My son is coming back from camp tomorrow. I haven't seen him in a month, and after he leaves next week, it'll probably be at least another month, he'll have turned 15, and will be allowed to drive in New Mexico. I started looking at his baby pictures (because I just watched a very excellent movie - My Life Without Me - and I got parentally weepy) and was thinking about some of his Zackisms.
One thing I remembered was from maybe 4 years ago when he was 10ish. It was 10pm. Zack, who was supposed to have been asleep 1/2 hour earlier, piped up from his bedroom...
Z: "441,600"
me: "excuse me?"
Z: "441,600... dollars. That's the most anyone can win on Jeopardy."
me: "Go to sleep."
I have no idea if this is right, and frankly, I'm too afraid to check. Now he's almost 15. Soon he will start drinking coffee. The world may not be ready for this.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Monday, July 11, 2005
this or that
I don't seem to do anything in moderation. I haven't written in here in MONTHS, haven't been able to write at all, in fact, but suddenly, after 2 cups of coffee and an inability to sleep, every draft post I've picked up I've finished. My only explanation goes back to the introversion thing, now several posts back. I guess I've just let myself get locked up in this lethargy of background processing. It's like the fortune cookie I got years ago (and sealed in a couple of layers of scotch tape and transported from office to office as if my life depended on it, but can now no longer find... sniff...):
"If nothing is pressing, putter around at this or that."
Without the stimulus of excessive work, my brain has just been puttering around, being inefficient at everything, and costing me actual enthusiasm and creativity. I have needed to break the cycle. To just hit the send button and stop overthinking every word I put on paper and let leave my mouth.
So, having cranked out 4 posts in one 2.5 hour period (though I have edited the post times to make it look like it took a 1/2 day because I don't want people to think I'm manic) I have decided that my muse is best taken strong and with a little skim milk.
"If nothing is pressing, putter around at this or that."
Without the stimulus of excessive work, my brain has just been puttering around, being inefficient at everything, and costing me actual enthusiasm and creativity. I have needed to break the cycle. To just hit the send button and stop overthinking every word I put on paper and let leave my mouth.
So, having cranked out 4 posts in one 2.5 hour period (though I have edited the post times to make it look like it took a 1/2 day because I don't want people to think I'm manic) I have decided that my muse is best taken strong and with a little skim milk.
bleeeeeeeeeding
www.strindbergandhelium.com
I'm going to start bleeding today. I'd say "I'll start menstruating today", but aside from it sounding like I was 14 and was about to have a bad day in gym, "menstruating" is one of those impossible words to pronounce, and since I listen in my head when I write, and it's something I always trip over, I just avoid it. It's the combination of the "nstr" consonant block followed immediately by the "ua" dipthong. It's just an awkward word best saved for the awkward time of puberty.
Besides. I'm 40. It's time for me to just fucking bleed, you know?
Too much information. Too bad.
(I have never been all that shy about discussing matters of a personal nature. When I was pregnant with my son, I took a certain pleasure in seeing exactly how far I could push the details of my obstetrician appointments with my fellow grad students. Keep in mind that I was studying astronomy, a field populated by men perhaps not as well-versed in the drama of womanhood as others. I still enjoy saying "mucus plug", or "episiotomy" around certain friends, just for the thrill of the reaction. Hi Elizabeth!)
So, this time last month I was sitting down with some friends, famished, bemoaning a lack of nutritional sodium chloride, (ie, "Please??? doesn't anyone just want some chips?!?") when I added, "I can't wait 'til my period comes so I'm not so damn hungry." My male friends looked at me as if a monkey crawled out of my shirt and sat on my head. "What does that have to do with it?" Leisa, the only other woman at the table, stood by me. "I understood that perfectly. Right before my period I'm starving..." and I added, "...and as soon as it arrives, I could give a shit about food."
The guys just don't buy into even the simple effects of pms. "No way." They refuse to believe that there is a biological cycle that women are subject to, and it amounts to more than just bleeeeeeeding. (Really, you must see the Strindberg and Helium link above to get that.) I'm pretty sure it's because if they admit that something as mundane as hunger can be affected by hormones, then... uh oh... they'll have to acknowledge that the whole emotional bungee jump ride of PMS might just be real.
I admit that on the surface, there's something honorable and anti-narcissistic about stalwartly maintaining that everyone is "just like me". That although we're subject to the whims of our differentiating egos as children, we grow out of thinking we're each the center of the universe and realize that there are other people out there who think and feel just like we do. It's all very Copernican and enlightened to believe that there is nothing unique about our position in the universe. Very seemingly politically correct. But to extrapolate from "nothing unique about our position" to "you can't possibly be different than me" is just silly.
We're about as different as it gets. For example, women, in general, do not understand why men paint themselves bright colors and expose their beer guts in the hope of getting on national TV. Women do not understand why men do not cry at the end of City of Angels (and are not moved to tears even when they play the soundtrack in their car), yet we accept this as part of the odd reality we live in. So, even though you don't understand why once a month we cry, eat, and fuck our way through a week of premenstrual hormones, the least you can do is just accept it.
Failing that, well, just keep your hands away from my french fries.
I'm going to start bleeding today. I'd say "I'll start menstruating today", but aside from it sounding like I was 14 and was about to have a bad day in gym, "menstruating" is one of those impossible words to pronounce, and since I listen in my head when I write, and it's something I always trip over, I just avoid it. It's the combination of the "nstr" consonant block followed immediately by the "ua" dipthong. It's just an awkward word best saved for the awkward time of puberty.
Besides. I'm 40. It's time for me to just fucking bleed, you know?
Too much information. Too bad.
(I have never been all that shy about discussing matters of a personal nature. When I was pregnant with my son, I took a certain pleasure in seeing exactly how far I could push the details of my obstetrician appointments with my fellow grad students. Keep in mind that I was studying astronomy, a field populated by men perhaps not as well-versed in the drama of womanhood as others. I still enjoy saying "mucus plug", or "episiotomy" around certain friends, just for the thrill of the reaction. Hi Elizabeth!)
So, this time last month I was sitting down with some friends, famished, bemoaning a lack of nutritional sodium chloride, (ie, "Please??? doesn't anyone just want some chips?!?") when I added, "I can't wait 'til my period comes so I'm not so damn hungry." My male friends looked at me as if a monkey crawled out of my shirt and sat on my head. "What does that have to do with it?" Leisa, the only other woman at the table, stood by me. "I understood that perfectly. Right before my period I'm starving..." and I added, "...and as soon as it arrives, I could give a shit about food."
The guys just don't buy into even the simple effects of pms. "No way." They refuse to believe that there is a biological cycle that women are subject to, and it amounts to more than just bleeeeeeeding. (Really, you must see the Strindberg and Helium link above to get that.) I'm pretty sure it's because if they admit that something as mundane as hunger can be affected by hormones, then... uh oh... they'll have to acknowledge that the whole emotional bungee jump ride of PMS might just be real.
I admit that on the surface, there's something honorable and anti-narcissistic about stalwartly maintaining that everyone is "just like me". That although we're subject to the whims of our differentiating egos as children, we grow out of thinking we're each the center of the universe and realize that there are other people out there who think and feel just like we do. It's all very Copernican and enlightened to believe that there is nothing unique about our position in the universe. Very seemingly politically correct. But to extrapolate from "nothing unique about our position" to "you can't possibly be different than me" is just silly.
We're about as different as it gets. For example, women, in general, do not understand why men paint themselves bright colors and expose their beer guts in the hope of getting on national TV. Women do not understand why men do not cry at the end of City of Angels (and are not moved to tears even when they play the soundtrack in their car), yet we accept this as part of the odd reality we live in. So, even though you don't understand why once a month we cry, eat, and fuck our way through a week of premenstrual hormones, the least you can do is just accept it.
Failing that, well, just keep your hands away from my french fries.
sales
Speaking of sales people, I'm sure it has not been overlooked by anyone likely to be reading these pages, that on average, the people in the sales and marketing departments of your average, say, software company, are sexier (in the GQ/Cosmo way) and use more hair product than, for instance, those in the development or IT departments. On average! (...and yes, I realize that most people reading these pages are in said development and IT departments, but you guys are sexy in the "I can use 'profligate' in a sentence" way, so calm down...)
What do we think? Any ideas on which is cause and which is effect? Do the beautiful people develop that kind of outgoing personality because they've been fawned over all their lives, and have learned how to get people to do things for them, or do sales departments only hire people who clients will want to spend time in close proximity, then teach them how to sell?
(For what it's worth, with respect to the previous entry's claim that I think so hard about reactions to what I write that I often lock up before I publish it/send it, well, that all goes in the shitter when I've had so much caffeine or alcohol that the impulse side of me takes over. And, yes, I'm totally wired right now. We are unedited and potentially offensive...)
What do we think? Any ideas on which is cause and which is effect? Do the beautiful people develop that kind of outgoing personality because they've been fawned over all their lives, and have learned how to get people to do things for them, or do sales departments only hire people who clients will want to spend time in close proximity, then teach them how to sell?
(For what it's worth, with respect to the previous entry's claim that I think so hard about reactions to what I write that I often lock up before I publish it/send it, well, that all goes in the shitter when I've had so much caffeine or alcohol that the impulse side of me takes over. And, yes, I'm totally wired right now. We are unedited and potentially offensive...)
Sunday, July 10, 2005
the pathology of introversion
If I knew the code to open the Task Manager for my brain, it would show up on my desktop perpetually lit at 100%, like it had spyware all over it. Most of these processes would be background stuff, but sometimes one might be something useful. Like, say I'm trying to figure out what kind of career doesn't require another degree but might make use of my desire to spend all day researching things and then writing about them. If I suddenly decide to take some time out to play a game of Zuma, my brain will still happily cycle in the background, occasionally interrupting my consciousness, looking for a bit of data to fill in some gap, like making me google "private investigator licensing requirements". Eventually it will spit out the answer (investigative reporter? you think?), regardless of what consciousness it might be interrupting. Even if I've moved on from Zuma and have decided to sweep. Or organize my fonts.
It does this constantly. My brain is a speed junkie, and if it can't find the good shit, it'll rummage through the cupboards and find the brain equivalent of outdated, ephedrine-laden diet pills or some dusty vivarin to keep it going. If I don't have it working on anything important, (like when my freelance business is slow), then there's no telling what it's going to chew on.
While I was busy thinking about this, my brain, being bored and not having enough to do, started mulling over another theory. I don't know how other people work, but as I am very conscious of my actions, and hyper-responsible for any possible repercussions I may set off, I don't, in general, do anything without working through a variety of possible reactions and choosing the best possible course. If I'd like to say something to someone, I will go through it in my head, and play both roles of the interaction in as many permutations as time allows. When I write email that requires diplomacy, I sometimes will edit for hours just to make sure I neither offend or instigate with my words.
Now, you might already have put these two volatile brain activities together and made the same discovery that I did. When my brain is both undertaxed and preparing for a human interaction, it sometimes just locks up for hours. With nothing else to do but calculate an endless variety of possible outcomes to an endless variety of possible inputs, it will crank away like that computer in Wargames without a Ctrl-Alt-Del in sight. Phone calls I might make go no further than my sitting in a trance with my finger hovering over "call". Emails I might send sit on my desktop in a state of perpetual editation [sic]. The dark side of being thoughtful is apparently being paralyzed.
And, as you might imagine, this becomes even more troubling when I am suddenly thrust out of my comfy 24x7 one-person life and pressed into a real-time conversation with someone. It might, in fact, explain my introversion, and why it gets worse when my work is slow. (It also might go a long way towards explaining why some of the most extroverted people I know - sales guys - don't seem to be troubled by an excess of thinking... hm...)
Anyway, the fact that my brain has spent so much time hypothesizing tells you how bad things are. I need more to occupy my time, and evidently, I really need to get out of my house. Looks like it's time once again for the palliative job search.
sigh.
It does this constantly. My brain is a speed junkie, and if it can't find the good shit, it'll rummage through the cupboards and find the brain equivalent of outdated, ephedrine-laden diet pills or some dusty vivarin to keep it going. If I don't have it working on anything important, (like when my freelance business is slow), then there's no telling what it's going to chew on.
While I was busy thinking about this, my brain, being bored and not having enough to do, started mulling over another theory. I don't know how other people work, but as I am very conscious of my actions, and hyper-responsible for any possible repercussions I may set off, I don't, in general, do anything without working through a variety of possible reactions and choosing the best possible course. If I'd like to say something to someone, I will go through it in my head, and play both roles of the interaction in as many permutations as time allows. When I write email that requires diplomacy, I sometimes will edit for hours just to make sure I neither offend or instigate with my words.
Now, you might already have put these two volatile brain activities together and made the same discovery that I did. When my brain is both undertaxed and preparing for a human interaction, it sometimes just locks up for hours. With nothing else to do but calculate an endless variety of possible outcomes to an endless variety of possible inputs, it will crank away like that computer in Wargames without a Ctrl-Alt-Del in sight. Phone calls I might make go no further than my sitting in a trance with my finger hovering over "call". Emails I might send sit on my desktop in a state of perpetual editation [sic]. The dark side of being thoughtful is apparently being paralyzed.
And, as you might imagine, this becomes even more troubling when I am suddenly thrust out of my comfy 24x7 one-person life and pressed into a real-time conversation with someone. It might, in fact, explain my introversion, and why it gets worse when my work is slow. (It also might go a long way towards explaining why some of the most extroverted people I know - sales guys - don't seem to be troubled by an excess of thinking... hm...)
Anyway, the fact that my brain has spent so much time hypothesizing tells you how bad things are. I need more to occupy my time, and evidently, I really need to get out of my house. Looks like it's time once again for the palliative job search.
sigh.
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