This post is actually a post I've had saved as a document on my hard drive for well over a year now titled "Meagan's Rant II" (the post explains what happened to my first rant, so keep going). It's mostly about Facebook (a.k.a. CaraLibro or Feisbuk), and is slightly antiquated as good ol' FB has done away with being a "fan" of anything and is now on a strictly like-based system. However, I feel most of my points are no less valid than they were however long ago it was I originally wrote this.
With enough poular demand, I might even let my first rant see the light of day... but without further ado:
Meagan’s Rant TWO
It’s been a while since I had a rant. The last one was triggered by having to wake up and go to work, and a half-awake daydream I had about me running the world. Nobody really read that one because I never posted it. I might go back and post it at some point because it’s horribly out of date now. But now I have a completely new subject to rant about – Facebook.
Some friends of mine convinced me to sign up for Facebook about a year and a half ago. On the plus side, it is a good way to keep up with friends who live far away. On the minus side, your friends who live ten minutes away sometimes post the minutiae of their daily lives, such as “I’m going to go take a shower now!”, “Breakfast time!”… you get the idea.
It has come to my attention that some types of people on Facebook really need to be removed. Here they are in no particular order. Enjoy.
TYPE 1 – The Drama/Attention Whore
These people are pretty darn easy to spot. They’re the ones who change their status from “in a relationship” to “single”, then make five or six other posts over the course of the next hour hinting about that change but never actually just SAYING, “Frank and I broke up, and I’m upset about it.” It’s like they want you to notice and ask them about it, but if nobody notices their world will fall apart so they have to make SURE someone notices.
Another variation on this type is the person who posts something like, “OMG I AM SO UGLY!!!” or “I hate myself and I want to die…” just so all their friends will comfort them with a flood of reassuring comments. These people need to die. Or at least get off Facebook and get a therapist.
TYPE 2 – The Vaguebooker
The Vaguebooker is a close cousin to the Drama/Attention Whore, and in fact some Vaguebookers ARE Drama/Attention Whores in disguise. The M.O. of the Vaguebooker is to post a status update just open-ended and vague enough to get people to ask a bunch of questions about what was meant. Such as “…is starting to get really excited about something special” or “How can it itch that much?” or even just “Ugh”.
TYPE 3 – The Multi-Profiler
Multi-Profilers are usually women. I say this, because one of the primary habits of the Multi-Profiler is to make profiles on Facebook for their children who are too young to read “so Suzie can play the games.” The real reason, however, is more like, “so Suzie’s mom can have control of several profiles, with which to get more points on Farmville/Mafia Wars/Petville/whatever the game du jour is.”
Multi-Profilers need to be banned from Facebook, and they need jobs and lives. And probably a therapist.
TYPE 4 – The Ego-Centrist
The Ego-Centrist is that annoying person on your friends list who responds to your every posting as though it were intended for them alone. The Ego-Centrist is not conscious of the fact that you have 85 OTHER friends on your Facebook. The Ego-Centrist does not believe in their existence. If you post something about how “some people really get on your nerves sometimes”, the Ego-Centrist will assume that you mean that they are getting on your nerves, they will get offended, and they will ask why you didn’t just SAY something to them.
A short time later you will remove the Ego-Centrist from your friends list.
TYPE 5 – The Moron
I really couldn’t think of a better name for this type. They are the much dumber cousin of the Ego-Centrist. They make the same mistake of taking your updates much too literally, but not as personally. For example, someone I know who has been married for upwards of 15 years just finally got around to changing her status to “married” on her Facebook profile the other day. A shocking number of Morons cropped up on her friends list and in her comments, congratulating her, asking her if they were going on honeymoon, and expressing their shock that she and her spouse had not been married all this time. Morons…
Admittedly some people, myself included, like to comment on these updates jokingly. I did in fact comment congratulating her on her “recent” marriage, but with wording and emoticons that made it clear I was joking. Many of her comment-leavers were clearly not joking. These people need to be wiped off the face of Facebook.
TYPE 6 – The Social Activist/Rabid Fan
I was originally going to separate these two, but I’ve decided to lump them together under this heading because it’s a variation on the same problem. Facebook allows you to become a “fan” of just about anything someone makes a page for… from TV shows, to books, to cities, to “making squares on the desktop by clicking and dragging the mouse pointer.” (Seriously, you can become a fan of that.)
The Rabid Fan is a fan of every trivial thing you can think of and many things that never would have occurred to you. He/she is a fan of “Why can’t my shampoo and conditioner run out at the same time?!”, “The uncontrollable laughter you get when you’re overly tired”, “Changing a word because you can’t spell the word you wanted to use,” and even, ironically, “Become a fan if becoming a fan is addictive.”
The Social Activist is a cousin of the Rabid Fan. The Social Activist seems to believe that if a large number of people become Facebook fans of the same cause/idea, it can change the world. These people think, for example, that if they can find 1,000,000 fans for “Repeal Obamacare!” on Facebook, it might actually get repealed. In actual fact, if they can find 1,000,000 fans for “Repeal Obamacare!” on Facebook, they will have found 1,000,000 people who are spending way too much time on their computer to actually effect any change in the world at all. You think Obama/Congress cares if you can get 1,000,000 people to fan “Repeal Obamacare!”? No they do not. Especially since 1,000,000 is kind of a drop in the bucket when you consider that an estimated 308,971,000 people live in the United States of America. Sure, become a fan of your social activism cause of choice, but then get off your computer and go DO something about it. Sheesh.
TYPE 7 – The Witty Wannabe
This is a fairly recent development on Facebook, but people have now discovered that when you can’t think of something witty and/or profound to put in your Facebook status, you can now get a random status generator to do it for you! This kinda makes me throw up in my mouth a little. The fact that you’re spending that much time worrying about having a witty/profound status update indicates that you’re spending WAY too much time on Facebook, which is probably why you haven’t got anything witty/profound to say… you haven’t DONE anything recently except be on Facebook, and updating your status with “…is on Facebook” would just be admitting to the world how lame you have become. Please go get a life. But don’t come back and post status updates about it, ‘kay?
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
March 29, 2013
December 14, 2012
A perk of not teaching anymore...
... is that this is the first time I've been seriously sick since I quit teaching on April 6th. Odd, no?
For any of you who missed it, which is probably 4 of the approximately 5 people likely to read this, I had a go at going to work on Wednesday, gave up, and came home early about 2 o'clock because I was primarily staring at the stuff I needed to do and trying not to go to sleep. Didn't seem like a productive use of time to me. Yesterday (Thursday) I just didn't even try it at all. Stayed home. Played Cake Mania and The Sims 3 all day and did nothing at all productive until about 6:30, when I finally decided to fix dinner. And then I had to go let in a guy who locked himself out who lives on the 3rd floor, and that about wore me out and I did nothing else at all productive yesterday.
I'm planning on heading in to work today, but I still don't feel well. What I've got, for the curious, is a nasty head cold that I'm hoping will do me the favor of NOT turning into a sinus infection, since I don't have health insurance anymore. But it is still somewhat amusing to me that I went from April to December without getting a cold. Could not have done that while teaching, I promise you!
What is blog-worthy about this, you ask? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. I'm just trying to get back into the habit of writing since I've been doing it very infrequently in between April when we moved and August, and almost not at between August and now. I think it's good for me... it makes me introspect a little, and I don't like to do that. :-)
Song o' the Day: "End of Time" by Lacuna Coil. Perhaps it's fitting that they chose to release a video for this song just days before the "impending apocalypse". The video itself is pretty boring by LC standards, actually, and a lot of people are annoyed that it only has Cristina and Andrea in it. People get annoyed about strange things. The song, on the other hand, is really good (despite having Andrea in it!).
For any of you who missed it, which is probably 4 of the approximately 5 people likely to read this, I had a go at going to work on Wednesday, gave up, and came home early about 2 o'clock because I was primarily staring at the stuff I needed to do and trying not to go to sleep. Didn't seem like a productive use of time to me. Yesterday (Thursday) I just didn't even try it at all. Stayed home. Played Cake Mania and The Sims 3 all day and did nothing at all productive until about 6:30, when I finally decided to fix dinner. And then I had to go let in a guy who locked himself out who lives on the 3rd floor, and that about wore me out and I did nothing else at all productive yesterday.
I'm planning on heading in to work today, but I still don't feel well. What I've got, for the curious, is a nasty head cold that I'm hoping will do me the favor of NOT turning into a sinus infection, since I don't have health insurance anymore. But it is still somewhat amusing to me that I went from April to December without getting a cold. Could not have done that while teaching, I promise you!
What is blog-worthy about this, you ask? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. I'm just trying to get back into the habit of writing since I've been doing it very infrequently in between April when we moved and August, and almost not at between August and now. I think it's good for me... it makes me introspect a little, and I don't like to do that. :-)
Song o' the Day: "End of Time" by Lacuna Coil. Perhaps it's fitting that they chose to release a video for this song just days before the "impending apocalypse". The video itself is pretty boring by LC standards, actually, and a lot of people are annoyed that it only has Cristina and Andrea in it. People get annoyed about strange things. The song, on the other hand, is really good (despite having Andrea in it!).
November 27, 2012
The changes FOUR years can bring....
For the literally ones of people who read this tripe I type up on a regular basis (or to put it in Fry and Laurie terms, "the viewing several"), I decided not to disappoint this year. Since 2009 I have been doing an annual review of what has changed in my life since the previous year. Some of the changes this year are interesting, and some of them some of you might not actually know about yet, so this should be fun and informative. In keeping with past years, I've decided to copy/paste the previous year's entry so you can go back with me all the way to 2008. (The original post in 2009 compared 2009 with 2008.)
Here we go... TIME TRAVEL!!!
2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!
2011: We still live in the same apartment. I have an eye toward moving before the end of the year, though, because I'm close to being able to afford to at this rate.
2012: We have moved twice in 2012. The first time was to Gresham (in April) for a new job, the second time was to Milwaukie (in October) for the same company.
2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!
2011: I now work FULL TIME for the first time since 2001. I adore the people I work with, but I like teaching less and less. Looking to move on (and when I do that apartment change thing will probably shortly follow).
2012: I am now a full time, salaried property manager. Which sort of explains how I have moved twice this year, no? And look up there and see how psychic I was in 2011! I knew something was coming, just didn't know what... lol. Anyway, not only do I get free rent on a 1,200 square foot apartment, but also I am salaried for more money than I've ever made before in my life. I've had years where my total yearly income was barely $8,000. This is not one of those years.
2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.
2011: Again, no change! What can I say? I like Wal-Mart.
2012: Haven't done any shopping yet. Could I shop somewhere else? Yes, probably. Will I shop somewhere else? Eh... maybe. But it's hard to beat Wal-Mart!
2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.
2011: I don't even get food stamps anymore. (Well, $16 a month, but that hardly counts, now does it?)
2012: Virtually no change from 2011 here. I do technically still qualify for the minimum amount of food stamps, but I often forget to use them. The only reason I'm still signed up is because I do it at the same time as the Chamaco's medical insurance (which I'm keeping, since I don't have health insurance myself to add him to).
2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time
2011: My kid turned 10 this year. I can still pick him up, but I can't carry him much of anywhere. I realize that the only reason I can pick him up is because I routinely lift up to sixty pounds of child at work. He clocks in at about 74, last I knew.
2012: The boy will be 11 next week. And I can still pick him up, but only barely.
2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.
2011: My kid can stay home by himself for increasingly long periods of time (I haven't yet pushed it past an hour and a half). He has a cell phone. As long as there is a microwave and a stocked freezer, he can feed himself indefinitely. This works out well for me going to Zumba classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
2012: All this moving and new job stuff has created the necessity for the Chamaco to stay home alone for up to eight hours a day if he's not in school. Somehow, against all odds, I have raised the sort of responsible, independent kid that can handle this just fine so long as he has a microwave and internet access.
2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)
2011: Loads of new people in my life this year. Some of them are even male... lol.
2012: With the new job comes a new social circle. I must say I like working with a mixed group of men and women again... lol. The estrogen levels in my life were approaching critical.
2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)
2011: Still single! But I did actually go on ONE date in 2011. Which is one more than in the previous eight years combined, so I guess that's progress... ha ha ha!
2012: I am... not single*. Haven't been since September-ish. (Don't ask me exactly when, because I don't know!) Here's the funny part: Internally, I have always said two things... that I wanted to date someone I didn't date in high school (because all previous boyfriends and my ex-husband I dated in high school), and that I wanted to date someone who was my best friend (obviously, this required finding a male best friend). To which, I presume, God said, "Okay then... how about your best friend from elementary school? That's not high school!" You will never convince me that God doesn't have a sense of humor (as well as a keen sense of irony), but I am still very grateful to have Andrew back in my life after 19 years of absence.
(*Edit: Seemingly some have taken this statement to mean I am now married. I assure you that is not the case. I'm just in a reasonably serious relationship, is all.)
Well, that wraps it up for this year, kids!
Here we go... TIME TRAVEL!!!
2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!
2011: We still live in the same apartment. I have an eye toward moving before the end of the year, though, because I'm close to being able to afford to at this rate.
2012: We have moved twice in 2012. The first time was to Gresham (in April) for a new job, the second time was to Milwaukie (in October) for the same company.
2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!
2011: I now work FULL TIME for the first time since 2001. I adore the people I work with, but I like teaching less and less. Looking to move on (and when I do that apartment change thing will probably shortly follow).
2012: I am now a full time, salaried property manager. Which sort of explains how I have moved twice this year, no? And look up there and see how psychic I was in 2011! I knew something was coming, just didn't know what... lol. Anyway, not only do I get free rent on a 1,200 square foot apartment, but also I am salaried for more money than I've ever made before in my life. I've had years where my total yearly income was barely $8,000. This is not one of those years.
2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.
2011: Again, no change! What can I say? I like Wal-Mart.
2012: Haven't done any shopping yet. Could I shop somewhere else? Yes, probably. Will I shop somewhere else? Eh... maybe. But it's hard to beat Wal-Mart!
2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.
2011: I don't even get food stamps anymore. (Well, $16 a month, but that hardly counts, now does it?)
2012: Virtually no change from 2011 here. I do technically still qualify for the minimum amount of food stamps, but I often forget to use them. The only reason I'm still signed up is because I do it at the same time as the Chamaco's medical insurance (which I'm keeping, since I don't have health insurance myself to add him to).
2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time
2011: My kid turned 10 this year. I can still pick him up, but I can't carry him much of anywhere. I realize that the only reason I can pick him up is because I routinely lift up to sixty pounds of child at work. He clocks in at about 74, last I knew.
2012: The boy will be 11 next week. And I can still pick him up, but only barely.
2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.
2011: My kid can stay home by himself for increasingly long periods of time (I haven't yet pushed it past an hour and a half). He has a cell phone. As long as there is a microwave and a stocked freezer, he can feed himself indefinitely. This works out well for me going to Zumba classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
2012: All this moving and new job stuff has created the necessity for the Chamaco to stay home alone for up to eight hours a day if he's not in school. Somehow, against all odds, I have raised the sort of responsible, independent kid that can handle this just fine so long as he has a microwave and internet access.
2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)
2011: Loads of new people in my life this year. Some of them are even male... lol.
2012: With the new job comes a new social circle. I must say I like working with a mixed group of men and women again... lol. The estrogen levels in my life were approaching critical.
2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)
2011: Still single! But I did actually go on ONE date in 2011. Which is one more than in the previous eight years combined, so I guess that's progress... ha ha ha!
2012: I am... not single*. Haven't been since September-ish. (Don't ask me exactly when, because I don't know!) Here's the funny part: Internally, I have always said two things... that I wanted to date someone I didn't date in high school (because all previous boyfriends and my ex-husband I dated in high school), and that I wanted to date someone who was my best friend (obviously, this required finding a male best friend). To which, I presume, God said, "Okay then... how about your best friend from elementary school? That's not high school!" You will never convince me that God doesn't have a sense of humor (as well as a keen sense of irony), but I am still very grateful to have Andrew back in my life after 19 years of absence.
(*Edit: Seemingly some have taken this statement to mean I am now married. I assure you that is not the case. I'm just in a reasonably serious relationship, is all.)
Well, that wraps it up for this year, kids!
November 9, 2012
We Have Moved.... Again
I see that I haven't posted anything since July, which is going to make playing catch-up rather difficult. I'm not sure I even know where to start, aside from maybe starting where I left off in July. I don't exactly remember where I left off, but judging by the date I will say it was probably something about how cool it was to have my best friend from 5th grade back and stuff like that. That's still cool, don't get me wrong.
We, in fact, hung out pretty much from Friday afternoon through Saturday night (and sometimes on Sunday afternoons too) every weekend straight through July and August. And pretty soon the Chamaco became involved, joining us at the river on Sunday afternoons. (He simply isn't around Friday night through Saturday night because he goes to my mom's and/or his dad's.)
Interesting side note: People really don't change a lot between ages 10 and 30. I mentioned before that I remember Andrew (who will need a cool blog alias) as the kid who could draw every US state from memory. Well, we were sitting on the bank of the river one Sunday afternoon watching the Chamaco jump around in the water, and suddenly Andrew elbowed me and pointed at the sand and asked, "What's that?" Naturally he has drawn the outline of a state in the sand. I forget which one he started with. But he did a few states, and when it became clear that wasn't going to stump me he moved on to European countries. My point here is that we were nerds in 5th grade and we pretty much still are. And clearly whatever odd chemistry made us work as friends when we were 10 is still effective 20 years later, even though now we are old and have money and cars and don't have to whine at our parents to take us places anymore.
Anyway, sometime in mid-August he was griping about being a broke college student and having to pay whatever he was paying to live in a bedroom of somebody's big fancy house, and I was like, "It's too bad I don't have 3 bedrooms... I get free rent! I wouldn't charge you to live here." He insisted he would want to pay something to help with utilities and stuff, and it sort of didn't come up again until about a week later when he realized that he was going to have slightly less income for the month of September and almost no income for the month of October. See, he gets paid a certain amount per day for days he actually attends college... this is how his Air Force thing works. And the school term ended in late August and wouldn't start up again until September 24th or something like that. So he was losing a week for August (paid in September), and then losing almost all of September (paid in October). He worked it out and realized he was only going to have about $600 for the whole month of October. Rent for him was almost all of that, and he still would need to buy gas to get to school, food, etc. And suddenly we were revisiting the idea of him moving in, which he was only willing to do if it was okay with the Chamaco. And he jokingly said to me, "Tell your boss she needs to build a 3 bedroom apartment at Highland!"
I believe it was the next day I was talking to my boss on the phone about moving him in with me and what would be necessary, and I said, "Oh, and he says to tell you to build a 3 bedroom apartment at Highland." And we had a good laugh.
A few days later, she called me back and asked, "Did you really want a three bedroom apartment?" I was like, "Well yeah, it would be nice, but there aren't any here."
"So how would you like to move to Springcreek?"
It was then explained to me that the property I was currently living/working on was up for sale. There were no offers on it yet, of course, but at some point it would be sold and then whatever manager was on that property at the time would need to be relocated. And since at that point I was the only manager living on-site, they sort of wanted to move me to a property they were keeping. They also sort of wanted the manager who was currently at Springcreek to take her sales talent over to a property that was struggling a bit more. So, the day before Andrew was set to move in with me anyway (and he hadn't much liked the idea of moving to Gresham, mind you), I called him and said, "So... how would you like to move to Milwaukie?"
The initial reaction, of course, was "why?" followed by a rant about my job's seeming instability and doubt about whether he should move at all. I told him I had asked for a day to think it over. That night I went out to dinner with Sammich, determined to forget about this impending decision for a few hours. And then the text messages from Andrew started coming in. "Springcreek is within walking distance of _______." "Milwaukie Elementary was rated 7 out of 10 stars." (Yes, he was even checking out the schools for the Chamaco." And by the time I got home from dinner that night it was beginning to sound like Andrew was not at all opposed. The Chamaco wasn't really opposed either... he didn't like the school in Gresham anyhow (which according to Andrew had only gotten 3 of 10 stars on that same site), and liked the idea of moving back to a smaller town perhaps more similar to the one we'd left when we came to Gresham.
So Andrew moved in with me anyway on August 30th, and I temporarily cleaned out half my closet to give him a place to put his clothes and essentials, and he put other stuff in a storage unit across the street (a steal at around $100/month compared to what he'd been paying before for rent). The idea was that we'd somehow coexist in a small space for a month or so, then we'd move to Milwaukie and he could have his own room. Both of us were looking forward to this. Him because the closet was really crowded, and me primarily because he snores.
Somewhere in September my emotionally retarded brain finally caught onto the idea that the vibe between us had turned fuzzy, and somewhere toward the end of September we became official enough that he told his friends. Not something I was expecting, really, but I wasn't opposed either. We moved to Milwaukie on October 13th (pictures of new place to follow, naturally), and now he has a room for his stuff.
So yes, I live with my boyfriend. I feel I must point out that those were not the terms when he moved in, and given the current financial situation (and also the fact that I like having him around) I'm disinclined to give him the boot now. It's now been about 2 1/2 months since he moved in and we still don't hate each other. I find this fact amusing, because my ex-husband didn't move in with me until after we got married, and it only took me about 2 weeks after that to start reconsidering the idea. Now that Andrew is working and going to school and I'm working full time I pretty much only see him in the evenings, but the really cool part is that dishes get done as if by magic and reasonably often, since he gets home first, he has dinner going by the time I get home. And, as he points out often, he does his own laundry. Can't beat that.
I have to run to work now, so this post will end a tad abruptly, but I'll try not to go another 4 months without posting.
We, in fact, hung out pretty much from Friday afternoon through Saturday night (and sometimes on Sunday afternoons too) every weekend straight through July and August. And pretty soon the Chamaco became involved, joining us at the river on Sunday afternoons. (He simply isn't around Friday night through Saturday night because he goes to my mom's and/or his dad's.)
Interesting side note: People really don't change a lot between ages 10 and 30. I mentioned before that I remember Andrew (who will need a cool blog alias) as the kid who could draw every US state from memory. Well, we were sitting on the bank of the river one Sunday afternoon watching the Chamaco jump around in the water, and suddenly Andrew elbowed me and pointed at the sand and asked, "What's that?" Naturally he has drawn the outline of a state in the sand. I forget which one he started with. But he did a few states, and when it became clear that wasn't going to stump me he moved on to European countries. My point here is that we were nerds in 5th grade and we pretty much still are. And clearly whatever odd chemistry made us work as friends when we were 10 is still effective 20 years later, even though now we are old and have money and cars and don't have to whine at our parents to take us places anymore.
Anyway, sometime in mid-August he was griping about being a broke college student and having to pay whatever he was paying to live in a bedroom of somebody's big fancy house, and I was like, "It's too bad I don't have 3 bedrooms... I get free rent! I wouldn't charge you to live here." He insisted he would want to pay something to help with utilities and stuff, and it sort of didn't come up again until about a week later when he realized that he was going to have slightly less income for the month of September and almost no income for the month of October. See, he gets paid a certain amount per day for days he actually attends college... this is how his Air Force thing works. And the school term ended in late August and wouldn't start up again until September 24th or something like that. So he was losing a week for August (paid in September), and then losing almost all of September (paid in October). He worked it out and realized he was only going to have about $600 for the whole month of October. Rent for him was almost all of that, and he still would need to buy gas to get to school, food, etc. And suddenly we were revisiting the idea of him moving in, which he was only willing to do if it was okay with the Chamaco. And he jokingly said to me, "Tell your boss she needs to build a 3 bedroom apartment at Highland!"
I believe it was the next day I was talking to my boss on the phone about moving him in with me and what would be necessary, and I said, "Oh, and he says to tell you to build a 3 bedroom apartment at Highland." And we had a good laugh.
A few days later, she called me back and asked, "Did you really want a three bedroom apartment?" I was like, "Well yeah, it would be nice, but there aren't any here."
"So how would you like to move to Springcreek?"
It was then explained to me that the property I was currently living/working on was up for sale. There were no offers on it yet, of course, but at some point it would be sold and then whatever manager was on that property at the time would need to be relocated. And since at that point I was the only manager living on-site, they sort of wanted to move me to a property they were keeping. They also sort of wanted the manager who was currently at Springcreek to take her sales talent over to a property that was struggling a bit more. So, the day before Andrew was set to move in with me anyway (and he hadn't much liked the idea of moving to Gresham, mind you), I called him and said, "So... how would you like to move to Milwaukie?"
The initial reaction, of course, was "why?" followed by a rant about my job's seeming instability and doubt about whether he should move at all. I told him I had asked for a day to think it over. That night I went out to dinner with Sammich, determined to forget about this impending decision for a few hours. And then the text messages from Andrew started coming in. "Springcreek is within walking distance of _______." "Milwaukie Elementary was rated 7 out of 10 stars." (Yes, he was even checking out the schools for the Chamaco." And by the time I got home from dinner that night it was beginning to sound like Andrew was not at all opposed. The Chamaco wasn't really opposed either... he didn't like the school in Gresham anyhow (which according to Andrew had only gotten 3 of 10 stars on that same site), and liked the idea of moving back to a smaller town perhaps more similar to the one we'd left when we came to Gresham.
So Andrew moved in with me anyway on August 30th, and I temporarily cleaned out half my closet to give him a place to put his clothes and essentials, and he put other stuff in a storage unit across the street (a steal at around $100/month compared to what he'd been paying before for rent). The idea was that we'd somehow coexist in a small space for a month or so, then we'd move to Milwaukie and he could have his own room. Both of us were looking forward to this. Him because the closet was really crowded, and me primarily because he snores.
Somewhere in September my emotionally retarded brain finally caught onto the idea that the vibe between us had turned fuzzy, and somewhere toward the end of September we became official enough that he told his friends. Not something I was expecting, really, but I wasn't opposed either. We moved to Milwaukie on October 13th (pictures of new place to follow, naturally), and now he has a room for his stuff.
So yes, I live with my boyfriend. I feel I must point out that those were not the terms when he moved in, and given the current financial situation (and also the fact that I like having him around) I'm disinclined to give him the boot now. It's now been about 2 1/2 months since he moved in and we still don't hate each other. I find this fact amusing, because my ex-husband didn't move in with me until after we got married, and it only took me about 2 weeks after that to start reconsidering the idea. Now that Andrew is working and going to school and I'm working full time I pretty much only see him in the evenings, but the really cool part is that dishes get done as if by magic and reasonably often, since he gets home first, he has dinner going by the time I get home. And, as he points out often, he does his own laundry. Can't beat that.
I have to run to work now, so this post will end a tad abruptly, but I'll try not to go another 4 months without posting.
June 24, 2012
Knowing me...
Interestingly, Amy happened to post a blog about knowing oneself when I'd been musing on that topic just last night as I wrote the other post about music and stuff. (I Wanna Get a Mohawk - AFI) I don't know if Amy has spy cameras in my brain or if we're just psychically linked somehow, but it's a topic I've been thinking about lately. Probably because the knowledge that I will be 30 in just a few short months is really settling in. Also maybe the fact that my little sister is getting married on Saturday and that makes me feel SERIOUSLY old.
So here's some more stuff about me that I've recently figured out that I didn't already put in the comments of Amy's blog (and maybe some of the same stuff, but in more depth). Some of it you might not have wanted to know, but too bad...
#1) My first marriage screwed me up bad enough that I might never get brave enough to do it again. And I'm sort of okay with that. In fact, the only part of it I'm not okay with is the lack of sex. I am definitely not okay with no sex (sex, in fact, is one of the things that tends to get me most into trouble), but my belief structure is not okay with a "friends with benefits" setup, which would otherwise be totally ideal for me. I really, really like the idea of someone to just have sleepovers with when the mood strikes, but who has his own house and spends more of his time there. (Intoxicated - Lacuna Coil) I don't know if this is what happens when your husband totally destroys your life and self-esteem and then abandons you or what, but that is at least what happened to me and it's been a long road to recovery (our 11th anniversary would have been yesterday had our marriage lasted more than a year and a half). I'm not particularly jumping at the chance to let someone have another shot at ruining me forever. So I wouldn't say that I'm happily single, but I can at least maintain equilibrium that way.
#2) Music is my substitute for the sex I'm not getting. Yeah, you read that right. It's like the next best thing I can think of. (Okay, alcohol might have had a place in there but it had to be discarded for the same reason the "friends with benefits" idea didn't work out. I could quite easily become an alcoholic, I think, but more of that under the next number.) I have to have some music every day. I like music before bed. I like music first thing in the morning. I like music in cars. I like music in the shower. I'll even get music in the office if I can work it in around my busy schedule of being the face people can come in to complain at. And I like music with Shaun Morgan best of all. He is my musical friend with benefits. ;-) (The Gift - Seether)
#3) It was my sister who first called this to my attention, but she was absolutely right... I have an obsessive personality. I've always been this way. I have many interests, but there's always one thing that I am currently in the process of taking way too far, and I tend to take most things further than they ought to go. My line of obsessions started in about first grade, and I can remember them roughly in order: Ninja Turtles, Astronomy, Paleontology, Ballet, Ornithology, Gymnastics, The Lion King (shut up), Star Trek Voyager (continue shutting up... Chakotay was hot, okay?), Spanish, Pre-hispanic Latin American Civilizations, Seether, Jamie, Seether, Italian, Seether, Rock Band/Guitar Hero, House, Bones, Zumba, Seether. (Notice which one of those keeps popping up again? Every time they release an album, man...) (Eaten Up Inside - Korn) Some of these lasted much longer than others, the longest-lasting being Star Trek Voyager, which lasted from roughly the time I was 13 until shortly after the series ended when I was 19. And the end result is that I know a lot of trivia about astronomy, dinosaurs, birds, dance, Aztecs/Incas/Mayas and foreign languages and I can totally kick your butt at either Guitar Hero or Trivial Pursuit. Interestingly, however, my obsession with Seether is not strong enough to make me pay $75 to see them. You know why? Because they're touring with Nickelback, that's why. I'm not gonna pay $75 to see Nickelback. (What I've Done - Linkin Park) But like I mentioned under the last number, I think I could very easily become an alcoholic if I were to make alcohol more readily available. It's a thing I like too much, and for me that's dangerous. Moderation is not a thing I do particularly well.
#4) I'm shy. For the first five minutes, anyway. Maybe. Depending on the time of day. (Dónde Están los Ladrones - Shakira) This is what I have noticed about myself... the idea of getting up in front of people to perform, sing karaoke, act, dance, whatever, makes me nervous and jumpy. I invariably do it anyway. And then you can't get me off the freakin' stage/microphone. I think I read an interview with a musician once where someone said (I can't remember who it was) that after many years they still got nervous before shows, and they thought that was healthy, because if you don't get nervous anymore that means that you no longer care at all about your performance.
#5) I am getting slowly more girly as I age. I used to be a total tomboy. I used to be "more one of the guys than Derral is" (this in the words of Matt, one of the guys I hung out with in high school). And gradually I started wearing earrings. (Fire - Lacuna Coil) First it was just one at a time, then it was up to four as long as they didn't match. Now I can wear matching earrings (this is a recent development) and coordinate them to my outfit without cringing. I still hate carrying a purse (so far), but I can force myself to do it on those days when I just get the urge to wear a skirt. I am developing an increasing collection of shoes. I am beginning to enjoy shopping for clothing (I'm not sure if this is a side effect of having more money or of being able to find more stuff that fits now that my boobs aren't as ginormous). (Ghettochip Malfunction - Beck) Just the other day I gave in to my recent urge to buy cute underwear. Never before have I bought underwear that didn't come in a pack of 6 for $7 or less. Part of me died a little when I paid $3 for a single pair of underwear. But also they match my new purple bra really well.
#6) I am an introvert cleverly disguised as an extrovert. Most of my friends, if you asked them, would say that generally I am friendly and outgoing. This is a complete fallacy. (Got the Life - Korn) I find dealing with people to be draining... even people I actually like (and we won't talk about the ones I don't like). I enjoy spending time with friends, family, church family, etc., but I need several hours of solitude to recover afterward. This is why Damian goes to bed at 8:30 (during the school year) and I stay up until midnight. Because I need the alone hours, that's why.
#7) I have developed a burning hatred of American Politics, and when people post things about it on my Facebook wall it sort of makes me want to unfriend them. And no, I don't care which side they're on. (Stay and Play - Saron Gas) I may alienate some people with this one (particularly those of you fond of sharing your political beliefs on Facebook), but really I just cannot make myself care. Both of the major political parties are now more interested in money and badmouthing the other party than they are about actually doing anything for the country they supposedly "serve" as "public servants". I think they both suck. I think the American political system is irreparably broken and we are on our way to the collapse of government as we have always known it. And I'm not entirely convinced that will be a bad thing. I do not discuss my political views because they would make me immensely unpopular.
#8) I believe television is part of a conspiracy to dumb down the American public. Don't believe me? Watch Jersey Shore. Or Desperate Housewives. Even the TV news is so much conflicting misinformation that people willingly allow themselves to be spoon-fed, mixed with enough violence and tragedy to keep people interested. Anyone ever heard the song "Vicarious" by Tool? That song is completely correct. "Eye on the TV 'cause tragedy thrills me, whatever flavor it happens to be like. Killed by the husband, drowned by the ocean, shot by his own son, she used a poison in his tea... kissed him goodbye. That's my kind of story. It's no fun 'til someone dies. Don't look at me like I am a monster, frown out your one face and with the other stare like a junkie into the TV, stare like zombie while the mother holds her child, watches him die, hands to the sky crying "Why oh why?" I need to watch things die from a good safe distance. Vicariously I live while the whole world dies. You all need it too, don't lie... Why can't we just admit it?" And that pretty much sums up my thoughts on television news. (Mala Gente - Juanes)
#9) I always wanted to believe (and wanted everyone else to believe) that I didn't care what people thought of me, when the fact of the matter was that I cared way too much what other people thought. My entire life, until very recently, was ruled by what other people thought of me. Just recently I'm learning to worry more about what I think of me. Because let's be real, worrying about pleasing everyone else clearly wasn't pleasing much of anyone, and I have successfully managed to disguise my real self from most people for many, many years. (In fact, some of the things I've said in this blog post alone will probably cause some readers to choke on their coffee, because they might not believe I had such thoughts in my head... particularly the ones about sex and alcohol.) (Nada Me Mata Más Que Tu Voz - Gamberro) I've always read that your 30s are a time of self-discovery and self-realization. Maybe I'm starting early, but the real me is coming out to play and some of you aren't gonna like her much. But neither of us really cares anymore. :-)
#10) I figured I should think of a tenth one of these, just to make it a nice even number, so give me a second... hmm... oh, got it. People who attend the same Sunday morning Bible class as I do just found this one out in the last week or so, but most of the rest of the world is in the dark... I've always been fascinated by/attracted to the paranormal/supernatural. Not to the point of dabbling in any dark arts, but I don't mind reading about them, watching ghost-hunting shows, etc. Because think about it for a minute... demonic possession is clearly real. It's biblically documented. Even after the crucifixion. Evil spirits also are "scriptural" for lack of a better term. I personally have seen things I would term as being "ghosts" for lack of a better term, even within the last year. (Cult of Personality - In Living Color) The first time I remember seeing such a thing, I was probably five. I've never been frightened by anything I've seen... my reaction has always been closer to fascination. I don't know how much of this has to do with the fact that the house we lived in until I was 10 was at least eighty years old when my parents bought it and since then I've had a tendency to spend a lot of time in churches, funeral homes, and schools that are close to 100 years old (all 4 are prime spots for the paranormal, from what I've read). And yet, I think I've always known this is not the sort of subject my parents would be receptive to... even as a five year old, I figured telling them about the glowing lady I saw walking down the hallway at night was probably not a good idea, even though I saw her more than once. (Duality - Slipknot) Besides, she didn't scare me. I'll admit that I don't quite understand why Christians, who are supposed to be all about the supernatural (God is pretty supernatural) are so opposed to the idea of there being anything in the world currently that we can't quite get a handle on. Yeah, it's okay if people were getting possessed by demons in Jesus' time and I have to believe that because it's in the Bible, but that surely doesn't happen anymore, right? Umm.... okay, if you feel better believing that. I'll just say that there are an awful lot of practicing Satanists out there, to profess a belief in God is also to admit the existence of Satan (because if it were not for Satan there would have been no sin and you wouldn't need God, strictly speaking), and a lot of creepy stuff tends to happen in places where Satanism has been practiced in the past... forget about where it's actually happening now. Some things just leave a mark. We read something in the book of Mark in class this morning that made an impression on me: "When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first." (Luke 11:24-26) A nearly identical text is found in Matthew 12. These are the words of Jesus himself, people. Jesus just told you that at least 8 "impure spirits" of varying degrees of wickedness really do exist and are actively looking for people to dwell in. I think we do ourselves a disservice by pretending they don't exist anymore. I can go to Africa and say I don't believe in lions, but the lion believes in me. And he believes I would be crunchy and good with ketchup, whether or not I believe in him and am on guard against him.
Anyway, this turned into a much longer blog than I intended for it to be... I guess we'll see if anyone actually reads it!
So here's some more stuff about me that I've recently figured out that I didn't already put in the comments of Amy's blog (and maybe some of the same stuff, but in more depth). Some of it you might not have wanted to know, but too bad...
#1) My first marriage screwed me up bad enough that I might never get brave enough to do it again. And I'm sort of okay with that. In fact, the only part of it I'm not okay with is the lack of sex. I am definitely not okay with no sex (sex, in fact, is one of the things that tends to get me most into trouble), but my belief structure is not okay with a "friends with benefits" setup, which would otherwise be totally ideal for me. I really, really like the idea of someone to just have sleepovers with when the mood strikes, but who has his own house and spends more of his time there. (Intoxicated - Lacuna Coil) I don't know if this is what happens when your husband totally destroys your life and self-esteem and then abandons you or what, but that is at least what happened to me and it's been a long road to recovery (our 11th anniversary would have been yesterday had our marriage lasted more than a year and a half). I'm not particularly jumping at the chance to let someone have another shot at ruining me forever. So I wouldn't say that I'm happily single, but I can at least maintain equilibrium that way.
#2) Music is my substitute for the sex I'm not getting. Yeah, you read that right. It's like the next best thing I can think of. (Okay, alcohol might have had a place in there but it had to be discarded for the same reason the "friends with benefits" idea didn't work out. I could quite easily become an alcoholic, I think, but more of that under the next number.) I have to have some music every day. I like music before bed. I like music first thing in the morning. I like music in cars. I like music in the shower. I'll even get music in the office if I can work it in around my busy schedule of being the face people can come in to complain at. And I like music with Shaun Morgan best of all. He is my musical friend with benefits. ;-) (The Gift - Seether)
#3) It was my sister who first called this to my attention, but she was absolutely right... I have an obsessive personality. I've always been this way. I have many interests, but there's always one thing that I am currently in the process of taking way too far, and I tend to take most things further than they ought to go. My line of obsessions started in about first grade, and I can remember them roughly in order: Ninja Turtles, Astronomy, Paleontology, Ballet, Ornithology, Gymnastics, The Lion King (shut up), Star Trek Voyager (continue shutting up... Chakotay was hot, okay?), Spanish, Pre-hispanic Latin American Civilizations, Seether, Jamie, Seether, Italian, Seether, Rock Band/Guitar Hero, House, Bones, Zumba, Seether. (Notice which one of those keeps popping up again? Every time they release an album, man...) (Eaten Up Inside - Korn) Some of these lasted much longer than others, the longest-lasting being Star Trek Voyager, which lasted from roughly the time I was 13 until shortly after the series ended when I was 19. And the end result is that I know a lot of trivia about astronomy, dinosaurs, birds, dance, Aztecs/Incas/Mayas and foreign languages and I can totally kick your butt at either Guitar Hero or Trivial Pursuit. Interestingly, however, my obsession with Seether is not strong enough to make me pay $75 to see them. You know why? Because they're touring with Nickelback, that's why. I'm not gonna pay $75 to see Nickelback. (What I've Done - Linkin Park) But like I mentioned under the last number, I think I could very easily become an alcoholic if I were to make alcohol more readily available. It's a thing I like too much, and for me that's dangerous. Moderation is not a thing I do particularly well.
#4) I'm shy. For the first five minutes, anyway. Maybe. Depending on the time of day. (Dónde Están los Ladrones - Shakira) This is what I have noticed about myself... the idea of getting up in front of people to perform, sing karaoke, act, dance, whatever, makes me nervous and jumpy. I invariably do it anyway. And then you can't get me off the freakin' stage/microphone. I think I read an interview with a musician once where someone said (I can't remember who it was) that after many years they still got nervous before shows, and they thought that was healthy, because if you don't get nervous anymore that means that you no longer care at all about your performance.
#5) I am getting slowly more girly as I age. I used to be a total tomboy. I used to be "more one of the guys than Derral is" (this in the words of Matt, one of the guys I hung out with in high school). And gradually I started wearing earrings. (Fire - Lacuna Coil) First it was just one at a time, then it was up to four as long as they didn't match. Now I can wear matching earrings (this is a recent development) and coordinate them to my outfit without cringing. I still hate carrying a purse (so far), but I can force myself to do it on those days when I just get the urge to wear a skirt. I am developing an increasing collection of shoes. I am beginning to enjoy shopping for clothing (I'm not sure if this is a side effect of having more money or of being able to find more stuff that fits now that my boobs aren't as ginormous). (Ghettochip Malfunction - Beck) Just the other day I gave in to my recent urge to buy cute underwear. Never before have I bought underwear that didn't come in a pack of 6 for $7 or less. Part of me died a little when I paid $3 for a single pair of underwear. But also they match my new purple bra really well.
#6) I am an introvert cleverly disguised as an extrovert. Most of my friends, if you asked them, would say that generally I am friendly and outgoing. This is a complete fallacy. (Got the Life - Korn) I find dealing with people to be draining... even people I actually like (and we won't talk about the ones I don't like). I enjoy spending time with friends, family, church family, etc., but I need several hours of solitude to recover afterward. This is why Damian goes to bed at 8:30 (during the school year) and I stay up until midnight. Because I need the alone hours, that's why.
#7) I have developed a burning hatred of American Politics, and when people post things about it on my Facebook wall it sort of makes me want to unfriend them. And no, I don't care which side they're on. (Stay and Play - Saron Gas) I may alienate some people with this one (particularly those of you fond of sharing your political beliefs on Facebook), but really I just cannot make myself care. Both of the major political parties are now more interested in money and badmouthing the other party than they are about actually doing anything for the country they supposedly "serve" as "public servants". I think they both suck. I think the American political system is irreparably broken and we are on our way to the collapse of government as we have always known it. And I'm not entirely convinced that will be a bad thing. I do not discuss my political views because they would make me immensely unpopular.
#8) I believe television is part of a conspiracy to dumb down the American public. Don't believe me? Watch Jersey Shore. Or Desperate Housewives. Even the TV news is so much conflicting misinformation that people willingly allow themselves to be spoon-fed, mixed with enough violence and tragedy to keep people interested. Anyone ever heard the song "Vicarious" by Tool? That song is completely correct. "Eye on the TV 'cause tragedy thrills me, whatever flavor it happens to be like. Killed by the husband, drowned by the ocean, shot by his own son, she used a poison in his tea... kissed him goodbye. That's my kind of story. It's no fun 'til someone dies. Don't look at me like I am a monster, frown out your one face and with the other stare like a junkie into the TV, stare like zombie while the mother holds her child, watches him die, hands to the sky crying "Why oh why?" I need to watch things die from a good safe distance. Vicariously I live while the whole world dies. You all need it too, don't lie... Why can't we just admit it?" And that pretty much sums up my thoughts on television news. (Mala Gente - Juanes)
#9) I always wanted to believe (and wanted everyone else to believe) that I didn't care what people thought of me, when the fact of the matter was that I cared way too much what other people thought. My entire life, until very recently, was ruled by what other people thought of me. Just recently I'm learning to worry more about what I think of me. Because let's be real, worrying about pleasing everyone else clearly wasn't pleasing much of anyone, and I have successfully managed to disguise my real self from most people for many, many years. (In fact, some of the things I've said in this blog post alone will probably cause some readers to choke on their coffee, because they might not believe I had such thoughts in my head... particularly the ones about sex and alcohol.) (Nada Me Mata Más Que Tu Voz - Gamberro) I've always read that your 30s are a time of self-discovery and self-realization. Maybe I'm starting early, but the real me is coming out to play and some of you aren't gonna like her much. But neither of us really cares anymore. :-)
#10) I figured I should think of a tenth one of these, just to make it a nice even number, so give me a second... hmm... oh, got it. People who attend the same Sunday morning Bible class as I do just found this one out in the last week or so, but most of the rest of the world is in the dark... I've always been fascinated by/attracted to the paranormal/supernatural. Not to the point of dabbling in any dark arts, but I don't mind reading about them, watching ghost-hunting shows, etc. Because think about it for a minute... demonic possession is clearly real. It's biblically documented. Even after the crucifixion. Evil spirits also are "scriptural" for lack of a better term. I personally have seen things I would term as being "ghosts" for lack of a better term, even within the last year. (Cult of Personality - In Living Color) The first time I remember seeing such a thing, I was probably five. I've never been frightened by anything I've seen... my reaction has always been closer to fascination. I don't know how much of this has to do with the fact that the house we lived in until I was 10 was at least eighty years old when my parents bought it and since then I've had a tendency to spend a lot of time in churches, funeral homes, and schools that are close to 100 years old (all 4 are prime spots for the paranormal, from what I've read). And yet, I think I've always known this is not the sort of subject my parents would be receptive to... even as a five year old, I figured telling them about the glowing lady I saw walking down the hallway at night was probably not a good idea, even though I saw her more than once. (Duality - Slipknot) Besides, she didn't scare me. I'll admit that I don't quite understand why Christians, who are supposed to be all about the supernatural (God is pretty supernatural) are so opposed to the idea of there being anything in the world currently that we can't quite get a handle on. Yeah, it's okay if people were getting possessed by demons in Jesus' time and I have to believe that because it's in the Bible, but that surely doesn't happen anymore, right? Umm.... okay, if you feel better believing that. I'll just say that there are an awful lot of practicing Satanists out there, to profess a belief in God is also to admit the existence of Satan (because if it were not for Satan there would have been no sin and you wouldn't need God, strictly speaking), and a lot of creepy stuff tends to happen in places where Satanism has been practiced in the past... forget about where it's actually happening now. Some things just leave a mark. We read something in the book of Mark in class this morning that made an impression on me: "When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first." (Luke 11:24-26) A nearly identical text is found in Matthew 12. These are the words of Jesus himself, people. Jesus just told you that at least 8 "impure spirits" of varying degrees of wickedness really do exist and are actively looking for people to dwell in. I think we do ourselves a disservice by pretending they don't exist anymore. I can go to Africa and say I don't believe in lions, but the lion believes in me. And he believes I would be crunchy and good with ketchup, whether or not I believe in him and am on guard against him.
Anyway, this turned into a much longer blog than I intended for it to be... I guess we'll see if anyone actually reads it!
December 21, 2010
The changes TWO years can bring...
Last year I wrote this blog comparing Christmas season '08 and Christmas season '09. I figured I might as well keep the chain going and compare Christmas season '10. And since I'm a great fan of color coding, 2008 will be in red, 2009 will be in yellow, and 2010 will be in green. :)
2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!
2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!
2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.
2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.
2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time
2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.
2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)
2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)
I was remembering that when I started working where I work in September of 2009, my supervisor asked me what my goals for the future were. I told her I didn't feel I'd had enough stability in the last 7 years or so to have made any goals... I'd been in constant survival mode. My "goal" was to create as much stability in my life as possible. Looking back over 2010, it's been actually a pretty quiet year, devoid of any major upheavals. I worked a lot, I played a little... we were housed, clothed and fed. Money was tight but we were never completely without anything we actually needed. Things have been relatively stable. So I guess I got what I wanted. And maybe I'm imagining it, but I have this feeling that 2011 is not going to be anywhere near so quiet... I have the feeling that big things are about to happen. I just have no idea what. So everyone hold onto your hats, because 2011 is just around the corner!!
2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!
2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly poeple who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!
2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.
2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.
2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time
2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.
2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)
2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)
I was remembering that when I started working where I work in September of 2009, my supervisor asked me what my goals for the future were. I told her I didn't feel I'd had enough stability in the last 7 years or so to have made any goals... I'd been in constant survival mode. My "goal" was to create as much stability in my life as possible. Looking back over 2010, it's been actually a pretty quiet year, devoid of any major upheavals. I worked a lot, I played a little... we were housed, clothed and fed. Money was tight but we were never completely without anything we actually needed. Things have been relatively stable. So I guess I got what I wanted. And maybe I'm imagining it, but I have this feeling that 2011 is not going to be anywhere near so quiet... I have the feeling that big things are about to happen. I just have no idea what. So everyone hold onto your hats, because 2011 is just around the corner!!
December 15, 2010
Somebody check my brain...
*commence guitar riff here*
No, just kidding. This blog post actually has nothing at all to do with the Alice in Chains song "Check My Brain" (which is a fabulously awesome song by the by... click that link and go check it out).
I thought it might be worth my time to somebody to check in with the state of my mind after last night's cookie experience (see previous entry if you have no idea what I'm talking about, and it might do you good to read the one before it first so you know how I got to that point). So here's how the day went.
I woke up today feeling unusually cheerful and pretty good aside from the slight lingering headache that usually follows me for a day or two after letting myself cry (still have it, actually). I was pretty determined that today was going to be a good day and there was pretty much nothing that could be done to dissuade me from that viewpoint. Indeed, not even a meeting with the manager of my apartment complex to fill out a zillion more forms and have it explained to me yet again that HUD calculates my income with funny math that results in them basing my rent on a yearly income figure that is in fact $6,000 more than I actually make in a year and thus makes my rent nearly half of my actual monthly income could dissuade me from feeling pretty darn good about things. I told her to tell corporate to call me and I'd tell them what I thought of their math, but I said it with a smile... quite often I leave that office fighting tears of injustice because I have the highest rent in the whole stupid complex because I actually work and I don't lie about my income or sit around on my butt collecting unemployment/child support. Heck, I don't even get child support. But you know what? Somehow I've managed to pay my rent for almost 2 years now and I've only been late once (and it was totally the Unemployment Department's fault... it took them 6 weeks to figure out that I'm not a 12-month employee of a school district, so they didn't want to give me any money until they had that settled), so today I said to myself, "No matter what these morons do to me, God has taken care of us in the past and I see no reason to believe that he will not continue to do so in the future... he even gave me cookies!" And I had a bit of a chuckle as I left the office.
Shortly after I was done with that, it was time to make my daily drive from Molalla to Estacada for work. Long about Colton, the midway point in the drive, I started getting these texts:
"There's a storm just south of Molalla that actually made a tornado in Aumsville, OR." (Barney)
"Tornado warnings for Clackamas and Marion counties!" (The Empress)
"Tornado in Molalla. Weird weather and sky today." (Micro Machine)
"Tornado coming to Molalla, took 3 houses near Silverton." (Tazzy) (BTW, the names of the senders are their names as they appear in my phone. The owners of the aliases know who they are... only Tazzy actually gets called that to her face. Well, and maybe "The Empress" as well...)
So for myself personally, I didn't care about this at all... I wasn't in Molalla and wouldn't be returning to Molalla for at least six hours. However, the Chamaco was still in his school. In Molalla. And part of my brain wanted to panic that my (9 year old) baby was 30 miles away and possibly in the path of an oncoming tornado (Seriously Oregon... make up your mind what sort of weather you want to have!). The rational part of my brain, however, said, "Come on... this is Oregon! If one tornado already touched down, two would be completely unheard of and what are the odds of a second freak tornado hitting the school?" And the new part of my brain that is just starting to find its voice and apparently likes to listen to a lot of Flyleaf said, "God's got him... whatever happens, God's got it. Just do what you need to do and don't worry." So I decided to listen to those two voices and went about my setting up of the classroom (for by this time I had reached Estacada) after sending off only a short text to my good-friend-who-needs-an-alias-desperately telling him about the tornado thing because I figured he'd be interested since he used to live in Texas and all. He expressed the opinion that it must be a lot warmer south of Silverton because where he was currently located (Tualatin) it was too cold for tornadoes.
When Nancy (who needs no alias because as far as I can tell she's got nothing to hide!) got to the school she told me the last she had heard was that the storm system was breaking up and while there was still a chance of some severe thunderstorms, the tornado warning was cancelled. So I put it out of my mind completely at that point... no stress, no worry for the Chamaco's safety. (I did call my mom later to make sure he'd been picked up as planned, but that's just because I'm his mom and I have to verify. Also my mom has been through chemotherapy and sometimes her memory has gaps.)
I went onward through my day mostly humming to myself the line from the song "Io Canto" about "i rami che si intrecciano nel cielo" because the kids are talking about trees and there was a good bit of stuff about branches going on. (For you non-Italians, "rami" = "branches".) But as soon as I got back in the car, Flyleaf again. I'm pretty shocked that I'm not more tired of it than I am, though later in the drive between Estacada and Oregon City I did put in my old AVB cassette tape that I dug out. For those of you not in the know, AVB was the earlier incarnation of fairly well-known Christian vocal group Acappella... I got the AVB tape when I was probably about 7. It is truly an antique. Aside from the pure nostalgia of listening to those songs that I must have listened to a million zillion times as a child, however, it seems that the new bit of my brain that is still really amused about the cookies and keeps telling me that God is in control prefers to listen to Christian music.
I learned tonight that I only like Christmas carols (especially "Silent Night", which I quite despise in real life) when they're sung by my sisters at OC, many of whom are actually quite good singers and between them have a pretty good mix of altos and sopranos. "Angels We Have Heard On High" is my favorite, if I were forced to pick a favorite of the more common carols ("Carol of the Bells" is my all-time favorite, but wandering carolers rarely sing that one), and it sounded awesome with our ladies singing it. I really wanted to stop singing along and just listen.
I neglected to mention that our annual ladies' ornament exchange was tonight. I had the best seat in the house (right between Aracely and The Empress) and also drew the #1, which is one of the better numbers you can get, really. I got an ornament I quite like, I didn't have to steal from any little girls and make them cry, and generally I got to spend a good bit of time enjoying the fellowship with my sisters and eating more cookies than I even want to think about until next year's ornament exchange.
So yeah, I didn't get home until about 10:15 or so, I had a bit of translation to do and some other stuff I wanted to accomplish before I even got around to writing this blog, and now it's a bit after midnight. Nothing spectacular or particularly awe-inspiring happened today (no more cookies! lol) but maybe the most astounding thing about today is that I was pretty consistently happy and in good spirits all the way through it. For me, that's weird. But it's the good weird.
Song o' the Day: "Tiny Heart" by Flyleaf... there's not an official video for this one, sorry, but the link will give you audio, lyrics, and a few pretty pictures.
No, just kidding. This blog post actually has nothing at all to do with the Alice in Chains song "Check My Brain" (which is a fabulously awesome song by the by... click that link and go check it out).
I thought it might be worth my time to somebody to check in with the state of my mind after last night's cookie experience (see previous entry if you have no idea what I'm talking about, and it might do you good to read the one before it first so you know how I got to that point). So here's how the day went.
I woke up today feeling unusually cheerful and pretty good aside from the slight lingering headache that usually follows me for a day or two after letting myself cry (still have it, actually). I was pretty determined that today was going to be a good day and there was pretty much nothing that could be done to dissuade me from that viewpoint. Indeed, not even a meeting with the manager of my apartment complex to fill out a zillion more forms and have it explained to me yet again that HUD calculates my income with funny math that results in them basing my rent on a yearly income figure that is in fact $6,000 more than I actually make in a year and thus makes my rent nearly half of my actual monthly income could dissuade me from feeling pretty darn good about things. I told her to tell corporate to call me and I'd tell them what I thought of their math, but I said it with a smile... quite often I leave that office fighting tears of injustice because I have the highest rent in the whole stupid complex because I actually work and I don't lie about my income or sit around on my butt collecting unemployment/child support. Heck, I don't even get child support. But you know what? Somehow I've managed to pay my rent for almost 2 years now and I've only been late once (and it was totally the Unemployment Department's fault... it took them 6 weeks to figure out that I'm not a 12-month employee of a school district, so they didn't want to give me any money until they had that settled), so today I said to myself, "No matter what these morons do to me, God has taken care of us in the past and I see no reason to believe that he will not continue to do so in the future... he even gave me cookies!" And I had a bit of a chuckle as I left the office.
Shortly after I was done with that, it was time to make my daily drive from Molalla to Estacada for work. Long about Colton, the midway point in the drive, I started getting these texts:
"There's a storm just south of Molalla that actually made a tornado in Aumsville, OR." (Barney)
"Tornado warnings for Clackamas and Marion counties!" (The Empress)
"Tornado in Molalla. Weird weather and sky today." (Micro Machine)
"Tornado coming to Molalla, took 3 houses near Silverton." (Tazzy) (BTW, the names of the senders are their names as they appear in my phone. The owners of the aliases know who they are... only Tazzy actually gets called that to her face. Well, and maybe "The Empress" as well...)
So for myself personally, I didn't care about this at all... I wasn't in Molalla and wouldn't be returning to Molalla for at least six hours. However, the Chamaco was still in his school. In Molalla. And part of my brain wanted to panic that my (9 year old) baby was 30 miles away and possibly in the path of an oncoming tornado (Seriously Oregon... make up your mind what sort of weather you want to have!). The rational part of my brain, however, said, "Come on... this is Oregon! If one tornado already touched down, two would be completely unheard of and what are the odds of a second freak tornado hitting the school?" And the new part of my brain that is just starting to find its voice and apparently likes to listen to a lot of Flyleaf said, "God's got him... whatever happens, God's got it. Just do what you need to do and don't worry." So I decided to listen to those two voices and went about my setting up of the classroom (for by this time I had reached Estacada) after sending off only a short text to my good-friend-who-needs-an-alias-desperately telling him about the tornado thing because I figured he'd be interested since he used to live in Texas and all. He expressed the opinion that it must be a lot warmer south of Silverton because where he was currently located (Tualatin) it was too cold for tornadoes.
When Nancy (who needs no alias because as far as I can tell she's got nothing to hide!) got to the school she told me the last she had heard was that the storm system was breaking up and while there was still a chance of some severe thunderstorms, the tornado warning was cancelled. So I put it out of my mind completely at that point... no stress, no worry for the Chamaco's safety. (I did call my mom later to make sure he'd been picked up as planned, but that's just because I'm his mom and I have to verify. Also my mom has been through chemotherapy and sometimes her memory has gaps.)
I went onward through my day mostly humming to myself the line from the song "Io Canto" about "i rami che si intrecciano nel cielo" because the kids are talking about trees and there was a good bit of stuff about branches going on. (For you non-Italians, "rami" = "branches".) But as soon as I got back in the car, Flyleaf again. I'm pretty shocked that I'm not more tired of it than I am, though later in the drive between Estacada and Oregon City I did put in my old AVB cassette tape that I dug out. For those of you not in the know, AVB was the earlier incarnation of fairly well-known Christian vocal group Acappella... I got the AVB tape when I was probably about 7. It is truly an antique. Aside from the pure nostalgia of listening to those songs that I must have listened to a million zillion times as a child, however, it seems that the new bit of my brain that is still really amused about the cookies and keeps telling me that God is in control prefers to listen to Christian music.
I learned tonight that I only like Christmas carols (especially "Silent Night", which I quite despise in real life) when they're sung by my sisters at OC, many of whom are actually quite good singers and between them have a pretty good mix of altos and sopranos. "Angels We Have Heard On High" is my favorite, if I were forced to pick a favorite of the more common carols ("Carol of the Bells" is my all-time favorite, but wandering carolers rarely sing that one), and it sounded awesome with our ladies singing it. I really wanted to stop singing along and just listen.
I neglected to mention that our annual ladies' ornament exchange was tonight. I had the best seat in the house (right between Aracely and The Empress) and also drew the #1, which is one of the better numbers you can get, really. I got an ornament I quite like, I didn't have to steal from any little girls and make them cry, and generally I got to spend a good bit of time enjoying the fellowship with my sisters and eating more cookies than I even want to think about until next year's ornament exchange.
So yeah, I didn't get home until about 10:15 or so, I had a bit of translation to do and some other stuff I wanted to accomplish before I even got around to writing this blog, and now it's a bit after midnight. Nothing spectacular or particularly awe-inspiring happened today (no more cookies! lol) but maybe the most astounding thing about today is that I was pretty consistently happy and in good spirits all the way through it. For me, that's weird. But it's the good weird.
Song o' the Day: "Tiny Heart" by Flyleaf... there's not an official video for this one, sorry, but the link will give you audio, lyrics, and a few pretty pictures.
December 13, 2010
My thoughts on paper (screen. Whatever.)...
I don't even really know where to start right now... so many things are swirling around in my head. And probably most of what I'm gonna say here isn't anything I haven't said out loud in the last hour, but knowing me... who knows? I think by writing things down... taking it out of my head and putting it there where I can look at it and go "Oh, okay... so that's what that looks like, then." (Oddly enough, I didn't even realize I did that until I wrote that just now.)
This brings me to the topic du jour... introspection. Generally something I avoid like the plague. Whatever's going on in there, I don't wanna know about it. Keep the voices quiet and I'll do my thing and they can do theirs. This only works for so long, though, because voices multiply... try it for yourself. Enter a quiet space, like say an office where people are working, and if you start talking to one person, someone will chime in with their opinion and before you know it nobody's getting any work done because of all the chatter. (This is especially true where I work.)
But I may as well say it and get it out of the way... in many areas of my life I have stagnated. I don't know for how long now I've been sitting here waiting for something to change, and it doesn't. And I rave and rant and rail about how I want something - anything - to be different than it is now, but I never do anything because I haven't got the foggiest idea what to do or what I want to accomplish.
Profesionally speaking, I'm 28 years old and I still don't even know what I want to be when (if) I grow up. Here's what I know by process of elimination - teaching isn't it. Neither is fast food or residential care. I could go either way on funeral transport or living history interpreting... both of those things were still fun when I stopped doing them, but I don't know if they always would have been because I didn't do it long enough for it not to be fun, if that makes any sense. I'm still just "all grown up and still waiting to be a rockstar"... just like the button on my backpack says. (Seriously, in all my daydreams and many of my night dreams, I'm a rockstar... perhaps lame, but true.) (Side note: I just remembered the only time I've ever in my life had any sort of "ah-ha" moment... somehow we wound up at an Acappella concert - the band Acappella, not just people singing without music - and they were doing one of their talky bits between songs and the guy who was talking described them as "musicianaries" (musician + missionary in case anyone didn't get that). I was probably 15 at the time. I remember turning to Audra, who has been around for most of the dramatic moments in my life and saying, "That's what I want to do.") (See, this thinking in parenthetical discursions thing really works for me!)
Spiritually... I've barely advanced from where I was almost 14 years ago when I was baptized. That's a horrible and painful thing to admit (even worse to note that most of that tiny bit of advancement has happened within the last two years). I know I'm not where I should be, and I have absolutely no idea how to get there, which is heartbreakingly sad considering I've been attending church quite literally my entire life with the exception of about two months in 2008. Intellectually I have a lot of knowledge... you don't sit through 28 years of Bible classes and sermons without picking up something. Emotionally, however, it has never clicked... I have a pretty long history of being emotionally retarded, so this doesn't surprise me. I can't cope with my own emotions (in fact, I like to ignore them or bottle them up) and I hate everyone else's. Someone recently told me (like about an hour ago) that I needed to "experience God". That's totally correct, and I've had a few close calls... the mission trip to Toluca was one of them. And this is where the spiritual crosses over into the emotional.
My biggest struggle, the issue that pervades every other aspect of my life, is loneliness, isolation, disconnect... whatever face it's wearing today, I'm talking about the overwhelming sense of being by myself. Even in a room packed with so many people that I can't breathe. I want desperately to not be alone... yet I'm far too scared to let anyone very close because every time I've tried I've gotten hurt. Badly. Part of my growth in the last two years has been letting a select few people get way closer than I've ever let anyone get... still not too close, but progress, I guess. In the last two years I have met four - count 'em, four! - people not related to me who I did not know prior to two years ago who have managed to scale my defenses and peek over. The first three are women, which seemed safe enough even though it was odd at the time because I didn't (and don't) actually like women in general. The fourth one is a man... a surprise latecomer who just hopped over the walls ("Walls? What walls?") and made himself at home. Come to find out, that's just how he operates. (Nobody read too much into that, okay? It's not that sort of a relationship.)
Getting back to my original point (introspection, if you'd forgotten while I was babbling) it is something I have historically avoided because it depresses me to no end. And when you are like me, someone who tends toward depression anyway and even more so during the nine months of Oregon winter, anything that is just going to depress you more is a good thing to avoid. The drawback, though, is that I have not introspected (I don't know if it was a verb before but it is now!) in YEARS and I no longer have the foggiest idea who I am because I haven't bothered to check in. So I am one of two things... I'm either the most authentic person you'll ever meet because I'm deliberately not affecting any change of any kind on myself, or I'm the most fake person you'll ever meet because even I don't know who I really am. It could even be both, because recent events have shown that I'm totally at home with that sort of dichotomy.
So I'll start with what I know: I don't like where I'm at. I don't know where I am, exactly, but I hate it here. I want to get out. I don't know what I'm in, what it is I want out of exactly, or where I would go if I got out, but I want OUT.
What I know from the last few hours, though, is that if I want to get out of the mire I'm currently mired in, there are some things I'm gonna have to let go of... things I've been holding onto tightly because they give me reasons and excuses for how I got this way. But I've also realized that if I don't let go, I'm gonna end up like my dad. (Not trying to be harsh, Dad, if you're reading this, but we both know it's true.) And I'm going to have to be introspective and it's probably going to depress me. A lot. But (there's a big but in every crowd, and it's usually mine!) I currently find myself in the previously unknown situation of having closeish friends. Closeish Christian friends, even. Aside from the one who just jumps walls, I'm going to have to let the walls down and let them in so when I fall (and I'm going to fall... hard) they can catch me. And I have to trust that they will catch me and not let me repeat 2002 (the year of somnambulent suicide attempts). There are a lot of things hindering me, and I have a lot of work to do, and I don't want to do any of it. So why blog about it, then? Well, here's why:
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us..." (Hebrews 12:1)
You, o blogosphere, are my cloud of witnesses... and it's very likely that some of those people I was talking about who scale walls are going to read this. And then you'll know I need a lot of help... more than I'll ever be able to express out loud in words... spoken word is not my thing. (Though I did probably one of the better jobs of it I've ever done a couple of hours ago, and it was still pitiful.) So witness this, people... I am hereby attempting to throw off everything that hinders (my past, certain people) and the sin that so easily entangles (4 of you know exactly what I'm talking about) and run the race marked out for me... as soon as I can figure out where the heck the racetrack is.
Song(s) o' the Day: This one started playing on my randomly shuffled iPod at an oddly significant moment earlier... "What I've Done" by Linkin Park. See it here (and I promise never ever to put up a Linkin Park song again... this is the only one I like). Follow that up with a chaser of "Broken Pieces" by Apocalyptica (yes, we've had this one before, but you can see it again here if you like). And for the grand finale, my parting shot to my ex-husband before I completely put him out of my mind except on Sundays when I have to take the Chamaco to him... "Anything But Love" by Apocalyptica... 99% of this song applies directly to my marriage, which was fabulous in its dysfunctionality and was truly based on anything but love. Never before have I heard a song that so completely said what I was thinking and feeling, and I'm kind of scared to ever have it happen again.
This brings me to the topic du jour... introspection. Generally something I avoid like the plague. Whatever's going on in there, I don't wanna know about it. Keep the voices quiet and I'll do my thing and they can do theirs. This only works for so long, though, because voices multiply... try it for yourself. Enter a quiet space, like say an office where people are working, and if you start talking to one person, someone will chime in with their opinion and before you know it nobody's getting any work done because of all the chatter. (This is especially true where I work.)
But I may as well say it and get it out of the way... in many areas of my life I have stagnated. I don't know for how long now I've been sitting here waiting for something to change, and it doesn't. And I rave and rant and rail about how I want something - anything - to be different than it is now, but I never do anything because I haven't got the foggiest idea what to do or what I want to accomplish.
Profesionally speaking, I'm 28 years old and I still don't even know what I want to be when (if) I grow up. Here's what I know by process of elimination - teaching isn't it. Neither is fast food or residential care. I could go either way on funeral transport or living history interpreting... both of those things were still fun when I stopped doing them, but I don't know if they always would have been because I didn't do it long enough for it not to be fun, if that makes any sense. I'm still just "all grown up and still waiting to be a rockstar"... just like the button on my backpack says. (Seriously, in all my daydreams and many of my night dreams, I'm a rockstar... perhaps lame, but true.) (Side note: I just remembered the only time I've ever in my life had any sort of "ah-ha" moment... somehow we wound up at an Acappella concert - the band Acappella, not just people singing without music - and they were doing one of their talky bits between songs and the guy who was talking described them as "musicianaries" (musician + missionary in case anyone didn't get that). I was probably 15 at the time. I remember turning to Audra, who has been around for most of the dramatic moments in my life and saying, "That's what I want to do.") (See, this thinking in parenthetical discursions thing really works for me!)
Spiritually... I've barely advanced from where I was almost 14 years ago when I was baptized. That's a horrible and painful thing to admit (even worse to note that most of that tiny bit of advancement has happened within the last two years). I know I'm not where I should be, and I have absolutely no idea how to get there, which is heartbreakingly sad considering I've been attending church quite literally my entire life with the exception of about two months in 2008. Intellectually I have a lot of knowledge... you don't sit through 28 years of Bible classes and sermons without picking up something. Emotionally, however, it has never clicked... I have a pretty long history of being emotionally retarded, so this doesn't surprise me. I can't cope with my own emotions (in fact, I like to ignore them or bottle them up) and I hate everyone else's. Someone recently told me (like about an hour ago) that I needed to "experience God". That's totally correct, and I've had a few close calls... the mission trip to Toluca was one of them. And this is where the spiritual crosses over into the emotional.
My biggest struggle, the issue that pervades every other aspect of my life, is loneliness, isolation, disconnect... whatever face it's wearing today, I'm talking about the overwhelming sense of being by myself. Even in a room packed with so many people that I can't breathe. I want desperately to not be alone... yet I'm far too scared to let anyone very close because every time I've tried I've gotten hurt. Badly. Part of my growth in the last two years has been letting a select few people get way closer than I've ever let anyone get... still not too close, but progress, I guess. In the last two years I have met four - count 'em, four! - people not related to me who I did not know prior to two years ago who have managed to scale my defenses and peek over. The first three are women, which seemed safe enough even though it was odd at the time because I didn't (and don't) actually like women in general. The fourth one is a man... a surprise latecomer who just hopped over the walls ("Walls? What walls?") and made himself at home. Come to find out, that's just how he operates. (Nobody read too much into that, okay? It's not that sort of a relationship.)
Getting back to my original point (introspection, if you'd forgotten while I was babbling) it is something I have historically avoided because it depresses me to no end. And when you are like me, someone who tends toward depression anyway and even more so during the nine months of Oregon winter, anything that is just going to depress you more is a good thing to avoid. The drawback, though, is that I have not introspected (I don't know if it was a verb before but it is now!) in YEARS and I no longer have the foggiest idea who I am because I haven't bothered to check in. So I am one of two things... I'm either the most authentic person you'll ever meet because I'm deliberately not affecting any change of any kind on myself, or I'm the most fake person you'll ever meet because even I don't know who I really am. It could even be both, because recent events have shown that I'm totally at home with that sort of dichotomy.
So I'll start with what I know: I don't like where I'm at. I don't know where I am, exactly, but I hate it here. I want to get out. I don't know what I'm in, what it is I want out of exactly, or where I would go if I got out, but I want OUT.
What I know from the last few hours, though, is that if I want to get out of the mire I'm currently mired in, there are some things I'm gonna have to let go of... things I've been holding onto tightly because they give me reasons and excuses for how I got this way. But I've also realized that if I don't let go, I'm gonna end up like my dad. (Not trying to be harsh, Dad, if you're reading this, but we both know it's true.) And I'm going to have to be introspective and it's probably going to depress me. A lot. But (there's a big but in every crowd, and it's usually mine!) I currently find myself in the previously unknown situation of having closeish friends. Closeish Christian friends, even. Aside from the one who just jumps walls, I'm going to have to let the walls down and let them in so when I fall (and I'm going to fall... hard) they can catch me. And I have to trust that they will catch me and not let me repeat 2002 (the year of somnambulent suicide attempts). There are a lot of things hindering me, and I have a lot of work to do, and I don't want to do any of it. So why blog about it, then? Well, here's why:
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us..." (Hebrews 12:1)
You, o blogosphere, are my cloud of witnesses... and it's very likely that some of those people I was talking about who scale walls are going to read this. And then you'll know I need a lot of help... more than I'll ever be able to express out loud in words... spoken word is not my thing. (Though I did probably one of the better jobs of it I've ever done a couple of hours ago, and it was still pitiful.) So witness this, people... I am hereby attempting to throw off everything that hinders (my past, certain people) and the sin that so easily entangles (4 of you know exactly what I'm talking about) and run the race marked out for me... as soon as I can figure out where the heck the racetrack is.
Song(s) o' the Day: This one started playing on my randomly shuffled iPod at an oddly significant moment earlier... "What I've Done" by Linkin Park. See it here (and I promise never ever to put up a Linkin Park song again... this is the only one I like). Follow that up with a chaser of "Broken Pieces" by Apocalyptica (yes, we've had this one before, but you can see it again here if you like). And for the grand finale, my parting shot to my ex-husband before I completely put him out of my mind except on Sundays when I have to take the Chamaco to him... "Anything But Love" by Apocalyptica... 99% of this song applies directly to my marriage, which was fabulous in its dysfunctionality and was truly based on anything but love. Never before have I heard a song that so completely said what I was thinking and feeling, and I'm kind of scared to ever have it happen again.
December 4, 2010
Explanation of my recent silence...
I've been busy. Do you need any more explanation than that?
Somehow I blinked and missed most of 2010, and the holidays are now upon us once more. For me, however, the precursor to the holiday season is "translating 50,000 report card comments" season, which usually happens the week prior to Thanksgiving and on into the beginning of Thanksgiving week. The staff of the MRSD certainly did not disappoint this year, and I was translating way more than I ever care to do ever again (and yet probably will do again in March).
Seemingly in celebration of the victory of surviving conference translation, the Sunday night before Thanksgiving I came down with the flu. I have not had the flu in almost ten years. I hadn't missed it really. Monday I called in to work both at my primary place of employment and the school at which I'd been scheduled to interpret for parent/teacher conferences that evening. I figured they might not like me puking on parents... call it a hunch. Tuesday morning I was feeling slightly better but I called in to work anyway because our policy is that you're supposed to be vomit-free for 24 hours before you come back to work. And then it snowed. Or technically it had already snowed... I hadn't gotten out of bed to look out the window and know it yet. By Tuesday night, the Chamaco was praying to the porcelain god as well, so I called in for Wednesday. Thursday was Thanksgiving and the Chamaco was still running a fever and feeling puny... sort of a bummer holiday. Fortunately I had both Thursday and Friday off as paid holidays, so I missed a whole week of work with no detrimental effect to my paycheck. Points for me. : )
So now we're in that final stretch before Christmas break... for my friends in the public school system that's exactly 10 more school days before they get two weeks off. For those of us in the non-profit sector it's also 10 school days, but with an extra couple of work days with no students thrown in on top of that. The Chamaco's last day before break is the 17th, mine is the 21st. (BTW, one of the teachers I translate for on a regular basis keeps putting things like "November 23st" in her class newsletters, and it cracks me up. No offense to my teacher friends, but on the whole you guys don't proofread at all and some of you are fairly illiterate. I don't care what degree you have.)
I find myself contemplating last year's posting about the differences between 2008 and 2009. I'll probably do some sort of addition to it contrasting those two years with 2010... really I can only think of one notable difference, and I'm not sure how to phrase it without getting myself into trouble. 2010 has been pretty uneventful, but maybe I needed that after the constant upheaval and negativity that constituted 2002-2008. I sense, however, that the break is over and that great things are afoot for 2011 (to be followed by the end of the world in 2012.... yay!) My Google homepage counts down to the end of the B'ak'tun (the Maya long count calendar)... 2 years and 17 days left, people! : ) According to the Aztecs, however (whom I also track on my Google page), today is a rather benign 11-Acatl and they don't forsee the world even potentially ending for another few years at least. (Every 52 years, according to the Aztecs, there has to be a ceremony to keep the sun moving. Seemingly, though, it's been chugging along just fine without the Aztecs for a while now... if only the Aztecs had realized that it was the Earth that was moving and the sun is actually relatively stationary.)
So anyway, it's off to beddy-bye for me. I regret not having anything particularly meaningful to say to my reading several, but this was really just a check-in post. I will, however, leave you with a steaming pile of...
Song o' the Day: "Show Me How to Live" by Audioslave. Been pondering that one a bit lately. Click on the link to see/hear it... I apologize profusely for linking you to Vevo, but I was left with no choice....
Somehow I blinked and missed most of 2010, and the holidays are now upon us once more. For me, however, the precursor to the holiday season is "translating 50,000 report card comments" season, which usually happens the week prior to Thanksgiving and on into the beginning of Thanksgiving week. The staff of the MRSD certainly did not disappoint this year, and I was translating way more than I ever care to do ever again (and yet probably will do again in March).
Seemingly in celebration of the victory of surviving conference translation, the Sunday night before Thanksgiving I came down with the flu. I have not had the flu in almost ten years. I hadn't missed it really. Monday I called in to work both at my primary place of employment and the school at which I'd been scheduled to interpret for parent/teacher conferences that evening. I figured they might not like me puking on parents... call it a hunch. Tuesday morning I was feeling slightly better but I called in to work anyway because our policy is that you're supposed to be vomit-free for 24 hours before you come back to work. And then it snowed. Or technically it had already snowed... I hadn't gotten out of bed to look out the window and know it yet. By Tuesday night, the Chamaco was praying to the porcelain god as well, so I called in for Wednesday. Thursday was Thanksgiving and the Chamaco was still running a fever and feeling puny... sort of a bummer holiday. Fortunately I had both Thursday and Friday off as paid holidays, so I missed a whole week of work with no detrimental effect to my paycheck. Points for me. : )
So now we're in that final stretch before Christmas break... for my friends in the public school system that's exactly 10 more school days before they get two weeks off. For those of us in the non-profit sector it's also 10 school days, but with an extra couple of work days with no students thrown in on top of that. The Chamaco's last day before break is the 17th, mine is the 21st. (BTW, one of the teachers I translate for on a regular basis keeps putting things like "November 23st" in her class newsletters, and it cracks me up. No offense to my teacher friends, but on the whole you guys don't proofread at all and some of you are fairly illiterate. I don't care what degree you have.)
I find myself contemplating last year's posting about the differences between 2008 and 2009. I'll probably do some sort of addition to it contrasting those two years with 2010... really I can only think of one notable difference, and I'm not sure how to phrase it without getting myself into trouble. 2010 has been pretty uneventful, but maybe I needed that after the constant upheaval and negativity that constituted 2002-2008. I sense, however, that the break is over and that great things are afoot for 2011 (to be followed by the end of the world in 2012.... yay!) My Google homepage counts down to the end of the B'ak'tun (the Maya long count calendar)... 2 years and 17 days left, people! : ) According to the Aztecs, however (whom I also track on my Google page), today is a rather benign 11-Acatl and they don't forsee the world even potentially ending for another few years at least. (Every 52 years, according to the Aztecs, there has to be a ceremony to keep the sun moving. Seemingly, though, it's been chugging along just fine without the Aztecs for a while now... if only the Aztecs had realized that it was the Earth that was moving and the sun is actually relatively stationary.)
So anyway, it's off to beddy-bye for me. I regret not having anything particularly meaningful to say to my reading several, but this was really just a check-in post. I will, however, leave you with a steaming pile of...
Song o' the Day: "Show Me How to Live" by Audioslave. Been pondering that one a bit lately. Click on the link to see/hear it... I apologize profusely for linking you to Vevo, but I was left with no choice....
October 31, 2010
ONE YEAR!!!!
By freak of chance, I just happened to notice that the first post on this blog was made exactly one year ago today. So happy birthday to the blog!
That thought led me to need to review mentally the last 12 months. Yes, I'm that sort of sentimental. Who knew? But I decided to compare my mental state right now (which, admittedly, is a bit altered from normal over the last two weeks... probably something to do with not sleeping) with my mental state of 12 months ago.
12 months ago I was still mad at the universe. Things had started to turn around at that point, but I hadn't really noticed it yet. I was tentatively beginning to let the walls down a bit and let a few people in closer than I'd let anyone in years and form some real friendships, but I still wasn't very sure about the idea. One of my earlier entries in this blog was about my discomfort with crying and excessively emotional people, probably because I didn't have very many emotions of my own yet... I was still mostly numb.
Now I'm alive again. I laugh, I cry, I gossip and giggle with my select few best girlfriends (though most women are still more than I can tolerate, and I think that's just a personality quirk rather than actual damage). I have at least three friends outside my family that I'm comfortable telling ANYTHING to. I'm no longer repulsed by emotional displays... I still hate concocted drama, but again, personality quirk. I still don't feel things maybe as deeply as most people do, but I feel things. Sometimes things don't go the way I would want them to, but now I have the faith that everything will eventually work out for good in the end. My broken pieces are coming together, and I'm excited to see what I look like when everything's done.
Also, 12 months ago my Italian wasn't nearly as good as it is now. I pretty much rock! LOL
Now, with that understanding of myself and my progress, I have a few new projects for myself:
#1) Get rid of the little voice in my head (which sounds a lot like my ex-husband) that always tells me how worthless and stupid I am. It (he) is wrong, and was always wrong. My fault for letting it (him) make me believe.
#2) Discover what I'm passionate about... or if I'm even capable of such. I'm not sure yet if I don't feel things deeply because I'm still healing, or if it's because I just don't. But I think somewhere out there, there might me something that makes me light up. I'm curious to know what it is.
#3) Figure out what I want to be if/when I grow up.
#4) (this is the corny-sounding one) "Dance like no one is watching, love like you've never been hurt." I want to do that... I want to not feel so self-conscious and defensive all the time. I just want to be me.
Last December I did a post about some new year's "suggestions". I did pretty well on most of those, actually. So it's a little early, but maybe these are my "suggestions" for 2011.
Song o' the Day: An Apocalyptica triple-header! Song #1 is "End of Me" by Apocalyptica featuring Gavin Rossdale. Hear/see it here. Song #2 is "Broken Pieces" by Apocalyptica featuring Lacey Sturm of Flyleaf. Hear/see it here. And finally we get to song #3, "Not Strong Enough" by Apocalyptica featuring Brent Smith of Shinedown. You can hear it here, but all you'll get to see is some album art because there isn't an official video. Yet. I want there to be. ;)
That thought led me to need to review mentally the last 12 months. Yes, I'm that sort of sentimental. Who knew? But I decided to compare my mental state right now (which, admittedly, is a bit altered from normal over the last two weeks... probably something to do with not sleeping) with my mental state of 12 months ago.
12 months ago I was still mad at the universe. Things had started to turn around at that point, but I hadn't really noticed it yet. I was tentatively beginning to let the walls down a bit and let a few people in closer than I'd let anyone in years and form some real friendships, but I still wasn't very sure about the idea. One of my earlier entries in this blog was about my discomfort with crying and excessively emotional people, probably because I didn't have very many emotions of my own yet... I was still mostly numb.
Now I'm alive again. I laugh, I cry, I gossip and giggle with my select few best girlfriends (though most women are still more than I can tolerate, and I think that's just a personality quirk rather than actual damage). I have at least three friends outside my family that I'm comfortable telling ANYTHING to. I'm no longer repulsed by emotional displays... I still hate concocted drama, but again, personality quirk. I still don't feel things maybe as deeply as most people do, but I feel things. Sometimes things don't go the way I would want them to, but now I have the faith that everything will eventually work out for good in the end. My broken pieces are coming together, and I'm excited to see what I look like when everything's done.
Also, 12 months ago my Italian wasn't nearly as good as it is now. I pretty much rock! LOL
Now, with that understanding of myself and my progress, I have a few new projects for myself:
#1) Get rid of the little voice in my head (which sounds a lot like my ex-husband) that always tells me how worthless and stupid I am. It (he) is wrong, and was always wrong. My fault for letting it (him) make me believe.
#2) Discover what I'm passionate about... or if I'm even capable of such. I'm not sure yet if I don't feel things deeply because I'm still healing, or if it's because I just don't. But I think somewhere out there, there might me something that makes me light up. I'm curious to know what it is.
#3) Figure out what I want to be if/when I grow up.
#4) (this is the corny-sounding one) "Dance like no one is watching, love like you've never been hurt." I want to do that... I want to not feel so self-conscious and defensive all the time. I just want to be me.
Last December I did a post about some new year's "suggestions". I did pretty well on most of those, actually. So it's a little early, but maybe these are my "suggestions" for 2011.
Song o' the Day: An Apocalyptica triple-header! Song #1 is "End of Me" by Apocalyptica featuring Gavin Rossdale. Hear/see it here. Song #2 is "Broken Pieces" by Apocalyptica featuring Lacey Sturm of Flyleaf. Hear/see it here. And finally we get to song #3, "Not Strong Enough" by Apocalyptica featuring Brent Smith of Shinedown. You can hear it here, but all you'll get to see is some album art because there isn't an official video. Yet. I want there to be. ;)
November 24, 2009
Blog not moving after all!
It didn't take me real long to figure out that I don't like WordPress that much at all. So I shut that one down, and now I am back here and plan to stay. :-)
Had the Chamaco's conference today. Academically he's fine. Behaviorally... he's seven. His teacher and I discussed our plans to secure his coat to his body with a staple gun. No, just kidding, but I got the impression that his teacher was about to consider something drastic. She suggested sending him to school without it and letting him freeze, in that sort of "I'm joking but I wish I were serious" way. Who knew a kid could be so obnoxious with a coat?
Most shocking to me was the fact that he had perfect attendance this trimester... 54 out of 54 days, he was in class like a good little monkey. I don't think that's ever happened before.
Anyway, I'm hoping to get to have a nice chat with the CTG tomorrow morning since I haven't hardly seen him in a couple of weeks... sad! This having a life thing does not leave much time in my schedule for stalking gas station attendants.
And for those of you who missed the announcement over on the other, short-lived blog, I am back on Facebook in a limited sort of way. No games, no silly time-wasting survey things (unless someone is in the hospital and I'm killing time in the waiting room or something, maybe)... just I post a status message, read yours, then I go buh-bye. Don't invite me to join your mafia, 'cause I won't. Nor will I tend your farm.
Song o' the Day: "So Cold" by Breaking Benjamin. I highly recommend seeing the video for this song here if you missed it because you didn't read the other blog. I do love a good music video, and this is one of those cool ones that sort of tells a story but leaves a lot of unanswered questions. (Like, what did that dude do to get into this situation?)
Bonus Song o' the Day: You get an extra today since the other is actually yesterday's and was posted on the other blog. Today's song is actually "Without You" by Three Days Grace. It's from their new album that came out in September called Life Starts Now, and it's actually a very good album. And I like the cover art.
Had the Chamaco's conference today. Academically he's fine. Behaviorally... he's seven. His teacher and I discussed our plans to secure his coat to his body with a staple gun. No, just kidding, but I got the impression that his teacher was about to consider something drastic. She suggested sending him to school without it and letting him freeze, in that sort of "I'm joking but I wish I were serious" way. Who knew a kid could be so obnoxious with a coat?
Most shocking to me was the fact that he had perfect attendance this trimester... 54 out of 54 days, he was in class like a good little monkey. I don't think that's ever happened before.
Anyway, I'm hoping to get to have a nice chat with the CTG tomorrow morning since I haven't hardly seen him in a couple of weeks... sad! This having a life thing does not leave much time in my schedule for stalking gas station attendants.
And for those of you who missed the announcement over on the other, short-lived blog, I am back on Facebook in a limited sort of way. No games, no silly time-wasting survey things (unless someone is in the hospital and I'm killing time in the waiting room or something, maybe)... just I post a status message, read yours, then I go buh-bye. Don't invite me to join your mafia, 'cause I won't. Nor will I tend your farm.
Song o' the Day: "So Cold" by Breaking Benjamin. I highly recommend seeing the video for this song here if you missed it because you didn't read the other blog. I do love a good music video, and this is one of those cool ones that sort of tells a story but leaves a lot of unanswered questions. (Like, what did that dude do to get into this situation?)
Bonus Song o' the Day: You get an extra today since the other is actually yesterday's and was posted on the other blog. Today's song is actually "Without You" by Three Days Grace. It's from their new album that came out in September called Life Starts Now, and it's actually a very good album. And I like the cover art.
November 22, 2009
Blog Moving...
So, the whole colorful cast of characters (Wong, the CTG, Caveman Fred, Emo Steve, etc.) and I are moving to a new blog site I'm trying out for a while to see if I like it better. If I don't, I'll be back. You can follow our adventures on the new blog at: http://meaganmireya.wordpress.com/
Go there. There's a good link to a music video. And there'll be more good stuff later when I'm awake, I promise. Oh, also a news bulletin of interest to at least four of you will be posted shortly.
Go there. There's a good link to a music video. And there'll be more good stuff later when I'm awake, I promise. Oh, also a news bulletin of interest to at least four of you will be posted shortly.
October 31, 2009
The birth of the blog...
I always liked blogging. I did it a lot on MySpace back when MySpace was cool and people actually went there.
Then came Facebook. Facebook was cool for a while, and then it started dawning on me that nobody really cares "what I'm thinking" (at least I assume that's the Facebook question in English... I always Facebooked in Italian and the question is "cosa stai pensando"), much less "what I'm doing right now" (à la Twitter), and if they did care they could call me/text me/email me/IM me and ask. I'm really not that difficult to contact. I've come to think of Facebook mostly as a vehicle for sharing photos, and I think there are alternatives for that which I intend to be exploring here pretty soon. (Flickr, Picasa... these are words I have heard.)
But I still like blogging, and I no longer have a MySpace, so this blog was born. I figure I'll e-mail the address of the blog to people who might actually bother to read it, and if nobody does that's fine with me, but at least I won't be forcing my trivial bits of madness down society's collective craw like one does with Facebook. But here I can write and if you don't like it, stop reading.
So here's the rules, kids!
#1) I refuse to censor myself in my own blog. I'm going to say/write whatever I'm thinking, and if you don't like it, you don't have to read it. I will endeavor not to name names to protect the guilty parties if I'm having a particularly vicious rant, but that's the most censoring you'll get out of me.
#2) If you read something you didn't like, don't bother posting irritated comments at me. Your fault for reading it. Such comments will be moderated right off the blog.
#3) Should I happen to post in a non-English language that you cannot read, don't come crying to me. See rule #1 and realize that sometimes I don't think in English. Don't worry... whatever I wrote was likely not important and likely not directed at you.
#4) Posts will be sporadic. They may occur every day, twice daily, or weeks in between. If you get tired of checking just to see if I wrote anything (assuming you actually care), subscribe or something. There's probably a button for that, but I'm new here so I don't really know.
#5) I like black and purple. Deal with it.
#6) I like rock music. Again, deal with it. I will get a music player on here eventually, and it will be noisy. You can find the stop button, I'm sure.
Then came Facebook. Facebook was cool for a while, and then it started dawning on me that nobody really cares "what I'm thinking" (at least I assume that's the Facebook question in English... I always Facebooked in Italian and the question is "cosa stai pensando"), much less "what I'm doing right now" (à la Twitter), and if they did care they could call me/text me/email me/IM me and ask. I'm really not that difficult to contact. I've come to think of Facebook mostly as a vehicle for sharing photos, and I think there are alternatives for that which I intend to be exploring here pretty soon. (Flickr, Picasa... these are words I have heard.)
But I still like blogging, and I no longer have a MySpace, so this blog was born. I figure I'll e-mail the address of the blog to people who might actually bother to read it, and if nobody does that's fine with me, but at least I won't be forcing my trivial bits of madness down society's collective craw like one does with Facebook. But here I can write and if you don't like it, stop reading.
So here's the rules, kids!
#1) I refuse to censor myself in my own blog. I'm going to say/write whatever I'm thinking, and if you don't like it, you don't have to read it. I will endeavor not to name names to protect the guilty parties if I'm having a particularly vicious rant, but that's the most censoring you'll get out of me.
#2) If you read something you didn't like, don't bother posting irritated comments at me. Your fault for reading it. Such comments will be moderated right off the blog.
#3) Should I happen to post in a non-English language that you cannot read, don't come crying to me. See rule #1 and realize that sometimes I don't think in English. Don't worry... whatever I wrote was likely not important and likely not directed at you.
#4) Posts will be sporadic. They may occur every day, twice daily, or weeks in between. If you get tired of checking just to see if I wrote anything (assuming you actually care), subscribe or something. There's probably a button for that, but I'm new here so I don't really know.
#5) I like black and purple. Deal with it.
#6) I like rock music. Again, deal with it. I will get a music player on here eventually, and it will be noisy. You can find the stop button, I'm sure.
With that being said, enjoy my little world and your trip through the dark and scary corners of my mind. Here... have your own personal tour guide:
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