Category: …and everything else

I haven’t been practicing lately. I haven’t been writing. I haven’t been doing tai chi, or yoga, or reading for fun, or much more than getting up, freshening up (a maybe at that), and being a lump. Occasionally I turn into a rushed lump, trying to get to class on time – and not succeeding often at that.

I do realize that I need to not be as hard on myself as I want to be, right now. I have to accept that I have been sick, and not just for the last six days, but probably closer to three-odd weeks. I have to accept that I turned the snowglobe of my life upside down and shook, violently and energetically, until not only the glitter-y snow kicked up and over, but I dislodged all the pieces inside. And now I’ve got to get everything settled back down and in place, and it is, in a word, overwhelming to even contemplate.

So instead of contemplating, I simply sit. And I wait, although what I’m waiting for I don’t know. I do know that things won’t just happen, I have to make them happen. But it’s to the point where it’s so much to do and even think about, that I don’t know where to start, what will make a noticable dent that will give me the positive kick in the ass I need.

But I suspect that I should work a little harder to get into a few more patterns, re-establish some of those habits. Sitting, writing, creating, even thinking – I need to reconnect to the things that ground me and give me passion.

I’ve managed to go and get myself sick again. Hopefully this is my one pass with bronchitis for the year – I got a sound lecture on managing my asthma, too, and pushed about finding a pulminologist. Not that I was necessarily putting it off, but I hate not having anyone who can recommend me anywhere. While I could potentially use AMBI as a resource, that feels sort of strange to me – I don’t fit there yet, and I’m really hesitant about being a pest. So I’m stuck with a long list, and not knowing anyone who can say “oh christ that person’s an ass” or “this doc has the best bedside manner, and is really great at dealing with curious people.”

Being basically confined to sitting on the couch limits what I’m able to do, and I’m at that annoying point of sick-but-better where I’m antsy and want to do things, but actually doing anything winds me and knocks me flat on my ass. And since I’ve actually (for once) learned my lesson, I’ve been resisting the urge to get up and do (discounting the hauling of the washer up two staircases yesterday, which was not necessarily intentional and something I knew was dumb before I did it).

Of course, this gives me a lot of time to sit and be stuck inside my head, introspective in a way that is probably unhealthy. At one point this evening, Discovery Channel and Dirty Jobs in the background, cat gloomed on to either hip, soda next to me, familiar things and noises around me, I lost myself. I think it might have to do with having talked with several good friends today, and sitting and trading URLs with Michael – things I haven’t done in a while. Everything just sort of blended, and felt right, and I felt like I was at home.

Unfortunately, feeling like home seems to be a code, these days, for “losing my sense of place for a moment and feeling like I’m back in Seattle.” I got up a couple of minutes later, stepped into my bathroom, and the mood snapped and I found myself left with a hollow, empty feeling. I guess you call that homesickness.

I nade this choice and I accept it, but I wish I could fall fully into it, rather than be stuck here on the edge.

MySpace is such an odd phenomenon. A bit back, through your basic three click wandering, I stumbled on Drew Carey’s MySpace. As a couple of my musician friends know, you’re always apprehensive when you come across someone of some fame on a public site like that, so I did some poking around and managed to confirm it was indeed. Clicked a couple more links, found a couple of other folks. Mused on the oddness, went on with life.

So anyhow, I was reading one of another of the blogs found during that click-thru (Proops’) this morning, and did a doubletake at one of the names listed. Click. Holy… Click click. Whoa! Click – good god, he did gastric bypass and looks fabulous! …and is online right now. Strange.

And then found myself sort of flipping a bit, at the weird stalker feeling of knowing someone is online, someone with some modicum of fame – a name, at least, that I recognize, and someone I would likely be tonguetied to be in front of. And also just the very odd of knowing that someone “like that” – that is, someone with that bit of fame and such that would leave me in a bit of awe – is doing something so simple as sitting on a computer somewhere and poking at their own computer keyboard, browsing the same basic site as me. It’s a small world collapsing feeling.

It’s been known for a while that Milgram’s original 6 degrees wasn’t necessarily as accurate as portrayed, and is certainly nothing like what popular media has done with it. And yet, these strange moments of collapsing world make me realize that the technology does exist that allows us to be just a few clicks away from anyone.

It’s a very dizzy sort of thing.

I finally lost my patience with several communities on LiveJournal, and did what will probably be one of the stupider things I’ll have ever done, at least online: I created a new community, “The Ivory Tower of Fake News.”

The user description sort of says it all,

The original academe was a society whose purpose it was to promote a particular aspect of knowledge or culture. This community is for people who enjoy The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but are frustrated with the influx of fans who don’t have the ability to critically think about issues.

Or, in planer speak: no fangirls, no slash, no fluff*. This is a place to talk about the shows and what’s on the shows with people who can actually finish a sentence without saying “squee” and who realize that sometimes, a slice of pizza is just a slice of pizza. If you insist on squees and pizzasex, this is not the place for you.

Your moderator is a cranky graduate student with little patience. Don’t piss her off.

Oh, and please read our FAQ.

*No, this doesn’t mean people can’t post funny, fluffy, sense of humour things. We’re not all suits’n’tea’n’crumpets here. But, in the wise words of one member, this is more than an online, The Daily Show/The Colbert Report themed Tiger Beat.

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.