you can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming

I have hit one of those phases again where it is hard to figure out who I am or what my purpose might be. Regular readers will know, this means internet quizzes! I will post the results as always, with anything I think is applicable italicized, and my specific commentary after in bold.

snack time (front yard)

Glassdoor: What Job Best Fits Your Life?
"Result: Natural-Born Entrepreneur
You were born to run the show. If you’re not already heading up your own business—you should be. Chances are, you’ll flourish when you finally get the freedom to set your own schedule and pursue your passions. You might experience some unexpected twists and turns along the way, but what’s life without a few surprises? You’re set up to succeed since you value creativity and innovation, and you’re willing to expand your knowledge and learn from others. These are all must-have qualities for someone looking to go out on their own, so get to it!"
--Eh, no. Not without a hefty infusion of cash, some reasonable guarantee of success, and also something else to fall back on if it all goes to hell. Since I hardly have the resources to acquire a sugar daddy...this is not happening.

nap time (back yard)

I have discovered some very important things over the past couple of weeks. For instance: a broken pinkie can be really, really painful. And as soon as you think it has begun to heal, you will likely do something that makes it immediately and startlingly clear that it has, in fact, not done so. It seems to ache a little after I have washed my hair (could that really be so traumatic?). Last night, though, I turned it the wrong way while stretching in prep for a workout, and nearly vomited from the pain. Even just thinking about it makes me a little queasy now. I have not been keeping it wrapped at home, only when I (rarely) venture out into the world, where other people might be able to affect it. Given that shocking pain last night, though, I may want to rethink that policy. From the time of the initial break, I thought that getting an actual hard splint was overkill. It seemed like I would end up straining the other fingers in an effort to baby the injured one. A couple of fabric bandages across the knuckles (I am buddy-taping the last two fingers into a sort of flipper) seems to be doing the trick. I just need to do it more often.

nap time - moving toward the sun (back yard)

How Stuff Works: What Kind of Person Are You?
"You Got: Intelligent
You have a lot of different aspects to your personality, all of them positive, but the one thing that really sticks out to other people about you is how smart you are. No matter in what crowd you're in, you're considered to be very intelligent. People in your life at work and at home respect your mind above all else."
--FEHHHHH. Sore spot.

I am trying something that I have not done before: online selling. Just today sold something through FB Marketplace, and listed a very expensive (in my estimation) piece of jewelry this past week on eBay. The FB item took for-freaking-EVER to sell; the eBay auction ends this coming Friday, and there are no bids at this point. Though I am highly motivated to sell it, it is costly enough that I cannot part with it for less than a certain minimum, which will limit the potential market. With a couple of people watching it, though, I am hopeful that toward the end of the auction, at least one of them will bite the bullet and jump on it.

flowering shrub - behind the school

If this works, I intend to start sorting through some of my media. There is an excess of music, movies and books in this house, and a lot of it would be better elsewhere. Amazon is likely a better selling venue for most of that than either of the other sites. There are a few things in my collection that it is hard to imagine anyone wanting - but, then again, I bought it. Surely there is someone more desperate for entertainment or with more disposable cash than me! And, really, who am I to think that I understand anyone else's taste in media, anyway?

Psychology Today: Gender Roles Test (for Women)
"Snapshot Report: Courtship Roles 70
Your score on this scale indicates that you prefer a more modern, relaxed approach to dating - you generally don't think men and women should have to stick to customary dating rules for their gender. People who score in this range are less likely to feel that men should take the lead and women take a more passive role, or that should men behave in chivalrous manner, for example."
--This is one of those "take the quiz, get the 'snapshot report', and pay $4.95 for the whole deal, which will give context to that snapshot" quizzes. It is also inordinately long (it took me around 20 minutes to complete). Since it seems so accurate for me, though, I am curious to know what the rest of the results would entail. Not curious enough to pay $4.95 though (of course).

flowering shrub

It appears likely that my employer will end its current public closure procedure and work from home policies within the next month or so. The governor of this state was somewhat late to the stay-at-home game, and the ruling class in the job also took their time in making a decision with regards to how our company would handle the internal and external responses to the public health needs. It is not difficult, then, to infer a sort of reluctance within the organization to keeping anyone at home, at least for any extended period of time.

It is just really hard to imagine going back to work after all this. I know I am not the only one to feel that way, or unduly put-upon in any way whatsoever by my job. I am extremely lucky in the first place, to have one, and also to have been able to just dump what I need into a box and take it into my spare bedroom with a desk. My time from when the alarm rings to when I am clocked in is now 30 minutes. It has not been that brief since I was living four blocks from the library! About 75% of the time, I still dress in work attire (albeit 'business casual'), though the rest of the time - if I schedule a workout midday - running clothes it is. I have had only one Zoom meeting, and I connected by audio only. It has been very, very good for me in a lot of ways.

It makes sense for the closure to end, within some limits. I think that life as we used to know it is over now, and ought to be. We have taken things for granted that now we have to think about, like full-grown adults. There is scary stuff out there, and there are pretty small things that we can do to limit the degree of bad.

That being said--now that we have figured out that such a huge proportion of the workforce can work remotely, and that having lots of people in close proximity can increase public health risks, prehaps this is the ideal time to reconsider the shape of how businesses can be staffed most effectively, efficiently, and happily in the future. I doubt that it will happen in the industry where I work, which is profoundly (even dangerously) conservative. That leaves an itchy feeling on my not-so-conservative conscience.

[the title quotation is by Pablo Neruda]