{"id":54884,"date":"2025-10-18T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/?p=54884"},"modified":"2025-10-19T19:34:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T18:34:47","slug":"sometimes-nothing-happens-and-other-lies-you-tell-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/?p=54884","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes Nothing Happens (and Other Lies You Tell Yourself)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Black<\/a>
**Proper busy**<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are some days when life is something that seems to happen around you, needing neither by-your-leave nor input. You get up, urinate, caffeinate, work. Cycle with a capital sigh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve had a week of those days. Is this what it feels like to be a machine?(*) A machine with lunch breaks? I peer out of my mainframe (flat) and wonder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA whole week,\u201d I grumble to The Mathematician over supper. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve done nothing. Or at least not been present for it. Just pages processed, emails read and answered, on and on, automaton.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not true,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I chase an olive around the plate, then look at her for an explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve had a week of meaningful connections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shrug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou told me about them! Have you forgotten?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have. Well, not so much forgotten as misplaced. I eat another forkful and think. There were the hours of counselling training on Monday and the great exchanges with my group. Later in the week, I went to a friend and found them overwhelmed. We sat and chatted. And The M herself had her own stuff to work through and share, namely an hour\u2019s inhospitality with French fellow academics(**).  <\/span>I\u2019ve been emotionally alongside folk for much of the week.  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d I say, drawing and quartering an egg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know,\u201d she replies. \u201cI thought you\u2019d be used to that by now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHm.\u201d I tackle the yoke and load it with sauerkraut (echt deutsch). \u201cWeird. Just didn\u2019t feel like it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe you were focussing on the wrong things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCould be \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

After eating, we clean up the plates. On the way to the kitchen, I walk past the spot by the front door where a large stack of boxes stood. I\u2019d ordered a parcel and got five \u2014 apparently none of the other neighbours were in, the DHL man told me. (Read: I couldn\u2019t be arsed to ring the other doorbells.)\u00a0 <\/span>But that had led to lovely encounters, too. One neighbour who came to collect shared her love of crochet (The Mathematician\u2019s quite the fan). She\u2019s currently making socks. Another neighbour brought us a box brimming with fragrant quince and invited us to her allotment by the woods to pick apples from her trees.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I set down the plates and make cocoa. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She’s right: my week has been full<\/i> of connections. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(*) No, they don\u2019t have feelings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(**) On the Path to Professorship. The Germans have a bad system; the French seem iteratively worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes it turns out doing Sweet FA is actually A, and the F turns up later as Feelings. Funny …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":54883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[214,287,209,258],"class_list":{"0":"post-54884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cf","8":"tag-city-fables","9":"tag-connections","10":"tag-leipzig","11":"tag-work"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54884"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54897,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54884\/revisions\/54897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}