Author: cheerfulchaotic

There’s who I am, who I see myself as, and who I want to become. There are important, though not really gaping, differences between them.

I have this picture of where I want to be when I’m grey. It involves me being much calmer and much more secure in myself (though arguably not otherwise terribly fundamentally different from who/where/what I am now). I think I want to think of myself as more dynamic than I actually am, because I fear being inadequate to any task, and I’ve wanted to be able to roll out my next version to address prior inadequacy without missing a beat.

The truth is, I haven’t changed so much in the past few years, and that’s really not a bad thing. As I am, I’m pretty adaptable. And I have friends who help cover the inevitable gaps. And if something comes up that I can’t handle, I’ll handle my inability to handle it, and move on. While the unexamined life may not be worth living, the overexamined life isn’t much of a life. Sometimes the best bits of life come from unintended surprises.

That’s probably more ‘chaotic’ anyway. =)

No sleep, early flight, this is going to be fun, fun, fun.

Early afternoon time at the aclu, attempting to debug an irreproducible crashing Access problem. Can you understand my frustration? Lunch with Trevor, where I made some comment about not hanging out with bowtie scott (a pittsburghian, recentish transplant that probably none of you have met, really nice guy, enjoyable to spend time with) and feeling bad about it, and thinking it was partially because he was in a committed relationship. The problem here is that I often fail to initiate friendships with people who are not romantic/sexual opportunities. But some of my best friends are people I would never sleep with. Hmmm. Then fun and games with & at their place, over to ‘s place to hang out. Before dinner with greg, regan, laura & nat.

So, I had one of the frankest, most involved discussions about my sexuality, and my relationship with my extended family that I’ve ever had with any family member. I was talking with a cousin of mine, whom I don’t see very often, but did see this weekend in Kentucky. He im’d & email’d me out of the blue. It was a bit of cognitive dissonance. I honestly associate my laptop and my doings there with my gay life, and my geek life, but definitely not with my family life. When my family life is conducted, it’s generally face to face or over the phone.

I don’t see my extended family much. On my father’s side, it’s a fairly tight nit group. And I always saw myself more as an interloper. Many of them (including my father) grew up in the same rural section of southern illinios, for a few generations, living next to one another, obviously knowing one another pretty well. I still have to listen carefully, think, and work to remember which one is Brian, which one is Brad, and which one is Bruce, though I am getting better about it (they being 3 out of the 20ish cousins I have on that side, and not identical twins. I’m almost as good at distinguishing Laura’s brothers, which is kinda sad, given relative duration of relationships, but anyway.), and I still can’t name all 9 of my dad’s siblings, I’m one shy, and I have no idea who I’m missing. We were a 10 hour drive from them and saw them once a year or so as we were growing up. I saw them less after I moved off to college. I never told any of them I was gay. Well, that’s not true. A few years ago, I screwed up my courage and emailed my grandmother to let her know (I’m so skilled with this stuff). After I’d heard that my dad had told one of my bachelor uncles as part of his coping with it. Said uncle reacted well. We got along pretty well to begin with.

I im’d back, and we eventually caught one another for a bit. He said that he found my icq # on my homepage. Any of you who have read my homepage know my sexuality is far from hidden on it. So in my usual round-about-up-front-ness, I told him I didn’t know how much of the extended family knew about “certain aspects of my personal life.” In conversation that followed, he said he’d known for 1.5-2 years, and always felt kinda awkward about knowing and not talking, and that he figured that was probably going on with the rest of the family. And it’s a relief to me. A big one.

I blathered on for quite some time. Including the following gem, after I mentioned what I wore in the chicago pride parade a year and a half ago, and he expressed amused curiosity: “I am not sending pictures of me in speedos to any cousins of mine, no matter how cute they are. 😉 Besides, you’ve already seen me at the lake”. I think I was a little hyper. I was definitely a little something. =)

It’s only a matter of time before they all find the livejournal. _That_ should give the family rumor mill p l e n t y of material for a little while. =)

But we eventually got down to discussing appropriately geeky things like trillian.

Then I bailed listening to the sweet, sweet lure of video game geekage with . Made it to the planet’s surface on Metroid Prime. It’s not a bad game, though the UI gives me screaming nightmares. There are two joy sticks on a controller. Make one translation, the other rotation. It’s not that hard. Halo did it right. Learn from them.

Chat with Josh.

Earlier tonight on the drive back from a dinner at la feria with , , , , and , we started discussing men giving birth. This led to my proposal of a “disposable [implantable] womb”. said this was silly, and that external artificial wombs were a much better idea. This led to the notion of using the artificial womb as a centerpiece. This also led me to the notion of routine hystorectomies (not knowing that the ovaries usually went with the uterus), which I was repeatedly told was a Bad Idea and why. I am now convinced. These are the sorts of conversations I miss in the bay area.

Reading “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, there is a theme which seems particularly relevant. I believe firmly in the macrocosm and microcosm being reflections of one another, and for individual humans being the cells of humanity. That’s background, not the point.

In discussing the birth of agriculture and the domestication of plants, the author makes the point that while “domestication” sounds very deliberate, it was nothing of the sort. It was, in all likelihood, in almost all cases, a combination of small steps, with individual goals, that all happened to add up to domestication, without any intent for the ‘ultimate’ outcome. When people with more experience talk about the development of people in their late teens and early twenties, and how these people are even now finding themselves, I think something very similar is occuring with many of them.

And on a completely different note… Jack L Chalker’s “Dancing Gods” series reminds me a great deal of Piers Anthony’s Xanth series, though a little darker/more serious. Both mock the heroic fantasy genre, the archetypes substituted for characters, etc, etc, yet both also get something of value out of it. Anyway, there is a species of fairy in that world called a Kauri. They are female sex sprites that take away the misery and suffering, and general mental damage of men. Eventually, they get overloaded with the yuck, and have to go burn it off by bathing in lava. A progressive imbalance, which is periodically reset.

A few years ago, when I first read it, I saw myself as a gay male version of that. I now think that was fairly crackheaded of me. But it does occur to me that it’s a pretty good model for me and emotional disturbance from other people. Involvement with other people around me alters my internal flows, and sooner or later creates disturbances. Solitude allows the channels to clear (assuming I let them, cultivate the calm, whatever). The deeper the contact, the more people involved, the greater the alteration/disturbance. Will not get better without navelgazing time. Both are necessary to a happy/healthy existence. Insufficient people time, no flow. Insufficient me time, and it’s a river overflowing its banks and cutting a swath of destruction. Big duh. But that’s what’s on my mind.

After anti-social day spent in room, I went out to dinner with Conrad at Lucky Creation prior to a ride to the airport. This is vaguely reminiscent of the last time I saw him in March of last year when we grabbed lunch at the little grocery store near the bagdad cafe before he drove me off to the airport. He expressed pleasant surprise over some of the food, though the lemon ‘chicken’ is entirely too sweet. I’m surprised my teeth are still in my head. We seem to readily fall into a comfortable low intensity dynamic. A pleasant contrast to my weekend. Pity our interactions are so brief and intermittant. He’ll be leaving for two and a half weeks in Egypt and Tunisia the day I get back to SF. I also feel vaguely guilty about two interactions in a row, spaced 8 months apart, where I’m mooching a ride to the airport. Next time will have to be different.

I am pleased to see that on some terrorism related front we’re evincing sense, in that we no longer have camo-wearing, assault-rifle-toting guards. Got to the gate more than an hour before boarding. Listened to mp3’s on my laptop, noted the distinctly cracked nature of the case of my laptop, poor battered thing that it is. Read more of Nickel and Dimed, which is intellectually unsurprising, but emotionally unsettling all the same. I’ve seen some of the lower income, single mother, etc survival tactics first hand. I’ve seen them done with people who had familial support. And a couple who hadn’t. I was surprised at how well they seemed to be doing, while simultaneously saddened by the conditions they were living in. I haven’t seen most of them in years though, and I still worry a bit about them.

Had one of my more neutral flights, probably in part because I was so drained of emotional energy. Finished Nickel and Dimed. Good book. Strongly recommended to anyone with the least interest in politics, economics, and/or inequality.

Grab the 28X back to cmu, where Jane picks me up and takes me to the phillips house, to which, I am pleased to discover, I still have a key. Don’t need to wake people up. It’s cool that I surprise Brian by being on his couch when he came downstairs. Then I went downstairs and slept on the guest bed, woke up to find Ken sorta staring at me in shockish stuff. Explained the situation, went back to sleep. Seems like the hinge on my laptop is getting even more cracked. Not good.

Talked on the phone with Ro. He’s handling the direct deposit stuff, and I should be getting dd on friday. Yay able to pay the rent and bills. Very happy.

Chatted with Tom for a bit. TV, SSX Tricky, Brian’s Birthday dinner at Fuel & Fuddle. Home where Nat played through a Link to the past in one sitting, one life. (I didn’t stay up for it).

And it started to snow! I made snowballs, and threw them at the porch awning. It made me so happy. It’s the little things, really. And the layer of white on top of everything. It just warms my heart. I need to snap a few pictures of this.

recently posted a statement by “the Idol”, Hillary Clinton.

She makes a few valid moderate points, towards the end, but only after feeding into the collective irrational fear of terrorism. Yes, terrorism is by its very nature a surprise. So it really could come it any time, at any place. So the solution is to create an office to coordinate the powers that be in response to it? How would firemen, police officers, and increased patroling of our border with those terroristic canadians would have stopped the september 11th attacks? Those attacks were self-limiting, with modern communication technology bumping up the pace of the response. Passengers, ie citizens, not police officers, not border patrols, and not firemen stopped the last set of terrorists in that hour, and later, stopped the bomber with the explosive shoes.

Dangerous terrorists are dangerous because they are smart. Smart terrorists will go where the authorities are not, and act before the authorities can stop them. The terrorists everyone is up in arms about generally die in the process. And am I the only one who noticed that they haven’t attacked us effectively since then? I remain unconvinced that the Anthrax came from the people who brought us the aeronautical urban remodeling. No matter how much power we give the authorities, no matter how many of them we put out on the street, the authorities cannot be relied upon to protect us everywhere, all the time.

Nor is war exactly effective in eliminating terrorism. Missiles, bombs, and other powerful artillery are not going to stop a terrorist, though they may create a few out of the relatives of those killed. If you doubt me on these points, check out the current status of israeli and palestine.

Overall, my point would be that empowering the police, and other institutions of authority will not protect citizens. Then there’s bombing the brown people, otherwise known as a hair of the dog that bit you. It will simply be scratching a fresh case of poison ivy. The best first step to eliminating terrorist threats would probably be removing the motivation for the terrorists and their support networks. Another good one might be to strive for improvements in communication technology and the freedom to use it as well as universal self-defense training, ie, the very things that have already worked. But that last one smacks a bit too much of an empowered people, and there is no greater danger the power hungry can imagine than a constituency that no longer needs them.

After talk regarding Myers Briggs PTI stuff, and ideal matches at the party last night, I did a little websearching and came up with a webpage that describes how relationships work for me with impressive accuracy. I pointed the webpage (and its attendant INTJ counterpart) to , occasioning the following comment:

[11/20/2002 00:35] maxwellseq: The INTJ is not likely to choose to spend time with people who they feel don’t have anything to offer the INTJ.
[11/20/2002 00:35] maxwellseq: wow
[11/20/2002 00:35] maxwellseq: no more perfect summary exists

My interview on monday went pretty well. I think there was pretty good communication going on, and I did my best to project confidence in my ability for the task. May also have included some arrogance and impatience along with the confidence. I’m one of 5 candidates. Should hear back next week (note: while I’m out of town).

That evening I watched the Leonid meteor shower with some clinic types, and a friend of a clinic type. It was pretty, and cold. We were on a hill in the middle of some farmer’s pasture, near Mount Diablo, huddling on someone else’s blanket and under mine. This would be the second incident of trespassing I’ve performed with clinic type people. Probably saw about 40-60 meteors over the course of 2-3 hours. It was cool.

Then last night, gaming party at my place with Simon, , , and Ro. Played a game of transamerica, which was pretty cool. And then go with Josh while everyone else played settlers. I sucked it in the go game. Partially I failed to compensate for the scale difference between a 13×13, and partially my tactics blew. I think I need more practice in general. Oh well. Then a game of settlers. Settlers is a great party game because it’s social. You’re encouraged to interact with other players in the free form arena of trading. This naturally leads to trash talking, which only serves to make the game more fun.

Work report. It seems that I was correct when I intuitively said that a point observer with linear motion cannot uniquely determine the location or motion of a point target of linear motion, even given that the motion is linear. I’d back tracked later, thinking there was insufficient evidence, but I was right the first time. There was also the question of whether “phi” is pronounced ‘fee’ or ‘fie’. I say ‘fie’. Ro says ‘fee’. We compromised by saying ‘fff’, but I dropped the compromise. When brought up at the gaming party, ‘fee’ was more popular. I want the opinion of a greek speaker (not that I’m going to actually _change_ my speech patterns, mind)

“As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual
certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life
— so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop
so you can meet girls.”
— Matt Cartmill

Old friend of mine from cmu, who went to MIT, and now lives up near burlington vt with yet another gay Josh. Anyway, I was cruising around on google to check if a websearch turned up the current url for my homepage (the answer is ‘no’), and ran across an archive of posts in a flamewar between a homophobe college republican and Tom. It includes such gems as:

may not be funny to those without context