Author: cheerfulchaotic

Today

For breakfast (at 10, or was it 10:30 …regardless…) after having spent hours trying to get the under-development replacement for everybuddy, eb-lite to work, and before spending hours getting the environmental variables right to compile the other everybuddy replacement, ayttm, I had vegan french toast, which was actually pretty tasty, though more because of the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves I added to the recipe than due to the pure-faux-egg-batter that the recipe espouses. Read more on the homelessness. The economics still sends my head spinning, but I think I catch most of the content in the process. Work at the office, freecell to limber up my brain for the painful exercise in linear algebra that followed. Much progress was made, though. Both of my evening plans, with the australian dentist to be, and the friendly gymnast guy were canceled, so I ended up bumming around the house, watching Taken with , then later having tardis help me with the ayttm compilation. Ayttm seems pretty fly, claims to have cam support, not that I’ve ever done a cam chat (bigger waste of time than gay.com, plus I don’t have a cam, I demand clever verbage). Goodness has resulted. I once again have a chat client that handles yahoo, aim, icq, and msnim, logs, and does so with a gui interface (though I’m ambivalent about the gui part). I also got mplayer to compile at last. Yay. =) now I can watch my vertical horizon videos and family guy excerpts. Maybe I should develop a porn collection. Or find some way to get nausicaa digitally. Hmmmm. Yeah, that’s all. Up way past my bed time. G’night.

Morning athleticism

So I biked up the hill to the Lawrence Berkeley Space Science building, to do a 4 mile run with frontrunners (I made it for about 2 miles before my knee got really cranky and walked the rest). Then biked back down. The knee pain is annoying. Right knee, from outer side of the knee to the bottom of the cap/top of the tibia.

In related news, my recent ‘surgery’ seems to have done the trick, and the injury on my left knee is healing with less pain, no inflamation, and no pus.

Money Matters

Many people have commented that arnold isn’t so bad because at least his social policies are ‘basically right’. Newsflash: republicans (as a statistical generalization) don’t care one whit about ‘social’ issues. It’s a convenient way to shepherd voters. Witness the blind eye they turn to arnold’s sexual misconduct, when they’re willing to impeach clinton for it.

Another newsflash: Fiscal policy has serious social ramifications. Tax and funding strategies, market regulation, and redistributive efforts make differences on a scale like nothing else in the day to day operation of every american’s life. Especially in terms of employment and housing. You know, the little things.

Final newsflash: The Governator may be a democrat when it comes time for me to get a civil union (though not a marriage). But when the cards are on the table, and it’s time for me to get a job or a condo, you can bet he’ll be republican to the core.

Some considered thoughts on the recall results from workingforchange.com:

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=15794

shyness, introversion and social ineptitude

What I am about to say should not be taken as criticism by any of the excellent hosts who have had me over, all of whom have lj’s, only one of whose journals I never read (don’t know her id), and, I suspect only one of whom never reads my journal. That having been said, I really haven’t enjoyed myself at the past 4 parties to which I’ve been. Drinking, food I would never eat in any other context, making out (at all but one party), nudity (only at two parties), and other recreation substances (only at one party). Each of these left me feeling a little more sad and out of place, and less wanting to be there. Potluck vegetarian dinner parties and gaming parties are way more my speed. So, I spent much time thinking about it all.

I’m used to attributing my lack of enjoyment of parties to a lack of social skills, and I often feel that I’m not interacting well with others. Shannon, a registered extrovert, pretty much shot down my claims of social awkwardness. Forced to drop the answer I came up with at age 12 and actually think, I came to the conclusion that it’s because I am not interested by topics that they care about and vice-versa. Introversion is something else, a preference for navel gazing over communication. Dealing in the interior world, rather than the exterior one. Shyness is also a separate issue to my mind. That’s just insecurity/embarrasment based social hesitation. A high entry cost for interaction, as it were.

I am not especially shy. Nor do I consider myself terribly socially inept these days. I was definitely both in my first year or two at cmu. I hadn’t had much opportunity to interact with peers in a healthy fashion prior to that, so I had alot of catching up to do. But I threw myself into it, to the point where I got my first D since music class in 8th grade. I am somewhat introverted, but I do not think I’m am all that unusually so. I am often sad at the apparent lack of people I share interests with. This is probably why Josh returning to omnivorism left me with a small nameless ennui. It was a loss of common experience with someone close to me.

I am left with the thought that shared with me during my last trip to Toronto. Over indian food at a restaurant Chris had found for us (he’s a fabulous tour guide, wish I got to see more of him) I had, less than diplomatically, shared with him the feeling that I was too old for the people I was hanging out with. He offered instead that perhaps I was “inappropriately contextualized”. And that I believe I am. A soul in search of the proper context.

tuesday evening

Had another unsuccessful yahoo date, and then went to check out open floor gymnastics stuff at the uc berkeley golden bears rec center. Cool stuff going on, varying ability levels. Patrick (a recent friendster acquaintance) told me about it and offered to show me the ropes. I think I’m going to do it. I always wanted to do serious gymnastics stuff. I really enjoyed the brief gymnastics stuff I did as a little kid. Perhaps this will reduce my monkey climbing nature, or at least add variety to the expression of it. =) The incredible bodies there are nice too, but I’d do this even if it were just me and an unattractive (but highly competent) trainer.