In the end, a good day

[xela]

As I discussed a few days ago, recent events have mostly constrained me to working on the sorts of projects wherein progress can be made piecemeal, in fits and starts. One problem with this is that I don't get much chance to feel like I've accomplished something. And that sense of accomplishment — of having started something, seen it through, and finished — is something it's essential that I get every once in a while, or my sense of well being falls to shit. To hyperextend a metaphor, accomplishment is my emotional vitiman C — and without it, I come down with emotional scurvy.

I spent most of the day working on the most important and time-critical of these projects, the chronology of recent events I started writing for my primary care doctor more than a month ago. About 16:00 I finished a long but important discursive footnote, and got a little shot of accomplishment juice from that. But not e-fucking-nough.

I needed something with an end-condition. And that had not a damned thing to do with writing, or coding, or using a fucking computer at all.

And that's when I realized I had the perfect project right in front of me. Ever since I got here last Thursday, I've been annoyed by how useless the furniture arrangement was. Not that optimal room design is something hospitals or SNFs are generally known for. But at least in most singles, there's room enough to use a wheelchair and a rolling table on both sides of the bed.

Not here.

I'll spare you reading — and me writing! — the long discourse on the room's crappy initisl layout. Suffice it to say that an hour spent figuring out how to move furniture from a wheelchair (who knew a pair of legrests could double as a miniature bulldozer blade?) was an hour well spent. I now have a space where I can keep my laptop on one adjustable-height table, food and drink on another. Also close to hand is the long, deep shelf of the windowsill, which could double as a bench for any visitor so inclined; an armoire, and a small but sturdy chest of drawers. All in a space in which I can turn my wheelchair 360° without bumping into anything — and whece I can take my wheelchair all the way across the room to the entry door, also without anything.

I am, in short, feeling pleasently accomplished right now, as an interior decorator for the wheelchair-bound.

Comments

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

You'd think they'd have this sort of thing sorted!

Cooped up as you are, perhaps some free book downloads? I've just discovered that the Metropolitan Museum of Art has hods of free books. Art books here.
I've just downloaded a stack of historical fashion books - mega-chuffed!

[topum.livejournal.com]

Haha, emotional scurvy. I know exactly what you mean. I used to compare the sense of accomplishment to my Vitamin D / sunshine and the state the deficiency gets me into to emotional rickets.