eor

I've gotten out of the habit of writing. It's never been natural for me and as I've gotten older I've got more self-conscious about having nothing interesting to write about or being unable to express anything I do have to write about. It's a self reinforcing line of thought, pretty soon the people you might write to are so out of touch with your life, it's hard to make a connection. When I can actually get something written it makes me happy. But it is very rare that I can sit down and get around my apprehension. It probably doesn't help that I don't have much time to sit down at all these days, but it's not just lack of time. And it's not just depression. And it's not just feelings of inadequacy. It's all of them and some more stuff thrown in.

So I'm going to try to write some mundane things, when I have a few minutes to try to retrain myself.

( cut for length )

I'm was listening to the random music selection on my Music System and a song off Liz Phair's "Exile In Guyville" came on. That album and "Whip Smart" are fixed to a time in my mind. It was the time of hard work and optimism that preceded the Dot Com boom. When I bought Exile I was working at an accounting firm and it stayed in the car CD player for weeks on end. They followed me into the Internet biz.

I associated "whitechocolatespaceegg" with a slightly later time: the same kind of sleepless nights, but laced with exhaustion and burn out. I was trapped with little hope of getting out with anything. I was lucky to get out with my life, even though I sacrificed my health. "Uncle Alvarez" and "Shitloads of Money" are the songs that best portray the time.

Funny how songs or albums can represent a time so well. The Lemonheads first album will always be dancing around in the livingroom of the place across the street from campus, where money and heat were in short supply, but energy and optimism were unlimited. The 10,000 Maniacs' "Verdi Cries" will always be sitting in front of a green screen with no lights on. Michele Shocked's first two albums will always be back to back on a tape in the car traveling out to the White Mountains in the glory of summer.

I hope this year's song is upbeat.

A couple things have coincided and I want to ramble on a bit about brains.

( Ironically cut for length )

I haven't said it in a while and I was noticing it specially this weekend,

derien is an excellent companion. I like to use that term because it covers such a wide range of things from someone you go to the movies with, to someone you slog through arduous tasks with, to someone you listen to snore, to someone who you do lots of other things with. Like the term,

derien is versatile.

Most people talk about relationships being a lot of work. Every now and then, ours takes a bit of effort, but for the most part after the initial bumps of learning to communicate with each other it just goes along. NRE involves work, a real longterm relationship involves more paying attention to the tiller than climbing up to furl the sails. Well, I guess that's if you're doing it right.

One of my favorite bits is seeing her when she's crushing on someone. It's so cute. I must confess, I tend to encourage it. It is a bit sad when she gets over her crush, or worse yet her crush doesn't turn out as good as the initial shine might have appeared. It's still fun when it's shiney. I wonder if mono people recognize that in their partner or if they overlook it entirely.

"Every old sock, meets an old shoe." - Kate Bush

( cut for length and boring )

Current Mood: productive
Current Location: livingroom

I grumble a fair amount. In fact, I grumble a lot. But I don't expect that anyone will grumble along with me. Someone might say, "that sucks" or "I hate that too" and it's a nice bit of sympathy. But I realize other than a mutual low key grumble, it's not good to pile on. That's where it should end and usually I'm conscious enough to end it there.

At work it's easy to get wound up about things and people are quite willing to jump on the Bitchin' Wagin. Because, afterall, if you're standing around bitching, you're not actually doing any work and you're getting paid to not do any work. It's a bad habit to get into. I go to work to work. When I can get some good work done I'm proud of it. It's a self-reinforcing good thing. As opposed to the bitch sessions which are usually self-reinforcing things that produce bad feelings.

I do have to remind myself of this occasionally, because I can -always- find something to complain about. It's my nature. A curmudgeon is someone who can imagine how things could be better and is frustrated that they aren't.

Current Location: chair

From

cygny's journal:

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

BTW: I offer no assurances that you'll get 5 subjects from me, but try if you'd like.

( My answers, cut for length )

Current Location: northern hemisphere
Current Music: Bruce Hornsby "Valley Road"

I have had a long streak of not being able to write. Not that I write stories or anything, but for a long time I've felt like I couldn't write a shopping list. I had ideas and things I wanted to say, but whenever I'd set down to write them, in any medium, I either couldn't start or would feel completely awful about the start and immediately stop.

Some time, maybe a few weeks ago, that seems to have changed. I don't know what precipitated the change, but things started to slowly shift. I wrote a few things that, though they weren't anything but boring, did at least they came out. Then one night I wrote a letter that I felt came out perfect, or near perfect. Maybe I got my rhythm back. I don't know.

At least now it doesn't feel like an onerous task to write a weekly email to my mum or whip off a few words about a book I've read. I don't claim to be writing any better. At least I feel better about doing the writing.

I'm hoping to come up with some kind of coherent thought here, but my head is all stuffed up and I'm sneezing so don't count on it.

A while back I said to myself, "Self, why are people so reserved?" Self looked at me with mildly amused scorn and handed me a mirror. "But I'm not reserved with people I know well!" I said. Self rolled its eyes, cocked its head and looked at the ceiling sceptically. "Well, not people I know really, really well and trust and stuff." Self went off to look for a pig to teach German.

Well, you could say I'm from good old Puritan New England. I know it's a cliche and a stereotype, but sometimes cliches fit and sometimes stereotypes are partially based in reality. I was raised by my family. My family are world class (how to put this nicely) subtle communicators. Our idea of a knock down blowout fight is one very well placed and heavily laden sentence spoken in a matter of fact tone followed by a pause and perhaps in extreme cases a Look.

I have only recently learned how to accept compliments. It's not that my family never showed appreciation, but it was most often more subtle than coming out and making an overt statement. It took me effort as an adult to learn to express that mixture of gratitude and humility that I feel when I get a compliment (plus get passed the embarrassment of being made a fuss over). Still to this day I sometimes get caught off guard and blow it.

Is it nature or nurture? I don't know. But it's hard to overcome, especially when it's reinforced by the society you live. Does it need to be overcome? Well, in some ways it would be good. My best humor tends to only come out when I'm willing to goof and go with it. My most far ranging ideas only come out when I'm not worried about offending or getting into an argument. My deepest feelings only come out when I get some sense that they won't offend, injure, or simply embarrass. Some of that can come out to strangers, if I'm in a don't-give-a-shit attitude, but mostly it comes by phases when I know people. But you only get to know people, really, when you each do that.

There was only one catch, catch-22.

(Really I do laugh and goof and rant and sing and love and even occasionally hate. It's just the theatre has a very small capacity and performances aren't regularly scheduled. Don't give me that look, Self.)

Current Mood: intwoespektiv
Current Music: Marcus Roberts playing Ellington

( books, plans, and results )

Current Mood: lazy
Current Music: Beethoven "Austrian Air in C"

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Entries tagged with navel gazing

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