My Giant Blackboard

Mind Games: Instant Wealth

2012-01-30T10:45:00.000-08:00

I play a lot of these little games in my head. I call them mind games, because they take place only in the mind, but that phrase has some negative connotations so I'm open to other names.

One of the simplest ones is the classic "what would you do with an exorbitant amount of money?" I tend to set the number at around $100,000,000 because it's possible to get that via the lottery, and it's enough money that you could do some truly obscene stuff with it. Most of my answer is practical and fairly meager for one hundred million dollars, it's probably all within the bounds of one million dollars. That's not the point of this game though, it's a lot more fun if you think of the question as "what would you do if you had to waste an exorbitant amount of money?" When you're playing the game this way it's basically a Brewster's millions scenario. You need to spend all of that money, and not really gain anything from it. My answer for a long time was that I would get some very obscure songs into rock-band. To this day I still want them to release all of Alice's Restaurant as one track, twenty minutes long, with no bass and no drums.

I was playing this game again this morning while showering and generally making myself presentable (presentable in this case is defined in the terms of a male college student in their twenties.) I thought about it, and eventually I found a good answer. I would hire black-water, and the various other private security mercenaries out there, and have them serve as the defense force for Occupy Wall Street. I'm not sure what would happen, but I'm willing to bet the fictional amount of money we're dealing with that it would be interesting.

The Story of the Monk and his Goat

2012-01-26T18:23:00.001-08:00

I've been thinking about this blog recently, and I decided that I want to try and write something every day. I make no promises to the quality or the length of the content, but we shall see.

Today I want to tell you the story of the monk and his goat.

There was once an elder monk, very advanced in his monastery, who would go out into the fields and chant. This is back in the days before monks would carry prayer beads to count their chants. Instead they would get two bowls, fill one with nuts or rocks or something, and move one of these objects to the other bowl with each chant, so they could keep track of how many times they did the chant. Since he was going out into the fields anyway he would bring his goat. The goat was a great boon to the monks, but it was a cocky animal that made a mess of many things. While he was chanting the goat would knock over the bowls, and the monk would lose track of his chanting. So the monk got a large stick, planted it in the ground, and tied the goat to it. In this way he could do his chanting uninterrupted.

The younger monks saw this, and they understood that their elder would always chant next to a tied up goat. So they began to go into the fields, bringing goats and sticks, and would plant themselves next to a tied up goat before doing their chants, since this was clearly part of the practice.

Insomnia

2011-10-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

The key problem with insomnia is this. When you have insomnia there is no clear divider between days. The things from one day bleed over into the next without a divide. This means that you can sit down to breakfast at 7:23 a.m. and sigh because it's already been a long day, and it's just getting started.

#FoodDiary

2011-10-19T11:28:00.001-07:00

This is sausage that has basically been drowned in spinach.

Man of Action

2011-10-18T06:20:00.001-07:00

It's 6:15 and I can't seem to stay asleep. Soon the clock will go off, it will be 7, and I'll start my day. As I plan it out in my head I realize that the preparations I was going to make for lunch tomorrow require food I didn't remember to buy yesterday. It's dark, and I should be sleeping so we are at the time where there is no today. I lament the mistake and continue not sleeping. And the absurdity of this hits me. It's 6:15 and I still have the power to change this. Now I wouldn't describe myself as not sleeping, now I am awake.

#FoodDiary

2011-10-17T10:41:00.001-07:00

Cottage cheese has become a pretty standard breakfast for me. It's fun seeing the forums where others will talk about the intricate spicing they do with it. Dashes of vanilla extract and cinnamon abound. I follow the very simple recipe of opening the container, eating the food, and then disposing of the container.

Exercise

2011-10-15T23:23:00.001-07:00

I don't have a formalized system of exercise yet. In all honesty I haven't read that part of the book yet. I get exercise by going on random walks to places I would normally drive to, and by playing with random toys like the one pictured below. It's a foam padded three section staff. It's a wonky awkward weapon in the hands of the inexperienced. I have no teacher, and not even really a book, so I'm learning myself with a little help from youtube. I've managed to hit myself in the back of the head a lot, which is awkward and I'm sure hilarious to watch. I'm sticking at it though.

Addendum

2011-10-15T18:04:00.001-07:00

Quick addition to my last post. I'm two bites in and I've come to accept that I don't like pinto beans. So the afore mentioned experiment has some results.

#FoodDiary

2011-10-15T17:59:00.001-07:00

Sausage, onions, beans. I'm still experimenting with with beans. Types and brands are unsettled, and I think that making the diet affordable will require me to get raw beans, not canned, and learn to make them myself.

#FoodDiary

2011-10-15T14:19:00.001-07:00

Steak and guacamole are staples of my diet, the pepper mixture is a natural addition to it. It seems more and more like Im going to move towards a rice, cheese, and corn free spin on Mexican food

#FoodDiary

2011-10-15T10:40:00.001-07:00

Pretty standard scramble this morning. Essentially the usual.

#FoodDiary

2011-10-09T15:38:00.001-07:00

Gaming complicates my eating schedule. Hence this odd assortment of items.

#FoodDiary

2011-10-08T21:17:00.001-07:00

#FoodDiary

2011-10-08T20:46:00.001-07:00

My attempt at the slow carb interpretation of the burrito.

#FoodDiary

2011-10-08T15:14:00.001-07:00

#FoodDiary

2011-10-06T17:48:00.001-07:00

Refried beans, onions, garlic, and Sausage. Later Acorn squash will round out the meal.

#FoodDiary

2011-10-06T13:14:00.001-07:00

Did you know that you can upload a photo from an android phone straight to a blogger blog? It's neat. I'm going to be posting my food diary here from now on.

Anticipation

2011-10-04T00:43:00.001-07:00

This new diet has 5 rules, and only 5 rules. The fifth rule is that one day a week you're allowed to eat as much as you want, and whatever you want. It's a core part of the diet because of something to do with your metabolism. I remember something about T3 vs T4, but mostly I remember the earlier part of the book where it lays out the principle that you don't really need to know the full science behind the diet as long as you know the procedure. It's explained with the analogy of a microwave. The user doesn't need to know about thermodynamics, they just need to know what buttons to press.

Anyway, I've found myself thinking about the cheat day a lot. This is in part because I'm three days into this diet and there's a lot of things that I regularly eat and enjoy that I now can't have six days of the week, but there's two much more serious triggers.

The first is what I've started to think of as a minor fast food addiction. It's a compulsion that goes beyond simple hunger, so I've started to think of it as a kind of addiction. I haven't eaten fast food since starting the diet, but I have driven through twice. I drive through and get just a diet drink, which is allowed in moderation, and satisfy the compulsion without feeding the actual problem. I plan to combat this eventually, but since I'm already working on completely reworking the way I eat I think the diet cola solution will be a kind of nicotine patch to keep the problem in check until I'm not occupied reworking other behaviors.

The second is on my mind a lot more. It comes to mind essentially every time I buy food. There are items in all of these stores that I know about, that I have had before, and that I enjoy. I normally can't have them, but I can eventually, and that knowledge sates me. I walk past a delicious caramel apple with chocolate stripes and nuts and I just look at it, and say to the delicious treat "I'll see you on Friday."

I'm looking forward to Friday. Six days of discipline, one day of carnivalesque indulgence. I've thought about what I'm going to eat first. It will be my first cheat day, and I'm prone to putting symbolic importance on things like this. I want the first thing I eat on the first cheat day to simultaneously violate the other four rules. In order to violate rule 1 it needs to contain the basic carbohydrates that are prohibited. Rule 2 means that it will have to be something I don't normally eat. Rule 3 means that it will have to be a drink, since rule 3 is "Don't drink your calories." It will also have to contain fruit, since rule 4 is no fruit. I thought about it a bit, and I have my answer.

Pumpkin Pie Milkshake.

Pie is, by name, a carb and a fruit. I essentially never drink milkshakes so it will be unusual, and it's a drink, which finishes the formula. I'm looking forward to that morning, and that milkshake, but for now I just have to know that it's out there, and know that I will see it on Friday.

Good Intentions, Bad Habits

2011-10-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

There is a somewhat bad habit I have. I say somewhat bad because my intent is good, but my actions may be misguided. As I've said in my earlier post I'm working on losing weight and improving my health. The bulk of what I'm doing comes from the core principles of "The 4 Hour Body." I'm on a diet, I'm tweeting a food diary, and I'm making sure all of my peers know so they can hassle me if I start to backslide. I've got a scale and a bodyfat monitor coming in the mail, and I'll soon have a heavy stream of data providing psychological backup.

The bad habit is rooted in my ongoing fascination with martial arts. This manifests every now and then in the purchase of another book or piece of gear. This time it's dead on the mark of the trend. It's a poster displaying basic nunchaku* katas, and a pair of cheap foam nunchaku. I know myself enough that I can't guarantee that I'll actually master these katas and that what I'm buying won't wind up essentially being another toy, but I have hope, and if I'm going to spend money on a toy I kind of think it's better to make it a toy that also encourages exercise, instead of just another video game.

*Nunchaku is the word martial arts fan-boys use when talking about nunchucks. We also have strong views about who would win in a fight between two equally skilled combatants one of which is using a Kusarigama and one of which is using Escrima sticks**. We also know what a Kusarigama is.

**The Kusarigama would own the misguided Filipino pretending that sticks are really weapons.

Harajuku Moment

2011-09-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

The title of this blog is only for those of you who have read, or are reading, "The Four Hour Body." I'm about 50 pages into it, and I felt a need to record this.

I need to lose weight. I've known that for the better part of a decade, and it's been true for that entire decade. There's a lot of reasons, many of which are more valid then the one I'm going to describe, but I'm at a breaking point. It's not a dramatic "I can't take this any more" like it would be in a proper dramatic narrative. It's something simple where the workings of reality are forcing my hand.

I'm running out of clothes.

My regular rotation of clothing, not counting underwear or socks, consists of the same 7-10 things, and has for essentially the last year. I like those things, but they're starting to break down. The average person would simply go out and acquire new clothes when their old ones break down, but there's something else to consider.

My jeans are 60x32. My shirts are 5XT. Just in case you don't dabble in the big and tall shop world, 5XT is short for "Extra, extra, extra, extra, extra large tall." These items, the ones I'm wearing, are on the end of the spectrum for what big and tall shops sell. If I get any heavier there won't be any one selling the clothes I would need.

I'm running out of clothes, because I'm outgrowing the clothing industry.

It's ridiculous, I know, and I'm pointing it out in part so we can all have a good laugh at how ridiculous it is. In truth though, I'm writing this for me more then I'm writing it for you. I don't really want this information out on the web, it's embarrassing, but more importantly it's humiliating, in the old sense of the word. It forces me into a state of humility. I can't brush this off any more. I can't let this go any more. This has to be the moment where things change. And my first goal is really simple. I still have a lot of my old clothes. Looking over them I'm pretty sure I rapidly gained weight somewhere around 20 months ago, because I have some size 58 jeans that are in good shape, and a few that look almost unworn. I think that when I was unemployed and essentially killing time during the winter of 2009/2010 my extremely sedentary mildly depressed lifestyle pushed me up to where I am now. So my first goal is to acquire clothing I can wear, that isn't falling apart, and will actively protect me from the predicted cold the pacific northwest is about to face.

So, in short, I have from now until whenever that cold hits to drop enough weight to wear those old size 58 jeans. I'm semi-arbitrarily declaring Cold Season as starting November 1st. So I guess I'll get back to you then.

Pre-Empative Strike

2011-09-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

This is an example of a type of story you tend to hear a lot if you run in the circles I run in. It's the story of a smart person, doing a dumb thing, and then trying to be smart enough to undo it before it hurts them.

So, on Saturday we had an all day gaming session, as we often do, and we bought various food items. Today I remembered that we still have the remnants of those items in the back of my car. Most of them are guaranteed to be fine. The soda isn't really food so it won't rot. The bananas are fine because they weren't quite ripe when we bought them, and they're sealed in. The salad though...

The salad is a boxed salad from Trader Joes. It looked fine, and it smelled fine, and that seemed like enough to try it and see. The first bite tasted... okay. It wasn't fresh any more, but I don't like to waste things. The second bite was another story. With the second bite I had a keen awareness from my body that this was poison. I let that bite fall from my mouth back into the box, and threw the whole thing out.

So now we have the setup. Smart person, dumb behavior.

So at this point the part of me that has intellectual strength wakes up and realizes what we just did. So from my semi-educated perspective the objective understanding of the problem is this. There is a substance in my body which is contaminated with pathogenic bacteria. The body has a defense system in which it violently expels everything in order to counteract that, but I really want to avoid that process. Luckily the digestive system is also pretty aggressive. The substance will be exposed to very very harsh conditions, so there's a reasonable chance that it will be killed off naturally. I want to be a bit more proactive then that, so it seems to me that what we need is a substance I can introduce that will kill off bacteria, and won't kill me.

Alcohol.

I want to pause and note that this may not actually be a story of smart people doing stupid things. Hindsight tends to support the idea that this is a story about a series of dumb things I did today.

So, Alcohol. I know it won't hurt me, not that much anyway, and it will discourage bacteria. It's times like this that I wish I had more in the house. What we did have left was a bit of Juniper berry mead, so I drank that.

Now I think I've established that what I did was logical, if not reasonable, but the real story will be told in the next 18 hours. If I wind up blogging tonight because I'm up vomiting then this will be a story about learning an important lesson. If I'm not then this will be a story either of luck, or of unusual but clever solutions.

The Casserole Paradigm

2011-09-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

My latest venture into the field of self taught cooking is Casseroles. I looked at 20-30 recipes on cooks.com, and began to understand the core formula behind them.

I have in my head what I understand as the "Meal Principle." A meal is generally described as a protein, vegetables, and a carb base. Other ingredients are added to create certain flavors or textures, but those three things are the core requirements. This formula describes everything from Burritos to hamburgers, to teriyaki. The Casserole model is an expression of the meal principle in which the ingredients are mixed together and baked.

The first casserole I derived from my research was part of my "Squash is the new carb" phase, so instead of a normal carb base I used Spaghetti squash. It was essentially four different kinds of squash, and chicken, all of which is then covered in cheese and baked until the cheese melts and the rest settles. I eventually yielded and began using actual noodles because as it turns out Squash still isn't a carb. I recently started toying around with a mashed potato base, so it was the potatoes, chicken, squash, and cheese all stacked up, then baked. Last time I was out of chicken, so I substituted in ground beef, and had too much mashed potatoes so I added a potato crust to the top. It worked pretty well, but the cheese and the beef don't quite get along, and the squash goes much better with chicken. I was thinking of changing the vegetables to onions, peas, and carrots when I realized what I had done.

I was demonstrating the meal principle, and the casserole model and arriving at an elemental proof of Shepard's pie.

I Remember

2011-09-11T08:37:00.001-07:00

I remember that morning ten years ago. The thing I remember most was driving to school, and thinking that today was 911, like the emergency number, and that something bad was going to happen that day. I laughed at the idea because it seemed like arbitrary assumptions, not awkward prophecy. I first heard of the attacks during morning classes, and wasn't worried. I was vocal about the idea that this was going to be like the last attack on the WTC in which someone car bombed the parking garage to essentially no effect. It ended up being a lot more then that.

My Eyes

2011-07-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

It's had to type this, because I'm typing it blind. There is something that grows in Olympia that I have a serious allergy to. I'm not sure what it is, but my eyes really don't like it. It's interesting, when it's not really really annoying. I have it more or less under control, lotradine tablets are almost as effective as a warm washcloth and rest.

Childs Play

2011-06-12T18:25:00.000-07:00

The weather in the area has been odd this year, but now that it's mid June it's finally starting to look like April. This means abundant sunlight, cool breezes, and just generally beautiful weather. The effect it has on the locals is amazing. Just as all of the flowers have begun to bloom so have the people. The number of people outside has tripled, and kids have begun playing outside. The game I see them playing is a classic that reminds me of my childhood. Guerrilla Warfare.

We called it Hunters and the Hunted when I was their age, but I assume they have a different name for it. They also have more advanced weapons then we did. My weapon of choice was a light gun from a Sega Master system, it didn't actually shoot anything, but it made a loud click so that everyone knew I was shooting. These kids have a large assortment of Nerf weapons, which actually shoot something, which means that they will be spared the endless arguments about whether or not someone got hit. One of these kids also has a full child sized military uniform. It's almost alarming to see a ten year old dressed in the exact same style and pattern of clothing as the actual military personnel that are a common sight in this area.

Child soldiers aside I'm about to introduce asymmetrical warfare to the occasion. Back in the days of Humans vs Zombies I purchased a Vulcan EBF-25 fully automatic belt fed dart gun. It's the battery powered heavy machine gun of the Nerf world. Since they canceled HvZ months ago it's been sitting in my closet going completely unused, so I've decided to give it to the kids in the complex. Because it would be incredibly creepy for a large unknown stranger to give random children a toy gun I've put up a poster in the hopes of alerting their parents. We'll see how this works out, but if all goes according to plan I'll have given one of those children a huge military advantage. Playing with the little Nerf handguns is fine, but I'm going to turn one of those kids into the Nerf version of Rambo.

The Consumer Solution.

2011-04-05T04:51:00.000-07:00

I've picked up a way of thinking from politics that makes life unusually simple sometimes. It comes from the idea of the single issue candidate. Julianne once said that he was a single issue candidate focused on national security.

In reality we're all quite diverse with opinions on a wide range of things, but I think it's also true that when you get at the heart of our interests and the things we advocate we each tend to have our own narrow focus. It's rarely just one, but I would bet that the average person has about three. Two of mine just met in an interesting way.

Whenever I'm unable to sleep I spend the time between whenever I can't lay in the dark anymore until around 3 a.m. doing whatever recreational thing I'm going to do. From 3 a.m. until dawn it's either false sleep, or contemplation in the dark. This is why at 4:30 a.m. I was sitting in the chair that no longer has any place in my room, looking at the shadows of my room, and thinking about Mind-Body health, which is the one of my core issues.

I sit in the dark and I think about my life and its clear that I'm not practicing mind-body health. I was looking at my room, and I didn't like the lay out. The pseudo-monastic lifestyle I fantasize about should have a smaller bed set lower to the ground so that I have a more open space. Maybe I should buy some books about Fung-Shei and see if that helps. In the long run of course I'll need to live somewhere else with more open room, more access to sunlight and space to have my own garden so I can live in greater harmony with nature.

And this is where my second core issue came into play. If I have one issue it's the whole Mind-Body thing. If I have two then I'm also mad at consumerism and capitalism and perhaps just money in general. Part of the reason I'm so bothered by it is that it's insidious. It works on you in tiny ways because the entire culture in which we live has been selectively pressured to encourage and reward a consumer attitude. And boy is it effective.

I realized, with a bit of horror, that my thoughts about how to aid my development all involved buying something. For all the philosophy I read about detachment from material goods I've still got the deeply wired instinct to solve problems with money. When I stop and question myself inside of this new framework, how much am I trying to buy spirituality, the vast majority of the things I thought I needed to do change. There's no need for more or different furniture. I need to take better care of them, and clean up enough so that I don't have clutter. Speaking of clutter I should probably get rid of a few things. Nothing is wrong with my bed it just looks bad because the sheet is perpetually lose and it was recently slept in by someone who was tossing and turning. I could probably grow things on my back porch, although the lighting is terrible. The books might still be a good idea, but they shouldn't be thought of as a solution to the sleep issue. I already know an excellent way to solve a sleep problem, and the fact that I'm not exercising enough is no ones fault but my own.

Let me end this with one thought that I'm still considering. I'm not willing to say it outright just yet, but I'm contemplating the idea that living by the philosophies you advocate may be enlightenment. It may even be the most difficult part of enlightenment.

Nomad (part 3)

2011-03-31T01:02:00.000-07:00

As of yesterday I have been alive for twenty four years. Tomorrow the sun will rise and I'll begin work on my twenty fifth year. Since I am always restlessly awake I'm going to take this time between years and think back on where I've been and where I'm going.

I'm almost certain I've discussed the idea that I observe my own life not as a historical record but as a story. Actual time doesn't matter so much as subjective time, so I describe events as being X many pages or lines in my life. Weeks passed in the spring of 2010 which could all fit into a few sentences, but the few minutes I spent in tears, fighting fruitlessly not to say "I love you" the first time I took Bridget to the airport could only be described in pages. Stories have to have a certain order as well. That scene in the airport wouldn't matter if you hadn't read the chapter about her visit which precedes it, or the several chapters describing the torrid lifestyle I was leading in the summer of 2009. Lives are also like stories in that the present affects the past. In an odd way we create our own foreshadowing.

Years back, in the car although I don't remember in what context, my dad said "I wonder if some day you'll be a great spiritual leader." In my first years of college, when I was putting my logical intelligence to full use in pursuit of a lucrative career as and engineer I would have told you that it was ridiculous. I was a scientist, son of a scientist, with a science background, and I was going to build things and get money. I wouldn't have said it, but the common narrative of society would have added "and be happy" after getting money, despite the fact that I was miserable through my early college career.

"I wonder if some day you'll be a great spiritual leader." Three months ago I brought up this memory because it made me realize that I've been a spiritual person all my life. The lack of spirituality in my life makes it hollow and incomplete. I'm not practicing any conventional religion, but on the surface my style of neo-pagan Taoism isn't that different from the more common religions in America. I've taken up daily prayer. I've taken up saying grace before I eat. I'm still working on making these committed practices I do every day. Sometimes I forget, or get lazy or busy, but my quality of life suffers for it. It's always been true, but only recently did I realize that I am a spiritual person.

'I wonder if some day you'll be a great spiritual leader." Today, or rather tonight, I wonder if it isn't foolish to think that I could be anything else.

I love saying that, but it would be disingenuous to say it without mentioning that it terrifies me. It doesn't make me scared, it's not something that worries me, it terrifies me. It's not fear, or dread, or worry, or concern, this is Terror. That's why I've been dancing around this subject for so long. When I discuss fear of success, I'm really talking about fear of embracing this. In all honesty I'm a little bit afraid of even posting this. But it must be discussed.

Lets start by considering why I'm terrified. The first thing that comes to mind is that this isn't the plan. The plan is to go to school, get training at being a professional, be a professional, and meet society's model of success. Across all of my major changes in life path I've never deviated from that plan. It seems childish now that I felt so much anxiety about changing from engineering to psychology. When I was in elementary school The Plan was to be an Architect, then it was chemist, then electrical engineer, then bio-engineer, then programmer, then psychotherapist. A lot of these felt like big changes, as though I was heaving the course of my life onto another track. Really I was just changing the fill in the blank section of the plan.

I know very little, essentially nothing, about my cousin Mark, but what I do know matters. I know that he's got a passion for fitness, and that he's dedicating his life to it, doing what makes him happy, and trusting that the money will come. That, that, is enlightenment.

I've been following the plan. It reminds me of an old Zen parable. There was a man at a crossroads when he saw a horse and rider charging towards him. The horse's entire body was in furious motion, galloping at incredible speed. When the rider drew close the man called out to him and asked "Where are you going so quickly?" and the rider replied "I have no idea. Ask the horse." that, is the plan.

I'm beginning to understand that the life I want to live, the life that will make me happy in a way that goes beyond pleasure, is not going to be conventional. The things that matter a lot in my life are likely to have a great deal to do with health as opposed to medicine, and practices associated with Chi. I worry that my family will disapprove of this, but as I type that I find myself wondering how much of that worry is the specter of self doubt finding a new form, and how much really stems from what I know of my family. I wonder how much of my fear of disapproval comes from breaking from a culturally normative path. I also laugh, just a little bit, because when I was a bitter teenager I said a lot about not following the beaten path. I worry, perhaps more then I should, but I know I am making progress. I know this for one simple reason.

I'm not running away from this anymore. It would be very easy to just not say any of this, but that's not right. It's time to face these fears.

Understand that I'm not going to be doing anything rash or impulsive. I still want to finish college. I have no intent to drop out of society, or be a permanent dependent. I'm honestly not 100% sure where I'm going to go from here, but I wanted this to be said.

My father once said to me "I wonder if some day you'll be a great spiritual leader." and today I wonder if it isn't foolish to think that I could be anything else.

Knowing

2011-03-05T05:23:00.000-08:00

Let me start out this post by saying check out my cool hat.

I like this hat for a few reasons. Like a lot of the things which eventually take on great meaning it started with something simple and kind of shallow. There are websites which allow you to upload any image you're willing to say isn't copyrighted and put it on pretty much anything you might find a corporate logo on. Stickers, mugs, shirts, hats etc. I on one of these sights, basically window shopping, and I decided to put in "World of Darkness" as a search term. For those of you not familiar with it, World of Darkness (WoD) is setting for a number of pen and paper roleplaying games, sort of like Dungeons and Dragons. In this setting the person who is running the game is known as the Storyteller, and this is where I first saw a hat which had the word "Storyteller" written across the top of it.

So that's where this started. But the simple desire for another piece of nerd paraphernalia isn't really enough to sell me a hat. What eventually sold me on the hat was how much the word Storyteller came to mean to me.

I started a lot of bullshit ideas while I was a teenager, most of them broad ranging, dramatic, and poorly thought out, as befits the role of a teenager. One of them that made it through the purging fires of maturity has stuck with me. I want my life to be an interesting story. When I reflect on things I'm often struck by a kind of pleasure not from the memory of the actual act, but simply from the fact that that memory is a part of my story. This has lead me to do a few stupid things in my time, but the only things I really regret are the ones that were damaging, and weren't good stories.

I also love a good story. It's one of the few things in life where the word love is truly appropriate. My love of stories is why I'm a listener, a reader, and an explorer. It's why I tend to listen to more NPR then music. Lectures, Stand up comedy, audio-books and podcasts make up 75% of my "music" collection.

The thing I recently came to understand about all this is that lessons that I really learn I learn from stories. I have a theory, which I'm making up on the spot right now, about the things I've learned. They all fit into two basic categories. Tricks and Stories. Tricks consists of all the techniques, everything from physics to programming to art can be summarized as some trick I know. It may help you to think of trick in a circus or skateboarding context, where the meaning is essentially the same as technique. I know a trick that lets me make banana bread, I know a trick that lets me rapidly fold sheets, I know the trick to getting to places in downtown Olympia, I know the rather difficult trick that involves driving through downtown Seattle, and of course I know the trick to operating a car. When I showed a kid a top and told him about rotational momentum what I was really doing was showing him one of the physics tricks that I know, and that through the magic of the human experience, he now also knows.

So Tricks are everything I know how to do. It is, in essence, the Yang aspect of knowing. Stories are the facts and figures, they are the characters and events, they are all of the things underlying the tricks, and ultimately every trick I know is rooted in one story or another. The trick to banana bread comes from the story of living in the University District and constantly throwing out old bananas. One day it had gone too far and I made my first loaf. That was the first time I used that trick, and it's evolved since then. The story evolves with it, since it now includes the time I brought banana bread to a potluck and was later asked via e-mail what the sweetener in it was. I thought about it and couldn't think of anything in particular, so I replied back that I thought it was just from the actual bananas. Five minutes later, just after I had shut down my computer, I remembered that there's a quarter cup of brown sugar in it. My e-mail had included a link to the recipe so I figured they would realize my mistake. That story is still intrinsically wrapped up with the trick.

Stories are more then just the source of tricks though. Stories are the conduit through which we, particularly I, can gain wisdom, and the trick that you learn from wisdom, is life. And that's the trick I'm really trying to learn. The thing is that wisdom is hidden amongst every story. The tragedies, the triumphs, even the cliches have a little bit of wisdom.

And this brings us to the real point. I've spent a lot of time over the last six months thinking a lot about why I want to be a therapist. The thing I've realized is that what I'm really trying to do, or rather trying to learn to do, is heal people's stories. Being a Healer is an interesting idea, because it encompasses so many practices. The Surgeon is a healer, the personal trainer is a healer, the teacher is a healer, and I think the most important type of healer may be the friend. Everyone has something different they do to heal. Some of the most profound acts of healing I've performed were through storytelling. The only thing that stands as a peer is the act of listening. These stories, the ones I tell and the ones I hear, are important in ways that we may never truly understand. This is why I think of myself as, and simultaneously aspire to be, a Storyteller.

The Benefit of Research

2011-02-28T12:19:00.000-08:00

The past week or two have been odd ones. I've gone back and forth between periods of my mind buzzing with a combination of information, anxiety, and stress, and periods of doing the various things I do to burn off anxiety and stress, which in all honesty probably burn off a little bit of information as well.

The past 8 weeks have been a live fire exercise in finding and testing my academic limits. I hit them somewhere around week 5, but this is real life so you can't just call the experiment and try again, you have to push forward.

Today I did something that changed my perspective. A large part of the anxiety and stress has come from looking at the books left on the stack, the ones I simply am not going to get to, and thinking I could have done more. Today though, I'm finalizing my outline, and I've finally constructed the logical flow my term paper will follow. It has a minimum page limit of eight, and I was worried about that until I saw the seven step outline of my paper and realized I essentially just had to write a page on each of the seven key elements.

I could probably write ten pages just on the first two. There's a serious chance that once I'm done fleshing out my outline it alone will be five pages long. I still have a lot of work to do, but it's nice to stop for a moment and truly appreciate just how much I've done. It adds a much needed positive perspective to everything.

Buy Local

2011-01-06T15:47:00.000-08:00

I sat down the other day with a sandwich I'd just purchased. I got this from the local food co-op, where I go to buy illegal milk along with other obscure things, and as I bit into my treat a number of things occurred to me.

1. This is the best sandwich I have ever eaten.
2. This is the first time I've bought a wrapped grocery store sandwich, the kind you usually see at gas stations, and not felt like I'd paid too much.
3. This sandwich has tomatoes in it and I'm actually enjoying them.

This raised a number of questions, most prominently among them "If this is what food is supposed to taste like, what have I been eating up all this time?"

And this is why I want to encourage you all to buy local. There are a dozen other really good reasons on the political, environmental, social, and economic fronts, but those are all things people could easily dismiss as "Hippie B.S." The fact that such important things can be so easily dismissed disturbs me, but that's not my point. My point is that free range meat tastes better. Local vegetables are fresher and hence taste better. Organically grown and raised products are better not just in all of the ways that count, but they also Taste Better. If for no other reason then this I encourage you all to hit up the local co-ops and farmers markets. If you don't trust all of the social, economic, and environmental activists at least trust your own tongue. Buy Local.

Goliath

2010-12-13T09:43:00.001-08:00

The story of my desktop computer has always been an odd one. It started out its life as a server for Chevron. When they upgraded their servers it went to Rice university, along with seventy or so clones of itself. It found its way to me because Rice actually only needed seventy of them. And so for the last 3-4 years it's been serving as my principle computer. It did a solid job of this, with the only real issues being the incredible size and noise it made, which earned it the name Goliath.

Goliath has had problems with spyware of various sorts at various times. Since one of its principle uses was collecting things from the net through various differently legal channels it's only natural that it was exposed to these things. A few days ago I encountered something that was so bad that I finally had to pronounce goliath defeated.

Problems had been mounting. Redirects, slow down, any number of frustrating and taxing problems that made the use of the machine more and more of a burden. The blow the slew it was part of a standard set of spyware types. This particular type hijacks the machine, telling you that anything you run is "infected" and saying that you need to buy whatever program this particular virus is trying to sell in order to disinfect your machine. In essence it hijacks your machine and turns it into one big ad. I've dealt with these before, but this one is so aggressive that every trick I have for resolving it is undone. No prompt can be open, no other program can be run, no configuration tool can be accessed. Everything you do that doesn't involve giving them $70 is blocked. With that, on top of the problems the machine was having, on top of the noise, on top of the energy consumption. At this point the only thing left to do was call the machine dead.

Nomad (part 2)

2010-12-08T16:25:00.000-08:00

I've got an interesting history of getting repeating speeches from the various authority figures in my life. These started with the kind of praise that tends to be given to young children, and I think these speeches may have been actively bad for me since I got used to being able to win without trying. This naturally leads into the recurring drone I got throughout most of middle school. The chant of "you have so much potential," was a genuine attempt to help me but it fell on dead ears. Recently there has been another kind of message, usually from my peers, but today I got it from my program leader. I think of this particular speech as the sorting hat speech, because it reminds me of a scene in the harry potter novels where the protagonist is questioning the hat, and instead of the affirmations he sought he simply gets the message "You would have made a great Slytherin."

I liked that scene. It's that kind of truth that can ignite potential into greatness. It's a reminder that you chose your path because it matters to you, not because of the simple rewards.

This last quarter has been amazing. It has also been overwhelming and challenging in ways I didn't realize it could be. It's been healing to wounds that I didn't even know I had. I've grown an amazing amount as a person, but I haven't yet reached my goal of pulling up my grades. And this is where the sorting hat speech comes into play. I was talking with my adviser today and she said something interesting. That I could be sitting in a political science class (In this speech it's normally a programming class) turning my mind to something it's already good at and getting a degree and a job and a paycheck, but what I'm doing here could be more then that, it could be a lifetime. It could be the answer to the passion that has always put me at odds with myself.

That phrase "passion that has always put me at odds with myself," is something I just made up but I think it might end up being an important phrase.

Years back, I forget in what context, I was talking with my dad. I don't recall what I was saying at the time, but I remember the way he paused and then said "I wonder if someday you'll wind up being a spiritual leader." My answer at the time was something about how I couldn't logically pursue that path because I wasn't actively part of an organized religion. It's almost funny to look back on the way I used to think about these things. The interesting thing though is that no matter how far back I'm looking I can look back on my thoughts on this. I've spent a great deal of time thinking about a great many things, but there isn't any point in my past where I wasn't thinking about things that fall into the overarching umbrella of spirituality. Until recently I believed that my lifelong passion for mysticism wasn't going to go anywhere, but I've been put back in touch with things I've honestly always believed. It's been a reawakening, and it's amazing, and a certain part of me is terrified by it.

The fear is that fear of success I mentioned in the last Nomad post. Things like Reiki, EFT, QiGong and the mind-body gestalt don't really fit into my scientist background. The entire principle of intuitive wisdom, which I believe in largely because of how many times I've experienced it, is kind of at odds with the scientific community. Except it isn't. These kinds of techniques are being integrated into hospitals every day. I could say that I fear being alienated from my own family, but I love my family and I have faith in those bonds. I'm sure if I put effort into it I could keep inventing reasons I'm afraid, but the truth of the matter is that the fear is inside me. My brain still can't fully trust my soul.

And maybe that's it. My entire life I've been a brain person. From the first years being called a gifted child to being my high schools token science nerd. Perhaps this fear stems from breaking that mold, and pursuing the soul.

The fear isn't something I'm going to resolve in one blog post. It's going to be part of the journey, because the more I've learned about myself the more I've seen that fear is the root of all of the other challenges in my life. That's okay though. The important thing is that I'm starting to accept that my life is going to be journey, not the career path. It may mean that I'm never going to achieve the traditional model of success, but honestly, I'm not afraid of that.

Fiscal Evil

2010-12-03T13:25:00.001-08:00

I'd like to relate to you two quick stories which will inform the story that is my ceaseless distrust and antagonism of most major institutions. The first is relatively simple and has to do with why I am no longer a patron of chase bank.

It starts with the fact that I was never voluntarily a patron of chase bank. I was a patron of Washington Mutual, a local bank, which was then devoured by the chase financial Goliath. At first this consisted mostly of a logo change, but after they were done changing all of the decor at all of the numerous WaMu locations they began to annoy me with an unceasing barrage of what is best described as bullshit. They called it offers and prizes and deals and contests and interesting new ways for them to take more money from me, but I'm familiar with the workings of capitalism, and know that if they were investing this much money into getting me to do something then it must be because they think profit will result from it. This on its own isn't a bad thing but if you zoom out one more level you'll see that the origin of what they're calling profit is what I know as "the means by which I continue to feed and house myself."

The last such act of fiscal terror I received from chase came when I was woken up by a chase telemarketer to inform me that I owed them fifty dollars. I was a bit surprised by this because a full three weeks before this call I had cancelled my chase account entirely. As it turns out they were assessing automatic charge from netflix to the card of the account that I had cancelled. This then lead to a forty dollar over draft charge. I found this last bit particularly surprising because chase had attempted to get me to consent to overdraft charges with all of the kindness and patience you expect from a hyena tearing flesh and marrow from the corpse of a Gazelle. I had, in fact, told them that I did not consent to overdraft charges five times. Two of these were during unsolicited phone calls, two of them were via mail and one of them was in person where the subject was brought up three times and I said directly, bluntly, and towards the end with undertones of violence that I have absolutely no interest in that service.

I went to the bank that day, something I try to avoid as chase banks reek of false comfort and over engineered kiosk design. Because the chairs at chase are intentionally uncomfortable, and old negotiating trick, I chose to to stand, or more accurately loom, over the woman while she explained their devilry to me. I think the fact that I went through the effort to menace a completely innocent woman in her mid forties is the only reason I was able to get them to revoke those charges, after which I went through a process of bullying her into actually closing the damn account. I expect to have to deal with even more bullshit from them any day now.

The second story, the one that is about to cost me four hundred dollars, goes something like this. When I lived in west Seattle I was a regular attendee of an Allstar Fitness gym. It was a good gym, and when I made the deal I was told that cancelling ahead of the one year contract wouldn't be a problem. This was particularly important because I would be moving to Olympia well before that year expired. In may of that year, right around the time I was moving to Federal Way, I told the person at the front desk that I would need to end my contract. She said that was fine and that it would be handled. I was surprised by the simplicity of it, but she assured me it would be taken care of.

To put it most simply, that bitch lied to me.

This morning I received a message on my phone threatening legal action and saying something about seven months of delinquency. I returned the call, as I do with most calls which mention state attorney generals and collection through legal channels, and talked with a very tired sounding woman who explained to me just how the aforementioned bitch had lied to me, and what would result from it. This leaves me at an interesting point where I'm right, but I can't prove it, and I don't have the means to fight it. Any means of fighting it would probably cost me even more then I'm paying now. All it means is that my recent financial freedom is going to take a serious hit. Luckily we're at the start of the month, so my finances have the leeway to take said hit, but it still puts another on the long list of reasons I revile most major corporations.

Nomad (part 1)

2010-11-15T06:57:00.001-08:00

I've spent a lot of time recently worrying that I will never be what culture defines as successful. It's an odd kind of worry, because in all honesty I don't really care if I have the wealth and stability that I've been told is success. What I'm actually concerned about is that what actually motivates me in life will lead me to something that will alienate me from my friends and family.

I want to write that it feels good to type that, but it's not true yet. It will feel good to publish it and actually put it out to the world.

This concern is part of the cloying fear that has been keeping me up all night recently. Insomnia is like an old glove in a lot of ways. I can feel it coming, and I have a routine that gets me through it, and I've developed just enough ways to mitigate the consequences such that I can skate by for one more day. To think I used to live like this all of the time. When I think about that way of life I'm filled with a deep sense of compassion and pity, but the person I feel so moved to help is my past self. And in a way it's my current self. I can, and have, and almost certainly will, say that I have overcome anxiety/depression/insomnia/panic attacks/etc, but I've come to realize that this phrasing comes from thinking about it as a disease, and not as a matter of mental health. Overcoming insomnia is kind of like overcoming muscle cramps. Muscle cramps aren't an inherently bad thing. They're there to tell you something about the way you're using your body, and they should be respected. Insomnia is the same thing. Something about the way I'm living isn't working the way I want it to, and as a result I'm unable to sleep.

I've spent a few years now learning a lot about psychotherapy, which is why it's so embarrassing to say that I'm only recently embracing the idea that saying something can be soothing. As far back as I can remember there have been ideas and insights within my own mind that I have been aware of, but unwilling to think aloud, much less say aloud, because I couldn't stand to face them. They are things that I don't want to admit to myself. I would bend over backwards, usually metaphorically speaking, to try and correct the problems that lead to these thoughts, all so that I could resolve them without ever having to expose them to anyone. And that's really kind of stupid. My Bushido book, which I think I mentioned in the post prior to this one, advises time and time again to seek the counsel and advice of others. I'm not exactly sure what advice, if any I'm going to be seeking, but I know that if these matters remain trapped in my head they aren't going to change. So with that I'm going to return to what all of my blog posts end up being, a grand theoretical discussion of something with personal relevance in which I make sweeping claims about how it may apply to humanity.

I'd also like to note that I have a vague suspicion that this kind of writing is how religions get started. Someone talks about their own ideas in the context of Humanity, or "The good people," or just simply "The Chosen" and before long their pope of this or that movement. Anyway, moving on.

As I sit here at dawn, a time that is sacred to me, and think about this, I realize that there are a few things that I'm going to have to discuss. The first is the idea that I may have a kind of fear of success, and the second is the matter of the Sacred, and faith, and probably a number of other words that will be capitalized in meaningful ways.

I'm going to get to all of that later though. Right now the sun is rising, and I have things to do. To be continued.

My Feudal Lords

2010-11-06T22:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a little over six weeks since my mother visited. I don't get to see her very often, and it was a welcome opportunity, but it left me wondering things in an odd way. More recently a family emergency prompted a trip to Sacramento, and ended up raising this idea again.

The thing that's linking both of these events, for the purpose of this writing, is that both of them lead to a massive gain in material wealth. I gained a laptop and a PS3 Move from the first, and several thousand dollars from the second.

Were I capable of not thinking deeply about these things they would have simply been a bit of welcome largess, but some combination of guilt, and my normal lack of such fiscal liberty have made me into someone who considers such prominent gifts very seriously, and it was from this that I gained great insight into the nature of Bushido.

I've been reading about Bushido a fair amount in the last five or six months. I haven't been reading heavily, but I have a book of Bushido wisdom that floats around and I read a parable or two every few days. I've always had a mixed relationship with it. I have a great respect for most of it, but the role of a Samurai as a retainer has never truly synced with me until now. Recently I have come to a greater understanding and I've come to understand how it applies to my own life. The people who have given me these gifts, and those upon whom I am dependent, are my Feudal Lords. They give me direction, and they give me the power and resources to pursue that direction, but I'm not directly bound to them. It's not a strict power structure, like a boss or a superior officer, rather it's a gentler system in which they are my backers and my teachers. Nor is it a strict contract of service. I'm not being paid directly to do some job, I'm being supported to fulfill a role. They empower me and give me counsel, and in return I carry out their will, using the endowments they have given me. When I'm looking at, or thinking about these gifts, things which go far beyond my living expenses stipend, I remember this.

The laptop, which I'm writing on now, could be turned into an excellent gaming PC. It won't be. It could follow in the footsteps of all of my previous computers and be slowly corroded by the dubious practices involved with acquiring music, videos, and software at no expense, but it won't be. Instead it's being used for media, but nothing potentially damaging to he machine, and for work. My first priority when I set it up was to make sure it wouldn't get infected, and this is the only computer in decades where I've paid for high quality security software. This machine isn't just a computer, it's a gift from my Feudal Lords, and like a horse, or a Daisho, or any other bit of equipment a Samurai might be given, it has to be used with them in mind.

I considered this when I first set up this computer, and like all computers it asked for a name. This name would only really matter if it were being designated in some kind of network setting, but to me the name holds great symbolic meaning. This is why this computer is named Koku. Technically a Koku is a unit of measure, but it was also once a unit of currency, with one Koku being worth enough rice to feed one person for a year, which according to wikipedia was set at around 330 lbs. I have been told there is a specific term for the stipend a Feudal Lord gave to their Samurai, but I don't know it and have had no luck finding it, but I do know the stipend was commonly given out in the form of Koku. So this computer is named Koku, because it, amongst the other things I receive, was given to me by my Feudal Lords, and I'm keeping their will in mind when I use it.

Easy

2010-11-06T21:55:00.001-07:00

Ever since I returned from Harmony hill I've had this sense of being lost. Like the life I'm living is not where I'm supposed to be. It isn't always on my mind, but in the quiet moments when there is nothing to distract me it come back. This isn't right. This is destructive, this isn't enough. It haunts me and I know in my heart that it's true.

But you know what turns out to be really really easy? Running away from your problems.

I've done that a lot of my life, and not in the traditional ways. You see I grew up with a computer, and the internet, and video games, so my ability to escape reality was greater then at any other point in human history. My life has offered me countless opportunities to escape my life, and by and large I've taken them.

And it needs to stop. It really does. And not just because of how damaging it is to my soul, but because of how pathetic it's become. People have developed new ways to stay comfortably numb, they've perfected the internet into a machine that can consume hours and hours of your time, all while making you feel like you're doing something, and slowly killing you inside.

So am I swearing off the internet? No, that would be crazy. Getting rid of games and computers would be like throwing out my car because I don't think I'm getting enough exercise. The device isn't the problem, it's the way it's used.

And to be honest, I fully intent to keep video games as a big part of my life. It's my culture, and I really genuinely enjoy them. They aren't even inherently bad for you. What I need to do is avoid the ease of escape. This, in large part, is about getting rid of the stupid little flash games on facebook and other websites that can chew up hours at a time while you do some little thing over and over again. The rest of it is about time management, and getting more done, and not letting the little things slide.

How do I do this and make it stick? I'm honestly not 100% sure yet, but I think it may start with dramatically reducing the role my desktop PC plays in my life. To start with it's a hulking noisy behemoth, but mostly it's that 90% of the things I do on a computer that are good for me I either can do, or already routinely do on my laptop. I have this idea of getting rid of the chair in front of my desktop, so that it's not longer comfortable to use for long periods of time, but I'm not sure how well that will work.

I'm not sure how far it goes from there. I just know that it won't be easy, but it will matter, unlike the things that are.

Legendary

2010-11-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

Wayne Miller was, and is, a Legend. I say this not just because of his incredible exploits on the battlefield, but because of how I know him. I know him through the stories about him. Most of these stories are flashy and violent and classified by the U.S. government, but the stories that formed my real connection to him are about who he was as a man. The stories of working with his own hands, of living with simplicity, and of being direct and honest. I may be romanticizing things, but I see the aspirations I hold for myself in him.

I saw him, this Saturday, and though his body is still alive, his life is finished. I think if he had the coherency to think about it he would agree with me. I also think, as does my mother, that he would be staunchly opposed to the agonizing extension of his mortality that he's undergoing, but it's not my place to do anything about that.

There is another Legend I faced this weekend, and that is the legend of my ancestry. I draw on this a lot, and my connection to those who preceded me is something that is continuously important to me. The truth of these people, when I see them in person, stands in stark contrast to the legend. But this is the truth of what it means to have nobility. One's bloodline is only a measure of ones potential. It means that I too can be Legendary, and it means that I could fall just as far as my uncle Kelly.

And this is the lesson of the Legend of Wayne Miller. I can talk about him doing simultaneous ambidextrous marksmanship, but that story would be incomplete if I didn't mention that he had been handling a firearm since he was a child. The peerless warrior and the simple man are one in the same. It is that simplicity, that patient honest work that made him as skilled as he was. He was born with tremendous potential, but it was the lifetime of effort that made him legendary.

Humans vs Zombies

2010-10-17T19:16:00.001-07:00

The game occurs every Saturday on Evergreen campus. This time we had around seventy people, which I assume is fairly normal when it isn't raining, but this Saturday was my first time playing. The rules are fairly simple. The Humans will try get the objectives back to the drop zone before time ends. The Zombies will try to tag the humans, if they do that human is down for 10 seconds in which they're encouraged to dramatically act out their death and reanimation before rising again as a Zombie. To prevent this the humans have boffers (padded toy weapons) and nerf guns. If a human tags a zombie, which includes shooting them, that zombie is down for 30 seconds. 90% of the crowd starts as humans, the rest as Zombies.

This means that at the start of the game there are only going to be a few zombies, and a huge number of people. We travel in large groups at first, but every time one of us goes down that's another zombie. And the number of Zombies is only going to get higher.

My team, which we called "The Mad Bane," in reference to the current storyline in our D&D game, consisted of Kevin, Adam, Niles, Monica and myself. We're a solid group. I've got a sword, Kevin has a good pistol and a sword as backup, Adam has a rapid fire gun and a dagger as backup, Niles has a sword and shield and Monica has a large bat.

It started with a lot of running. We were searching the dark abandoned library, looking for the prize, and knowing that out there, somewhere, they were looking for us. We were in the main floor lobby when they found us. Ten of them on the balcony overlooking us, and shouting to the entire building.

HUMANS!!!

At that point we ran. My team made it out, but not every human was so lucky. The next twenty minutes were tense. Every corner you pass your weapon goes around first. Every few seconds I would look back to make sure they weren't sneaking up behind us. We advanced through the building, clearing parts of it, knowing where the objectives aren't and not finding a thing. We had gone up and down a number of floors, and eventually had grouped up with a number of other humans. There were maybe twelve of us as a group, searching the darkened hallways of floor 1, when I turned around to see one of them. I yelled "Contact! Zeds on our Six." The group turned to fight, but from off the in the distance one of them yelled "Humans?" and you could hear a stampede heading our direction. I had inadvertently alerted the horde. There were too many of them. We fell back the freight elevator, holding the line as well as we could. Most of us made it. Adam didn't. Those of us who were still alive moved on.

We were moving through a hallway, Kevin headed with another group of humans up a flight of stairs. It wasn't long after we heard the sounds of screams and running coming from the floor above us, and we fell back to the elevator, which had become our own kind of safe zone, and moved to the fourth floor. There's nothing up there, we know that, but it's safe. We were shuffling around the main room when the elevator dinged behind us. With barely a word we're in position. Niles has his shield forward, I'm covering him with a pistol someone dropped as they went Zombie. The seconds are agonizing. The doors open and a padded spear sweeps the corners. No one steps out. I yell "Humans?" and they respond simply "Human." Their group is just as decimated as ours. With both of our groups combined we have six people.

We're forced out onto the roof. There's a stairwell down, and at this point we're moving low, slow and silent. There can't be more then twenty survivors at this point. There's a handful of Zombies below us. We're on the stairs when one of them sees us. We fight at the base of the stairs, but the horde is converging on us, and two more of us go down. We scatter.

At that point I was on my own, and out of ammo. I headed for a small area of benches, keeping my back to a wall. There are maybe 8 of them surrounding me. One of them lunges, my sword meets his side before he tags me. Another lunges when he sees the opening, but they didn't count on my experience with a boffer. More of them are forming around me, and I begin lashing out. I drop one then another, the rest go after my remaining team mates. Except for one, who I'm walking straight towards, sword raised high. He calls out for his friends and before long I'm surrounded again. I lash out again, preempting their attack. Two, then three, then six of them fall, but by this time the ones I took out before are back up, and more are coming. In that last stand I took down nearly twenty of them, but there were too many. Eventually I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I fall to my knees.

I look to the horde still gathered around me and yell into the night. "I'm not going to die a Zombie!" then lift my pistol to my head, and pull.

Ten seconds later I get up, tie on the red headband that signifies that I'm now a zombie, and take a deep breath. I spent a few minutes commiserating with my fellow zombies, many of which congratulate me on the success of my last stand. I remember someone walking away with his friends, and loudly saying "I love last stands." Before long I'm joined by Kevin, Adam, and Niles who have all been Zombies for a while now. I was one of the last survivors, and the humans are woefully short on objectives, so we head off to look for the last of them, and before long another round is started.

so yeah, all in all it's a really really fun game.

Sticky Note

2010-10-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

I don't have time to write all of this now, but I have a few things I want to write about. As I have in the past, I'm making a list to remind myself later. If any of these things are of particular interest to you, and I don't get write about them soon, feel free to prod me.

-Qi Gong, energy medicine, and the resurgence of the most ancient paradox in my life.

-A return to organized religion. Structured Religion? The power and importance of tradition and ceremony, a.k.a. throwing out the abstract bullshit.

-Eastern Wisdom

-The unspoken power of actually doing the work.

-Move, and my return to motion gaming.

-Thinking very deep thoughts about Trix

Sequel

2010-10-08T23:10:00.000-07:00

The following post is entirely about tabletop role playing games, particularly my World of Darkness games. I mention that so that those of you who don't care can just ignore this one.

I've found over time that if I'm not actively working on writing a story, or setting up another session of a given game then the back of my mind will continue working on things without me even being fully aware of it. Recently the ideas I've been getting have all be piggybacking off of my last game. It had a good ending, albeit rather abrupt, and the more I think about it the more I see room for a sequel.

The sequel idea is a new one to me. It also interacts with a previous part of my creative process in an odd way. I've found that I can't get a story properly formed until I have the title. Once that's in place it all begins to crystallize around that point, and expand from there. It also helps keep me focused on the theme. This means that I have, here and there amongst my more productive notes, sheets labeled BBBB2:SRR, which is the quickest way to write the full name of the game I'm designing, Block by Bloody Block 2: Streets Run Red.

In case the title didn't make it flagrantly obvious this is going be a high violence game.

I don't have all that much written in terms of what will actually happen in the game. Since I don't have anything along the lines of concrete plans to play the game this isn't a big deal. What I am going to be writing though is the cut-scenes that will form the prologue to it. The ideas keep bouncing around in my head and I've decided I need to get them down in some solid way.

Change

2010-10-05T12:43:00.001-07:00

I just had an interesting moment. I was going to look at my own blog, to see what I'd last said, and I found myself laughing at the URL. MXUW.blogspot.com Interesting to think that this all started out as a way of informing my benefactors of my life at UW.

That obviously has changed, as have a great many other things. It's almost a reflex for me to say that I have complex and nuanced views about how people change, but really this is a subject so complex that I wouldn't commit to any of the viewpoints that I may take at any given point. Nonetheless I have changed in serious ways since I started at UW. The task of quantifying just what lead to these changes is too herculean for now, but as I look around I can pin down a few of the changes themselves.

-I care about my physical body now. Five years ago I honestly didn't. I ate whatever I felt like, which was determined entirely by striking a balance between taste, cost, and convince. I'm still not in excellent shape, but I actually think about these things now, and have genuine respect for my physical self.

-I care about my physical living space now. Another extension of moving out of the world that consisted pretty much entirely of my thoughts and the images on my monitor. this has also made me more set on keeping things clean. When they aren't, particularly when they're out of order, it's started to bother me.

-I'm allowing myself to be outgoing in person.

-I like light now, particularly sunlight.

-A great deal of my knowledge has crossed the line from conceptual to hands on.

Mindful Eating

2010-10-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

The idea of mindfulness has always been key to mind body medicine, even long before people started reliably referring to it as mind body medicine. The idea that food is medicine, really just an expression of the core idea of living and being healthy starts long before what modern society thinks of as medicine ever comes into it. The obvious synergy of this is mindful eating.

There's a lot of things I could say about this. I could point out that once again a philosophical idea or practice of mine has ended up being something that Zen practitioners have already been doing for thousands of years. There is a great deal more elegance in their meditation on eating an orange over the course of an hour then in my focusing fully on the sensation of a cold diet coke, but I'm still a bit miffed that this keeps happening.

Narcissistic ranting aside, I've taken up this practice again in a more serious way. The fact that I'm actually studying it in class has helped keep it in my mind. I'm finding it very valuable, it enhances my life, and I've realized this is really why I wanted to have a dining table in the new place. Part of the process of focusing fully on the act of eating is having a place to eat that isn't in front of a TV or a computer. After doing it all the time for a few days I learned the key lesson that it's much more difficult to take your time and focus upon every sensation of the food when you're hungry.

It's a very different way of living, but I think it will be a better one.
This level of mindfulness is a very different way of living. It's almost hard to get my mind around sometimes.

Normal

2010-10-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

I've been operating under special circumstances for the last twenty days or so. That in and of itself could be a story, but what really interests me is that I had really only been finished with the setup process for maybe ten days. Given the influx of resources that came with my mom, for which I am extremely grateful, I was actually able to do some enhanced setup, beyond what I could have done on my own. During this period of special circumstances I've also started attending classes.

It gives me an interesting position of not actually knowing what my normal routine will be when I return to it. I had a gym, but I left that gym because along with my student status I gained access to a better gym. I have a car, but I plan for the normal routine to include bus travel to and from school. I've done some scouting for places to work, since years of experience have taught me that I can not do school work at home except when under extreme deadline pressure.

The thing is that this is all still in the conceptual period. The real test starts Monday, and we shall see, but I have high hopes.

Transitional Authority

2010-09-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

Roughly a month ago, August 20th, we officially took ownership of the new place. The truth of what happened is very different.

On the morning o August 20th I went to Olympia, paid what needed to be paid, and began unloading the contents of my car. I then unloaded some of the contents of the storage unit, and created what amounted to a giant pile of stuff in the apartment which was basically uninhabitable. That night I stayed in Federal Way, but that had just as much to do with my plans for the weekend as it did with the state of the apartment.

The next Monday, on August 23nd, the process began in earnest. I continued to get things out of the storage unit, and with Adam's help I got the remaining large furniture moved in. I didn't start staying in the apartment overnight until the middle of that week, and Kevin didn't so much as see it until nearly two weeks after we took possession of it. The real story of my newly established domain takes place in those two weeks.

At first it was simply a process of getting things sorted out, but because it wasn't done with a great deal of haste or even a strong sense of imperative it became a much different task then it could have been. When you first move your life is ripe with promise. There is so much that could be done, and usually isn't, which is why this time was so important. I went through literally everything I own, trimming the metaphorical fat and making sure I only owned things I wanted, and needed. Every time something went from being part of a pile to being put somewhere it wasn't just being put away, it was being placed somewhere on the growing organizational structure that I was shaping. It was at a state of Tabula Rasa, and I had the time and the opportunity to think seriously about where things should go, why, and how well the established system would actually work given the nature of the inhabitants.

After countless times spent mulling over some item or another the system that evolved was one of categorical simplicity. There could be an area for bread, others for pastas, cans, mixes, flour etc. In the new domain it is simple. Food goes in the food closet. Do you need an envelope? A cable for some piece of electronics, printer paper, a pen, more paper towels, or perhaps some tape? Those are no longer items of individual concern, those are supplies, and in the hall you will find the Supply Closet.

The Kitchen went through its own process. I used to have five pots, and seven lids. I now have three pots, with no redundancy in style, and three lids. Each pot, and its associated lid, has a shelf in the cabinet to the right of the stove. Likewise I now only own three different pans, each one is specialized, and they form their own stacking system on top of the refrigerator. We went from having a mish mash of forks to having around eight identical forks. I regret that I could not do that with spoons and knives, but we had a limited supply of those. All of the spices are in one place, everything medical is in one place, and each of the four drawers has its own specified purpose. What I have now is something I've wanted for years. I have a kitchen which is simple, functional, and elegant.

This raised the issue of food. I'd been eating far too much fast food and restaurant food during those early days because I simply didn't have the means to cook anything. Now I had an empty refrigerator, and empty freezer, and a mostly empty food closet. What food you bring into your house effects how you eat, it effects how you live, and this is one of the few moments in life where I genuinely had the power to change that. I proceeded to buy exclusively ingredients. If I was going to eat something, I was going to cook it myself. I've been steadily eating healthier since.

When the bookcase was set up in the living room I had time to sit down and sort through them. It now has complete sets, in order, and a more precisely arranged collection of role playing books.

When I set up my room I intentionally left space for putting up a new whiteboard. When I have the funding I intend to start thinking on the walls again. I've almost forgotten how much that helped me outline and define my thoughts.

The first night I spent in my room was lit by a few flashlights. There are no overhead lights in the rooms, there are sockets controlled by light switches. In my room the light switch now controls a synthetic sunlight lamp. Upon the blank slate I have made my decree. My space will be lit by sunlight, and when the sun is down it will be lit by synthetic sunlight.

It's a new space, it's a new school, it's a new town, and I'm taking this opportunity to establish the new ways.

Update

2010-07-26T10:09:00.000-07:00

I realize it's been a while since I've informed my parents of anything, and since that was the intended original purpose of this blog, I have a few updates for those concerned.

The primary task I've had during the last few weeks, other then minimizing my burden on the Wilson family, was securing a place to stay in Olympia. Over the course of four or five day trips we gathered a list of options, we pruned it down, and ordered them. A bit of aggressive phone work kept me informed about openings, and a bit of fortunate timing lead to us securing the last possible two bedroom apartment at our first choice complex. I actually only manged to get the spot by driving the deposit down that day. While I was driving others came to try and secure the same location. Thus concludes the primary task of these past months, and as of August 20th Kevin and I will be moving into Abalon Pointe.

This brings me back to an all too familiar routine which I know as "laying low." It's an exercise of minimalism designed to conserve funding. It is by nature boring, and its familiarity has only exacerbated that, but it's a necessity, and at least at this point I have a concrete date at which the exercise will end.

Just another twenty five days.

Ki

2010-07-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

When Ki has been described to me it has always been in large grandiose terms that speak to the magical thinking that tends to go along with it. This has always given it a certain unattainability which seemed to suggest that it wasn't something you should fully try to understand, but rather something you should accept as being mysterious and ill defined, like God or the government or the basic functions of a home computer. There is an idea I have been trying to get at for months now, and in the process I think I may have inadvertently stumbled upon Ki.

This came as a convalescence of thoughts so I have no idea where exactly this starts. I think the foundation of this may have to do with knowing ones self by ones actions. This is an idea of mine that goes back many months. It started as a purely behavioral way of examining myself. As an example I could say I wanted to lose weight all I wanted, but if a behaviorist observed me going to McDonalds every Saturday they would conclude that I was motivated by a desire for McDonalds. They would have no idea about my desire to lose weight. This gives me the first principle of this discussion.

We can measure of ourselves, and come to know ourselves, by examining our actions.

The next principle builds on the one before, but before I give it I need to take a brief detour to resolve the entire debate about free will versus predestination. Since I'm doing this as a detour I'm going to cheat and just assert that ones perceptions define ones reality. If you accept that then I would pose a simple question to you. Have you ever perceived yourself making a choice? We perceive ourselves to be making choices, hence we have the free will to choose because perception defines our reality. This leads me to my second principle.

We have the ability to choose our actions.

If you've been paying attention to the human condition, and I'm going to assume you have, then you know it's not nearly that simple. Lets return to that fast food example from before. It's easy to say that I could just choose not to eat there, but the reality of the situation involves a competition of motivations. I can choose not to eat fast food but it's going to take a certain amount of willpower, and this is where the discussion gets back to Ki.

If you observe and define yourself by your actions, and you believe that you have the ability to control your own actions, then the next logical step is to think that you can redefine yourself by controlling your actions. This makes the mechanisms of control very important. There are many different ways we express this idea of the energy that allows us to take control of our actions. This can be a matter of effort, it can be a matter of willpower, it can be focus, or intent, or meaning, or spirit, or enthusiasm, or dedication. What we are talking about here is the ability to express free will, quantized. What is this quintessence that instills in us the ability to choose, and in choosing adds meaning, personal significance and more often then not quality to our actions? I think it's Ki.

At the very least I'm going to call it Ki. What you call it isn't actually all that important, what is important is the source of it. A great deal of it comes from within ourselves. The rest comes from the world around us, and how we interact with it, which I believe to also be a function of ourselves. If you think that's a bit to obscure of an assertion I would refer you back to my previous statements on perception defining reality. So in this way I would say that the place we occupy in the world is better described as the place we make for ourselves in the world. Making this place is an action, and so we're lead back on a logical route to an idea that I connect to more intuitively then logically, namely that the the world beyond ourselves comes from within ourselves. I'm not sure if this is a quote or not but the phrase that comes to my mind is "I am in all things and all things are in me."

In this idea we have a concept of self which extends to the bounds of ones conceived universe. It flows out from the self into the world around you, defining it by the self, and the world in turn further defines the self. It's a loop of self and world recreating each other, but at this point we don't yet have an active influence on it. This vision of the universe as self is what I'm going to call the Yin form of self. What really interests me though is the Yang form of self. It's the active principle of yang that not only defines, but redefines. When you make a choice, alter your actions, alter your self and hence alter the world the you which is doing that is your Yang aspect. The Yang self is the one that's making those choices.

Now we can't have a discussion about Yin and Yang without having some bullshit about balance and interdependence, and this is where I'm going to tie everything together. Remember Ki? I'm supposed to be writing about Ki. If there's one thing I learned from Aikido it's that the essential lesson of Ki is flow*. When directing Ki in ones body you never say that you're pointing your Ki in a given direction, but rather that Ki is flowing in that direction. It's a moving active thing that moves through us, directed by us, but never starting or ending with us. Ki is the quanta of choice, and the essential connection between the Yin and Yang forms of self. We draw energy from ourselves, and the world we make for ourselves and this gives us the power to redefine and direct ourselves. When you redefine yourself such that you are more in tune with your Ki, or perhaps simply that you are more in tune with Ki, you gain a great ability to control yourself and redefine yourself further. If you want to be the master of your world you need only to sit at the center of this wheel and turn it always in your favor.

The trick, in the end, is going to be knowing what it is about yourself that you need to redefine. I have thoughts on that, but that's going to be something for another time.

*The other thing I learned from Aikido was how to roll when I get knocked over, but I pretty much never get knocked over so that's not nearly as important.

Phasing out

2010-07-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

I've been working the last few weeks to phase things out of my diet. It started with caffeinated soda, but the more important one is fast food. As of today, Monday July 12th, 2010, I'm formally abolishing it from my life.

I've made these kinds of proclamations before, and they've met with near universal failure, but my approach this time is much more reasonable. There are certain states and behaviors which lead to the consumption of fast food. There are the ingrained practices, such as stopping for fast food while on a long drive. There are the times when it is the option of last resort. These come in a number of flavors but they basically break down to a situation in which I'm hungry and for whatever reason both cooking and healthier restaurants are not viable options. Breaking the ingrained practices should be relatively easy. The pull there isn't based on any real drive, just force of habit, and I have a few tricks I've cultivated for derailing old habits. The second scenario is the more perilous one, but I have a solution for this too.

Kevin, as a rule, doesn't eat fast food. He gets into the same scenarios, but he's picky about food, so it doesn't happen. His solution is going to be my solution, and while I recognize that the behavior I'm substituting is not strictly healthy, it's a definite improvement, and once I've managed a definitive switch to this new behavior I can take steps towards and even better alternative. Anyway, Kevin's solution is a mimicry of the merits of fast food. It's available at all hours of the day, and easy to prepare. This is why when Kevin is hungry late at night, or while tired, he goes to any one of the grocery stores which are open twenty-four hours, and buys something very simple to make. This is usually something frozen.

Is frozen processed food good for you? No, of course not. But it's better. Financially, and health wise. So while I'm taking steps to improve my diet in other ways, steps which are mostly on hold due to the recurring issue that it costs a lot to feed myself on a diet of vegetables, this is one key step in the process of lifestyle reformation.

Tech Support

2010-07-05T23:10:00.000-07:00

I've spent a lot of time today trying to resolve the problem of my thoroughly infected laptop, the result of which is that I've quite nearly bricked the thing. It's important at a time like this to remember that I got it for free, so even if it does die my net loss will be zero.

The story behind this laptop is kind of weird. I got it because a friend apparently had a few laptops extra. He heard that I was a college student who didn't have a laptop, and faster then I could offer my profuse thanks I had a new Dell Latitude, and the Dell backpack which he had gotten with it.

After this the laptop fell into a weird role. I take notes by hand, I prefer it that way, so I didn't actually have a terribly large amount of use for it at school. When I need to access the Internet I would usually use my desktop computer, if I was near it, or my smart-phone. The laptop fell into kind of a gulf, serving occasionally as a workhorse, but over time it became a media tablet. It's main job was to run Media Player Classic and/or iTunes while being highly portable. It did this job well, but when I first started trying to use it as a real computer I ran into the fact that I had left it unprotected too long. A monstrously thick batch of spyware coupled with an old system soon took its toll. Eventually I resolved to just do a full restart, rolling it back to factory defaults, but that was a bit complicated by the devices odd history of ownership.

Being the tech savvy youth that I am I found what I was pretty sure was a way around that, but I've just watched it go from reinstalling XP, to a brief display of "Windows was unable to install System" to watching it blue screen from the windows installer, which is an altogether new idea to me and something akin to the tech support equivalent of a lovecraftian horror.

So this may be the end of this strange little machine. I have a few more things I can try before declaring it a lost cause, but as I've said the laptop never filled a critical role in my life, and once I'm set up in Olympia and my desktop is back online I'm sure I won't really miss it. It's a shame to see it go, but such is life.

Writing on the walls

2010-05-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

I'm painting over the graffiti walls today. I had the idea of preserving everything that was written on them, but a combination of the banality of some of the writings and the fact that I remembered this idea after 10 minutes of painting lead me to discard the notion. There are a few things I want to remember though, and I was hesitant to paint over those, and so I record them, and their stories, here.

Jon Rasmussen is a friend of ours, I believe through Adam, and he has a passion for philosophy. There are a number of things he wrote on the wall, but the one that I was most hesitant to paint over read "The poet asks 'to be or not to be,' but it is the philosopher who asks what it is to be, and not be."

There was a squandering of profound potential as I painted over the phrase "Only those who attempt the absurd achieve the impossible." The act in and of itself did not have any grand symbolic meaning, but the potential for it was palpable.

My father's addition to the wall was a phrase he described as the punchline of a friends wedding long ago. I don't know the full story of that, but the phrase "We must imagine Sisyphus happy" has a great deal of meaning and dark potent truth.

The wall itself started with me writing "Who is Cain," and extremely obscure reference, and for that reason I held back a bit before painting over the thing that had started it all.

There is a cartoon, a high quality one, which I will photograph and post before painting over it. The artist is unknown to me, but the quality is indisputable.

The last thing I'm going to paint over is currently directly to my right. It reads simply "Auld Lang Syne," a phase with has gained a great deal of meaning to me for one simple reason. It was Bridget's addition to the wall. I'll be seeing her again for the first time in a long time only a few days from now, and in theory that should make it easier to paint over this, but it is as things always are with her, that every moment is precious, that I hate nothing more then saying goodbye, and that when I have to the only thing I want is to hold on for another few precious moments.

Tradition

2010-05-18T18:23:00.000-07:00

There's a tradition I have that hasn't mattered for a while now. It started as a practicality, but now it's strictly tradition. Tomorrow, at 8:00 a.m. my registration ticket opens. At UW it was at 5 a.m, which is why I started staying up the entire night prior to class registration. This time I don't really need to, but I'm still going to. I'm still ironing out exactly what I'm going to do these next 12 hours or so, but I'll work that out later.

Amazing

2010-05-09T00:15:00.001-07:00

I'd like to take a moment and comment on something that I think we should all be amazed by. I'm currently writing this and distributing it to you on what is essentially a giant circulatory system for lightning that we humans have built and put up over the whole damn planet, but that's not the amazing thing I had in mind. A few moments ago I went out to my car to get something, it's 12:15 a.m. right now, the sky is mostly clear, no moon. In nature this would mean that I couldn't see. I've spent prolonged amounts of time in nature, by which I mean away from civilization and society since nature is really the normative state of the world, and the one thing you'll find while you're living outside of civilization is that you're not up past midnight. You wake up earlier too. There are a lot of little reasons for this, but the biggest one by far is that it's dark. And when it's dark you kinda can't do anything.

And this is what we should be amazed by. I went out to my car, middle of the night, clear sky but no moon, and I would say I had 85% visibility. Humans have beaten a lot of the things that challenged us. Our ability as predators is now greater then anything else the world has ever known. We've done more against disease and hunger then any other species could comprehend. But how often do you stop to consider what it means that we've beaten back night? Nighttime, darkness, it's one of those inexorable forces of nature that's supposed to be more or less the hand of God sweeping in and changing things. Now we have street lamps. They're everywhere, and they're free, and that's absolutely amazing.

Digital Detox Rules

2010-04-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

The exact rules for digital detox week very from person to person, but here are mine.

My desktop computer, known as Goliath, is going to be off for the duration, unless being used by a roommate, probably Kevin.
My laptop computer, known as Sweetest Taboo (long story, don't ask), is going to be off and packed away for the duration.
I will not be going to any social networking sites .
I will not be playing any video games.
I will not be reading any web comics.
I will not be watching any movies.
I don't own a TV, but if it comes up somehow I'm not going to actively watch TV.

The interesting thing about this is that I'll still be able to do all of the productive social things that I do electronically. I'll still have e-mail, because of my smartphone. These rules don't forbid me from texting or calling, so those are still fine as well. Lets see how this goes.

Digital Detox

2010-04-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

It's interesting to think that I only have four hours to write this. That's more then enough time, it's just interesting to think that in four hours I'll be observing a fast that will make me unable to write this. It's a fast taken from screens. It's Digital Detox Week.

I've been thinking about this for a while now, but the moment I really decided I had to do it was less then an hour ago. I was thinking about digital detox as I was half watching a TV episode on my left monitor and playing a facebook game on my right monitor, and I was thinking to myself that I didn't want to do it, which is when I realized how much I needed to. I don't want to do digital detox week because of all the stupid little games I'm going to miss out on. Not even the good games that the X-box which sits only a few meters from my computer can play, but the stupid inane facebook games. That's what I'm worried about? That alone was proof to me that I needed to do this.

There is one other thought I had though, the one that got me thinking about this. How many of the things you see and hear on a daily basis are actually there? Every face you see on a TV screen isn't actually there. The things they're saying aren't really being said. Think about how much the actions of those people influence you, how much of your life is about what they say and do. I'm doing digital detox for a handful of reasons, but the core reason for this, to me, is to get back to reality. To live, if just for a week, in a world which actually exists. I know me, I'll probably go back to the grand dream of digital existence when this is all done, but for just a little while I think I owe it to myself to wake up.

Misc

2010-04-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

I've started packing up my room, part of my prep process, and I've learned a few things.

-Trader Joe's gives out free wine boxes.

-Science textbooks fit suspiciously well into wine boxes

-Text books and role playing game books, like those for dungeons and dragons, have the same basic dimensions, which means that both of them can be packed perfectly into wine boxes. I'm not exactly sure why but I'm sure there's some kind of conspiracy at work here.

-I've packed up around 80% of my non-clothing possessions, which means that I've packed up all of my books. I was looking at what's left to pack and the seven unlabeled boxes of books, and I've decided to leave those unlabeled and label the rest of them "Not Books."

-There's a number of things I decided to just get rid of instead of packing. Some of that means giving old promotional T-shirts to Good Will, but it also means that I've started scenting the entire house. It's really hard to pack incense.

Sales

2010-04-13T14:35:00.000-07:00

I've spent some time here and there thinking about how people are sold things. Not the raw mechanics of commerce, although I've thought about that too, but rather the way things are successfully advertised. I've been sold any number of products by appealing to genuine needs. I've been sold some products through promises of greater quality then the products that have failed me in the past. I've been sold things because they would grant me access to new social realms, and sometimes that's even been true. I have no memory of anyone ever actively selling me a sword, or other bladed weapon, but I still have to put a great deal of effort into not buying them whenever I see that they are simply available to be purchased. I have two theories on that one. The first is that swords speak to a primal desire embedded in the genetic memories of my Y chromosome which is being amplified by a childhood fascination with weaponry and the role toy weapons played as items of reward, pleasure and social standing during the formative years of my early childhood. My other theory is that swords are Awesome.

I'm not talking about swords right now though. I want to address that small collection of things I have been sold through my own morbid curiosity. I don't necessarily want these things, but upon hearing about them I just have to know. I lost $5 to this phenomenon earlier today. I lost this money because KFC, which was already degrading the collective culture with it's nightmarish bowls, took the initiative to rip the hyperbole from the comedians and make the double down.

Do you know what this thing is? Imagine if you would a bacon and cheese sandwich, add a bit of that strange orange mayo sauce stuff that only fast food companies have access to, I assume through some unholy Faustian covenant with the snake God Yig, then instead of a bun, put it all between two pieces of fried chicken.

Just thinking about that for a minute. There isn't a single ingredient in that thing that's healthy. There isn't a single thing in that from the first two layers of the food pyramid. It's just meat dairy and self loathing.

I heard about this product and I had to know. And now that I know, none of you should go buy it. This thing should've been rich with decadent excess. Each bite should have been guilty pleasure, it should have tasted like the apple from Eden. This thing should be a piece of delicious sin, and it's not. It's a mediocre chicken bacon sandwich with too much chicken and no bread. That's it. Total waste of time and money, but at least now I know.

A New Decade

2010-03-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

Prior Warning: The following post contains adult language. Viewer discretion is advised.

I can't remember exactly how this got started, but I know where it got started. On new years eve we pulled off something amazing. All of the diverse friend groups that Adam, Kevin and I collectively interact with were pulled together into one gathering. My D&D friends, Adam's Americore friends, Kevin's friends from high school, my LDR who was visiting, Jason's girlfriend we never see, and the various miscellaneous people we call our friends all came to our house at once, and it was awesome. There's something magical about liquor and rock band, and the strange nerdy thread that ties 90% of the people in that group together. For those of you at home wondering the other 10% is the time honored nerd category of "Girlfriend who doesn't quite understand what they're talking about." Luckily the three or four people who fit into that category all get along so they're not nearly as isolated as it may seem.

Anyway, it was during this event that a resounding cry was first heard. A cry which rings out to this day, and which signifies the collective commitment we made to greatness on that hallowed night.

2010 Fuck Yeah.

Or as it's said more recently, #2010FuckYeah. This is because twitter is a magical thing, and all it takes to show that you're part of a movement is putting a # in front of some string of characters representative of that movement. What is this movement you ask? It's very simple. We, as those who carry the banner, by which I mean the hash tag, are dead set on making our lives awesome. We commemorate the glorious moments, we have no time for the troubles and tribulations. We know only victory. We are living the living our best lives now. We're making the world more like a motivational poster, and we're living every week like it's shark week. In short, we're going to make this decade our bitch.

Twenty Ten. Fuck Yeah.

Transitional State

2010-03-09T20:53:00.000-08:00

I've been asking around, getting advice on my resume recently, and I've gotten two things over and over again. First I'm told that listing my work as a lab technician may be hurting me because it makes me seem overqualified. The second thing I've been told is that it may not be a good idea to list that I'm starting at Evergreen in the fall. It shows that I won't be there for the long run. More then that though it illustrates the nature of my life right now.

I've spent time recently looking around my room, looking at everything there is to see, and mentally boxing it all up. I've gone around the rest of the house doing the same thing, everything that is flagged as mine gets scanned in, and becomes part of my plans. The plan, at this point, is to get a storage unit in Olympia sometime around May. Our lease is up at the end of May, at which point I'll be moving in with the Wilson's, but the vast majority of my stuff will either go to a storage unit or to charity. One of the things I've come to believe since scanning the various things I own is that I own too many things.

Even as I sit here now, in the basement, I'm looking at our heavily graffited walls and thinking about how and when I'm going to paint them. Everything I see, all that I do, is about what is coming. There are a great many things underway, a new dawn is just over the horizon, but I'm starting to get tired of staring at dark horizon all the time.

Officially I'm going to start packing in early April, but I'm thinking of starting sooner then that. Which is to say that I'm thinking of starting tomorrow. The key reason I haven't already is money, but I'm getting tired of ranting about money all the time and I have to imagine you're getting tired of hearing about it.

Dignity

2010-03-01T08:09:00.000-08:00

I made it to VMC today. They didn't have any work for me, and I'm kind of glad. I started doing a bit of math in the cafeteria as I was sitting there waiting to be told I wouldn't have a job.

The commute is around 30 miles, each way. There's no good route from West Seattle to North Redmond without passing over one major downtown area and one major bridge. This means that leaving at 5:30 a.m. is the only good way to get there by 7 a.m. which is necessary because of the bullpen day laborer system they run. This also means that I'm leaving a little bit earlier then I was when I was working at VMC and actually living in Redmond, which speaks both to the annoyance of the commute and how slow bus travel is.

I would be actually working from 8:30 until 5:30, which is only 8 hours of pay since there's a 1 hour unpaid lunch break. Pay is minimum wage, so after taxes I would make roughly $50 a day. Leaving at 5:30 and driving back through the aforementioned bridge and downtown would get me home around 7. Yes traffic is that bad at rush hour. So at this point I'm spending around 14 hours of my day, for around $50, which is to say that I'm trading my time away at something like $3.50 an hour. Work at VMC is not steady, and today would not have been the only day where I would have shown up only to lean that I'm out $6 for gas, and have no job. It's also often mind numbingly dull, and occasionally literally painfully repetitive. On top of this I would no longer be able to go to the gym, and my social life would be devastated by the schedule change, since I'd still try and get 8 hours of sleep, and hence be going to sleep by 8 p.m. All of this adds up to one conclusion.

It's not worth it. Yes I need a job, and no I can't afford to be picky, but I'm adding one requirement that any job I take must meet. It must not cost me any more of my self respect then being a 22 year old dependent does.

Middle Depression

2010-02-25T15:51:00.001-08:00

Both parents have now commented that I haven't written anything on my blog recently, and this is true. The explanation I tend to give for this is that I don't have much to say, and that what I do have to say is personal. Those are both true, but as I'm realizing now they don't get to the heart of why I haven't been writing. There is a certain kind of mindset that leads me to write in my blog, and it's characterized by something akin to depression.

The desire to write began to bubble in me about 15 minutes ago when two things happened in quick succession that lead to me driving to the gym but not working out. The first is that my recent hassle's with Chase have lead to my gym being unable to bill me, and hence billing me more. It's tempting to go into a stand-up comic style rant about why that doesn't make sense but if you've spent any amount of time thinking about the financial services industries or even why the word currency means money then you'll see that it's both reasonable and quite simply good business. The second thing that happened involves a song that I haven't heard in a while, and a girl who is two thousand miles away. I don't really feel like telling the full story of that one, although I will if asked directly, but concise to say after both of those things hitting me in the space of 5 minutes I simply didn't have the heart to put in the effort to actually exercise.

It left me in a grey area between what I would clearly call depression and what I would clearly call not depression. I'm operating at 40% or so, and it's in this mindset that I feel a desire to write in my blog. It may be that I have a story to tell, it may be that I want to whine or vent, it may be that I'm still wrestling internally about going to my creditors and continuing to be a baseless dependent. I have a great many theories, as I always do, but none of that is the point. When you wonder why I haven't been writing in my blog, a lot of it will have to do with mindset. There are narrow bands of mindset in which I feel motivated to write. Thinking back on this, the bulk of what I have written stemmed from this middle depression state. The high points when I have a good story to tell, and the low points when I have some particular vitriol that I feel must be recorded have their credits too, but so many more or less meaningless stories have stemmed from a life that lacks meaningful stories and a desire to write.

Time Management

2010-01-17T10:25:00.001-08:00

I'm still in the relatively early part of what will be a five to six month long transitional period. In theory the way this time will be filled is with me doing some low level job in order to get by, but that is looking gradually less and less likely to pan out. As we all know the job market is down now, and there haven't been any promising leads.

That being said I don't want this time to be wasted, and after about a week of searching fruitlessly I started working on making better use of this time. I sat down and thought about what I would need to do in order to fight depression, and continue personal development. And, in all honesty, I wanted to make sure I had something to point to when it got to be February or March when I would likely have to approach my relatives about the fact that I may end up being a financial burden on them. Somehow "I've spent the last month doing nothing, could you pay for me to do that for another month or two," just sounds bad.

I spent a while thinking about it, and muttering to myself about how this would all be easier if I still had my whiteboard, and I decided I needed a schedule, and some structure. No matter what else happened, I needed to do something on a daily basis. It should be good for me, and ideally it should be free.

This is why I spent four days last week at the gym.

It's working out really well. It gives me somewhere to go, it makes me feel better, it gives me energy which helps motivate me enough to do the other little things I need to do to get things in order, and it has a static fee of $45/month regardless of how often I go, and I've started reading while on the elliptical or bikes, so I'm finally making a dent in the pile of books that I own but haven't yet read. Getting in shape is also something I've been attempting on and off for years now. As a student of psychology and an evangelist of the mind body link I already know how much being in good health can improve the way your mind and brain function. As a fan of fringe knowledge I'm intrigued by the borderline immortality that comes from proper health and diet, which is why I also picked up food rules and am gradually transitioning towards a whole foods diet, which has nothing to do with the store. And of course the psychological motivation that can come from something as simple as a girl cooing in your arms as she runs her hands over your bicep is something that should not be understated.

This reminds me that I need to write out my rant about the salience of measures that are normally viewed as shallow. Another time though.

So recently I'm often asked how the job hunt is going, and the honest answer is terribly. Not a thing, but I'm not saying that with a sense of despondence. It's an odd thought, yes what I am theoretically supposed to be doing isn't working out at all, but I'm feeling pretty good anyway. Let's just hope things seem this rosy in a month.

Update

2010-01-04T15:41:00.001-08:00

I am not in the state of mind to be writing anything serious right now, but I need to update those concerned. I got the letter back from Evergreen a few days ago, I'm in.

Job Hunting

2009-12-12T19:57:00.000-08:00

I've made a pretty fierce effort at job hunting recently, barring the few days when my father was in town, and so far it has been utterly fruitless. And I think that may be for the best. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no position to claim that what I've been doing in my free time has been more useful then getting a job, I'm simply thinking about how the next few weeks are going to play out. In ten days I'm going to be gone for a week. Immediately following that a friend from out of town is going to be in town for five days. I'd love to spend the next tend days employed but "I'm going to need twelve days off soon" is a difficult conversation to have with a potential employer.

So for the next ten days I'm going to change around my focus. I'm going to dedicate these ten days to getting my affairs in order, and to making sure I'm spending every bit of free time well. The actual process of that is very complex if analyzed on a minute level, but as is so often the case my behavior trickles down from larger principles. In this case it's a return to one I've so often tried to implement, namely the idea of living without dead time. My experiment for next week is to live for that entire week without dead time.

Let us see if this can be done

Musical Oddities.

2009-12-04T00:03:00.000-08:00

I've been picking up a lot of odd bits of music from the Internet recently. As in very odd. Have you ever heard of the group "The Lonely Island?" Google it at your own risk. This song was stuck in my head for a few days, but at least it has a good message. After all, you can't trust the system. That's not what gets me though. The one that has been bugging me all day is a song that's pretty normal. It's "Poker Face" by lady Gaga. Except the version of it I have in my head, that wont stop, is the one being sung by Eric Cartman.

Communion

2009-12-03T23:48:00.000-08:00

I used to spend a lot more time on the Internet. The metaphors abounded, communing with my God, speaking with my people, etc. I used to refer to it as my native land, and as someone who has never identified heavily with a place that may still be true, but much has changed since those days.

Speaking from a purely behaviorist standpoint, that was the most important thing I did this year. My life actually started because I got off the damn machine. Until my life online, and most importantly in Azeroth stopped, my life in reality had a hard time starting.

And that in essence is why I write so little in my blog these days. I'm going to work on that though. Enough of my stories aren't private that I feel I can make some good use of this creative space, and I need to learn to be creative without it being past midnight.

Fearless

2009-10-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

So let us revisit the subject of Fear, and the paths of consequence and regret. The nature of things has changed, but in reading through my previous entry I realize that I never got to the point at which the dispute actually means something, so lets start with that.

This discussion started to matter about a month ago, which was the first time I began to consider if UW was a good fit for me. I was questioning it then because I was talking to a friend about a somatic psychology program in San Francisco. It interested me because it was a chance to get in early on this developing field, and because over time I've felt myself less and less connected to UW. When classes started this quarter the gradual progression of less and less, became a sharp plummet off a cliff.

The culture there, and this may be true of all large state schools, is one of inexperienced youth. There are times I want to turn to my classmates and tell them all to stand up, walk out, and take a damn gap year. Or tell them to live off campus for once, or do something, which isn't a highly socio-normative activity on the path towards being a 25 year old who is, for the first time in their life, wondering what they really want to do and who they really are.

On my more cynical days I look forward to these people as my future patients.

The disconnect from the culture I could accept. I don't spend a lot of time on campus, and of my friends who are college students none of them are UW students. However, last week I noticed something and began questioning the workings of the institution itself, and yesterday (Monday, in case this doesn't get posted today) everything kind of came into focus as I thought about my first class that day, PSYCH 403, and my last class that day, PSYCH 333.

403 is a class I took in part because it was open, but it's also a class that is being taught Seminar style. This means that it's smaller, it's more intensive, and it has a lot of reading to do, because the focus of the class is on the discussion of the articles and theories. I'm enjoying this class a lot, except for the fact that it's earlier then the rest, and the reason I'm enjoying it so much is because this is the only psych class I've had that really respected me as an intellectual. It's about discussion, it's about real learning. Interest in the subject, enthusiasm and the other traits that derive from my extroverted nature and learning style are rewarded.

333 is a standard UW class. Now it's a 300 level class, so the lecture hall only has 70-80 people in it, but it's still got all of the problems that the others did. This is a class following the lectures, assigned readings, and tests formula. It's a stock standard college formula, and I think I hate it. I hate it because it's not an environment where I will do well. There is a simple truth about myself that I've known for a long time, but have only started putting to good use recently. When I care about something, when I'm invested and interested in it, I'm a phenomenally adept performer. When I don't care about something, I'm barely competent.

Now if it was simply a matter of "I don't care about the subject matter being taught in Psych 333" that would be one thing. It's not that though. The problem is that the structure of these classes is actively antagonistic towards my enthusiasm. On more then five occasions during this class, which I've only been going to for a week now, when raising a hand to answer a question or address a point being discussed I've been actively told "Not you, someone who hasn't spoken yet." Don't think that I don't understand why the professor says that. I'm aware that she wants to be egalitarian, she wants the other students to get involved. I get that, but I still hate it. I'm of the opinion that if they wanted to be involved they would involve themselves. I may be a bit biased, but my past experiences support me on this. For example the times in other classes where there have been long enough pauses of nobody in the two hundred person class even trying to answer that the lecturer has turned to me and said "Okay Max, go ahead." I'd also like to point out that in that two hundred person class the professor knew my name, and when I missed class would ask how I was doing, and comment that the lecture of two hundred people was different without me.

Okay I may have descended a bit into arrogance there, but I think I'm making my point. Ya'know the other thing. In that class, where the oppression of my involvement was actually quite rare, I got the best grade I've gotten in a year. When I care about something I involve myself in it, and that relationship is reciprocal as well. If I care about something, but then can't get involved with it, I stop caring.

This is why I began to question whether UW was a good fit for me as a school. It wasn't this ethereal quandary about not fitting the culture any more. Now it was business, and as the previous paragraphs illustrate the last few days have done nothing but support me in this line of questioning. That is only the push though, there is also a pull.

I've forgotten who first told me about Evergreen, the odd school in Olympia which functions in ways different from the norm. I know that Kevin has considered it at various times. Calinda, who shares my same nature as someone who is highly intelligent and not a very successful student, once pined after the place as her ideal college to attend. Recently though I've heard most about it through Jamie, a close friend of mine who actually attends Evergreen.

I'm going to stop for a moment and address the obvious concern. No I am not thinking of switching colleges over a girl. As with pretty much everything I do, this is firmly rooted in my own self interest. Okay, moving on.

Evergreen appeals to me for many reasons. I've spent enough time in Olympia recently to know that I like the culture of the place, and of the school. But there's also the much more substantial matter that Evergreen functions entirely on seminar style classes. That grades are done in the form of credits awarded and a performance review, rather then a simple numerical assessment. This seems like the answer to something that has been plaguing me since middle school. I've heard the same thing from teachers time and time again. "Max is clearly very intelligent, he contributes a lot to class, but he's just not doing that well grade wise." I wish it had occurred to me to say this back when this started, but thinking about this now, it makes me want to turn to them and shout "If I'm smart, and I'm contributing, then give me a better grade."

So, this sort of split, UW vs Evergreen, became the solid component of the dispute that manifested itself as the Path of Consequence vs Path of Regret discussion. That discussion was radically changed by around 4 p.m. yesterday (Monday) because of a talk I'd had with my counselor who made some very good points.

The first came up when I was saying off hand that calling my academic failures the result of an inability to engage with the school felt like a cop out, and that the Evergreen thing felt like I was running away from simply confronting the issue. She pointed something out. Some people have alternative learning styles, and that's why we have alternative learning institutions. This simple statement gave me a great deal of clarity, because it was a reasoned alternative perspective that didn't bear with it the self destructive tendencies nature of my own perspective. The next, and these are not in chronological order, was about the idea of stepping back from my social endeavors to make my life more stable. She pointed out that a lot of the stress that's been caused by these things, relationship drama etc. isn't so much a sign that I'm overextending myself, but rather a part of life, and the natural consequence of the novelty of these pursuits. Social coping skills take time to develop, and while I like to say that I've overcome my period of isolation, the ramifications of it will stay with me for a while. More importantly though this idea that I can pick back up some of the old ways in order to make myself safer is flawed, because the simple truth of the matter is that there really isn't any going back. When she commented upon this a lot of things kind of snapped into place in my head, and I had a clear image of the results of following the path of regret. It would last maybe a month. Then I'd either go nuts and get into actually overindulgent social activity (just in time for midterms) or I'd fall back into depression, which would be even worse.

This idea has become central to the argument. "You can't go back." I wish I knew a more famous quote expressing this same sentiment, but the only one that comes to mind is the obscure Futurama reference of "You watched it, you can't unwatch it." As per my role as a pseudo mystic I've taken a liking to the phrase "Fire only burns in one direction," but that gets into the cryptic symbolism gibberish that I use a lot and doesn't necessarily make sense to people who aren't crazy. In case that phrase doesn't make any sense to you, the direction fire always burns is forward. Fire can't burn backwards, because what's behind it is only ash, and doesn't burn any more. So in addition to being true in the sense of the Tarot/Astrology/western mysticism meaning of Fire, with which I identify greatly, it's also true about actual fire.

This is more or less unrelated, but when I told Kevin that phrase his response, after a brief moment of thought, was "Towards." It amuses me because they mean more or less the same thing, and clearly understood what I meant by the phrase, but the wording in my version is from the perspective of the fire, whereas in his it's from the perspective of an observer.

The other thing I'm realizing, upon more clear headed reflection, is that I really never got to the point of social binging. I can look back at Lander, at what normal college students do. Now that is irresponsible. The path of consequence didn't really have all that many consequences, and I'm starting to think that they were derived from inexperience, and will become less and less significant over time.

As for the college transfer issue, that's still being investigated. I'm doing this the smart way, which means talking to a lot of people, making sure things will transfer, and looking to make sure that grad school is still an option. The only big thing I'm doing right now is dropping Psych 333, which I'm doing because I know that if I keep ending every school day with a class that makes me pessimistic about school in general it will start hurting all of my other classes too.

Fear

2009-09-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

It was about two months ago that I first began to think that my life was at a crossroads. Roughly a month ago that fact was brought into brutal clarity by PAX. Thinking on it now, it's actually been true for at least three months.

There's a thing about having a crossroad in your life. Life isn't that simple. It doesn't follow big simple directions, in fact in the first version of this writing this paragraph was about the whole idea being an illusion. I realized something though. The crossroads metaphor is valid, because all of these choices that I'm making, the countless minutia that will inevitably define my path, the basic choice is the same.

The conflict, the choice, is hard to describe. In what is practically a breach of character I don't have any heavily flourished labels for the two sides. I can't even really describe them, so I'll try and show you them with one of the recurring examples.

Most Saturdays I meet with a group of friends in Federal Way for D&D. I've been meeting with this same group with some degree of regularity for over a year, I think almost two years. For the largest part of that time this worked fine. It gave me something to do on Saturday, and I wasn't busy, and more importantly wasn't potentially busy anyway. About four months ago the group got progressively more and more flaky, and that was pretty much entirely my fault. This is because over the last nine months I have evolved into someone who is always potentially busy, and at the time that was still new to me and I was being flagrantly irresponsible with it. Flagrantly. This continued on through the part of the summer where Kevin was driving cross country which gave me a bit of an excuse, and now that things are back in the proverbial swing I'm part of a new D&D game, which Kevin has been developing on and off for months now and is DMing. I have said to the group that I'm going to make sure that I'm not hurting the game this time, and I've said that in a way that implies that it's guilt from last time, but the real reason I've made this commitment is fear. The reason I may eventually break this commitment is also fear. You see by doing this tame scheduled activity pretty much every Saturday I keep my life organized, and simple. It also steps on a huge number of things I might do. Even if I had all of those Saturdays free there's no guarantee that I necessarily would do any of them, but there are so many things I want to pursue.

This brings me to the nature of the problem, which I finally thought of a way to describe. On one hand you have the fear that drove me to stay with the group. The fear of consequences. I know of so many things I want to do, but all too recently I came to also possess the knowledge of what those things bring with them. The gains are incredible. I've grown an amazing amount as a person, I've learned things that can not be learned any other way, and I've had an incredible amount of highly fulfilling entertainment while I was at it. These same things were also bad for my finances, bad for my personal health, bad for my grades, and more often then not, fraught with emotional peril. It was my thoughts on this issue, and this fear, that have lead me to cut back pretty heavily. I've had my period of indulgence, and I have resolved to keep things tame now that school is starting again.

But that's bullshit. I really wish it wasn't, but it is, because while I know all of the problems that come from the path of consequences, I am all too justified in also having the fear of regret. I know what this whole "keeping things tame" idea leads to. It leads to someone who never goes out, who still wastes money, but who wastes it on restaurant food because his energy is too sapped to cook. It leads to a low level depression that is the slow killer, that takes away the zeal, and makes you numb enough that you don't notice when you get into high level depression. It's boring, it's weak, it casts away the opportunities and leaves me regret of what might have been. It's who I used to be, and I know that person all too well not to fight against becoming him again.

And here's the problem. Both sides are making accusations, both sides are right, and both sides are also wrong. If I continue to pursue the adventure, the social, the new then I might end up damaging myself as a student and damaging my health. If I take measures to keep life more in line, more tame, more mundane then I might slip back into depression and isolationism. Both sides are also so promising. Only by following the path of consequence will I continue to grow, will I find more of the higher self, will I find the adventure that stimulates and fulfills me. It's the thing that gives me the strength to be myself, and gives me the energy of spirit to take on the real issues. However, only by following the path of regret will I manage to make myself focused and responsible enough to archive my long term goals. It's the only way I'll get my shit in line, get my grades up, and get my health improved.

This is the terrible promise of the unknown. I call it that because both promises are bullshit, because I don't know, and can't know what each path will lead to. Higher self maybe, but the chances of me being a burnout on that path seem pretty good too. And yes it does seem like the path of regret would make me a better student but life was pretty tame back in 2005 when I was barely attending classes and living in a state of emotional catatonia. It is because of the fact that I can so easily dismantle the promises of either side that this fills me with so much fear. When I sit down and think about this, really think about it, I am overcome with a feeling that I have not felt in over a year. Panic. That anxious tension over the entire body that sits exactly on the cusp of fight and flight and does not know and feels like it may at any moment simply die.

I had really hoped I was done with that. Although on the plus side I've gotten far enough along that I find it funny that I once had that feeling at the thought of leaving the apartment.

To Be Continued

Misc

2009-09-29T14:24:00.000-07:00

-What started out as a joke has become a common use phrase in my self-talk. When addressing some task there are times when I have to decide if I'm going to do this like an adult, or like a Man. An adult takes things reasonably, isn't in much of a rush, and isn't poisoned by bravado. A man in a man. It's one of those choices that should be obvious every time, but irresponsibility is just so entertaining.

-That last phrase actually summarizes 90% of the mistakes I've made in the last nine months.

-Just to complete the story, going off Concerta just made me hungry and sleepy. Now reducing my caffeine on the other hand, that one actually pays off.

Reminders

2009-09-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

I have a few signifigant things I need to write about, but not right now. I'm busy, and sick (possibly swine flu) but these are thoughts that matter too much to be left at the "Cryptic Twitter" state of my own blogging process.

Too many thoughts never make it past cryptic twitters. /sigh

Anyway, the list is as follows.

-The fall of PAX. On being social and not needing a mecca

-The change of self

-Games as trapping of introversion

-Gamer vs Nerds

-What I actually enjoyed most a.k.a. "Paul & Storm's A Brewin"

-Having a life is expensive

-Priorities

-Can't go back

-Vices

Overstimulated

2009-08-30T04:40:00.000-07:00

I had a thought earlier, based on something I was noticing. I was speaking too fast, what I call overspeaking which is when the words come out fast enough that they stumble over each other. I was sweating as though I was nervous, which I wasn't, and I was directing what felt like an excess of tense energy into my duty at the moment, which was sending me a notch or two further into "Getting Shit Done" mode then I should have been. I'd been fine all day up until now, what was happening?

The key thing that had changed? I had taken my meds. I was jumpy, and not exactly nervous, but full of nervous energy and tension, and it was making all of my social tics flair up like crazy. I spent all day with my friends, doing what I thought was quite well in keeping my voice audible and level, no nerves, no nothing.

This all leads me to a theory that I'd like to propose to you. A subject is prescribed a mild stimulant because they suffer from ADD symptoms which are probably simply the result of mild depression. As the years go by the subjects depression gets worse, so a slightly stronger stimulant is prescribed. Years after this, after the use of the stimulant is normalized into the subject's life, this person actually confronts and deals with the depression. The subject overcomes the depression and anxiety and identity issues that were the real root of things, but because it has become normalized continues to take the stimulant. After a certain point the stimulant begins to have adverse effects because the subject is now being medicated for an issue which has been resolved through cognitive methods, and as cognitive embodiment theory teaches us, this cognitive development will change his actual neurochemistry such that the medication will have a different effect. So now the stimulant which used to counteract the depression is now creating tension and anxiety like effects in the subject who for the longest time simply blamed it on remnant social anxiety.

I'm proposing this because it also lines up with the experience of my last few days. I spent these days alternately in Olympia or Seattle, but spent them pretty much continuously out with my friend Jamie. I did pack my meds into my day bag, but didn't end up taking them. Now examining strictly my cognitive behavioral patterns, not my mood whose elevation was almost certainly due to general fun of the few days, I can say that I was unusually free of tension and overthought. The speech matter is a bit trickier, because while I did still mumble, I didn't display the same verbal issues that I displayed in my observations earlier tonight. Clearly my issues with speech are a composite, and that's not news to me, as I've been combating them all my life, but going back to the dichotomous view of today I was having a much easier time maintaining my "stage voice" today then I normally do.

Anyway...

Because of all of this, and the theory which results from it, I'm going to be running an experiment on myself the next few days. I had planned to spend these days studying and working out. It's going to be a difficult task because it will require me to be a diligent student in the absence of actual classes. I'm going to propose now that not only will it work, it might work better without the concerta. Sleeping and eating habits will also be watched closely, as they are naturally affected by any kind of stimulant. I'm really interested and hesitant about this, which I've come to learn means that I'm going to learn something, even if that something may be "That was a terrible idea." Let's hope it's something more useful.

A good sign

2009-08-27T13:22:00.000-07:00

I just noticed something. I have in regular use three belts. I have a small belt, a large belt, and a scout belt, the last of which is called that because the clasp functions in the same odd way as BSA uniform belts, even though it's actuall a $6 cheap highly functional belt.

The small belt is a bit worn out around the 2nd notch because when I got it that's where I wore it and it was a little tight. I don't usually think about which notch I'm pulling to though, I just pull it to the point where it's got a firm grip, then let it slide to the next availible notch. I noticed just now that I'm on the 5th, which is also the last, notch of the small belt. I stopped wearing the large belt a while ago because it wasn't holding anything any more. Maybe I'm actually losing weight.

This Brownie Will Kill You

2009-08-21T21:39:00.001-07:00

So I needed to celebrate the end of finals, and celebration is best done with Desserts.

Normally foods range from bad to good. On a rare occasion one is rated as Great. Beyond this is the classification of "Orgasmic," which I normally view as being hyperbole. Whenever someone describes something other then sex as orgasmic my response is always that they need to have more creative sex. There is, however an exception to this. A friend of mine makes chocolate Mousse injected cupcakes. Because of the viewership of this blog I'm going to omit the details, but concise to say that this is the only food I've seen or eaten which I could call Orgasmic non-ironically.

That's not what I'm here to discuss. I'm here to discuss the next level. The point at which food becomes a hazard. I'm here to discuss dangerous foods. That's where we get to the thing I just made. It starts with a relatively simple fudge brownie. It's cut out in a circle, so that a chocolate chocolate chip cookie, whose underside has been coated with chocolate frosting can be put on top of the brownie. On top of the cookie you put a generous scoop of chocolate ice cream. Sprinkle the whole thing with chocolate sprinkles, and on top of that? A hostess ding dong.

Think about this for a few moments and I know you'll agree with me that this is the most appropriately named food ever. "This Brownie Will Kill You." Go ahead and doubt the power of it if you want, but Adam is currently laying on the rec room floor, inches from death, after eating all but the very end of the thing. If he'd finished it? Well.. he couldn't say I didn't warn him.

Genius

2009-08-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say, I'm still tired from the barrage of activity that is finals, but I feel a need to make everyone aware that I'm still alive, I'll be contacting you all in a much more legitimate way later.

In the meantime, this comic is obscure, but genius.

Crazy

2009-08-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

I have something I was trying to write, and I realized that there's no way to make other people understand it. In order to understand the significance you have to have been following my life so carefully, that the only one who actually knows enough about this is me. Unless you know about Kevin's totemic naming powers, you know the name "Three Flames Burning In Shadow" you know the origin and meaning of the phrase "The Breaker of Chains" you're familiar with the idea of the Chained Inferno, you've been around as that idea has evolved, you've seen the triality system come and go, and you understand that some dreams are dreams, some dreams are lucid dreams, and some dreams a visions. Then you can't even begin to understand at all why this matters.

Damnit.

Processing

2009-08-07T08:53:00.000-07:00

So I've been looking at the last few weeks, trying to decide what's had productivity so staggered. There's a lot of good reasons, but I think I've found the actual reason. It follows a pretty simple series.

1. Some drama arises in my life.

2. Said drama makes me tired

3. I eat either fast food or processed food because I'm too tired to cook

4. Said terrible food interrupts my sleep, or my day, depending on when it was eaten

5. Productivity drops.

So when you get down to brass tacks, I think the real issue recently may not have been any of the various social dramas, but may have a lot more to do with Beefaroni.

Running Dry

2009-07-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

My father once explained something to me about money. I'm not certain if his perspective on the gender division of these two philosophies is correct, but that actually isn't relevant to this conversation.

In his words men think of money as a river. You can take some out because more will come, and how much you can take out depends on how fast the river flows. Women think of money as a lake. It may have a lot more in it then the river, but taking any out is a risk because the lake will eventually go empty.

I tend to think about money with the same mindset as the metaphor of the river, and that's a problem because recently my actual finances are much more like a lake. Additional money comes yes, but it isn't flowing, it comes every few months in sudden deluges, and I find myself looking up the barren banks of a muddy creek that seemed like a roaring river only a few weeks ago.

What I think it comes down to is that I can find myself spending with the idea that it will be okay because more is coming. I can say that even without going through the proper process of thinking about how much more, when it's coming, and how sure we are that it's coming.

It's a problem because it makes me more vulnerable to impulse control problems. It also facilitates priority errors, and just generally mucks up the system.

Another thought occurs. If you assume that money is a stream it effects the way you think about purchases. I could spend $5 at any time because that isn't really much of the stream. My financial damage control tells the story well. Other then gym membership and gamefly I haven't spent more then $20 on nearly anything the last several months. I've just spent $5/$10 on a lot of things.

The one key exception to that is Gas. It is, in many ways, a new expense for me, and I've been using way too much of it. Especially because my car needs 92 octane to maintain peak condition.

So I know the problem. It's not all that hard to see what I've been doing recently that's foolish, especially because it can all be summarized with the phrase "Social Binge." I've gotten that under control, luckily, but the damage is done.

Gap Years

2009-07-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

I am told quite often that I seem a great deal more mature then my age. It's a nice thought, and I think that in many ways it's true, but at least once every few months I get a sharp reminder of my own immaturity, and I begin to think about gap years.

Lets run for a moment with the theory that most of us finish puberty and reach the cusp of physical maturity around the age of eighteen. We also finish high school at the age of eighteen, and for a lot of people I know, because I have the fortune to be born into the upper middle class of a first world nation, this means heading off to college to get your first real taste of independence.

I think that's a disastrously bad idea. I think this because we're giving independence the wrong way. These kids go off to college, they have room and board and tuition paid for them, and I assume they have some money on the side, probably given to them as well. They're given freedom, but they're still, in many ways, dependant.

Looking back on things I first tasted independence during Project Exodus. Independence is seeing the thousand tiny cruelties of life, and toughening yourself against them. Independence is about being responsible for yourself, and maturity is when you can actually pull off being independent.

Custom Language

2009-07-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

I was writing what will probably be the next post when something occurred to me. A great many recent discussions require their own made up word. The gap between socio-cultural maturity and physical maturity gives rise to the word "Adultesence." Recent recession trends give rise to the "Staycation," and the sex positive movement doing something that isn't about LGBTQ issues gives us the word "Sexploration."

It's an odd phenomenon, one that interests me but I'm having trouble finding the point of this interest. I like it, because I believe fully that there are no actual synonyms. Every word has it's own meaning. Because of this new concepts, like the ones above, require new words.

That's a nice thought, but when I think about why this is actually happening, I'm pretty sure it's because it allows them to market the idea. It also allows the news to have a singular way of spreading the idea that this idea is spreading. It's a shame, but it's part of a new way of thinking I'm passively advocating. The basic principle of this way of thinking is that the naturalistic system that runs society is capitalism, not democracy or morality, etc. This belief that the works of currency and ownership define a society much more then its government is something I call "Econocentricisim." Go ahead and start using that word. If you all do enough it'll become a real word, like the entirety of the Brocabulary.

Big Round numbers

2009-07-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

Before I did this I had exactly 1,100 posts. Shocking isn't it? I have a few things worth saying, so my goal for the rest of the day is to get another ten posts in after this one without B.S.ing it, and there's no good reason, there's the simple fact that I enjoy pattern numbers. It's rediculous.

Thoughts

2009-07-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

My head is a bit cloudy with experience, my body a bit cloudy with fatigue, and in this state I find myself able to look back unusually far, with unusual clarity, and perceive the thoughts that stood out in the fast few weeks. These were the thoughts that would have become blog posts if I spent all my time in front of my computer with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

"I'm becoming more and more concerned that I may have to choose between the constant mild bliss of living a healthy and successful life and the pursuit of wild ecstasy."

"Having a social life is expensive. I've been worrying too much about the toll it's been taking on my sleep schedule, I should be more worried about the toll it's taking on my wallet."

"As much as I've criticised them in the past, the Wu-Tang had one piece of immortal wisdom. 'Cash Rules Everything Around Me, C.R.E.A.M. get the money, dolla' dolla' bill yall.'"

"I used to think that I could eat forever for next to zero money because I could buy thirty pounds of rice for twenty bucks. It turns out I was getting screwed, because I can buy thirty pounds of Safeway brand rice for thirteen bucks. All the off brand food you could ever want for next to zero."

"I believe in love at first sight, but that doesn't mean I think it's a good idea"

Cross Post

2009-07-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

I was thinking a little less then "about 6 hours ago" that I'm glad certain people don't use twitter. I'm glad certain people don't read my blog, and I'm glad I have the division of [censored] and Facebook, and I realized that a year ago I didn't need any of that.

A year ago I had my blog, which started as a way of updating all of my relatives at once when I went to college, and eventually became an actual journal. It chronicled most of the interesting stories of my life, and it didn't matter that my parents could read it, because back then all of the stories I had to tell were... well they weren't tame, I didn't tone my my use of profanity as literary flourish, but none of it was really secret.

Over the last seven or eight months that started to change. My life began to shift as I emerged from my social larval form into the person that I am now (note that in this case larval form is a reference to the monster from Alien, not to any puny Terran creature.) So now I have a private life, and I have the brand new need to actually keep things private. It was around that time I picked up twitter as well, which satisfied my prideful need to broadcast my story to the internet, but twitter was limited to a select few people. Even as life became all the more complicated I had a division of information. A simple, unplanned system by which I could adjust my broadcasts, telling my secrets, and keeping them at once.

And as someone who has a need to tell his own story, I'm really glad I have such a simple way of dividing it.

Genetic Success

2009-07-22T04:37:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I find myself coming back to the topic of genetic success. It's one of a subset of ways of thinking that I call "Life Scoring." These are various ways of thinking about the world in which your life is scored in pretty simple terms. This one is evolutionary, where the question is "How many genetic offspring do I have?"

It gets into another system of thought which occurred to me while I was outlining this post in my head before class yesterday. That is the idea of cognitive management of genetic/instinctual needs. It sounds pretty profound off the bat, but the more I think about it the more I realize it's basically just neo-freudianisim where I credit the id to instinctual and physiological drives rather then unconscious ones.

Anyway, I've come back to this discussion recently because it's lined up with the much more important discussion of "How can I get more money?" I've been doing a lot of work as a research participant, which has been good, but for the real research money I either need to be part of a set of genetic twins raised apart, or a girl with HPV. I found another alternative though, selling sperm.

It's an interesting subject because it's one that seems like it should have a lot of discussion with it, but to me it never really did. I have no problem with the thought that there will be some person out there who is my genetic offspring, because to me that doesn't even come close to making me their father. I'm also just generally confident in my genetics. I'm offering the hybrid vigor cocktail of Samurai, Highlander and Native American backed up by a Professor and a Department administrator, backing up further to a patent lawyer and a Green Beret. It's physical power, mental power, and dare I say even charisma. Plus the things I have in my family history (depression, diabetes) can both be overcome with diet and exercise. As it stands right now pretty much the only thing that makes me qualified to procreate is my genetics.

Also, every time someone is genetically related to me the average height of the world goes up a little bit, and I can't help but thinking that for some reason that's a good thing.

Weekly Report (Black Box in the Weckage edition)

2009-07-13T04:48:00.000-07:00

So those of you playing along at home have certainly noted that I didn't do a weekly report last week. The details of that week have slipped my mind at this point, so I'm not going to do it late, but I think the story should be recorded, lest the problems happen again.

It's really a very simple story. I have three spheres of activity in my life. Academic, Physical, and Social. In the last two weeks Social started grabbing up resources like crazy, hitting the other two pretty hard.

In theory harmony is the key, but I don't think that's true. The key to this is going to be keeping the spheres in the right order of priority. I came to this conclusion when reflecting on Aristotelian Justice while driving up I-5 at 10 p.m. Think about where I am. Think about where I'm going. Think about what I have to do to get there. Think about what I want. Think about what I need to do to get those things. Think about if I'm ready for those things. It's a little bit of a bitter process, seeing the self justly, but I don't see it as a condemnation, simply an acknowledgement of where I am. So I respect where I am, and then I advance from there.

With that in mind the ordering here is pretty clear. Academic reigns supreme. Physical feeds well into it, so it's second, and social, for now, has to be third. Not ignored, but rarely given preference over Academia.

So, lets get this back on track, My goals for this week.

Academic: Have all readings done before lectures, in accordance with what we've learned about schema and memory.

Physicall: Wake up at 6 every morning this week, without sleeping in at all.

Social: Three in person social experiences.

Also, from now on all goals will be written such that they fit the three key rules of goal setting. Specific, Behavioral, and Timed. Each of the ones I've set this week can be broken down into smaller goals too. Academic and Social are just single point things for each day, and I have three social things in mind for this week.

Scripting

2009-07-10T02:14:00.000-07:00

I have a habit of talking to myself in an odd way. It consist of thinking out my response to a presumed next line of conversation or social interaction. It's a behavior about which I can't decide if it's extremely good for me, like playing chess one step ahead, or if it's terrible for me because I presume incorrect directions and have a tendency to presume conflict and negativity.

Funny how writing things out makes things more obvious some times isn't it?

Anyway, I bring this up because in these moments, particularly when the conversation/interaction doesn't follow the vein I was presuming it would, I occasionally come up with some image or phrase which I then end up storing. These are, in theory, for later use, but most of the time they just get forgotten. I'm writing this post partially to talk about this phenomena, but mostly so that I can preserve a particular image I just had.

"..., but unfortunately the ongoing battle between passion and reason in my head still consists of passion sitting on reasons chest, twisting it's nipples while it continuously cries 'Uncle'"

I wonder if that will still be as amusing when I'm not sleep deprived.

Car Talk

2009-07-07T12:58:00.000-07:00

I kind of wish this was a coherent story, but when I look at it I realize it's more like a twitter feed then anything else. Isolated incidents of thought resolving into action, forming a coherent story, but not truly a coherent narrative.

Or is that the job of the writer? To make a narrative out of a story. Interesting...

Missing the Point Entirelly

2009-07-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

There was something discussed in my "Human Excellence" class today. It's a classic motivational exercise. Imagine what you want people to say about you after you've died, then think "what am I doing to become more like that today."

It's not a bad idea, if you do it right. I can't, because when I think of people hanging around, talking about someone after they've died, I think of one man. Bill Brasky.

Watch To be Bill Brasky in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Going mad with Twitter

2009-07-01T18:19:00.000-07:00

Like everything else involving, on, or relating to twitter this post is rambling and at times profane. You were warned.

I learned moments ago that there's an astronaut on twitter. He's sent twitters from space. It's a good thing that I was never offered this opportunity, because I know exactly what mine would say.

ArcaneInsane: WHAT NOW GEOTAG!?!?

I've also grown more and more fascinated by the twitter games. It all started with #3wordsdrunk, which I like mostly because it reminds me of a story from... Lander, I think. I forget the exact context, but I was in large group, everyone was drinking, and a bunch of people were playing the game of trying to write Haikus while drunk.

This is part of the larger "Taking simple things and making them into challenging and fun games by adding liquor" series of games.

Anyway, I remember this story because they knew I'd be able to do it. My response to this was

Fucking Syllables

Japanese poetry sucks

Doesn't even rhyme

And I swear I didn't plan it ahead of time. Epic victory.

Edit

2009-06-28T20:02:00.001-07:00

Recent events bring a few key things to mind. So I'm changing my weekly report a bit.

Social

-Goal for next week: Secure my car.

Weekly Report

2009-06-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

I have it in my head to do these kinds of weekly reports. They'll help keep me focused on my goals, and add a notch of personal accountability to the exercise.

The report for the week of June 22-28, 2009

Academic

-5/5 Psych 345 classes attended

-2/2 Psych 201 classes attended

-3/3 Psych 357 classes attended

-Activity level in classes: High.

-No graded assignments to report

-Goal for next week: Better utilize commute time by reading textbooks on the bus.

Physical

-Weight training twice in the mornings.

-Extended physical activity on Sunday

-Diet improved, thanks in large part to the HUB's salad bar.

-Goal for next week: Add a variant on the morning gym routine which is about aerobic exercise.

Social

-Outwardly social in class, within reasonable parameters

-Leadership role established and accepted in 345 & 357 group sections

--Acceptance is of particular importance. It will be tested as it carries forward.

-Won favor with professors, including the self described Misanthrope

-Epic social success Sunday.

-Goal for next week: 3 instances of outgoingness in my recreational life that are not carried out through the Internet.

I know this week it may seem like I'm bragging, and maybe I am, but I did really well this week, and I feel generally better in almost every way. So now I have my new goals, all of them are reasonable and doable, and next week I'm going to head straight for them.

The Silence Deafens

2009-06-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

I was laying around just now, reflecting on a number of things, and a thought occur ed to me.

"I wish I could write on my blog without having to get up and go to the computer."

Before that though another much more relevant thought occur ed to me. I don't write in my blog nearly as often as I used to. I also play a lot less video games, and am out of the MMO cycle that does so many terrible things. The reason here is really quite simple. Commuting has added a notch of structure, that structure, along with my recent life changes, have improved my life in many ways that I'm not willing to talk about publicly on the Internet in a medium that is readily accessible by my parents. It's a good thing, it really is, it just leads me away from blogging. And when you think about it, that may be another good sign. Blogging has always had a few of the trappings of the Internet addiction / social isolation form of depression that is so common these days.

Karma

2009-06-24T21:10:00.000-07:00

So years and years ago my Dad was trying to buy a new car. He was trying to buy one that wasn't a Ford, and ultimately he had to give up. I remember time after time walking out and imitating a Simpson's line that's a favorite of mine.

"Everyone needs to drive an automobile, even the extremely tall."

That finally caught up to me today, as I rode a series of buses for an hour to find out that Hyundai doesn't make cars that fit me. Neither does Kia. Now if I'm willing to give up on a lot of things and get a Chevy...

Screw that. There are alternatives. The Mazda Tribute is pretty good. Not great, but not bad, and certainly fills the role I need it to.

The CRV and the Pilot are better, but cost more. It's a complex problem, but on July 5th the one of us who has a functional car is going on a multi month long Journey, so it's a complex problem I'm going to need to solve soon, because I happen to need groceries.

Life Direction

2009-06-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting first day of class today. From the get go the instructor was being an annoying old man. He's not that old either, not nearly enough to use it as an excuse, but he explained very frankly that he has a list of very detailed instructions and a deep seated structure fetish, and that if we failed to play his little games our grades would suffer accordingly.

That's annoying, but it's not new, and I've learned to play the game, and I have my minor vengence via my snide remarks from the back of the class. He's also so obvious and direct about it that he is really easy to play. The interesting thing, and the odd thing, is how aware he is of his own nature. My Social Psychology lecturer is a self identified misanthrope. It sounds odd, or counter intuitive, our out and out stupid until you remember one thing.

This is someone who knows that he hates people. Hates people in general, they bother him, he doesn't like them, so why did he go into Social Psychology? It's very simple, he remembers the first rule. Know thy Enemy.

Housing Misc

2009-06-08T18:44:00.000-07:00

-How is it that a house can have this many spiders, and still get the occasional group of flies. It seems like one group or the other would just win.

-In a month I need someone to make sure that I'm not still "looking into getting carpeting installed" because I have a bad feeling that we'll end up sitting in our equally unfinished basement three years from now, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let that happen.

-The garbage service guys better get busy. Our garage can only hold so much.

-I have a feeling I'll be learning a lot about drywall this summer. And about the joys of buying new shirts. Which reminds me, if you see me doing any housework in my blue and black "extraordinary times" shirt STOP ME. I love that shirt.

-I moved my computer into a more public space partially because of our home theatre plans, but mostly because I wanted to get out of the habit of lurking in my lair all the time. It worked, but it makes me remember why I liked having my computer in my room.

Breakdown

2009-06-04T07:15:00.000-07:00

So the week before this I was crazy busy. School, managing the move, and learning the new schedule. The weekend before that I was busy moving things. This last weekend I was running double shifts moving things.

I'm pretty sure that's why I got a horrific sinus infection on Monday. It's made me begin to reconsider my policy on being sick. Up until now I've had a pretty simple policy. "If you can easily walk around then you're healthy enough to go to (blank) and if you can't then you should go back to sleep." Medication consisted entirelly of steam, tea, soup, and nyquil taken half a bottle at a time.

I'm thinking of re-evaluating that policy because today is Thursday and I'm finally back in the game. It just seems like too much time to lose. Granted this is the biggest illness I've had this year, but still.

Grand Works

2009-06-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

I have this discussion every time, and I don't think I'll ever actually stop having it. It consists of me sitting in the blasted out ruins of a place I used to live, looking around and seeing all of the things that still have to be done and reflecting on just how much work moving actually is.

I'm getting both edges of that sword today, because my room is the one finished room in the largely unfinished basement. I have a lot of ideas for finishing that basement, and the more I look around our place the more potential I see, and the larger my worklist gets. It also makes me think about aesthetics and decor, and those are dangerous thoughts because they can cost a fortune. Playing the craigslist game can save one a lot, but still.

Right now my pet project, as soon as I'm done unpacking, will be making the unfinished room in the basement into our rec room. It's not as hard as I thought, the only real skill I'll have to learn is how to install carpet, and once I've got that down and we've finally settled on an aesthetic design we'll be set.

High Maintainence

2009-05-22T11:56:00.001-07:00

I've been saying for about a year now that I expect my car to eventually explode or fail in some other grand dramatic way that will put a defninitive end to the machine. In a way I wish that had happened.

What's actually been happening is the slow death of the machine, in a way that seems designed to mock me. The transmission has been flakey for years, but the car was still drivable. The roof was unreliable, but the car was still drivable. The roof became stuck semi-closed with a little open slit in the back, unable to be fully closed and no longer a convertable, but the car was still drivable. Around a month ago the radiator sprung a tiny leak. It was a hassle monitoring the heat and refilling the radiator but the car was still drivable. A few weeks ago the driver side seatbelt became permentantly stuck, but the car was still drivable. This morning I discovered that the front driver side tire has blown out. I have a spare, I could make the car drivable, but enough is enough.

The repair costs on the roof alone are more then the blue book value of the car. Then add in the transmission, the brakes, the radiator, the seatbelt, and now the tires. It would cost at least a thousand dollar to get the car to the point where it would pass inspection.

As much as it's going to complicate my life it's time for me to accept one thing. I no longer have a car.

Corrections

2009-05-17T22:57:00.001-07:00

I need to offer a quick correction on a phase I used to toss around. "It's like Twitter for crazy people." This was always uttered as a commentary to my giant whiteboard, but it's incorrect. The twitter for crazy people is twitter, and microblogging is one of the most amusing pointless and supremelly arrogant things one can engage in.

Subject Zero

2009-05-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

Subject Zero's pattern of over investigation was first recognized by Subject L. We believe that subject L's candid nature has pointed out what may be a recurring event.

A recently developed theory states that Subject Zero will display this behavior more when communicating through a purely text based medium. This is based on the idea that the lack of visual, auditory, or physical presence causes an unconscious dehumanization of the person he is interacting with. This pulls Subject Zero out of a present mindset, and more into his own internal mental cosmos. Within said cosmos Subject Zero has only the constructed mental frameworks with which to form his actions, and his perceptions of the world around him. This leads to over investigation as he feels the need for greater and greater detail and realism in said constructions.

While the subject is being discussed let's go over some previous theories on this behavior.

The principle theory here is clear. The behavior stems from confidence loss, which leads to uncertainty, and hence a compulsive desire for direct clarified knowledge. Whether this is a simple manifestation of doubt, or an effect of a dissociative defense mechanism, which may itself be a response to doubt, is debated. This theory fits into the profile of Subject Zero, particularly when interacting with Subject L, who serves the ironic role of being the pivotal figure in his recent rise of confidence, and a metaphorical kryptonite to said confidence. This theory warrants further study. Examining how overinvestigative behavior plays out with regards to subject J.

Due diligence. The null hypothesis to this theory is that Subject L simply doesn't like answering questions and tells incomplete stories. In this institutes role as a metacognitive fabrication of Subject Zero's own mind, we are unable disprove, or determinately fail to disprove the null hypothesis.

Good Honest Folk

2009-05-12T11:08:00.001-07:00

We looked at a lot of places. I looked at about twice as many as we looked at, since I have free time and a car. The place we settled on was the owners unit of a place in Ballard. It was great, it was new, it had the feel of a place that had been managed by professionals and carefully cultivated to appeal to the prospective renter. As prospective renters we felt it's appeal, and we were sold.

That's where things began to go a little odd. We ceased our pursuit at that point, and began working on finalizing the deal. We were told there was one other group ahead of us, but they didn't have a very strong application, so it was pretty much in our pocket. A tense weekend, and Monday comes around. There's a lot of pretty frantic texting back and forth between me and our real estate contact. She holds up a number of hoops, and we expertly jump through them. The last exchange was setting up a time we could all meet and sign the lease. Which is when she told me that there was some confusion. See, she thought she was texting with the other group, the one ahead of us, and it turns out that all the hoops we had just jumped through were going to be offered to them. They jumped through them, and victory was snatched from us at the last possible moment.

The hunt went on.

We looked at a number of other places, and when things were good we settled on another place. This one lacked the professional sheen, a word I'm using because I don't know how to spell veneer. We walked around this one with the same eye for potential, but we knew, and those who own the property knew, that it was going to take some work. They planned, and still plan, to do a great deal of that work for us, but our visions go beyond the simple fix ups and more into the realm of improvements. Customizations perhaps.

When we talked things out with them we had the exact opposite experience. They were good honest folk who wanted to rent out this property. They had some credit check forms that they pulled fresh from the bag, staple's price tag still on the bag, and when they weren't quite sure how it all went they took a good look at us, and they did something that no major institution can do.

They trusted us.

They knew that we were good kids, that we wouldn't screw things up, and that when all was said and done we would be good for the house. We will be too. We, mostly I, have a lot of plans for that place, and by the time we move out it's going to be worth a lot more then it is now, and I like that. I like that because the house is, by it's nature, what I wanted it to be. It's a place were I can learn, and grow, and mature. And as I do, the house itself will mature. I know it's a weakness of mind, but when the symbolism lines up so perfectly I can not help but feel the subtle pull of fate. And as someone who works so much with distant institutions who function along protocol, and more often then not automated programming, it's a true relief to be working with good honest folk for once.

Relocating

2009-04-30T19:04:00.001-07:00

I've always been a big believe in serendipity. So when I see something out of the corner of my eye while driving, it can end up having a lot of meaning. In this case it was a sign proclaiming a 3Br house for rent. for only a small amount more then my current apartments rent.

That's how all of this got started. The person who is renting it out has been completely out of communication since my initial interaction with them, but the agreement between my roomates and I is that we need a bigger place. I've wanted one for a long time, and having seen the promise of it I have the hunger, and it will not be sated until it tastes of sweet victory. This first meant pursuing the serendipitous house heavily, but it's hard to do that when the renter won't pick up his damn phone. So now I have a number of other targets on my list.

I'm not sure where yet, I'm personally still hoping we get Ashworth Abbey (as we will call it), but know this. I'm getting out of this cramped apartment. It's not a home, it's a place. A place is where some bros, dudes, and perhaps their ladies may crash, party, or chill while doing their thing and going to college. In a home you can live an actual life. In a home you can grow and progress beyond the petty hollow stories of adolescence.

We talked about this the first night after my discovery and one thing was made clear. This chance, this opportunity has the ability to transform all of the things we'd like to do, and talk about doing, into things that could actually happen. So many plans, and schemes, and ideas can be made manifest if we only have the space to pursue it.

And by God we will.

Defying expectations

2009-04-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

I spent most of this morning preparing myself for my meeting with my advisor. I went over every detail that I had in my argument, I made sure that I had records of our past exchanges, and I analyzed all all of the past interactions I'd had with advisor, assembled a basic personality profile, and catered my appearance and mannerisims to appeal to that profile.

It was the perfect alignment of desire, fear, focus, outrage, determination, and desperation. The perfect constellation of my motivating factors.

I arrived ten minutes early, as I often do, and was delayed for a few minutes by the previous appointment. When my turn was up I headed in and was prempted by victory. My key argument was brought up by the advisor, and I was admitted to the major.

I was then also offered my choice of summer quarter classes.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with this, but the effect is very similar to that of DM discretion. This is someone who empowered above and beyond the game that you are playing, and can grab the rules and reshape them as they see fit. The fact that this person is on my side is very very important, and the experience of seeing something in real life be retconned is simply outstanding. It remains true that every time I go to the psych advisors it goes better then I thought it could.