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I guess I’m digging myself a hole. I just ordered a hard drive upgrade for my Powerbook. Two and a half years ago when I bought it, 6Gb for a laptop was pretty good, but for a couple hundred now I’m getting 40Gb for the same slot. Plus getting copies of Jaguar (Mac OSX 10.2) for my iMac and Powerbook. I want to set up a dual-boot on the Powerbook so I can run the version of VirtualPC I have on there without shelling out more money… so I’m not having them install that with the HD… Or … I’ll ask them Friday how much extra that would cost…

Anyway, Friday night is a release party for Jaguar, so I’m going to go up to the place (MacMedia) on Friday night to pick up my copy of Jaguar, drop off my laptop, and hang out for their 10:20 to midnight party/giveaways/whatever. I’ll also have to be down there on Saturday, so on either Friday (preferred) or Saturday, I’d like to find someone who’d like to go see The Good Girl with me at the Camelview right near MacMedia. You know, kill two birds with one stone. Trick to finding someone for Friday is finding someone who not only wants to see an independant movie with me, but also likes Macs enough to want to spend 100 minutes at a Mac store surrounded by Mac fanatics with me. (They might win an iMac! Other prizes, maybe!)

So, where am I finding the money for this? Well… Getting a bonus on this week’s paycheck, plus had several hundred dollars set aside for bicycle maintenence that I’m putting off a couple months anyway, plus … I’m betting that a seat doesn’t open in at least one of the classes I need, saving me hundreds of dollars next week. Not a good bet as far as me wanting to take classes goes, but a pretty good one based on everything I know about the situation.

Of course, I feel like I’m spending “too much”, but I couldn’t let myself spend so much that I couldn’t make appropriate payments on everything. Missing a payment on a credit card or a loan or paying rent late or any of that is simply not an option. Spending “too much” just means I have less cash for eating out and buying DVDs, and making payments closer to the minimums for a while. I really need to get this under control, though. I need more focus. I need to choose something to focus on…

I haven’t posted in a couple of days, and people start complaining. Look, guys. Sometimes I go a couple of days without anything interesting happening. The same is obviously true for the other 10 people who have access to post here; they go weeks or more between posts. One of them doesn’t post at all; I have to log in as him and copy/paste his entries because he can’t remember how to spell his password.

I’ve been reading a lot at work instead of posting constantly. Monday night I slept straight through twelve hours. Last night I watched some TV. The most interesting thing so far this week is that the replacement phone I requested arraived last night and has already cut out on me a couple of times. Oh, and of course, all its settings are wrong and AT&T still refuses to believe that they’re supposed to help me upgrade from the T68 to T68i software, even though the website they keep directing me to to get it tells me to call them to get it.

Umm… going to read all day again at work. Tonight … let’s see… Angela will probably stop by after work with the XBox games she called me about last night (The Zia near her started offerring used XBox games, so she picked up Jet Set Radio Future and Dead Or Alive 3 for US$15.99 each for me) and maybe I’ll play those a little before trying to get to sleep at 9.

Then tomorrow night (Thursday, 8/22/2002) is Beer Club. After this week if it doesn’t change nights, I’ll be showing up after class gets out at 7:30, but this week I expect to be there between 4:30 and 5PM. As always, Beer Club will be at Prankster’s Gar and Brill (1024 E. Broadway, Tempe, AZ; on the North side of Broadway a few blocks East of Rural/over 1/2mile West of McClintock). Great food, drink specials, friendly waitstaff, and of course, Beer Club. We’d love to see you there this week!

What else? I guess we’re supposed to do a movie and then Saki bombers at RA this Saturday night. You should probably call myself or Zoe for more information, since I don’t think we’ve nailed down a movie yet. (Looks like Simone, Undisputed, Serving Sara and maybe One Hour Photo open this weekend, so probably one of those.)

Anything else? I guess I posted this in the forums, but I’ll re-post it here, briefly: My Bowflex is here and together, but no, having it in the house has not transformed me into a greek god. Only a lifetime of dedicated work on time travel can do that. Oh, or… maybe it was working out several times a week forever. Also, I’m still not registered for classes, and won’t even know if I’ll be able to register for classes until possibly the second week of classes. Woo hoo!

Oh, and a friend of mine and I are considering making a comic called “Fucking retarded bears”, though we’re not sure what the details would be.

I remember beck in High School, when I first started becoming interested in flirting with and dating people, it was esy for me. So natural, it was like breathing. I could have had anyone I wanted. Even if they were older or younger, even if they were in a relationship, or engaged, or even married, I could attract them. At first I didn’t pay attention to pre-existing relationships; I only cared about my relationship with the person, not the relationships they use to be having with other people. (Here ‘used to be’ refers to the time period right up until I decide I want them.)

Here’s an interesting thought: based on the best information I have, 100% of the people I asked to marry me were dating someone else without my knowledge at the time that I asked them. Oh, and all three said yes immediately. Of course I’m not married yet, but I mostly blame myself for that.

So, somewhere along the line I began doing my best to pay attention to whether or not people I was interested in were single, and if I found out they were in a relationship or I saw a wedding ring, I just didn’t show any interest at all. This is out of increased respect for relationships, not just my own, but other people’s as well. I recognize how rare and precious a good relationship is, and how much harder and harder they are to come by, and I do what I can to encourage healthy relationships to continue. The only problems this has caused is when I thought someone was in a relationship who was not, or when I didn’t find out when they were single again, and they assumed I wasn’t interested because I never showed interest.

Except that in light of my experiences in the last several months (years, Teel, it’s been years!), I believe that flirting with and expressing interest in people in relationships is probably the safest thing I can do. These days I can’t get the most desperate of people to even make eye contact with me. I can’t pick people up any more than I can fly without happy thoughts. I have given out dozens of cards with my email address and phone number in recent weeks/months to people I thought might be interested in at least speaking to me again, and have received a sum total of zero phone calls and emails as a result. I recently updated my match.com profile, added a photo, and started getting ten times as many people reading my full profile, and even got a couple of preliminary emails. Of course, when I responded, giving them links to my websites and a friendly response, I got nothing back. It goes on and on, and let me see if I can get to my point:

As long as I absolutley can’t attract another human being to want to spend time with me, I am better off only flirting with people already in committed relationships or marriages. This way at least I don’t expect anything to come of it. There’s no let down when they go home with the person they arrived with; that outcome is expected. At best I can expect a lively and interesting conversation with someone I don’t have to worry about calling me.

A married friend of mine told me recently that when he and his wife and I go out together, it’s like a double-date. That somehow I’m as good as or and fun as or … well, that I compare to any two normal people together. It’s a good thing. I guess. I sort of would rather actually go on a double date than our own little variation of one. Still, it’s just more of the same idea I’m talking about. I should just stick to pre-existing couples.

…

Something about being a well-rounded enough person that I’m entirely half of a double date doesn’t sit right with me. I suppose that’s just my biological imperitive telling me I can’t pass on my genes on my own.

Continue reading Something about flirting without purpose

And then some days, I just don’t write at all. I spent all my time at work today reading, it didn’t occur to me until I was leaving that the site had gone just about all day without any action at all. Sometimes I worry that days like this means less people will come back tomorrow. Sometimes I worry that posting too much, too fast will keep people from bothering to read everything I write. Sometimes I worry that i shouldn’t even consider whether or not or who or how many people are reading what I write, or how much of it, or any of it. Other times … It’s all I can do to stop thinking about it.

The blog is so … self aware. So post-modern. In some ways it is like a journal, but by its very nature of being online and totally public to whomever finds it, it is not. I suppose that in some ways, that really frees one up to write, knowing that their lives are on public display; maybe for most people it’s the other way around. For me, it just helps keep me more honest all the time. Honest and open. I don’t want to find myself lying to people, hiding parts of my life or my feelings, or only sharing them with certain people. I don’t really believe that privacy exists; anything I say, ever, can certainly get to the ears of anyone I don’t want to hear it. So only say things you don’t have qualms about being heard, and don’t even bother trying to hide any part of your life because it will be found out.

I remember when this occurred to me, it was as though a great weight had been lifted, and I had been shown the way to freedom from some of the weight that the world wanted to put on me. We are all trained that certain subjects, certain aspects of life, certain ideas, are simply not done, and if done not spoken of if we ever care to “get ahead.” Like the idealist I am, I say I don’t want to get ahead if that is the price.

I used to have such wonderful stories to tell. So many layers of brilliant imagery that covered up or confused the sparse details of my actual life and feelings. I was a great storyteller. Getting the facts straight about what I had or hadn’t done was a fool’s game, since what was said was too vague and suggestive to come to a definite position. Most people simply assumed whatever they assumed the best to be true, and then they were on my side since they made my side theirs. it worked out pretty well.

Except I lost track of what was true and what was fairy tale in there somewhere, lost track and started believing my own lies, half-truths, and fanciful exaggerations. Have you ever been lost in your own mind?

Nowadays I don’t have so many good stories to tell. Small remnants of the old histories still floating in my mind, permanently fused to the bits of truth I can remember. Once in a while, you’ll get lost in the tale of something that passed before, and if the story seems a little short, missing a few details, you’ll know its because you’re hearing a version of a much better story that has had the outrageousness cut out. You’re hearing the boring truth of my life, told as though something interesting had happened. The enthusiasm comes from the once great story, but some part of me doesn’t know the story isn’t great any more.

Some part of me still believes my story is a great one. The rest of me is trying to believe that my story is simply looking forward to becoming a great one.

I think my right wrist is going. I blame Xerox, for inventing the first mouse. I believe that the bulk of the repetitive stress on my wrist is from mousing and using the scroll-wheel on the mouse. I definitely also get some repetetive stress from typing, and a whole other kind of repetitive stress on my wrists from bicycling, but I believe it is mousing that causes the most strain on my wrist. I should probably contact my doctor and see about getting those wrist-braces that isolate the wrists and keep them from moving. My left wrist seems fine, but my right one is just going berserk. I’m thinking I need to swithc to left-handed mousing for a while and see how that suits my wrists.

Anyone else out there have experience with this sort of thing have any advice to offer? I probably won’t actually go to the doctor. I’m pretty lazy, and it’s a lot of trouble trying to set up an appointment, then take time off work, then actually getting to the doctor, then getting back… Quite a bit of hassle for a minor pain in my wrist. Did I mention it’s the same wrist I injured in a bicycle accident a few years ago? Maybe the pain I’m experiencing is due to that accident, and there’s nothing to be done for it. Well, I’m going to go reverse my mouse buttons now. I’ll let you know if my wrist pain tries to switch sides after that.