Andy and I were trying to figure out tonight where all the dramatic people come from. I mean, I get it.. people get upset about shit and can’t deal with it constructively and at some point they overflow and get all drama and whatnot. I’ve been a longstanding fan of stopping arguments when I start to get upset for such reasons. Unfortunately more recently I have been in a full blown situation where I was central to an argument. On one hand that’s a good thing, on another, I’m stuck only with arguments from a couple relationships ago with which to ponder my reasonableness.

I’ll leave the story out of it, for the innocents or whatever they’re called. But tonight was dramatic. Someone I can’t sleep because of it, even a few beers later. Ry is coming over and we’re going to go get some breakfast, maybe I’ll just stay up and leave work when I get tired or something so I can still get some shit done without mentally caving in.

You have to wonder why we put up with so much drama. It seems like most people survive under the assumption that it’s the other persons fault. “I’m totally normal, they’re fucked up” sort of speak.

I really need a stash of a case of vitamin water in here, waking up in the middle of the night needing something to drink with only random beer bottles I’ve brought home from weird parties doesn’t get me anywhere.

When you think about it, the arguments make no sense. You’re not going to convince someone to re-evaluate their life by calling them names. It’s all emotion driven, I guess the super shitty thing is when that emotion is driven by somehow feeling like you’re better than them.

I keep having this bizarre argument with a friend about something similar. Neither of us have anything riding on it, so we always just drop the conversation. She’s convinced that I’m somehow tricking everyone into thinking I’m a nice guy, as most people I know think I’m a nice guy, but since none of them really know me, they don’t really that I’m not a nice guy. I’m pretty convinced that I’m a nice guy, but I’m waaay too sensitive and emotionally vulnerable. I figure that doesn’t make a ton of sense to the uninitiated on its own though. In retrospect, that sort of makes sense to me though. Looking back at the times when I’ve been unable to deal with situations, I feel like there’s a common thread of self-doubt. That’s a great word for right now, but I’m thinking specifically about an emotional thread, which brings on some vulnerability and then without ender telling me which way the enemy’s gate is I get all fucked up and have to take a break.

There’s a fuck ton of mishap in the world, or drama if you will, that comes from people and their self-doubt, their need to build up themselves.  Sometimes it’s in these intricate and “passive aggressive” maneuvers, other times they’re just telling you a bad person and who are you to think that they are the bad person, you, you, bad person.

I can’t stop thinking about this shit. Hopefully it’s worth it, because it keeps me up at night. I try thinking about something less stressful and consuming but at some point even the thought of a nice day comes back to how people’s bullshit makes even a nice day not so nice. Hopefully at some point these thoughts will form into a plan for world peace, or at least peace amongst some form of cute wildlife.

I’ll probably be moving into the woods when I turn thirty, as the older I get the more complicated life seems to.

Ry’s here though, off for food.

so I’m ticked off, which is rare, but I had to make a practical choice today that went against my ethics. I thought that shit only happened in Saw movies or The Moment of Truth tv shows. What evil could force such ethical dillemas? Nothing other than the American Justice system. Now now, I know if I lived in the Middle East someone would have cut off my hands already, as much as I’ve heard the appreciate what you’ve got argument, it’s not reason enough to “leave well enough alone” and lower our standards.  So my vent.

Some time ago I got run over. More accurately I ran into the side of an SUV that turned across my lane of traffic. Seattle charged me with reckless driving as witnesses said I was standing and driving fast. I’m sure I was standing on my pegs, as I often did in the city, as through taking the MSF onroad and offroad saftey courses I’ve learned and practice making emergency turns by flicking the motorcycle rather than leaning it over.

City offered me reckless driving of the second degree in a continuance form, that is I can’t sell drugs or pimp hoes for a year. Damn. Plus some undetermined restitution and having to take an online defensive driving course. Which is totally rad, if my bike was fixed I would have argued that they make me take an MSF safety class, that would actually teach me something, you know, but yeah.

Now I hate these situations, because I know the court system is broken. SLAPP suits succeed because of this. Being a techy I watch news on groklaw and whatnot off and on and read about the awesomeness of money and the court system. Any normal person paying attention to crap like the OJ Simpson trial gets it though. I’m ethically against participating in plea bargains when I don’t feel like I’ve done anything wrong, it just makes a system out of justice, and I know they call it a justice system, but I’d like to believe there’s something fundamental about our beliefs behind it. There isn’t. I shut my mouth, smiled, and told the judge I was cool with giving up all my rights in exchange to not being persecuited by a jury (i’d assume I wouldn’t be able to stack the jury with motorcycle riders who understand the safety implications of my actions and don’t assume that all motorcycle riders, especially those of us who ride little 225cc dirt bikes, are those kids speeding around the interstate at 100+ without armor.).

So of course I hate myself, but Mucklestone said it was the right choice and they have more experience than me so I took their advice. I guess I save a few grand too, in lawyers fees and possible fines.

And at only the cost of my ethical beliefs. Score.

i’ve talked a bit about dork community lately, and emphasized that I love it. What makes it great? when you’ve got people with similar interests who just want to figure things out and share good times. I think this is pervasive across any time of community, but I was thinking about something in the car that reminded me of the hobglobin opposite that’s a pet peeve of mine.

Years past I dealt with a lot of crap because of my age, the implication that I didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. I’ve thought about it a bunch recently because I meet a lot of younger kids with big attitudes that I want to say “you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about” to. Having discussed it with friends I’m pretty sure I’m being reasonable in these situations as generally this feeling is a product of feeling like someone doesn’t quite grasp how much of a pain in the ass and work their idea is, be it technical or political.

Take for example, if you’re a techie, this situation. I’ll complain about Windows Server because it’s doing some funky ass shit and I can’t find the right technical document to explain why (because it probably doesn’t exist). Most recently I was messing with batch scripts, and perhaps I’m spoiled from more advanced scripting languages but I could get a FOR loop to work. Any references don’t make it totally clear that you %%Variable means %% then a single character, not a word like you’d use elsewhere. Eventually I figured this out, but generally if I complained about something like this on IRC someone might say “that’s why you should be using linux” and be serious about it.

The work involved in replacing a domain with linux/samba and getting interoperability for things like outlook that people know and use is huge. Those who haven’t tried or don’t realize the political and user support hassles that are involved in this are just nuts.

Anyways, in the past I’ve worked with people like this, not necessarily who do such things out of inexperience though. I’m not sure why they do it, wanting to be cool/ego? I don’t know, nor do I really care because I don’t think caring will make it stop.

Like going into a meeting where your group has decided to use software package xyz, and someone from another group proclaims that you can’t use xyz because it’s insecure. If you know better than to accept such statement as fact and the end of the conversation and ask, they can’t provide further information, or a url, or even be able to find such information again on their own and provide a url.

Which in the end makes you’re job twice as hard, because you can’t trust their judgment anymore.  Which totally makes a crappy coworker.

so I’m lying in bed thinking (i think that’s a sign i should go to work and use my thinking for something constructive like scripting server deployments) about romanticism.

I had this sort of life altering conversation once with my father. We talk a lot, twice every week, but rarely about much substantial. Usually it’s just about the weather.. seriously. I was telling him once that he should catch a certain movie and he told me that he doesn’t like watching movies anymore because they’re all written to play on your emotions and they make him too emotional.

No shit? I fucking cry during cute previews.

But so movies have this “and they lived happily ever after” bullshit which is totally somehow the goal of romanticism even though we all know better. It’s sort of like watching a movie, or even better like watching 24, and the people never eat or sleep or go to the bathroom. When you do those things every day, you realize that they’re not doing them in this surreal drama.

But what about other hardships like being heartbroken? Nine times out of ten that’s the climax of the movie and then everything works out and they lived happily ever after. Again, they were HAPPY FOREVER. Bah, if thinking about this shit doesn’t make a pessimist, there’s probably hope for me yet.

I’m pondering my happily ever after, but I know I live in reality so I’m also pondering when I should give up on it and try to bury those feelings and desires under some kind of molten lava, or at least reason my way out of them with some logic like “it’d never work out” or whatever shit people try convince you with.

That’s it, I’m going to work.

I went to bed shortly after 8pm and up at 4am. Haha. Anthony just came and said good night to me. Too early, I really should go back to bed but I’m wanting to take advantage of the not sleepy and not at work time even though I am not awake enough to have any particular focus right now.

I exchanged a few text messages with mom last night while having dinner with Andy and Tori at the twilight. I forget exactly what she said but it was fueled by these discussions I’ve been having about love a lot lately. I don’t tend to get to worked up about figuring life out, at least not in any sort of a zealous way. I have to admit it seems like I worry about it more than most, but that’s like because I’m just more open about the things that I think about and worry about than most. While they still get to me and upset me, the downs in life I usually don’t complain about so much, taking an attitude that they’re “par for the course”.

The stereotypes about what love is have probably been overstated. A feeling like lust, or an action when you care. Something short, or something long, depending on maturity and sexual tension. I don’t think I can wave my arm and clear away the stereotypes leaving a clean explanation but I often feel like it’s clear to my heart.  That is, often times I feel like my feelings are clear to me, it just feels like they’re a puzzle piece and the trick is trying to figure out how they’re going to connect to reality.

Mom seemed to acknolwedge where I’m at and that it’ll take some time and effort to leave this emotional place behind when the time comes. As much as I joke about getting cranky and pessimistic I’m all mushy and romantic inside so it’s very hard to do as much, hard to give up on matters of the heart. Maybe it’s all in the timing too.

I dated for a while last fall. It was a good times, and certainly a worthwhile growth experience for me but in ways I feel lonelier because of it. I think I need to find better ways to date for friends, or as such to go back to mingling social groups because most the people I meet dating come with different social agenda’s and life values than me.

Too melon collie at the moment I think. Back to bed or off to work, time to roll the die.

What’s more important: who you are or who you want to be?

And which one is tougher to determine? I’ve had some really good conversations lately with Andy, Meredith, Maria and Tori. This makes me feel good, feeling like there are meaningful relationships in my life that not only go beyond small talk but beyond even similar interests or senses of humor. Still, I’m somehow uneasy lately, the stir craziness still gnaws at me. I know where it’s coming from, old feelings that I had distracted myself from have been re-engaged and perhaps worse yet for calmness; embraced. I’m looking for an outlet for this right now, but in an attempt to not be a burden I’m keeping it inside and redirecting it here. I’m not trying to be a martyr, but as usual it’s very difficult for me to ascertain the difference between what’s reasonable and what’s not.

I have to wonder if there was anything I wanted to be when I grew up and how young I was when I stopped having such desires. I don’t remember having any. I’ve always been a tinkerer, distracted by shiny objects and more interested in toying with them than in life itself. Still I’ve also always been fascinated with the world and consider myself an observer, hard to keep in one place too long, much more excited about what I get to see than what I get to have.

I do remember having goals about who I want to be, instead of what I want to be. I have to assume they’re pretty typical, after all everyone sane wants to be caring, smart, useful, etc. What’s interesting the lack of desire to be anyone of great power or wealth, which I’m slowly coming to terms with those desires being much much more popular than I expected, or maybe would have hoped.

As time passes I come to more and more realizations that probably are better described as growth. I feel like I’ve long known that there’s a difference between knowing something and experiencing it, and that’s what I’m talking about. I had an really interesting conversation with Andy today about racism and having a hard time appreciating the hardship when it’s subtle such as in a language way; that is when a word isn’t used necessarily to communicate malice but implies deficiency because it’s accepted or understood by the general public to mean that. I have to search for similar experiences in my life to try to find a thread of experience. I feel like I could read piles of books on the subject and graduate with degrees in smartyness but I won’t feel for the cause unless I can find some way to relate emotionally.

I’ve been revisiting many experiences in my head, mostly by order of importance of where I’m going with my life, and seeing where my feelings and understandings have changed significantly enough that I can come to first, or better, conclusions on the matter. It’s difficult, especially not having a great outlet. I haven’t seen my counselor for a couple months due to her illness and I’m reluctant to try to build the connection we had with another. My parents are somewhat disconnect from my life because they’re so far away, but my father decided long ago that he didn’t want to have to deal with feeling if he could avoid it and as such now avoids such conversations. Mom is great but I often fear she’s a little too concerned about my well being, as she should be, but it makes her somewhat biased. I’m pretty sure she hasn’t accused me of being a jerk before, which I certainly have, so I’m sticking with that. Maria gets the full impact of my emotions as it is, with the other troubles in her life, and my difficulty talking to her because I’m still figuring out how to separate thoughts from feelings with her, I try to give her a break. Which leaves my Seattle friends mostly as the people I interact with regularly. More and more I’m building bonds with them where I don’t fear that my rants are going to be blown off in a “grow up” / “take it like a man” / “get over her” sorts of stereotypes, which is awesome.

Having always been a pretty emotional temperate fella most of my life, the most interesting time of my life to look at in retrospect to peer into my soul is definitely while dating Maria. We knew each other for years before we dated and we’ve been friends for years since. I always had feelings for her but it wasn’t until we dated that I got to experience just how strong they were. I’ve never found a way to communicate this either. I’ve never been a violent person and figure it comes from being unable to remember ever being angry. If I think about when I’ve been frustrated with people I’ve always had a desire to remove myself from a situation and let it blow by and deal with the future if needed than take anything out on someone. At first glance this is a good thing, but it’s interesting to analyze and see perhaps how much feelings are not embraced in this.

What’s really interesting about my feelings for Maria at the time was how it was a magnifier for many other bits. I don’t have great self-esteem, but I’m certainly happy and comfortable with myself these days and bullocks to anyone who has a problem with that. Meanwhile I’m not arrogant or cocky that I know of, and I’m happy about that. Somehow while dating Maria I found myself taking so many normal conversations as me being an unliked person. I’m having a hard time thinking of concrete examples at the moment, but I’m not very good at remembering conversations anyways. The point being is somehow that vulnerability often left me short and edgy. I feel like for so often I operated in a defensive mode that was automatic rather than personal and empathetic.

I often feel like growing up anti-social left me lacking in many experiences that my peers had. It reminds me of this story for Rurouni Kenshin about this child who saw this samurai bandit fella come into town and do some sort of ass kicking. The kid wanted to be just like him, have his kinds of skills and went off and killed lots of people fighting everyone in an attempt to be such a bad ass. One day he met the bandit again, they fought, and the kid now grown up easily one. He realized that he had actually far surpassed the bandit and the realization triggered seeing that his focus was in the wrong places. The point of retelling the story isn’t that I’m secret badass, it’s the focus. Life isn’t about what you want to be when you grow up, or about what you want to be when you retire, or when you get a raise or a promotion or whatever. It’s about what you’re doing now.

As I think more about where my experiences are taking me next in life, I’ve been thinking more about where I’ve been. In the process I’ve been coping with some of the past and re-evaluating parts of myself. I’ve been thinking a lot about that loss on reason ability while dating Maria, why it happened and how to deal with the future. Meredith and I were talking about love and the definition of it and came to the topic of love being an action, not a feeling. Whereas love is selfless giving rather than some physical or emotional desire. I have a hard time putting myself behind that 100% because I pigeon hole myself a romantic. Not a completely unreasonable one, but I like liking someone. Perhaps on some subconscious level it’s about putting yourself out there and exposing this emotional hole and the happiness that comes from it being filled. I don’t know, that’s too deep a concept for me to argue.

On the road of life, there are distractions and things worth living for. Being in love is worth living for.

Nifty interview with Perry Bible Fellowship cartoonist Nicholas Gurewitch.

I don’t think I’ve always wanted to be a cartoonist. I’ve always just been a cartoonist. I’ve always just been making little stories.

I wish I wasn’t at work right now so I could finish last nights thoughts but this ties in in an interesting way that needs taking note of. Most of the things I am I never “wanted” to be in such a way. I just was, and I’ve continued to advance in what is.

Obviously there are exceptions, like wanting to be more friendly and social, and generally succeeding at that over the last 8-10 years.

I saw Matt Bennett on Broadway while walking from the 11 stop to Cafe Metropolitain. I think that brings seeing all kinds of people I know full circle, when I see people from Maine on the street in Seattle.

Not a bad day overall, walked around with Meredith and chatted about people and relationships. It’s comforting that other people think about this shit, because I’m convinced most just blow it off or over-simplify bits in an defensive move. I caught “I am Legend” which was good but not the best choice when you’re looking for a movie to tell you that everything is all right in the world. Now I’m at Cafe Metro catching a beer and a veggie dog as some people are dropping in later and not being able to find anyone currently on the hill (dodgeball! you fail me!) I just came here. With stress induced physical ailments you’d think I’d just go home and have a quiet night alone but I’m desperate to converse and connect with people lately, gotta convince myself humanity is worth keeping around.

He had this idea. It was kind of a virologist idea. He believed that you could cure racism and hate… literally cure it, by injecting music and love into people’s lives. When he was scheduled to perform at a peace rally, a gunman came to his house and shot him down. Two days later he walked out on that stage and sang. When they asked him why – He said, “The people, who were trying to make this world worse… are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness.”

I’m a big fan of a positive attitude. Of course, I’m also super sarcastic, but I hope it stays positive. I may just be running out of patience perhaps. Lately I’ve been getting really frustrated with people and their seemingly endless criticism. I think this ties into thinking about “doers”. I chatted today about the difficulty with art is that it’s such a personal thing and when it’s critiqued the meaning very well could be lost, or any meaning at all could be missed as the interpretation is in the eye/ear of the beholder. I’d have to think for a while to come up with lists of things I object to and complain about. I’d think most of it would have to do with people and their actions that require patience.

I had a memory recently, an old one, of probably my first computer job ever back in middle school. Of course, being under a certain age I couldn’t legally work, I think it was an internship or something. Besides the point though. I remember taking my neighbor Mike in with me one day and showing some things and I recall my boss telling me to have more patience and take it slow as he was coming from a different place than me. I thought about that for a while today as I’ve taught classes and helped a bunch of people since then, and I wonder where my level of patience has laid over the years. I desire some sort of graph, possibly linked to my facebook account and shit.

Action, adventure, a jedi craves not these things.

I was talking today about how bizarre it is to feel like your desires are simple but somehow they’re so hard to attain. Meredith and I got laughing about the ‘I just want an honest man’ stereotype/quote and I rebuked with something similar from a male stereotype counterpoint. In claiming that my desires are simple I’ve been thinking a bit about what they are.

Anthony showed up though, so that’ll be a rant for another night.

I really need to take the time to get my phone providing internet access to my laptop. I don’t understand why Seattle parks like Cal Anderson don’t have internet access. Are we worried that parks will start being full of kids on the internet rather than playing badmitton or with hula hoops or whatever kids do these days? I’m getting net off some house though, and while it’s working I’m sticking to notepad right now for it’s years and years of reliable operation. I’ve never had notepad bluescreen or anything before.

It’s nice that there’s a little sun out today even though it’s cold. Of course I can always put on more clothes but it’s such a hassle to drive for hours to find sunlight, especially in the PNW.

Twice this week I’ve gone out drinking and seen Susan’s roommate Carynn and I saw Maria and Papken at Silent-Heart-Nest this morning for breakfast. I know there’s the argument that while Seattle is a big city it’s mostly condensed communities or neighborhoods like Captiol Hill. Still, I often feel like I can’t escape these imposing crappy situations. Sitting here on a swing I’m wondering how much further my head would have to slide before I’m legally insane. I’ve heard a few people lately throw down the “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” quote. Lately I’ve been talking to Meredith a lot about relationships and all the bizarre crap I feel like people around me are doing.

It’s hard to believe you’re insane when you truly feel like that’s exactly what everyone else is. Our reality probably makes more sense to us that other people but I used to feel like I had a better grasp on other people than I did on myself. Even if I feel like I know why people are doing something and it makes sense in that sort of acceptable way to me, lately I just feel like they’re all nuts. It’s totally a bizarre feeling for me to feel sane. Again, sanity is totally realtive to the social group you’re around and I spend a lot of time with mates that feel laid back, so more than ever my ‘laid back yet ancy’ approach to life probably feels acceptable.

Maria had some interesting things to say when we were back east about how much people here in Seattle seem like they aren’t “doers” and want more to appear cool, like doers, but it doesn’t make the cut because it’s obviously fake unless you’re ‘social climbing’. We went into a cafe in Portland, ME and the culture changed for us from being out here. I haven’t had time to work on my truck out here and I’d be willing to pay someone to fix it but I realize I just don’t have any mechanically able friends and don’t want to put things back together to take it to a shop. Tori was right when she said that people in the city generally don’t need to learn such things, but cars aside I feel like in the country on the east coast there were a lot more people experienced in trades. Maybe it’s a country thing, maybe an east coast thing. I’d be willing to be more on the country part because people grow taking care of themselves more than here I think.

It’s not spring enough yet for my social desires to really kick in but I’ve been thinking the last couple of days about being around people. I’ve written and talked in the past a lot about needing to be around people and certainly when I come home from work I’m more in the mood to go get a beer and dinner with friends than to go back home and possibly do something productive. I know it’s some degree of escapism but I just feel so much more alive around people. I’m sure it’s a crazy balance because you have to deal with people’s personalities and differences but it’s gotta be worth it in the end, especially in making life interesting. Sitting in a park with a laptop, DSLR and my phone all on my lap while listening to an ipod seems fucking nuts right now. I’m also convinced I’m nuts though. Wow, what a thought loop I’ve got going here. Time to go get coffee and warm up.

I hadn’t heard about Spock before, but my google alert let me know that Spock has a profile about me from scrubbing the web. Neat.