Darren Endymion's Blog, page 20

Procrastination Prevention Ideas

Anyone who has read more than a few sentences here in my madness of a blog knows that I am a terrible procrastinator. I’m always looking around for things to stop me from doing so. If I have a deadline, I will always meet it. (Hint: NEVER make a deadline flexible with me. I will flex it to Neverday, the 33rd of the month). If I have a hard deadline, I will meet it, and I will generally do quality work.

There are the normal tips you hear all the time: breaking your work into smaller chunks, make several smaller deadlines, stop overcomplicating things, “just do it”, get new friends because yours are the problem (like every procrastinator is a loser-magnet), do the hardest thing first, disable your internet, remove all porn from your easy access (I made that one up myself), mentally start your day over at about midday, tell people about your goal so they guilt you into complying with your personal deadlines (unless they are the aforementioned losers, apparently), play games with the clock (unless it’s hitting “snooze” in the morning, this one is just stupid), and so on.

I don’t know that any of these work for me. I am procrastinating right now. I am writing this when I have mountains of work to do…but don’t want to do it. I’ve already done about a day’s worth of work. I could do more, but instead…here we are.

I’ve tried most of those things, and few of them work with any real consistency. I like the mini-deadlines and the mini-chunks of work. It gives you a sense of accomplishment and therefore  spurs you onward. It’s like dieting or working out and feeling that your pants are a little looser or seeing muscle tone. Those are little victories on your way to your ultimate goal and help move you forward. How many people have quit a diet because they don’t see results right away? Like, “I just ate a salad. Am I skinny yet?”

One tip I recently heard actually sounds like it could work. It induces the panic of a deadline by converting the units of time.

For instance, I have a deadline for the marketing form coming up, and it’s sooner than I would like. However, it’s well over a week away. When I think of it in that time scale, it’s easy to push it off. “Almost two weeks is a long time,” I lie to myself. No, it’s 13 days. Or it’s 312 hours. Or you could say that it’s only 18,720 minutes away. For some, those units of measurement and the large numbers attached could work the opposite way, giving a false sense of security. All I can recommend is to go home, take a nap, play video games or watch a movie or binge watch Hannibal, and then recalculate. Say you take 4 hours doing all that. You’re down to 308 hours, or 18,480 minutes. See how that sort of jars you into saying, “Oh…crap. Uh, gotta get to work.”

Think of all those minutes lost to necessary sleep, or bathroom trips, or eating. When you see that number dwindling as every minute passes, it kicks you right in the ass. At least, it has the potential to. It sort of messes with my head, and it’s supposed to.

Take my work day, for instance.  I have about 2 hours left at work. PLENTY of time to do what I want to before the day is over. Or, I have 120 minutes. Or 7,200 seconds. And I just spent about two minutes checking my math. That’s 120 seconds gone.

Uh, I need to get my little ass to work.

(Later update: I really focused and got all my work done. Coincidence? Probably…)

Health and Randomness

After much effort, I finally have the dates of my annoying health exams. I feel like an infant, and I’m ready to throw myself onto the ground, kicking and screaming, lamenting about how “I don’t WANNA!”

The long story is that I took a fall and messed myself up. After a few months, walking was difficult, then eventually so excruciatingly painful that I hobbled when I could, and avoided it at all other times. I went to my doctor and he sent me to physical therapy. I couldn’t walk. Getting off the bus or even stepping off a curb would cause my leg to buckle, send searing agony up my leg and back, and put me in pain for hours after.

Physical therapy failed, made it worse, in fact. I went back to my doctor and he gave me pain pills and sent me for X-rays. Those came up with no problems, so I was sent to an orthopedic doctor. I saw the physician’s assistant and she ordered an MRI. She also mentioned that I might see a chiropractor eventually.

The MRI cane out slightly abnormal. The PA called me and said it could be anything from nothing to leukemia. Bitch told me this over the phone and suggested I see a hematologist/oncologist (the latter being a cancer doctor, in case you don’t know). The way my insurance works, I need an authorization to do so.

I saw my primary doctor, a wonderful, funny, caring man who told me that it was probably nothing. He told me that I would probably have a range of blood tests to rule out leukemia and see if there was anything else going on. He looked at my physical results from November and said that my white blood cells were normal, meaning they weren’t trying to fight anything off, so probably no leukemia. He said this was all probably nothing and that I shouldn’t worry…but get the tests done. Since I was still in horrible agony, he suggested I see a chiropractor, and if that didn’t work, then I should see him again.

I did. I picked a chiropractor near work and have been seeing him for a month or so. I can walk again. I can jump off a curb. I can sneeze. I can sleep on my stomach with minimal pain. My muscles were so out of use from the past 9-10 months of not walking that I need to strengthen them up. I just got back from a walk. The pain I feel is from weak muscles, nothing more. I’m nearly healed.

I saw a specialist for something else and had more blood tests done. She said it most likely wasn’t leukemia and said my blood tests were perfectly fine. I saw the hematologist and HE said it probably isn’t leukemia, said he doesn’t really trust MRIs for diagnosis of the more subtle cases anyway, and said that the only way to be sure was to have MORE blood tests and a marrow biopsy.

Clearly not that concerned, the doctor told me to see him in 2-3 months and said that we can move the date back if life gets in the way. His manner and words calmed me further.

But I just scheduled my biopsy for a week from today. It will take 3-4 hours. They have to talk to me, put me on an IV, sedate me, give me pain medication, take the sample, and give me time to recover. They tell me that afterwards I should feel like someone kicked me in the hip. It will hurt, but they are apparently doping me to the gills and giving me an anti anxiety medication.

I’ve had the assurances of three good doctors that I’m probably fine, that I don’t have leukemia. Logically, I know that I probably don’t. I’m nervous about the procedure and the needle. They apparently cut me, go in with a special needle, scoop some shit out, bandage me, and have me sit around for a bit. Then I am taken away to recover.

Then I get to wait two weeks for the appointment to hopefully tell me that I’m fine and don’t need to see them again. Hopefully. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous and scared. Next week at this time I will have been through the procedure, but still have no answers. Fun.

Wish me luck.

Writing, Renewal, Drama, and Mercury

Mercury is currently retrograde. Whether you believe in the effects this phenomenon can have or not (communication issues, travel problems, things and people from the past springing up, etc.) doesn’t change the fact that some weird and ugly stuff is going on. Even if you don’t believe a single bit about it, which is fine, I try to use it as a period to reflect on the past, to finish things that have remained undone. Unfortunately, the negative issues of this period tend to haunt me as well.

I got into a fight with my friend and ex, who has (once again) been less than honest. I read his annoying texts at 4-something in the morning, bleary eyed and pissed off as I was getting ready for work. I responded, half crazed from the unrelated dreams of insecurity I had, irritated with him for getting himself into trouble, lying about it, and trying to run away from it. He hasn’t spoken to me since, and I can’t blame him. I shall try in a week, I think. If no response…then I will let it go.

A work “friend” of several years is barely talking to me. In this, I am totally blameless. She is the same one who was after Prince Scientist, then realized that he probably wasn’t interested, and claimed that he was only a scientist and didn’t make enough for her. They make between $100k and $170k a year, and she makes less than $40k. Suddenly, she started talking crap (Literally saying to a mutual friend, “Let’s go out, NO boys. If one wants to come, he can’t!”), and refusing to go to lunch with our small group.

I couldn’t figure it out until I thought about the timing. She went up to Prince Scientist on his last day and he told her he was leaving and to tell those of us he talks to, and that he said goodbye. I’m the only one over there he talks to…and she never told me. Still hasn’t said a word. She told someone else, who told me. Since then, Greedy Goldigger has stopped talking to me as much and stopped going to lunch with us. Bitch is in her forties, acting like this is junior high. Someone needs to explain that one gay guy liking another gay guy is no reflection on her, and it’s nobody’s fault. It doesn’t make her any less cute, any less desirable. It makes her female, and therefore not an object of sexual or romantic interest to a (gorgeous, smart, nice) gay man. With what I’ve seen of her lately, I’m disappointed in her, but there is no real loss.

I’m still dealing with the final health issues and have a couple tests to have run, but I’m sure I’ll be fine, and I know that this is all a precaution — if I’m not going to believe three good doctors, then who will I believe? Still…I don’t wanna! But I will. And I’ll be fine, I’m sure.

As for writing, I was afraid that my most recent project was going to slide off my head and into oblivion. The family tree that I was so interested in and thrilled by ended up being a chore. I had to step back and think about what was needed, and what would end up as nothing more than an offhand reference to a dead relative who did something vaguely interesting or disgusting. I realized that I had pretty much all I needed.

I went to the villain and fleshed him out (since they are always so interesting to me. I was one of those kids who always wanted the Decepticons to win, and it didn’t stop there). By filling out his character profile — a practice that can be tedious, but is always rewarding — a great deal of the story revealed itself. I went to finish the main character’s profile, certain that I had a lot to do…and found it done. Completed from beginning to end. I vaguely remember writing it, but not much more. I read it twice. I suppose the fact that I found him intriguing was a self-compliment. I went to the next character and found some of his filled out, too. I was much further along than I had thought or remembered.

By going back to the basics, by reading and fleshing out, I re-imagined the beginning, clarified my points of view for the story, got the background, and helped revive something I suspected was beyond me and would be relegated to the vault again.

As for confronting the past demons of writing, I tend to over-realize a world or story, freak out, and stop writing, thinking I don’t have the ability to fully do it justice. I’m on the cusp of doing that now. The more work I do, the more inclined I am to shy away. The thought of where to publish it plagues me — with my current, with a new, do I try for mainstream, etc. But I’m working through it. I am confronting that tendency and I plan to beat it.

I’ll get through all of this. It’s just a lot to do at once. But if you could meter out life’s challenges in doses, it wouldn’t be real life, and you wouldn’t learn anything. So be it, I guess.

Writers: Forgive Yourselves

I recently read an article on WritersDigest.com (http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/10-poignant-practices-for-every-writer?et_mid=752210&rid=239646518), titled 10 Poignant Practices for Every Writer. I was thoroughly enjoying the article…until I got to #9, which hit me hard.

Number nine is “Forgive yourself”. It goes on to say that writers should forgive themselves for not living “a traditional life where rules are understood and followed.” It mentions that sometimes money flows in and sometimes it doesn’t from your creative endeavors. The final line hit me pretty hard: A creative life is not a clear line from A to B, more like from Z to P to W to D, and that’s OK!

I have been at my job a very long time. I make a decent amount of money, I’ve been promoted a few times, I’m comfortable, and my job allows me to have a life outside of work, should I ever care to try. I write on the side when I can. Yet lately, I have been thinking about ambition and what I should have done by now. I have friends and acquaintances who are scientists, lawyers, pharmacists, and doctors. Some of my coworkers are way overeducated for their positions. I look at all these people and think that I should have done this, I should have continued with school, I should have gone after more and more promotions at work, etc. I’m not stupid, I’m totally capable of doing the jobs, but I am just bored by the thought. (Tangential: We had an education fair at work today and I was inquiring about a psychology program. Unfortunately, I blurted that my fondest ambition was to become Hannibal Lecter. Having mental Tourette’s and a strange sense of humor gets you odd looks sometimes.)

My job allows me flexibility (in fact, I am writing this on the job, having finished all my work early). I am paid well. I can pay my bills. I have good insurance. Is that all there is? No. Should I be in this job for another 10 years? Probably not. I would get too bored. But I have been working on my writing (not steadily, but that’s another subject), which is something I have always wanted to do and to do more of. My job right now allows me the space to do just that.

So, when I talk to my pharmacist or scientist or lawyer friends I have to remember that my path is different. I’m probably never going to make as much money as they do, but I’m comfortable, and as long as I remain so, who cares? As long as I’m finding fulfillment elsewhere and making enough money to be okay, isn’t that the best thing next to doing what you love as a profession? My friends don’t judge me (I suppose they wouldn’t be my friends if they did), so why should I? I didn’t realize how much guilt I carry around about this — a feeling that I have failed myself and my future.

This feeling is apparently prevalent in writers. We always seem to feel like it isn’t enough. I was reading something by Stephen King some time ago (it might have been in a novel) where a writer always had the feeling that people thought he should get a “real job”. King himself talked about waiting for his wife to tell him to get a real job (instead, she took the ash-laden remains of what would become the novel Carrie out of the trash and made him go on with it). Neil Gaiman’s Twitter bio says (humorously, I’m sure) that he “will eventually grow up and get a real job.” Writers are constantly being told this, whether outright or implicitly, and we internalize that.

I have the oft-mentioned day job and I still think that I’m not doing enough, that I might be wasting my time writing, that it’s never going to be what I want, that I should use that time to go back to school, and so forth. How many of us feel that way? I suspect that writers like Mr. King and Mr. Gaiman are over that. The rest of us are left to make our own peace with it.

But, more than anything, I truly feel the impact of this rule. As a writer, artist, musician, etc. your path may be different. And that’s okay. Forgive yourself and fight on for your dreams.

Act While You Can

It’s over. Prince Scientist is gone.

On Thursday, two of my friends who know I have a crush on him performed a bizarre dance of lunacy in the break room and managed to snap an unsuspecting stalker-style picture of him. In that same strange break room encounter they overheard him saying that he was going to happy hour with some of his scientist friends on Friday. We eventually found out why…to celebrate his last day.

My other “friend”, who knows I have a crush on Prince Scientist, the one who was convinced that he liked her, the one without gaydar, the one who said he is just a scientist and doesn’t make enough for her (yet who stalks him in the halls) managed to catch him on Friday. He told her that he’s leaving and that he’s going to start his own business. Prince Scientist specifically told her to tell us over here. He only talks to me and one other person — the woman with whom I was doing the training and who saw all the longing, lingering glances he and I were throwing at each other.

Yet, she didn’t tell me. She has yet to say anything to me about it (but will surely tell me this week when it’s too late). She must see me as quite the threat for that type of behavior. Bitchy mean girl to the last, she told two people he doesn’t talk to, has maybe only ever said hello to. Luckily, one of them is part of the lunatic duo who had sneaked a picture of him to me only the day before. She told me and I got up and went to the hall. Frantically texting my friend (and my poor ex, who happened to text me while I was out there, and who surely didn’t want to hear about my crush), I caught Prince Scientist coming back from lunch.

I talked to him. Nervous to the very end, I wasn’t the essential me — I wasn’t funny and I wasn’t smart. I was awkward, but I did it. I told him that I heard that he was leaving. He confirmed it and told me that he was starting his own business. We chatted, but I don’t remember about what. You would think that I would remember the conversation verbatim, and I would have, nerves aside, had he not done one thing.

He shook my hand.

He put his hand out for mine and I grabbed it. His grip was soft and his hand was cool. There was no squeezing like in most guy handshakes. Nothing firm and hard, but nothing limp. He just squeezed it the slightest bit, almost affectionate. Almost like a caress. He held my hand for a few beats longer than was necessary, and our hands trailed apart. I touched his palm for the briefest of seconds, and he kept his hand there, not returning it to his side until I had drawn away.

He said it had been great, looking me right in the eyes and not looking away once. We stayed there for a moment or two, and I’m sure my face showed that I wasn’t happy. I told him good luck, he said thank you, and we parted ways. It wasn’t until I got back to my desk that I realized, in some weird sort of synchronicity, that I was wearing the same outfit I had when we first really met that day in his team meeting. Hellos and goodbyes.

It didn’t feel like enough, so I sent him an e-mail. It was more articulate and humorous than I was able to be with him in person. I congratulated him again, gave him well wishes from a friend (the person in the meeting with me), and (at the insistent urging of a friend) gave him my number in case he wanted to stay in touch for any reason. As of yet, I have not heard from him.

This morning when I came in, he had already been removed from the system. He is no longer in our e-mail system and he is gone from our IM database. Somehow that seemed like the saddest thing. It’s like he never was. He’s a memory now. With all of this wrapped up, I can’t say that I did my best. Alas, no. But I did what I could. There were opportunities where I could have talked to him more, shown him more of my personality, but was too shy, too overwhelmed by him. It’s a lesson to learn.

I probably lost my chance, and the situation wasn’t conducive to forming much more than what we did. In an environment where he may not be out, all interactions were necessarily subtle and subdued. We were both constantly surrounded by our friends. Until the end, I didn’t show enough interest to spur him on, probably leaving him confused. I could have done better. I kept thinking that there was another day and another after that, and I didn’t act as though each day was important. I needed to make each moment count, to act while I could.

I don’t consider this a total failure, despite the outcome, because I learned a lot. And because he may still contact me. And if he doesn’t? Well, I attracted one beautiful, intelligent, nice, ambitious Prince Scientist. Who’s to say there isn’t another on the horizon?

Avoiding What’s Good for You

It’s true, I do avoid what’s good for me. That comes as no shock to anyone who has read even one post about me, but it bears repeating.

Some may remember that I have had problems walking because I have been severely out of alignment, causing me to hobble around in pain. It’s being fixed (finally), but the way I was walking for about 10 months caused my legs and hip muscles to weaken. Since I have been seeing a chiropractor and the massage therapist he employs, they both have been giving me exercises to do, such as walking, balance exercises, some gentle squats, etc. I have not done them. I walked a few times, but not many. I know I need to build up those muscles. I know it’s helping me. But I avoid it.

There are going to be setbacks, too. Since it’s supposed to actually rain here in Southern California for the next two days, I figured I would go out for a walk last night, and my roommate came with. We were talking, I wasn’t paying attention, I kicked a piece of upturned pavement, and went down. I fell on my hands and knees. Now, had I been walking more, I would have kicked it, maybe stumbled, and righted myself. Oops. My palms are bruised, believe it or not. It’s an odd and totally unpleasant situation.

It may be good for me to talk to Prince Scientist. The opportunities don’t present themselves often, so I do the bare minimum, hiding behind a shield of cowardice and excuses. When I do see him, I get too shy to speak, or something odd happens. Then again…I saw him today. We made eye contact as I was passing the room he was in as part of a pot luck. (My first thought was, “Oh my god, he’s even cute when he’s eating!” And no, I’m not a teenage girl. I’m a male adult. I have no excuse for my brain.) I know what I SHOULD do…

I should also write more. Remember that family tree I was writing out for the new story I’m working on? I should have known, but it got bloated and probably irrelevant. I should just get over it, drop it, and write what I need to. I should focus on the character sketches and the plot structure. I changed some things in the time line up. I know that if I wrote it out, I would get enthusiastic about the whole project again. But I’m not and I don’t.

It would be good for my state of mind to fill out the marketing form for the new short story I have coming out in an anthology, just to get it over with. I could send it off and forget about it. There isn’t much to do, frankly. But it’s a pain, so I don’t.

I could pull up more examples, but who needs them? Laziness, fear, time constraints, napping, video games, lying around and listening to music and zoning out all sound SO much better. Even if the latter can be a big part of my creative process, when zoning out becomes the object and not inspiration, I know I’m on the wrong track.

I know we all do this, we’re all guilty…but I seem to do it all the time. With everything. I feel like Alice’s song in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.

“I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it. That explains the trouble I’m always in…”

Societal Constraints…with Telepathy

I think about super heroes too much. As in, I think that if I want powers badly enough, I might one day attain them. I was reading something a long time ago which said that people who daydream of having super powers feel as though they cannot meet the world and other people on even footing and therefore need something to boost them upward. That may be the case, but I just like the thought of powers. I think that psychologist just doesn’t understand geeks (or did he?).

My favorite super power is and always has been telekinesis, which makes Jean Grey/Phoenix my favorite super hero. I was having a conversation with my massage therapist the other day and she asked me what powers I would have if I had to narrow it down to three. Jean Grey is a telekinetic (able to move or affect objects with the force of one’s mind) and a telepath (able to read and influence other people’s thoughts). I was about to put them as number one and two when I remembered that people are assholes and I don’t know that I would want that window into their heads. (My third choice was shapeshifting, a combo of Mystique and Beast Boy, in case you were wondering). It started me thinking what would life be like if we were all a little bit telepathic or even empathic.

What would the societal constraints be if everyone was telepathic to some degree? What would the laws of attraction be if everyone you liked knew how you felt? How could we judge people if we could feel their thoughts and feelings as though they were our own? How could we plot against someone or hurt another if we could feel that pain, too?

Assuming the person in question isn’t a sociopath, it would change everything we know and how we treat everyone. Or, we would become so dead inside that emotions would be eradicated from our lives as we built up calluses to the suffering and happiness of others. There are so many downsides that I nearly abandoned the idea as living hell.

But let’s go back to attraction, shall we? What I wouldn’t do to know when someone was attracted to me or had a crush on me. Some astute people can tell, can read body language and flirtations and glances as though there is a thought bubble above someone’s head writing out their feelings. I am not one of those people. When I tell the stories of Prince Scientist, it is even sounding to me like he likes me. There are so many Jane Austen moments — sideways glances, smiles, lingering gaze-locks, etc. — for it to be nothing, especially between two guys. Yet nothing has happened.

I have been told that I am confusing. My actions — which I think are overt and a clear sign of my intentions — have been criticized as pathetic and so sad they can’t even be laughed at. “You were just standing in the hallway with him! He stopped and lingered, pretending to look at his phone, giving you sidelong glances…and you didn’t even look his way!” I was standing there; wasn’t that enough? Or, “He stopped to talk to you and all you did was say hi and turn away!” I said hello! And my reaction was obviously that of someone who is shy! Or, “He was looking right into your eyes when he was talking to five other people about his new haircut, and you couldn’t even say a word, much less that it looked nice!” Well, I looked back, didn’t I? (Yes, all these things really happened, and those were my actual responses. Don’t judge.)

So, yeah. Societal constraints are killing me. I want him to know, yet I don’t want to have to talk to him and I’m too scared to talk to him when he’s around his friends. It’s like the workplace is just as bad as high school. He probably thinks he’s being overt yet I need him to drape himself across my desk and ask if I would care to give him my babies.

In a telepathic society, this wouldn’t be an issue. He would know; I would know. How would a murderer ever get away with anything? How could someone cheat on a loved one? What crime could be committed that wouldn’t be detected? There are so many goods and bads to this thought. I started thinking, what if there were judges who could do exactly this, from whom no injustice was hidden…but that’s another story altogether.

In the end, I put telepathy on my list of desired super powers. But I would be the Catwoman of telepaths. I would cross the line into both bad and good, moral and heinous. Ironically, I would have no societal constraints. I would make that rapist feel the pain he inflicted. I would force a murderer to confess and I would make him feel what his victims felt. But I would also be a matchmaker. I would help people express themselves. I would heal. And I would have me a goddamned Prince Scientist, or at least know one way or the other.

As for the real world…well, I guess I’ll have to actually TALK to him someday. Primitive.

Work, Friends, and Perspective

As I sit here alone in my room listening to the hardest rain we have had all year in my area of Southern California (and the accompanying sirens for the inevitable crashes that follow even the mildest of drizzles), I am thinking back on my recent weekend, and all that it meant to me.

The busy season at work generally lasts from January to mid-April. This time it started in late October, got the worst it has ever been, and lasted until pretty much last week. This year, as with most others, I spend about 10 hours a day at work, sometimes more, and sometimes 6 days a week. It’s the same for everyone in the company (one conversation I had with the ever-beautiful Prince Scientist was about our separate overtime hours and he said, “Well, that’s January, right?” He was doing 6 days a week at about 10 hours a day until a month ago.)

It’s expected that your life is all but forfeit during the busy season. My friends generally say goodbye to me on Christmas and know that they won’t see me again until April at the earliest. I said this past year that I wasn’t going to let this year be the same…but I did.

I was able to squeeze in seeing a few friends, but I’m so jealous of my time during these months that I abandoned my real core of friends. Having spent this last weekend with them, I am happy to say that I have come away from it with a new outlook on things.

My friends are very smart, very witty, and unfortunately very bitchy. Lately it has gotten on my nerves more and more, but I thought I was just being sensitive because of all my health issues, the excessive overtime, and time away. That’s all true, but I think the time away and all the serious issues I’ve been dealing with have taught me that there are more important things than being an ass, no matter how much love there is behind it.

Yet, when I was there with them, I felt like I was home. The issues with work, with my health, with even the rampant bitchiness went away, and things sort of clicked for me. This is what life should be. It’s not about all work and no play, it’s not about hunkering down and bracing against the onslaught of work, and it’s not about nothing but lazing around and thinking/dreading the next day of work. It’s also not about the bitchy (yet somehow loving) barbs of my friends, but that’s a different topic.

Friends, loved ones, companionship, living is what life is about. Being happy and filling your days with joyful experiences is what you should be doing. It’s a lesson for me. Even if work is terrible, the health situation is wretched, and life is challenging, there is no benefit in sitting around and daydreaming, imagining a perfect, better life. All it does is satiate the desire for growth and ambition with the illusion of achievement rather than spurring you outward and onward.

Perspective attained.

A Very Geeky Weekend

I decided to take Friday and Monday off in honor of my birthday. And for the hell of it.

My friends took me out to see Avengers: Age of Ultron and then took me back where the few of us hung out, talked, and (via text) discussed the movie with our friend on the East Coast who draws comics for a living (and is very, very good) and is our primary authority for all things geeky. It’s nice to have him around, as I am usually the secondary source (by virtue of lifelong geekdom), and because he knows pretty much everything.

The birthday party they threw me was cute…for a 7 year old boy. Balloons in the color schemes of the Avengers, an Avengers cake, a Rubik’s Cube with the faces of the Avengers on it, and so on. I know those geeky bitches love being a kid as much as I do, and enjoy their machinations even more than I do, but it made me reflect that I’d like to have an adult birthday again, like they haven’t thrown me in years. All our birthdays have turned into parodies of our personalities — exaggerated, fanciful, and entertaining.

Then, with today being the 4th, also known as the day of Star Wars (“May the 4th be with you”) I have basically spent my birthday and the days after either hanging with the Avengers or the Jedi. And I threw in a little Goonies and Elvira just for the hell of it. And I ordered the Star Wars movies on Blu Ray…yes, all six of them. The prequels, episodes I through III have their problems — bad acting, an over-reliance on CG, some lifeless story lines, and Jar Jar Binks (the failed abortion) — but I still like them.

I also got a ridiculously cheap Kindle Fire which will be delivered a week earlier than it was originally projected to be, and I’ve already started to order and sample digital comics to revel in.

So, as you can see, this has been a very, very geeky few days and will continue to be so.

That’s it. It was fun, and I don’t plan to return to the real world for a while. I’ll give it another week and then start working on the writing stuff and the other real world nonsense that always intrudes. *sigh*

(Sorry for the lame post…it was a long, lazy, fun weekend and that’s pretty much the sum total of my thoughts. I had nothing to share. I’ll try to be more interesting next time.)

Birthday Horror

I���m not a fan of birthdays. All the candles and the singing and the cards and having poor friends who only give you their time makes me want to punch someone in the throat. I know that makes me sound like a Grumpy Cat knockoff, but I don���t like birthdays. It���s like 712,643 Mondays rolled into one, and makes me feel as though I had lived that many years. They are reminders that you are getting older, that things aren���t what they used to be, and birthdays are, for me, reminders of all that I want to do and haven���t yet done. That���s a shitty way of looking at things, so I try to change my perspective.

I try to consider and be glad that I���m still around to have a birthday, that I still have plenty of years ahead of me to do those things I want, and that I���m relatively healthy and able to enjoy the time that I have. Time marches steadily on, and the alternative to having a birthday is far better than the prospect of NOT having one.

I know what it takes to be happy during this time. It���s about being satisfied with what I have while still aspiring to be better, do better, do more, and experience all I can. I���m lacking in the latter part. I experience the fantasies in my head; that���s about it. Not as fun as living them, I expect. It���s all about perspective.

So, I get really introspective around this time, and it���s annoying to be in my own head. I���m certain that I must be a delight to be around. I loathe birthdays, and I therefore take it out on others.

When someone asks how old I���m going to be, I ask them how much they weigh. If someone says that I���m getting older, I inform them that they smell of ass and shame and that they don���t hear me complaining. If anyone older than me says this, I usually point to pendulous eye bags and wonder aloud if all their hormones are still functioning properly. If someone tries to guess my age, I guess theirs and add on just enough to be wildly insulting without being unrealistic. If someone younger and skinnier says anything, I bite out their Achilles tendon or predict their weight in 5 years.

If I���m not messed with, things will be fine. I���m not above childish insults or just cussing a bitch out. I���m not proud; it���s just a fact.

The good thing is that awesome super hero movies tend to come out around my birthday, so I make my lovely friends take me to them and feed me. I make my exes put out. Explosions, powers, and food. Oh, and my friends. I guess they aren���t so bad, either.

Maybe I shouldn���t complain so much.