Not just adjusted, well-adjusted. More Hackers & Painters quotes, I promise I’m skipping a lot of them,

Back in the era of terms like “well-adjusted,” the idea seemed to be that there was something wrong with you if you thought things you didn’t dare say out loud. This seems backward. Almost certainly, there is something wrong with you if you don’t think things you don’t dare say out loud.

Oh, and s/thought/feel/, if you know what I mean.

Once upon a time, at the beginning of a phone interview with a company whose name rhymes with Oogle, which of course never happened and I can’t talk about, because Oogle does not exist, never has, operates completely on magic fairy dust, and I had to promise to acknowledge and respect that [1], I was asked to have a pen and paper handy at the start of the interview. I can’t tell you why of course, but it may take the prize of the most insulting experience I’ve had in an interview. Now granted, I’ve had worse requests, but this was insulting because this request was carefully planned rather than being your typical ignorance and falling on swords. Discussions in The Secret Club of Oogle Interviewees (SCOOI) has garnered agreement.

Completely unrelated, a quote from Hackers and Painters:

For example, I was taught in college that one ought to figure out a program completely on paper before even going near a computer. I found that I did not program this way. I found that I liked to program sitting in front of a computer, not a piece of paper. Worse still, instead of patiently writing out a complex program and assuring myself it was correct, I tended to just spew out code that was hopelessly broken, and gradually beat it into shape. Debugging, I was taught, was a kind of final pass where you caught typos and oversights. The way I worked, it seemed like programming consisted of debugging.

For a long time I felt bad about this, just as I once felt bad that I didn’t hold my pencil the way they taught me to in elementary school. If I had only looked over at the other makers, the painters or the architects, I would have realized that there was a name for what I was doing: sketching. As far as I can tell, the way they taught me to pgroam in college was all wrong. You should figure out programs as you’re writing them, just as writers and painters and architects do.

Just saying.

[1] Sidebar: maybe you get what you deserve

but sometimes, it is interesting that words are the action. I’ve noticed in a few completely different situations recently that standing up and having something to say is incredibly meaningful.

Currently reading: Hackers & Painters: Big ideas from the computer age

I left out my response to the earlier email, which is the clincher: “Thanks. Good luck.” That’s it. Well, that’s all they got. Mom got, “I miss everything. Bleh.”as well and my journals got much more.

One thing I will never be is adjusted. Happy, sure. I’m often happy. It’s funny being told that they wouldn’t want to be someone sad, by the same person who once tried to convince me that it was okay to feel. Do I, perhaps, live in a far off alien world of feeling where it isn’t only conceptually okay to feel, but also to express how I feel? Is this the product of some sort of guilt about making a nice guy feel sad? Like it’s been easy before, because they were dicks, or because you didn’t give a fuck, but this guilt is all new to you and running away and sticking your head in the sand is the only coping mechanism you have left? Yes, it’s hard, I know. Life is hard. But if not now, when? If not living for this, than what? But yes, I know I am nice, and I know I deserve more than I get. Let’s just accept already that you’re not the first person to say that while walking away backwards.

Yes, my feelings are strong. No, it isn’t a phase. Yes, I’m going to keep talking about them.

Currently listening to: Foo Fighters – Times Like These, Live

I’ve been thinking for some time I need a WP plugin that shows what I’m listening to, I just realized I sometimes try to hard. Of course, over the course of an entry like this, much time passes pondering and writing, consequently so do many songs.

Oh hi. Back, that was shorter than I would have hoped.

A while back I ran into a bike friend at a local bar and she introduced me to her companion by listing off the ways she knew me: friend of meg, seattle bmf organizer, tall-bike builder, etc. Earlier I dropped the f-bomb on facebook with, “Feeling like a solitary wanderer that doesn’t fit right anywhere.” and a friend responded with “…and we love it.” I feel like said friend needs context and as I start in my head: securty cons, burning man, configuration management; I laugh at the inability for that to really convey anything. Sometimes I assume people know me, know how I am, and I start responses with, “Oh, well, you know me…” but mostly I’m just feeling like a square peg right now.

Fixed up a leak on the garage and the smoking shed today, as well as running a number of errands, in between work and meeting Mom and my step-father, a new Seattle arrival, at Squid for lunch.

100% of your previous relationships have failed, and the most common thread in all of them is you.

The strength of my feelings, my comfort talking about them, my gentility, continue to entice and then overwhelm. Did you know amiable is synonymous with nice? Yeah, it’s a good thing.

i don’t doubt the strength of how you feel. not at all. but the idea that we were going to agree to break up is unrealistic given how far apart we were in the emotional trajectory of things. also, in breaking up, i have removed myself from responsibility for how you feel and cope with things. this is why i love your friends and family. however, this is also to say that i’m not really into long emails about us or your feelings as they continue to consume your work day. this is not my role anymore. also, i don’t want to dialogue about how things went down until you’re more stable/happy/adjusted.

I’m not saddened by that message. Was that ever anyone’s role though? Perhaps, before they knew what they were getting themselves into.

I don’t stray far from here for long, this journal’s companionship, the atmo, these patterns. Perhaps if I ever rename it from rants, I’ll call it atmo. It’s survived through accusations and implications of how so many other people feel about it, silently standing by my side when others are too pre-occupied by what it means to them to ask what it means to me.

*sigh*

At least there is still plenty to build to distract me from that reality.

Current mood: distant.

It feels like it’s been forever since I wrote here. Probably because of lack of sleep distorts time, but also probably because I have been writing thousands of words, just not in my journal. I guess most of what’s been on my mind has had an appropriate person to discuss it with, rather than having to vent it out into atmo. Work has also been progressing in the right ways again lately since all the acquisition distractions. I really don’t have much to say.

I had a volunteer interview with the American Red Cross yesterday, and that went fine. Still with-holding any judgment on the likely-hood of that commitment returning the results I want. That’s a slow process, I think I applied nearly a month ago, and some requisite classes are only held quarterly. We’ll see.

The counselor made some comments this week, which I will grossly summarize, about how she thinks it is common for men to feel strong emotions early in relationships but that they don’t usually know how to articulate their feelings. Further, she thinks that with my ability to articulate how I feel, it’s likely common that people I’ve dated have been surprised and overwhelmed by my feelings. I’ve said the second half of that a few times before, but I guess I never connected all of that together in one thought. This makes a lot of sense with certain people pointing a finger at my feelings being inappropriate because of their strength, but running away rather than wanting to discuss why they feel that way. I made a comment recently about how I don’t know how to not talk about how I feel.

Holy crap though, I’m happy right now. Which is generally why I don’t write here, because I’m off being happy. Silly.

God. Damn. It.

M says every time you put a big group together and mix alcohol, you’re going to have drama. I’m pretty sure I don’t need the alcohol to make it happen, because my heart suffices. Yeah, I get it, some day, I’ll push, and it’ll be appreciated, and it’ll be all worthwhile. I’m pretty sure at this point I need to take up a hobby like watching television and work on being entirely less vulnerable in situations where feelings aren’t reciprocal. I’m pretty sure that if I stay in, I won’t keep running into social situations where I risk being hurt so often.

Spontaneous drinking and socializing late Saturday night threw the rest of the weekend a curve ball, and after some napping in the evening I’ve been up most of the night.

I’ve been off the forums since I ran into her on a ride. This has proven interesting still being on the edge of the social circle, because I still hear a lot and usually get to make a funny face and move along, except when I sympathize with a friend over it. A friend who offered to give me some bike parts some time ago asked tonight if I would be on the costume ride on Thursday or not, and I told him I was avoiding drama. “Old drama or new drama” he said, to which I replied the former. Granted, there’s plenty of new drama I don’t want any part in, and somehow as A once said after escaping a whirlwind of it at M’s once, it seems to find me. Or I seem to find it. Is it because I keep putting myself out there?

I’m torn over where to go from here. I’m still solidly of the opinion that my newer endeavors deserve the focus of my energy, having more meaning and merit. There really is no reason to continue to make myself vulnerable, to put so much of myself into worrying, caring, contemplating what the right decision is, in return for nothing. I do that, I operate that way, giving without expectation of receiving, but it does keep getting me hurt. Much of it is out of feeling, so it isn’t going away any time soon. I don’t have to worry about everyone acting solely on what is best for them, being “self-full”, and it causing a bunch of short term throw away relationships. My heart naturally works otherwise.

normal: Conforming with, adhering to, or constituting a norm, standard, pattern, level, or type; typical

When I think of normal these days, I think of the social situations where I’ve noticed myself making assumptions that don’t feel quite right, that sit uncomfortable with me, that I’ve gone up to and poked with a stick to see how they move. I’ve had a similar distrust of the academic and artistic worlds because I always conjure images of a disconnected evaluation of reality that feels convoluted. I’ve discussed this a little in regard to chatter about my taste for pop music being shallow. It is interesting to compare how deeply important observing and discussing feelings is to me, but not music, or other traditional forms of artistic expression.

The original Star Trek is supposed to have most episodes rooted in some discussion of the human condition. As I watched some episodes of House tonight I kept thinking about how often I was thinking about my own life’s parallels to the underlying human issues being discussed. As I made T sit through an episode of Kenshin named ‘The Legend of the Fireflies”, I thought back to trying to get M to watch a few episodes. I’ve told the story once or twice, about how she fell asleep, and folks are usually pretty dismissive about the whole thing. That I’m still thinking about it means the point still hasn’t gotten across. I was talking to J about it recently, about how important it is for someone you care about so deeply to care who you are, and about what is important to you.

The theme for House this season, or that which I kept picking up on, was that you have to be vulnerable and connect with people. I suppose that my problem continues to be balancing how much I can give, and as J has been underscoring, that I find a relationship where if I am giving as much as I tend to, I’m getting nearly as much love and support in return.

Conversation this morning glanced my niceness. Am I nice because I’m just nice, or am I nice because I like (like like (like more than friends (crush (limerance (love))))) you? (semantics win!) Going out of my way for others is my natural state of being, because I believe it is important and has meaning. Sometimes I point out that this isn’t a grand ego-free decision I’ve made and deserve a pat on the back for. The same is true here, this is just the way I am. However, if I blush and squirm when you thank me, well maybe I like you too.

why do i always ignore your alcohol asides when i otherwise jump in and start a sidebar on the tiniest thing? because i didn’t wanna risk losing being approachable.

I can’t think of ever being in a place where I stopped approaching someone because they had honest ideas and feelings to express. I’ve definitely stopped approaching people who can’t respond with maturity or can’t be bothered with the burden of my having feelings that affect them.

M must not be a good friend. Friends are not notified if you remove them. Are you sure?