All Day Today

Today I'll content myself with a simple recap of events. As I write this, I am coming down from the third of three major events which composed my Saturday. The first was improv practice. It was good, but different on account of having a substitute coach. That was an uncomfortable experience, but discomfort is often a good sign of growth. It isn't always, but it felt so this time. The coach was going my way after, and so we talked all the way back on the subway.

Shortly after that, there was a standup comedy show held at a nearby hot dog restaurant. This was the second such show, and it was as good as the first. I had a nice Polish sausage, soda and fries. They went decently with the show. I often got preoccupied by my friend, who I repeatedly tried to pickpocket, and also by a cute woman who works at the restaurant. One never knows how to perceive signs from someone who has a professional interest in making you like them.

Margin For Error

In recent years, I have begun to straight up a little bit. I have placed more importance on things like getting up at a decent hour, keeping things tidy and all the rest. I'm hardly perfect at any of those things, or even close to it. I do have a system that basically holds together and at least gives me the veneer of being put together. I hope to be solid all the way through someday, but what I have is enough for now.

It's mostly enough. It's fragile, though. I never have felt that I adapted well to a complication or an alteration in things. It was not unusual when I was driving for a minor road closure in an area I knew well to make me hopelessly lost. Disruptions in areas like doing the laundry or cooking a meal are similarly fatal. Imagine my surprise a few years ago when a personality test claimed I was good at adaptability.

Rest And Relaxation

As I write this, I'm concluding a fairly full day. It's true that I didn't have anything going on in the morning, nor could I have. You see, the previous day had been rather full as well, and concluded with a strenuous lesson in pole dancing. As this was the legitimate variety, it was a tremendous workout, and left me red-faced, gasping for breath and all bruised up. As a consequence, I left the following morning open for recuperation. It proved inadequate.

After trying to rest, I had little choice but to begin my day. My first major event was an improv class. Any attempt to prevent that from being physical would have been futile, but I did have the good sense not to ride my bicycle. I did not like my chances of being able to lift it over my head, as is commonly necessary when combining it with the subway. It also did not help matters that it was raining on this day.

Enviable Problem

Not for the first time, I find myself struggling with how to accept praise. I know how obnoxious that sounds, and I don't mean it as some indirect form of bragging. Trumpeting my own accomplishments is as unpleasant to me as I imagine it sounds to others. I don't think I have any more than my own fair share anyway. Other people just seem to process it all better than I do. I'm getting better though, or I think I am.

When someone complements me on something, the first impulse I have is to correct them- to point out whatever mitigating factors make their compliment less valid or entirely invalid. They don't like that, of course. It goes beyond modesty and really veers into the territory of insult, calling into question as you are their judgement. I've gotten to where whatever someone says that is earnestly meant as praise, I say thank you, adding nothing more to it than credit to others where it is due. That seems to go over all right.

Two Days To Die For

The past couple of days have really been something. I hope I can duplicate them in perpetuity, and I'm sure that you will easily see why when I describe them in broad strokes. They've been productive days, and while this is partly explained by the fact that I got up at a decent hour in spite of having no early engagements, that can hardly explain it entirely. I suspect that there may be something supernatural at work here, or something religious.

 Yesterday I woke up at a tolerable hour of the morning, although by no means what most people would call an exceptionally early one. Let's just say that it was in the morning, and I think that's enough. The big thing that I managed to achieve was over on the Twitter end, where I got ahead of the day's work for the first time in a while. I was awfully proud of myself for getting to work during the morning and afternoon, when I actually do my best work.

The Meanderer

It's really something, the way the time gets away from you. Many is the night that I have realized at some point that I said farewell to my friends (after the end of the night's fun) some three hours ago. They say that time flies when you're having fun, but they neglected to mention how it does likewise when you're engaged in a lot of rather frivolous activity. As a matter of fact, I am writing this amidst a lot of that very thing.

I go about every day with the best of intentions, and sometimes in totally good faith. I badly would like to be someone who habitually gets up early and goes to bed likewise, but I have always been someone who hold on with a death grip to whatever state of consciousness that he has at the moment. When I sleep, I want to sleep forever, and I am equally committed to remaining awake at the other end of things. It's a bad habit.

Readiness

I have been thinking about things that I can do to improve my results in life for the new year. Everyone does that, and plenty probably are thinking just what I am. I don't put any stock in the "Secret" stuff, where you ask the universe for things and it gives them to you, but I do have an idea that's not wholly different. I got to thinking about it after a friend suggested that I might be interested in buying a queen-size bed from a different acquaintance.

I may have in fact outlined this theory in the past, but it's possible that the time passed has changed my outlook a little. Anyway, it seems to me that the thing to do is to be ready for things. In the case of the bed, my shortsighted thinking would be that because I have a twin size bed and am single, I'm set. The thing to consider though is that I am all the more likely in a way to remain single if there is no space in my bed for a significant other.

What A Day

This past Sunday was quite a day for me, by which I mean it was just jam-packed with activities. It began very early. I needed to get up at six o'clock, and so I of course woke up well before my alarm clock: four o'clock. I would like to have gone back to sleep, but my day had started. My first order of business upon leaving the house was reporting to my church for participation in a production of 'A Christmas Carol'. I was to be there at 7:45 in the morning, and was.

The whole time I was there discharging my responsibilities, I had several concerns on my mind. One was my fantasy football league, which was that day in the midst of its championship week. Would I win my third place game and finish in the money, or lose and finish an ignominious fourth? My mind was criminally drawn towards this matter in spite of my total inability to affect the matter, though I feel I managed it all right. I would later win third place.

Who Are You Kidding?

People really make me wonder with their schemes. The way they believe they can put one over on others or avoid an unpleasant outcome with feeble little ruses is rather amusing. I'm sure I'm in that number as well, but there are some things I don't see as viable. I once served as a middleman in between a devoutly religious friend and various retail outlets which he was forbidden to exchange money with on the Sabbath. I was unconvinced that the Almighty would be fooled, but was content to help anyway.

In another, more pervasive case, we superstitious humans place a great deal of importance on avoiding the number thirteen (I guess we really never will get too far from the bewildered, overmatched caveman who possessed not even the intellect to overcome his physical deficiencies). We avoid it however we can, even when the only way is to not avoid it but agree that we have. It remains common practice to omit the thirteenth floor from official recognition, regardless of how tall the building really is. If it's less tall than that, it's easy. If it's much taller, it's still pretty easy. When it's exactly that tall, it's a rather transparent ploy. A building I regularly have reason to enter refers to its uppermost floor as the penthouse rather than the thirteenth floor.

Aftermath

I don't exert myself physically beyond an unusual amount of walking, but when I do the evidence is written all over my body more eloquently than I could hope to duplicate here. I think that it's partly due to my adoption of an attitude similar to the protagonist in 'Gattaca'. Many of the things I do I am not equipped to come through safely and efficiently. When I go out at night via public transportation, I know I won't be able to come back the same way late at night. Rather than staying home, I just do it anyway and figure I'll work something out. It's similar with physical activities.

Take roller skating for example. I ought to know better than to do that. I don't have a good track record, and there's no safety net for me if something does happen. Protecting oneself from all the harm in life is protecting oneself from life itself though, and so I go ahead with it anyway. The other day I did just that, and as I write this, I suffer the consequences in private. There are bruises around my knees, and while I don't have any color swatches on hand, I can safely say that they are some faint shade of purple. It's a good thing that it's not obvious shorts weather at the moment. I would hate to have my good looks spoiled.

Skin In The Game

The other day, I was listening to "Standing Outside The Fire" by Garth Brooks. After years of jeering him, I've become a fan to a limited extent. I think it was the garish, campy outfits that had me fooled, but they couldn't hide the good songs he's got. The particular song I mentioned got me thinking about some heavy concepts. It talks about the exposure of oneself to harm being essential to the process of experiencing life as fully as can be done. It's not the first time I've given thought to the concept of risk and its necessity. I do so often precisely because of the tremendous difficulty I have in shouldering certain risks. Following through on my desire to ask women out remains a shaky proposition, and not for any rational reason.

I've decided that it's even worse than I thought, for it's not even a question of taking risks. Framing the issue as being one of accepting risk suggest that there's some chance of the thing feared not happening. There's just no hope of that, for it's not a coin flip with a very good chance of landing your way- it's maybe like a lifetime string of flips, and what you hope for is that you win enough flips to finish ahead of the mean when you're done. Any life lived with the willingness to risk must be lived necessarily with the willingness to lose, because you will lose, and probably often. I don't mean to paint such a grim picture  for it's certainly not hopeless. In the end, you do lose it all, but only because you can't take it with you, as they say. The hope is that the bulk of it comes only on that day.

Shake It Off

Poor performances are a natural part of life. No one manages to avoid them. As many self-help books probably note, the thing that separates the more successful people is how they respond to such occurrences. I recently had what felt like a rather poor outing in Toastmasters, committing mistakes left and right as well as delivering a sub-par evaluation of a fellow member's speech. As so often seems to be the case, this followed what may be called a very successful meeting, wherein I won both parts of the speech contest, earning the right to move on to the next round in each. It may be no coincidence that one comes after the other like that. In any event, at such a time one ought to consider the way forward, and I usually do so.

I'd say that usually my impulse is to jump right back into the fray, and the sooner the better. I suppose that this is generally judged to be an admirable trait. It certainly can be quite positive to have no fear in attempting again what one has failed at. Many worthwhile endeavors can result in painful setbacks, and those who overcome the pain and go on to succeed with a fresh attempt are deservedly graded a step above the rest. On the other hand, it can be unhelpful to try hopping back into the saddle while still smarting from the fall. It can be something like trying to start a car, or extracting that same car from soft soil. The more you try in such cases, the worse things get. Thus one must judge whether doing the same thing with greater exertion will have one result or the other. They say that insanity is doing the same thing again and again while expecting a different outcome. I don't know whether I agree with that so much. It seems rather simplistic, and I'll wager it's not officially part of any psychological school of thought.

Got A Light?

There are certain little things that it feels to me like you ought to have on your person as you are out living life. Some of them are genuinely useful for everyone, such as house keys. Others are needed by some and disdained by others, like an inhaler. What interests me are items that some want or need and others like to carry as an affectation. I am not immune to that. I'm in fact rather susceptible to whims and fashions to the extent that they are easy and cheap to adopt.

Something that I carried for some time for that very reason is a Zippo lighter. I was working at a summer camp when one turned up with no apparent owner. When one never materialized, I took it for myself. I myself would lose it just days later in a movie theater. I promptly replaced it when I spotted them for sale behind the counter at a drugstore. Now, you must understand that I don't smoke, nor have I ever done so. Nonetheless, I had in my mind the notion that it was a handy thing to have. Moreover, I believed that it was a kind of manly talisman, and that possessing it imbued me with a greater level of coolness than I would otherwise have.

Out Of The Habit

As much social interaction as I have now with my always-expanding circle of friends and well-wishers, there remain a lot of things I do on my own. Some of them seem to require no conscious effort on my part to stay on the ball. Perusing the internet and watching TV are things which I find it easy to stick to. Likewise eating, at least most of the time. Other things prove to be a lot tougher, even if they're things I want to do. It seems like it might be interesting to consider why that might be.

I guess that there are a lot of things that I want to like, rather than that I actually like. I had made an effort to get into comic books, but got out of that after a number of weeks. Comics are not exactly like the laundry or paying bills- they're supposed to be fun and without any difficult hurdles to jump. They ought to be like ice cream- high reward, low effort. And yet, the pursuit of reading them is something I lapse from readily. I think that they are a deceptively difficult thing to keep up with. So it is, perhaps, with a lot of these things.