The soup doesn’t taste right. Not sure what is wrong. Soup is something I make frequently. It constitutes a standard, no-brainer meal. A great way to use the accumulated debris scooped out of the fridge. And tonight there is something wrong with it, something I cannot define.

I worry over it. I let it cook some more. I prowl the cupboards looking for that certain umami fifth taste. The soup is left to stew. Perhaps more heat and time will correct the problem. Whatever that problem may be.

Then, on my umpteenth return to stir the pot, I realize I have left out a key ingredient. Incredible that I would fluke it up in this fashion. The missing ingredient is quickly thrown in the pot. The soup is tested. One expectant, uncertain tip of a hot spoonful. Soup tastes great. Soup tastes normal.

What this implies to me is that even tasks with “muscle memory,” tasks with significant number of prior iterations and associated tacit knowledge, are still liable to be performed incorrectly.

This finding is true for all similar tasks. Certainly for writing. Certainly for document pkg assembly. For trip planning. True for most everything I do. If Bush was the Great Decider, I am the Great Forgetter.

Was up at 0500 today. To work! To work! To Work!

By 1000 I was feeling fatigued. It was 4.5 hours since waking.
This is the standard timing of cognitive fatigue.

Went to nap around 1130. Slept till 1500.

Resumed work.

Am now once again tired and have the sensation of incipient headache in normal location on the left side above the ear. It is roughly 4 hours since returning to work from the nap.

Very frustrated by all of this, by my inability to push through and complete the submission. By the fact that I must work in baby steps comprised of 4 hour blocks. By the fact the work is so difficult.

I am attempting the synthesis of a great deal of factual data. So I must first collect and internalize that factual data. But I continue to find new data and must make room for it in the entire process. This effort is the same effort started in November 2012. I have been doing the same thing for three years now. Let the bastards in QC drown in their lives of pampered comfort. May they choke on their steaks. They do not give a damn.

Soup for dinner again tonight. Given my abilities, it will likely burn.