Not bad at all
I’ve said it before and I’ll say & think it again and again: My life is pretty dang good. I forever am highly appreciative of how many friends I have and how many of them are willing to help me, of the privilege I have in being able to choose my work and where I live, of the fact that I just returned from a trip to the Philippines and China and that my passport will soon need new pages, of the many opportunities that lie before me. Heck, I’m even indescribably grateful for the brain that I was given and for being born in a time when I can use it.
I am not being facetious or trying to ignore stuff. I’m very aware that I’m still battling with my finances and I’m bummed about my perpetual singleness and I do have family issues looming in the background. I also still struggle with my moods and spent last night essentially hiding out. And I’m trying not to berate myself too much for being a slacker as I look around at my room, the repository of unfinished projects.
See, I often feel like I let some things go for way too long before I deal with them which makes me crazy. I was talking recently with a friend about this, about my feelings of impatience with myself. He was not the first to say that I’m on some kind of accelerated time frame. He pointed out (again) that my “way too long” is a small fraction of the time that many other people think of as normal. Thinking about this brings two things to my mind: 1) I feel bad that others let themselves stew in unpalatable situations and I wish I could help them, and 2) I guess I deal with stuff quickly because I do not have time to wait.
“I do not have time.” This sense has been with me for as long as I can remember (meaning: since I was a teenager). On the one hand it comes from my fairly unreasonable expectation that I’m not here for long, which can be explained by having my always-healthy mom die when I was in high school (at the same age I am now, which I confess is feeling kinda weird) and having lots of other folks in my life die at very young ages, many to AIDS but some from other causes. On the other hand, I also have a strange sense of obligation which arises from my hypersensitivity to the privilege into which I was born (intellectual, cultural, and class privilege). I feel like I am under an obligation to use these gifts to do something which will improve the world around me. This is a feeling which supersedes* all others, and which is the root of why I am so resistant to doing anything which feels even remotely self-interested and why I generally interpret those actions as “selfish.” My brain is also always reminding me of the many ideas I haven’t yet completed, several of which can help fulfill this sense of obligation. Of course, none of them will be sufficient to end that feeling — completing one just gives space to move on to the next project.
So I’m writing this post to remind myself to appreciate what I’ve already done and what I already have. I’m also reminding myself that the world isn’t going to end tomorrow. And, of course, I’m writing to give myself a kick in the pants to get me moving on my current projects. After all, there are many others waiting in the wings, so even though I’m in bonus years and it looks like I’m going to be here for a good long while, it would be a shame to let them languish just because I ran out of time.
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*verbivore aside: I just now learned that “supercede” is a widely distributed spelling error for “supersede.” huh.
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I was in the shower trying to shift my thoughts but it wasn’t working. And I realized that it’s because the thought I had (about myself) is something that I find deeply embarrassing and I spend a lot of time worrying that people will figure it out. I don’t know what I think will happen - you’ll think less of me, my cover will be blown, you’ll start to doubt my abilities… I don’t know.
But then I thought: The truth is that my friends are my friends and they’re awesome. That’s been the lesson of the last 3 years, one that I apparently have a hard time learning. And this is not so bad or unusual. And anyway, the act of staying quiet about it both doesn’t help me get out of it and also contributes to my sense of isolation whenever I want to talk it out with someone but don’t know who I can call.
So my shower thought was to do exactly the opposite of my current behavior and say it out loud in a very public way. Even more: ask for help with it. (I’m not so good in the help-asking department.)
So here goes: I’m a complete frikkin financial disaster. Last year was - three of the last five years were - among the lowest-earning years I’ve had since I started working full-time 20 years ago. And I began the year in debt already. Maybe that’s not such a big deal in our debt-addled society, but I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel good. It makes me feel desperate. Thinking about it locks up all my creativity, which then makes me more depressed. I identify with being independent (admittedly sometimes to a fault) and being strapped all the time makes me feel needy. I feel like my struggle over finance gets in the way of my being able to be who I actually am.
Worse, I have all the skills necessary to make this end, and yet here I am again and again. So I am making this public because I need help keeping focus on getting out of it. I am planning on making changes in the future to be on solid financial ground and I know that my efforts will be better & stronger if I allow my friends to be there with me.
Oh, I’m done with pretending. I’m a little freaked out about posting this, but even writing it out feels better, so here goes.
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Living my internet dream
Today and tonight I spent the day alone in my studio, working on my long-procrastinated taxes. Beyond the obvious logistical aggravations, I was definitely having an emotionally hard time with this because the process of reviewing receipts always make me relive my year, including my less than stellar first few months of 2007. I then ladle on the knowledge that I’m clearly a subscriber to the chaos theory of finance (for which I pass unkind judgment upon myself) while maintaining a demonstrated capability to organize and manage large and complex projects (which is what makes me so good at my work) but no complementary ability to mange small scale relationships and I was beelining it on the path to my very dark and lonely place.
And so I sent out an electronic call to my peeps and they tweeted, IMd, and emailed in rapid response. And my mood was lightened. I was amused by it, and so I share a portrait of my wired world today:
I was using my newly downloaded update to Quicken to itemize all remaining receipts, merging them with recently imported data through my bank’s online account statement system. I received an email from Cyan about an upcoming interviewee for a Sexiest Geeks Alive, and I found many of his interviews through Google, including a stream of his speech at the TED conference (watching TED speeches is one of my new favorite hobbies). I told her that I recently became curious about profiling a guy I read about who lives in Japan (but spent this week in Cannes, according to Plazes). Turns out she knows him. She chatted with him by email, and he agreed. I got very excited about this and found it difficult to concentrate on completing my duties to the IRS. But soon outside conversations slowed down and I was left, once again, to the task at hand. As I mentioned, this tends to send me into a little spiral of self-pity and moodiness, which I do not enjoy. And so I played Madness, which alleviated the blues for a little bit, then tweeted for a little help from my friends. They came through like magic and I didn’t feel so isolated. I got up and skanked for a while, then settled back in. Meanwhile, a friend of mine from high school saw my photo on a friend’s Facebook page. My (current) friend sent me an IM to tell me about this and within a few minutes I was reconnected to my buddy of 20 years ago and we’re all going to meet up for a drink — though we had to schedule it for before I left for the Philippines where part of the time I’ll be re-meeting people I stay in touch with through Friendster.
And so I had to post it all here on my personal blog, because tonight I really am living out part of my dream of what the internet can do.
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For those of you who read my earlier post about Arnel Pineda getting picked up by Journey, I thought you should check out the video of his first concert with the band.
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Do zombies’ hearts keep beating?
This has been zombie week in my world. Last Saturday I went out to a Zombie Birthday Pary (Celebrating 34 years of being alive! That’s 34 years of being undead!). Then on Wednesday, I learn through Twitter and various podcasts that it’s Zombie Preparedness Awareness Day, a day to review your plans and supplies to ensure you’re prepared for the inevitable zombie attack. And last night we went to see a zombie movie at the Parkway. It wasn’t great, but it was a nice bookend to my week.
All this undead energy around me took over my shower thoughts this morning, centered around the question: Do zombies’ hearts keep beating? I would have to guess, “No,” based on the fact that zombies, when torn apart, do gush blood. (The fact that humans use the fact that they can detect a heartbeat to declare that someone is still alive was ruled out as additional evidence because humans, when faced with the threat of having their brains eaten, are not known for clear and methodical thinking.) On the other hand, another defining characteristic of zombies is their ashen appearance, which can be expected to result from a lack of blood in surface capillaries, blood which would normally be pumped into that area by a beating heart.
Let’s examine this second possibility a little more deeply: If the undead heart were to stop beating, then the blood would no longer be circulating, but would remain in the body until some outlet was created (e.g., the removal of a limb, a gunshot inexplicably aimed at the heart when we all know you kill zombies by shooting them in head). Zombies are not immune to gravity, so it seems to me that the blood would pool in their lower extremities. This may help to explain the dragging walk and the “lifeless” hand (actually just quite heavy now with all that extra liquid). If this is correct, then our cinematic representations of zombies really should more accurately reflect the corporal distortion which can be expected to result from this, namely very fat hands and feet — almost clown-like, really, in their ballooned out state.
Of course, I am willing to entertain the possibility that the heart simply re-starts (after death) pumping at a super slow rate, thereby continuing to bring blood to the limbs to keep them animated, but not at a rate strong enough to drive the blood into the smallest regions of the vascular system.
None of this helps me understand the phenomena or appearance of fast zombies. They’re just simply freaky and the creatures against which we must most strongly fortify ourselves.
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New Blog - co-created with Cyan
If you don’t know Cyan, then your world is not yet as bright as it will be once you’ve met her. I am honored and more than a little psyched that she has decided to start a new site & blog featuring the two of us, the Sexiest Geeks Alive. Andrew Mager joined in and helped design it to kick it off. It’s a place for us to celebrate the sexy geeks of the world, and also to blog randomly about our ideas. Come check it out. I’m very very (did I mention VERY?) excited about it.
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I wonder and will never know
Three days ago it was my mother’s birthday. Or, more precisely, it would have been.
Today when I went out for lunch I overheard a very intense (and supportive) conversation between a mother and her daughter about the daughter’s difficulties with her boyfriend. I pictured myself in that conversation with my mother and wondered if I would have had that kind of open talk with her, if I would have sought out her advice.
A few minutes later, I realized with a surprise that I’m only a handful of years away from the real possibility that I could have been the mother in that conversation had I stayed in one particular relationship and had children as my partner desired.
I walked home increasingly thoughtful, bordering on despondent, considering how I have been cut out/have cut myself out of a relationship which so many around me herald as one of the most important in their lives: between mother and daughter. I know it’s not everything, and I am not knocking the relationship I have with my Dad, but I hear that it’s different and it makes me wonder.
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small act, big reaction
This morning I needed a little jolt to get me started so I stopped by Peet’s. Ahead of me in line was a man in his late 50s/early 60s. He had stooped shoulders under his outdoorsy jacket, was slightly balding, and gave an impression of trying not to take up too much space. As we moved closer to the registers, he was peering intently at the pastries, carefully considering his options. I looked into the case and noticed that there were two pieces of banana nut bread left, my morning snack of choice there. The man stepped up and, in a notably quiet voice, ordered one slice of it and tea. I was called to the other register and placed my order (thinking “that’s the last slice!”) and coffee. Our two cashiers disappeared for a moment, kneeling behind the low case to reach into the bottom shelf. I was handed my order and while waiting for my change I heard the man’s register girl apologize to him, saying “I dropped the last piece of banana nut bread. Would you like something else?” The man looked confused and started to look again into the case. I offered my slice back to his cashier saying, “He ordered it first. Take this and I can get something else.” My cashier heard me right away, but it took a few moments for the other folks to catch the man’s attention so he would turn around. By then another Peet’s staff person had joined in and a couple of people in line had also become involved. The guy at my register said my action was “a customer of the year thing to do!” and everyone seemed really surprised.
It was such a small act on my part, but I was struck by the reaction it caused. I confess that I enjoyed breaking up the rhythm of the order/pay/order/pay that is the mark of busy coffee shop efficiency. I also liked making a few people smile. I thought how different it would be if we would all do little kindnesses like this every day. I saw it as an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.
I was joined at the milk bar by the man who asked me shyly, “What did you end up getting?” I told him, “A rasberry scone. They’re really good, too.” He smiled at me. I returned the smile and said, “Have a great rest of your day!” And I really meant it.
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Nerdcore For Life Trailer
This is a film I’m eager to see! I’m in a real nerd love moment right now!
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Breaking Points
I don’t know if, as I get older, it’s because I have more to compare things to or because I’m simply getting less tolerant, but it seems that I am bumping up against my breaking points more frequently. There are certain behaviors which I find I will not tolerate. I find that I’m able to see them earlier on and catch them before they do real damage. Not all, not all, but more with each passing year. Maybe in the past I was more able to let them roll off my back… Actually I know that the truth is really that, more often than not, I didn’t stand up for myself and what I wanted. (There are oh so many reasons for my considering my own needs subservient to others’ needs or to the desire to maintain equilibrium but I really don’t feel like going into them right now.) Things are changing as I get more confidence and am less willing to waste time. I am no longer so afraid of confrontation — particularly after I started to realize that the short term pain of tackling issues head-on will be often be far less damaging than the slow drip of resentment eating away at the core of a relationship like the ooze of an acid leak.
People think I’m direct. I know I still have a long way to go before I am actually expressing all that I need to say — but I will acknowledge that I’m doing better. I will always feel others’ feelings and hate it when I’m the source of hurt or resentment. This sometimes causes me to delay saying something that I’m sure another doesn’t want to hear — but I’m learning that in the end I will say what needs to be said. I’m not willing to be less empathic at the same time I’m not willing to just pretend that everything’s ok. I don’t want to learn to be hard and at the same time I don’t want to be a pushover any more. If I can figure this out, I do know that it’s the right way to go. But I still have so much to learn…
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