Calories in vs. calories out?

Note: this post may be triggering to readers with eating disorders. I've put it behind the jump.

Also note: there is math talk, including differential equations, in this post. Don't panic. I've explained the math in English.

Housekeeping

A post on Feministe about when it's okay to dump someone turned, in the comments, into a discussion of housework and ability/disability. Specifically, depression and ADHD as the disabilities in question.


I have ADD¹ and while I certainly hope my house isn't a health hazard, I do struggle with housekeeping. I sat down this morning and wrote a list of all the chores I think I should be doing. (Really, they should get done no matter if I do them or my husband does. I wrote the list in preparation to sit down with my husband and create a chore schedule that fairly divides the work.) Here's the list (click to embiggen): 






This is what housework looks like in my head -- except without even the divisions into Daily, Weekly, and Less Often. A huge, tangled list of things that I must do, should have already done, need to do all of right now.


Is it any wonder I just throw up my hands and don't do any of it? Well, I do the things absolutely necessary to life (like cooking and washing dishes to eat off of), and I do the other stuff when it's been ignored for so long that I can't live with it anymore. My threshold for this is below "actual health hazard" but well above "humiliated if anyone who doesn't live here walks in."


And yes, I have tried FlyLady. Multiple times. It doesn't work for me for a number of reasons. The concept of breaking things down into small steps is awesome. The underlying philosophy (and eye-rollingly cutesy presentation) is what I can't get along with. I quickly grow to resent the idea that housekeeping is all my responsibility -- Flylady gives no guidance on how to divide up tasks fairly. Even if I ask my husband to do things, that means it's still ultimately my job -- I'm just delegating it. And I really grow to resent the idea of "blessing" my husband by keeping things clean and tidy. I'm not the angel of the frackin' house.


And fundamentally? Shining my kitchen sink? Before I can do that, I have to do the following: 

1. Call to get an appointment to get the dishwasher fixed (it's refusing to drain again)
2. Put away everything on the countertops in preparation for step 3, because right now there is no room on the countertops for the dishes
3. Move dishes out of dishwasher and sink onto countertops
4. Find the stupid dishwashing gloves
5. If I can't find them, go to Target and buy another set, oh and while I'm there, get my prescriptions refilled. Actually those gloves are old and nasty, I should just get a new set anyway.
6. Enter spending from Target into budget software
7. Throw out old nasty sponges
8. Find new clean sponges under sink
9. Actually, you know what, why don't I just buy a pack of microfiber dishcloths at Target while I'm there, and forget the stupid sponges altogether
10. Handwash, rinse, dry, and put away dishes from dishwasher, dishes that piled up while dishwasher hasn't worked, and large awkward or small fragile dishes that always require handwashing
11. Bail out disgusting un-drained water from dishwasher using red plastic cup
12. NOW I can shine my sink

 A similar process is required before I can "swish and swipe" the bathroom in the morning.


So yeah. Today I am looking at my house and thinking "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

So, yeah. Any ADD-friendly, feminist, practical guides to keeping up with housework expected of a normal adult are welcome. But for today, I just don't even.


For the record, while writing this post, I have boiled the same pot dry twice. And I still have not made poached eggs for breakfast as I intended, nor indeed have I yet eaten any food at all. I'm brilliant.


¹I leave out the H in ADHD because I have inattentive-type, not hyperactive-type.

Dialogue with games

Currently reading Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal -- a book about how people experience games, what about games makes them more satisfying than the "real world," and how we can make the "real world" more like games to make it better. It's an awesome book so far.


But I keep stumbling over things that don't quite jibe with my experience of video games, and wanting to dive more into why I react so differently. 

A weird grammar thought

When I tell someone "Exchange A for B," I mean that they currently have A, and they should get rid of A and instead get B. In other words, replace A with B.

I frequently see people who use the same word order, but mean the exact opposite. By "Exchange A for B," they mean replace B with A.


For example, this post at Get Rich Slowly includes the sentence "An easier solution is to schedule a résumé update every few months and edit as you go, swapping more impressive accomplishments for résumé filler." Clearly, they mean "replace filler with accomplishments." But I have trouble understanding it that way


Using "Exchange A for B" to mean "replace B with A" only works if you think it means "[Receive] A [In Exchange] for [Giving] B."


That seems a terribly circuitous and backwards construction to me. When I think of an exchange, I think of first giving someone an item, then receiving another item from them. Since giving comes first in the sequence, and A comes first in the sentence, I naturally think of giving A and receiving B. 

But really, it's no less logical to think of an exchange as first receiving an item from someone, then giving them another item. Since receiving comes first in that sequence, you'd naturally think of receiving A and giving B. But for some reason, thinking of an exchange that way feels backwards and unnatural to me.


I wonder why.

Storytime: My STEM roots, part 3

Inspired by reading Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing, I'm telling the story of how I got into science & technology. Today's piece of the story goes through high school. See Part One and Part Two.

Storytime: My STEM roots, part 2

This is the second part of my story of how I got into STEM -- with particular attention to computers. I was inspired by reading Unlocking the Clubhouse. See Part One, the story through elementary school. This is the story through middle school.

Storytime: my STEM roots

I just finished reading Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. The authors (Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher) interviewed students enrolled in Carnegie-Mellon's computer science department, and qualitatively examined how the stories of women and men differed. It's a fascinating and enlightening read. And it's moved me to share my own story.


In the first chapter, the authors examine stories of how women and men got into computing. Here's the first part of mine -- through elementary school. I'll also talk about my story of getting into science.