Last night I had my pal rockit over to have a beer and catch up. He's about to land his dream job. -go get 'em rockit! As he was leaving I was holding my son and my son vomited all over me. I spent the night between intervals of holding him, feeding him, and consoling him (my son, not rockit). I have a job interview in about two hours. I'm so tired and unprepared and I feel like I'm getting sick. Sorry for such a weird scene yesterday rockit.
1. Ask high impact questions 2. Be passionate 3. Close at the end I've got this!
Thank you! I feel like I just hit a grand slam! It went very well.
That was actually a rental property. I don't live there anymore. But it was a nice little studio. That said, I far prefer our home where we live now. I have no intentions of moving. b_b and insomniasexx are the only hubskiers that don't live in NC that have visited it. Ahem.....mk.
Damn, I could've sworn that was the new house. Oh well. But yeah one thing I'm beginning to grasp is if you can latch onto one of those places in the States that has an actual feeling and livability attached to it, like Boston or Smokies NC or west coast, stick there. I've been spending most of my free time lately respecting in how lucky as hell I got in that regard.
Austin High football stadium two days ago I'm looking at some places on Lake Monona in Madison. Happy about it.
Also: edit: I have never seen this music video. Spoiler warning: IT IS AMAZING. I can also see whom Dallas Green stole his glasses from.
I was NOT prepared for how awesome that video was... thenewgreen - if those two vids don't pump you up then.... I don't know what else we could do for you. Knock em dead pal.
There's not much better in life than a good coffee at a good coffeeshop. The sort that is simultaneously spacious, but cozy; full of persons and personality, but empty; The sort where they know your order, but don't engage in bad small talk (just the good kind).
The finish line is in sight! Just four weeks remaining. Why does the final stretch seem to take the longest amount of time? I had my last regular lecture today, and I'll finish Thesis v1.0 tomorrow. Next week's gonna be fun - I'm invited to a think tank session on self-driving vehicles with the Dutch DOT.
So I've set the goal of trying to improve myself over the summer by being more social and exercising. I've decided every day to do something related to either fitness or friends (when possible), and I just finished running my first 1/2 mile! I'm pretty out of shape, so the run was fairly difficult,, but I feel great afterwards, and I think I'll be able to commit to it. The ultimate goal is to run a half marathon with my dad in a year's time on Achill Island, in Ireland. That's where my family originates from, and we have several relatives on the island, but I haven't visited in 8 years. This is a nice goal to set for myself, something cool I can do with my dad, and a way to connect with my roots. Hopefully I'm able to stick with it and make this happen!
Good luck! I have started (and stopped) running many times. I would encourage you to go very slow, and also to get out there in 2-3 days and run a whole damn mile. I am pretty certain you can do it. (If you go slow.) If you pay attention to which part of your body is under the most strain when you run, you will be able to identify what is your "problem point" or your limiting agent. For most people it is actually their lungs; if you are gasping and out of breath, you are going too fast. If you are gasping and out of breath but your legs feel mostly okay, then lung strength/capacity is your weak spot. Or if you can keep breathing just fine but your legs are awfully weak and painful, they are your weak spot. the important thing is to train to the weak spot. So if it's your lungs, you want to run slow enough that you don't run out of breath. If it's your legs, I guess you would have to build distance to build those muscles, before you would be able to see how fast you could go with your lung capacity. What I like to remember is that humans were made to run. We aren't very fast, but humans are THE marathon-running animal. We were built for stamina and we were built to run for long periods - I mean, "were built" or "evolved," you know. We weren't cheetahs who take out their prey with insane, but short-lived, speed chases. We had endurance. We would follow our prey patiently until we wore it down. Running is in your nature. It's in your blood. Everyone at Hubski can laugh at me for how unscientific and probably hog-wash-y it is but I find it inspiring :) I am a slow runner. But I am pretty convinced that if you are in reasonable shape, especially if you are young, you'll surprise yourself with your ability to complete a mile. (Just not your speed.)
Just had blood work done today, after having my first meeting with my HRT doctor on monday. I was going to do it tuesday, but totally ruined my fasting before hand. I got up, groggy, that morning, and made myself toast. I finished the first piece, then was like "... fuck." anyways, next appt is next week, where if the blood tests are good and the physical is good, I get to do step 1 of HRT - Anti-androgens. Needless to say, pretty stoked. In other news, I have my first private student. It's... a vocal student? whatever pays the bills, I guess. Might also be picking up a couple of bass gigs with a band whose bassist needs to deal with some home shit. Who knows what else might come around? I'm hopeful about my future at the moment. Well, hopeful is too strong a word. Cautiously optimistic, let's say.
Got my first and only 4.0 in my last semester of college, my car might break down on the drive cross-country but I'm going to go for it anyway, I started Tindering again, and I registered a domain a couple days ago.
AND CHRISTOPHER OWENS DROPPED A WHOLE ALBUM OUT OF NOWHERE TODAY WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE
MUSIC OF MY HEART
What a nice piece! if you've got a song
go on and sing it
if it's a feeling let it take you away
and if it's real
don't have to explain it
maybe there's nothing else that you gotta say it's not 1+1 or ABC
it's not a formula or a mystery
it's not right or wrong
it's just the music of my heart
His Broken Dreams Club EP has some of the best lyrics I've ever read and listened to. You might be interested to know that he grew up in a cult, Children of God.
Shout out to _refugee_, what have you been up to? I haven't seen you in a while. Have you been working on anything cool? Hope all is well
Hello! I know, I have been a virtual ghost. Thank you everyone who's shouted out to me on anything and or messaged me, etc. I have looked at everything, I have probably not read all of it or even most, but I have gotten in bits here and there. So why have I been so gosh-darned busy that my activity on Hubski has (probably actually for the first time ever) been noticeably - inactive? WELL! Within the past 7 days, I've: - Moved (exactly 1 week ago) - Dropped my one and only big brother off at the airport so he could move to Portland, OR, a place I have never been to. (exactly 1 week ago) - Said goodbye to my favorite erstwhile bartender/sometime crush, who is moving to LA - Had the worst hangover of my life (day after bartender's going away party) - Walked on average 12,800-odd steps a day (peak: 19585; low is in the 8000s I think) - Signed up for yoga classes that someone bought me a gift certificate for like, 5 years ago - Actually finally put up a Kenning Journal blog post again - Showed a little backbone to my parents and sister (on separate occasions, but which was very needed) - Cooked a guy a really nice dinner I mean, other things in there as well. But basically I've been radio silent because I have been busy, busy, busy. And walking, walking, walking. Hopefully it'll be good for my head and my body and also that aggressive thing we've talked about on and off - natch? The new house is in a lovely wooded area slightly removed from my favorite town ever, which is eminently walkable. The location is amazing. My roommates? Not so much. They are 2 confirmed gay bachelor men. I know for sure one is a slob. I have a sinking suspicion that the other one is, too. My cat is still adjusting so that's been stressful too - there's been an amount of second-guessing myself about this move. However, in the long run, I think it will be amazing. The location is just spectacular, I will get these men whipped into shape/afraid of me/to wash their dishes within a reasonable time after dirtying them, and I keep reminding myself that I made the very conscious choice (though not perhaps phrased exactly this way) of freedom over luxury. Living with my parents was very easy in many ways. Comparatively, it truly was a luxurious way of life - they have a biweekly maid, for instance, so cleaning just was never an issue. And a dishwasher. And my queen-size bed didn't fill up about 1/3 of the room. BUT, I always felt I had to operate within their parameters. And the truth was that if I didn't - if I tried to just ignore "what they might think" and do what I wanted, like wear certain clothing, eat certain food at certain times, make certain food, buy things, etc - they would immediately begin to try and check my behavior via critical comments, etc. And yes, words never stopped nobody who really wanted something but I just god-damned didn't want to have to think about their opinions any more. If I wanted to buy a bottle of wine and make myself a nice fat "treat" dinner, I'd either have to deal with their comments ("Oh, steak, eh? How expensive was that?" "Oh, that's really rare. Are you sure you like it that rare? Mm. I couldn't eat that" "Did you make some for me?") and/or expectations about my actions - like that I would buy enough and make enough for all 3 of us, etc. I was really tired of my mom giving unsolicited and negative feedback about the clothes that I like to wear. (She hates my favorite shirt.) I just constantly felt burdened and under scrutiny at their house, while also wanting to maintain a positive relationship and therefore not just be like "FUCK YOU!" I've also become convinced it's simply not possible to have an adult relationship with your parents while you are living in their house. (I don't think my parents know how to try to have an adult relationship with me.) The kicker is that as I was moving out my mom commented that I could/should just stay and that she thought "I'd be fine staying at home for another 18 months before I go to grad school." While it's gratifying to know that I kept my cool about the whole situation with them, it also struck me that of course the king and queen of the castle wouldn't be able to understand why their underlings might really want to skip town! When you are benefitting from the oppression of others, (yes oppression is a strong word, but I can't find a better one right now) you often don't realize it and also completely don't understand why things need to change, or even why your underlings are unhappy with you. BECAUSE YOU'RE SITTING ON THE DING-DANG THRONE. This has become an unintended rant. I could go on. I could rant to you about my sister, too, but the truth is? I'm pretty happy, pretty positive, feeling pretty good about myself and hoping for/shooting for better. I managed to snag OftenBen on IRC last night and congratulate him. Hopefully I will have more OC, blog posts, and even not-by-me posts to share with you all soon. It has been crazy, crazy busy - but all in very good ways. I think this shall be a lovely summer. (At my new house I have already seen/heard: foxes, raccoons, several neighborhood cats, goslings, and deer. In ONE week. :D )
"am_Unition, what are you doing?" "Making cinnamon rolls." "But it's after 10 pm. The kitchen is closed." "Why is the kitchen closed?" "Because it wakes us up when you're in here making noise." "Well, why don't you close your door? I closed it for you a couple nights ago." "Yes, I remember, and we don't like that. We like to know what's going on in the house." "What's going on is that I was trying to eat, but now... fuck you guys, I'm out." I packed up the essentials and left that night, stayed with a coworker for a few months while I scraped together a couple roommates to rent a place with. It wouldn't have helped if I'd payed rent to my parents, either. That was all five years ago. No regrets. And you won't regret this either.I've also become convinced it's simply not possible to have an adult relationship with your parents while you are living in their house.
Their shoes could be left under the table, in front of the couch, and so on - for a while dad had a line of shoes about 2 ft in front of the couch - but god if I left my laptop out on a table with dad's laptop, guess who would find it with a pair of shoes on top and the cord unplugged on top as well? Or "put away" in my room for me. I mean, I get it, after being parents for so long you're used to being the dominating force in the house, and yes you own the house and yes you have every right to fall asleep on the couch every night but tell me I should be going to bed if it's 11ish, but it is absolutely child treatment. My mom smelled pot on me once and didn't yell at me and I think that was a proud moment for her of her being an adult and letting me make my own choices and recognizing they weren't the same as hers and I wasn't doing it in her house etc. Like, I think she thinks about that moment and is like "We have a real adult relationship! I let _ref_ do things I don't necessarily like! I am not a nag!" when really it's like, sure, you let one 'big' thing go when every single little thing is still CHILD/PARENT full force. I came back after moving out this past weekend to pick up remaining things. My parents chose to use this as an opportunity to begin a (short) conversation like thus: "You owe us rent for the last month, because you didn't move out when we thought you were going to. When are we going to see that? Also, you owe us $50 more because you used that $50 credit that has been sitting on a store account for 5 years because we literally never go to that store," (yes, we had discussed me using that $50 before I used it, and it'd been fine at the time) "because we decided that this summer, we are finally going to go there and use it. We'd like cash?" That was how they began. We don't need to go into how I told them I was moving mid-month and I moved out the 20th; we don't need to go into how they asked me to stay until my brother left because they knew he'd be bored. We don't need to go into how my parents are never going to go to that store and no, they don't deserve $50 cash and yes, if they bring it up again I'm going to offer to give them a credit on their account so they can use it when they get there. What just really makes me seethe is there was no "Hey, so, we were thinking, you did stay with us for half of May. Do you think you could give us half the rent money? We understand that you just moved and maybe don't have an extra few hundred in your budget right now, so let's talk about how we can work something out." There was no rational, adult discussion that you would have with someone who you wanted to see your side and have a good conflict management experience with. There was just, "We decided you owe us this, pay up stat." I said it would've been nice if we could have a negotiation or something. My dad said "OK, you owe us 2*$xxx. How's that for a negotiation?" I don't live there and they can't make me pay shit. I said "All righty then" and walked away to get the things I'd come to get. We chatted a little more before I left. They didn't bring up the money again - then. We'll see how it goes when they do. But it's kind of fucking bullshit. It's especially bullshit they are doing this to me after I have moved out. I feel a little extorted.
Just be like, "Hey guys, can't wait to get that $50 back after you die". No, wait, don't say that unless you're caught in a nuke strike that they called in. That pot story is something straight out of my late teenage years. It happened just like that, verbatim. I hadn't analyzed it as thoroughly as you did, so thanks for tying up those loose ends. I'm terrified at the prospect of someone as fallible as me parenting. Birth control is definitely one of my favorite things.
i feel this so hard. just got back from 20 days at the parents' place in california. i will never stay longer than that though. last summer i took a summer job back home because the money and the experience were very promising. living under my parents for 3 months after being 2000 miles away for 4 years was excruciating. it was like i was 16 again. EVERYTHING caused a fight, especially religion. this time wasn't as bad though because 1 week of the trip was spent in bed recovering from gallbladder surgery and 1 other week was spent in SoCal which left 6 days to actually fully interact with each other which went just fine.
I have written you a hugely long response post and saved in draft because all I have done on Hubski today is write hugely ridiculously long posts and mostly about parents and "blah blah blah" and while I will clearly write it out all day long I am not really sure how much it contributes to a discussion, vs. perhaps hogs the attention in a little "woe is me"-ish way. So I am sitting on it. I will let it rest until the morning.
i think it's totally cool to post long rambly things in the pub. isn't that what pubs are for? aside from going mimosa-mimosa with each other ;)
I can't finish a book. I've started seven in the past couple months and I'm no more than halfway through each of them. The last book I finished was American Gods; before that, The Art of Fielding. I binge-read both. So basically I can't find a happy medium s.t. I can read a book cover-to-cover without spending every spare moment reading so I'm finished in a week. My attention span is tiny and my memory is even worse. I worry about what digital nativity has done to me-- to all of us. Send help. lil flagamuffin Sidenote: when is bl00 back? I miss the old bastard.
I enjoyed The Art of Fielding - even though some of the plot was preposterous. Let's look for a minute what is involved in reading a book: - The active engaged world of longing has to back off in order for a human to read a book. - You need a motivation besides the vague feeling that reading is good for you. - You generally have to be solitary. Everything else is distracting. There might be something more immediately satisfying or fun or important to do. - You have to really want to read this book. The things going on in the book have to be more interesting than the things going on elsewhere. No wonder no one is reading. My students don't read. I was once teaching in a maximum security prison school for kids 11-16 (between gigs teaching in a community college). Regarding reading, the only difference between the college kids and the prison kids was that the college kids could probably read if they had to. It helps to find really fabulous fiction that you can't wait to get back to. If you're not hooked by (pick arbitrary # of pages), then move on. As for The Art of Fielding, I found the beginning confusing but by the end of the third chapter, I was hooked, so I'm glad I stuck with it. My only suggestion is this: (and most of hubski disagrees with me): Read with a highlighter. Highlight really great lines. Write the odd note in the margins. This provides a bit of the physical engagement, plus you can find and quote the lines to people. If there are no great lines within the first 50 pages then something is wrong.
As b_b or someone said over in the New Yorker thread about multitasking and internet access and tabs fucking up our reading, I don't really get it. "Digital nativity" is a good phrase, but it means different things to each of us. To me it means I can read even more. To most, apparently, it means being so overwhelmed you don't read anything except Facebook posts. I misapprehend how one goes from the former to the latter. It also doesn't seem like a bad thing to spend every spare moment reading -- depending how you define spare moment. I bet your memory isn't that poor, and clearly your attention span is fine when you're interested in something, if you couldn't put down Gaiman. And people change. When I was 15, I had serious trouble reading nonfiction, because there was so much great fiction in the world that I hadn't yet read, and it was easy. Like, Wheel of Time was easy in the typical sense of mowing through 100 pages of bad prose in an hour, but also Kafka was comparatively easy, because it was fantastical. So it was fun for 15-year-old me. Now I'm about even on my pursuit of hard Nature Magazine nonfiction and what b_b aptly called pleasure reading: fiction, pop stuff and biographies -- the Lay's chips of content. Maybe you will experience something similar. This is a great subject, though, because I really have no idea what's going on in the minds of my peers who only read a couple books a year (and America as a whole, which is spiraling into this mindset). My roommate has been trying and failing to reread Harry Potter for six months. At what point is "the internet" simply not an adequate excuse? And what does that even mean? It isn't homogenous. I am never the sort of person to recommend spreadsheet approaches to this sort of thing, but maybe you should try something along the lines of this. Keep a record, or whatever. My record was just a notepad file with the titles. But the willpower still has to come from somewhere. I dunno. lil's the damn teacher. -- What are the seven books? Be careful what you wish for.Sidenote: when is bl00 back? I miss the old bastard.
Now I'm about even on my pursuit of hard Nature Magazine nonfiction and what b_b aptly called pleasure reading: fiction, pop stuff and biographies -- the Lay's chips of content. Maybe you will experience something similar. Really appreciate this perspective and your advice. Thanks, flags. 1. Melville - Moby Dick 2. Keizer - Privacy 3. Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 4. Heinrichs - Thank You For Arguing 5. Zinn - A People's History of the United States 6. Vonnegut - If This Isn't Nice, What Is? 7. Asimov - Foundation (#hubskiliterarything#) (Tag broke again. Am I doing something wrong? mk forwardslash)I bet your memory isn't that poor, and clearly your attention span is fine when you're interested in something, if you couldn't put down Gaiman. And people change. When I was 15, I had serious trouble reading nonfiction, because there was so much great fiction in the world that I hadn't yet read, and it was easy. Like, Wheel of Time was easy in the typical sense of mowing through 100 pages of bad prose in an hour, but also Kafka was comparatively easy, because it was fantastical. So it was fun for 15-year-old me.
I didn't remember Foundation was one of the hubski mailed books. Great. It should be treasured. Complexity, I think that project should continue and expand -- but I'm selfish for wanting that; it stems from my desire to receive books in the mail, though I've read all the books currently in circulation. If you think of a way to broaden the scope that doesn't put all of the work on you, I'm all in. I wish there was more general enthusiasm.
Finals continue to loom and progress continues to be made. Slowly. If I seem more of a dickhead than usual, it's probably because of lack of sleep. Sorry everybody. :|