doing better, despite it all
i guess i'm done procrastinating with the update... sometimes i surprise myself with my ability to put just about anything off. and procrastinating blog posts on here, despite my many self-justifiable reasons for it, sadly has its drawbacks... firstly, i may put it off long enough to when it becomes irrelevant, which may have happened a few times. and secondly, with my horrific memory i may very well forget topics/experiences that i intended to blog about.
so, why then, the procrastination?
besides being one of the laziest people you would ever meet, i do have other justifications that (surprisingly enough) far outweigh the sloth factor. the big one being a simple case of writer's block. despite having all these ideas and feelings and opinions that are churning around in my head just trying to burst out onto my blog, i always find it hard to put them in words. you have no idea how many times i've got something to blog about, popped open a posting page, and then blanked - this process is usually followed by me staring at the blinking cursor anywhere from 20-45 mins before giving up and logging off without posting. and, given enough time, the intended post will eventually become fodder for any of the 2 aforementioned scenarios - the statute of relevance will expire, or the retention in my memory banks will fail. exiled into oblivion, all because of the dreaded writer's block. a grim fate indeed.
anyways, enough of that tangent i suppose. moving along then... updates. as you may have implied, i am doing better (or at least i THINK i am...), despite it all... now, the first part of that statement ("doing better", in case i lose anyone here) is a comparative phrase, and here i'm referring to the state of mind that i've been in for the past several posts. the second half of the statement ("despite it all", again, for clarification's sake), of course, implies that there really shouldn't be any reason for me to be doing better.
so... situational update first i suppose. the thing that's been the most prominent issue so far has been the death of the house's air conditioning unit. o yeah. no a/c in the dead of summer. funnn... thankfully it's been a pretty mild summer so far this year... (relatively speaking, of course... it's got to 110°F since the a/c crapped out on us.) that, and thankfully i've had experience dealing with this situation (the studio that i lived in when i first got to Fresno back in '04 didn't have a/c AT ALL...) so this isn't anything new. having said that, i'm surprised the a/c in this place has lasted as long as it has - the tech who came to check it out told me it's 34 years old. DAMN.
i swear, all the electrical appliances in this place are either dead or dying... back when we first moved in, we had to get the washer, garbage disposal, and dishwasher replaced. then, a couple of weeks ago the dryer died... oh yeah that happened too... the a/c, last week. and now the refrigerator is starting to go.... *sigh* that list actually covered ALL the major appliances that should be in the average american home...
another news tidbit regarding the status of the house - the roommates will be moving out at the end of this month - Sammy & Seth has bought their own place, and will be moving in over there... (congrats!) this, of course, means that my share of rent/utilities/phone/internet/tv/water&garbage will jump up next month... lol.
despite the bleakness of all that, however, i think i'm doing pretty good... i'm coming off a pretty interesting couple of weeks... managed to catch Scott Pilgrim vs the World and Inception (both in theaters, on successive weekends), so i think that may have lifted my spirits a little. and yes, i do recommend watching them both. STRONGLY. OMG YOU NEED TO GO WATCH THEM NOW!!!
also on the topic of my mental state - i'm working hard on just trying to stay positive and keep in mind that i am blessed with all that i have... a lot of people have less, and undeservedly so. again, this newfound outlook is inspired by a very humbling and relatively closely-experienced loss (of sorts) - an acquaintance of mine has recently suffered total paralysis from the neck down. : /
yeah, it's definitely a wake-up call. (his outlook is very bleak indeed - even if he DOES regain ANY mobility, he'll have about as much motor skills as a newborn. fuck.)
so, again... i AM blessed. i've got decent health, a job, a roof over my head, internet, good friends... life is good.
having said that, it doesn't mean i'm 100% content either - there are areas i can work on, there is room to grow... and i think i am doing just that, albeit in baby steps.
on the personal front, i am doing a lot better... while i may always have a weak spot for a certain someone (the root of all the depression i've been going through), i DO feel like i'm getting over him... i've graduated from emotional/psychological damage control to meh, so that's encouraging... there are many issues still unresolved, and i'm seeing now that i'm as much of the problem as he was/is. i may or may not address it any further, but for now i'm fine with things left the way they are.
i'm also putting myself out there more - am chatting with several new friends, and getting back in touch with old ones. i even managed to muster the courage to ask someone out. sure, i was shot down, but what matters is i asked... now if only our communications could go back to being as awkward-free as before... lol.
another interesting happenstance... and i'm not really sure if i should be posting this on here, but i figure it's surreal enough to share... lol. i was hit up on chat by a couple... independently. and simultaneously. LOL. yeah. oh it was plenty weird. imagine having the same general conversation in duplicate - struck up a conversation with the first one, exchanged pleasantries, asked what we were each up to, then getting hit up by the second half within 5-10mins of the first... exchanging pleasantries again, finding out that they were watching the same movie, then eventually figuring/finding out that they're together... but obviously not telling each other that they're chatting with me (the same person)... TRIPPY. (also, if your mind operates something like mine, i'm sure the word THREEWAY has popped into yours... LOL. alas, one can only hope.)
in other news... work has been about the same. the schedule has stabilized somewhat now that school is back in session, leaving me with far more predictable scheduling. this is a good thing, as i've recently been re-inspired to explore alternate avenues of income/employment... nothing concrete yet, but definitely have a few ideas brewing... for the first time in a long while.
one of the things that i've been thinking about, and i'm sad that it's come to this, is the death of Google Wave - i'm disappointed to see something so exciting die due to lack of adoption. i saw the possibilities it once held for the future, possibilities that may still come to pass? the good news is that it lives on, in a way. google has released most of the code into open-source... it's just that google will no longer actively develop it themselves. and here's where i think i come in. i'm interested in picking up the torch, so to speak... although i'm not sure if i'm up for it. it's been the better part of a decade since i've dabbled in code. forget a refresher - given MY memory, i'll be starting from scratch for all practical purposes! this is gonna be quite the trip if i decide to pursue it... it'd be a daunting task even for seasoned coders, let alone someone who's so out of it i may as well consider myself a novice.
anyways... that's about all that i wanted to touch on for now. sorry for having rambled on so much - it's been a VERY interesting few weeks. also, there's been a lot of introspection and self-evaluation lately... it IS, after all, that time of year... yes, tomorrow's my birthday. it's the time of year that EVERYONE goes through this, personally... or at least, i think that everyone SHOULD, anyway.
i think that's it. peace out.
p.s. there may or may not be a special post tomorrow... lol
so, why then, the procrastination?
besides being one of the laziest people you would ever meet, i do have other justifications that (surprisingly enough) far outweigh the sloth factor. the big one being a simple case of writer's block. despite having all these ideas and feelings and opinions that are churning around in my head just trying to burst out onto my blog, i always find it hard to put them in words. you have no idea how many times i've got something to blog about, popped open a posting page, and then blanked - this process is usually followed by me staring at the blinking cursor anywhere from 20-45 mins before giving up and logging off without posting. and, given enough time, the intended post will eventually become fodder for any of the 2 aforementioned scenarios - the statute of relevance will expire, or the retention in my memory banks will fail. exiled into oblivion, all because of the dreaded writer's block. a grim fate indeed.
anyways, enough of that tangent i suppose. moving along then... updates. as you may have implied, i am doing better (or at least i THINK i am...), despite it all... now, the first part of that statement ("doing better", in case i lose anyone here) is a comparative phrase, and here i'm referring to the state of mind that i've been in for the past several posts. the second half of the statement ("despite it all", again, for clarification's sake), of course, implies that there really shouldn't be any reason for me to be doing better.
so... situational update first i suppose. the thing that's been the most prominent issue so far has been the death of the house's air conditioning unit. o yeah. no a/c in the dead of summer. funnn... thankfully it's been a pretty mild summer so far this year... (relatively speaking, of course... it's got to 110°F since the a/c crapped out on us.) that, and thankfully i've had experience dealing with this situation (the studio that i lived in when i first got to Fresno back in '04 didn't have a/c AT ALL...) so this isn't anything new. having said that, i'm surprised the a/c in this place has lasted as long as it has - the tech who came to check it out told me it's 34 years old. DAMN.
i swear, all the electrical appliances in this place are either dead or dying... back when we first moved in, we had to get the washer, garbage disposal, and dishwasher replaced. then, a couple of weeks ago the dryer died... oh yeah that happened too... the a/c, last week. and now the refrigerator is starting to go.... *sigh* that list actually covered ALL the major appliances that should be in the average american home...
another news tidbit regarding the status of the house - the roommates will be moving out at the end of this month - Sammy & Seth has bought their own place, and will be moving in over there... (congrats!) this, of course, means that my share of rent/utilities/phone/internet/tv/water&garbage will jump up next month... lol.
despite the bleakness of all that, however, i think i'm doing pretty good... i'm coming off a pretty interesting couple of weeks... managed to catch Scott Pilgrim vs the World and Inception (both in theaters, on successive weekends), so i think that may have lifted my spirits a little. and yes, i do recommend watching them both. STRONGLY. OMG YOU NEED TO GO WATCH THEM NOW!!!
also on the topic of my mental state - i'm working hard on just trying to stay positive and keep in mind that i am blessed with all that i have... a lot of people have less, and undeservedly so. again, this newfound outlook is inspired by a very humbling and relatively closely-experienced loss (of sorts) - an acquaintance of mine has recently suffered total paralysis from the neck down. : /
yeah, it's definitely a wake-up call. (his outlook is very bleak indeed - even if he DOES regain ANY mobility, he'll have about as much motor skills as a newborn. fuck.)
so, again... i AM blessed. i've got decent health, a job, a roof over my head, internet, good friends... life is good.
having said that, it doesn't mean i'm 100% content either - there are areas i can work on, there is room to grow... and i think i am doing just that, albeit in baby steps.
on the personal front, i am doing a lot better... while i may always have a weak spot for a certain someone (the root of all the depression i've been going through), i DO feel like i'm getting over him... i've graduated from emotional/psychological damage control to meh, so that's encouraging... there are many issues still unresolved, and i'm seeing now that i'm as much of the problem as he was/is. i may or may not address it any further, but for now i'm fine with things left the way they are.
i'm also putting myself out there more - am chatting with several new friends, and getting back in touch with old ones. i even managed to muster the courage to ask someone out. sure, i was shot down, but what matters is i asked... now if only our communications could go back to being as awkward-free as before... lol.
another interesting happenstance... and i'm not really sure if i should be posting this on here, but i figure it's surreal enough to share... lol. i was hit up on chat by a couple... independently. and simultaneously. LOL. yeah. oh it was plenty weird. imagine having the same general conversation in duplicate - struck up a conversation with the first one, exchanged pleasantries, asked what we were each up to, then getting hit up by the second half within 5-10mins of the first... exchanging pleasantries again, finding out that they were watching the same movie, then eventually figuring/finding out that they're together... but obviously not telling each other that they're chatting with me (the same person)... TRIPPY. (also, if your mind operates something like mine, i'm sure the word THREEWAY has popped into yours... LOL. alas, one can only hope.)
in other news... work has been about the same. the schedule has stabilized somewhat now that school is back in session, leaving me with far more predictable scheduling. this is a good thing, as i've recently been re-inspired to explore alternate avenues of income/employment... nothing concrete yet, but definitely have a few ideas brewing... for the first time in a long while.
one of the things that i've been thinking about, and i'm sad that it's come to this, is the death of Google Wave - i'm disappointed to see something so exciting die due to lack of adoption. i saw the possibilities it once held for the future, possibilities that may still come to pass? the good news is that it lives on, in a way. google has released most of the code into open-source... it's just that google will no longer actively develop it themselves. and here's where i think i come in. i'm interested in picking up the torch, so to speak... although i'm not sure if i'm up for it. it's been the better part of a decade since i've dabbled in code. forget a refresher - given MY memory, i'll be starting from scratch for all practical purposes! this is gonna be quite the trip if i decide to pursue it... it'd be a daunting task even for seasoned coders, let alone someone who's so out of it i may as well consider myself a novice.
anyways... that's about all that i wanted to touch on for now. sorry for having rambled on so much - it's been a VERY interesting few weeks. also, there's been a lot of introspection and self-evaluation lately... it IS, after all, that time of year... yes, tomorrow's my birthday. it's the time of year that EVERYONE goes through this, personally... or at least, i think that everyone SHOULD, anyway.
i think that's it. peace out.
p.s. there may or may not be a special post tomorrow... lol