flake
I had so many plans today but have ended up flaking on each and every single one of them. Actually, I take that back, I haven listened to just about every song ever recorded by The Clash today, but everything else got blown off. I think I've been in kind of a shit mood since last night. I was so psyched about Midnight Ridazz and then a combo of trying to help someone else with a flat, crazy rain, a misplaced route card, even more rain, no rain coat, and a new bike that didn't handle well in the rain at all led to me missing the ride and instead riding home alone cold and wet and then reading about how much fun everyone had hours later. I don't want to be all mopey about it but I think it spilled over to today and everytime something came up that I should be doing I ended up just staying in bed hiding instead. Right this very instant I have friends txting me that they are eating at one of my favorite restaurants in LA and asking me to join, the premier of Mash is going on in Hollywood, another friends birthday party is taking place just a few short miles from my house. I'd love to be doing any of those things. Instead I'm not. And feeling depressed about it. And now I'm blogging about it. What the hell is wrong with me. Will someone please smack some sense into me? Antisocial tendencies FTL.
I'm probably going to break this site tomorrow, just a heads up. I'm moving off one box to a different hosting account and I'm fairly certain I'm going to fuck something up. If you read this site via RSS and stop getting updates, swing by the site in a few days and see if the URL has changed. I hope it won't, but I'm pretty sure all these Movable Type entries are going to be rendered static as I'll be switching to WordPress and don't want to reinstall MT, and can't figure out how to port the archives. Blah.
Comments (1)
Comments on this Entry:
(Mitzi on
Oct 14, 2007 8:33 AM)
You were missed, but there's always next time.
Wish I had some tips for you about the switch, but unfortunately I'm really good at fucking things up when it comes to websites so me not offering any help is probably most helpful.
Right
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking
That's what this test says about me. I tried really hard and couldn't see her dancing in the other direction, though I'd say the description is only partially right. [via Tech Yum]
Comments (8)
Comments on this Entry:
(caryn on
Oct 13, 2007 4:51 AM)
Spatial perception? What, do you think you can pack well or something? :)
(Scott Blake on
Oct 13, 2007 9:22 AM)
My naked dancer was turning clockwise as well.
(Jason D- on
Oct 13, 2007 9:54 AM)
Clockwise for me as well. Hello righties!
(Jason D- on
Oct 13, 2007 10:04 AM)
With a little work I got her to spin the other way. Close your left eye and focus on the shadow of her foot and it's easy. You force the left brain to take over and she flips.
(sean bonner on
Oct 13, 2007 10:19 AM)
Nope.. still can't get her to do anything but spin clockwise. Grrrr
(Jo on
Oct 13, 2007 4:10 PM)
Scary. My dancer kept stopping and reversing order -- clockwise, then counterclockwise, etc.
(jm on
Oct 13, 2007 5:46 PM)
Someone sent this to me a few days ago and I saw both directions as well. Each time I look away and look back it switches. On first glance it told me that I was left-brained, which I know isn't true.
(Kath on
Oct 13, 2007 7:48 PM)
She was spinning both ways for me. So what does that mean?
You already know how this will end
After knowing her online for quite sometime I finally met Ariel Waldman in the flesh today when we meet up at CTTP for coffee, vegan cookies, and cupcakes. It was teh awesome. Later we headed over to, and had a brief tour of the Porn Palace before the opening sessions of Arse Elektronika. She wrote a much better recap than I could so I'll just point you over to her site. People who actually know how to write never cease to amaze me.
Though out the day we spent a good chunk of time talking about choices some people are making, and at least I spent even more time thinking about how we are all faced with these same questions and what direction we decide to run with says so much. It easy to sit back and look at what other people are doing wrong in some situations, because not being a part of them we have a better perspective. But how different can the inside perspective be? I know I've certainly done things that I later wished I'd had the benefit of hindsight to save me the horror of the results, but just as often I've known something was a bad idea, known it was going to end badly, and walked right into it anyway. Why? What was I hoping to get out of it? What are these other people hoping to get out of it?
I was telling my therapist the other day that I never believed the old cliche about it being better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I'm pretty much of the opinion that never having loved at all is way better than having loved and lost. Of course that could just be a grass is greener situation as well - you want the thing you can't have. Either way... these thoughts have been burning in my head all day. When something is a bad idea and you/I/we know that ahead of time, what reason could any of us have for continuing down that path? Because of the short term benefit and enjoyment? Is that good enough? I've got friends in relationships they know aren't going to last (some more obviously than others) yet not only do they not walk away from them, but they keep putting more into them. If you already know there is an expiration date looming in the future, why keep investing?
I do it too so that's not a condemnation, it's a real question. I think a lot of it boils down to just not wanting to admit things to ourselves and others. Mostly ourselves. Other people are way better at accepting our own defeats than we are I think. I know for me personally, I always assume things are going to go over much worse with other people. Then they don't. And then I'm even more mixed up.
Side note, am I the only one that thinks Gabriele Pauli's proposal makes a hell of a lot of sense? She's suggesting that marriages should expire every 7 years, forcing the couple to either renew it for another 7 years, or go their separate ways. Obviously I have a skewed perception on this since I had a marriage that ended after 8 years, but really let's think about this for a second. I was talking to a friend the other day about how I don't think the concept of a single relationship lasting happily ever after is even possible. Of course she invoked the age old examples of parents and grandparents who pulled it off, but my argument is that was then and this is now. In our parents and grandparents times there were no other options - you got married and that was that. You made it work because there was no going back, period. It really truly was "until death do you part." That isn't the case now simply because the idea that people get divorced has circulated, so people think about it, consider it, and now ending things, walking away and starting over is just as viable an option as working them out. Perhaps more so. And you can't undo that, there is no way to remove that idea from the general lexicon. Everyone has a plan B now, one they didn't have X many years ago simply because the idea wasn't as acceptable. Point being if you have no way out, you actually solve the problems because you are stuck with the results. If you know in the back of your head there is an escape route you more frequently ignore or overlook thinks rather than confront them, and eventually they build up to the point when you have no choice left but to walk.
Anyway.
Back to the earlier thought - which is worse? Knowing something is going to fall apart and continuing on and letting it crumble around you? Or using that foresight to put the breaks on before it gets to that nasty part, even if that means convincing someone who might not be as sure of the ultimate demise as you are. I don't know the answer to that one either. Later on, back at Violet's she and I were talking about some other folks and how as much as people complain about long distance relationships for the obvious reasons they are actually pretty ideal in many ways - most notably that they allow you to avoid the "real life" aspects of being around someone all the time. You get to create this fantasy world in your head of what a relationship with that person might be like because when you are around them you have to make sure every moment it filled with awesome, and when you aren't around them you have the benefit of forgetting the negatives and only remembering the bits you want to. Of course this hinges on that relationship staying long distance, because the more you close that gap the less able you are whitewash all of those flaws.
OK, enough rambling for the night. It's 3am and I promised Violet I'd read the intro to Palahniuk's Lullaby before going to sleep so I'm closing the laptop and opening the book. See you all tomorrow.
Comments (6)
Comments on this Entry:
(jm on
Oct 6, 2007 5:32 AM)
"I'm pretty much of the opinion that never having loved at all is way better than having loved and lost."
I'm all about the journey: F* the destination. It's never what you imagine or plan anyway. The point is to do it and do it well. The delight is in the striving. That's life near the bone, no?
...And that type of thinking, my friend, is the cause of my ongoing ruin. ;-)
(Mitzi on
Oct 6, 2007 8:17 AM)
"which is worse? Knowing something is going to fall apart and continuing on and letting it crumble around you? Or using that foresight to put the breaks on before it gets to that nasty part, even if that means convincing someone who might not be as sure of the ultimate demise as you are."
I don't think that having the foresight to prevent something from going bad could be a "worse" option. Although, I know for me there is always that question of "what if I'm wrong?" - which I guess is what you're saying.
I think a lot of it has to do with self preservation. We want to stop things while we are still enjoying them, before it gets to the point of no return so that we can save ourselves from the inevitable, or at least what we THINK will happen. We're afraid of hurting ourselves again, of making the mistakes we thought we had already learned from.
When I was in elementary school (or possibly middle school) one of my teachers used me as an example telling everyone to, "Look at Mitzi, she always THINKS before she acts." I think that's sort of stuck with me since. At first I was proud of the observation, but now I think it's a curse.
Personally, I've tried to teach myself to stop thinking. I think much too much about everything and that's what gets me in trouble. In the past few years I've been trying to do what JM above me was suggesting and live "life near the bone." I've tried to take everything people say or do at face value and not over analyze. If they really wanted me to know something I would trust that they would tell me, otherwise I will not go ahead and assume I know what they want or are thinking. This is of course easier said than done because I find myself slipping back into my old ways every once in awhile.
Then I have to remind myself that I'm only human and change does not come easy.
(sean bonner on
Oct 6, 2007 8:24 AM)
"I'm all about the journey: F* the destination"
Thanks JM, that actually helps a ton. What the hell am I thinking? I totally agree with that and am pretty good at applying it to every other part of my life but never even thought of how it relates to this. More to think about...
"We're afraid of hurting ourselves again, of making the mistakes we thought we had already learned from."
Exactly, but it's also reflected on others too. It's not just about protecting yourself, but a matter of thinking "do I want this person to hurt a little bit now or a lot later on?"
(cindylu on
Oct 7, 2007 12:17 AM)
I think part of it is laziness and reluctance to accept/deal with change. I told a friend recently that most people think having divorced parents messes with your perception of relationships. I think the opposite -- parents and grandparents in long-lasting and loving relationships -- can mess you up too.
(Micki Krimmel on
Oct 9, 2007 3:18 PM)
If you enter into a relationship thinking about how it's gonna end, you're fucking yourself from the start. Of course the chances of any relationship lasting forever are way more remote than the probability of its demise. That's true of everything. Is lasting forever the only mark of something worthwhile? And how are you defining "doing wrong?" Is it really your place to judge? I think in general, we spend way too much time analyzing the distant outcomes of our actions and way too little time enjoying the now and getting the most out of this moment. Just ask, Is this making me happy? Is this helping me be the person I want to be? If the answers to those questions is yes - right now - then why the hell not? You can't spend your entire life avoiding things because they might turn out badly.
(Kath on
Oct 9, 2007 10:07 PM)
I blogged about the marriage contract thingy tonite. I am all for year-to-year.
I've BTDT for marriage and it is the ONLY way I would ever do it again.
