Flight of the Bumblebee
Jan. 5th, 2006 08:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
It's been a little while since I've updated, and I have a bit of time, so here goes...
Since tooth stuff happened first, I'll start with that! Went to Dr. Beavers the day after Christmas to begin the crown work on my tooth. They drilled and pushed and prodded and poked, and gave me nitrous and Valium to help relax me. I was completely out of it by the time it was all over. But they filled the gaping hole they created and told me to come back in six to eight weeks. If you think this seems a little long to wait for a temporary crown, then you'd be onto something. Apparently the decay in the affected tooth was so extensive they had to drill dangerously close to the nerve. There are two ways this could go from here. The nerve exposes itself, causing a lot of rather intense pain and necessitating a root canal, or the nerve pushes itself a little deeper and builds a new protective coat over itself. If the latter happens, they can go ahead and put the crown on with no problems. Guess which outcome I'm rooting for? :)
New Year's was incredibly awesome, mainly because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
toob came down and I was able to ring it in with the person I love. When he's not around I feel better than I've ever felt because he's simply in my life, there to push and challenge and accept me no matter where I am. When he *is* around, I feel all of the stars have aligned correctly and everything is just so, perfect as it is to the point of being timeless. When I'm with him there's no ego telling me I'm imperfect, or I use the wrong words, or these thoughts will completely be out of left field and no one will get them if I voice them. I just am, and I can do anything. He makes me feel amazing. I'm in total, horrible love. :)
But then he had to leave on Sunday and I watched "The Notebook" to keep from being too depressed. Whoohoo, first movie of 2006! It's not a bad movie; it's very earnest, in fact, so despite the fact that it follows the most predictable patten of 'boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, nothing-keeps-boy-and-girl-apart-ultimately' the movie really makes it on its ultimate sweetness. There is something true about the love presented there, so despite the fact its straightforward and not so engaging, it's...engrossing. There is a twist, but you see it coming before the movie even gets properly set up.
Since then, I've been moderating![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
napoewrimo with an absolute iron fist, making sure every member posts every day. If they don't, I send two pipe-hittin' niggas over to their house to break a finger. So far it's worked. Though there was a bit of a flame-war over the nature of haiku that, I think, no one really saw coming. It's been taking up a lot of my free time, reading all of the poems submitted (even if I don't comment to all of them)...but it's really worth it. We've got a small, but growing, passionate community; I'm hoping that we'll continue to discuss and support after the January hell-month is over.
As usual, all of my poetry is onwriterrabbit if you want to take a look.
I've also been fairly engrossed in my Tuesday night D+D game. The setting is starting to grow legs by itself, and the story is snowballing away from my grasp. This is definitely a good thing; it took maybe 12 games, but I'm beginning to feel that the town of Oak's Home (where the group is based) is its own living, breathing entity. I'm not creating so much any more as channeling, and making sure things maintain an internal consistency. It's started out as a Twin Peaksish mystery kind of game, butstickypawz is an elven magic user, and let me tell you that not much escapes a properly motivated elf with a knowledge of Divination spells under his belt. His badger familiar, Jhori, has also been a thorn in my dark and shadowy, mysterious side for quite some time now. ;) Between those two, a lot more has been uncovered a lot more quickly than I anticipated. It's a whole lot of fun DMing this game, but it's difficult and requires a *lot* of work to make sure everyone's satisfied. Still, it's worth it; we've got a bright and fun group of gamers (we miss you, daroneasa!) and Tuesday nights are a highlight of my week now.
Work is work is work. Nothing different or new to report there, except that Charles continues to be wonderful, endearing and annoying all at once. He's still one of the best bosses I've ever had and I'm proud to be working where I am. Even if this keeps up for much longer I'll be popping antacid before too long. :) Mariah is working the computer, putting books on-line that I nor Cara have had the time to, so checking mail and sending messages and LiveJournaling is much much harder to do these days. Ah well, it means that I'm a bit more productive than usual, which is good no?
New Year's Resolutions: to borrow Tube's terminology, 'stop farting around'. I spend a lot of time in useless worrying or figuring out what I want to do, and I devote a lot more time to just doing things. It's worked out so far.
Also, I'm going to try and be a bit nicer to people. Those local to me know how snarky and catty I can really be, and I'd like to tone that down a bit. So far it hasn't been too bad, but man those first few days I really slipped. ;) Me and Virginia and Cy have come up with the concept of the Mean Jar, where we put a quarter in for every infraction we make. After a while, we gather up the money and buy someone who could use it a gift. I like the idea, but I'm sure V and Cy have been a lot meaner than the jar suggests. :D
That being said, one of the things that have consistently made me angry in this young new year is complaining without hope or drive to change a situation. There was this thing on the "U.S. Acres" segment of "Garfield and Friends" that has stuck with me ever since I was a kid (kid meaning, what, 16?) and I've used it as an unofficial mantra for a while. Shelton(?) the sheep sings this little song to Wade the Worrying Duck about how worry is useless. "There's no point in worrying about the problems you can't solve," he says, "and there's no point in worrying about the ones you can." And while it's pretty sad to get ancient cosmic wisdom from a subpar weekday morning cartoon, it's...Truth with a capital T. Have a problem you can't solve? Have faith that the solution will be provided for you at some point. In the meantime, work around. Have a problem you can solve? Then solve it! Either way, complaining about the problem just makes you miserable, and no one wants to be around a miserable person.
Now don't get me wrong; there are so many people out there fighting the good fight, and they get discouraged once in a while. They need to decompress and vent, or they've been running their heads up against a recurring problem for quite some time, and working around it has made them weary. So they sigh, and complain, and that's fine; eventually they'll pick up and try again because they find living to be worth it. There's nothing wrong with this. But the people who keep moaning and batting down every solution that's offered them, rejecting every comfort offered by concerned friends, really fucking piss me off. And I've been less tolerant of them than I have been.
I kind of feel hypocritical about that, though, because I used to be like that. Way back when I *was* 16 and dealing with sexuality and I still thought the world was a scary strange place with no room for someone like me, life was just a cascade of unsolvable problems. It was worst when I went to college; I stopped bathing regularly, missed a lot of classes, got up just in time for theatre rehearsal and came to the dorm computer room to hop online and moan ceaselessly about how awful life was and how I just wanted to die. I really was inconsolable; a lot of local friends stayed away (and rightly so, not only was I miserable, I stank) and the few online friends I managed to keep during that time spent hours and hours trying to assure me life meant something. In the meantime, I lost a *lot* of people I was very close to at the time. And to this day, I wish I hadn't.
I came out of the unending angst phase when I was 20. A suicide attempt with sleeping pills had just been made, and when I woke up from my two-day stupor I decided I just didn't want to do it any more. So I gave my roommate all of the pills I had stashed around the house (and there were a *lot*), told him I had gotten...'kinda addicted', and pulled myself out from there. I wish I could say something other than "I just snapped out of it" when talking about how I got out of the depths of overwhelming debilitating socially-crushing despair, but that's how it happened.
So, now, when I run into someone who's completely in love with how sad they are, I almost immediately feel a sort of empathy for them, because hey, I used to be that same person. But then, they quickly grow unbearable and I just want to snap at them lots and lots until they get over themselves. And then I can't blame any of the friends that pulled back when *I* was that horrible, because if this is what it was like then it's a wonder I have any friends left at all.
One of the things that upsets me so much, I think, is that you're impossible in the face of such determination to remain stuck in a certain situation. The ultra-depressed never want to do anything to pull themselves out, it seems, because then they would have to stop complaining. Which sounds harsher than I meant it to. But that's the idea. Words...they only mean as much as the actions you put behind them. So, if you're going to make a situation out to be hopeless, you'd better damned sure make sure that it really is hopeless, or you're effectively crapping on every truly hopeless situation there ever was by lying about your own.
That's a bit extreme, but it's how I often feel in the heat of the moment. There's also the matter of people who reject your attempts at empathy because you don't fulfill a certain role for them (on-line the "I can't talk to you really because you're not a big bulgy giant and won't let me in your pants." angle is *particularly* vexing), but even getting upset about that is hypocritical. I mean, how many people see me that way? (And I'm pretty sure there are a few.)
The long and short of it is, simply, I'm trying to find a way to not get upset about these people, or, at the very least, keep my anger in check because yelling at someone like that really is kicking someone when they're done, and even if it might be ever-so-slightly deserved, it's one of the most intolerable things one can do.
And, I think, that about catches me up. Now off to work and writing. :)
Since tooth stuff happened first, I'll start with that! Went to Dr. Beavers the day after Christmas to begin the crown work on my tooth. They drilled and pushed and prodded and poked, and gave me nitrous and Valium to help relax me. I was completely out of it by the time it was all over. But they filled the gaping hole they created and told me to come back in six to eight weeks. If you think this seems a little long to wait for a temporary crown, then you'd be onto something. Apparently the decay in the affected tooth was so extensive they had to drill dangerously close to the nerve. There are two ways this could go from here. The nerve exposes itself, causing a lot of rather intense pain and necessitating a root canal, or the nerve pushes itself a little deeper and builds a new protective coat over itself. If the latter happens, they can go ahead and put the crown on with no problems. Guess which outcome I'm rooting for? :)
New Year's was incredibly awesome, mainly because
toob came down and I was able to ring it in with the person I love. When he's not around I feel better than I've ever felt because he's simply in my life, there to push and challenge and accept me no matter where I am. When he *is* around, I feel all of the stars have aligned correctly and everything is just so, perfect as it is to the point of being timeless. When I'm with him there's no ego telling me I'm imperfect, or I use the wrong words, or these thoughts will completely be out of left field and no one will get them if I voice them. I just am, and I can do anything. He makes me feel amazing. I'm in total, horrible love. :)But then he had to leave on Sunday and I watched "The Notebook" to keep from being too depressed. Whoohoo, first movie of 2006! It's not a bad movie; it's very earnest, in fact, so despite the fact that it follows the most predictable patten of 'boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, nothing-keeps-boy-and-girl-apart-ultimately' the movie really makes it on its ultimate sweetness. There is something true about the love presented there, so despite the fact its straightforward and not so engaging, it's...engrossing. There is a twist, but you see it coming before the movie even gets properly set up.
Since then, I've been moderating
napoewrimo with an absolute iron fist, making sure every member posts every day. If they don't, I send two pipe-hittin' niggas over to their house to break a finger. So far it's worked. Though there was a bit of a flame-war over the nature of haiku that, I think, no one really saw coming. It's been taking up a lot of my free time, reading all of the poems submitted (even if I don't comment to all of them)...but it's really worth it. We've got a small, but growing, passionate community; I'm hoping that we'll continue to discuss and support after the January hell-month is over.As usual, all of my poetry is on
writerrabbit if you want to take a look.I've also been fairly engrossed in my Tuesday night D+D game. The setting is starting to grow legs by itself, and the story is snowballing away from my grasp. This is definitely a good thing; it took maybe 12 games, but I'm beginning to feel that the town of Oak's Home (where the group is based) is its own living, breathing entity. I'm not creating so much any more as channeling, and making sure things maintain an internal consistency. It's started out as a Twin Peaksish mystery kind of game, but
stickypawz is an elven magic user, and let me tell you that not much escapes a properly motivated elf with a knowledge of Divination spells under his belt. His badger familiar, Jhori, has also been a thorn in my dark and shadowy, mysterious side for quite some time now. ;) Between those two, a lot more has been uncovered a lot more quickly than I anticipated. It's a whole lot of fun DMing this game, but it's difficult and requires a *lot* of work to make sure everyone's satisfied. Still, it's worth it; we've got a bright and fun group of gamers (we miss you, daroneasa!) and Tuesday nights are a highlight of my week now.Work is work is work. Nothing different or new to report there, except that Charles continues to be wonderful, endearing and annoying all at once. He's still one of the best bosses I've ever had and I'm proud to be working where I am. Even if this keeps up for much longer I'll be popping antacid before too long. :) Mariah is working the computer, putting books on-line that I nor Cara have had the time to, so checking mail and sending messages and LiveJournaling is much much harder to do these days. Ah well, it means that I'm a bit more productive than usual, which is good no?
New Year's Resolutions: to borrow Tube's terminology, 'stop farting around'. I spend a lot of time in useless worrying or figuring out what I want to do, and I devote a lot more time to just doing things. It's worked out so far.
Also, I'm going to try and be a bit nicer to people. Those local to me know how snarky and catty I can really be, and I'd like to tone that down a bit. So far it hasn't been too bad, but man those first few days I really slipped. ;) Me and Virginia and Cy have come up with the concept of the Mean Jar, where we put a quarter in for every infraction we make. After a while, we gather up the money and buy someone who could use it a gift. I like the idea, but I'm sure V and Cy have been a lot meaner than the jar suggests. :D
That being said, one of the things that have consistently made me angry in this young new year is complaining without hope or drive to change a situation. There was this thing on the "U.S. Acres" segment of "Garfield and Friends" that has stuck with me ever since I was a kid (kid meaning, what, 16?) and I've used it as an unofficial mantra for a while. Shelton(?) the sheep sings this little song to Wade the Worrying Duck about how worry is useless. "There's no point in worrying about the problems you can't solve," he says, "and there's no point in worrying about the ones you can." And while it's pretty sad to get ancient cosmic wisdom from a subpar weekday morning cartoon, it's...Truth with a capital T. Have a problem you can't solve? Have faith that the solution will be provided for you at some point. In the meantime, work around. Have a problem you can solve? Then solve it! Either way, complaining about the problem just makes you miserable, and no one wants to be around a miserable person.
Now don't get me wrong; there are so many people out there fighting the good fight, and they get discouraged once in a while. They need to decompress and vent, or they've been running their heads up against a recurring problem for quite some time, and working around it has made them weary. So they sigh, and complain, and that's fine; eventually they'll pick up and try again because they find living to be worth it. There's nothing wrong with this. But the people who keep moaning and batting down every solution that's offered them, rejecting every comfort offered by concerned friends, really fucking piss me off. And I've been less tolerant of them than I have been.
I kind of feel hypocritical about that, though, because I used to be like that. Way back when I *was* 16 and dealing with sexuality and I still thought the world was a scary strange place with no room for someone like me, life was just a cascade of unsolvable problems. It was worst when I went to college; I stopped bathing regularly, missed a lot of classes, got up just in time for theatre rehearsal and came to the dorm computer room to hop online and moan ceaselessly about how awful life was and how I just wanted to die. I really was inconsolable; a lot of local friends stayed away (and rightly so, not only was I miserable, I stank) and the few online friends I managed to keep during that time spent hours and hours trying to assure me life meant something. In the meantime, I lost a *lot* of people I was very close to at the time. And to this day, I wish I hadn't.
I came out of the unending angst phase when I was 20. A suicide attempt with sleeping pills had just been made, and when I woke up from my two-day stupor I decided I just didn't want to do it any more. So I gave my roommate all of the pills I had stashed around the house (and there were a *lot*), told him I had gotten...'kinda addicted', and pulled myself out from there. I wish I could say something other than "I just snapped out of it" when talking about how I got out of the depths of overwhelming debilitating socially-crushing despair, but that's how it happened.
So, now, when I run into someone who's completely in love with how sad they are, I almost immediately feel a sort of empathy for them, because hey, I used to be that same person. But then, they quickly grow unbearable and I just want to snap at them lots and lots until they get over themselves. And then I can't blame any of the friends that pulled back when *I* was that horrible, because if this is what it was like then it's a wonder I have any friends left at all.
One of the things that upsets me so much, I think, is that you're impossible in the face of such determination to remain stuck in a certain situation. The ultra-depressed never want to do anything to pull themselves out, it seems, because then they would have to stop complaining. Which sounds harsher than I meant it to. But that's the idea. Words...they only mean as much as the actions you put behind them. So, if you're going to make a situation out to be hopeless, you'd better damned sure make sure that it really is hopeless, or you're effectively crapping on every truly hopeless situation there ever was by lying about your own.
That's a bit extreme, but it's how I often feel in the heat of the moment. There's also the matter of people who reject your attempts at empathy because you don't fulfill a certain role for them (on-line the "I can't talk to you really because you're not a big bulgy giant and won't let me in your pants." angle is *particularly* vexing), but even getting upset about that is hypocritical. I mean, how many people see me that way? (And I'm pretty sure there are a few.)
The long and short of it is, simply, I'm trying to find a way to not get upset about these people, or, at the very least, keep my anger in check because yelling at someone like that really is kicking someone when they're done, and even if it might be ever-so-slightly deserved, it's one of the most intolerable things one can do.
And, I think, that about catches me up. Now off to work and writing. :)
