monkeywithabutcherknife

Well, here we are. The Sunday after Thanksgiving. We’re officially in the holiday purgatory. Its an odd time of year – I’ve always felt this way. Its not thanksgiving, its not Christmas….its just, well, nothing. But it is something because you don’t have that straightaway, head down option in front of you. When I was younger I liked this time of year since I could just sort of muddle through to Christmas and the blur into New Year’s. But anymore I find it too introspective in a year already full of too much introspection.

The only thing you will learn from introspection is that you were better off before you knew what it was

That quote is something I said years and years ago toward the end of a period where I was trying to be “more open with people”. And yes, I just quoted myself – I’m “that guy”. I’d felt for quite a while that I was too guarded. I was keeping people out and just walking away from people and things that seemed too bothersome for me. It was difficult, as all growing experiences are, but it did work to a degree that I thought I could be happy with. As I coast on sheer momentum into the end of this year I’m second guessing how wise it was to try and be more open. Maybe that was a bad idea. I’ve decided that any attempt to improve oneself is pretty pointless. The only way to really change is for there to be a necessity (in the philosophical sense) for change. More important, I think, is to recognize yourself in some real way, which is much harder than artificially trying to change yourself. You can’t really accept, understand, or deal with yourself on any real level if you don’t know you. I was thinking about this while I was cutting the grass today and remembered a passage from Catch 22:

Oh, they’re there, all right,” Orr had assured him about the flies in Appleby’s eyes after Yossarian’s fist fight with Appleby in the officers’ club, “although he probably doesn’t even know it. That’s why he can’t see things as they really are.” “How come he doesn’t know it?’ inquired Yossarian. “Because he’s got flies in his eyes,” Orr explained with exaggerated patience. “How can he see he’s got flies in his eyes if he’s got flies in his eyes?

I had mistakenly thought, all those years ago, that if there was consistency in the me I show people and the me I really am then things would go more smoothly. The flaw in that thought was that I assumed I knew and understood the person I really am. And I think that’s where I went wrong. All I ended up showing people was a consistently flawed view of who I thought I was. This year in particular showed me that I could have avoided most of the troublesome things that occurred if I’d known myself better and trusted my instincts. Specifically, I think about why I made certain decisions with friends, work, romance and in retrospect I knew the right thing to do; but I didn’t do it.

As luck would have it, I’d barely been back in town very long at all when a decision point came up that I’m quite sure several months ago I’d have made a different decision. I’d gotten a ride to mid city to watch the LSU game and hang out with some friends. Well, once there, the choice was to wait it out for a ride home or bail. My instincts were telling me to bail, but my false sense of self said I should wait it out because ‘I’m the kind of friend you can count on’. I bailed; and I think I was right to do so. To think ‘I’m the kind of friend you can count on’ is an incomplete thought. The complete thought should be that ‘I’m the kind of friend you can count on to do what I think is right every time’. Even if Especially if it means walking away from something.

And here’s one last thing I’d like to say in what is once again, a very long and somewhat boring post. When a situation comes up like last night where I make a decision, whether you agree with my decision or not, don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m angry or otherwise put-off by it. And try to not take it personally because I don’t mean it that way at all. I’m basing the decision on the situation, not the person. And if you’re someone, and there will be several of you I promise, that hear me say something like, “I think we’re done here” and then you never hear from me again, don’t take it personally. And don’t think I’m mad or otherwise upset. I can assure you I’ll be trying my best to forget your name by the time I’ve finished the sentence (its a talent that has served me well). And you may be sitting there thinking I sound jaded or something, and maybe I am. But all I’m really doing is what I think is right.

And because this post lacks profanity I’ll leave you with a quote from ICP:

Even if you like me, Fuck You.

I’ve been cautioned that I share too much information on this intertron thing. And I’ve given that a lot of thought. The thing is, I’m a pretty open person. I don’t really hide much away. In real life, there are built in safeguards. There are mannerisms and other tell-tale signs that you’re giving too much. Also, you know who you’re talking to in most cases. Its a finite audience of people standing right in front of you. On the web you never know who’s watching.

I believe my habit of being open on the web came from the web itself. The web, prior to twitter, facebook, blogs, et. al. was a very anonymous place. And as anonymity tends to do, it almost encourages people to develop personas. Many of the personas people created can be described as persona non grata (people not welcome). Still, others simply weren’t people at all, but bots created by people to ferret out information from those online. So few people are familiar with The Turing Test that they are easily fooled – usually by a compliment or two.

I look to some of my “online heros” and how they handle it and there’s no consistency at all. There’s nothing to be learned other than, “be careful”. The hot librarian, for example has taken great pains to hide her real identity over the years. But even she seems a little more at ease now. And sharing things she never would have two years ago. Is it a concious move? Naw, she’s just more comfortable with the medium. She’s developed a rapport with her online followers. And as more of them expose more of themselves to her, in the form of facebook pages and sites of their own…well, it has to be a little disarming. Still, there is a line that is observed albeit a little farther down the road than it used to be. One of my other “online heroes” is ZeFrank. He took the entirely opposite approach and focused on exposure. “The Show” was in internet phenomenon and I confess I still go and watch some of my favorite episodes every now and then. But now he’s a personality and widely recognized, in some circles anyway. You can still catch him doing his thing on CNN, but it isn’t quite the same with the ads and the big corporate logo at the top of the page tainting every word.

In both cases, the sensation has changed a little. With THL maybe part of the appreciation I had was that she was so unapproachable in that I didn’t know anyone who even thought the way she does, let alone bother to post it online. And ZeFrank, well, watching those old episodes, I remember how innovative and revolutionary it was at the time. The pure effort it must have taken was huge. And the risk, at least at that time, to putting yourself out there was scary regardless of whether it was a real or imagined fear.

And innovation is gone. I’ve been looking at Windows 7 and trying to decide if I hate the unreliablity and arrogance of Vista or the unimpressivness of 7 more. I haven’t decided. What I have decided is that there’s too much information out there. The digital natives are so accustomed to their every move being broadcast that they really don’t think anything of it. I’m willing to jump out there and be forward thinking. And really, to put myself out there, but I more and more face the idea that there has to be a line….somewhere.

Several years ago I actually shut this site down due to the fact that I was being interupted while out having fun with my friends or otherwise running around in “meat world”. People were angry. It got to be too much of a hassle – it wasn’t worth it anymore. I got burned. Part of the problem was a lack of context. Had those people actually known me they would not have been as offended, but maybe that isnt’ the case at all. Maybe they didn’t know me because we’re not the kind of people that can hang out together. Maybe, if we knew each other in person we wouldn’t get along and it would be apparent to both parties.

Still, I’ve had long conversations with people on the other side of the world that I learned a lot from. But that’s a little different. I was never going to run into them at a bar. They were never going to come up to me at a resturant while I’m having dinner with my girlfriend and tell me I’m an asshole and make a scene even if they thought I was an asshole. It was a physical imposibility. And it would be a lot simpler if I could say I had never had a pleasant interaction with people in meat world that prior to that had been a name on a comment or in the from field of an emal….but it isn’t true. My time writing with New Orleans Metroblog alone introduced me to people that, to this day, I still talk to occationally. Hell, I officiated the wedding of two people who met online; both of whom I met online. So I know it can be a good thing – it can be wonderful.

The post I started writing that is sitting in the Drafts folder, which is the equivalent of blog purgatory, talked about my weekend and the fun I had with the Elvi and my plans for the holidays. But then I found myself having to watch what I say or an innocent, running joke turns into 30 emails full of profanity (which has happened, believe me). So I guess, that’s my line in the sand. If I feel I’m self-censoring then I’m writing about something I shouldn’t be writing about. And besides, if I’m self-censoring, then I’m not being open…so why would somebody be interested in something I feel I should say or not say rather than how I really feel? Or maybe I’m just at a point in my life where being open and honest in this abstract way is simply inappropriate….I dunno.

Update: corrected the type-o that made me an ignorant slut. But I admit nothing and will instead blame it on the spellcheck for correcting turing to turning.

I moved a step closer to life without cable this weekend. I got the disk for the PS3 that allows for streaming movies. So if you have a PS3, a high speed internet connection, a router, a television, and a netflix account then you can get get a free disk to play movies directly through your ps3 from netflix to your tv. Its pretty cool, I have to say. The picture quality is great. Mine is running wirelessly through my router and I have the slowest cable connection so I’m not doing anything geeky. I watched two seasons of Penn and Teller: Bullshit. I can’t say I was ever a big fan of their act, and I don’t always agree with the stance or reasons they use on the show, but I am a huge fucking fan of that fucking show.

And now that I have a new laptop with and hdmi out on it I can stream hulu directly to my tv as well. More about “Alice” my new laptop from some dear friends soon. I’m still playing around with it and have been distracted with some pest control recently. Namely that my pest control (the cat) loves to chew on wires and I find that bothersome given the importance of those wires.

I really don’t have anything to say right now. I did read this great article by ZeFrank. Go ahead and read it - having to think about something for a second won’t hurt much, I promise. The only thing I have to add to the article is the idea that, although the term “digital native” is new, the ideas and constructs of thought they personify have been around for a very long time – this is simply the latest instantiation of it. I’m about the same age as ZeFrank so I can appreciate the fact that we’re just about too old to grasp their thinking as our own thinking has been worn away by the years of trying to keep our footing on that uneven power law distribution. Or perhaps I’m just too proud to admit that I’m quickly being passed by people clearly more equipped for the life/career I’ve chosen for myself than I ever was. But that’s progress right?

I’ve spent my adult life avoiding children. I avoid them in restaurant, parks; anywhere they’re likely to be. Progressively harder has been to avoid dating people who have children, but i think I’m so old now that its less of an issue since their children are more likely to be grown by now. When I get to the Christian’s Pearly Gates there will be no conversation with St. Peter; he’ll just gesture, Price is Right style, to a 30ft tall mound of used condoms and send me straight to hell. And I do find myself getting less patient with people young enough to have been children after I was an adult. I think this stems from my underlying suspicions that it may have been them in that restaurant that time screaming a steak-ruining scream, or behind me on the plane kicking my seat to the point that I literally wished the flight would crash. And I’m sure the next level is to start redefining what constitutes a child. Perhaps at some age I decide anyone under 40 is a child and therefore unacceptable but that seems likely a few years off.

Having said that, it doesn’t mean I’m completely against having kids. See, I don’t intuitively want children, but if I was to fall in love with someone that did want children I can’t say I would be willing to lose that person rather than have kids. Besides, I hear most people, even if they hate most kids, aren’t nearly as likely to hate their own until the teen years. Plus, I’ve discovered one very, very big upside this morning – I could tell them this every night as a bedtime story:

Sometimes I let Rufus talk for me.

There are things I don’t write about on here. There are different reasons I don’t write about certain things and I’ll go into that now. The problem is, when I’m writing, it is inevitable that what’s on my mind will come out. Even if I start on a subject far removed, it will wander and wind until it ends up on what my mind is thinking about. So I don’t post much during those times, or at least I don’t write anything meaningful. Tonight, I’m just going to give in to that and write what’s on my mind.  Warning: this will likely be a very boring post. And I’m not going to reread or edit it so sorry for the spelling and grammar errors. You’ve been warned.

First, I don’t blog about work – ever. This has been a policy I self-imposed years ago. I will post about a job after I don’t work there anymore, but still I don’t like to do it and I’m careful not to put out information that isn’t already publicly known. I think this is a good policy. And I think most people follow it. I doubt my current employer would care if I posted stuff about work, but as with all employers, this, you have to think, is only true as long as they like what you’re saying. But more than that, no one really cares about my job – I mean, its just not that exciting since I’m a computer geek. Lately work has been occupying a lot of my thoughts for reasons I obviously can’t go into here. But it makes it difficult to think of anything else to say when something like that is on your mind.

I also don’t usually post anything about my family, but again, its been on my mind lately and it makes it difficult to think of other things to write. My mother’s birthday was yesterday, and I called and talked to her briefly at work. So I guess if I had to say something I would want to say that she, more than anyone or anything in my life, is most responsible for the good, warm, and sincerest parts of me. Then there’s dad, who had surgery today, my mom called and said he’s doing fine and will be in the hospital until Friday. My father, very directly taught me how to think clearly and at times in my life, more importantly, taught me to think clearly under duress. It seems to me that the combination of these two contributions explain my almost rediculous need to express myself and to be clear about what I think and how I feel. The fact that I do that through writing and my conversations with people is a mystery. Its just how I get stuff out.

Which brings me to the last thing. I rarely write about someone I’ve been in a relationship unless that relationship ended years ago. For one, as I stated above, if its on my mind, no matter where I start all roads lead to that. And I don’t want to not say something and them think whatever they want, and I don’t want to say something for fear it might make things difficult (for me and them). Having said that, this last relationship sort of broke me. Everyone knows that; the people I work with know it; my friends know it; my family knows it; and I, more than anyone, knows it. So I’ve been hiding away. If the little termite took my advice she’ll never see this, but she commented on a post some time back so I suspect she does. I just sat and stared at that comment – it was very polite. And that’s all it took for me to start thinking “what if” – a very dangerous phrase. But I don’t even know her phone number so it isn’t like I can call and reconnect with her – and that just made me feel pathetic. So I did the only think I could, I approved the comment, shut down my computer and tried to forget the whole thing.The most perplexing thing is that she put her current blog address as the informtation after I thought she moved it to keep me from reading it. And I’ve done my best not to even find out the name of the new blog and since the comment I’ve done my best not to go to her blog. After all, I should at least be able to take my own advice or I have no right to give said advice.

Well, tonight, for reasons I’ll never understand, I went to her blog, and I read her tweets on twitter. I’m very disappointed in myself for that because I know it will make things harder not to go back. And I have to realize that she’s posting for her friends and family, and not for me. She’s not talking to me. She may, in fact, be talking to everyone but me. It was bound to happen that I’d go to her site and I know that. But I was surprised to find that, I too was talking to everyone but her. On the one hand that makes us even, but it just isn’t who I want to be. And the more I thought about it, all these things I talk around really makes me quite insincere. So, there’s this long post with almost no point stating nothing more than the fact that I realized I’ve actually been hiding from my own thoughts and feelings cause I don’t have any way to deal with them.

When you decide someone is the love of your life, you’re pretty much assuring if you ever lose that person its going to suck. When you imagine your life with that person and never, ever think of your life in terms of that person not being in it, then things are going to suck if you lose them. I have a bunch of stuff in the top of my closet that I gathered for her during our time apart (before we broke up) that I just don’t know what to do with. I know she doesn’t want it and it isn’t like I can just leave in on her doorstep cause that’s not my style. And I can’t throw it all away. I don’t know why I can’t but I can’t. And even if I could, there would still be a problem. I have this little coin she gave me from when she was little. Every now and then I pull it out of this little drawer and I just hold it in my hand. Not long, but just a minute or two. I’ve slowly started to realize that during those few minutes here and there that I’m actually allowing myself to feel how I feel and then I tuck those feelings along with the coin, away. Sure the feelings sneak up on me sometimes and I quickly try and put them back in their place where they can’t hurt me. I very much believe she should have that coin back – its not mine and she no longer feels about me the way she did when she gave it to me.

I’ve always been honest with her about how I feel and I’m happy that I was able to tell her how much I love, respect, and appreciate her. And that I even got the opportunity to tell her I was sorry for the way things worked out was a luxury I’m  grateful for. I desperately wish it had been differnt. I think about her every day, just for second here and there, and I’m afraid because I know one day I won’t. And whether I like it or not, my life will go on, and her life will go on, and we’ll get farther and farther apart at least in spirit. And I’ll wonder every now and then where she is and if she’s happy.(God, I pray that she is happy.) The thing about being the love of someones life is that you never really have to stop being that for them. Furthermore it takes no effort, I can keep loving her for the rest of my life and there’s not much anyone can do about it. Permission just isn’t required to feel any certain way. Besides, I promised I would. And when I look up to see Mr. Moon sitting in the sky it will be nice to knowhe’s looking out for us since we can’t look out for each other. And I want her to konw how dear she is to me and that everything is going to be alright. I’m just having a difficult time learning how to imagine my life without her in it; probably because I don’t want to.

I’m posting this for Hannah’s hangover.