Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

Since I have to work this Saturday I got today off instead.  While the thought of just being lazy and not really doing a thing crossed my mind more than once, I did some productive things as well.  I applied for a passport - a first for me.  I’ve never been out of the country (other than several trips to Canada), but I’m hoping to fix that sometime next year.  Hopefully after the wedding we’ll be able to go somewhere fun, like Ireland.  We’ll see how that goes.

I’ve also been doing some cleaning around the kitchen, and am making my chicken soup.  Chicken soup is one of my favorite foods of all time.  I make the stock from scratch - it’s really an all day activity so I have to do it on a day I don’t work.  The weather looked sufficiently gloomy for chicken soup so I’ve got the stock pot in the kitchen boiling away.  The aroma is already making me drool.  I don’t really have a recipe I follow, it’s more just done from memory though I should write it down at some point so I can share it with others.  It’s a slightly modified version of the chicken soup my mom always made.

That’s another thing to add to my todo list: make a page for recipes and make a page for homebrew recipes.

I couldn’t tell you what exactly it is about phones that freak me out, but there is something. It takes a great deal of physical and mental effort on my part to work up the ability to make a phone call. Answering the phones isn’t a huge deal - more often than not it’s a slight annoyance (though in fairness to those who call once I’m actually talking to them I’m fine, it’s just the fact that the phone is ringing that triggers some sort of negative response in my mind). I’ve literally spent hours sometimes trying to make a call. When I’m calling someone I care about it doesn’t take as long, but it’s still a difficult process for me. Like I said, I can’t explain why it’s this way. There’s no particular feeling of dread - it’s more as if a physical barrier has been errected that impedes my progress the closer I get to making that call. There’s been times I’ve hung up the phone before I even finished dialing all the digits in someones numbers. Fortunately most of my friends are perfectly fine communicating with me over such means as e-mail or instant messages, both of which I thrive on. I like others. I love communicating - it’s just that the phone is not a medium I am adept at. To complicate matters I have trouble hearing what people are saying on the phone. On average I’d say in a given conversation I don’t actually hear every third or fourth word. When talking to someone I am familiar with its not so much a problem as my brain sort of anticipates what word would best fit there based on who I am talking to, so I comprehend what is being said. When answering the phone at work, however, often times I have to get people to repeat themselves a few times… especially with names. For instance someone with an easy name like Bob Clark calls and I go to take a message and to me, at first, his name sounds like blahblahblaaaahblah. Fortunately its rare that people call here with terribly complex names - like if I didn’t know her and my friend Shoshi Kamholtz called I swear I’d have to get her to repeat herself about ten times - and likely she’d just get annoyed and hang up. I know I would.

So for all my friends out there who I neglect to call as often as I should I do apologize. This is in no way meant to be an explanation or a cop out - I just wanted to share my perspective with you. Does it change anything? No. But a little understanding sometimes can go a long way and fortunately my friends are quite understanding.

Want to talk about all kinds of server messups, and other issues. That’s what I get for giving someone else temporary administrative access on this server. You can bet I won’t be making that mistake again - at least not without testing their OS X server fu first. I still need to do a little tweaking to get the speed back up - it’s running a little slow, but I haven’t investigated why yet. First things first, I wanted to get the Travesty proper back up and running.

Since getting engaged I’ve actually been trying to think things out more and make a plan of attack in regards to long term projects. At the very least I’m trying to outline the projects I want to get done. I haven’t set any type of deadlines, though it probably would be good to as I work better when I actually have a set time table for getting something done. In that regard I’ve been working out a check list of things I want to do to both the server end of this site, and the actual web presence part. There’s several projects I’ve always wanted to do, but for all sorts of reasons never actually did. I now have much more clear of a goal for what I want to do with this website. Some parts are still vague and unstructured, but I’ve got some basic goals set. I’m even looking in to various types of task based software to help me keep track of these things, and time lines, etc. Self-improvement, what a weird concept, but for a change it actually feels less like I’m just forcing myself to do something, and more like I’m actually trying to declutter and take an active stance in to improving the self a little. No, I’m not going to become some task oriented freak with every daily aspect of their life planned out months in advance. I’m only trying to give myself a basic framework - mostly in regards to long term projects. I still have no clue what I’ll be doing this weekend, and quite frankly I like that.

Yes, I was a big dork and read the Seventh Harry Potter the same day that it arrived. It took roughly 10 hours so basically that’s all I did Saturday. Did I enjoy it? Yes, I did indeed. I also wasn’t terribly shocked by some of the revelations in it, and I’m still not sure whether or not I’m satisfied with how it all came together, but overall I enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s the depth of the characters that really makes all of the books work for me - that and all the little details of the wizarding world. The stories were always fairly elementary, but they are told well and that makes up for a lot. I can say I’m satisfied that the series (at least this story arc) has come to an end.

Now I’ll be going back to the reading of the Dresden Files series. I’ve read the first four books in that series. Again, it’s made up of really deep characters and lots of interesting little details that makes the world feel real.

I need to do some reviews of books - I read a lot. Okay, I don’t read as much as I used to and as much as I would like, but I do have a degree in English. I could, after all, do something at least moderately useful with the time spent in school.

After fracturing my back and hip when I was younger I always knew later in life it would lead to problems. Of course back then I didn’t think about it or care much because that was so much further down the line it seemed like forever. Well welcome to forever.

The other day my back locked up to where even sitting up wasn’t an option. Taking aspirin for it was like using a band-aid to patch up a freshly cut off limb. I upgraded to something a little stronger and that helped me sleep for the night. When I woke up this morning I felt fine, until I got out of bed and I nearly crashed to the floor.

Still, here I am at work (how’s that for work ethic?), just praying time goes by a lot faster because the pain goes deep in to the bone. If you’ve never experienced that feeling I recommend you do everything in your power to keep it that way. I really don’t want to take anything too strong for the pain right now as I doubt I’d be able to function today.

All I can think about right now is going home, laying down with the heating bad and a happy little white pill.