Category: self

Introspective thought on my own behavior or actions.

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under the weather

Zzzzzz....
Today I came home from work after lunch. I think my body is threatening me with sickness, telling me I need sleep by making me feel “off” during the day. I worked through it yesterday afternoon, but wasn’t the most productive. Today the feeling came on earlier, and I just decided to take off and sleep. I got home, did some dishes, made some personal phone calls I’d been meaning to make, and then fell asleep on the couch until Sharaun got home. Now I’m up, and feeling a little better for my nap I think. Unrelated, but with no paragraph other than this one to call home: Since the deadline for getting in the ticket lottery is this Thursday, I went ahead and submitted our application for the World Cup 2006 in Germany. I’ve got my fingers crossed that we get tickets for the matches we want, but considering our luck with lotteries of late (we didn’t get trail passes for Whitney, lost the lottery)… I’m a bit on the guarded side.

I had a thought/idea for today’s entry, but didn’t quite know how to describe what I wanted to say. So, after a bunch of rewrites, this sentence seemed to work best: Over the course of my life, I’ve been constantly honing the skill of having “tough skin.” By tough skin I mean that I’ve done a little more than take the old “Like water off a duck’s back” adage to heart, I’ve actually made it a way of life. I realized early on that humor or comedy can be a very useful tool. Jokes can be used to avoid answering questions, a measured wit can smooth over rough situations, and best of all – jest can turn issues of self-confidence into entirely socially navigable subjects.

When establishing my comedy-as-a-net life-strategy, one of the first lessons I learned was the need to be able to poke fun at myself. You have to be able to make jokes about the things that you are most uncomfortable with or afraid of talking about. This is a critical skill. A common usage model: Someone is picking on you about one of your dreaded insecurities, you take their joke and one-up them, effectively out-joking them about your own fault. This not only establishes you as someone who’s “solid,” it makes you the funnier one (and thereby the winner). Being able to talk openly and joke about your insecurities and faults not only makes people feel more comfortable around you, it helps to downplay your own hangups in your own mind, and realize how stupid and tiny some of your self-issues are. Pride is your worst enemy here, you must learn to accept yourself as-is and work with what you’ve got – every dent and scratch. Keep in mind that you’re not shooting to portray yourself as one who has no self-worth or cares about nothing, but rather someone who is comfortable with himself as they are – blemishes and all. When you’re comfortable in your own skin, you’ve effectively put on a suit of armor. With time, you’ll reach a point where you won’t be “pretending” that things don’t bother you, they really won’t bother you – you’ll have bested them. And to those too-sensitive to manage that state of removal, don’t worry; if you still feel the need to – you can cry about things. Just remember: laughter in public, tears in private.

Another benefit of a humor-led life is the effect it can have on relationship-building. The Chinese have a perfect word for what I’m talking about: guanxi (关系). Guanxi is a word that represents the relationships and “networks” a person has built up and maintains; almost all of Chinese business is guanxi-dependent. Your guanxi defines how successful you’ll be as a business person. Having a humorous outlook on life lends itself to being a typically good-natured person; and being of an agreeable and in general good nature is the key to building good guanxi. When people are laughing, they let their guard down; they get comfortable. Even the shyest and most guarded of persons can usually be laughed out of their shell. For tough nuts, the real skill lies in choosing an approach – some folks require precision, individually-tailored comedy that’s tuned to their comfort level. Your technique will improve as you learn to judge someone’s personality; the faster you can assess someone’s personality type, the sooner you can adapt your jest to their palette. Again, being good-natured and agreeable is a far cry from being a pushover. In order to earn respect you must have some hard lines and integrity. But tempering your edges with joviality is the key to a well-balanced, guanxi-reaping, personality.

When you stare and stare and think and think but nothing else comes, it means the post is over. Goodnight.

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false profit

Fakir. Get it?
I haven’t been writing because it just hasn’t been in me. I sit down with the laptop, write a couple thoughtless sentences and give up. Before, I may have pushed myself to get something done, to get something up, but I don’t see the point anymore. As it is, I’m already shamed by my matching-shoe entry last week. The reality is, I write a lot. I write a whole lot. Every night I crank out paragraph after paragraph. One wonders if it’ll ever dry up. It’s like wondering if, with all the music that’s been made in the history of the world, how people still manage to come up with an original tune. I guess when the variables are infinitely arrangeable, there’s always a chance for an original. Not that anything I write is terribly original or even worth reading, but at least there’s no threat of “drying up.” I can keep pumping out sentence after sentence of crap. Here comes some of it now, enjoy.

As sore as I am, I’d trade sitting in my cube today for the sunny and sweaty yardwork of yesterday in a heartbeat. With Blind Faith’s eponymous, and only, LP blaring from the windows while I heaved the breaker bar at the rocky “dirt.” Instead, I’m sitting here on my already-tired-of-being-sat-on ass, listening to the Arcade Fire live on Morning Becomes Eclectic. A decent performance, but it’s not like I was in need of convincing when it comes to the awesomeness of this band. The problem is, when you release an album that is so stunningly good, so noticeably standout from everything else released that year, following it up is rough. I remember reading about Radiohead’s follow-up phobia after releasing the universally praised OK Computer. As if to silence the murmurs of “can they do it”, Radiohead released Kid A as the follow up and blew everyone’s mind again. I’m hoping the Arcade Fire can have their own mind-blowing follow up, and their sophomore effort is probably the one future album I’m currently most looking forward to.

Begin random unrelated paragraph.

I don’t think I’m the only one, but maybe I am, who feels like he really only knows a fraction of what people may think he does. I’m talking specifically to the work environment. I’m not an expert, in honesty I retain very little. I’m a fake, a practiced charlatan, and a cunning opportunist. Over my short time on this planet, the only real skill I’ve mastered is knowing how to influence peoples’ perceptions. An expert at getting by, proficient at faking it, and revered in the field of hype – I’ll come to you with nothing in my head and anything you’d like on my tongue. You’d think after a while, I’d get called out, cold-busted. Nope, I know enough to lay down safety nets… just like always, I know just enough to get by and nothing more. I come to school to do the bare minimum for the As and honors. Even with all your persuasiveness, you’ll not impress upon me your get-ahead attitude, I’m too satisfied with simply getting-along. Relying on my pseudo-skills to advance me… I will let your perception carry me. Thanks.

End random unrelated paragraph.

My week-long AIM screename mixup has been an exciting and interesting thing. As you may remember, it all stared last Saturday when I got a bunch of IMs from people I’d never heard of, all of them thinking I was someone named Zak or Charlie. Throughout the week, the IMs continued. Despite my frequent ignoring them, and, when responding, my adamancy that they had the wrong person – I learned a lot about the people IMing me, the person(s) I was supposed to be, and IMing and today’s youth in general. For instance, I learned that the job of a child predator really isn’t that tough. In just the first day of mistaken identity, these girls’ freely offered their names, ages, and location. I didn’t ask, and I even told them I was an old man who they didn’t know. It mattered not. Unasked, they sent pictures and even phone numbers; I learned what schools they go to, what dance studio they attend. It didn’t matter to them that I was a stranger – they could care less. That, to me, was a little disturbing.

I addition to a somewhat shocking lack of information-guarding, I learned that instant messaging is extremely important to these kids. The girls who were IMing me ranged from 12-14 years old, and they were relentless. They also have their own language. I like to think of myself as still being fairly-in touch with the youth culture of today, but some of the abbreviations and idioms they were using had me rushing to Google for a whippersnapper-to-geezer translator. Seeing how important IMing was to these kids made me realize that this is a entirely new communication medium. Something my generation and the ones preceding it simply didn’t have. It’s real-time note-passing, but with the added bonus of distance to reduce inhibition. As a behind-the-curtain method of communicating, it’s extremely efficient for the hormone-charged youth to conduct faceless flirting – which everyone knows is much easier than mustering up in-person game. Like the long flirty phone calls of my generation, IMs flying through cyberspace are today’s kids’ way of developing those oh-so-important teen infatuations. I guess it was just interesting to me that they probably don’t even consider that they are the first generation afforded this indirect and immediate type of communication.

And, to round it out – I finally got back to my long-running project of digitizing all my music. When I stopped, I was at about 80% ripping my entire CD library. Then, when I upgraded my PC my ASPI layer got all screwed up and my ripper wouldn’t work at all. My intense hatred of working with computers on my own time kept me from properly debugging the problem until tonight, when I forced a reinstall of the ASPI layer and got things back up and running. When I stopped before, it was at the daunting task of getting all my Beatles and Beatles related materials ripped… and now I’m happy to report I’m almost through with George Harrison and on my way to Lennon. Soon it will be Macca and finally the Fab Four themselves. When that’s done, all that’s left to do is walk through the collection and make sure every CD has digital representation. Then, reap the second-hand rewards via Ebay, local record shops, and secondspin.

Goodnight all. Good. Night.

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i hate 80s cover bands

1980s, see how I tie it all together visually?
One more weekend down, I say that like it’s a countdown to something, but not really. Spent Saturday shirking my duties in the backyard and watching football. Sunday we woke up early and went down to set up Sharaun’s classroom, and spent the rest of the day working on the porch in the backyard. Erik came over and we eventually found a rhythm and reached a pace that saw us nearly finishing the thing in one day. I’d say it’s about 95% done, and I’m toying with the idea of taking Friday off to cut in the curves. I gotta say, it’s completely exciting to see this, one of the final large-scale projects, coming together. I absolutely can’t wait until it’s done.

Oh guys, at the risk of perpetuating my image as a crotchety old hermit, I’m now going to make fun of a popular social activity with members of my age group. By doing this, I will surely come off even more curmudgeonly and anti-social than I am now perceived to be.

I’m gonna come right out and say it: I hate 80s cover-bands. Yes, I know, these bands continually play to packed houses and provide 110% pure energy and fun; I still hate ’em. In the area here, there are four or five of these outfits that are really popular, and between them all and their non-stop gigging – you’re pretty much guaranteed to be able to see one of them each night in any given weekend. And, because I’m a member of their target audience, I’ve found myself being drug to a couple of these shows. I’m pretty sure all these bands are really the same band, with some master evil plot to play as many shows as possible – drawing huge crowds of Gen-Xers and, without their knowledge, lulling them into old-age. That’s right – it’s the hidden agenda of what I like to call the 80s cover-band “axis of evil.” Bring in the crowds in their late-twenties, mix them with those in their mid-thirties and early-forties, and use the hypnotic uniting power of Jackson 5 and Bon Jovi covers played in Day-Glo outfits and foot-tall afro wigs to “suck the young” out of ’em all. Do not be fooled… read the truth below…

Sometimes these demons will even mix in a refrain or two of some currently popular song, something by Nelly or J-Lo perhaps, in an attempt to fool the borderline-geriatric into thinking they are listening to something that’s actually “hip.” “Hey! I heard my daughter/niece/cousin singing this song last week! I’m totally relevant right now! If they only knew how cool Uncle Dave really is!” Wrong Uncle Dave! You are a victim, unwittingly being led further and further away from pop-culture relevancy by the comealong tunes of the Pied Pipers of oldness. You think you’re cool? You’re having fun, but try to remember yourself ten years ago, then put your current self, at this show, in a fishbowl and let the you of ten years ago look in for a few minutes. You hear your younger self peeing his pants as he laughs uncontrollably at you? Hear he and his friends snickering and pointing as you sip a beer and bob your head to five white guys playing Marcia Griffiths’ “Electric Slide?” Congratulations, you’re arrived – you’re now completely lost. You’re an adult, you can’t relate, the line has been drawn and there’s no going back – you go to 80s cover-band shows.

I know, I know, I’m just not fun at all. If I just try and “get into it,” I’ll really enjoy it. “Get into it,” eh? Know what “getting into it” is? It’s turning off your “young” people! It’s choosing vanilla, it’s dousing yourself in the same cologne your wore in middle school and hanging out with drunk thirty- and forty-year olds making the best of what scraps they have left… clutching at the last thing they remember being fun and cool. It’s succumbing to male-pattern baldness and choosing the familiar and comfortable, it’s the death of your inner-child. It starts with going to 80s shows, and progresses to yelling at kids to stay off your grass and waking up at 5am on Saturday to hit the “early-bird” specials. Think of the long-term repercussions friends, every concert brings you closer to a news-watching, PTA meeting-going, ad-dult. Much like the little gremlin that tried to suck the soul out of a young Drew Barrymore’s nose in Cats Eye, these bands are busy sucking the collective cool out of their fanbase. Be afraid.

And, of course, the follow-up: I know it’s not quite as bad as all that, but, as with everything, it’s much funnier when exaggerated. I’m sure there are some deeper psychological reasons behind my fear and dislike of these shows, but I don’t want to speculate. People don’t understand why I don’t enjoy it, I mean, “everyone else” does! Well, in Germany in the 1940s “everyone” liked Hitler too, did that make him good? (Oh man, it’s official, I’ve turned into my dad. That Hitler comment, that’s 100% my dad, I can even hear him saying it.) Anyway, more than enough on this, I think you get the picture.

Time for bed, Dave out.

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In my head, I’m a master of psychology

Your name is Jonas.
You don’t know me. You know nothing about me, OK? So stop tryin’ to perpetrate like you be all knowin’ what I’m about, because you ain’t know nothin’ about what I’m about. Don’t make me cross this stage!

Last night I finally pulled off my toenail. It’s been since August when we hiked Whitney and I ruined both my big toes with ill-fitting shoes and a lengthy downhill trek. The left toe remains a deep shade of purple-black, while the right toe finally gave up last week and has been hanging on ever since. Last night I decided it was go-time, and yanked that thing out. Now I have some freaky looking inverse-toenail thing where it used to be, just the outline of the nail with skin inside it. To be honest, I hope that mofo never comes back – it was always ingrown and crappy anyway since it fell of the 1st time, when I dropped a shelf on it in high school. Stupid toe. Now I guess I just wait until the left one comes off.

Sometimes, when I have something important, heady, or possibly upsetting to say to someone – I’ll broach the subject in a manor that I like to refer to as “choose your own adventure” conversation. It’s a technique that I’ve perfected over the years, by which I slip a very important or serious comment into a conversation right alongside a joke or other offhand comment. My idea behind this is simple, the person I’m directing the meaningful comment at (perhaps a personal question or a pointing out something I’m leery to point out) now has full control of the situation. At their discretion, they can choose to either acknowledge my serious comment, or simply laugh at the joke / pick up whatever throwaway story I padded it with. If they choose to go with the smokescreen comment, they’re telling me we’re not going to talk about the serious issue – and I’ve managed to avoid a possibly uncomfortable situation by bringing it up and forcing a conversation. On the other hand, if they choose to talk about the “real” comment – it makes me seem less “outright” in bringing it up, since maybe they’re not really sure if it meant all that much to me, owing to the way I slipped it in kinda inconspicuously. In my head, I’m a master of psychology.

It’s over, it’s Friday. Gimme a beer, Dave out.

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and my brain folds

Leave now or be ever remembered by the void your bones create in lava.
Mmm… post rock. How many times have I written of thee and thy apocalyptic sound? How fitting that I find another great band tonight, and listen to their clamour as I read about the impending asplosion of Mt. St. Helens. For real y’all, that thing is ready to blow. It might as well be shooting molten earth from my speakers right now as I bang my head, in a mathy kinda way, to some old Mono albums. Rad. Right now I’m drinking straight out of a two-liter bottle of root beer, I don’t even care. Intro paragraph over.

Today (yesterday, for those who don’t understand my nightly posting schedule) was a good day at work. Not because I got some praise or anything, but because I worked hard and got a lot done. And at the end of the day, or, around 7pm, I had my junk ready and was able to head home with a clear conscience. Sometimes the best days are when I’m just busy enough that I’m hovering right above that “one more task and my brain folds” line, and that’s what today was. I was right at the limit of my multitasking, a limit which I consider to be pretty respectable. The day ended well too, with a free communal meal at Anthony’s place, where I managed to draw a couple cold ones off the keg before it sputtered out. Yeah, just about the right end to a productive day.

I contrast days like today with their antithesis, days I like to chalk up to dissolution. Maybe I’m the only one who has these days, I dunno, maybe I’m the only one who can sail through them without guilt. I’m talking about days where I come into work, and literally don’t do a dang thing unless it’s unavoidable. Most of the time, you end up doing something, because just being there seems to make people want to ask you questions or answer e-mail. But there are those rare days where my brain checks out and I’m just sitting there. I dunno, in the beginning when I started working at my job – I was new and there wasn’t much to do, so I would always go home feeling guilty for taking a paycheck. Nowadays, things are so busy I relish the slow times, giving myself one-off “working vacation” days when there’s nothing pressing to attend to. It’s just, sometimes, you get a bit tired of it all – and need to check out. Or, at least, I do.

You guys wanna hear some crap? Well, if you remember, I was recently complaining about having to shell out two deductibles to our auto insurance because a) Sharaun’s car got broken into, and b) her windshield cracked down the middle when she washed it with cold water on a hot day? Well, that was the second windshield she’d been through on that car since we bought it, only a year ago. We got it back two on Friday, today is Wednesday. Today a rock flew up and shattered her windshield. Again. For the third time her windshield is broken.

You can imagine the scene. It’s circa 3pm yesterday and I get a phone call at my desk, “Why can’t I just have an effing windshield?!?!” “What?,” I reply. Through sobs I hear, “A rock just flew up and broke my windshield!!” A frustrated teary scream and then, “I don’t understand!! Why?!?!” “Calm down,” I urge, holding back my own rage at the fates for casting us this hand, “We’ll get it fixed, I know it sucks but it’ll be OK.” Why y’all, why? Like I said, the insurance agency must be taking one hell of a toll and paying out their ass for all the hurricane damage – so they’ve got adjusters on the roadside chucking rocks at passing cars to make up for losses. Well we’re done, stop breaking our junk and leave us alone.

11:30 in the PM, time for me to put away the root beer, turn off the lights, and hit the hay. G’night. Oh, and, hey new kid, the block welcomes you. Dave out.

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to narrowly avoid divorce

This moll will break yo ass down!
Yeah, Sunday afternoon and I’ve done absolutely nothing all day. Did the first “real” test of the Winch Witch today, using the new “all-drill” winch mechanism. What’s better, it worked… it totally worked. Now it’s just tweaking and refining. Now I’m sitting here wasting my day away in a way that’s only afforded to the people of the modern day. No crops to harvest or animals to kill for dinner – the worst challenge I have to face is my bothersome headcold and rubbed-raw nostrils. And, having just thrown in the Fellowship of the Rings, it seems like I’m only planning to get lazier and lazier. I’m sick, I deserve it, right?

Last night Sharaun and I had a fight; the likes of which we haven’t had in a long time. I’m talking a real humdinger. Seems like the biggest fights always stem from the most minuscule and ridiculous things. This one, for instance, started with me asking Sharaun why she had turned on the air without closing the bedroom window first, and soon escalated into swearing and yelling (both the swearing and the yelling mostly done by yours truly). So dumb. Thankfully, we were able to smooth things over soon enough, and with apologies were able to narrowly avoid divorce. I’m glad we rarely fight, it’s a waste of time.

I know I haven’t stopped talking about it, but really, the new album by the Arcade Fire is hands-down the best album released this year. I worked in the yard yesterday for nearly five hours, and I listened to that 47min album the whole time. Over and over and over as I huffed and puffed and sweat in the grass and dirt. Happy the whole time. Don’t take my word for it, go out and buy it, or download it, or something. Just get it in your ears for God’s sake! You’ll be a better man for it.

Back in high school, I started smoking a pipe for a couple reasons. My fake-uncle (you know, your dad’s good friend who your family for some reason starts calling “uncle?”) had smoked one for as long as I can remember, and I was reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time. I can remember sitting out on the screened-in porch in Florida, smoking my pipe while turning the brittle yellowed pages of the coverless copy of The Fellowship that I’d picked up from the local used book store. I used to smoke whatever I vanilla-ey stuff I could pick up from the smoke shop in the mall, but soon developed a taste for more quality tabac. Now I have a nice pipe collection and a few varieties of smoke, but I rarely sit down with a pipe anymore. Every time I think about it, I remember how much I used to enjoy smoking my pipe. I think the fact that Sharaun won’t abide my smoking in the house stops me more often than not.

Last night I set the TiVo to record the first presidential debate, in hopes that it’ll give me some further insight into the upcoming election. At this time, I would still classify my current allegiance as somewhat tenuous… although still aligning with my inborn lean to the left. Having lunch the other day with an uber-politico friend of mine (a hardcore Independent with equal amounts of doubt for each major-party candidate) only helped to muddy up my mind on the whole thing. As sad as it sounds, I’m really looking to these debates, and the discussion and answers that come from them, to help me decide. I mean, I know it may sound superficial and “American” to rest my vote on a media event, a Jerry Springer -esque showdown if you will, but I have to admit it will probably play a big role in my decision. At this point, however, I just can’t see myself voting for W – which doesn’t leave me with a lot of options. I just don’t know.

I was going to write about how I’ve never been to a funeral, but I changed my mind because I want to go to bed more than I want to write about how I’ve never been to a funeral.

Dave out.

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does this count?

Old dude in black and white.
10pm on a Monday night. Trying to decide whether or not to iron tomorrow’s monkey-suit tonight or wake up early and get it done. Since I have to split around 5:30am to make my short flight, I don’t think I want to wake up early. But, I really don’t feel like ironing right now. If I was in Taiwan, I’d have already sent tomorrow’s shirt and pants to be pressed, and some unseen laborer would’ve hung them nicely in my closet. Where are my unseen laborers? Owell. The nice thing about tomorrow is that I’m really only going to press flesh; I’m not even presenting. I’m there for “face time,” and to answer any questions that might come up. To me my motivation is more like a free lunch and a day away from the office… nearly as noble, right?

I’m sitting here looking at my desk before me, and I’m disgusted by how messy and cluttered it is. Here’s just a rundown of what I can see: a bottle, one-fourth full, of generic tropical-flavored Tums antacids; a Diet Coke; electric nosehair trimmers; a ziplock bag full of Garbage Pail Kids; stacks and stacks of CDs; a plush monkey; spindles and spindles of blank media; a wedding-cake groom figurine; a vintage cassette walkman; two cans of Play-Doh; a wireless universal garage door keypad; piles of mail; fingernail clippers; pipes and pipe tobacco; an empty prescription bottle of allergy medicine; one plastic troll with bright blue hair; one plastic troll with bright red hair; an incense burner shaped like a wizard; an empty glass on a coaster; loose batteries; a faucet attachment for a sink; and it goes on and on. I gotta get less pack-ratty.

I don’t really have time to be writing right now, on top of having nothing to say – I should be sleeping. Instead, I’m sitting here listening to the Arcade Fire and staring at my Word doc. I think I’m going to take some vacation soon. Not that I’ve been taxing myself at work lately or anything, I just started thinking. We’re not going anywhere for Christmas this year, so the five or six days I usually reserve for that are just going to go unused if I don’t do something with them. I was thinking, since Sharaun’s off for a while now – that we could maybe take a trip or something. Maybe run away and hide out somewhere for a while, just us. I used the word “thinking” a lot in this paragraph.

Midnight and my fingers don’t seem to be writing anymore. They keep asking my brain for more words, but he mutters back something about being sleepy and kinda hot. Sharaun’s been asleep on the couch for hours, so I’ll now go through my light-turning-out, door-closing, wife-waking routine. Today on the phone I laughed at a joke I wasn’t really listening to, just because the teller of the joke was laughing, and then realized that can be dangerous. What the heck, or who the heck, am I laughing at? What am I associating myself with, what did I just find funny? Better not to laugh when you’re not paying attention, this today I learned.

Hey Kirby corporation, you send one damn vacuum representative to our house each week; we still haven’t bought your $2000 vacuum, despite your kind offer for a “payment plan.” The day I take out a line of credit to pay for a damn vacuum is the day my identity has been stolen. Your van-ferried teenage salespeople in loose-fitting khaki’s and reeking of Hilfiger cologne can’t market for crap, the 2hr training session they went to only makes them come off like pre-pubescent used-car salesmen. Stop coming to my house, we know our vacuum sucks. It’s made of plastic and came from Wal Mart, yours is all metal and can tow a boat or suck up piles of my dead skin – I don’t care. My wife hates you and so do I.

It’s gone! He already took down the site, just as I was getting to like it. Owell. Loaded the Arcade Fire and Grand National to my MP3 thumbdrive and I’m ready for the flight tomorrow. Not related to anything, I found this in my old journal and loved it so much:

I describe, visually in the form of a Venn diagram, my ability to detach.

Dave out.