How to tidy your home.
- Invite people around.
- Say to yourself, I’ll just say - “sorry about the mess!”
- Ignore that and tidy manically an hour before they arrive.
- Success!
As I write that, I am grateful that we can actually do that here.
How to tidy your home.
As I write that, I am grateful that we can actually do that here.
Caution!
”Untitled”
Digital composition.
Yumo 23/11/20
This week has been too much, so I’m just catching up with the Daily Dad emails. It says a lot that I actually read every single one of them.
You can talk all you want about what being a man is, about how much it means to you to be a father. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re acting that way. In each and everything you do.
You can toughen yourself up for war, you can coolly bet millions of dollars at work, but there’s nothing you can do about the gaping soft spot your kids have access to. Nothing can get you quite like they do… because nothing matters to you quite like they do. This is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. Know it. Accept it.
Things fade,
Eventually
Hurt us, a little less.
I spilt wine on someone,
When I worked in the pub, over the road,
I was 16.
It would keep me up at night,
Years later
For reasons I was never clear of.
Now, it’s ok,
Plenty of stuff from my 20s
To keep me up.
#mbnov
I should have loved biology but I found it to be a lifeless recitation of names: the Golgi apparatus and the Krebs cycle; mitosis, meiosis; DNA, RNA, mRNA, tRNA.
In the textbooks, astonishing facts were presented without astonishment.
I’m too tired to read it all but plan to go back to it.
I did love biology in secondary (high) school and it was exactly because the teacher focused so much on the amazing stuff biology was doing. He was forever showing us newspaper clippings or talking about something that had been discovered. That sometimes the lesson was spent doing that and was all the better for it.
Today’s entry in things I saw in the little convenience shop over the road… It’s not even in the fridge!
“We Are The Champions" on Netflix says -
’Explore an array of unique competitions, from the quirky to the bizarre, and meet their passionate communities'
The first episode is of my hometown where they, (we?) chase a big cheese down a really steep hill.
Finally put some money towards @kottke after running out of excuses for doing so. Consistently interesting stuff that I’ve consistently been reading for I don’t even remember how long.
I worked late at school and Lyra thought she had an English lesson so we got to have dinner together while the grandparents watched the kids. When we came back I always ask Elise to say thank you to them and they always laugh.
I know why because of the time we flew to Beijing, so internally within China, and we couldn’t check in because the kid’s didn’t/don’t have visas in their British passports so - long-story-short* - Lyra’s parents had to go from their home to our flat, a 30minute trip, at 10pm on Friday night to get a document and then to take a photo of it and send it to us so that we could check in. Lyra said thank you for doing all that, and her dad laughed and said, it’s family, you don’t need to say thank you, of course we’d do it.
Though, it goes back to when Lyra and I were first going out and her very closest friends laughed at me for saying thank you when we went to visit them because, to their mind, I didn’t need to say it.
But I’m British and conditioned to say thank you at all times so it’s strange to deal with this. I ain’t changing though but it’ll be interesting to see where the kids fall!
*Their Mum is Chinese, so they are Chinese. Putting a visa in their British passport would be equivalent to admitting they aren’t Chinese - which they are. We have to get special documents every time we leave China.
Dinner of spam, quail eggs, many types of tofu and vegetables cooked in a beef broth.
It’s possible our youngest will go down without getting up repeatedly but it’s also possible I could win the lottery.
#mbnov
Possible is too often overshadowed by its siblings. The elder, ruder, sibling impossible and its cute younger sibling can.
#mbnov
“Deep listening is an act of surrender. We risk being changed by what we hear."
It’s getting late. My dependence on working late is not sustainable!
#mbnov
He went to work every day before Hannah went to school, and in the evening he worked at home. When Hannah asked him a question, he would say, “Not now. I’m busy. Maybe tomorrow.”
Love Anthony Browne’s books. This one is called Gorilla and has me thinking about work and family.
I’ve been on a bullet train in Japan and regularly get the fast trains here in China but while they’re speedy and efficient, I do miss the British trains and the views out the windows.
#mbnov
It feels weird to be overwhelmed but it not be COVID related. And I know it’s ok to be so.
I think maybe it’s strange because all the media I read is predominantly British and American and their daily situation is just so different to mine.
3 rounds 50 sit ups 1 minute at the top of the press up.
Total time: Not sure. About 3 songs from Taylor Swift - Folklore
I can never tell what my first memory is. Whether it is my memory or something I’ve put together from photos and hearing people talk about that time.
Now, I think about all the memories I am creating for myself with the kids that they probably won’t remember.
#mbnov
I just noticed Apple Arcade on my MacBook App Store. So I ‘think’ I could do that and I kinda like the idea. Does anyone do that?
“I really don’t mind coming into the office to work.”
Yes.
Sometimes after the weekend, it’s nice to go to back to my stressful job and relax a bit. \
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/wednesday-march-11th-remote-work
Basically my home is as automated as it’s going to get. We can do a disco and that’s it. What more do you need?
Who says romance is dead?! Airdropping messages while out with the kids and hearts on Saturday morning ‘McMuffins’!
I like this ‘Nobody is normal’ video for Childline that I saw on @Kottke. He says, ‘I was comparing my insides to my classmates’ outsides’ - which is what we do right?
It’s making me think about the post yesterday on ‘guilty pleasures' and being willing to like what you like.