FA+
Shop
Meatspace Journalling
5 years ago
General
"Does aₘᵢₙ=2c²/Θ ? I don't know, but wouldn't it be fascinating if it were?"
A habit I've acquired and developed, which might be worth considering...
A few years ago, I was in a sleep study, in which I had to keep a record of my sleeping habits. While the study's long over, I kept on keeping track, and started throwing in more things. These days, a typical day's entry looks something like this.
______________________________________________
Sat, Apr 4: 8:45am: Wake
9am: [morning meds]
9:30: Exercise: Stretches, 10 burpees
10am: Brush, floss, mouthwash. Shower. 183 lbs.
10:30: [more meds], Supplements
Oatmeal, 120 Cal
11:30: Cookies, 160 Cal
2pm: Papaya, dried, ~100 Cal
6:30: Pasta + cheese + ham, carrots: ~500 Cal
Ginger Ale, ~200 Cal
7pm: [evening meds]
5040 steps, 1080 Cal
6/5: 12:30am: Sleep
________________________________________________
The horizontal lines make it easy to tell one sleep-cycle from the next; I keep the dates in the leftmost part of the page, the times all in their own column, and whatever I'm actually describing to the right of that. I don't worry about pinning the times more accurately than the nearest half-hour, and usually write any entry down within a half-hour of doing whatever I'm writing about, though I've occasionally gone most of a day before bothering. (I started keeping track of the daily hygiene line as a proxy for how badly I was depressed that day.)
While not a regular thing, I also jot down any symptoms I notice, from sniffles due to allergies to headaches to headaches or back pain or the time I sprained an ankle. If I get any other interesting data, such as blood-test results or getting my blood pressure taken or seeing an interesting stutter in my pulse in my oximeter's display, that gets written down, too.
Every so often, I take the three most trackable numbers - weight, steps, and calories - and add them to a spreadsheet, so I can graph out how they're changing over time. (For steps and calories, the numbers vary so wildly that I use Google Sheets' ability to graph a multiple-day running average.)
I started out using some el cheapo mini-composition notebooks and ballpoint pens, keeping one of each in a pocket. I eventually decided I might as well go for some acid-free pens and moleskine mini-notepads. An important detail I learned early on was to make sure each journal (and pen) would fit in my pocket without any unsightly bulges, so that it was always ready to hand. (A minor detail I started doing was to keep a second, backup pen in my coat pocket, in case my main pen ran out of ink or got dropped off a bridge or something.) To keep track of steps, I clip a pedometer to my belt every day. I also now regularly wear a digital watch; my wrist adornment of choice is the astonishingly inexpensive, and ridiculously rugged, Casio F-91W.
On the first page of each journal, I start out with the current year, in case I ever have enough of them that I risk losing track of which one was written when. On the last page of each journal, I jot down my own contact info (in case I lose a journal), my emergency contacts (in case I go down for the count and someone checks my pockets instead of my phone), and a list of my meds and supplements* (the latter so I don't have to write out a half-dozen different things every day). These days, I usually also keep a small spiral-bound-on-top notepad in the same pocket, for whatever note-taking, doodling, or other pen-and-paperwork happens to crop up; the journal is for info I want to keep a record of indefinitely, the notepad is for scratchwork I'll probably rip the pages out of once I'm done with - such as to pin onto my corkboard to-do list.
I've tried a few other ideas that haven't stuck. For example, getting a bunch of highlighters of different colours, and highlighting all the food lines in yellow, sleep/wake times in blue, meds in peach, exercise in pink, and mood/hygiene in green; all to better tell apart which is which at a glance. But I didn't see any actual benefit arising from that that was worth the effort, so stopped bothering. (Though that one would be easy enough to go back and add, if it ever seems worthwhile.)
As a whole, I found this habit easy to get into, especially since I started small, with just the sleep and wake times. And once I had the basic habit in place, it was easy to expand the sets of data I kept track of, step by step, until I was keeping track of everything a medical professional might be interested in. (The folk working at the weight-loss clinic I've recently been referred to seemed pleasantly surprised I was already writing down and spreadsheeting everything they wanted me to keep track of, except for specific calorie counts, which only took a bit of effort to start paying attention to.)
It's not exactly a bullet-point journal; those are usually pre-planned so that each day takes up a specific amount of space, while my records may go from a half-page to one-and-a-half pages per day. I also don't bother jotting down inspirational quotes I come across, my dreams, story ideas, meandering thoughts, philosophy, or other such things; I've got the notepad if I ever feel the urge to actually write any of that, but haven't. The journal is a tool, a way for me to collect and collate a specific set of data that my future self is likely to find useful, and early on I decided that I didn't want to risk making too much work for myself, getting annoyed with the process, and abandoning the habit of record-keeping.
*: I don't feel like sharing my meds, but supplements aren't so personal. You should probably start by taking a look at the bubble-chart at https://informationisbeautiful.net/.....ents-vizsweet/ , which shows the strength of evidence for most supplements, before you decide to start taking any. My current list is: a multivitamin (on general principles); Vitamin D (4000 IU per day, because I live up in Canada); fish oil/omega 3; calcium/magnesium; St. John's Wort (for depression); and zinc (25 mg/day, recently added in hopes of helping fend off respiratory virus infections). Things I've tried in the past, but no longer keep up with, included daily green tea and dark chocolate, coconut oil, and creatine.
A few years ago, I was in a sleep study, in which I had to keep a record of my sleeping habits. While the study's long over, I kept on keeping track, and started throwing in more things. These days, a typical day's entry looks something like this.
______________________________________________
Sat, Apr 4: 8:45am: Wake
9am: [morning meds]
9:30: Exercise: Stretches, 10 burpees
10am: Brush, floss, mouthwash. Shower. 183 lbs.
10:30: [more meds], Supplements
Oatmeal, 120 Cal
11:30: Cookies, 160 Cal
2pm: Papaya, dried, ~100 Cal
6:30: Pasta + cheese + ham, carrots: ~500 Cal
Ginger Ale, ~200 Cal
7pm: [evening meds]
5040 steps, 1080 Cal
6/5: 12:30am: Sleep
________________________________________________
The horizontal lines make it easy to tell one sleep-cycle from the next; I keep the dates in the leftmost part of the page, the times all in their own column, and whatever I'm actually describing to the right of that. I don't worry about pinning the times more accurately than the nearest half-hour, and usually write any entry down within a half-hour of doing whatever I'm writing about, though I've occasionally gone most of a day before bothering. (I started keeping track of the daily hygiene line as a proxy for how badly I was depressed that day.)
While not a regular thing, I also jot down any symptoms I notice, from sniffles due to allergies to headaches to headaches or back pain or the time I sprained an ankle. If I get any other interesting data, such as blood-test results or getting my blood pressure taken or seeing an interesting stutter in my pulse in my oximeter's display, that gets written down, too.
Every so often, I take the three most trackable numbers - weight, steps, and calories - and add them to a spreadsheet, so I can graph out how they're changing over time. (For steps and calories, the numbers vary so wildly that I use Google Sheets' ability to graph a multiple-day running average.)
I started out using some el cheapo mini-composition notebooks and ballpoint pens, keeping one of each in a pocket. I eventually decided I might as well go for some acid-free pens and moleskine mini-notepads. An important detail I learned early on was to make sure each journal (and pen) would fit in my pocket without any unsightly bulges, so that it was always ready to hand. (A minor detail I started doing was to keep a second, backup pen in my coat pocket, in case my main pen ran out of ink or got dropped off a bridge or something.) To keep track of steps, I clip a pedometer to my belt every day. I also now regularly wear a digital watch; my wrist adornment of choice is the astonishingly inexpensive, and ridiculously rugged, Casio F-91W.
On the first page of each journal, I start out with the current year, in case I ever have enough of them that I risk losing track of which one was written when. On the last page of each journal, I jot down my own contact info (in case I lose a journal), my emergency contacts (in case I go down for the count and someone checks my pockets instead of my phone), and a list of my meds and supplements* (the latter so I don't have to write out a half-dozen different things every day). These days, I usually also keep a small spiral-bound-on-top notepad in the same pocket, for whatever note-taking, doodling, or other pen-and-paperwork happens to crop up; the journal is for info I want to keep a record of indefinitely, the notepad is for scratchwork I'll probably rip the pages out of once I'm done with - such as to pin onto my corkboard to-do list.
I've tried a few other ideas that haven't stuck. For example, getting a bunch of highlighters of different colours, and highlighting all the food lines in yellow, sleep/wake times in blue, meds in peach, exercise in pink, and mood/hygiene in green; all to better tell apart which is which at a glance. But I didn't see any actual benefit arising from that that was worth the effort, so stopped bothering. (Though that one would be easy enough to go back and add, if it ever seems worthwhile.)
As a whole, I found this habit easy to get into, especially since I started small, with just the sleep and wake times. And once I had the basic habit in place, it was easy to expand the sets of data I kept track of, step by step, until I was keeping track of everything a medical professional might be interested in. (The folk working at the weight-loss clinic I've recently been referred to seemed pleasantly surprised I was already writing down and spreadsheeting everything they wanted me to keep track of, except for specific calorie counts, which only took a bit of effort to start paying attention to.)
It's not exactly a bullet-point journal; those are usually pre-planned so that each day takes up a specific amount of space, while my records may go from a half-page to one-and-a-half pages per day. I also don't bother jotting down inspirational quotes I come across, my dreams, story ideas, meandering thoughts, philosophy, or other such things; I've got the notepad if I ever feel the urge to actually write any of that, but haven't. The journal is a tool, a way for me to collect and collate a specific set of data that my future self is likely to find useful, and early on I decided that I didn't want to risk making too much work for myself, getting annoyed with the process, and abandoning the habit of record-keeping.
*: I don't feel like sharing my meds, but supplements aren't so personal. You should probably start by taking a look at the bubble-chart at https://informationisbeautiful.net/.....ents-vizsweet/ , which shows the strength of evidence for most supplements, before you decide to start taking any. My current list is: a multivitamin (on general principles); Vitamin D (4000 IU per day, because I live up in Canada); fish oil/omega 3; calcium/magnesium; St. John's Wort (for depression); and zinc (25 mg/day, recently added in hopes of helping fend off respiratory virus infections). Things I've tried in the past, but no longer keep up with, included daily green tea and dark chocolate, coconut oil, and creatine.
PS: Do y' want a doable fix re. the whitespace thing?
Ie., can't do para first line indents--or any whitespace--in this strange universe we call FA. Funny how all the aliens have unusually large breasts, among other. er, things. :- )
Issue is, FA's text parser uses the ordinary space character as a word separator (when sorting words outta blocks of text). But: When the parser sees a buncha spaces, then hey, no words found here, so the parser just... throws the spaces away. Arrgh fudge kill.
Da Fix: Use the Hard Space character, also called the No-Break space, instead of regular spaces. But still use those when typing sentences with normal words in 'em. Wait. Normal? FA? Bwahaha!!
The HS looks like a regular space on screen, can't tell the diff, but hey-oh, fooled the parser. It sees the HS as the same as any normal char, not a space. And doesn't eat it. And presto: Plop in a string of HS's, and any whitespace you want becomes possible, the power, powerrr. Ex-cellent.
(And whuffo we even got the HS char? 'S used to sorta 'join' words together as a whole unit, so they won't be split apart when your editor or word processor word-wraps everything to fit a margin or whatevah. It's called the No-Break space 'cause that's what it does. Aren't we all so much jeezly wiser now? :- ) )
However, technical hitch: Ya can't type HS chars. 'S not on your keyboard. So in Windows, dig out a little util called Character Map, choose Verdana font, then drop down to char #160 (or #A0 hex)--the actual ASCII code for the HS. Then copy and paste like it's all free, oh wait it is.
Aside: Got a coupla little macros to plop in strings of HS chars where I want 'em. Now it is on my keyboard, since diving for Char Map every ten seconds gets real old real fast, I keel myself now. Also got an alternate to the HS, since FA's gotten a bit weird about deprecating the HS in certain places. Or last time I checked. Weird? FA? Say it isn't so, Joe.
You're using Red Hat--greeeen envy jealous--so search, find, there's a similar util in there somewhere. This isn't rocket science. Very little LOX or LH2 involved. Okay, maybe a little. You're paying the Range Safety Officer the big bucks for a reason. :- )
Tsk, the furs who built FA just didn't know their typography [enough], or knew the importance of whitespace to us scribbler types. Ie., para indents, as you see here; hyper-crucial for mo' better easier reading.
Well, we're not gonna let them get away with *that.* :- )
Some years ago, I decided that my closed-top 4's were too hard to distinguish at a glance from my 9's, so I made a conscious effort to switch to open-top 4's. Shouldn't take too much more focus for any other letters that are less than optimally legible.
I don't bother with cursive. Anyone who uses that for long-term records... is either a lot better at cursive than I've ever been, or they need to revisit their decision-making processes.
> the No-Break space
My initial journal draft tried using the HTML code, , but that only rendered as " ", so I stopped looking for a solution.
But after your comment, I decided to try a bit harder, and was reminded that X11/Gnome desktops have an option available: Ctrl+Shift+u, followed by a hex-code, is equivalent to Windows' Alt+decimal-code. So for Windows' Alt+160, I can type Ctrl+Shift+u+a0... and lo and behold, FurAffinity finally accepts the non-breaking space without blinking.
> Very little LOX or LH2 involved.
Though there's a surprising amount of the even more volatile FLOOF. (Or FOOF, take your pick. :) )
> at cursive than I've ever been, or they need to revisit their decision-making processes.
Heh. A buncha tattered pocket notebooks is abundant proof that, if you wanna make ink-on-paper higgeldy-incomprehensible, cursive is far from the most effective way to do it. When the pen moves as fast as the thoughts, 's remarkable how quickly legibility drops off a cliff, <Smash-tinkle-tinkle!>.
System message on that supercomputer's console: 'Ah look, I'm no good at doing magical readings of mystical runes from Lost Ry'leh. But I know a spook at the NSA; nice guy, they pay him in ectoplasm.' :- )
Aside: In early 90s-ish, never bought another pocket notebook again. Tripped over Sharp's Zaurus line of business-oriented pocket computers; have owned several. Brick-dumb to even the stupidest of today's smart phones or tablets, but a *superb* writing tool (and with a spreadsheet). Still use a ZR-3000. And who says we have nothing to learn from the Paleozoic epoch?
> ...And was reminded that X11/Gnome desktops have an option...
Advantage Linux (of course). If that Windows Alt+<number code> thing works, I've never seen it. Hence the use of Char Map. Either way, it's a leetle trick that solves an FA problem.
Caveat: Provided that anybody is able to *see* that there is a problem. Ie., a lot of writers on FA likely take present conditions as Just The Way Things Are. No whitespace on FA? Oh well.
The Revolution won't be televised, and it won't start with this [semi-arcane] small method either. Oh well (wait, said that already). News of this thing will drift to the ears of those who need it, and will go ignored by the rest.
Fine by me. My credentials in Revolution Leading are hopelessly outta date, would hafta take the exam again, pay the registration fee, oh Gawd the red tape... :- )
> Though there's a surprising amount of the even more volatile FLOOF. (Or FOOF, take your pick. :) )
Have gotten a few <FOOFS!> outta a few people, plus an <Ear-Poing!> or two. Due to the surprise of it.
You've noticed the FA Writer's Directory v1.0? *That's* what you can build with a simple HS char. Okay, it took more'n one.
Too simple to think that it took thinking to think of it (if you got that ). There's *no* way I'm the first fur to figure this out, so shan't claim so.
Still, on the list of things writers oughta know about FA, I'd vote to pencil in this [small] technique. Wait. Votes? On FA? Bwahaha!!
Sigh. I slay me. :- )
I remember, around 20 years ago, in the days when wifi hotspots had to be carefully hunted down and hoarded as carefully as those obscure restaurants that were the local secrets, owning one or two of HP's Jornada PDAs. I liked the things because while they could (barely) fit in a pocket, they had keyboards I could actually touch-type on. (Come to think of it, I've still got my old wireless bluetooth keyboard that folds up into quarters, and also fits into a pocket, not much bigger than the phones it connects to. Mostly stopped bothering with it once I started moving my laptop to wherever in the house I happened to be.)
I learned how to type in the mid-80's, in an actual typing class, on actual typewriters - the ones where to centre a line, you had to count the characters, deleting a character involved unrolling the page and applying white-out, and all the other annoyances that have been smoothed over during the transition to digital life. Given my druthers, a good keyboard is my first choice for doing just about any communicating at all - I can type with my eyes closed (handy when I've got a headache), I can hit an error-free 100 WPM when I try (though probably not when my eyes are closed; it's hard to find a speed test that doesn't involve reading) - and a bad keyboard is a sin against the Invisible Pink Unicorn (may her hooves never be shod). (Those chiclet keyboards that modern laptop manufacturers are so enamoured of are just bleah.)
Thinking about rat-a-tat text entry... I should probably start firing up one or more of those Morse Code training apps, and finally finish memorizing the thing. I can't rely on anyone else I've got a 1-bit comm channel with knowing the Prisoner's Tap Code, after all.
>down and hoarded as carefully as those obscure restaurants that were the local secrets,
>owning one or two of HP's Jornada PDAs.
Ahhh, to quote Men at Work, you speaka my language. Know of Jornadas, lucky swine you fer having one or two. Lusted mightily after the J, poverty prevented purchase, but mighty fine beasties nonetheless. HP stuff does go above and beyond the call. And that beauty *keyboard*: The cats <Meowr!>. As a writer, I will make loud drool sounds now.
On the other paw, advantage Zaurus for being quite dirt cheap, but also for not imitating a laptop or a PC-like 'space' a la the J. Ran Windows CE. Oh well, we've all got footpaws of clay. :- ) The Z-5800 model keyboard was also highly <Meowr-able!>; perfect fit to fingertips, bit smaller than the J. The 3000 model: Poorer, chiclet-ish, but not so bleah as to be unworkable; key spacing, Sharp got it right.
The Z essentially says, here's the burned-in hardwired functions, here's the effective interface, have fun kiddies. 'Nuff of the right functions to be useful for business purposes--beauty spreadsheet--but dat's it, since Sharp never opened the platform to developers, or wrote frig-all software themselves that I could ever find. Supposedly a devkit out there based on a language call PIL(?), who knows?
By contrast the J: Spread-wide to whatever you wanna stuff onto it, have fun kiddies. The Z's not worthy.
Could jam a fax modem onto all of them--again, power, powerrr--but it was the IR interface that redeemed the Zs from complete digital stoopidity. Plug an IR dongle into your computer, drop in some Sharp™ software, and talk back and forth to your heart's content. 'It's the modern age, Squiffy.' 'Is it, Tom? I'd better bring in the washing.'
(Lessee if you know where that joke came from. :- ) )
Dunno. Got a lot of scintillating hacking done on Z units, but if I'd had a J the Nobel Prize for Lit would have my chop on it by now. And/or I'd have much shorter fingertips.
>I learned how to type in the mid-80's, in an actual typing class, on actual typewriters
And typing: Oh *hellya,* I owe my Mom's fabulous old Smith-Corona Selectric the world for burning all the typos out of me. It's the tactility, the physical feeling of typing, the connection between fingers and a striking bit of shaped metal. As you see that you've just done another typo, aw crap, where'd the correction tape go? 100,000 typos later, eventually you learn.
If the frustration hasn't killed you. The skills thus obtained enabled me to bang out my 25,000 word two-weeks-late final English paper on Keat's odes at friggin' lightspeed. Fortunately. Thanx, Mom.
Or where'd the little bottle of white-out fluid go. Dunno what's in that goop, but after applying it to enough typos you're so high you think you're Nitika Krushchev. All toast the Central Committee. A tractor in every garage and a chicken in every nose.
But it's muscle memory: There's the rub. A standard computer keyboard won't give that to you. A real typewriter does. Manual typewriter, even better (got one). Unless the keyboard's one of the old IBM types (got one of dem too). Clankety-clankety-clank. Naturally, every demonic smart phone out there with it's on-screen touch keyboard and the 'lil stick, oh yah, this'll teach you immaculate typing skills, uh-huh, yup-er, fersure.
(Aside: Bluetooth keyboards are powerful useful, for us nerds who need keyboards, turning a demonic smart phone into a grudgingly useful writing platform. But good luck finding a BT keyboard that'll do the job. In Logitech we trust. The semi-fullsize unit that talks to my Samsung tablets and AndroOpen [Android OpenOffice port; mega-beauty] has provided sterling service and has well-earned, you guessed, another cat's <Meowr!>.)
And so our civilization drowns under typos, even God's spellchecker can't keep up, and thus, ave Einstein, do we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe. 'What did the White House say? Lunch all ICBMs?' 'Jeeze, those are pretty big missiles, I don't think we've got enough ketchup. 'Well, do the best you can.' :- )
Lastly: Do have greying memories of Boy Scouts trying to familiarize us with Morse. Dead-fail re. competency, of course. But anyone with respect for the history of computing must acknowledge Morse's place in that. As in, 's where it all started. Then escalated. Fast. Wut, you mean we can use electrons to carry information? That's... so crazy it just might work.
Picture Samuel Morse in his crypt: 'F**k, I knew I shoulda written those patents a little more broadly.' Yeah, well, that's assuming that Apple, Microsoft, Intel, and Sony/Toshiba/whoever are gonna honour them, buddy.
Lastly-lastly, a picosecond-brief stint in Sea Cadets mentioned the Aldis Lamp, crucial naval communications device, and Morse-based. Competency levels flat-lined zero again. But when I tripped over Python's Julius Caesar on an Aldis Lamp sketch, well.
Why I'm not still snickering unto this day, no idea why. :- )