Josh and I talk a lot about sleep, namely, that we should get more of it.  We’re not great at actually getting to bed when we say we’re going to get to bed, and then it takes me a long time to fall asleep.  So I’m getting about five or six hours per night.  That’s on a good night.

I’ve been looking up sleep information, and I found out about the Epworth Sleepiness Scale.  The good news is that I only scored a two, which is low.  But the bad news is that I am not sleepy during the day.  I’m not sleepy from my lack of sleep, so I can’t take a nap, let’s say, and grab sleep during daytime hours.  I’m not sleepy at night, AND I’m not sleepy during the day.

Which doesn’t mean that I’m not tired.  I am tired.  But I’m not sleepy.  I’m like a little yappy dog on high alert for any squirrels that may run by the window.  That dog may be exhausted, but it cannot let itself drift off into sleep because… SQUIRREL.

Anyway, I was researching my chronotype (none of which — by the way — take into account that your life may not fit your chronotype and you may not be able to do anything about it), and I think I’m somewhere between a wolf and a dolphin.  I’m a wolphin.

That will make more sense if you read this chart.

I don’t know this scientifically because the chronotype quiz seems to be down at the moment, but it’s what makes sense based on the descriptions.  I’m a wolphin living in a world where I need to do tasks on other people’s timetables.  I cannot roll out of bed at 7 am or hold meetings at 4 pm.  I can’t do yoga or exercise at 6 pm because I’m freakin’ making dinner at that time.

Anyway.

What is your chronotype, and are you also a hybrid that sounds like the stuff of nightmares?

Okay, Riddle me this, Batpeople.  We were driving over a bridge on the way to the Kennedy Center, and I saw the sparkly lights of a restaurant on the water in the distance.

“What was the name of that restaurant we loved in Georgetown?” I asked.  “It was on the waterfront.”

“You must have gone there with your other boyfriend,” Josh commented.

“No, it was you.  I mean, we haven’t been in years, but it was very early on in our relationship… it was on the water and it had sparkle lights… We also went there after a graduation or something like that…”

“Now you’re really talking about another boyfriend,” Josh repeated.

That was all that we said about the restaurant.  That it was in Georgetown, on the waterfront, and had sparkle lights.  Plus Josh insisted that we’ve never eaten there together, so he had zero clue what this restaurant was called.

The next day, Josh was scrolling through Facebook and his face changed.  “Melissa… Is this the restaurant you were thinking about yesterday?”  He flipped his phone around, and it was an ad for Sequoia — THE RESTAURANT I DIDN’T KNOW THE NAME OF.

If you Google “waterfront, Georgetown, restaurant,” it pops up as the second hit.  So if we had ever bothered Googling it, we would have had our answer but

1. No one Googled it.
2. No one said the name.
3. Microphone access is off for Facebook.

So either (1) Facebook is telling the truth — when you deny it access to your microphone, it cannot listen — or (2) Facebook is lying and it absolutely listened and the algorithm spat out the most likely option, or (3) it is just the most amazing coincidence in the world.

Which option do you think is correct?  I’m going with door #2…

*******

Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Pan.dora’s Box” (An Engineer Becomes a Mom)
• “Day 12 – The Best $150ish I Ever Spent” (Anne Heffron)
• “#Microblog Mondays: How We Take Pictures” (My Path to Mommyhood)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Life Without Baby has a post about letting go of the life you wanted when the road that leads there is an unhappy, stressful path.  In other words, it’s not just about the destination.  It’s about being okay with the road to get there, and when you’re not okay with it, having the ability to remove yourself from that path, even if you really really really want the final destination.  It’s such a good post about how it’s not all about the ending.  It’s about the beginning and the middle, too.

Much Ado About Nothing has a post about grief.  It is a post about how her grief about her own father’s death mixed with her sister’s father’s death this summer (same mother, different fathers).  She writes about the loss: “I held up my nieces and nephews and sister, all while feeling these huge waves of grief for the loss I knew and was now watching someone I loved deeply feel. I didn’t have any words other than ‘I am so sorry.’ But I guess that is the truest life lesson… love hard and show up for the people you love when they need you.”  Such a simple and true life rule.  It’s a gorgeous, heartbreaking post with a beautiful ending: “My grief allowed her to be more loving in her father’s last months.”  Go read the whole thing.

Risakerslake has the ability to make me crack up about the beginning of a cycle.  From quietly plotting her day 3 monitoring from a coffee shop to the goat rodeo that comes from coordinating care between clinics, she makes you laugh as often as she makes you groan in sympathy.  And I love what she writes about returning to the clinic: “Some women experience PTSD going back to the fertility clinic. For me, I don’t know. I didn’t feel any of that. It was more like coming home.”  Sending really good thoughts for this go-around on baby making.

Lastly, My Path to Mommyhood explains why inspirational messages sometimes aren’t so… inspirational.  In fact, they can be downright unhelpful.  My personal pet peeve is “quitters never win and winner never quit.”  But she points out how with just a little more explanation, these quotes CAN get someone started on something difficult.  Though… it’s sort of as if we need to sweep the truth under the rug sometimes to get people to try.  I don’t know.  That feels wrong, too.  As she points out, this is kinda sorta complicated when what you need to convey can be twisted and simplified.  And I love how she ties in the frustration and accomplishment pieces.

The roundup to the Roundup: Facebook is the creepiest kid on the block.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between August 24th and 31st) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

My friends and I had fun debating this question at dinner last week, so I’m turning over the situation to you.  Ask the Salty Waitress had an interesting question, one that begins with a basic fact.  If you are ordering an entrée at a restaurant, they’re all mostly within the same price range.  So restaurant to restaurant, the prices obviously are higher or lower, but most entrées are within $10 of each other within the same restaurant.

But alcohol doesn’t follow that rule.  Alcohol is the one item in a restaurant that appears in a single section — the wine list — but can cost anywhere from $15 to $1000 (or more) for a single bottle of wine.

So Ask the Salty Waitress had a question about tipping when alcohol has been ordered, making the argument that whether the person ordered a $15 bottle of wine (and paid a $3 tip) or a $100 bottle of wine (and paid a $20 tip), the waitress did the same job of uncorking and pouring the wine.  They wanted to know if they could pay a single tip for the wine, let’s say $5, and call it a day.

The answer is a decent one, albeit with judgement hurled at the asker, but it doesn’t really answer the question.  By the waitress’s argument, no one should eat in her section unless they’re going to order a lot and tip big because a person doing otherwise is taking up a space that could be given to someone who will give her more money.  By that token, the answer should include that it’s not about the wine; it’s why isn’t the question asker ordering triple appetizers because if they don’t, they’re a cheapskate, too.

So her answer doesn’t really work.

The question has to do with the enormous cost range in this one menu item: alcohol.  We’re talking a few dollars difference in tip if you get the steak or the pasta dish, but there’s a huge difference in tip between the cheapest and most expensive bottle of wine.

My friend mentioned the New York Times once covered this, and I was able to find the article, but it’s a really confusing answer that involves different math applied to different situations.

So what’s your take on this?  I’m assuming that few of us ask for the $1000 bottle of wine from the New York Times article, so let’s go more with the $15 vs. $100 bottle of wine.

Remember back in 2018 when people were discussing activism burnout?  I think I burned out somewhere in that last big fight to keep Planned Parenthood around.  During that time (and still today), it felt like there was this enormous wall constructed entirely out of men who were making choices about body parts they do not own… and the lack of sense in it made me so tired.  Men making legislation that affects uteruses?  That’s like kangaroos making laws for koala bears about the consumption of the koala’s eucalyptus leaves.

I feel sad as I watch the midterm elections roll towards us.  I want to be doing more, and certainly my friends are doing their part; going out and getting people registered to vote and helping candidates.  I want to be doing more, but it’s as if I’m politically cocooning.  I am so disheartened with our system.

*******

There’s a new book out that’s looking at the ethical repercussions for all of our decisions.  I was looking for information on it because I’m working on a project on conscious consumerism, and I found that article.  I agree that our individual actions barely make a dent in the face of capitalism, and that every purchase we make has a positive and negative impact on the world at large (read the article for some really interesting examples), though I still stand by the belief that some purchases actually are better than others.  And while my single purchase won’t make a big difference, if everyone made similar choices, we actually could sway industries, one product at a time.

I mean, we can see this with Kevin Spacey’s new movie that made $126 on opening weekend.  That’s it.  $126.  Because people didn’t financially support his movie and instead decided en masse to see either no movie or a different movie.  See, it didn’t change the whole industry, but we coincidentally worked together to not support Spacey’s work and maybe he won’t get another film in the future.

But it wasn’t the information about the book and purchases that snuck under my skin from that article.  It was this:

Your passport determines more than just access—it means you are the beneficiary, albeit abstractly, of actions you may not approve. Most of us, wherever we live, are funding wars or policies we disagree with. We can’t help but do wrong.

It doesn’t matter if you didn’t vote in these lawmakers; if you actively chose a different candidate.  You are complicit in the current government’s actions because you pay taxes which funds the good and the bad.  Even if you personally agree with your government, if there is another group in your country who disagrees with the government, you are harming them simply by voting in lawmakers who serve your needs.  All the people unhappy under Obama count, even if I was happy under Obama.

*******

Where does this leave me?  Gathering energy to get in there and do something before the election.  To not look too hard at the news or my Facebook feed or the spaces that drain my hope.  To make the best decisions I can and move forward.

That’s all any of us can do.

And the smallest step?  Buy Elisa Camahort Page’s (yes, that one, from BlogHer) new book on how to be an activist.  I trust that she has steps I can take to get back on track because she is awesome.  (And I’m sure the other two writers are, too.)

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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There was a fascinating article earlier this summer on unneeded spaces in houses that pointed out this fact from a study:

Nobody is actually using their formal living and dining rooms. Families actually spend most of their time in the kitchen and the informal living room or den. Yet we continue to build these wastes of space because many Americans still want that extra square footage.

Okay, it’s a very judgy article, but it does make a point.  When you take a step back and look at homes, it’s a bizarre idea to keep a living space that you seldom use when rooms that get continual use can be changed to accommodate entertaining.  And it’s also true that entertaining is emotional; inviting people into your space is emotional.

We don’t have a second living room or a dining room.  I’m curious how many people who have them use them on a daily or weekly basis.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.