
1. Movie night with the family. There wasn't any way I could meet any deadline tonight, or indeed even finish any project with or without a deadline, so I didn't try. I plated dinner and the family and I sat down to watch a movie, "The Goonies", as it happens. I hate the movie, but I love sitting with my boy, and then it doesn't matter what the movie is.
2. Prozac. Odd thing for a list like this, perhaps, but it's made a difference. I've been having heart attack symptoms for a year now, though there is nothing wrong with my heart: it's all stress, and it's all manifesting as chest pain*. Imagine getting punched in the sternum with a red-hot baseball bat. The small end. Yeah, it's like that. Anyway, my doctor prescribed prozac and while it's not a cure it has certainly taken the edge off.
3. Sleeping with the window open. Cooler temps make for good sleeping weather.
* So, on the subject of chest pain: first symptoms were last July. ER twice, found nothing, no evidence of any cardiac event at all. Chemical stress test + CT scan: nothing remarkable except for the condition of my arteries, exceptionally good for a white male in his mid-40s. No calcification, heart muscle strong, etc. Not cardiac but skeleto-muscular, related to stress.