of the Cardboard Tube Fighting League. 

**Yep, there's a pillow fight league.

***Basketball on a trampoline court

****To all crokinole players: My apologies if it feels like we were making fun. In reality, it looks like an interesting game and I support anyone who is learning, wants to learn, or plays. And anyone who can play ANYTHING at any kind of a professional level is admirable in my view, because I will never be that good at anything. So, kudos to you!

Updates

In the past two weeks, it seems like all my tech has updated to new operating systems. And, I do not like it, Sam-I-Am!!!

The biggest change--and the one I'm most annoyed at--is that I can no longer close selected apps. It's all or nothing, baby. Not being (ever) an all-or-nothing kind of girl, this chafes my personality. But also, it's legitimately a pain. Sometimes, I want to close one or two apps, but keep a third open because it's something I'm going to come back to. And, having to close all or nothing seems massively inefficient and/or battery draining to my non-science-y-teched-out-but-still-pretty-rational brain. And I just really want to know who it was that was griping about this problem. Who is it that was getting super annoyed by having the option to close individual apps OR all of them? It seems like a problem that didn't really need a fix.

And this is why people hate change. Well, one of the reasons. So often updates seem to fix problems that didn't exist and exacerbate problems that did, or create problems that didn't exist. Is this some kind of job security strategy on the part of software engineers? Because it's really not working out for me so well, and I'd like to figure out a new plan. 

Don't get me wrong. I know that change is important. Change helps us become better people, it helps us do better things for each other and the planet. And it is definitely part of life. Spend 5 minutes on this planet, and you are going to deal with change that just happens because it does. (Sorry, dear little new babies). 

But, we really don't need to go creating change just to have change and for no other reason (hear that, CEOs, execs, and managers?). And, can we really try not to make change that makes things worse? I promise--there WILL be jobs in the future, it's going to be okay. And, if you are just someone with a short "change attention span" who needs to switch things up constantly, move your furniture around. Or dye your hair. Paint your nails! Sit on the floor at work!!! There are so many ways without making me have to learn my device again practically from scratch for no apparent reason other than someone somewhere got bored. (Boredom--a definite nemesis).

And now, my rant is over. At least for you. I make no promises for anywhere else. 

Unmasking

Yesterday I went for a walk and for reasons I can't produce now, I decided not to wear a mask. Now, before you panic, yes, I have been vaccinated. Also, my state has removed the mask requirement outdoors if you are vaccinated. (Heck, I think my state has removed all of the restrictions in place due to COVID. I'm not entirely sure. It's like, once we hit the one-year mark and people were getting vaccinated, everyone kind of forgot it was a thing and I'm not seeing updates on it anymore. Ah, the human memory--so short lived!!)

I've mostly still been wearing a mask around, just because I take the "let's just all wear a mask until none of us really have to anymore" approach. This approach is based on my life experience with exceptions: once you make exceptions or try to have too many categories, you might as well give up. But also, a lot of the places I'm going are still enforcing mask rules, so why not just keep living the masked up life? Easier than trying to remember if I need one or not.

But yesterday, I was walking outside, not going indoors anywhere, and I was heading to an area where I knew I would be able to keep my distance from people. Even so, I just felt really weird walking around without a mask. 

It was nice. I mean, It was lovely to not have a mask on. But, yes, it was also super strange. And more and more I run into people who aren't wearing masks--no judgment!! It mostly just makes me unsure what the rules are these days. But, hey, guys! This is what the end looks like!!* Yes indeedy, there will come a time when the pandemic really is a thing of the past. Woohoo!

*we hope. Knock on wood. I mean, there could be another India scenario, but it really seems unlikely, so I'm going to be optimistic. Why not? 

The street where you could live?

One of my ice breaker questions that I've never had a real answer to is "If you could name a street, what would you name it?" Fun question, but I haven't really known. 

Until now. My niece and I were talking about street names because we were driving through a neighborhood with streets named after fancy US universities which of course made us wonder why they chose those names. And then it kind of blurred into streets with names of people, we think. And so I asked my icebreaker.

She pitched the idea of numerical streets, but like, something mathematical, and it hit me that Infinity would be an AMAZING street name. Using the infinity symbol, of course (per my niece). And then we thought you could have a whole mathematical neighborhood, which would be awesome. I mean, I've seen planet neighborhoods, so why not math stuff?

Then we came up with a neighborhood with the periodic table of elements, which would also be cool. You could have some really fun street names that way. And geological-themed neighborhoods. We decided anatomy wouldn't be the best subject matter (it could get gross pretty quick), but you could do the genus/species thing from biology. There is a huge dearth of STEM-based street names, guys. 

So, now I have several ideas for what I'd name a street, and maybe you have some new ones, too! 

Post-pandemic life

I know the pandemic has had different impacts on everyone. I didn't feel like I struggled with the isolation as much as some. I like people, but also find them overwhelming (yep, it's a thing. It happens. It's fine). It wasn't until this March that I first thought, "Yeah. I won't mind going back to the office."* 

Naturally, going back will be an adjustment, but if there's one thing I learned from this pandemic (and life in general), it's that we adjust way quicker than we think we will. It'll be routine before I know it. 

I'm not looking forward to a work schedule, and there's definitely less flexibility when working in the office in terms of work hours. But, there are some things that are going to be definite improvements:

• An eating schedule!!! Because I can't just snack all day long in the office. Like, seriously, I can't. I work in an archive and food and records don't mix, so it's just not an option.
• Going to lunch! I have really missed lunch with coworker friends. Because, eating alone is just super boring, and having the social element to lunch just makes it better. I"m really hoping that my eating life takes a turn for the better. 
• Being able to go and talk to a colleague face-to-face instead of having to have an email or chat conversation. I'm SO stoked for that. 
• Not staring at a computer screen all day long! There will still be plenty of screentime, but in the office, I do a lot of work with paper records. And it's super nice.
• Another advantage of paper records is that often they are so much faster. You just can't skim through scanned images as fast as the physical items. I just wanna feel paper again!
• No masks!! I know this is a ways out, and I do love my sloth mask, but It will be nice to drop that accessory. Eventually. 
• Fewer spam calls?!?!?! I know for a fact that I never got this many spam calls when I was working in the office. One day, working from home, I got ten in one day! That's just too much. I'm really hoping...
• Good by couch! I like my couch, but honestly, I'm tired of sitting on it all day every day. I do go for regular walks, but still. It will be nice to change it up.
• Physical activity. I move around SO much more at the office. I have to run and get supplies, or go put this collection in storage, or get it out of storage, or run downstairs to check something, or walk home for lunch, or go ask a coworker a question. Which just doesn't have to happen at home.
• People. I really do like my coworkers. Like I say, I like people. Even if they do sometimes stress me out. But it will be nice to see my peeps again.

So it won't be all bad. I'll definitely miss some things, and I'll be totally socially awkward. But, it will pass and all these good things will help.

*If I thought the universe revolved around me that much, I'd apologize for making this drag on so long until I was ready to end it. But, quite frankly, the universe doesn't cater to me that much. 

A girl and her crayons

For Christmas, my sister-in-law and her family, remembering that I'd said I'd always wanted the 64-pack of crayons as a kid, gave me a 152 set of Crayola crayons. Which was AMAZING!!! I have glitter crayons, and metallic crayons, and lots of pinks--so many pinks. Interestingly, not so many yellows. Which I kind of get. Yellow is tricky--too much in either direction and you get into oranges and greens. Still, I'm in favor of more yellows. 

Having so many crayons, I needed something to break them in with, like a coloring book. I have, in the past, had one of those adult coloring books. And it was just too much. There is way too much detail and I just don't have time for that. I mean, seriously! That takes way too much planning and effort to figure out the themes and what is going to be what and yikes! 

So, I bought a "Sloths love Llamas" coloring book. Which is designed for kids. Which, I am in so many ways, so it's fine. And I LOVE my coloring book and crayons. I have found that coloring during virtual meetings helps me stay more focused because I'm not touching the computer and being tempted to look things up on the web. 

Clearly, I'm going to have to adapt when virtual meetings go the way of the world, but in the meantime, I just really like coloring. 

The unmade blogpost

One of my favorite podcasts--nope, let's be honest. It's my favorite, hands down, no competition--is the Unmade Podcast. If you need something fun and uplifting and hilarious in your life, this is the podcast to go to.*

The premise of the podcast is the hosts generate podcast ideas, but don't actually make the podcasts. That's the idea, but usually the ideas are sandwiched between them being hilarious and goofing off and riffing on the ideas and spoon of the week and all the other things they've added in. It's a perfect mix. 

Today, while I was cleaning out a notebook, I came across a list of blogpost ideas I'd come up with but have never written and they are mostly focused on 2020, so no real point in writing them now, but I still like the ideas, so I'm going to do an unmade blogposts for you:

• First world problems: A privilege
• Dante's (revised) circles of hell: car shopping**
• Ratings--overrated (I hate ratings. I hate rating things, I hate sorting through ratings, there's a whole rant just waiting here)
• 2020: Worst Prank Ever 
• Apocalypse: No Zombies Required (referring to 2020, which for many people felt apocalyptic. And I get it)
• Penguins in museums. It's 2020, why not? (Because I love penguins, they are amazing, and penguins in museums, hilarious, and it was 2020, and things were weird, so yeah. Of course there are going to be penguins in museums)

Who knows, maybe at some point I will get around to writing some of these (probably not the 2020 ones, though). But, for now, just enjoy imagining what they would have been.

*Nope. Not on commission.
**I have long thought of doing a version of Dante's inferno for archivists, meaning things that archivists would consign you to a circle of Dante's inferno for.