Talk Thursday: Two Late Topics

For Talk Thursday, I’m behind a few weeks with “Milestones and Mortality,” and my own topic of “Castaways.”  I’ll think of some suitable self-torture in another venue, but for now, all ya’ll get a little stream of consciousness.  Instead of a cohesive piece, it’s gonna be piecemeal, disjointed, and chaotic – kind of like the top of my desk at the moment.

Mortality is much on my mind most of the time.  The last few weeks, even more so because of big time life and death events:  elderly relatives’ birthdays, friends’ children’s birthdays, a friend’s suicide, and my mom’s increasingly poor health.  I’d love to channel Elton John’s “Circle of Life” (belted out at the top of my lungs) and force myself through a deeper understanding of life and the challenges thereof, but my sense of grace and wonder is jaded.  Most days I’m more in tune with Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumours.”  Most days.  I don’t have many issues with my own mortality.  I don’t know how to deal with people nearest to me dying.  I’m clueless, flailing, and graceless.

I reached a certain health milestone today when I went to the follow-up physical after my little summer aspiration episode.  Lovely time, that – I hope to never repeat it (the aspiration, not the physical).  Other than my stomach acid issue (which can be controlled through drugs, diet restrictions, and exercise), I’m healthy as a fookin’ horse (though not nearly as hung, thankfully).  Here I be, 41 years old, and the doc was impressed with my bloodwork and improvements since summer.  Thank the lords for small mercies, right?

I was listening to the song “Castaways,” by Toyah, when I made myself send out a topic, any topic, to the Talk Thursday group.  I didn’t have a thought or story to tell.  At that moment, I felt rather adrift in my own thoughts about blogging, about writing, about online communities and the rhetoricals of what constitutes sharing too much?  Hard to imagine that I am questioning the whole blogging thing after 3+ years into this space, but that’s where I am.  No, I haven’t given up, but I’m acknowledging that sometimes I just don’t feel like talking.  Thanks to the folks who’ve stuck around through those silent spaces.

Dusty, Crusty, Rusty, Musty

Evidently, I’m in a rhyming mood.

Virgins are getting more action than this blog these days.  Even though it’s still technically April 1, I’m not going to be more lame than I am and say that I’m deleting the blog.  No, it’s been a slow decay and attrition.  Facebook (and sometimes Second Life) are my online stomping grounds.  Or I get lost in the chasms of own mind and forget to ask for rope (or flashlight).

Since the writing conference a few weeks ago, I’ve written a grand total of… nothing.  Email, technical documentation, and note cards do not count.  Creative writing has been zippo.  For once, I don’t feel guilty.  For once, I’m okay with not writing.  For another, I’ve been dreaming again.

For those folks brave enough to come around – what brings you back since I’m such an unreliable and inconsistent host?  Really – what gives.  Blog makeover?  Do I need to delete Facebook (and Twitter)?  Do I need to slap my muse?  Less Mormonism, more porn?  Feedback, please.  If you don’t feel comfortable commenting, shoot me an email here.

Home is Home Again

Since the first week of January through yesterday we’ve had roommates or houseguests.  We’ve now had a full day of the house back to being a home again.

Eddie and his family stayed with us through January through the end of February.  They had relocated to the East Bay.  Because of them living here, Scott and I got some things accomplished that we’d been talking about for a while but never got around to doing:  organizing the kitchen, buying a new washer/dryer, and cooking more at home.  We had nice evenings of sitting down together for meals.  Having a four year old running around the house was new for us.  Gavin is a wonderful kid and we’re sad that they didn’t get the chance to swim in the pool.  We wish Eddie and his family the best, back in Utah.

Scott’s niece and two of her friends came and stayed with us over their spring break.  Three 18-year-old girls staying at the house – it was fantastic.  I had to work all last week, but Scott had time off and he played tour guide for them.  They did day trips to San Francisco, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, and Yosemite.  What is unusual is that we ate out most nights (or for lunch):  French (crepes), Italian, Mexican, Korean, Indian, and Thai.

The house was never chaotic when any of the guests were here.  The volume was sometimes high at times, but this weekend the most common theme has been peace and quiet.  On that note, I feel a nap coming on.

Now What

Angie brought up a great topic for last week’s Talk Thursday, which was “I got my wish! Now what?” Below are some of my thoughts on the topic, which I’m posting belatedly, but ya know… I’m posting. Deal.

What happens after the prince slays the dragon(s) and wins the kingdom? What happens when you get your wish, when you get the things or circumstances or person that you wanted, needed, craved or desired? What happens when you were willing to make a deal with god or God or the universe… and it came to be? I’ll leave the issue of manifestion (point A of wishing to point B of realization) for another day – but I will say that in that crystal moment of knowing what you want and speaking it clearly, the universe listens…

I believe that we as humans need conflict and disappointment. Struggles are essential. Friction serves as a motivator. Dissent is an opportunity to experience another view. Dissonance demonstrates the methods that are not harmonious. In the great words of the Eurythmics, peace is just a word. Happily ever after only happens in movies, and the moment the credits start rolling change has already happened, for better or for worse. Heroes grow old(er). Crowns become heavy. Hearts feel complacent. Self-actualization is like an orgasm – you know it when you’re experiencing it, and when it’s fading you wonder when you’ll experience it again.

Change is imminent, even within contentment.

I’m clapping if you’ve made it this far and are asking “what the HELL are you talking about?” Here: I’m confessing that I’m lazy, that I want an outer motivator to do my work for me so I don’t have to look inside and start prioritizing and recognizing the things that are important to me. I got MOST of my wishes in life (love, career, home, friends, family) and it’s time I took stock – check off the things I’ve done/received and keep adding new stuff, which of course is the biggest challenge: I don’t know what I want. What’s next? I want the answers without doing the work.

Agree? Disagree? Want to slap me yet?

This is the part when I want to delete everything, but I’ll post. I have no qualms sharing. I’m shameless that way.

Random Thoughts

Head’s up – I will be moving the blog one last time. Third time’s the charm, right? I hope you gentle readers will understand and support this move considering I’ll own every bit of the site, even if it means begging, borrowing, or stealing code. One thing I can’t do now that I will be able to is to access our 75+gig of music. Eye candy is one thing, but sharing the musical muse gives me great pleasure. Details to follow – as I find them out myself.

***

I’m reaching critical mass with two things: the not-writing and the not-going-to-the-gym. Thinking is not the same as doing – that’s my current mantra.  I haven’t written Talk Thursday in two weeks – and Cele reminded me that this week is MY topic.  Gah.

***

Working four ten hour days, Monday through Thursday, makes for fantastic three day weekends. If I was organized, I would do laundry on Friday. Note to self: put the clothes in the dryer before you go to bed. Another note to self: be sure to allow 10 more minutes tomorrow to iron the clothes that will be wrinkled.

***

In our yard, we’ve seen yellow orioles, finches, titmice, doves, towhees, woodpeckers, and wrens. Sparrows built a nest in our patio. A male and female hummingbird have been scouting out the area. We stopped by Petsmart for a birdhouse and new bird feeder. The animal rescue folks had a large van setup for adoptions right outside the front of the store – back in 2000, I had visited the same store and a similar van and it was there that I had adopted Saturn.

We stopped and looked at the kittens. I held the black and white kitten and all I could think about was Saturn. They were sure cute kittens, though.

***

We met with a group of former Mormon folks from the RfM board – roughly twenty people commandeered several tables near the bar at the Hungry Hunter in Lafayette. Jerry the Aspoustate and Cheryl, his wife, were the perfect hosts. The food was good, the wine was flowing, and the conversations were non-stop. I’m glad the focus was less on bitching about Mormons and more on how great life was and how happy people are.

***

Gay Pride weekend. I didn’t see one drag queen, leather daddy, muscle stud, porn star, or closeted married guy – dammit. We never made it into SF. We were joyous domestic gods, and that to me is the best kind of pride.

Particulates

From my new job site, I can usually see the Bay and the various bridges. Farther north and west I can see San Francisco. The last several days you can’t see even a few miles, let alone across the valley. The Bay is hidden under haze. The sun struggles to shine through the layers of particulates. Sunrise and sunset are deep displays of reds and orange.

On my way to work this morning at the ungodly hour of 5:00am (the power went out yesterday and we decided to bring the systems up in the wee hours instead of chance it last night), I thought my eyes burned because I was tired. No. My eyes burned because we slept with the window open last night and I woke up to the smell of smoke. I was in such an early-morning daze that I didn’t fix coffee or even think to stop and pick up a cup, and I should have, because my throat was raw and I kept wanting to cough. Everyone coughs. People’s eyes look red edged and uncomfortable.

All in all, the weather here has been like a Utah inversion without the cold. Okay, Utah inversions are worse (in terms of dangerous air quality), but this is my space to bring attention to the 800+ fires throughout California.

February Weekend

Three weekend happenings, and one that I missed completely:  Chinese New Year parade in downtown SF through the pouring rain, finishing another round of paint for the bathroom, watching the 80th Academy Awards in SF with a group of friends, and not finalizing my resume that is due on Friday.

We watched the parade from the comfort of our living room in high definition.  I saw the parade in person, years ago.  A straight friend stayed with me over a weekend (who gets the bravery award of the century for daring to sleep in the same bed) and we had spent the day in SF walking through Chinatown.  We had soy beverages and pastries while shopping through the street vendors.  He bought import cds, which we later copied when we got back to my condo.  (One of those songs makes me melt every time I hear it, even though I don’t understand one word of the song.)  During the latter part of the parade, we stopped at an Irish pub and had beer.

I did such a craptastic job with painting the bathroom.  The paint job wasn’t bad – it was the prep work and the taping that sucked donkey dongs.  Paint was peeling off left and right.  Turns out the construction guys used the wrong plaster when they did the sheet rock.  We had to use an oil based sealant today.  I went to Orchard Supply Hardware for new cabinet knobs, alone – I’m seriously worried about myself.

The Academy Awards were great.  What can be wrong with Jon Stewart, short speeches, and the rampantly self-congratulatory exercise in an industry celebrating itself?  Since I hadn’t seen any of the movies in any category, it was no surprise that I didn’t get the party pot ($100+) for most points.  I drank the most vodka, though.

Lots to do in too few days to do them.  If I’m quiet this week, don’t be surprised for a change.

Evites

I messed with Evite yesterday for hours – more than FOUR hours to be completely honest. The biggest pain in the ass was trying to import/export my email addresses, and I ended up typing and/or copying/pasting each email addy, anyway. The next pain was formatting the damn thing. I don’t want to sound ungracious here, but Evite sucks worse than a Hoover. I would have been better off doing the entire thing via Outlook, with links, than trying to poke and prod their very rigid formats while dealing with their barrage of advertising sponsors.

The main reason I sent out Evites with pertinent info NOW was because some folks were getting antsy about accommodation options – totally understandable. (Hiya, sister – no, I don’t know where you’re staying yet – just book your flight and we’ll figure it out.) Some folks have kids and families and tight budgets, and let’s face it, celebrating birthdays usually ends in one’s teens. I happen to revel in birthdays, since it’s a great reminder that I’ve survived the very real possibility of not being born in the first place. Slight tangent, but I can remember being in the incubator while I was in the hospital after I was born (six weeks premature). Hell yes, I celebrate birthdays.  I celebrate fiercely.

Not Bad for a Monday

Today was a full day of work where I finished 75% of a 20 page project proposal. I had plenty of coffee, I was pleasant, but I kept to myself and did what I needed to do. Amazing how one raised eyebrow can turn someone away without the need of making eye contact. I sound like I was a bastard, but I was not bad for a Monday. I know one of my instant “buttons” is stupidity, but it doesn’t translate to instant compassion – that button has a longer warm-up.

I listened to Pandora most of the day and heard one of my favorite songs several times. It’s not quite random and not quite jukebox, and once in a while it feels like the music gods have mercy and queue up your tune – and for fuck’s sake, it’s FREE. There are tons of groups I’m discovering or re-discovering from the 80’s, like Visage (Blocks on Blocks) and Toyah (Life in the Trees) and Pete Shelley (Telephone Operator, XL1, You and I). Oh, and James (I melt to “Fine”)!

School-wise, I dropped graduate Fiction and added an 18th century Brit Lit class. Hello, Jane Austen – we’ll get reacquainted. I did this because I didn’t want to haul my ass to Hayward every week when I could take a class that’s a mile away at the Concord campus.

After work, I spent 2 hours grinding 23 of 24 pieces of glass to shape. I cut myself only superficially, so I wasn’t bleeding a river like yesterday. One piece to grind, take off the paper/glue, then start wrapping the edges with copper foil. I’m halfway done.

JulieAnn inspired me to get my ass back to the gym. I hurt. I ache. It’s not pretty. Each day, I’m getting stronger, but holy.mother.of.gawd I can’t believe how much endurance I lost in a few months. As I joked to JA already, why bother with a six pack when you’ve already got a kegger?

I’ll get an update from my folks tomorrow. Many thanks for you (yes, YOU!) and your kind comments.

Winding Down with NaBloPoMo

I’ve commented (fine, I complained) to other NaBloPoMo participants (like SML) that the daily requirement sucked all the creativity out of blogging. That was my experience. (Which makes me ponder – which sucks more, Paris Hilton or a Hoover?) Other bloggers, like Eric, was consistently creative, posting each day – an example of grace under pressure. My posts were as graceful as putting on bikini briefs in the dark, under the covers. Wait. I wouldn’t do that (putting ON briefs in bed, that is).

It was only toward the end that I let go and stopped fighting. Isn’t that the metaphor for anything and everything in life? Once I embraced the committment, it wasn’t so much “work” anymore. Instead of feeling caged into a committment, I realized the freedom of anything (infinite possibilities versus a perspective of imprisonment), given the construct of a daily post (the “rules”). The same could be said of careers, relationships, and taking care of our physical needs.

See you tomorrow.