Static
Static is the crackle between two people when the words are fine but the tone, pace or timing doesn’t match.
For example: You ask “When will you do it?” calmly. They hear pressure. Nobody meant harm, but it crackles.
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Glossary: the words, in plain English
The words this site uses, each in one plain sentence with an example. Below them, the older names some tools and chapters used to have, in case you meet one.
Words used on this site
One plain sentence for each, with an example. Tap Wade in for a step-by-step explanation, or Listen to hear it.
Spelling doesn’t need to be perfect.
Frequency
Your frequency is your natural pace: how fast you decide, talk, reply and recover.
For example: One person answers a text in a minute; the other answers at the end of the day. Neither is wrong.
Retune
To retune is to notice you’ve fallen out of step with someone and adjust together: slower, softer, or at a better time.
For example: “Can we start that again? I came in too fast.”
Drift
Drift is how two people slowly fall out of step when nobody checks in, even when nothing is wrong.
For example: Three busy weeks, no real talk, and small things start to feel big.
Complacency
Complacency is what happens when something has worked for a long time and you stop checking on it. It isn’t laziness or a lack of love. It’s a setup nobody has looked at lately.
For example: “How was your day?” “Fine.” Months go by and nobody has asked a real question.
Touchstone
A touchstone is a small, shared piece of language or meaning that says “we’re us,” like an inside joke, a pet name, a hello, a song or a story you retell.
For example: “Weather check?” as a light way to ask how someone really is.
Love languages
Love languages are five ways people often give and feel care: words, acts of service, gifts, quality time and touch. Treat them as a menu to talk from, not as a type you are.
For example: “What made you feel most cared for this week?” works better than “what is your love language?”
Carrier wave
The carrier wave is the feeling that travels underneath the words: the tone that arrives before the meaning does.
For example: “Fine.” can carry calm, hurt or tiredness. The carrier wave tells you which.
Wiring
Your wiring is the way your brain and senses take in words, sound, change and people. It stays the same from day to day.
For example: Some people need a plan in writing. Others think best out loud.
Wired differently
Being wired differently means your brain works in a less common way, such as being autistic, ADHD, dyslexic or highly sensitive, which changes how words land.
For example: A hint like “the bins are full” may be heard as a plain fact, not a request.
Wiring Card
A Wiring Card is a one-page card you make that tells others how you receive words best, what silence means for you, and what to avoid.
For example: “Please send big news in writing first. If I go quiet, I’m thinking, not upset.”
My weather today
My weather today is a one-minute check on your own conditions today, like sleep, stress and energy: Clear means calm and connected, Gusty means revved up, and Fogged in means running on empty.
For example: Short night, busy day: the forecast says to keep big talks for tomorrow.
Talk window
The talk window says whether now is a good time for a big conversation: open, wait a little, or closed for today.
For example: Your window says “wait,” so you ask to talk after dinner instead of right now.
Pressure
Pressure is the word in My weather today that shows how much is pressing on you today: light, building or heavy. It is a reading of what you told it, not a score or a grade.
For example: A pressure of 40 leaves room in the day; 75 means go gently and leave big things for later.
Your 7-day log
Your 7-day log keeps your weather check-ins on this device, if you choose, so you can see which days tend to be heavy.
For example: After a week you notice Mondays are always gusty, and plan around it.
Battery
Your battery is how much energy you have left today. Full means you have room to spare; low means you’re running on empty. “How much are you carrying?” measures the other side of it, your load: a higher load score means a heavier load, and a lower battery.
For example: After a poor night and a long workday, your load score is high and your battery is low, so a small request feels big.
The load
The load is all the work of a shared life, including the thinking, planning and remembering that nobody sees.
For example: Buying the gift is one job. Remembering the birthday, picking the gift and wrapping it are three more.
Unbilled debt
Unbilled debt is the work of a shared life that got done but was never noticed or thanked.
For example: You remembered the dentist appointment, and nobody knew there was anything to remember.
Owner (one owner per job)
The owner of a job is the one person who makes sure it gets done from start to finish, so nobody has to keep asking.
For example: Sam owns the recycling: noticing it’s full, taking it out and buying the bags.
Person A and Person B
Person A and Person B are simply the two people on a two-person worksheet or tool. They are labels, not a ranking.
For example: In the Chat analyzer, Person A sends the message and Person B receives it.
Check-in
A check-in is a short, planned talk that keeps small things small. The daily one takes about ninety seconds, with no debating.
For example: “Load today: heavy. Thank you for the dishes. One small thing: the car. My ask: could you fill it up?”
Calm-Down Kit
The Calm-Down Kit is your own short list of what settles your body, chosen ahead of time so you don’t have to think when you’re wound up.
For example: A glass of cold water, a walk to the corner, and three long breaths out.
Flooded
Flooded means being so wound up that listening stops working for a while. The kind thing is a short pause with a time to come back.
For example: “I need twenty minutes. Can we talk again at eight?”
A bid
A bid is any small reach for attention or connection, like “look at this,” a sigh or a joke.
For example: They show you a photo of a dog. Looking and smiling back is turning toward it.
Turning toward
Turning toward means answering someone’s small bids for attention, even briefly, instead of missing or brushing them off.
For example: “Oh, that’s a funny one!” instead of scrolling on.
Repair
A repair is anything that stops a tense moment from getting worse, like a joke, a softer tone or “Can we start over?”
For example: “I said that badly. What I meant was…”
A kind no
A kind no says what you can and can’t do right now, without blaming anyone.
For example: “I can’t take that on this week. I could help on Saturday.”
The Five Pillars
The Five Pillars are the five ideas under everything here: see the whole load, fix the setup, read your state first, tune how you send and receive, and notice the quiet incentives.
For example: A chip near the top of each page shows which pillars that page uses.
Workpaper
A workpaper is a short worksheet. Each person fills in their own, then you read them together.
For example: “Who did what” is a week’s log of who did what.
The Lemonade Stand
The Lemonade Stand is a tool where you list who did what to keep the household running this week, and see the split as a plain fact.
For example: You list the jobs and hours, and see one person is doing about two thirds.
Is the setup working for everyone?
“Is the setup working for everyone?” is a calculator that looks at the way you share the work, never at a person: 0.70 and up is working well, 0.40 to 0.69 needs a look, and under 0.40 needs a rethink, together.
For example: Balanced hours but unclear owners still come out as “needs a look.”
The Chat analyzer (also called the Signal Translator)
The Chat analyzer lets you test a sentence before you send it, to see how it might land for someone wired differently from you. It also reads a message you got, and a whole conversation or a screenshot of one.
For example: “You never listen” comes back with a calmer way to say what you need.
Reading a whole conversation (once called the Conversation Reader)
In the Chat analyzer, “A whole conversation or screenshot” looks at a text thread you paste in, or a screenshot of one, and shows where it turned, what each of you may be hearing, and a calmer way to answer.
For example: It spots the moment “ok” started meaning “I’m hurt.”
Masking
Masking is hiding the way you’re wired to fit in, which can be very tiring over time.
For example: Forcing eye contact and rehearsing small talk all day, then needing the evening to recover.
Your lens
Your lens is the set of understandings about yourself, other people and what they owe you that you picked up growing up and still use without noticing.
For example: “Rest is earned” can feel like plain fact, until you notice it was your family’s rule.
Developmental stages
Developmental stages are the phases of growing up, each busy with its own big question, like “Am I capable?” in the school years or “Where do I belong?” in the teen years.
For example: A move at 14, right when belonging matters most, can leave a deeper mark than the same move at 4.
The rulebook from home
The rulebook from home is the unwritten set of rules you grew up with, about love, upset, chores and rest, that you may still expect others to follow.
For example: “Whoever notices the mess cleans it” was the rule at home, so a messy kitchen feels like “It’s always me.”
Petals
Petals are little markers you collect when you find a “Check yourself” moment on a reading page. They don’t count for anything, and you can hide them in Settings.
For example: Answer a quick question on a chapter page, and a petal appears on your quest map.
Levels
Levels count the rounds you finish in the calm games. Every few levels something new appears in the background garden. There’s no way to lose, and no streaks.
For example: Finish a crossword, and a little later koi appear in the pond behind every page.
Mini dive
A word with a little water drop opens a short explanation right on the page, from simple to deeper, one step at a time.
For example: Tap “static” with its drop, then “Wade in a little” for more.
Simple and Full versions
Many pages come in two versions: Simple gives the main idea in a few short cards, and Full adds examples, reasons and numbers.
For example: Start with Simple. A “Dig deeper” link jumps to the matching part of Full.
Pal cam
The pal cam is a cartoon window where you can watch Tidbit and Sugarfoot, the site’s two pups. It is animation, not a real camera.
For example: Open it from the home page to see what the pups are up to.
Quiet mode
Quiet mode makes the page still and silent, with no helpers, pop-ups, levels or petals. It’s the Quiet button at the top of every page.
For example: Turn it on before reading in a busy place, and turn it off any time.
Easy reading
Easy reading uses a clear font, more space between letters and lines, shorter lines and a soft tint. It’s in Settings at the top of every page, next to text size.
For example: Many readers find lines easier to track with more space between them.
Plain names, and older names you may still see
Everything in the program has one plain, everyday name, and that’s the name used across the site. Some parts had longer technical names in earlier versions, and you may still meet them in a printout, a podcast episode or an old link. They mean the same thing.
The book
| Plain name | Older or other name | Where |
|---|---|---|
| The work nobody sees | Unbilled Debt | The Preface |
| Why we get out of tune | The Radio Frequency Paradigm | Chapter I |
| Is the split working? | The Epistemic Verdict Engine & P(Solvency) | Chapter II |
| Full tanks and different angles | Autonomic Saturation & the 7 Ocular Vectors | Chapter III |
| Two kinds of fair | Deontological Parity & Sensory Gating | Chapter IV |
| The monthly look-back | The Deficit Audit | Chapter V |
Worksheets, tools and the program
| Plain name | Older or other name | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Who did what, and kind ways to say no | Field Audit & Neutral Refusals; Fair Chore Chart | WP-01 |
| How much are you carrying? | The Battery & Stress Meter | WP-02 |
| One owner per job | RACI Treaty; One Owner per Chore | WP-03 |
| What keeps coming back? | Deficit Audit; Mental Load Audit | WP-04 |
| Say it so it lands | Tone Filter | WP-09 |
| The 90-second daily check-in | Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) | WP-13 |
| Same moment, different speeds | Carrier Frequency Audit | WP-12 |
| Is it us, or is it everything else? | Static Dampening Log | WP-14 |
| Keep your little rituals alive | Harmonic Resonance & Entrainment | WP-15 |
| Is the setup working for everyone? | The Solvency Read; P(Solvency); “Is the Chore Split Fair?” | CALC-01 |
| Six gentle weeks | The 6-Week Guided Implementation Roadmap | PROG-01 |
| Your progress, week by week | The Full Read | REPORT-01 |
| Look back over 30 days | The 30-Day Look-Back | CALC-02 |
| Compare your daily rhythms | Frequency Calibration | Tools |
| Soften a tense moment | Mood Arbitrage | Tools |
| Falling out of step, and back in | The Frequency Framework | Start here |
| How an unowned job turns into resentment | The unbilled-work cycle (once called the Asymmetric Extraction Cycle) | The whole idea on one page |
| Three kind ways to say no | The Neutral Refusals | WP-01 and the one-page summary |
| Chat analyzer | The Signal Translator, and the Conversation Reader (now its “A whole conversation or screenshot” part) | Tools |
| Who does what: chore split check | The Lemonade Stand | Tools |
| Communication style quiz | Wavelength; the Wave Code | Tools |
| How I like to be spoken to | The Wiring Card | Tools |
| See it from their side | The Perspective Shifter | The Their side step of After a talk went wrong |
| After a talk went wrong: a step-by-step reset | The Carrier Wave Decoder | Tools |
| How am I right now? A mood and energy check | My weather today (the full forecast) and the Nervous System Ladder (the quick 4 taps) | Tools |
| Calm-down plan | The Calm-Down Kit | Tools |
| Calm sounds and music | Brain Breakers; the Sound Toolkit (calm-down sounds) | Tools |
| Your worksheets, in order, with a report | The Workpaper Suite; the Full path package; the package and report | Tools |
| Crosswords | Quiet Crossword (gentle levels); the Daily Ledger Crossword (newspaper daily) | Games |
| Games: every calm game in one place | Pause & Play | Games |
| Start here: three quick questions | Find your starting point | Start here |
The Five Pillars
The five ideas under everything here each borrow from a field that describes how things work without blaming anyone.
| Pillar | Borrowed from | Short name |
|---|---|---|
| I. See the whole load | Ledger accounting | See the load |
| II. Fix the setup, not the person | Systems thinking | Fix the setup |
| III. Read your state first | The science of stress and calm | Read your state |
| IV. Tune how you send and receive | Signal theory | Tune the signal |
| V. Notice the quiet incentives | Behavioral economics | Quiet incentives |
Try this: Meet a word you don’t know on a page? Tap it if it has a little water drop, or ask Professor Puddles.