What a mess!
Weird day yesterday. I tried to write a piece about my new Journal title, but it got a little out of hand. I pulled out some words about the new slogan that's on my Friends' page, "Acausal Collisions and Near Misses". I really don't like the phrase that much, it is a place-holder. I tried to add a poll but Semagic messed it up, and messed it up.
Finally I went out to rake the yard, a task I should have done before going to Oakland. I caught it just before this morning's snowfall.
I chatted a little with biggaloot and others, and huggiebear02472 stopped by to hang out for just a few minutes. I finally laid down for a cat nap at 8:30, waking at 11:30, effectively missing birddog's record release gig with Certainly, Sir. at TT the Bear's. (To my shame, I also skipped Thursday's record release party by The Foundation, my friend's political hip hop band). I stayed up late just putzing on the computer, had the chance to catch up with kspsibear, which was good.
The place is a mess! I have all my family's stuff piled up in boxes. Luckily (on more than one count) I have a date later on, that is the kind of incentive I have to move stuff around. The boxes are full of memories, many packed by my mother containing unexpected emotional bombs-- like, she saved all my nursery school papers! The new organization of my room will help me to organize things and have a place for a printer, a scanner, and I will be able to deal with the thousands of slides and millions of papers and letters. (I promise "before and after" pics tomorrow.)
My friends' page used to be called "The Walrus Club". This is a line from my brother, who told me once, "That's okay, I know you belong to the Walrus Club", referring to the bears. Cute title, but frankly, the bear thing is getting pretty old, isn't it? Aren't penguins the new thing? (I am an original penguin, my high school friend admitted he wouldn't know me after 25 years by my face and body, but he would recognize my walk, I walk toe-out.)
The reason I renamed my page "Acausal Collisions and Near-Misses" is that I think that there are many common threads in the pages of people listed as "friends", and there are serial topics which may repeat (not including memes, which are designed that way). We are all subject to the same media, including the very special environment of Live Journal, and there is a definite pattern in my selection of "friends" ("picked me first", "hot bear", "demonically creative", oh, and "male", "gay", "bear", "chub", and "other"). The tendency is to find synchronicity in friends' comments. This is because we deal with the human condition, the male condition, sometimes the gay or chubby condition. I think that the urge to pull out the synchronicity of our experiences is due to a strain of philosophical positivism, that may be overly optimistic.
In statistics, most reporting examines the trends and the aggregates: 90% of men are straight, 10% are gay, 35% may have had some kind of homosexual experience, 100% die eventually. Another approach (which cannot be used to predict the outcome of a presidential race) is to study the outlyers, the cases which are far off the norm. That is where the texture of life is, the tragedy, the triumph and the uniqueness of individuality.
So I study the abnormal. Synchronicity is fine, but often it is trite. When it is profound it deserves mention. But it is more interesting to examine the experiences which seem the same on the surface, to see how they differ underneath.
All of this triggered by a motto that I am going to ditch. For a page that hardly anyone ever reads.
Since the polling feature is giving me headaches using Semagic, you are welcome to comment:
Who cares about the friends' page title, anyway?
1) Hey, I never read other people's friends pages anyway
2) I only read other people's "friends' pages" when I am deciding whether to add them as a friend- then I go back to my own page.
3) I don't even have time to read my own friends' pages
4) I prefer the term "subscriber" to "friend", it is more appropriate in the LJ context
5) Lotta hot guys (gals? !!) on my buddies' friends' page, it's part of my daily trolling of the net
6) No time, gotta run
7) Live Journal is my life, thank you for focusing on this part of our world. It is the microcosmos of human existence.
NBComment #4 is from someone's info page, I think it is an appropriate comment, "friends" is a bit presumptive, it is more accurately described as "subscribing" to read a journaler's page. Friendship comes down the line....
Finally I went out to rake the yard, a task I should have done before going to Oakland. I caught it just before this morning's snowfall.
I chatted a little with biggaloot and others, and huggiebear02472 stopped by to hang out for just a few minutes. I finally laid down for a cat nap at 8:30, waking at 11:30, effectively missing birddog's record release gig with Certainly, Sir. at TT the Bear's. (To my shame, I also skipped Thursday's record release party by The Foundation, my friend's political hip hop band). I stayed up late just putzing on the computer, had the chance to catch up with kspsibear, which was good.
The place is a mess! I have all my family's stuff piled up in boxes. Luckily (on more than one count) I have a date later on, that is the kind of incentive I have to move stuff around. The boxes are full of memories, many packed by my mother containing unexpected emotional bombs-- like, she saved all my nursery school papers! The new organization of my room will help me to organize things and have a place for a printer, a scanner, and I will be able to deal with the thousands of slides and millions of papers and letters. (I promise "before and after" pics tomorrow.)
My friends' page used to be called "The Walrus Club". This is a line from my brother, who told me once, "That's okay, I know you belong to the Walrus Club", referring to the bears. Cute title, but frankly, the bear thing is getting pretty old, isn't it? Aren't penguins the new thing? (I am an original penguin, my high school friend admitted he wouldn't know me after 25 years by my face and body, but he would recognize my walk, I walk toe-out.)
The reason I renamed my page "Acausal Collisions and Near-Misses" is that I think that there are many common threads in the pages of people listed as "friends", and there are serial topics which may repeat (not including memes, which are designed that way). We are all subject to the same media, including the very special environment of Live Journal, and there is a definite pattern in my selection of "friends" ("picked me first", "hot bear", "demonically creative", oh, and "male", "gay", "bear", "chub", and "other"). The tendency is to find synchronicity in friends' comments. This is because we deal with the human condition, the male condition, sometimes the gay or chubby condition. I think that the urge to pull out the synchronicity of our experiences is due to a strain of philosophical positivism, that may be overly optimistic.
In statistics, most reporting examines the trends and the aggregates: 90% of men are straight, 10% are gay, 35% may have had some kind of homosexual experience, 100% die eventually. Another approach (which cannot be used to predict the outcome of a presidential race) is to study the outlyers, the cases which are far off the norm. That is where the texture of life is, the tragedy, the triumph and the uniqueness of individuality.
So I study the abnormal. Synchronicity is fine, but often it is trite. When it is profound it deserves mention. But it is more interesting to examine the experiences which seem the same on the surface, to see how they differ underneath.
All of this triggered by a motto that I am going to ditch. For a page that hardly anyone ever reads.
Since the polling feature is giving me headaches using Semagic, you are welcome to comment:
Who cares about the friends' page title, anyway?
1) Hey, I never read other people's friends pages anyway
2) I only read other people's "friends' pages" when I am deciding whether to add them as a friend- then I go back to my own page.
3) I don't even have time to read my own friends' pages
4) I prefer the term "subscriber" to "friend", it is more appropriate in the LJ context
5) Lotta hot guys (gals? !!) on my buddies' friends' page, it's part of my daily trolling of the net
6) No time, gotta run
7) Live Journal is my life, thank you for focusing on this part of our world. It is the microcosmos of human existence.
NBComment #4 is from someone's info page, I think it is an appropriate comment, "friends" is a bit presumptive, it is more accurately described as "subscribing" to read a journaler's page. Friendship comes down the line....