tanksgibin

I become content with my aloneness. In fact, more often than not, I prefer, if not actively seek it.

It is surprising how few people disappoint you when you have no expectations of them.
Or perhaps when you expect them to disappoint you.

so i wrote that in an email to a woman i used to be friends with. i really do not know if i still am. part of me thinks i am. parts of me hopes i am. most of me is just mished up in the turmoil.
(yes, i know mished isn't really a word, but i like the sound of it. i'm going to keep it. get over it.)

i wonder, is this resignation? am i truly becoming content with myself? will i ever move past this point and into true happiness?

these questions and more on today's show.

thanksgiving.

to give thanks.

for lots of food.
for fat, yummy turkeys or pigs or whatever your protein of choice was.

to all my vegetarian friends out there, i saw a great shirt the other day.

killing animals is murder. yummy, yummy murder.

somedays i love mankind so very, very much.

ok, not really, but it seemed the thing to say at the time.

it seems my week for pep talks. i got a couple.

the best is a woman i work with. i was asking her some advice on applying to a position that would be awesome for me at this point in my development as a lighting designer; also, in my career as a lighting designer. both very good things for me. of course it grew out into several aspects of my life and how i deal with people, particularly in regards to seeking work, a very important thing as a freelancer.
she made a great statement:
"its kind of like when you ask a girl out on a date."
i replied with, "i don't think thats the best analogy for me. i don't ask girls out."
she responded, " i know. that's why it works for you."
(all dialogue is recorded word for word from the depths of my sick and twisted mind and reflects in no way whatsoever the actually words of any of the participants, however, i hope it at least vaguely resembles the points made in some general, if not entirely accurate manner.)

her point of course being that i do not always make it completely clear what it is i wish in a situation. that when i talk to a producer or company, i think i have said "i want to work with you," but what comes across is "gee i kind of work in that field too and maybe you can call me sometime if you want."

not exactly the best language for job seeking. or dating.

speaking of which.

i met an absolutely amazing woman a few weeks ago. smart, funny, beautiful, works in the business so understands how it works...
perfect.

if i was ever going to introduce a woman to my mother, this would be her.
(i'm not by the way. if she wants to meet my parents, she's on her own. maybe someday i'll tell her where they live. which country at least. but thats another day. for now, she'll just have to go on believing i am an orphan.)

unfortunately i met her in a work environment.
now, i am not so good at expressing social interest in the best of times. at work, i am even worse. yes, there is a reason for that. no i am not going to tell you right now. one psycho drama at a time.

so now i am in a quandry.
how do i try to tell her i am interested in a non-work related fashion. i'd love to ask her out, maybe get lunch, coffee, dinner, movie, whatever. i really don't care as long as i get to be with her, listen to her voice and look into her gorgeous eyes.

sounds cliche. i know.
doesn't matter.
i'm not saying i am hopelessly and desperately in love with this girl.
i'm not saying it's even possible for something to ever work out like that.

but i would very much like to find out.

help. please help.

i am open to any and all opinions.
until i figure out what to do, i will keep hoping she doesn't know i am talking about her here.
even if she read it.

well, that should be enough for today.
hope you ate enough turkey.
stupid bird. we need to eat all of them.

'appy tanksgibin' t' allyaall.

i'm out.

i got some pictures today from one of the people in santa barbara. they show a bunch of us hanging out backstage. its interesting to see an event from someone else's perspective.

there is something i am not sure i want to post here. not that anyone reads this blog, but i am considering telling certain people about it. however there are a couple people i do not want to read the things that i want to say. so i think for now i will keep it to myself. maybe someday i will write about it.

in other news, i have almost nothing to report. i am still fat, still alone and still terrified of women. sometimes i question whether any of these things will change.
yes, i am seeing a nutritionist now. but as of yet, i am having difficulty meeting the requirements she has of me. things which you wouldn't even think are all that hard.
however, small steps.

hopefully soon, the new rules will become much easier to follow. i am told they do after a while. i think the hardest part right now is admitting and then believing that i am worth all the trouble.
this is a new concept for me, one that has taken many years of hard work to even get to the possibility. now i have to cross the line.

maybe later.

i am hopefully going to be purchasing a new piece of software by the end of the year that will help me accomplish many of the things that i would like to do. mostly from a productivity standpoint. i'll tell more as we get closer to is happening.

that should be enough for now.

move along. nothing to see here.

begin the beginning

wow. i don't even know how to begin.


it seems each of my posts begins with an apology for not posting more often. of course, that assumes there is someone who actually reads this. i cannot imagine there is. i think i have only told one person about it.


maybe it is time to change things. perhaps i need to actually post daily. or weekly. or set some other arbitrary goal. of course none of that means anything without some means of control, some way to remind/force myself to post regularly. perhaps i need to put it in outlook as a task. maybe having my computer yell at me once in a while, telling me to get my fat ass in gear and write something will help.


perhaps we'll try it. let me ponder...


in the meanwhile.


october is always a slam month for me. three weeks spent in opera-land. this year it was the flying dutchman. pretty heavy stuff. light for wagner but heavy. of course, i don't really pay all that much attention. mostly during the show i surf the 'net, play games, etc.
this year, the opera also sent me out to do a set install. utah opera rents out the sets from their shows. most opera companies do. well we have a couple little ones, ones even i can't screw up. so i drove a truck to santa barbara (the eye in the firestorm that is california), set up a show, hung out for a couple days, then drove back. it was actually the perfect week. a couple long boring drives, a couple days of work, a couple days of nothing. sort of a working vacation. i still was doing stuff online and by phone (at least until it ran into some problems) but overall had a surprising amount of time to myself.
there are some awesome people down there. i had a blast. the crew was great. the town was fun. had some good food. rode a quad up a cool mountain. saw some beautiful scenery. saw some beautiful women. walked around a town where to all appearances i was the fattest guy in the whole city. probably not true but an interesting thought...
of course then i had to come back.

i am not going to spend a lot of time on this post. i want to get into the habit of posting more often so parsing may stories may help. hopefully.

maybe you enjoyed them too.

the first "educated" rant.

in my last post, i said i would have more information on "rifts, shadowrun and the nature and future of gaming." this is somewhat of a large and daunting task. however we will begin by taking small bites out of it.

in a previous post i talked briefly about rifts. i will tell more as we go along, but i think today is not about rifts.
shadowrun is another role-playing game. there is much fun to be told there as well, but again, i think not today.

in the interest of full disclosure, i began this post on 23 august. today is 6 september. obviously i missed a few days in there.

the last few weeks have been tough for me. trying to stay positive and not get caught up in the negativity of my past has made it hard for me to consider posting. ranting at the anger and depression that has become the reality of my life for the last little while seems redundant and deconstructive. so i avoid it. unfortunately, between that and being busy, exhausted and in a great deal of pain, not to mention slightly unwell, i have managed to avoid posting for a couple weeks. now its time to move on.

recently, i have had several very big and interesting conversations. while in the process of these, i often think, if only i could relate these in my blog, maybe i could take myself seriously as a writer. but alas, i fail to do so and now i feel like i am somewhat lost in attempting the recreations. but perhaps i will attempt them anyway.

education.
my upstairs neighbor is a teacher. from comments she has made over the few years i have known her, i have felt she was very defensive about the system as a whole. however, i have some very large issues with the education system and feel it needs to be revitalized, revisited and perhaps even reinvented. but mostly, i feel it needs to be discussed. this is the biggest problem though. it seems all of those within the field are angry at anyone outside of it offering a viewpoint or suggestion towards improving the system, yet they themselves are not doing anything to do so. all of the pat answers are tired and unsupported, as well as being vague and not reasoned terribly well. not to mention completely contradicted by many of the new studies coming out. while i may not advocate many of the alternative suggestions being made by the "outsiders", i do feel that there needs to be a dialogue between all of those concerned. and with all of the teacher complaints about parents not being involved enough in the children's education, it seems a bit hypocritical to yell at them for trying to become involved. so i tried to have a limited conversation with my neighbor, sounding her out on some of the things i have been reading and learning about. and she made some of the same old defensive pat answers that i have the problems with. so i snapped. i didn't exactly yell, but i was, perhaps, a bit aggressive in my... exhortation of my viewpoint. i actually became a little afraid i had mortally wounded her by the end of my diatribe, for in truth such it was. however, she said it made her think, not only about the problems and my opinions of them, but also about her responses to questioning of the system, and claimed to want to spend time examining her thoughts to discover whether or not she was just parroting the party line of "right" answers, or actually believed those same statements. we will have to see. i haven't spoken to her for a while (which is not unusual; often weeks go by without me even seeing her in passing), but i must admit a certain curiousity as to what her response will be when we talk again.

now i suppose you are wondering what might be these opinions, thoughts and ideas that would so terribly offend a defender of the system.
the biggest issue is the ingraining of the system itself. i think anyone actually trying to sit back and look at it would admit there is "something rotten in the state of denmark". even many if not most educators will say there needs to be more done; our children are completing coursework without any knowledge being apparent. we are rapidly falling behind the rest of the world in educating our youth.
where all of the problems seem to be is what specifically defines the problem and what can be done about it.

problems:
students not acquiring the knowledge necessary to compete effectively in an information society and economy.
children losing their childhood, not developing well socially, physically, emotionally as well as intellectually.
parents not being involved enough.
use of outdated or useless techniques simply because "thats how it is done".
(this particularly relates to homework, something that most studies show to be ineffective in academic improvement yet teachers assign anyway, often as a 'punishment' for parents, trying to force them to become more active in the child's education process.)
teachers not being rewarded appropriately (ie not paid enough).
substandard teachers.
no effective means of removing teachers who are substandard or otherwise need to be removed.
(cases including a teacher who admited to sexual contact with female students using school emails, who was not able to be fired for over two years, during which time, he was still required to be paid as well as having to pay a teacher to actually teach his classes since obviously no one wanted him in the classroom.
teacher unions. (and i say this as a member of a labor union. i understand the need of the collective to support the rights of individual members against management, but how how exactly is anyone served by forcing the system to have to support those who are ineffective or dangerous to the students.)
no independent or reasonable system to judge when a teacher is substandard.
lack of community support (not enough spending).
no accountability of funds spent. ( is more really what is needed?)

i am sure there are more. and yes, i have my opinions on some possible solutions. and, no i am not an expert on education theory, etc. nor am i a parent. what i am is concerned with the future of young minds. and i would like to share and/or discuss my suggestions and thoughts. but i think i will save them for a later post. this one is long enough.

i will close out with one quick thing. there are several reasons that i have lately become involved in the debate on education. i believe that we as a society and as individuals owe it to ourselves and our children to see to it that if we cannot provide them with a better world, we at least see to it they have the tools to begin finding the way there themselves. and the only way to begin that is to educate them. encourage the joy in learning all children have, not strip it away in pursuit of mediocrity. which leads me to the more specific cause. while i may not have children, i do have siblings with children. i have seen what happens in households that encourage learning, as well as what happens when it is not. in particular, i have one niece who is very, very bright, whose joy in learning is so great, you almost wish you could get her to stop. she absorbs knowledge. fortunately, her parents strive to strengthen this aspect of her personality. they push all of their kids to learn. not force, but provide ample opportunity and support. whatever it may be they wish to learn.

i just hope their love and support wil be enough to get her past the joyless, incomprehensibly cruel world of "education".

i welcome opinions, for or against. lets open the dialogue.

life - the steaming pile of excrement

i had originally planned to post here more often than once a month. but here i am almost a month since my last post. i am not sure why this has been so hard for me. perhaps it is the line between private and public. or not wanting to seem as bitchy as perhaps i feel sometimes.

one of things i wanted to avoid was having this turn into nothing but another whiny bitchfest about how shitty the universe in general and my life in particular are. but human nature is to always look for the worst. and certainly my nature fits into that mold. but i am going to try to keep it from getting too deep in my own shit. i don't want to read it, don't think others should have to either, and really would rather not contribute to the problem here. so while there will indeed be some discussion of my life's traumas and turmoils, i will try to keep it from turning into another boring pile of steaming excrement.

so, whats up in my life these days.

we have begun the new year of the program. 12 new and excited students. yeah right. we'll see how that goes. already a few hiccups, but we seem to be moving in a forward direction. we have a month worth of scheduled classes under our belt and given to the students, so that is nice. now we see how many of them break.

so several months ago (probably longer) i used to go to coffee with a co worker. there was a fairly attractive young woman working at the coffee shop where we would often go. my co worker kept trying to get me to ask her out. i, of course, did not. why you ask. we'll get into that later. for now just follow along. eventually this co worker one day told me that she was only going to go to coffee with me if i asked this girl out. i said i wasn't going to. she said fine we're not going. and we didn't. really ever again.

the co worker has since left the company, moved to another country called florida and abandoned us to the tender mercies of someone else. we are hurt, but somehow find the strength to struggle on with out her. but she is missed.

a couple days ago, i was working in my office (which is a somewhat scheduled and somewhat sporadic event) and walked over to the main office. whilst there, the office manager, dispatcher and i decided to go get coffee. we ended up going back to the same coffee shop. as we got there, i thought it was funny and so related the story to the others. the dispatcher starting talking about trying to get me to ask the girl out too. except for one small snag: she didn't work there any more. oops.

however, in the process of ordering coffee (which i had always been under the impression was a fairly straight-forward process but soon discovered that the correct percentage of estrogen could indeed turn a simple coffee run into a complex female shopping trip guaranteed to put any man into a coma by the time they could decide on what to wear, i mean drink) we met another woman who works at the shop. a very attractive, friendly, attractive, nice, attractive, helpful, attractive young woman. the weird thing was she actually talked to me. and she wasn't helping us. but there were few customers in the store and she was free. but usually for attractive young women, that means run away from the big fat scary guy so i was understandably confused when she held a conversation with me.

so we (finally) finish ordering, get our drinks and head out for the car. once outside, my co workers immediately start in on me about she was nice, you should ask her out, etc etc. however, i noticed a ring (if you know what i mean) and said so. i don't know whether in this case it really means anything or just happens to be jewelry, but it was there and on the correct finger.

so hopefully that will put to an end any more discussion about me asking her out. but i have the feeling that it was a mistake bringing these two into the knowledge of such an event having ever happened.

well i think that will be enough for today.

more next time on rifts, shadowrun and the nature and future of gaming.

the last few weeks have been completely insane.

technology failures, general unhappiness, people really pissed at me, more technology failures, working really hard, very very busy, even more technology failure, medical drama and a complete desire to just die and be done with it such as i have not had in quite some time.

so the program i administer seems to be diving headlong into the abyss. i try to pull it up but there is only so much one person can do, especially when the support structure wont. i push and pull, fight and cry, but nothing seems to work.
i don't know how much more of this i can deal with.

my personal cyberpunk issue (the failure of technology to fulfil its promise) began when at&t took cingular back over. i have had nothing but problems with my cell phone since. calls not ringing through, my calls not getting out, voice mails appearing two weeks later, etc. and now the damn thing seems to be having physical problems as well. i need to take it in for repair, but if it is going to cost too much i will have to get a new one. not happy about that. new phone is in the plan for next year, not this one. this could be a problem.

now as i am trying to sort all of that out, my internet keeps going out at home. finally after much gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes i figure out it is the phone modem for my voip phone. when i first got into voip, the modem thet used was inline, and came before the router. so everytime it started to go down, i would lose my internet as well as my phone. but now i have replaced it with an after router version. so far it seems to be working much better.

i am going to leave the bitching, moaning and whining at that for today. or at least for this post. more to come, i am sure.

new beginnings.

well, i set off the grand experiment...

and promptly failed.

but here we are so maybe not total failure.

life progresses. lonely, depressed and wondering what exactly the point is right now, but still alive. maybe something will come up soon. in the meantime, keep going.

went and saw die hard yesterday. fun movie. interesting premise. cute girls. bruce willis doing that which made the first movie good.
i recommend.

some friends and i playd rifts on saturday. for those unaware, rifts is a role-playing game. yes, i am a gamer. rifts is set about 400 years in the post-apocalyptal future. there is incredibly high technology, magic has returned to the world, big icky things from various and sundry other dimensions, worlds and universes, as well as the development of psionics. quite a world of danger, fear, anger, adventure and fun is rifts. the system has some issues, but we have over the years worked out a number of house rules to fix many of the difficulties. at least for us. this rifts game (campaign) has been going on for many many years now. it is set in Japan, where there is an interesting mix of technology, magic, martial art mystic powers and monsters to eat you. gotta love it.

someday i will tell you more about the campaign and the characters. and probably the world. but enough for now. i am so worried about running out of things to talk about, i want to keep a few in reserve just in case.

perhaps i will get better at this as time goes by. the writing. the thoughts. the quantity as well as quality.
perhaps not.

but for now, that is my life.

the grand experiment

well here we are.


off on another grand adventure. testing the waters of the future.
today i begin something. perhaps it will end tomorrow.
perhaps today.

i do not know.

but it has begun.

the step has been taken. let us see where the thousand miles end up.