Scientific Ink

Author: Dunrie

  • Yoga for Scoliosis workshop

    I travelled to Cleveland to attend Elise Browning Miller’s yoga for scoliosis and yoga for the shoulders, neck and upper back workshops at Evolution Yoga. In lieu of a real post, here are some factoids:

    • 4 – muscles involved in stabilizing the rotator cuff
    • ~40 – the number of women attending the workshop
    • 2 – males attending Saturday afternoon (dad and young son)
    • 558 – miles that the mom, dad, and son travelled from St. Louis. MO to attend Elise’s 3 hour yoga for scoliosis workshop Saturday afternoon before driving back
    • 2 – people who asked me if I worked there
    • 6 – pillows on my bed at the Hampton Inn, all down
    • 2 – meals eaten at Wild Oats grocery store in Woodmere, OH
    • 2 – times I walked into Cold Stone Creamery and decided against getting ice cream
    • 12 – years since I took a workshop from Elise in Kalamazoo

  • Make it suck less

    So, I did it again. I have spent much of the last two days trying to edit a technical document into something that I can understand and that exceeds my standards for clear and informative writing. I’ve been line editing, I’ve been working on organization, I’ve been pinging subject matter experts for examples and to clarify points that do not come across well to me, I’ve been excising passive voice. Essentially, I’ve become a tech writer again. And I’m struggling. The document is due, I’m not happy with it, and I don’t think I can line edit my way to nirvana.

    I came home tonight frustrated, needing a break from the document, but fretting about the looming deadline. And then, sitting on my yoga mat starting my practice, I realized that I was trying to grope my way through this document towards the perfect document. And, I noticed I was wasting energy beating myself up for not knowing which thread to pull or which angle to pursue to get there.

    The place I used to work had several catchy phrases we used when we were stuck: “make mistakes faster” was one, “make it suck less” was another. They’re intertwined – “make mistakes faster” is an acknowledgement that we’ll make errors and omissions, but we can reduce their impact by conducting shorter project iterations and sharing work with each other more quickly. The spirit of “make it suck less” is to find satisfaction in incremental improvements. Instead of pining for the perfect solution, instead of whining about the lack of time, tools, or creativity to accomplish whatever unrealistic goal, take stock, prioritize the options, and make it as much better as you can.

    Basically, for me, the inverse of “make it suck less” is rampant, soul-throttling perfectionism that gets in the way of doing the little things that add together into the big things. It’s analysis paralysis, endless theorizing, pining for some ideal document/software program/website. It is trying too hard. It is Anne Lamott’s radio station KFKD – the double whammy of self-aggrandizement and self-loathing that gets in the way of getting any actual work done.

    Luckily, if I take a rest, go for a cycle ride, or do yoga, I give myself the space to notice that KFKD is on, I give myself the quiet to remember that that all I can do, all I need to do in this moment, is to “make it suck less”, to work with what I have and be patient.

  • Moment of choice

    Over the past few years, my husband and I have had a regular Friday night fight. The source of the friction is a standing Friday night poker game. I’ve tried, but I just don’t like it. Too much drinking, too much focus on poker, just not my thing. I’ve never really liked playing organized card or board games with people. I always lose interest about 60% of the way through and feel very trapped through the last 40%. Dave loves it–the people, the poker, the whole scene. So, each Friday I’d somehow hope he’d want to spend it with me instead of smoking cigars and hanging with the poker crew. Each Friday I’d feel let down and left out. Some Fridays, I’d organize an alternative for the both of us, but if I wasn’t proactive, the default plan was for him to go to poker and me to feel cross.

    (more…)

  • Black walnut bounty

    a photo of a pile of black walnut fruits
    Black walnuts that were “squirreled” away in our garage.

    Today is a beautiful fall day, clear blue skies, high 70s, warm sun. I decided it was time to rake the leaves in the backyard. We have a big, beautiful black walnut tree back there. It has lovely, feathery leaves, and when we fly over our neighborhood, I think it is the biggest tree on our block.

    Every fall, it drops its leaves, its leaf rachises, and its fruit. The fruit is about 1.5-2 inches in diameter, with a green skin, and they drop with a bang onto the roof of our garage.

    This year, the neigborhood squirrels seem to have been especially active. They salted away so many nuts in the planter for my dwarf orange tree that they eventually completely uprooted it, killing it. Today, when I went into our garage to get the rake and the lawn & leaf bags, I saw that the squirrels have decided to take a new tack. They have been piling up black walnut fruits onto a work surface in the garage–they have filled Dave’s old ski boots, filled some ceramic pots, and even started to place black walnuts along the groove in our ski rack.

    After seven years of living here, this is the first time we’ve seen anything like this. Either our squirrels have learned a new skill, have forgotten what they know about burying nuts, or are preparing for a very long winter.

  • Almost stranded

    Getting towed

    We flew up north this weekend and stopped to clear Canadian customs in Sarnia. After a brief stop, the engine of our Cessna-182 had uncharacteristic trouble starting. We got it started, and continued up the coast of Lake Huron to Tobermory.

    On our return, the cold start at Tobermory airport was easy, but we had worse trouble hot starting the engine after clearing US customs. The engine simply wouldn’t turn over, and Dave tried a few times before he became concerned about running down the battery. It was mid-Sunday afternoon, sunny and beautiful, and the phone number we had for the local FBO (fixed base operator, the folks who service planes at airports) didn’t work, the airport manager wasn’t in his/her office, and the airport was quiet. Dave and Guy wandered around, looking for open hangars and helpful people. (more…)

  • Mind-eraser

    Sometimes my body, especially my left knee, which I injured in college playing rugby, feels as if someone took me apart at the joints and put me back together wrong, twisted. Sometimes a massage therapist puts me back together perfectly. And sometimes a massage sends me to another planet.

    I had one of those mind-eraser massages tonight, the kind where I’m out cold on the table, and when it ends I have to work to recall how to use my body to get up and dress, and when conversation is even more of a strain than usual, and when I’m glad I’ve pre-written the check so I don’t have to remember how to use a pen or how to spell my name, and when it takes some extra concentration to walk out of the room and to find my way home. When I feel absolutely still and quiet and gentle and I want to make the stillness last.

    Kelly Clark – Two Hands for Massage
    Ann Arbor, MI 48103
    tel: 734.623.8551