The Little Room

As you can imagine, if you read last week’s retro I had to make some changes this week. So I did.

We had another work outing this week: our org got to take in a Twins day game on Thursday. I had a blast. I spent most of it talking to my MN-based teammates, ignoring the game, and honestly just having a great time. Later that afternoon, though, after getting home, I felt sadder than I did last week. People say they’re feeling blue, but I think I understood what that means for the first time ever. This awful mix of heartbreak and grief. It was overwhelming, and by Friday, I was really down.

The first thing I did was start looking for a therapist. Reading their profiles on their websites, finding one that sounded good, then learning they weren’t “in-network” for my insurance company. Eventually I managed to find someone close to my house—I can walk there—and scheduled an appointment for next week. I’m looking forward to it.

This weekend I got out of my comfort zone and went to a pickup game of Mojo Kickball. I won’t get into too much detail, but it’s basically kickball, dodgeball, and hot potato all rolled into one. It sounds chaotic, and it is chaotic.

I was so nervous before I left. I was in full-on flight mode, ready to run and hide. I felt like I was going to throw up. My hands were shaking. But, I went. And when I got there it was an immediately welcoming place. They’ve got a good system for when newbies show up: pairing them with buddies to learn the rules, having everyone play a slowed-down version of the game before the real games begin, and having rules that make sure beginners have fun and don’t leave never wanting to come back. They give you tasks for sideline jobs like timekeeping and whatnot. Mine was to ring the cowbell that signifies the quarter has ended.

It was super fun. I am sore today in places I didn’t know I could get sore. It was more athletic than I anticipated, but not overly so. Thankfully, due to my Peloton rides I’m in decent cardio shape—though maybe not in as good shape as I thought! I’m gonna go back. I don’t know yet that it’s the place I’ll stay or where I’ll make a friend, but I’m going back.

I guess in a sense this checks the “go play games with people I don’t know” goal off my list, so that’s a bonus. That was the original intent of that goal: getting out of my comfort zone, getting over nerves, and meeting new people. I’ll take it.

Things I enjoyed this week

• Emily Catalano’s new comedy special, fittingly called “The Introvert”, was what I needed this week. We saw her here in Minneapolis earlier this year, so we knew some of the material, but it’s still great. If you’re a fan of dry, deadpan humor, check it out.

Where to even begin with this one? I had a kind of revelation or epiphany this week: I’ve let my life get too small.

I’ll probably write a full post about the experience, but the short version is this: a few weeks ago at work we had an on-site. We all sat in the same room for a few days working, talking, and laughing, and then it was over. I was back to commuting a few times a week to an empty office or working remotely from home, chatting mostly on Teams but not even that much. I developed what I can only describe as post-onsite depression.

I’m far from an “everyone must return to the office” person, in fact I’m against it unless it makes sense or it’s for regular team building. But, in that world we lose something that hasn’t been replaced. The conspiracist in my head says that’s intentional. No matter the reason, though, it’s true that without school and then later work, there aren’t a lot of places for relationships to form anymore.

And for me, I had convinced myself relationships were forming even in that limited mode—and they are, to an extent—but having that mode be so full and then suddenly so empty was shocking. It showed me that relying on work to be my social center was a fool’s game, especially in today’s layoff-laden world. Teams change, people move on, and then what? You’re left sitting alone in an office.

The other wrinkle for me is that I’m a manager and, as a result, need to distance myself even further from the team I used to be part of. Management is a lonely job: you know things you can’t always share, you want to connect with people when what they deserve is for you to be their manager and only their manager. A wall has to be built, even if your management style is open and honest like I believe mine is.

So, what am I going to do about it? I’ve given it some thought and I think I thrive in places where people come together to work towards a common goal. Theaters. Choirs. That sort of thing. I’m going to try and sign up for a local choir crash course when registration opens in August. I’m looking for opportunities to work behind the scenes in a theater. I’m going to go to a regular kickball game.

I’m going to basically avoid all my base tendencies to stay at home or say no to things for arbitrary reasons. I’m putting myself back out into the world.

So yeah, no regular updates this week about Peloton or board games (though maybe a goal of playing a bunch of board games solo should have been a sign).

Things I enjoyed this week

• A post was going around Bluesky this week about “running the dishwasher twice”—a way of saying ignore the rules holding you back; you probably wrote them yourself. I needed that.
• We saw Hamlet for free at a local brewery because a local theater group wants to bring Shakespeare to the masses. It ruled.
• Two new cyberpunk shows are coming soon, and we got teaser trailers for them both this week. “Neuromancer” and “Blade Runner 2099”. Can’t wait.

Hot and smoky. Maybe a good thing when you’re talking about food but not so much when you’re describing what it’s been like to be outdoors here and much of the Midwestern and Eastern parts of the U.S. this week. We’ve had sustained highs in the 90s for most of the week, and air quality has ranged from moderate to hazardous all week as well. On Thursday we had some of the worst air quality I’ve ever experienced. I went outside briefly to take out the recycling—we’re talking three minutes max—and I felt miserable. We’ve got a trip planned to northern Minnesota later this week and I’m starting to think we’re going to cancel it.

I managed only two Peloton rides this week, Saturday and Sunday. I skipped Tuesday’s ride because the bike is in the office space I share with my wife and she worked late (a poor excuse, but true), and then I skipped Thursday because of the aforementioned hazardous air. We have an air purifier that we were running full blast, but I still didn’t want to cause myself to breath too deeply. So I rode yesterday and today: a Power Zone endurance ride and a HIIT and Hills ride.

We saw “The Odyssey” on Saturday, and loved it. I don’t think it’s Christopher Nolan’s best movie—and probably won’t be my favorite of his—but it’s a well made, well acted, well told version of one of this planet’s oldest tales. I can’t wait to watch it again.

Today we went to the “Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910 - 1945” exhibit at the MIA. It was the final day, and I’m glad we went. The exhibit covers four decades of visual art in Germany with the obvious impact of the rise of fascism and Nazi-ism on the work and the artists. I found it difficult at times reading about the fate of some of the art and artists whose work was on display and the way that mirrors how art and culture is being treated in the U.S today by the Trump administration. The defunding of arts and culture programming, trying to control what views are expressed, and the removal of certain works and histories from museums, universities, and public places. It was all there. At the same time I was inspired to see how artists protested the rise of fascism in both obvious and non-obvious ways, and ultimately that it survived. We survived. We will survive.

Things I enjoyed this week

• Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen are doing a podcast about their rewatch of their show Portlandia and it’s just lovely.
• Phoebe Bridgers appeared twice on “The Tonight Show” performing her new song “Lost Boys”. The first night she performed with a band of kids, and I cried tears of joy watching it. Keep an eye on the keyboard player. The second performance was an acoustic one, this time with a band of older gentleman. I can’t wait to see her in September.
• I read two articles this week about programming with LLMs that sort of rhyme and get at the heart of what me and my team at work have been discussing: what does it mean to be a developer anymore if we’re not writing the code ourselves. What have we gained? What have we lost?
  • “The Human in the Loop is Tired” by Laura Summers
  • “Code was our Medium for Thought” by Amelia Wattenberger

This week was intense for an introvert like me. The company I work for flew in some team members for a nearly week-long “on-site” to kick off a new project. The site in question just happened to be the site I live and work in every day. They arrived on Monday and left on Thursday. We also had new doors installed on our house. That was a two-day affair Thursday and Friday. By the end of the week I was exhausted.

I enjoyed having the team in town. Many of them I’ve worked with for years but had never met them in person until now. We went out to dinner Monday night and another co-worker hosted a cookout at their house Wednesday night. During the day we mostly all set in the same conference room and jammed through the beginnings of a new engineering project. Even though I didn’t travel, it was still disruptive to everyone’s routines and that takes a toll.

To that point I only managed a single Peloton ride this week. I’m giving myself some slack and treating it like I travelled for work. I keep telling myself I’ll squeeze another ride in today, but I honestly don’t think it’s likely.

Today has been extremely hot, and that’s the forecast for the rest of this week. Highs in the 90s, overnight temperatures in the 80’s. I just finished grocery shopping and tried to buy mostly no-cook or stove top meals. It’s going to be a week of laying low, keeping cool, and doing as little out of doors as possible. Kind of perfect for me to be honest. Momma raised an indoor kid.

Things I enjoyed this week

• I discovered a new NA brewery at a local eatery this week: Go Brewing. I had a raspberry sour which was delicious. I’ve already learned where I can buy more locally and will be doing so post haste.
• Last night we watched “Good Luck. Have Fun. Don’t Die”. It was an absurd movie, but really fun. Sam Rockwell is at his zany best. Just don’t pay too much attention to the plot.

This week’s retro is a two-for-one covering this past week and the one before. By the time I should’ve written last week’s entry I just wasn’t into it. I kept putting it off until it really didn’t make sense to do it anymore. At least not to me. I can’t really say why just that I’ve been in a kind of funk.

I did finish reading my comic book backlog. Even better, a new batch of comics arrived this week and I’ve already read them all. I’m all caught up on every monthly book. I’ve started tackling my other periodical pile—back issues of magazines—and I guess that’s the goal now. These projects are really impacting the number of books I’ve read this year, but I’m still reading so I’m not that troubled by it. Troubled enough to think about it I guess. I’ll just have to do a lot of reading in the back half of the year to make up for it.

I did all of my planned Peloton rides these past two weeks and even crossed the 500-ride mark on Friday. I tried getting a shout out in a live ride yet again but didn’t get one. I’ll try again at the 600-ride mark.

My other projects—in person games with real people, playing the board games I own, and learning AT Proto—are languishing. I think that’s partly why I didn’t feel like writing one of these last week. They’re getting to be repetitive: rode my bike, did nothing else.

I did have an idea about looking into using Tabletop Simulator for one of the games on my challenge list. It’s got just a complex enough ruleset that I would benefit from some light automation. That kind of defeats the purpose of tabletop gaming for me since one thing I like about them is they don’t involve screens, but I’m willing to try it out if it means me actually playing the games I own.

We made this peaches and cream Victoria sandwich over the Independence Day weekend. It’s an odd choice to make a British cake on July 4th, but it was fun to make and delicious to boot. It’s an Americanized version of the cake so there’s that.

This coming week is going to be a fun but exhausting one. Some members of one of the teams I manage at work are coming in to town for some in-person collaboration so we’ve got dinner plans tomorrow and a cook out on Wednesday plus the in-office time. It’s a lot for an introvert like me, and I’m sure to be spent by the time they leave on Thursday. In a good way though.

We’re also getting new doors installed on our house which has been an expensive, frustrating and educational endeavor so far. Given how most things like that go in a 100-year-old house I’m a little anxious about the install itself.

Things I enjoyed this week

• For nearly three years on just about every Friday I’ve been watching Jeff Gerstmann play and rank every NES game released in North America. He finally wrapped up that project a few weeks ago and has now started the doing the same thing for N64 projects.
• We watched Project Hail Mary last night and I loved it. It reminded me of the sci-fi comedies of my youth like “Batteries Not Included”, “Short Circuit” and “Innerspace”. Funny, poignant, and feel good. Just what I needed.