Books read in March 2019

New:

1. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald by J.K. Rowling
2. The Gown by Jennifer Robson
3.  Connections in Death by J.D. Robb

Reread:

1. Naked in Death by J.D. Robb

Books read in February 2019

New:

1. The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline 
2. Leverage in Death by J.D. Robb
3. The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King
4. Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams

Reread:

1. Leverage in Death 

Things Roger Should Invent: check for signal issues before dispatching a tech

Since I moved into this apartment just over two years ago (!), I've had the same problem occur with my Rogers cable several times:

I get problems with video and/or audio quality on a seemingly random selection of TV channels.  I power cycle and/or reauthorize my cable box several times, and it doesn't resolve the problem.  I call Rogers, who check various things on their end then dispatch a technician.

The technician arrives, presses a mysterious combination of buttons that causes a bunch of mysterious numbers to appear on screen, and discovers there's a problem with one of the mysterious numbers.  (It might have something to do with frequency or signal - unfortunately, it didn't occur to me until I started writing this blog post to take notes.)  This problem has to be resolved centrally, so the tech puts in a report and tells me it will be fixed within a couple of days.

And then it's fixed within a couple of days.

It seems to me that they should be able to either check these mysterious numbers remotely, or have the tech on the phone walk me through the mysterious combination of buttons needed to produce the mysterious numbers and read them aloud over the phone, so they can confirm whether there are any signal issues that need to be fixed remotely before wasting my and a tech's time dispatching a tech to read numbers off a screen.  If there aren't clear signal issues, then they can dispatch a tech to see what's happening on-site.

Advanced option, since we do live in the future: when they detect that a customer is resetting their box (which my conversations with phone techs lead me to believe they can do remotely), Rogers computers remotely check that customer's signals, and if there's anything outside the norm they flag it for a human to look at.  Then, if multiple customers in the same area have signal levels outside the norm (which, as I understand it, has been what was happening in these past signal issues), they can detect it and do their remote fix before anyone needs to go to the trouble of calling tech support

The tight bra chronicles

Just over a month ago, for the very first time in my life, I desperately wanted to take my bra off when I got home.  As soon as the apartment door was closed behind me, I reached up my shirt (not even bothering to take off my coat), undid the hooks, and felt the relief of more pain than I'd realized I was experiencing.  But there was still some residual pain floating around in my back even after I undid the bra.

I conducted experiments in the days that followed, and the correlation was clear: bras were causing the back pain. The pain worsened and worsened as I wore a bra, was immediately relieved when I unhooked the bra, but residual pain lingered even after I removed the bra.

Which is a problem, because I have the kind of body where my breasts hurt if I don't wear a bra!

The weeks that followed were consumed with bra shopping and bra testing and immersing myself in solutions to back pain.  And finally, after much expense and despair, I think I have a bra paradigm that's not exacerbating the pain, and, in the absence of bras that are exacerbating the pain, I think my back is healing.  I have gone as long as six hours without adjusting or thinking about my bra, and the residual pain is such that I wouldn't even be noticing it if I weren't obsessing about how my back feels.

And this makes me feel hopeless.

Not for myself specifically - all signs point to me, personally, being on an improvement trajectory.  Rather, it makes me despair for all humanity.

This is such a stupid problem that, despite over a quarter-century of bra wearing, I could never have predicted.  Yes, I could see with my eyes that the old bras were a bit snug, but before this has only resulted in unsightly bulges, not unprecedented back pain.

And then it took significant time and resources to fix - time and resources that were only available to me because of the privilege I have that is not available to everyone.  Many people can't drop everything and spend hundreds of dollars on bras - for quite a few people, it may well be a choice between a bra that doesn't hurt and food for their family. (The single cheapest available bra that didn't exacerbate the pain was $60, but I needed a fitting from a store where the cheapest appropriate bra was $80 to figure out the approach to solve my problem.) Most people don't have a comfy work-from-home situation where they can switch their bra four times a day, or sit around slathered with Icy Hot or Voltaren, or take frequent yoga breaks. Many people might have to pick up extra hours at work wearing a painful bra to make the money they need to afford a non-painful bra!

What if I had to choose between feeding my children and getting a new bra? What if I were a refugee fleeing oppression with only the clothes on my back?  What if I lived somewhere where I didn't have access to expert bra fitters, or the internet access and/or savvy to find out options on the internet? What if I didn't have a credit card that I could use for online shopping?

And this is just one of the zillions and zillions of stupid little problems that could come sneaking up and disrupt people's lives!  Not to mention the zillions and zillions of much bigger problems that some people reading this are having, as they sit there saying "Ha, she thinks a bra that hurts is a real problem!"

***

It was a year ago this weekend that I had my head injury.  My eyesight still hasn't completely resolved, and my vision therapy progress has been stagnant for so many months that I think it may never completely resolve.

The head injury falls into an annoying space that, before it happened, I never knew existed: an injury that hinders your quality of life, perhaps permanently, but isn't serious enough to count as a disability.

I'm fortunate enough to have disability insurance, so I figured if something happened to me, I'd be fine.  If I can't work, I'd go on disability.

But I can work with the head injury, it's just harder, and takes more out of me so I have less left for the rest of life.  If I wanted to take sick leave and my manager asked for a doctor's note (my employer's policy is that it's up to the manager's judgement), I don't know if I'd be able to get one.  I certainly couldn't get the documentation necessary to go on disability.  So, basically, life is harder, but not bad enough to be permitted a respite.

As I googled around the idea of back pain, I discovered that it's similar - not even as a question of whether it counts as a disability, but just for whether it counts as a problem.

Medical criteria for evaluating back pain ask about whether it affects your sleep, your range of motion, whether it affects your daily activities. This affects none of those. It's a 1 on the pain scale. Even WebMD doesn't think I need to see a doctor unless it persists for over 6 weeks (and they probably mean six weeks from when I stopped wearing bras that worsened the pain.)

And when I read up on what happens when you go to the doctor for back pain, the emphasis seems to be on pain management, not on solving the underlying problem. (There doesn't seem much that can be done to solve the underlying problem, except take care of yourself and maybe it will go away eventually.) It seems quite likely the doctor would say "It goes away when you take an Advil? Great! Keep it up!"

So this is another area where life becomes harder but not bad enough to be permitted a respite.

How many more things like this are going to happen???  And what on earth do people with real problems do?

Tide Ultra Oxi has a stronger scent than Tide Ultra Stain Release

I've been trying and failing to figure out the difference between Tide Ultra Oxi and Tide Ultra Stain Release (i.e. which product is better for which laundry challenges?) but I have observed one difference: Tide Ultra Oxi has a stronger scent.

I find the scent pleasant, but I know that not everyone likes every scent, and some people are sensitive to scents.

So the moral of the story is smell a new detergent before you buy it.

I'm currently testing the Ultra Oxi after having previously used Ultra Stain Release, so I'll make another post if I come up with any substantive findings about how they work for actual laundry, as opposed to just smelling pretty.

Books read in January 2019

New:

1. Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny
2. The Asshole Survival Guide by Robert I. Sutton
3. Pikiq by Yayo 

Reread:

1. Dark in Death 

Working 9 to 5

It surprises me how often businesses and services that serve the public directly choose to have their operating hours Monday to Friday, 9 to 5.

This makes it far more difficult for customers who work regular business hours to use these businesses.

It's particularly surprising when I see these hours on, like, hair salons and small clothing boutiques in Yonge St. storefronts. While it's possible that customers could get time off work to go to the doctor, it's less likely that they could get time off work to get their hair done, and may well choose instead one of the many comparable businesses in the same neighbourhood with more convenient business hours.  Especially with storefront space on Yonge St. being so expensive, I'm surprised they can afford to make themselves less convenient to their customer.

Also, if I think about it in the first person as a small business owner, why wake up early to open at 9 if you could instead sleep in, open later, and be available to the after-work crowd?  If you're, like, a doctor, why not sleep in at least a couple of days a week so you have office hours where your patients wouldn't have to miss work?  Why not work four 10-hour days and get three days off every week?

Even if you need to be available for deliveries etc., a very small business probably doesn't get deliveries every day. Be on site when you're expecting something, sleep in the other days.

If I had completely control over my schedule, I sure as hell wouldn't be waking up to an alarm!  And if your clients are the people whose workday causes rush hour to happen, you'd also be doing them the kindness of being available at more convenient hours.

Things They Should Invent: teach students how school norms differ from workplace/adult life norms

I've been thinking lately about how school instills a set of norms that's different from workplace norms, and a recent Ask A Manager gave a perfect example:

2. Does “let me check” make me look incompetent?

I am a new grad and recently got a job interning in a teapot development company. I work closely with my boss since we’re a two-person team, and I do a pretty good job (my boss has given me positive feedback), but there is one thing that I sometimes stumble upon. When my boss asks a question that I’m like 70% sure of, which is often, is it better to say “I think it’s ____, but let me check,” or say whatever I think the answer is confidently and then maybe check later and revise if I’m wrong? I usually go the “Let me check” route, but I feel like it might be making me look incompetent. Am I overthinking this?

As Alison makes quite clear in her response, saying "let me check" and then checking is the good and correct and responsible thing to do, and actually makes the employee come across as more reliable.

And it's also the complete opposite of the norms instilled in school.

In school, if you are asked a question, you are expected to know the answer.   If you don't know the answer, you don't get the mark.  And looking up the answer is cheating.

But no one ever actually tells you that this change is a thing that happens, so many young people do foolish things in their first few years in the workforce.

There are other examples too.  As a kid, you're told "Don't talk back!"  But in the workplace, you're supposed to speak up if you see someone making a mistake, so the mistake doesn't reach the client.

When you're in school, your tests and assignment are specifically designed to be doable based on the information you've been taught in class.  In the real world, there's nothing guaranteeing that the specific task you're called upon to do will be feasible, or that you will succeed at it.  Your restaurant might get a rush that overwhelms the kitchen.  Someone might call you tech support line with a problem no one has ever heard of.  The text sent for translation might be illegible or nonsensical.

But, at the same time, in the real world you can sometimes say to your boss "It is literally impossible for me to do this task by this deadline in addition to all the other tasks.  What's my priority?"  And something might get taken off your plate or reschedule.  In comparison, in school you're expected to do all your work from all your classes even if they conflict.

At this point, you might be thinking "But the nature of a classroom is different! It's only natural for expectations to be different!"

And that is true.

The problem is that when you're a kid just beginning to enter the workforce after a lifetime in the classroom, no one tells you that expectations are different, so you end up like the Ask A Manager LW, genuinely uncertain if it's professional to verify before making declarative statements.

So they should tell students this at some point in high school, probably earlier rather than later, so as to reach students before they start getting part-time/summer jobs.  Talk about ways the classroom doesn't reflect the expectations and realities of adult life, and the reasons why the nature of the classroom makes this necessary. If possible, create some "classroom norms don't apply, adult norms apply" environments within the school experience to give students some practice.

The challenge here is that it has to be done well.  We've all our teachers tell us "This will be really important in high school/university/the work world" when it ended up being irrelevant.  And it would be a particular disservice to give students information about the adult world that ends up being outright incorrect.

But if it can be done well, it would be doing an enormous service to young people, those who will one day work with them, and those who will one day rely on their work.

Things I Don't Understand: why do my thighs get colder than my calves?

Whenever I walk around outside in cold weather, my thighs get colder than my calves.

This makes no sense, because my winter coat is knee-length, so my thighs are covered in coat while my calves aren't.  (I don't own or care to shop for winter coats of any other lengths, so I can't do the obvious science experiment.)

Neither my boots nor my socks are tall enough to cover my my calves or warm enough to outweigh the warmth of my coat. (In other words, they're ordinary everyday socks and shoes, not thermal footwear for outdoor activities.)

My thighs have noticeably more fat on them than my calves do.

Even my feet don't get cold as much as my thighs do, and my feet are downright bony!

The coldness of my thighs can be felt externally as well as internally.  In other words, if I take off my pants as soon as I get home and feel my thighs and calves with my hands, my thighs are colder to the touch than my calves are.

Has anyone else ever experienced this, or know why this might happen?

"Kids Today think they invented sex!"

Sometimes people who are old enough to perceive young adults as "kids" complain that "Kids Today think they invented sex!"  Which is a really bizarre thing to say!

First of all, think back to when sex first became part of your life.  You didn't think you invented it (literally or metaphorically).  The history of sex was irrelevant to what you were thinking and feeling. You were simply revelling in a new and thrilling life experience (quite possibly the most thrilling life experience you'd had in your entire life so far.)

But on top of that, at least within the cultures with which I'm familiar, young people grow up in an environment where adults (or, at least, non-abusive adults) are trying to keep sex secret from them.

For the first several years of your life, if all goes well you don't know that sex at all.  Then, when you're old enough to wonder how babies get in a lady's tummy, your parents might tell you about procreative sex.

Around middle school and into high school, you start getting sex ed, with a generally vanilla focus and an underlying message that you're not supposed to be doing this yet.  But also around this age, you're starting to become aware of adult popular culture, which frames sex as the ultimate human experience. It's Unimaginable Pleasure, and it's Not For You.

At the same time, you are most likely supervised by parents, school, etc. in a way that's intended to prevent you from having sex, or even from finding out about the details of sex that aren't taught in sex ed. Your adults make rules like you can't bring a person they think you might have sex with into your bedroom, and they try to prevent you from accessing porn, or whatever else Kids Today are using to learn about Weird Sex Stuff.  If they find out you know even about Weird Sex Stuff, you can get in trouble.

And, at the same time, the adults around you are hiding any sex that they might be having. They lock the door, they don't leave their sexual accoutrements out in the open, etc.   Even if they don't object on a theoretical level to you knowing that they have sex, they take measures to prevent you from knowing when and how.  If they are using porn or engaging in Weird Sex Stuff, they actively try to keep this secret from you - even beyond the point where they're not keeping the fact that they have sex secret.

(All of which is the right thing to do, of course.  In our culture, it would be considered abuse for such specifics of their parents' sexuality to be inflicted upon kids.  If your kids don't know about your Weird Sex Stuff, you're doing your job right.)

So basically, the people who say "Kids Today think they invented sex!" are contemptuous of their kids for enjoying the novelty of a new experience that, for as long as they have been aware of it, has been hyped as the ultimate human experience, while also dissing their kids for not assuming they have been doing the very thing that, to do their job as a parent in our culture, they've been trying to conceal from their kids their whole lives.

How self-absorbed is that!

Books read in December 2018

New:

1. The Legend of Lightning & Thunder by Paula Ikuutaq Rumbolt
2. Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent by Liz Howard
3. Slash by Jeannette Armstrong
4. Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing by and about Indigenous Peoples by Gregory Younging

Reread:

1. Secrets in Death

Metropasses

May 2002 Metropass (source: Colnect)

I got my first Metropass in May 2002, when I was doing my internship.  I felt so glamorously adult, going into an office each morning and swiping my pass like a proper grownup who does this all the time!

I went back to tokens when I was back in school, but once again turned to Metropasses once I graduated and started working full-time. I'm not sure if they ended up being cheaper than tokens every single month, but I loved the convenience - hopping on and off the TTC whenever I wanted, swiping my way into turnstiles.  It made me feel like a real urbanite, a true part of my city.

March 2013 Metropass (source: Woodsworth College Students Association)

I stopped using Metropasses when I started working from home in 2013.  But even though I haven't needed them in over five years, I'm still sad that they're being discontinued in favour of the Presto card. My Metropasses have been symbols of and tools of adulthood, independence, urbanity...all the things I never dreamed I was even allowed to aspire to. And so I mourn their loss.  My Presto card, while it has the same functions, doesn't have the same emotional weight.

System reboot status: December 2018

As part of my resolution to reboot my system, I'm posting each month the top three things in my system that don't serve me well.

This is for personal accountability only, it's not a request for help or feedback.  (There isn't enough information to provide help or feedback. If you're thinking "There totally is!", that's because you don't have all the information.)

So, for December 2018, the top three things that aren't serving me well:

1. My system for getting myself out the door on time and unrushed just...doesn't.  I can't pinpoint the problem and have no ideas for how to improve it.
2. The time/pattern allocated in my system for recreational internet use doesn't meet my needs, and I end up "wasting time" with additional recreational internet use. I have some ideas for how to adjust this, and I'm going to try them and see what happens.
3. My system disincentivizes going to bed as soon as I'm tired if I get tired before finishing my evening routine.  I also keep staying up later if I finish my evening routine well early of my bedtime, even though I should probably be going to bed.  I have some ideas for how to adjust this and I'm going to try them, but I think there's more that I haven't figured out yet.

Let's see what happens...

Horoscopes

Last year was the first year when my birthday horoscopes couldn't be interpreted as reflecting reality, possibly because the head injury came and disrupted everything. (Is that statement going to be true for the rest of my life???)

But here's this year's, just to see what happens:

Toronto Star:

This year you will learn to handle your temper. You might be feistier than others realize. You also can be spontaneous at times. Try to curb unexpected actions or words. You might find that you often see both sides of a problem. If you are single, you could attract a strong group of admirers. Your temper and volatile style could be a problem when dating, though. If you are attached, the two of you experience more closeness than in the recent past. Perhaps you will pursue a mutually enjoyed hobby together. CANCER can be quite nurturing.

My mother's sign is Cancer and she's always quite nurturing, so nothing new there.

They say the same sort of thing about "if you're single/if you're attached" every year, and it never comes to pass.  Someone more ambitious than I could look into whether they say that for every birthday.

Globe and Mail:

A full moon on your birthday suggests you will need to make a decision that not everyone will be happy with. What really matters, of course, is that you are happy with it. It’s time to let go of the past and to embrace your glorious future.

I've never in my life made a decision that absolutely everyone was happy with, so that's basic reality.  However, I have already decided to throw away my system and start over, so hopefully that will give me a glorious future.

The first swimming

I wonder which came first: humans learning they can swim, or humans learning they can't swim?

By which I mean: did some random prehistoric human boldly go charging into the water (to what end? to catch a fish? to escape from something? to get to the other side?), never suspecting anything could go wrong, and end up dying?  Or did some random prehistoric human end up in the water (how? by accident? murder attempt?) fully expecting that this would be the death of them, and survive?

I'm told that you put a human baby in the water they'll swim intuitively, but older kids still need swimming lessons.

Some land animals seem to swim intuitively.  Did humans originally have that intuition?  Or did they figure it out from copying the water?

Is the fact that we can't breathe underwater instinctive, or hard-earned knowledge passed down through generations since time immemorial?

If it isn't instinctive, did it take several drownings to figure out that the reason people keep dying in the water is because they try to breathe underwater, and they should hold their breath to survive?

(Did humans ever hold their breath for any other reason before they started swimming?)

At some point, humanity (or, at least, the precursors the predominant culture in which I grew up) must have internalized and normalized the idea that humans can't swim naturally, because swimming lessons became a thing. 

Also, someone at some point came up with the idea of standardizing and naming different swimming strokes, some of which are weird. (Butterfly? WTF?)

And some other swimming strokes may well have existed but are lost to history. (And still others probably exist within other cultures and haven't reached me.)

You could also follow this same line of thought for diving.  Why did someone first think they even could do it?  Or did people never think they couldn't do it, until several people broke their necks.

Do other land animals dive?

Is figuring out how high you can safely dive from (and how deep the water needs to be) instinctive or learned? (I dove off a three metre board once - into an Olympic-sized pool, properly supervised - and it felt unsafe. It felt like a fluke that I didn't die, not like a safely reproducible thrill.)

And, again, enough people dove enough times that it became a normal thing to be able to do, a normal thing to learn in swimming lessons, normal enough that nobody even thought I was weird or reckless for wanting to try the three metre board.

I wonder if there are other, similar things related to swimming that were once (or are elsewhere) considered culturally standard, but are now lost to history (or haven't reached me).

I'm sure that sometime, somewhere, within the full scope of human history, there have been people who never once thought swimming was a possibility.

And I'm sure that some other time, somewhere else, within the full scope of human history, there have been people who never once thought that swimming was difficult.

But I do wonder which came first.

Default couple genders in sketch comedy

I'm late to the game on this, but I just started watching the Baroness Von Sketch show this season, and I'm really enjoying it.

One little thing I appreciate is when a sketch involves a couple but the gender of the couple is irrelevant to the sketch, they most often make it a same-sex couple played by two of the (all-female) leads.

Here's an example:



That sketch is entirely gender-irrelevant. It would have worked out the same way regardless of the genders of the characters.  So they simply cast two of the leads as characters who are the same demographic as the actors - two women played by two women.

If you think back to older sketch comedies like Monty Python or Kids in the Hall, they wouldn't do that.  If the genders of the couple were irrelevant to the sketch, they'd make it an opposite-sex couple.  They'd only use same-sex couples if there was a specific reason why a same-sex couple was needed.

But another thing that Monty Python and Kids in the Hall often did was have female characters portrayed by the all-male leads rather than using a female supporting actress to play a female character.  They did use female supporting actresses as well (just as Baroness Von Sketch uses male supporting actors), but the default seemed to be a male lead dressed as a woman.

If you think about it, it's kind of bizarre that in a sketch comedy environment that couldn't perceive a same-sex couple neutrally, a sketch comedy couple consisting of one male actor dressed as a man and one male actor dressed as a woman was seen as neutral and unmarked (in the linguistic sense).

Someday in the future, probably sooner than we expect, people are going to watch those sketches and think all the Monty Python pepperpots are meant to be trans or genderqueer, and they'll need a historical explainer to understand what the Pythons are doing. And they're going to think this post, noticing that gender-irrelevant couples are portrayed as same-sex couples by the all-female cast, is going to come across as having homophobic undertones, like how someone's grandmother who gratuitously mentions the race of everyone she brings up in conversation comes across as having racist undertones.

New Rules: Natural Consequences Edition XIII

18. Some people have trouble coping with certain distressing possibilities, so, to get through the day, they delude themselves into thinking that the distressing possibilities can't possibly happen to them, because of their circumstances or because they're sufficiently diligent.

Examples: "I won't get sick because I eat all the right superfoods and do all the right asanas!"  "I won't be raped because I dress modestly!" "I won't ever be a refugee because I'm a regular person living in a developed country!"

This part I don't take issue with.  Life is hard and the world sucks, do what you have to do to get through the day as long as it doesn't do any harm

The problem is when it starts doing harm.  Some people feel the need to reinforce their self-delusion by inflicting it on others assholicly, and sometimes even by advocating for assholic policy.

Examples: "Your mother died? She should have eaten more superfoods!" Which later escalates to "My taxes shouldn't have to pay for health care because people wouldn't need health care if they were responsible enough to just eat the right foods!"  Or "Those people say they're refugees but they have smartphones! They must be frauds - deport them!"

So I propose a natural consequence: if the self-delusion you resort to because you can't cope with distressing possibilities leads you to behave assholicly, you are sentenced to the very distressing possibility you fear.

I do realize this is a very severe sentence, so it's a three strikes rule.  The first two times you do it, you get a very stern warning that makes the offending actions and the future consequences quite clear to you.  (Q: How? A: Through the same omnipotent magic that enforces all of my natural consequences, of course!)  Then, the third time, you're sentenced to the very horror you dread.

People who are reluctant to call landlines

As I've blogged about before, I prefer having a landline to using a cell phone for everything.

However, in recent years, I've noticed that people (including business relationships) are reluctant to call my landline, even when I explicitly tell them to.

For example, I will say "Please put in my file that my landline is the preferred number. I work from home so I'm at that number 23 hours a day, and I live alone so it is a private number. If I'm not at home, I'm not equipped to check my calendar or schedule an appointment or anything, so if you call my cell phone I'll just have to call you back anyway." 

And they still call the cellphone.

I do try to disincentivize calling the cellphone.  I don't answer the cellphone when I'm at home, sometimes even turning it off when I'm home (depending on whether I'm open to receiving texts at that moment). I don't answer it when I'm out and about for calls that aren't going to be immediately relevant (for example, I'll answer if it's the person I'm meeting or someone who might be trying to get in touch with me for emergency reasons, but I won't answer a call confirming a dentist appointment or wanting to discuss renewing my mortgage.)  If I do answer and it's something that would better go to the landline, I'll say "I'm not at home right now and not able to address this at the moment.  I'll call you back when I'm at home."  (And then, when I do call back, I tell them to call my landline next time.)  If they leave a message, I don't call them back until I'm at home.  (If they call the cellphone while I'm at home and leave a message, but don't subsequently try the landline, I don't even check the messages until I've gone out and returned back home.)

And I do try to incentivize calling the landline by always answering immediately when the call display shows a number that does have business calling me, and always returning calls immediately.

But people still call the cellphone.

I've even stopped giving out my cellphone number unless strictly relevant, but some people still have it in their records from back when I would blithely fill out every field of a contact form without regard for consequences, and some people do have a reason to be able to contact me by cell in emergencies. (For example, work needs to be able to reach me in case I disappear off the face of the earth, sometimes I give people my phone number if we have an appointment in an place I'm not familiar with, in case I get lost or delayed or something.) And when I do give it out, I tell them "You can use this if I don't show up at my appointment, but normally it's the worst possible way to reach me."

And they still call the cellphone.

I totally understand why some individuals might find not having a landline more convenient for their own purposes, but I'm rather baffled by the fact that they avoid calling someone else's landline even when explicitly instructed to do so.

Somehow, their baggage about calling a landline seems to outweigh my explicitly stated instructions about which number to call, plus all the cumulative empirical evidence about which number I'll answer first and which voicemail I'll respond to most quickly.

And what makes it especially weird is I get the vibe that people who are reluctant to call landlines seem to feel that doing so is rude.  Even though calling my cell increases the likelihood of interrupting me at a bad time. If I'm not at home, I am almost certainly in the middle of something and almost certainly do not have privacy.  If I am at home, I may or may not be in the middle of doing something and almost certainly do have privacy.

Again, I understand why some individuals might feel that calling in general might be rude - society as a whole certain seems to have moved towards texting or emailing to confirm it's a good time to call rather than calling cold - but this isn't what's happening here.  What's happening here is I'm getting a call without warning that requires thought or action or decision-making or scheduling on my part, and callers are deliberately choosing the number that's most likely to reach me at a bad time, despite my clear instructions to use the other number.

Baffling.

Books read in November 2018

New:

1. Badger by Daniel Heath Justice
2. Amun - Nouvelles ed. Michel Jean
3. As Long as the Rivers Flow by James Bartleman 
4. Fire Song by Adam Garnet Jones

Reread:

1. Echoes in death