Bird droppings

Social media over the last 15 years has been interesting. Waaaaay back in 2005, I started my first online blog over on livejournal. The archives of that blog are still archived here on this dreamwidth account.

When livejournal was sold to the russians, I along with a lot of other people, headed out to Facebook to do my postings and journaling. That was fine until around 2016 when I learned more about how Facebook was using all of our information to help fuck up our society. Since then, I've been mostly living on Mastodon.

My wife of 11 years is leaving me, and with her departure, I'm re-evaluating a lot of things in life. One such thing is the lack of creative writing that I've been doing for the past 10 years. In part due to the loss of livejournal in my life, and in part due to the fact that my wife expressed an attitude of being critical of what she considered "bad art," I've been hesitant and/or to do much in the way of creating written art. I'm trying to change that.

I think one of the things I need is a place to put my writings and nonsense. Here seems like a reasonable place. It's the best continuation of my livejournal space from 2005 and gives me an opportunity to use the same basic format to create longer forms of writing. I don't really have a lot of friends on this platform, though... I left most of them back on livejournal or on other social networks.

But as I was putting together a really weird "laptop" project in the aftermath of this ongoing divorce, I found myself thinking about keyboards and writing software for the first time in over a decade. I even pulled out my old copy of Ommwriter and did a little poetry and writing with a prompt.

It felt like coming home to an old friend.

Thing about me. I used to write constantly. Lots of poetry, a few short stories, lots of essays, tons of journaling, and lots of other little things. Some of it even won awards of a sort. It really hasn't been much of a part of my life for most of the past 10 years. But I want to change that and bring it back to my life. I want to start sharing my thoughts in a journal like fashion again. I want to write again.

So let's do it. Let's write.

It is so awesome when you start to learn a new language. What used to be random gibberish suddenly starts to become actual words and concepts.

This Friday, I finally encountered enough people around me that know and use ASL that I decided it was time to learn it. I memorized the alphabet and began practicing finger spelling about everything I could get my hands on. I downloaded an ASL dictionary app to my iPad and began constructing sentences with thespatula, who used to use ASL to talk to a hard-of-hearing friend of hers.

On Sunday, I decided to load up the ASL version of Re: Your Brains and watch it again. And that's when that magical moment of understanding happened.

Despite not knowing even enough ASL to carry on a simple conversation, what little I had learned during the weekend was enough to completely transform the video for me. When I first watched it, it was entertaining for the weird hand motions and pantomime that I observed during the lyrics, but I didn't really have a clue when it came to the signs. Now, I found myself picking out individual signs, being able to identify when the person was fingerspelling things, and even catching a few jokes/amusing bits that I hadn't understood before.

Before, my brain only saw static. Now, it saw patterns and information. It's quite a delightful experience to have. I even learned a few signs!

As with most things I try out, I don't know if I'll carry on with this, but it has one of the key elements that I generally need to get a new hobby type thing to continue: Other people around me know, use, and are learning ASL. So maybe I'll actually be able to stick with it.

WHY learn it? A few reasons, really.

1) It's really useful to be able to communicate visually. Whether in noisy environments, or to have a secondary communication channel when there are other people around. It's an entirely new channel of communication. I actually learned morse code to try to do this when I was in grade school, but no one else wanted to learn it, too... so I forgot it.

2) I have at least one friend, if not more, that sometimes go non-verbal. When this happens, they use ASL to communicate. It'd be nice to be able to understand what they're saying.

3) I myself find being verbal hard sometimes. Always have, since childhood. There'll be times when people are trying to talk to me, and I just find it really frustrating and emotionally upsetting to have to speak. Having ASL on hand when that strikes me could be a nice way to avoid the frustration.

4) Although I don't know anyone that is deaf, and only one person that is hard of hearing, I really like the idea of learning another language for the sake of learning that language and learning about those that use it. How cool is it that we get these opportunities to explore the languages and cultures of other people? It expands our understanding of our world and helps us to build better communities that are more effectively inclusive.

5) Every time I learn something new, I help maintain brain health and stave off the possibility of dementia when I get old.

Identity is an interesting thing.

I've met a number of people that claim that they are elves, dragons, lizards, vampires, angels, reincarnations of ancient wizards, and more. I've heard people claim to be collections of multiple people in one body with some coming from fictional media, some from other people, and some from alternate realities. I've heard even more claims of identity beyond even these.

Are these people crazy?

Personally, I don't think so.( Read more... )

Introspective rambling. Questions about my inner nature and mental landscape. Possible interpretations of my actions, behavior, and mental state. Inspirational conclusion leading towards self-improvement and growth. List of outstanding questions about myself. Goofy closing.

...


I had a post I was going to write, but I've been so busy lately, that it slipped out of my head. I promise you it would have been quite interesting though! Now if only I can remember what it was going to be! :P

I cried out my fears to viesti last night, and it seemed to help.

Thinking more about it today, I think that a lot of my anguish and fear about this whole thing actually comes from the circumstances and experiences around my recent broken ankle.

Two interesting facts about this: Breaking my ankle was the first time in my life that I totally lost consciousness. I've had faint-like things before, but I've never completely lost consciousness that way before. The other interesting fact? This is the first time in my life I've had a major debilitating injury.

( Read more... )

Here we are again, on the verge of another adventure to Zion National Park!

This time, I'll be going with my beloved viesti! It's going to be so awesome to be able to share this experiencing with her.

Looking back on last year, Zion was a major turning point in my life. Something about gave me this sense of utter accomplishment and pride. Like I had done something amazing and incredible just by going and doing all of these things. Zion was when I decided that it was time to start working hard towards getting money saved for SRS, and it was the point when I came back and started doing a lot of coding again.

I don't know what it is about it, really. Something about being out in the wilderness and going on honest-to-goodness adventures is really awesome and inspiring.

This year, we're starting with Mystery Canyon as our first canyon. For those that don't remember, Mystery was the canyon that almost killed us last year. This year, we're getting up early and we're going to take that fucker down. Helluva first canyon for viesti, though! We're throwing her in the deep end to begin with!

Like last year, we're going to do the short and sweet Keyhole Canyon again the day after. It's just such a cute and adorable little slot canyon. Just 3 hours and you're in and out. And gods-damn do we look sexy in our wetsuits!

We're not sure what we're going to be doing after that, but we've got a few ideas. On Tuesday, we're looking to meet up with Tom Jones to possibly do one of the expert-level canyons, such as Englestead Canyon. Tom Jones literally wrote the book on canyoneering in Zion. The man is incredible, and I feel very honored that he's going to guide us through a canyon while we're out there.

Besides that, we have thoughts about doing Behunin Canyon and Spry Canyon, but no definite plans as of yet.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be terribly into the story telling this year or not, right now I'm feeling not, but I'll definitely be posting pictures of our adventures as we go.

I dropped the_local_echo, parmonster, and auntysarah at the airport this morning at 6AM, and viesti and I will be driving to Zion some time this afternoon. zoeimogen will be joining us at some point in there, but I'm not privy to when that's happening.

Keep in touch, and I'll see you all on the 28th when I get back! Wish us luck and safe adventures! Let's hope for no brushes with death this year, eh? :)

Sometimes, I feel the need to consider, talk about, or remind people what this LJ here is about.

The primary purpose that my blog serves is to be a shared record of my thoughts. Because of fucked up crap in my childhood, I have a lot of issues with memory. If I have a thought and I don't share it with someone, it becomes invisible and insubstantial. I will forget it or misremember it. My blog is a place for me to record thoughts and share them with others, to make them real and to store them for review in the future. Livejournal was vital in my forming of a self-identity and self-confidence. It was vital in learning to trust myself, my thoughts, and my emotions, and it still helps me out with that.

Related to that last, my blog is a place for me to effectively think out loud. On this blog, you'll find many essays that I've written, analyzing and contemplating a very wide variety of topics. My favorite topic is myself, analyzing my behavior, my quirks, my failings, my successes, etc. It is one of the most powerful tools for self-therapy that I have found. It gives me the ability to openly share my thoughts on what I'm trying to work through, and through the advice and feedback I get from others about it, I refine things and tinker with my brain until I figure out a way to make it work better. LJ has helped me deal with emotional issues related to relationships, sex, egotism, and so many other things.

I also have a lot of essays on here analyzing various bits of things I'm trying to figure out about the world. Much like there's a lot about myself that I don't understand, there's a lot about the world in general that I don't understand, and I use my LJ to work on that. I write a lot of essays about things as a way to try to articulate my conception of them, so that that my conceptions of the world become explicit and real. They become something I can actually manipulate and get feedback on.

After essays, this LJ becomes a record of experiences that I've had. I have a lot of intense experiences, and I like to record those experiences so that I can revisit them later. Sometimes, entries like these will simply be a record of some experience that I want to re-remember some day later. Celebrations of exciting "firsts" in my life, like my first time rock climbing or skateboarding. Records of sad events, like the passing of my mother. Stuff like that.

Other times, the entry will be my way of trying to process an event. Figuring out how to place it into my mind and what I should think about it. Was it a positive experience? A negative one? Something else? I'm exploring just how I feel about something.

After that, it becomes a place to socialize. I'll announce events, let people know where I'm at and what I'm doing, stuff like that. Basically a place to connect with people. I love interacting with other people and their ideas. I love debates and discussions and everything else. I love connecting with people like you. Learning about your experiences, hearing what you have to say about things, etc. That's a huge reason why I love LJ: The ability to read about *YOUR* experiences, thoughts, etc.

Still, besides the socialization and interaction we have here, you are what makes this LJ thing work for all of the purposes I listed above. Your comments, feedback, and responses to my entries all help me organize all of the information and emotions in my head. You help me with your advice, your comfort, your congratulations, your criticisms, your outrage, etc. Your stories about your own experiences help me to further figure myself out. I learn from you, and I grow in strength and self-confidence because of you. By sharing all of these bits of myself with you, I am able to make myself real and become a real person instead of the imaginary person that I always used to be in my head.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here for me. And thank you for being my "LJ friend." You mean more to me than you could ever imagine.

Something odd happened this week. On Monday, I came in late and really needed to run to a meeting. There was a box of Krispy Kreme donuts sitting in the lunch room, so I grabbed one of the delightful custard filled ones and wolfed it down.

mmm 300 calories, 17g of fat, and 35g of carbs (19g sugar)... so gooey and delicious and good and amazing.

Now, I haven't really eaten anything so high in fat and sugar in quite a while. I avoid the high fat sweets quite a bit, only taking exceptions for specifically low fat and low sugar ice creams and sherberts. This was quite a departure for me, because... OMG Krispie Kremes.... SOOOO good.

So here's the interesting part: For the rest of the week... NOTHING else has tasted good to me. From that moment on, all I've wanted to do was eat more of those donuts. Screw vegetables and proteins and salts and everything else. I want more donuts. Everything else just is... tasteless. I even went out to a delicious sushi restaurant this week and nothing there had any flavor. I had to use lots of soy sauce and... that green spicy stuff... to even get my tastebuds to notice.

What happened?! I've developed a bit of a good relationship with my body of late. When I'm hungry, I check in with it and it delivers up images of things that will satisfy the vitamin and mineral needs that it has. It's not perfect, and I'm still working on it, but generally speaking, it seems pretty accurate. After exercising, for example, I get a huge craving for tomatoes, protein, and pasta. I see images of veggie hamburger helper, spaghetti, and veggie-burgers with fries.

But this week, every time I check in and ask my body what it wants, I get nothing back but images of that donut. It's like my body has decided that custard filled Krispie Kreme donuts are the most nutritious and satisfying food in the world and I should get 100% of my daily caloric intake purely from them. Or at least something very much like them.

Did I overload my tastebuds or something? I've heard that human beings are naturally designed to crave fats, sugars, and salts. Sweet, fatty, and salty things in our natural environment are among the best and healthiest things for us to eat. But in our modern world, we can make things that are fatty, sugary, and salty with no other nutritional benefits. Our bodies still crave the fat, sugar, and salt, but we do not derive the benefits that the body expects. So we want more of it because our simplistic and instinctive analysis of the food gives us the false impression that *surely* it must have nutrition. Is that what's going on here?

In any case, I won't be eating another one of those for a while. I've failed to enjoy some really good meals this week because of that damn donut, if indeed the two things are related.

I have too many outstanding projects.

( Read more... )

There are two things that you don't fuck with. My friends and my family. And if you fuck with the two people in this world that I love more than anything else, you are more than on my bad side. You're liable to meet with some significant unpleasantness over it.

With that said...

Universe? For what you did last night, you are officially on notice. Don't screw up again. You don't want to see me angry... well more angry than I already am.