Is the name of the girl I am currently...well, perhaps I could describe her as...er, it's only been just over a week, so...
I have gone out with her twice. And I am currently absolutely flippin' obsessed with her.
I mean it. I've never felt this way about a girl before. We connect on every level. Emotional, mental, physical (Eventually? So far, all we've shared is a goodnight kiss on the cheek), everything. She's easily my match in terms of intelligence, if not my superior, she has a fiery independent streak that I can't help but respect, she can listen as well as talk (and she's teaching me how to listen as opposed to just waiting for a gap so I can begin to talk again), and whenever she takes down her hair out of the ponytail she traditionally wears it in and shoof-shoofs it around her head, I lose track of everything I am currently saying and/or thinking.
I, of course, am no mind reader. I don't know how she feels about me. But from the conversations we've had and what we've shared, if I am any judge of character at all...well, I can hope really hard, anyway. And I believe my hope has some merit.
In any case, my week has gone sort of up-down-up-down. Saturday, I went out with Liz for the first time, and in case it wasn't already blaringly obvious, that went extraordinarily well.
(I knew, KNEW that the ballistic approach to dating - ask every girl that piques my interest and rely on the law of averages to ensure I'd find a suitable match - would work. I'm just stunned that any method worked well enough to bring Liz to me.)
I met her on the bus, in case you're wondering. I was headed home from Publix, which I went to on a whim with Zak. There were no seats, so I remained standing. I noticed I was sort of standing directly over this cute girl (who had her shirt on inside-out, that's the sort of detail that lodges itself in the mind), so I apologized for looming. She said it was no trouble. A few minutes later, I asked her about her Gator Growl necklace-thing, and we began talking. By the time she got off the bus, she had given me her phone number. We met on Saturday. Went to a sushi restaurant, where I decided to eat something new and had a raw quail egg. Not bad, but I'll certainly not have another. Serendipity itself, the bus ride, I think - had I not decided randomly to go to Publix with Zak, we would never have met, and I would still be as lonely as I was two weeks ago today.
I've just realized that I'm sort of going about this the wrong way. I'm thinking about her as if I have finally scored some important goal - that I've reached some objective, gained a MacGuffin. And that's not it at all. I have certainly reached my personal goal of finding a girl with whom I can connect, but it's not as if I beat a level in a video game and got a prize for it. I've gotta break out of that way of thinking.
Ill-formed line of thought aside, I gotta continue with my story. Sunday was down, for the downstairs toilet exploded. Not burst into pieces, but...was overwhelmed, let's say. Yes, it might have been my fault. Yes, I should eat more fiber. That is so far from the point that you can't see the point from it on a clear day. A lot of mopping and swearing ensued, and I gotta thank Mike for this one, for knowing how to deal with a mess such as I have never encountered. So...thanks, Mike. Our squabbles aside, you do know a lot of things I don't. (Now I just gotta hope you read this, it would be way too self-aggrandizing to mention it.)
Monday was up again. I got 25 points of extra credit in a class in which I had recently scored a 76 on a test, so that promoted my C to an A+. I like that. Tuesday...Tuesday, my landlord called me to tell me that the people who own the place directly downstairs from us complained that their roof was leaking. So that was down, because technically that might have been my fault. He said probably not, but he'd have to see.
Interesting things happened on Wednesday. I saw Liz again, we went out to lunch, and enjoyed each others' company some more. I really do enjoy spending time with her. (Details are sparse, yes, but I'm not entirely sure how comfortable she is with my relating any sort of details on this blog, so until I get a solid opinion from her one way or the other, they shall remain sparse.) So that was up. Also, game club, which is endlessly entertaining.
I believe I have successfully reached a low point today, given that work was an endless tedium of sorting games and putting games away, and I might, might just have to pay for the water damage downstairs. Hopefully not, probably not...but might. Oh, I voted today, but I'm not saying for whom I voted. No matter what answer I give, I'm going to piss half of the people around me, so I'm just clamming up. (A conversation with my mother, unfortunately, indicates that this will just instantly cause people to assume I voted for the person they didn't want to win, so it's sort of rendering me worse off than I would otherwise be, but a man's gotta have principles.)
If the past is any indication, tomorrow will be up. Which is fortunate, because tomorrow is Halloween, and I fully intend to don a badly put together ninja costume (I love my badly put together ninja costume) and gorge myself on candy at various parties. Hell's bells, I don't drink any more and I'm cutting down on fast food, I have to have some kind of vice.
If there was anything that amazing that happened between last Friday and my last blog post, it has escaped me. It probably wasn't that worth mentioning.
I'm still raving about Liz to anyone who will listen, though. I'm presenting a calm face to her, and my ravings aside, I'm really not all that jazzed up - excited, yes, but not manic - but I have literally never felt this way for a girl before. I take the lamest of excuses to talk for hours, why not take an excellent one?
(Intriguing, isn't it, that every paragraph in this blog post - except one - has begun with the letter I? Excluding punctuation? I noticed that for the first few, and just started to run with it.)
...
...
I see what you did there. You went back up and looked for the one that didn't start with I, didn't you. And if you didn't then, you're probably either going to do it now or are going to refuse to do it just to spite me. Since I can only assume that if you're still reading this far without knowledge of which paragraph it was, it's the spite option, I'll just go out and say it - the tenth paragraph began with "Monday".
I'm sorry if this post is a little more "meta" than mine usually tend to be, I just finished reading a comic strip called 1/0, which is the most interesting experiment in metafiction I've ever seen. Read it at http://www.undefined.net/1/0/ but immediately hit the "First" button if you don't want to see the last comic first. It's not a big spoiler, by the time you get to it you'll already know what's going to happen...but first things should come first.
I'll see y'all later.
(Heh, finished on an I.
...
Dammit.)
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
I Missed My 100th Post, Damn It To Hell
It was two posts ago. I should have mentioned something. Oh well.
The week was fairly eventful. Well, during the week wasn't that grand, but some cool stuff happened. I met a girl in my Reporting lectures who seems quite nice. Her name is Jarahlee, which is a bit odd, but certainly interesting. (Spelled like that and everything.)
We were given a BS little quiz thing that the professor gives out to ensure attendance. The questions:
1. Do you have any tattoos?
2. If so, where and what? If not, why not? Are you boring?
3. Do you have any piercings?
4. If so, where? If not...why do you suck so much? (Maybe.)
Jarahlee (she described it as "Like Sarah Lee, except one word and with a J") mentioned that she did, in fact, have a tattoo. I asked about it. She said that it was angel wings, between her shoulder-blades. That is very neat, and I said so. We talked for a bit, and we've been sitting next to each other last few classes.
I realized recently that there is only one thing that people care about less than hearing about role-playing game sessions that they weren't at and don't know anything about, and that is hearing about other peoples' dreams. So I'll keep the descriptions of the various sessions to a minimum. To wit:
Friday's Vampire session: We tracked down and killed the conspirators who murdered Julius Caesar. (It's set in Roman times.) Gave their bodies to Cleopatra, who was a little insane and had them converted into massive puppets and sent back to Rome, to general rejoicing. Sat around for fifty years and grew in power. I developed a messianic cult. My character is making a play to become Emperor of Rome.
Saturday's session that I ran: Those blasted players took what I was building up to be an effective and deadly villain, truly evil and horrible, and jumped ahead in the plot and set up a situation in which he was made completely ridiculous. Now they'll never take him seriously. Even when I had him threaten the party with certain death and loom large, they were complimenting me on how he "wasn't really that evil, just sort of a rival" and "interesting portrayal of a villain who isn't that villainous." I hate them.
Sunday's session: Despite being overpowered gestalt characters with two classes each and recharge spellcasting, we proved that our distinguishing characteristics as a party are:
1. Crushing incompetence, and
2. Boiling hatred for each other.
This would normally be bad, but it's shaping up to be one of the funniest dungeons I've ever played through. Upon leveling a bit, we got past incompetence and are now stampeding headlong towards grotesquely overpowered. Fun times.
Right, that's over with. Friday night, after Vampire, I went with Steven and his female friends to see a hip-hop dance competition. Normally, when one tells me about a hip-hop dance competition taking place, you can usually find me leaving to go play pool, but his friends were hot, and so I went.
Oh, right, just remembered. Before this, Steven and I played the most ridiculous set of games of pool I've ever seen. Probability and physics had no place at this table. We were both making and missing shots neither of us had any right to do so with. He would hit in three balls in one shot, then miss at a range of six inches. I ran the table on him from the break until I only had one ball left before the 8, then chased that around the table for the rest of the game while he sunk all his and won.
The first nine games of 8-ball we played ended with Steven sinking the 8...but he only won about half of those. Every game, he sunk the 8, but sometimes he did it before the rest of his balls were sunk, sometimes he scratched on the sink, sometimes he put it in the wrong pocket. On one memorable occasion, he scratched on the sinking and put it in the wrong pocket. Fun times.
Hip-hop dance was a bit of a misnomer. It was mostly breakdancing, which I like. Some of these people...are absolutely insane. One guy in particular didn't seem to have any bones. He was made out of rubber, and could bend and twist any which way, leaping and jumping and spinning in place until we all just gave up and handed over all of our worldly possessions. I would have, except then this tubby guy got on the floor with a shirt saying "I AM hip-hop." And he was. Dear God, he was. Name a part of the human body, and this guy could spin or twirl on it. Palms of his hands, shoulders, knees, top of his head, anything. He was hip-hop.
He was overshadowed only by the last group we saw, which forsook general breakdancing and such in favor of a choreographed routine, led by this shirtless guy who was so built, he could not possibly have been born. He was constructed. Out of muscle and awesome. Not ugly-huge like you see bodybuilders like, just perfectly muscular and flexible as hell. His dancing was art, sheer and simple. (On a side note, it appears that I am gay now. Huh.)
I reasserted my heterosexuality afterwards by chatting up one of Steven's hot friends, a girl named Ali, and getting her phone number. In addition to being attractive, she plays Halo 2 and reads comic books, so I figure, match made in heaven. I'll see her again tomorrow at Juggling Club, which she attends every week. We've talked on the phone a bit in the interim. She's quite nice.
Monday...ah, Monday. I had a test in Geography on Wednesday, and arrived at Monday's class about twenty minutes early, through sheer happenstance. I noticed everyone was studying furiously, paging through their notes.
Oh shit, a little voice said.
I sat down next to a guy and asked what was the deal with everyone. Was there some review today, before Wednesday's test?
He looked at me funny and told me that the test wasn't on Wednesday, it was today. A panicked glance to the guy nodding on the other side of me confirmed this fact.
Oh shit.
Not to worry, though, I've attended class and I have good notes on my computer, I thought. So what if I can't look over the official notes? I can bluff through most of it, and I have notes here, so...
...my hard drive chose that point to detach, and my computer would not boot, a condition I could not possibly fix without a screwdriver.
OH SHIT.
Fortunately, a pair of thinly veiled deus ex machinas were on hand to save my worthless hide. A guy sitting outside had this massive, ridiculously well-written packet of notes which he let me page through at thought-blurring speed, and the girl I sat next to in the test room proper let me go through her fat stack of notecards in the ten minutes or so I had before the test began.
Flush with recently acquired/remembered information, I received the test, only to discover that the test was about a tenth as difficult as the first rough one was, and I demolished it. So, good news there.
Tomorrow I go to see Michelle Obama give a speech in favor of her husband (I can only assume, I kinda doubt she'd suddenly come out in favor of McCain at this point). I don't want to, but it's the biggest news event this week and I have to have a good story for Reporting. So off I go. It's gonna be boring, but whatever. Anything to pass the damn class.
That's more or less it. This personal trainer is kicking my ass, but since I'm paying him to do that, it's working out well. I set it up so I go to the gym on Mondays (when I see him), Thursdays, and Saturdays, and go running Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Wednesdays are my off days. If this doesn't get me results, I am terminally out of shape and might as well just forget doing anything. (I'll give it a couple months to see results, of course. I'm not dumb enough to think that a single week of exercise will change anything whatsoever.)
Oh yeah, today I went to Tatu, a sushi place I'd never even heard of, with Henry and his friends. Again, didn't really feel like, but hot female friends (sadly, both with boyfriends), so off I went. Their salmon rolls are awesome, and I tried their fried tofu steak.
I now know for certain: I don't like tofu.
The week was fairly eventful. Well, during the week wasn't that grand, but some cool stuff happened. I met a girl in my Reporting lectures who seems quite nice. Her name is Jarahlee, which is a bit odd, but certainly interesting. (Spelled like that and everything.)
We were given a BS little quiz thing that the professor gives out to ensure attendance. The questions:
1. Do you have any tattoos?
2. If so, where and what? If not, why not? Are you boring?
3. Do you have any piercings?
4. If so, where? If not...why do you suck so much? (Maybe.)
Jarahlee (she described it as "Like Sarah Lee, except one word and with a J") mentioned that she did, in fact, have a tattoo. I asked about it. She said that it was angel wings, between her shoulder-blades. That is very neat, and I said so. We talked for a bit, and we've been sitting next to each other last few classes.
I realized recently that there is only one thing that people care about less than hearing about role-playing game sessions that they weren't at and don't know anything about, and that is hearing about other peoples' dreams. So I'll keep the descriptions of the various sessions to a minimum. To wit:
Friday's Vampire session: We tracked down and killed the conspirators who murdered Julius Caesar. (It's set in Roman times.) Gave their bodies to Cleopatra, who was a little insane and had them converted into massive puppets and sent back to Rome, to general rejoicing. Sat around for fifty years and grew in power. I developed a messianic cult. My character is making a play to become Emperor of Rome.
Saturday's session that I ran: Those blasted players took what I was building up to be an effective and deadly villain, truly evil and horrible, and jumped ahead in the plot and set up a situation in which he was made completely ridiculous. Now they'll never take him seriously. Even when I had him threaten the party with certain death and loom large, they were complimenting me on how he "wasn't really that evil, just sort of a rival" and "interesting portrayal of a villain who isn't that villainous." I hate them.
Sunday's session: Despite being overpowered gestalt characters with two classes each and recharge spellcasting, we proved that our distinguishing characteristics as a party are:
1. Crushing incompetence, and
2. Boiling hatred for each other.
This would normally be bad, but it's shaping up to be one of the funniest dungeons I've ever played through. Upon leveling a bit, we got past incompetence and are now stampeding headlong towards grotesquely overpowered. Fun times.
Right, that's over with. Friday night, after Vampire, I went with Steven and his female friends to see a hip-hop dance competition. Normally, when one tells me about a hip-hop dance competition taking place, you can usually find me leaving to go play pool, but his friends were hot, and so I went.
Oh, right, just remembered. Before this, Steven and I played the most ridiculous set of games of pool I've ever seen. Probability and physics had no place at this table. We were both making and missing shots neither of us had any right to do so with. He would hit in three balls in one shot, then miss at a range of six inches. I ran the table on him from the break until I only had one ball left before the 8, then chased that around the table for the rest of the game while he sunk all his and won.
The first nine games of 8-ball we played ended with Steven sinking the 8...but he only won about half of those. Every game, he sunk the 8, but sometimes he did it before the rest of his balls were sunk, sometimes he scratched on the sink, sometimes he put it in the wrong pocket. On one memorable occasion, he scratched on the sinking and put it in the wrong pocket. Fun times.
Hip-hop dance was a bit of a misnomer. It was mostly breakdancing, which I like. Some of these people...are absolutely insane. One guy in particular didn't seem to have any bones. He was made out of rubber, and could bend and twist any which way, leaping and jumping and spinning in place until we all just gave up and handed over all of our worldly possessions. I would have, except then this tubby guy got on the floor with a shirt saying "I AM hip-hop." And he was. Dear God, he was. Name a part of the human body, and this guy could spin or twirl on it. Palms of his hands, shoulders, knees, top of his head, anything. He was hip-hop.
He was overshadowed only by the last group we saw, which forsook general breakdancing and such in favor of a choreographed routine, led by this shirtless guy who was so built, he could not possibly have been born. He was constructed. Out of muscle and awesome. Not ugly-huge like you see bodybuilders like, just perfectly muscular and flexible as hell. His dancing was art, sheer and simple. (On a side note, it appears that I am gay now. Huh.)
I reasserted my heterosexuality afterwards by chatting up one of Steven's hot friends, a girl named Ali, and getting her phone number. In addition to being attractive, she plays Halo 2 and reads comic books, so I figure, match made in heaven. I'll see her again tomorrow at Juggling Club, which she attends every week. We've talked on the phone a bit in the interim. She's quite nice.
Monday...ah, Monday. I had a test in Geography on Wednesday, and arrived at Monday's class about twenty minutes early, through sheer happenstance. I noticed everyone was studying furiously, paging through their notes.
Oh shit, a little voice said.
I sat down next to a guy and asked what was the deal with everyone. Was there some review today, before Wednesday's test?
He looked at me funny and told me that the test wasn't on Wednesday, it was today. A panicked glance to the guy nodding on the other side of me confirmed this fact.
Oh shit.
Not to worry, though, I've attended class and I have good notes on my computer, I thought. So what if I can't look over the official notes? I can bluff through most of it, and I have notes here, so...
...my hard drive chose that point to detach, and my computer would not boot, a condition I could not possibly fix without a screwdriver.
OH SHIT.
Fortunately, a pair of thinly veiled deus ex machinas were on hand to save my worthless hide. A guy sitting outside had this massive, ridiculously well-written packet of notes which he let me page through at thought-blurring speed, and the girl I sat next to in the test room proper let me go through her fat stack of notecards in the ten minutes or so I had before the test began.
Flush with recently acquired/remembered information, I received the test, only to discover that the test was about a tenth as difficult as the first rough one was, and I demolished it. So, good news there.
Tomorrow I go to see Michelle Obama give a speech in favor of her husband (I can only assume, I kinda doubt she'd suddenly come out in favor of McCain at this point). I don't want to, but it's the biggest news event this week and I have to have a good story for Reporting. So off I go. It's gonna be boring, but whatever. Anything to pass the damn class.
That's more or less it. This personal trainer is kicking my ass, but since I'm paying him to do that, it's working out well. I set it up so I go to the gym on Mondays (when I see him), Thursdays, and Saturdays, and go running Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Wednesdays are my off days. If this doesn't get me results, I am terminally out of shape and might as well just forget doing anything. (I'll give it a couple months to see results, of course. I'm not dumb enough to think that a single week of exercise will change anything whatsoever.)
Oh yeah, today I went to Tatu, a sushi place I'd never even heard of, with Henry and his friends. Again, didn't really feel like, but hot female friends (sadly, both with boyfriends), so off I went. Their salmon rolls are awesome, and I tried their fried tofu steak.
I now know for certain: I don't like tofu.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Philosophical Ramblings (Hey, Callback Title)
I’m on the bus home. I read Ender’s Game just now. It was extremely good. I almost say “surprisingly,” but from all I’ve heard about it, there’s nothing surprising about it. It is, after all, one of the classics of science-fiction, written by one of the SF greats. I learned a couple of things from reading it. A couple of important things, I think.
Here’s the first thing. There are two kinds of power – mental power and physical power. Physical power is the stuff that intrigues and thrills me, why I read comic books and play D&D and bang away at video games, whether I’m a stout warrior slicing down a foe a hundred times his size, a powerful wizard blasting away at legions of enemies with fire and lightning, or a battleship defeating a fleet a thousand times its size.
Physical power is what fills my fantasies and my dreams. When I walk to class, when I walk to the store, when I walk just to go out and have a walk, my head is filled with thoughts of might and magic. Bizarre anime-like plots like the one I described, with legendary heroes performing fantastic feats. Or different, thinking of my own self, doing crazy things I’d never be capable of, playing the hero, rescuing the innocent, protecting those weaker or disadvantaged, showing my strength.
I dream like this because physical power is something unattainable to me. At least, in any significant amount. I can train my body and become fit and toned and muscular, but the most I’ll ever be able to hope for is to hold my own in a fight against worse odds, or perform impressive feats undoable by those in worse shape. I’ll never be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, never be able to dodge bullets, never be able to throw a train or project searing beams of energy from my hands.
I’ll never be able to do any of it. So that’s what I dream of. Physical power is the unreachable star, what I’ll always want and never have. But there is another kind of power which I will have, which I do have, and that is mental power.
This was demonstrated in Ender’s Game, very well. Ender was not very physically adept. He defeated opponents physically superior to him through tactics and trickery. He led a fleet against an impossible foe and won, not because of a massive planet-destroying weapon (though it helped), but because of his invulnerable skill at strategy and command.
Mental power is something I do have. I’m no Ender – I couldn’t lead a group of starships to victory against a foe that outnumbered them a hundred to one – but I do fancy myself to be quick in a tight spot and pretty good at coming up with ideas. This, I can sharpen. If I focus on training my mind like I’m going to be training my body, I can eventually do amazing, marvelous things – far more amazing than I ever could with biceps that could bend steel or glowing eyes that could burn a hole through concrete.
That was the first thing that the book taught me. If you were to pit mental power against physical power, assuming equal circumstances and equal skill, the mental power is heavily favored to win. Take the strongest man in the world, hunting down a weakling in a warehouse. Cut the lights, all of a sudden his strength means nothing. He can’t punch what he can’t see. Mental power can trump physical power because it can go around it, or circumvent it, or put it in a situation where it is useless. And since I have, or can have, mental power, that favors me in situations where I would otherwise be in difficulty.
That was one thing. That was important. That may fundamentally change things. But more was changed than just that. Something very important occurred to me. My philosophy of life is wrong...again.
For the longest time, I thought the most important thing to a person was happiness. To be happy, or content, that was the acme of a person’s life. What more could one want? And I was happy, or content, in my idle pleasures and simple things. But I was bored, and I knew it. I craved more. That’s why I constantly manifest such odd fantasies in my head – because my mind was (is) being so underused that it is (was) forced to craft its own scenarios in which something, anything, interesting happened to me.
Then I spoke with Henry, experienced the epiphany I’ve shared with all around me, knew for a fact that I was living my life wrong – and I was. I still believe this, absolutely. Talking to Henry and coming to the realization that I did was the best thing I’ve done for myself in years. I resolved that no more would I merely be content to loaf around and do nothing, I would be social, I would go out and talk and experience new things.
I thought that the most important thing to a person was excitement. Firework moments, Henry called them. Crash, boom, bang, colored lights and explosions and bang, pow, kaboom, something fun’s happening, now it’s over and there’s nothing left but a wisp of smoke and the dying echoes. But the memory persists, blazes as brightly as the fire it conjures forth in the mind.
Having thought more thoroughly about it, I came to the conclusion that this too was wrong. That’s a fun way to live, certainly more interesting and entertaining than the way I was living previously, but it’s unsustainable. A person can’t live expecting a constant stream of excitement. It’s impossible to expect, because it won’t happen. On the odd circumstance that constant excitement does occur, it’s a temporary and transient thing, and when it leaves it leaves you hungry and drained, tired from the fun but wanting more, but more won’t come, because the only thing a life full of explosions can lead to is disappointment when they stop – or nothing at all, because a particularly large bang can be the last one you ever hear.
I still plan to seek excitement. I’m young, I’m in college, I’m ideally placed for fun things to happen and to seek new and entertaining possibilities. But that isn’t the basis of my life. It’ll be fun, but it won’t be everything. I realized, now, what the most important thing to a person is:
Other people.
Humans are social creatures by nature. We want to associate ourselves with others, because other people are the only thing that can provide the variety we crave – the companionship we seek – the emotions we live for.
Not that a man should define himself by the company he keeps. I’m certainly the last person to start hanging out with a given crowd just because it’s the “in” thing to do, because I seek credibility or approval. But it’s because I made a similar inventory of myself as I did when I had my epiphany over a month ago.
Back then, I looked back through my life, and I couldn’t identify any periods of strong emotion, any periods of serious excitement. I resolved to change, and so I have, slowly. But I have looked over my life, and I have made the terrifying realization that there’s nobody left who I feel really close to.
At home? My friends...I’m drifting away from them. Jake, Matt, Nolan, James, Daniel, they’re all fun people, but they’re starting to feel farther and farther away. Dan, seems more of a kindred spirit, but he’s different from me in too many fundamental ways for me to really connect with him. Kait, closer than home, but somehow a million miles away. Travis, used to be my best friend, what can I call him now? We annoy each other too much to enjoy the intimacy (platonic, mind) we once had. We’ve drifted like icebergs.
At the university? All fun and good people. I’ll not say a word against any of them. But they’re friends in the transitory state. I certainly enjoy their company and want to hang out with them and do things with them, but when I think of who I’ll know in ten years and quickly run through everyone I know in Gainesville for possible candidates, not a single name pops up as likely.
Of course, there is my family. My parents, hopefully, will be around for years to come. I’ll always feel close to them. My sister, in recent years, we’ve become much closer than we were. For almost a decade, we were too far apart, too different, in worlds that were too distant for us ever to connect. Now we’re friends, more than friends, we’re true siblings again, like we used to be when we were both children.
A girl, too young yet to have a personality attached to her name, who stares at me with wide and uncomprehending eyes. She doesn’t know me, except as the weird guy who holds her while her mother ducks outside for a cigarette break or a ten-minute reprieve. I don’t know her, except as someone who can only communicate through cries and can already almost crawl at only two weeks old. Who will she be in ten years? I cannot say. There are none who can. I can only hope I’ll know her as she grows up, that my interaction with her won’t be limited to the occasional phone call and Christmases where I pinch her cheek and proclaim about how much she’s grown. (I will do this, though. There are certain ways in which an uncle is expected to act, after all.)
...Will she ever know my name? Will she ever know me beyond "that weird uncle I see on holidays"? Michelle's and my lifestyles will inevitably drive us apart. Will I see her grow up?
But beyond them...nobody.
Nobody.
...
I need a girlfriend.
This is not a sex thing. Trust me. If a mysterious stranger were to approach me tomorrow and promise that I would meet a girl with whom I could truly connect to on an emotional level, who could know me better than anyone and I her, with whom I could share my hopes and fears and dreams and pour out my soul, and the price for this was that I could never do anything sexual with her – or even kiss her – I would agree before he finished speaking.
I need a girlfriend.
(But sex wouldn’t hurt.)
Here’s the first thing. There are two kinds of power – mental power and physical power. Physical power is the stuff that intrigues and thrills me, why I read comic books and play D&D and bang away at video games, whether I’m a stout warrior slicing down a foe a hundred times his size, a powerful wizard blasting away at legions of enemies with fire and lightning, or a battleship defeating a fleet a thousand times its size.
Physical power is what fills my fantasies and my dreams. When I walk to class, when I walk to the store, when I walk just to go out and have a walk, my head is filled with thoughts of might and magic. Bizarre anime-like plots like the one I described, with legendary heroes performing fantastic feats. Or different, thinking of my own self, doing crazy things I’d never be capable of, playing the hero, rescuing the innocent, protecting those weaker or disadvantaged, showing my strength.
I dream like this because physical power is something unattainable to me. At least, in any significant amount. I can train my body and become fit and toned and muscular, but the most I’ll ever be able to hope for is to hold my own in a fight against worse odds, or perform impressive feats undoable by those in worse shape. I’ll never be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, never be able to dodge bullets, never be able to throw a train or project searing beams of energy from my hands.
I’ll never be able to do any of it. So that’s what I dream of. Physical power is the unreachable star, what I’ll always want and never have. But there is another kind of power which I will have, which I do have, and that is mental power.
This was demonstrated in Ender’s Game, very well. Ender was not very physically adept. He defeated opponents physically superior to him through tactics and trickery. He led a fleet against an impossible foe and won, not because of a massive planet-destroying weapon (though it helped), but because of his invulnerable skill at strategy and command.
Mental power is something I do have. I’m no Ender – I couldn’t lead a group of starships to victory against a foe that outnumbered them a hundred to one – but I do fancy myself to be quick in a tight spot and pretty good at coming up with ideas. This, I can sharpen. If I focus on training my mind like I’m going to be training my body, I can eventually do amazing, marvelous things – far more amazing than I ever could with biceps that could bend steel or glowing eyes that could burn a hole through concrete.
That was the first thing that the book taught me. If you were to pit mental power against physical power, assuming equal circumstances and equal skill, the mental power is heavily favored to win. Take the strongest man in the world, hunting down a weakling in a warehouse. Cut the lights, all of a sudden his strength means nothing. He can’t punch what he can’t see. Mental power can trump physical power because it can go around it, or circumvent it, or put it in a situation where it is useless. And since I have, or can have, mental power, that favors me in situations where I would otherwise be in difficulty.
That was one thing. That was important. That may fundamentally change things. But more was changed than just that. Something very important occurred to me. My philosophy of life is wrong...again.
For the longest time, I thought the most important thing to a person was happiness. To be happy, or content, that was the acme of a person’s life. What more could one want? And I was happy, or content, in my idle pleasures and simple things. But I was bored, and I knew it. I craved more. That’s why I constantly manifest such odd fantasies in my head – because my mind was (is) being so underused that it is (was) forced to craft its own scenarios in which something, anything, interesting happened to me.
Then I spoke with Henry, experienced the epiphany I’ve shared with all around me, knew for a fact that I was living my life wrong – and I was. I still believe this, absolutely. Talking to Henry and coming to the realization that I did was the best thing I’ve done for myself in years. I resolved that no more would I merely be content to loaf around and do nothing, I would be social, I would go out and talk and experience new things.
I thought that the most important thing to a person was excitement. Firework moments, Henry called them. Crash, boom, bang, colored lights and explosions and bang, pow, kaboom, something fun’s happening, now it’s over and there’s nothing left but a wisp of smoke and the dying echoes. But the memory persists, blazes as brightly as the fire it conjures forth in the mind.
Having thought more thoroughly about it, I came to the conclusion that this too was wrong. That’s a fun way to live, certainly more interesting and entertaining than the way I was living previously, but it’s unsustainable. A person can’t live expecting a constant stream of excitement. It’s impossible to expect, because it won’t happen. On the odd circumstance that constant excitement does occur, it’s a temporary and transient thing, and when it leaves it leaves you hungry and drained, tired from the fun but wanting more, but more won’t come, because the only thing a life full of explosions can lead to is disappointment when they stop – or nothing at all, because a particularly large bang can be the last one you ever hear.
I still plan to seek excitement. I’m young, I’m in college, I’m ideally placed for fun things to happen and to seek new and entertaining possibilities. But that isn’t the basis of my life. It’ll be fun, but it won’t be everything. I realized, now, what the most important thing to a person is:
Other people.
Humans are social creatures by nature. We want to associate ourselves with others, because other people are the only thing that can provide the variety we crave – the companionship we seek – the emotions we live for.
Not that a man should define himself by the company he keeps. I’m certainly the last person to start hanging out with a given crowd just because it’s the “in” thing to do, because I seek credibility or approval. But it’s because I made a similar inventory of myself as I did when I had my epiphany over a month ago.
Back then, I looked back through my life, and I couldn’t identify any periods of strong emotion, any periods of serious excitement. I resolved to change, and so I have, slowly. But I have looked over my life, and I have made the terrifying realization that there’s nobody left who I feel really close to.
At home? My friends...I’m drifting away from them. Jake, Matt, Nolan, James, Daniel, they’re all fun people, but they’re starting to feel farther and farther away. Dan, seems more of a kindred spirit, but he’s different from me in too many fundamental ways for me to really connect with him. Kait, closer than home, but somehow a million miles away. Travis, used to be my best friend, what can I call him now? We annoy each other too much to enjoy the intimacy (platonic, mind) we once had. We’ve drifted like icebergs.
At the university? All fun and good people. I’ll not say a word against any of them. But they’re friends in the transitory state. I certainly enjoy their company and want to hang out with them and do things with them, but when I think of who I’ll know in ten years and quickly run through everyone I know in Gainesville for possible candidates, not a single name pops up as likely.
Of course, there is my family. My parents, hopefully, will be around for years to come. I’ll always feel close to them. My sister, in recent years, we’ve become much closer than we were. For almost a decade, we were too far apart, too different, in worlds that were too distant for us ever to connect. Now we’re friends, more than friends, we’re true siblings again, like we used to be when we were both children.
A girl, too young yet to have a personality attached to her name, who stares at me with wide and uncomprehending eyes. She doesn’t know me, except as the weird guy who holds her while her mother ducks outside for a cigarette break or a ten-minute reprieve. I don’t know her, except as someone who can only communicate through cries and can already almost crawl at only two weeks old. Who will she be in ten years? I cannot say. There are none who can. I can only hope I’ll know her as she grows up, that my interaction with her won’t be limited to the occasional phone call and Christmases where I pinch her cheek and proclaim about how much she’s grown. (I will do this, though. There are certain ways in which an uncle is expected to act, after all.)
...Will she ever know my name? Will she ever know me beyond "that weird uncle I see on holidays"? Michelle's and my lifestyles will inevitably drive us apart. Will I see her grow up?
But beyond them...nobody.
Nobody.
...
I need a girlfriend.
This is not a sex thing. Trust me. If a mysterious stranger were to approach me tomorrow and promise that I would meet a girl with whom I could truly connect to on an emotional level, who could know me better than anyone and I her, with whom I could share my hopes and fears and dreams and pour out my soul, and the price for this was that I could never do anything sexual with her – or even kiss her – I would agree before he finished speaking.
I need a girlfriend.
(But sex wouldn’t hurt.)
Friday, October 10, 2008
And Another Thing...
I do peculiar things. People who know me will vouch for this. Sometimes I do them for seemingly no reason at all, sometimes I actually have a decent reason for the junk that I pull.
One of these things is a concept that I can barely put a name to, since I never think of it as a concept and I’ve never heard of it outside of when I, personally, do it. If I had to put a label to it, I would call it...reverse plagiarism.
Plagiarism, as you know, is when someone passes off someone else’s work as their own, stealing credit for an idea. What I do is more or less the opposite of that. I take ideas of my own and pass them off as those of other people. I’ll do this several ways, such as if I think of some plot or something that I for whatever arcane reason don’t want to take credit for, I’ll say “I saw this TV show where...” or “I was reading this book, and in it...”
Basically, if you’ve ever heard me describing some fantastic and ridiculous plot from a book or TV show or anime or some such, but I mysteriously couldn’t remember the name of the show or the names of any of the characters, or any specifics beyond the fragment of plot I share with you, the odds are decent that I was actually the one who came up with it, and just chose not to take credit for it.
Why do I do this? Because most of the time when I come up with something that I’ll do this to, it’s a completely insane, fantastic, mindless, bizarre concept that sounds crazy even to think about, but I just think it’s cool. Chalk it up to a lifetime of too much anime and video games.
I realize that if I just tell people my idea for a story fragment, nobody will take me seriously. Years ago, when I shared all my ideas with everybody, people would give me looks like “Luke, whatever medication you’re not on, you need to find it and get on it, posthaste.” Now, when I tell them my bizarre tale but say it was from this one anime that has a long Japanese name that I don’t remember, they nod their heads and agree on how cool it is.
I suppose that if people think it’s from an outside source, they’re free to shake their heads with disbelief at how crazy the unknown author was while still being able to appreciate the story fragment itself. If they thought it was from me, their incredulity at the plot outweighs their sense of thinking it’s interesting. (Or not. This is also a way to shield myself from taking flak for bad ideas, because if what I’m saying tanks horribly and nobody likes it, I can just shrug and never mention it again.)
Let me give you an example of the sort of thing I’m talking about. This has been drifting through my head for the last few days, starting when I heard “The Night” and “Perfect Insanity” by Disturbed, off their new album Indestructible.
A callow youth trains to be a swordsman, and everyone expects great things from him because he is the descendant twenty generations down the line from a legendary hero swordsman who was fantastically skilled and extremely powerful. Upon completing his formal training, he’s granted his ancestor’s blade and given a sudden realization – the “inheritance” is more than a weapon, the legendary swordsman’s personality has actually survived through the generations and emerges as a separate personality inside the hero’s head.
Normally, this would be a good thing, as the legendary swordsman can take over the body in times of great need when the hero is completely outclassed and defeated. And he really is legendary, being skilled and generally badass enough to do things like catch enemy blades (in his open palm, between two fingertips, in his teeth) or deflect bullets with his sword...from a machine-gun. (When this switch occurs, his eyes go all crazy-red and such.)
Unfortunately for the hero, the legendary swordsman is also homicidally insane and prefers to slaughter his opponents, the friends of his opponents, and anybody who happened to be nearby while he was butchering one of the first two groups. So the hero and the legendary swordsman start to bicker and battle for control of the hero’s body. (The hero, being a swordsman himself, is certainly skilled and no stranger to killing, but there’s a difference between killing your opponent in an honorable way and indiscriminate murder, which is what the legendary swordsman prefers.)
This all comes to a head when the hero is in a climactic battle against many foes, which he just can’t win alone. The legendary swordsman figures this is the perfect time to rise up and gain control, so the two of them battle it out while the hero’s body, controlled by one personality or the other, fights the group of swordsmen.
Whenever the enemies are about to score a killing blow, the legendary swordsmen pushes his way forward and asserts control, as he really doesn’t want to see his last descendant die without an heir, and with his skill he starts smacking around the entire group. Whenever the legendary swordsman is about to kill one of his enemies, the hero, who wants to stop the legendary swordsman from killing everyone he meets, manages to retake control, and he fumbles the blow.
Eventually, the hero, in a burst of heroic willpower and resolve, manages to win the battle for control, but resigns himself to dying at the hands of his enemies, as he lacks the skill alone to win. His opponents, though, are so completely freaked out by his constant switching from “strong, but outclassed” to “clearly able to win disarmed and blindfolded” and back again, that they panic, assume he’s just toying with them, and flee before he decides to get serious and rip them all to pieces. The hero is left standing alone, wondering what just really happened.
See? That sounds like the plot of an anime, and I presented it to one of my friends in just such a fashion. He liked the idea. But were I to have told him it was my idea, he probably wouldn't have listened through the whole thing, dismissing it as just some random byproduct of my craziness.
Yes, technically I could be making this up, but why? It seems like a whole lot of unnecessary effort and talking to convince you of a lie that nobody remembers any specifics of. So that's that, really.
I guess...that's it.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Stuff Happens
I missed what has been coming to be my traditional Monday update. I lost all Monday. I slept in, missed my classes, and spent the whole day indoors. I consider the day completely wasted, with absolutely nothing useful coming from it except for the fact that I got my laundry done. (The dryers at my apartment complex suck completely and require two cycles, at $1.50 per dryer per cycle, to dry my clothes. I’m just going to bag them up next time and take them to my friend’s place at Lakeside or Hume, it’s cheaper.)
So Monday was a blowout. Tuesday was somewhat better, though. Made it to my class, and I set up a couple of interviews for today with two professors of economics that I’m hoping I can turn into some kind of story on the economic crisis we’re going through. Here’s hoping I don’t completely demonstrate my ignorance on the subject in front of these scholarly men. Though I doubt I can successfully bluff to high-ranking professors.
Last weekend was pretty interesting. Saturday I spent at the Reitz Union, setting up a game of D&D with a couple of guys I met last Wednesday, Brett and Harold. I’m running the campaign, and I wanted to oversee their character creation and set up a world with them.
They took different approaches. Brett made a bard, a singer and storyteller, and exploited every trick he could find in the rulebook to increase his Perform ability, which allowed him to fascinate people with story and song. One particular instance concerned his desire for a device called a songblade, a musical sword that would make his performing better, but only when he was wielding it:
Him: Can I use it?
Me: Sure. Don’t you play a two-handed instrument, the lute?
Him: Er...I could grip the blade in my teeth.
Me: ...Okay, but then how are you going to talk to people once you’ve got them fascinated?
Him: ...
Harold: Why don’t you pick up a one-handed instrument?
Him: Like what?
Me: A harmonica?
Him: *glares* No, how about...storytelling. That doesn’t require either hand.
Me: True. But then you don’t get the bonus for a masterwork instrument. And don’t even try to convince me that masterwork dentures count, or something.
Him: All right, but then...
Me: ...How about this.
Him: What?
Me: Masterwork puppet pals.
I successfully convinced him that he could use all of his bonuses if he had a puppet on one hand and used it to help his storytelling. I did not quite mention how silly this would make him look, but I figure the NPCs will act appropriately. The things people will do for a +2 circumstance bonus.
Harold was more subtle. He didn’t go for the “overpowered twink” concept, preferring instead to build a mechanically inferior but flavor-aligned character – a creeping crawling rogue who climbs and jumps. He showed me several neat items that I’d never seen before, like finder’s chalk (fades from view after a minute, but can be seen hours later with a special finder’s lens) and finger-blades (used to cut purse-strings and open pockets more easily). I do have this terrible feeling that he’ll suddenly reveal this incredibly overpowered character that he’s quietly been constructing with innocuous items. Sigh.
But the fun part came when I wanted to design the city that the campaign would be taking place in. I decided one thing about this city that would set the tone for, basically, everything:
The city is 300 miles wide and long. Roughly.
Though it has been pointed out to me that at this point it is less a city and more a dense, walled country, I don’t care. I like the idea of a city stretching hundreds of miles in every direction, because of the sheer number of things that it can contain. Between me and two friends, we brainstormed the following concepts:
- The Mountain District. This is an actual mountain that was in the path of the city’s expansion, and rather than go around it, they built over it. And through it. It’s covered and honeycombed with passages, buildings, and homes.
- The clear idea that there could be people who were born, lived their whole lives, and died within the city without ever knowing there was anything outside. Obviously, these wouldn’t be the people who lived near the walls or the docks.
- The Forest District. This is a massive forest, cultivated by the city’s druids who demanded an area within the city that was set aside for nature. It’s about twenty-five miles on a side. We further wondered – could there be people who were born, lived their whole lives, and died in the forest without ever knowing it was in a city?
- The Street of Cunning Artificers. It’s all clockwork. You can’t see the sky for the smoke and the freakishly tall buildings, and cogs and gears litter the streets. This place will be a lot of fun.
- The Mages’ Guild, also a college, which has served as the basis for more and more interesting senior pranks on the part of its students over the years. One year, the entire Guild went invisible, and stayed that way for the better part of a decade.
- The Upside-Down District, a place a few blocks on a side that is upside down, the buildings resting on a patch of sky about eighty feet up and stretching down to the ground. This is also the result of a senior prank from the mages, but the people living there got used to it and put big piles of cushions at the gates in and out of the district so they can enter and leave without splattering on the cobblestones. This just goes to show that people can really get used to anything.
- How does a city this big get food, we asked? Clerics casting “create food and water” and magical ever-full cauldrons of stew would only go so far, so Matthew decided that there was an army of mages who only cast “stone to flesh” constantly, and that there would be: meat mines. Turn the stone to meat, mine it, process it, sell it. The Mountain District used to be the Mountain Range District, but the other mountains were finally mined out a couple centuries ago.
There’s more, but you get the idea. The only thing I haven’t thought of for this massive, epic city is one thing: a name. I am really, really bad with names, and it occurs to me that a city like this deserves an amazing name. I don’t want to just reuse a name from some other work of fiction, don’t want to call it Ankh-Morpork or Mechanus or Gondor, this city deserves better than that.
And yet I have nothing. Anyone gots a suggestion that they came up with themselves (or at least didn’t crib from somewhere written down, if someone else said it I guess that’s okay), then I want to hear it. Comment with one. Call me. Email me. I need a blasted name for this blasted blasted city.
It’s weird. Since I talked to Mike and Victoria told me she read what I’d wrote, we all agreed that limiting our contact was truly for the best, as our personalities just clashed on several levels. Since then, our contact has been much more tranquil and pleasant than usual, what little there has been of it. I suppose whatever works, works.
Last night, Anne-Flore’s (my roommate) friend Anna had her 25th birthday, so I cooked her and Anne dinner. Technically, her birthday was Monday, but she’s celebrating all week, so this worked. It’s the first time I’ve ever made a meal with more than one course. I made:
A shrimp cocktail, which I did by the supremely complex route of boiling shrimp (a little too much, I fear) and putting them in a bowl with ice, and opening a bottle of cocktail sauce
A salad, by which I mean I bought a bag of “European” salad greens and some random vegetables (olives, grape tomatoes, broccoli at Anne’s request) and mixed them all into a bowl
Those good frozen yeast rolls, which actually turned out really nicely
And I tried a new recipe with some tilapia, Tilapia in Garlic Butter, which was a little tricky
It was well-received. Mincing garlic is hard without a mincer, and I think I got a little too into it, shredding it with a knife into miniscule bits that I could hardly see. Also, I resent buying bottles of three different spices just to use “a dash” or “a pinch” of one or the other. It’s expensive.
Honestly, as far as how it tasted, I more or less had to take their word for it. This is my problem, and why I’ll never be a good cook – I can barely taste. I know I like those yeast rolls, and shrimp is shrimp, but the fish, I had to believe what they told me. It didn’t taste like anything much to me, but they assured me that it was good. This could have been them being charitable, but I don’t really have a reason to doubt them.
Meh.
So Monday was a blowout. Tuesday was somewhat better, though. Made it to my class, and I set up a couple of interviews for today with two professors of economics that I’m hoping I can turn into some kind of story on the economic crisis we’re going through. Here’s hoping I don’t completely demonstrate my ignorance on the subject in front of these scholarly men. Though I doubt I can successfully bluff to high-ranking professors.
Last weekend was pretty interesting. Saturday I spent at the Reitz Union, setting up a game of D&D with a couple of guys I met last Wednesday, Brett and Harold. I’m running the campaign, and I wanted to oversee their character creation and set up a world with them.
They took different approaches. Brett made a bard, a singer and storyteller, and exploited every trick he could find in the rulebook to increase his Perform ability, which allowed him to fascinate people with story and song. One particular instance concerned his desire for a device called a songblade, a musical sword that would make his performing better, but only when he was wielding it:
Him: Can I use it?
Me: Sure. Don’t you play a two-handed instrument, the lute?
Him: Er...I could grip the blade in my teeth.
Me: ...Okay, but then how are you going to talk to people once you’ve got them fascinated?
Him: ...
Harold: Why don’t you pick up a one-handed instrument?
Him: Like what?
Me: A harmonica?
Him: *glares* No, how about...storytelling. That doesn’t require either hand.
Me: True. But then you don’t get the bonus for a masterwork instrument. And don’t even try to convince me that masterwork dentures count, or something.
Him: All right, but then...
Me: ...How about this.
Him: What?
Me: Masterwork puppet pals.
I successfully convinced him that he could use all of his bonuses if he had a puppet on one hand and used it to help his storytelling. I did not quite mention how silly this would make him look, but I figure the NPCs will act appropriately. The things people will do for a +2 circumstance bonus.
Harold was more subtle. He didn’t go for the “overpowered twink” concept, preferring instead to build a mechanically inferior but flavor-aligned character – a creeping crawling rogue who climbs and jumps. He showed me several neat items that I’d never seen before, like finder’s chalk (fades from view after a minute, but can be seen hours later with a special finder’s lens) and finger-blades (used to cut purse-strings and open pockets more easily). I do have this terrible feeling that he’ll suddenly reveal this incredibly overpowered character that he’s quietly been constructing with innocuous items. Sigh.
But the fun part came when I wanted to design the city that the campaign would be taking place in. I decided one thing about this city that would set the tone for, basically, everything:
The city is 300 miles wide and long. Roughly.
Though it has been pointed out to me that at this point it is less a city and more a dense, walled country, I don’t care. I like the idea of a city stretching hundreds of miles in every direction, because of the sheer number of things that it can contain. Between me and two friends, we brainstormed the following concepts:
- The Mountain District. This is an actual mountain that was in the path of the city’s expansion, and rather than go around it, they built over it. And through it. It’s covered and honeycombed with passages, buildings, and homes.
- The clear idea that there could be people who were born, lived their whole lives, and died within the city without ever knowing there was anything outside. Obviously, these wouldn’t be the people who lived near the walls or the docks.
- The Forest District. This is a massive forest, cultivated by the city’s druids who demanded an area within the city that was set aside for nature. It’s about twenty-five miles on a side. We further wondered – could there be people who were born, lived their whole lives, and died in the forest without ever knowing it was in a city?
- The Street of Cunning Artificers. It’s all clockwork. You can’t see the sky for the smoke and the freakishly tall buildings, and cogs and gears litter the streets. This place will be a lot of fun.
- The Mages’ Guild, also a college, which has served as the basis for more and more interesting senior pranks on the part of its students over the years. One year, the entire Guild went invisible, and stayed that way for the better part of a decade.
- The Upside-Down District, a place a few blocks on a side that is upside down, the buildings resting on a patch of sky about eighty feet up and stretching down to the ground. This is also the result of a senior prank from the mages, but the people living there got used to it and put big piles of cushions at the gates in and out of the district so they can enter and leave without splattering on the cobblestones. This just goes to show that people can really get used to anything.
- How does a city this big get food, we asked? Clerics casting “create food and water” and magical ever-full cauldrons of stew would only go so far, so Matthew decided that there was an army of mages who only cast “stone to flesh” constantly, and that there would be: meat mines. Turn the stone to meat, mine it, process it, sell it. The Mountain District used to be the Mountain Range District, but the other mountains were finally mined out a couple centuries ago.
There’s more, but you get the idea. The only thing I haven’t thought of for this massive, epic city is one thing: a name. I am really, really bad with names, and it occurs to me that a city like this deserves an amazing name. I don’t want to just reuse a name from some other work of fiction, don’t want to call it Ankh-Morpork or Mechanus or Gondor, this city deserves better than that.
And yet I have nothing. Anyone gots a suggestion that they came up with themselves (or at least didn’t crib from somewhere written down, if someone else said it I guess that’s okay), then I want to hear it. Comment with one. Call me. Email me. I need a blasted name for this blasted blasted city.
It’s weird. Since I talked to Mike and Victoria told me she read what I’d wrote, we all agreed that limiting our contact was truly for the best, as our personalities just clashed on several levels. Since then, our contact has been much more tranquil and pleasant than usual, what little there has been of it. I suppose whatever works, works.
Last night, Anne-Flore’s (my roommate) friend Anna had her 25th birthday, so I cooked her and Anne dinner. Technically, her birthday was Monday, but she’s celebrating all week, so this worked. It’s the first time I’ve ever made a meal with more than one course. I made:
A shrimp cocktail, which I did by the supremely complex route of boiling shrimp (a little too much, I fear) and putting them in a bowl with ice, and opening a bottle of cocktail sauce
A salad, by which I mean I bought a bag of “European” salad greens and some random vegetables (olives, grape tomatoes, broccoli at Anne’s request) and mixed them all into a bowl
Those good frozen yeast rolls, which actually turned out really nicely
And I tried a new recipe with some tilapia, Tilapia in Garlic Butter, which was a little tricky
It was well-received. Mincing garlic is hard without a mincer, and I think I got a little too into it, shredding it with a knife into miniscule bits that I could hardly see. Also, I resent buying bottles of three different spices just to use “a dash” or “a pinch” of one or the other. It’s expensive.
Honestly, as far as how it tasted, I more or less had to take their word for it. This is my problem, and why I’ll never be a good cook – I can barely taste. I know I like those yeast rolls, and shrimp is shrimp, but the fish, I had to believe what they told me. It didn’t taste like anything much to me, but they assured me that it was good. This could have been them being charitable, but I don’t really have a reason to doubt them.
Meh.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Why I Look Like It
Viral conjunctivitis, also known as pinkeye, is currently plaguing me. I am not to look at TV or computer screens, or even read small print. At least, with my afflicted eye.
So, the eyepatch. More of a headband, really. I have a mandatory meeting tonight for my TV class, and I found a solution. Inelegant, but it works. Hopefully the conjunctivitis will be gone by tomorrow or the next day, as the doctor predicted it would, especially if I keep my eye half-closed constantly with this device here.
Huh.
So, the eyepatch. More of a headband, really. I have a mandatory meeting tonight for my TV class, and I found a solution. Inelegant, but it works. Hopefully the conjunctivitis will be gone by tomorrow or the next day, as the doctor predicted it would, especially if I keep my eye half-closed constantly with this device here.
Huh.
Amendment
People have made the point that I should attempt to talk things out before making unilateral decisions. And, well, they're right. It's just that I'm so, so, so disillusioned with sitting down and calmly discussing my problems. Why? Victoria. We have sat down, talked out all our problems, and agreed not to fight anymore...I don't know how many times now. And it never, ever works. But I was wrong not to talk to Mike about it.
So I did. It appears that the majority of the problem was my enthusiastic new approach towards life, and with it my rejection of my old lifestyle, was seen by him as an attack on his lifestyle - the very one I was rejecting. This is far from true, but it's easy to see how he could see this. So we talked it out, and agreed not to fight.
It remains to be seen how this will work. I could not say one way or the other, yet.
As for Victoria? We haven't spoken in days, and it's probably for the best. We simply do not like each other any more. And as I have noted, sitting down and talking things out will have as likely a success rate as would a similar talk between the Israelis and the Palestinians. All the good intentions in the world aren't gonna make it happen, so screw it. We're both better off without each other.
Oh, yeah, my sister finally gave birth a week ago. Jasmyne was the kid's name. Healthy as a horse. My sister put up a billion - or maybe nine - pictures of her, on her blog, here: http://michelleldub.blogspot.com/ So check it out. My new baby niece. I'm an uncle.
I feel like I should buy a sweater-vest.
So I did. It appears that the majority of the problem was my enthusiastic new approach towards life, and with it my rejection of my old lifestyle, was seen by him as an attack on his lifestyle - the very one I was rejecting. This is far from true, but it's easy to see how he could see this. So we talked it out, and agreed not to fight.
It remains to be seen how this will work. I could not say one way or the other, yet.
As for Victoria? We haven't spoken in days, and it's probably for the best. We simply do not like each other any more. And as I have noted, sitting down and talking things out will have as likely a success rate as would a similar talk between the Israelis and the Palestinians. All the good intentions in the world aren't gonna make it happen, so screw it. We're both better off without each other.
Oh, yeah, my sister finally gave birth a week ago. Jasmyne was the kid's name. Healthy as a horse. My sister put up a billion - or maybe nine - pictures of her, on her blog, here: http://michelleldub.blogspot.com/ So check it out. My new baby niece. I'm an uncle.
I feel like I should buy a sweater-vest.
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