Perette

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Perette's journal: 2005

Contents

1. 2005-01-01 15:43 (Saturday) journal

I'm happy to say that I've been feeling very good recently. My mood has been up, I've been feeling like I'm on top of getting at least some stuff done. My mind feels like it's working at 100% again, and that's a good feeling.

2. Analysis of Electronic Voice Phenomena

2005-01-02 00:58 (Sunday) journal

I've just been doing research on EVP - Electronic voice phenomena. Basically, some people have noticed out you can record noise from the air and hear voices. This is true, it works. The question is, where do these come from?

The folks at AAEVP (aaevp.com) come across as trying to sound like unbiased researchers but who have some real convictions that they're talking to a spirit world. They're excited because a movie is coming out, White Noise, that involves some of this EVP stuff.

I'm spiritual and kinda think there's more to the universe than just a big machine. On the other hand, I'm a skeptic because people come up with wacky ideas and are easily convinced of dumb shit. So I've been looking into this stuff to form my opinion.

I'm listening to some clips that someone has interpreted. I'll list the expert's reading, followed by my alternatives:

"October--Poof-Columbia"

        "Think you better six"
        "Think you're better than six"
        "Think you're better than sex"
        "Think you'd better take this"
        Backwards: Sounds like backward speaking.
        I have no idea where they came up with what they heard on this one.

"Out of the fire".

        "our devices"
        "how divine"
        "how to buy"
        Backwards: Howard Wright.  Why backwards?  Because looking
        through the expert's interpretations, he does this.  So I'll
        do it too.
        There's some agreement on an --ow--ta--ai-- pattern that we're
        both hearing, but coming up with some real variation on
        what these could actually be.

"Shoot hurt"

        Actually, it sounds like a noise, not a voice to me.  Distinctly
        not white noise, true.  Some sort of machine, or like an old
        rusty water pump.  Maybe a sound effect?

"That shocking ... the way down"

        "It's starting to do thinking..."
        "It's static.  What'cha thinking?"
        Again, agreement on partial patterns: --t's ..ing--.  But,
        overall, not agreeing.

I pick out these next few bits, but am unable to figure out how they match to the authority's transcript.

        "Hey" or "Eight"

        "Derelicts", though could be "Daryl's" or "barrels".

"She Climbs In, Princess you talk to her-homework for you"

        "Second cousin" ... "Sick of vibes"
        "Sick gun" ... "
        "Sick of..." ... "Say goodbye"
        "She comes..."
        "Seconds", 
        Actually, it sounds like it's two voices.  There's a change
        of pitch for the last tone, so I think the "ibes" or "bye" is
        a different speaker maybe saying, "I've..."
        "Second cousin", "She climb in"... similar, again not in agreement
        though.

"think this the end"

        "Cheek bone"; "Sad".
        "Chipotle"; "Said".
        "chick pole"; "Fed".
        "Chip pole"; ...

        Then there's a sequence of noises that sounds like tuning issues.
        For those who have only ever dealt with digital tuners, on
        the old analog systems where you turned the knob, you get
        weird high-pitch noises and stuff as you tune in a station -
        that is, adjust the knob so you're tuning 96.500, instead of
        96.45 or 96.475.  AM and FM (amplitude modulation versus
        frequency modulation; two different ways of piggybacking the
        sound wave onto electromagnetic waves for transmission) have
        different noises.  Your digital tuner does all this precisely
        for you, so you don't get to hear these noises anymore.  The
        closest you might come is if your mobile phone is in analog roam.  

        "...the news"

        "...Zest...", or it could be a fragment of the word
        "possessed."

"I'm Christa" or "This is Christa"

        "The rocket's up all day."
        "Rock is up all day."
        "Rocket's up all way."
        "Rock a couple twig."
        "Rocket couples meet"
        "Rocket couples week"

        "Dave, complete me <static>"
        "Dave, compete with ..."

        "Pulse..."

        "Rock and roll..."
        "Not all all"

Okay, so I'm convinced: this is bullshit. There's random crap being picked up via some receiving process. If you listen in the background of the voiceover (not the host) of "Fast Food's Biggest Mistakes", you'll hear music. That wasn't noise in the room when I recorded the segment, but it was there when I listened with my headphones on. If I'd listened long enough, I could have figured out which radio station my crappy $15 microphone was picking up.

We're surrounded by electromagnetic noise. It's everywhere, and every piece of electronic stuff picks it up. Usually, it's small enough we can't hear it. But, if you take a enough samples and you don't have larger signals to hide the occasional bit of noise you collect, you're going to get some snippets of stuff (and if you've got a really crappy microphone and a big ass set of transmitters nearby, you'll get more than an occasional one!). These EVP folks are picking these up, recording them, amplifying them, then using their imagination and subconscious to create stories about the word snippets they collect. I'm sad to say, because it would be neat, but it's crap.

References: franksumption.tripod.com , perette.barella.org.

3. 2005-01-02 03:03 (Sunday) journal

Just proofing the last entry, and I noticed something interesting - my hearing the phrase, "It's static. What'cha thinking?" I really was concentrating on listening and transcribing what I thought I heard and didn't write that intentionally. Given the context though, it makes sense to me that a thought in the back of my head - that this was a lot of noise to try to make stuff out of - made it's way into what I was hearing. Before I consciously gave up trying to extract data from the recording, hearing that was my intuition telling me that was I was listening to was just noise.

4. Health care

2005-01-06 17:59 (Thursday) journal

Yee-haw! I have new insurance. Preferred Care didn't actually lose the paperwork in a black-hole, it was just in a wormhole from which it reappeared today in the form of a phone call requesting I send a cheque. It'll be retroactive to the start of the month, too, so that's great. Thankfully, Excellus has not yet billed me for January since they're trying to do a premium increase, so they're letting everyone's insurance expire and then they'll bill everyone and retroactively unexpire them. I'll just not pay them and let me stay expired.

Is it me or is this just a really screwed up way of running a business? Evidently, it's the standard way of running an HMO, since they both seem to have similar practices. I find it incredibly bizarre, and I just don't like it.

But anyway, I have insurance. Good.

5. 2006-01-10 23:45 (Monday) journal

The track-pad on my Mac went wonky today, so I tried sleeping the machine which is usually all that's necessary when the track-pad dies, then did the obligatory reboot when sleep didn't work. No luck, so I cleaned the pad with isopropyl alcohol (sometimes a bit of crud on it makes it behave strangely), but that did it in altogether. I let it sit a while, which has been necessary on prior cleanings when I was too liberal with the alcohol - but I didn't think I'd been this time. It refused to work after a period, so I borrowed a serial trackball and serial-to-PS2 adapter from a friend. I hooked that up with my PS-2-to-USB adapter and did a bit of on-line research on possible solutions, then booted up the hardware check disk to check to see if that had any comments. The mouse was working!

So I booted back up in OS X, and the mouse was working again. Hardware! I guess I achieved the necessary "screw with it" factor, and it's feeling loved and happy again. Yay! No trip to Tennessee necessary.

6. Adult babies suck

2005-01-12 00:48 (Wednesday) journal

frustrated Mood: frustrated

My Stupid Shell Script Of The Week is "mail-tommy". Tommy, the guy that runs DPF (Diaper Pail Friends), is an idiot. Last year, when I was just starting out as a professional dominatrix, I thought it would be fun to work with adult babies. I mean, it's pretty obvious what to do - treat them like babies, and they should be happy. I signed up for the DPF babysitter list to get clients, and it caused me to get calls. Not so many clients, but a lot of inquiries that lead nowhere, a few people genuinely in need of talking to someone, and a bunch of harassing/annoying calls. I stopped accepting new AB clients 2004Q4, and since then, I've written to Tommy a couple of times asking to be taken off the sitter list.

It shouldn't come as a surprise this being difficult, as it took several months and e-mails to get on the list in the first place. When I did get on the list, he added my name twice. (With my luck, he'll remove one and then I'll have to wait 6 more months to get him to remove the other one.) Anyway, he's not removed my name yet, and I don't want any more calls from these folks. I could check the web site once a week and send out an e-mail. Nah -- repetitive things are better done by machine.

So now I've got a cron job that runs at 0:47 every morning. It uses Lynx to check to see if I'm still listed on the site, and if I am automatically sends another message to Tommy asking to be removed. Obnoxious, yes. Bordering on spam? Well, it'll shut off automatically when he removes my name. All he's got to do is actually maintain his site, which members pay him to do that (including me; I had to sign up as a member to be added to the sitters list).

In a way, I feel bad declaring he's an idiot. He's been a public figure for the AB community long-term, even more-so than the way I was a figure-head for the Rochester trans community a few years back. Long before the internet provided a way for pervs to find community, Tommy was doing it with a print newsletter and appearing on talk shows and stuff.

Dealing with him over the last year, though... his site is clunky and obnoxious looking, stuff that should be automated isn't, and he doesn't spend much time working on much of it apparently. It's too bad he doesn't know what he's doing, as he's got a well-known brand identity that could really bring in a lot of members/profit if he understood what to do with it.

7. 2005-01-16 15:34 (Sunday) journal

excited Mood: excited

I found it! I'm so happy! Waii! Wai wai wai! I found the negatives from my SRS! I was afraid I'd tossed them by accident, but while sorting through some junk (throwing most of it out) I came across them, along with a bunch of other sentimental stuff.

8. Taxes are done

2005-01-17 00:33 (Monday) journal

Yee-haw! I finished my taxes, and I owe the government $343.07. I don't quite understand the issue people have with taxes being hard, but I think it's because doing taxes is like debugging a program. You start at the beginning of the tax form, and just process the lines one at a time. If you get to a like you don't understand, you read the book. From time to time, you need to execute subroutines that are other forms or schedules or a worksheet in the book. It takes a while, maybe a little tedious, but not really hard.

Maybe since people don't understand what's going on, they're confused. I found the Schedule D Tax Worksheet to be really odd to process, because it takes a bunch of numbers off some other forms and then there's a bunch of operations that do something and then a number comes out. I have some idea of what the operations do, but not exactly, so there's a little bit of a strange "did I execute all 37 operations correctly?" feeling in my mind.

Maybe it's the lack of being able to eyeball the result. 27^2 is somewhere around 700, maybe 750; the circumference of a 15m circle is ~47m. The correct output of the worksheet should be around... I really have no idea. There's no "gut sense" that this is right or wrong, just some numbers crunched and a result.

So anyway, I'll send off some dosh to the Tax Man this week, and be all paid up for the year. Then it'll be on to New York state taxes... *shudder*. I'm not sure I'll owe the state anything, I hope not. It's interesting that I do feel a little intimidation by the taxes process, but really once I sit down and crunch at it I really don't find it too bad.

9. Arisia Science Fiction Convention

2005-01-24 21:40 (Monday) journal

This weekend I attended the Arisia Science Fiction convention and the private BDSM party that goes with it. I had a good time, though I didn't get to much of the SciFi con part. I did check out the dealers room briefly, and took a walk through the art room - some beautiful works. I also went to the dance on Saturday night, which was a wonderfully diverse crowd. There was a lesbian couple dancing Viennese waltz to some different pieces, several couples that knew how to dance swing, a few couples toying with different established dance moves, and a triad experimenting with how to make that work. One girl was mixing in some ballet, and some other weird eclectic stuff that I'm not sure how to describe. There was also plenty of the untrained hack dancing going on, too, but even there the mix of people was cool; nobody seemed to be pretentious, nor did anyone seem to be so fearful that they weren't having any fun.

Polyamory seems to have blended in with the SF fandom crowd, and there were workshops on it. There was also identification amongst the BDSM crowd as being poly, and I found myself thinking about this identity. To me, being poly means that I have relationships, which have a sexual component but are not singularly sexual flings, with multiple partners. My list of partners would include Sue, Amanda, and Dave, at minimum; there are probably a few other people I'd want to throw in who I have friendships with and we occasionally play sexually too. Yet, at least some of the folks that I'm seeing who are calling themselves poly are meeting people, having sex with them, and that's about it. To me, this strikes me as swinging, not a poly lifestyle. Not that I see anything wrong with swinging, but I think that the distinction is important - especially if you're interested in someone.

The other thing I noticed on the trip is the expensive hotel is cheap motif. These days, if you go to a reasonable hotel they provide you with internet access, free-of-charge. When you go to the ritzy hotel, though, you're supposed to pay extra for it. Not a reasonable fee, either - if they charged the extra $2 or $3, it'd show that they were being chintzy and nickel & diming you, so they charge $10 a day for it. What a bunch of cheap bastards! These days, with laundromats having internet access as a loss-leader to get you to use their facilities, hotels should provide it free-of-charge too.

10. My first train ride

2005-01-26 20:26 (Wednesday) journal

I'm returning to Rochester via Amtrak, and it's a nice variation from driving. The train is a little bit slower, but I've been able to finish some work on my laptop and do a bit of reading. I'm getting a little bored now, about 2 hours from Rochester, because I'm tired of reading. If I was going longer distance, it would be a good idea to hire one of the rooms on the train and sleep in the middle. The daytime was nice, because I could look out the window and see the scenery; there's no such stuff to look at now that it's night - occasionally we parallel a country road that we pass cars on, and sometimes there's a town out the window, but overall there's not much to see at night.

I enjoyed my chance to see Boston.

Rob made an interesting observation about public transit last night. In America, car-insistent drivers often downplay public transit, saying it's for the poor or whatever, and generally bitching that they have to support it. In reality, though, in a city with large transit systems - like Boston - the transit systems take cars off the road, so the car drivers benefit from the transit system too in reduced congestion, less of a fight for parking (and thus lower parking fees), etc. There is probably less of an effect in a comparatively small city like Rochester, but in any major city with good public transit - New York, Boston, Toronto, Chicago probably - the traffic problems would increase hugely if the public transit was turned off.

11. 2005-02-14 18:19 (Monday) journal

I've just submitted my first change via SourceForge to an open-source project. I sent updates to mserv for getting correct play times for variable bit-rate encoded files. I also downloaded the latest version of mserv and all the new prerequisites and updated the software on Beldandi, which should be good.

12. Orgy of sensuality

2005-02-16 21:11 (Wednesday) journal

The last 24 hours have been really strange. In fact, the last month has been really strange.

After Arisia last month, I noticed I was feeling a little jealous of the amount of sex & intimacy a lot of people have, and a feeling that I don't get enough. Then I met Jessica at the Rochester Trans group, and she made my heart flutter but turned out to be straight. I did a scene with Allison at RKS, and that budded into a friendship and some kind of non-traditional relationship that I'm not quite sure where it's going, but I'm enjoying it while it happens.

I ended up going out with the two of them for dinner and a movie last night, and the three of us together hit critical mass for strange kinda manipulative D/S sexual women. We were discussing all manner of strange shit to do with men, and after the movie we went out to a bar to tease men by leading them on then leaving them. Of course, the two of them lead this poor bartender on, then get themselves horny doing it and decide we should bring him home. His disbelief in our possessing whips & restraints & stuff egged me into the idea, and so we ended up bringing him back here for a 4-person orgy. I didn't play with him much, but Jessica and Allison did, and I played with Jessica and Allison in the mean time. There was much power exchange and sensuality being passed around. Somewhere along the way, Jessica decided she'd had enough of heterosexuality and was going bi; I think it was when I licked Allison's ear and Jessica demanded I do hers, too.

Afterwards, we sent the guy away and the three of us piled into my bed for sleep.

So, is it that I change my life in response to my desires, or does the universe bend to my whims? It certainly feels like the latter, but the former would make more sense. In any case, I'm enjoying it.

The other thing I was thinking about is that my old attitude is that I should be able to do anything that's legal, and not do illegal stuff. My present attitude is that I should do anything that's legal, and not be harassed doing it; and I should do anything that I know I can get away with. However, logic indicates this doesn't make sense: only one index should select things, so if it's not laws then people should try to stop me from doing legal stuff just because they don't want me to. I think this happens, but I tend to go into bull-dozer mode and just push them and any obstacles they create out of my way.

Maybe it's just that I'm low profile that this works? If people noticed me and wanted to harass me, I guess they could. Maybe I just haven't created enough legal problems that it affects my ability to bull-doze, but if/when I had a reputation of problems then I'd meet more resistance and not be able to work this way.

13. Fire!

2005-02-17 23:55 (Thursday) journal

I made a huge screw-up in a scene today, but since I've been a good girl and made sure all my ducks are in their row it was no issue. I was doing a fire-play scene with this client, which involves putting isopropyl alcohol on someone's body and then lighting it on fire. I've got more to learn about doing it artistically, like making neat patterns and stuff, but I can do the basics and safely. My technique is to apply the IPA, then wait until it's nearly dried off then ignite the remainder. If any is burning too long in any one spot, wipe the skin with my hand to distribute any remaining alcohol and put out the fire.

This has worked well, but today I still had the soaked cotton-ball in my hand when I did the hand-wipe. It, of course, ignited and I suddenly found my hand getting very hot very quick. I threw the cotton-ball on the floor, then was like, "Shit. There's a fire on my floor." Not a response of panic, more annoyance that it might damage the rug of the scratching-post it had landed on. I considered stomping on it, but then just figured I should do it right, so I grabbed the fire extinguisher and gave it a momentary blast and it went out.

The client was blind-folded, and I think he was completely unaware that anything strange had happened. None of the neighbors were around, so I took the partially-discharged extinguisher down to Pizza Amore and gave the woman that works there a chance to try it out. I'm actually really glad that last autumn, when my rechargeable extinguisher was getting low I set it off to learn how, and so today in the heat of the moment there wasn't any doubt or fear in my mind.

So, now there's white powder all over a section of my dungeon. I'll have to clean up and buy a new fire extinguisher tomorrow.

14. Movie "Closer"

2005-03-04 00:20 (Friday) journal

Today I ran into something that made me aware of my counter-cultureness: the movie "Closer". It's an annoying film about these 4 monogamous heterosexuals, 2 M & 2 F, who hurt each-other by switching off partners and causing jealousy and pain and drama. The whole thing just pissed me off, I hated the characters and the films because I just didn't want to have to watch these idiots be incapable of dealing with the problems they created by buying into societal values that were handed down without re-evaluating them.

Earlier today, I was having dinner with Dar & Allison, and talking with them about how I am happy and a lot of it is because I have people around me who I find interesting to share my life with. Then it occurred to me that this is happening because I'm not looking for The One. The One, I believe, probably doesn't exist. I have a Cluster, make up of many people all who provide me with different aspects of relationships that are important to me. Most of them have a similar set of relationships that work for them.

This idea of monogamy: Bad news. First off, we're critters. And critters, especially the male ones, like to spread their boffing around. Then, there's this jealousy. If I'm in a monogamous relationship, I'm supposed to be jealous if the other person looks around. Even worse, they sleep around and I find out, them I'm supposed to throw a fit and be all hurt because they didn't find me good enough. Screw that. Allison brings out the raw lust in me, Dave has patience and has figured out stuff about my muff that no one else seems to know how to do (hell, he figured out stuff I'm still not sure how to do). Dar is cuddly and fun, and I don't know where things with Curtis are going but he's at least a good friend. And with all those relationships and their various levels of intimacy, for a real sounding board I'm going to go with Jan, even though there's no chance of intimacy there because he's in a committed relationship (which I'll respect, even though I'm ranting about them at the moment). He's known me most of my life and watched all my changes and is pretty good at analyzing me fairly (maybe because we're not intimate), so if I need a really deep self-reflective conversation, it's probably him.

Let's see, the way to run a monogamous relationship is to:

1.  Find person.
2.  Declare your undying love of each-other, and get them to do the same
    for you.  Make commitments based on this.
3.  Try to make this work.
4.  Find out that one other person can't possibly fulfill every little
    desire you have, thus leading to breaking the commitments in #2.
5.  Tell partner, who then expresses anger by breaking their commitments.
6.  Let jealousy/anger/etc. fester a while.
7.  If relationship hasn't completely fallen apart, go back to step 2.

Where as a poly relationship works like:

1.  Find person.
2.  Establish relationship with person.
3.  Modify relationship as needed until you part ways.
4.  Part as friends until the day you meet again, then go to step 2.

15. BitTorrent

2005-03-04 03:02 (Friday) journal

I've been using BitTorrent to download some stuff (though just going to a FTP distribution site and downloading a distribution seems to be much faster, but I kind of like the idea of not hammering the person's bandwidth who is nice enough to put something up for free).

It's interesting because it appears that it starts in the beginning and works with a fairly small window as it chunks along. The files grow in this manner, anyway -- however, on closer inspection, and watching date stamps and checksums on files, it is clear that though it doesn't receive stuff entirely haphazardly, it's not a small window that's open. It seems it's still fleshing out the details on the early files as it's finishing up the last ones. How odd.

16. Growth of personality

2005-03-20 07:59 (Sunday) journal

I've been considering what is personality for a while. Where does it come from? It's something that grows, develops over time in our lives. An interesting thing is the way describing personality changes over time:

An infant's personality can be described to 95% accuracy in a single word: a cranky baby, a codgity baby, a quiet baby, and excitable baby.

By the time we're about 4, we need two words, and maybe a handful of interests. An active but sensitive child; an aggressive, self-interested child.

When we get to age 8 - 10, we start needing a sentence, or maybe a short paragraph, which includes a few traits and some key interests which we use to define ourselves. At that point, though, that continues to be enough to describe a person's personality for a long time. Not that the description stays constant, but at any point a few sentences would be enough to describe someone's personality: a shy, quiet child who is well-behaved, and enjoys reading; an outgoing, attention-attracting child who can be deceptive when trying to get his/her way, and is presently into varsity sports.

At some point, I think we again become more complex and require more than a paragraph to describe personality. When and why does this happen? Does it happen for everyone?

Through teenage years, we're stuffed with information in school and we're trying to figure out increasingly complex social interactions with our peers, so I think we're too busy with other things to do it then.

For those that go to university, the educational pressures continue, and there's a long period of refining our social behaviors to conform to an unwritten protocol (failing to do so will result in being left behind, an outsider, or described as immature). Thus, I think it happens post-college.

I think as a member of an earlier form of personality, one doesn't yet have the ability to analyze a more complex personality and come up with an accurate description because we don't have the capacity to understand that people are that complex. As we develop a more complex personality, I think we tend to expect our friends and companions to increase with us, lest we find them growing boring; most of these friends respond to the peer pressure and grow up (though, the peer pressure may also push a person to develop in a particular manner).

There are definitely people that I perceive didn't hit the final personality growth cycle (or, by the logic in my prior paragraph, is it just the one I'm in and I can't see the next ones because I'm not there yet?), but it could be that I just don't know them well enough. Looking at some of the older bar patrons, though, I don't see a lot to describe: a nice guy, with a sense of humor, likes having a few drinks after work and talking about sports. Is this all I can see because in the context of a bar, this is all he is supposed to show, the bar atmosphere filtering out the rest?

What are the properties of this last (or at least present) personality growth? If Jayce and I are any example, then starting to actively understand our personality and those around us. Finding the canned social scripts to be inadequate. Questioning the way we behave in a situation: When X happens, I do Y. Is that really effective? Do I like the way Y represents me? Developing more range and situational aspects to our personality.

17. 2005-04-09 18:17 (Saturday) journal

Having roommates has been an eye-opening experience. Intellectually, I've known I'm growing in my social skills and generally getting wiser with age. Nevertheless, these aren't things that get measured regularly or can be measured easily, like strength or intelligence. Having a younger roommate (Jessica is 23), I can see a lot of differences in her perception of how the world works versus my present perception, though I am reminded of my perceptions of the world at her age.

My other roommate, Lindsey, is struggling with an aspect of personality development. I don't know if this is universal, but in my group of friends, there was first a group-membership personality, and we either didn't have a lot of individuality or didn't know how to express it. As Jayce observed, the shared ideas like enjoying Monty Python and being Sci-Fi types, gave us membership in a group of people who enjoyed a similar set of stuff. Lindsey is in this stage now.

As we grew, we eventually started individualizing. Not that SF and Monty Python aren't cool, but there's more to life... I got involved in BDSM and the trans community, amongst other things; but the various other members of our crowd went their own way. When we get together, we talk about the different things we're trying -- I might, for example, talk about the effort to make my business work, and the changes in my life being a pro-dom versus a software engineer. Jayce and I talk about the different ways we're learning to live in a society without an approved, corporate-style job. Sometimes we'll discuss my questions on lawfulness in an environment where there is no enforcement.

I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line just having the group personality wasn't good enough anymore, and people were expected to have an individual personality. I guess it happened gradually... Those with just group personality are still tolerated, but more and more those of us who are individuals find the non-individuals awkward, inadequate. Jayce has commented that he just doesn't want to deal with those who haven't been through the "personality incubator" (his words, but good ones) because he's tired of expending effort to help these folks grow - I think the rest of us agree, but we're still willing to help, for the moment. The day we stop wanting to deal with them may come.

18. Stuff and who we are

2005-04-19 16:17 (Tuesday) journal

I was thinking today about stuff and personality. In my prior comments on personality growth, I observed that people have a phase where they've got a few descriptive comments and a list of interests. I think one common phase of growth is that, as we leave the nest our parents' provided (or didn't provide, for some), we try to express our individuality by surrounding ourselves with stuff related to our interests. If I'm a jazz fan, I'll buy jazz albums, therefore showing I'm a jazz fan. Or Doctor Who videos, or a fancy car, or a nice computer.

However, having jazz doesn't make me a jazz fan any more or any less than if I didn't have any. It might be something to allow me to enjoy a piece I particularly like (hopefully, not just one that's touted as a great or popular piece). Having all the BDSM toys I have lets me do my job, but it doesn't make me any more or less a BDSM fan - although it does let me explore it more.

I'm thinking about this because my friend Harry tries to express who he is by possessing stuff. That was enough to start a friendship, but as I've grown further, I find myself thinking: Harry likes Macs, but he's not a Macintosh. He has access to a pool, but he's not a pool. He plays poker for income, but is he really into the social part or does he just do it for profit? Just who is Harry, anyway?

It's even stranger that I think Harry's figured out he does this, at least to the extent that he's mentioned that among some BDSM groups he feels like a "whip on life support." Exactly: he's identified himself as someone who plays in BDSM and has the tools, but who the hell is he?

I know he'd love to have an explanation, but how do I do so? How do you explain to someone that they're explaining themselves in terms of stuff, and they have to explain real stuff. Even if I found words that adequately and succinctly explained it, would he understand them if he's not at that stage of personal development yet?

I feel bad, but I've moved on and he's gotten left behind. I know he feels alone, and I feel like I'm abandoning him. At the same time, though, when we've spent time together I find it harder and harder to deal with him as time goes by. Maybe my prior comment that I was still willing to help people through the personality incubator isn't accurate.

19. Start of the Natchez Trace trip

2005-04-25 18:32 (Monday) journal

natchez bridge

Today was the first day of actual cycling on the Natchez Trace trip, having arrived in Mississippi yesterday afternoon after driving for 2 days. Dad & I did about 50 miles today, mom driving the car. Weather reports indicate heavy thunder storms tonight, so we're staying at a hotel in Port Gibson, Mississippi for the night. It's interesting to compare to other places I've been; elsewhere I've seen towns that have fallen into decline but not quite like I sense here. In the downtown area of town, there were numerous areas that were clearly lots where there had formerly been buildings, but they'd been condemned and demolished and turned into lawns or, in a few cases, small parks.

We had dinner at Cafe Central, a little restaurant being run by an older couple as an attempt to start something good for the city. Meals were fine, but it felt they were trying to create an upper-class restaurant atmosphere (decorative silverware and plates) in a space that seemed more diner-class by my expectations. This got me to wondering whether I don't understand differences in the culture here, or if these folks are trying to create something that just doesn't make sense. (It's probably cultural.)

It's also worth mentioning that there's clearly a lot more Christian God worshipping going on here. The woman that owns Cafe Central was talking about moving to town 3 years ago, and how finding a church to belong to was an important first step when arriving here.

20. 2005-04-26 17:39 (Tuesday) journal

I am a little surprised by Macy's advertising gall: "If it's not new, it's not in fashion." Wow! Corporate greed right in our faces: if you're not spending money on our products, you suck. Your self-worth depends on you buying stuff. I can only hope that this overly direct message will clue in some people to what a scam it all is, but unfortunately I suspect it won't.

I need to figure out how to make a do-it-yourself version of The Fashion Project. Or public domain the materials so people can run themselves and their friends through it. I mean, I realize I'm not fashionable a lot of the time, but I don't choose to be; but I still have my own sense of fashion and it's not what the bastard fashion industry says it should be and THAT'S OKAY. If there's any fashion folks reading my journal, I wholeheartedly refer you greedy bastard self-righteous mother f*ckers to figure 1.

       _
      | |
    _ | | _  _
   | || || || |
   |          |
   \         /
    \       /
    figure 1

21. 2005-05-07 11:57 (Saturday) dreams journal

I was back at OWTS. Steve Anderson was harassing me, so I pinned him against a blackboard. People were surprised, realized they shouldn't bother me. I wanted to get something, possibly my grades, so I went to the main office. I waited a bit and didn't know what to do, then I broke down in tears and depression.

I was in a European country, which was like Venice in that traveling was done by sidewalks along the canals that were the streets. The water was filthy, and I didn't want to go in. There were some people playing bocce, and they threw some of the balls in the canal and I was thinking they were going to be nasty to retrieve, so they were probably down there forever.

I was with family in some sort of large house where there was a gathering going on. Several days passed quickly, and every night we'd switch bedrooms so we would get a chance to try a different bedroom each night. I was still depressed and crying in every bedroom we went in.

It was around then that I woke, and it was strange because I could feel the depression from the dream affecting my emotions, a sense that there was no real reason to be depressed, yet I could feel I was, and I wasn't sure why I shouldn't be. Logic, though, said it was a dream so I should just push the depressed feelings away because they didn't reflect real life, just the dream.

22. What makes Harry, Harry?

2005-05-20 08:20 (Friday) journal

Talking with Harry recently, I got to thinking about identity some more. Harry has some different identity characteristics from other friends, so I've been trying to narrow down what it is. I tried a couple of ideas that didn't work out:

- Something to do with his likes/dislikes.
  But I can make a list for any of my friends, so it's not that.
- Something with how he communicates or deals with a situation.
  Again, I can describe that for all friends, so it's not that.

Is it how he presents his identity? What does this mean? Well, for me, part of my identity is figuring out my identity. This could be because I never figured myself out, or a series of continual refinement. I think it's also that my identity keeps changing; it's not fixed, and I know it isn't so at any given time there's several chunks of identity that aren't nailed down. Or maybe nothing is nailed down, but I can only change a few pieces at a time.

Reflecting, I don't think any of my identity is nailed down. Just that the more central pieces have more inertia and require a lot more incentive/effort to change. But they do change, I suspect, as I've seen central changes to behavior over the last few years. On the other hand, it could be newly created ideas/aspects causing more input into decisions that change the outcomes. But I'm digressing...

Most of the people I hang with have this in-progress identity thing. Trannies, of course; but also most of the Looneys. Slower now for most of the Looneys, but certainly when we were back in college figuring out our identities together was a lot of what cemented the bonds of friendship amongst a collection of geeks and freaks.

Is Harry in this process of figuring out his identity? I think he is. However, I think he's also trying to present a solid identity. I have done this sometimes, and it usually screws me up because I get so invested in trying to present the identity that I get stuck in it. I wonder if people sense the uncertain-yet-presented-hardened identity that Harry presents (and I used to present) and instinctively get nervous dealing with it. In my experience, the less I try to present an identity and instead just do what I want and ignore identity (which I suspect results in truly "being myself") the better I seem to do.

As always though, maybe I'm trying too hard to figure something out.

23. Amtraking to Philadelphia

2005-05-23 14:00 (Monday) journal

heather and neil

I'm on Amtrak en-route to Rochester from Philadelphia via New York City after Neil and Heathers' Wedding. It's definitely longer than by car, but I can get up and move around and it's nice to be able to just look out the window and watch the Hudson and other scenery, or even to hack on projects rather than being focused on driving.

Philadelphia's an interesting city, and especially the Ben Franklin Bridge. It's a single bridge with an upper deck of car/truck traffic, I think a lower deck of various rail track, the SpeedLine rapid transit kinda grafted onto the side, and some pedestrian walkways above that. It's unclear to me if it was built that way or if some of it was added after initial construction, especially the light rail.

Once I figured out how to read my train ticket the bigger stations aren't so intimidating. At first, I had no idea how to figure out which train I was supposed to take from NYC to Philadelphia, or where I would find it.

It's amazing how much different some of the bridges over the Hudson look from below. They seem like these giant tributes to human determination when driving over them, but from below they seem much smaller. NYC still holds it's amazingness though. It's also strange to see all the evidence of the extent of the former rail infrastructure, a lot of which has been ripped out. I'm mixed on my feelings about it: I understand that if the lines aren't maintained, the ties rot out and eventually the lines is useless -- in which case it kind of makes sense to remove the steel. On the other hand, it seems like it just went to waste when we built roads everywhere. For what? So now I've got to not only pay to go somewhere (gas), but I've got to pay for the vehicle to travel in, drive it myself, and pay the taxes to maintain the roads it moves on? That seems stupid.

I realize Amtrak is government-subsidized too (partly because it's required to run many lines at losses, instead of being allowed to just run the profitable ones; I'm mixed on this), but I think if we hadn't built all these nice roads for cars to travel (creating a competitive, government-sponsored alternative to rail travel) rail would have continued thriving.

It's strange doing the personal car math. Basically, assuming a car lasts ~10 years then it's going to cost $7 / day, or $2600 per year once I account of price of basic car, insurance, basic maintenance, licensure, etc. That doesn't include cost of driving it, which would include gas, tires, brakes, extra maintenance, breakdowns, etc. If we figure gas alone (at 17 km/liter; 40 mpg) for 16,000 km / 10,000 miles then we're talking $5,000 additional. So in the end, an inexpensive, efficient car driven average distance with a good maintenance record costs about $8,000 a year all told. A crappy SUV is a lot more. Note: There is a math error above. At the prevailing $2/gallon at the time, the gas should cost about $500.

A regional transit pass is $90/month. Round trip train ~300 - ~400 miles is $150, which I would do maybe 6 times per year. So, using transit costs only $2,000 per year. Even if the cost doubled, it'd still be half the price of a car. Note: Should be about the same price as a car.

But my car is paid for, so it costs nothing tangible except for gas. And when it breaks down. Really, though using it eats up mileage, so wear and tear brings it closer to the time of replacement, which isn't measurable or clearly determinable so it's intangible. At some point, the car will be crap and need to be replaced, but there's no precise time that it reaches MTBF. Thus, it appears that my car is a cheaper alternative -- but I don't believe it really is.

A car is more convenient, though, given that everyone else uses a car because it's more convenient. If we all used public transit, it'd have enough funding coming in to enhance itself to where it would be as good as a car. A catch-22.

24. Fallout with Harry

2005-05-25 23:45 (Wednesday) diary journal

So after spending several hours figuring out my thoughts on identity and what they mean in the relationship with Harry, and several more hours trying to write down those thoughts as best I could in a way that made some sense, Harry didn't get it. He pretty much did the blind- sighted routine of `see, this is proof you hate me and don't want to talk to me' and doesn't want to talk any more. The emotions surrounding this are a bit strange to deal with.

On the one hand, I want to help him get through this funk he's been in for the last few years. I have a few pieces of insight, and some comments, but I don't know how to make them coherent for him to understand. On the other hand, dealing with it for the last few years has been increasingly frustrating, and it'd certainly be a lot easier just to leave him behind.

Putting in further effort to help him out is probably pointless, because now he's pissed and won't listen. I could wait until he's unwound and gets lonely and contacts me again, but we've been through that routine before and he ends up just iterating in the same state. So how do I get him out of it? He is human, so it seems he could just break out if it at any time. However, that's the issue: he tries to execute his life based solely on facts, and not emotion or empathy. He keeps falling back on existing thought patterns rather than forming or experimenting with new ones.

It's just god damn frustrating, pouring my heart into trying to help him out, trying so fucking hard to explain. And he just says, `Well I don't understand that, so you must hate me so fuck off.' It just makes me feel like crap, like why the hell did I try?

I should really just leave him behind. It'd be a lot easier on me. And if I'm sharing my geist with the beautiful, friendly people in my life now, it's not going to waste like it seems to with Harry.

25. Purpose of my journal

2005-05-26 12:05 (Thursday) journal

As a result of fall-out with Harry, I've been thinking about how being so open in my journal affects my friends. Part of what set this last series of things off with Harry is that he found a journal entry a while back where I was kvetching about the friendship and how it felt like we were growing apart and my thoughts on why.

Is it fair that I post my journal without any way for people to respond? Just what the hell is the point of my journal? Does being so open hurt or help friendships? I have the choice of public or private diary entries. What makes me decided which is which?

So why the journal? It's my diary. It's my place to write stuff down and go back sometime and reflect on stuff I forgot about. It lets me go back and see an image of me in the past, so I can remember who I was and see how I've changed. It shows ideological history of my mind, sort of like the grand canyon show the geological history of the south-west.

It's not for convincing anyone I'm right about anything, though I suppose people could take it that way; Harry certainly seems to have. It's not to stake my position in the ground and say, "This is the truth." I've changed almost constantly over the years, a lot of it the result of the reflecting I've been doing that is logged in the journal.

I think it does show a deeper side of me that I don't express often when I'm out with people. In that way, I see it as a way for my friends to try to understand me more completely, because trying to explain all this stuff in real-time is just too hard and probably too theoretical.

Jayce does a similar thing on his site, on different matters though; and I find it interesting seeing how he's changing as he grows. We talk about it a little, but his writing is always available (not just when we meet for lunch), and I think it also gives him an opportunity to sort the ideas so he's coherent when we do get together for lunch. That's true for this journal, too; it's me showing my work so I can refer back and see how I got a solution, and if I got an answer that I decide is wrong I can see where I made the mistake. It's my sounding board for the me of the present and the me of the future.

Is it fair to not let people respond? Yes. This journal is about me. People can talk to me or e-mail me and I'll think about their ideas, and maybe mention them here if there's enough merit. Of course, it'll end up being their idea filtered through my perspective. But again, that'll show the history of how my mind and ideas changed. It's all about me.

Does being so open hurt or help friendships? It's got potential for both. Certainly at present, it's causing turbulence and pain, but maybe that's a step for growth - neither of us will know until the future. Being so open about many things has helped a lot of people, especially other gender queers, but also friends/relatives of gender queers, random folk who run into me, people whose eyes have been opened to a bigger, more diverse world. However, openness about who I am on the surface and all the underlying thoughts: are they different? This is a question I'm not prepared to answer, so maybe it's time to start asking questions, talking to friends, and contemplating.

I have the choice of public or private diary entries. What makes me decided which is which? Less interesting dreams I keep to myself. Entries that leak really personal information, both for myself and others, are kept private. Extraordinarily brutal entries, where I'm ranting about how much I'm pissed at someone and why they're useless, I keep to myself. Last night's entry might fall in that category - not nearly as clearly as past ones though, but I suppose I should err on the side of private and change its designation.

So now I'm going to go for a bicycle ride on a beautiful, 21 C in Rochester with perfectly clear blue skies.

26. 2005-05-27 13:00 (Friday) journal

After the third repair in sequence, Newton is back from Apple and all the flakey little things that have been building up are fixed. I suspect I've got pretty close to an entirely new machine; I know I got a new CD-ROM, hard drive, and logic board. I suspect given the feel that they beefed up some support structures internally; the machine seems slightly more rigid (or it's my imagination making it up because it hopes it is).

So the question now is, what do I do with Shelly, the Clamshell iBook that I picked up when Newton looped the first time and didn't want any more downtime? I like the idea of a back-up laptop, but it seems stupid to just let it collect dust.

I could lend it out to friends, but then if/when Newton breaks again, I'll have to call it in which is kind of inconvenient to them. I'll have to think about this.

27. 2005-05-29 14:28 (Sunday) diary journal

I'm not sure what to write.

I'm in emergency psych, having called 911 in on Lindsey after I got an e-mail that said she was cutting her arm and killing herself. I'm not sure what to do.

No, I did exactly what I'm supposed to do. I didn't waste time, I activated the EMS system.

My mind is racing, and at a standstill. Did I do the right thing? I thought she might be bluffing, and she seems mostly to have been (she just left a scratch on her arm), but this is what I'm supposed to do. I hated being mental hygiened, but now I've done it to her. But it

28. 2005-05-29 22:42 (Sunday) diary journal

tired Mood: tired

Lindsey walked in as I was writing the last entry in the waiting room of the emergency psych department, which is why it's interrupted mid-sentence.

It's strange, I don't know if I was writing to distract myself, or because I felt like I should be doing something but didn't know what.

Feeling the situation in my head, it reminded me of the semi-paralyzing focused panic/need to do something of the end of my days at HDi. After I got home, I noticed a physical tiredness in my legs; although I didn't feel a distinct adrenalin rush my legs felt like they'd been through one.

I imagine this is what things were like for Kage and Jordan all those years ago, when I got mental hygiened.

I still have that feeling a little, that I should say something but I don't know what.

I'm going to go cuddle with Dave.

29. Take your cheese and stuff it

2005-06-15 20:16 (Wednesday) journal

(Updated 2005-06-19 with correct details of Eastman seating.)

I'm at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, and I'm finding myself irritated by the product placement throughout the festival. I have nothing against the free cheese one of the vendors is giving out (or was, I don't see it anymore). However, before every show there are announcements of the vendors who have "made the festival possible." In the RIJF "Big Tent", the walls of the tent are plastered with signs for all of the vendors.

I will say, I have nothing against the vendors who put up money for the free concerts getting lip service. It's a nice thing for them to do, and if they want mention that they ponied up some cash to make it possible, fine.

But these paid concerts: I paid for tickets to the concert, as did several thousand other people. Just figuring the economics of the Eastman Theatre for Chick Corea:

        Upper balcony:  500 @ $27.50            13 750
        Lower balcony:  500 @ $37.50            18 750
        Main floor:     1000 @ $50.00           50 000
        Total:                                  82 500
The Eastman Theatre capacity is 3096, and the theatre was about 2/3 full for Chick. For Brubeck: 
        Upper balcony:  800 @ 37.50             30 000
        Lower balcony:  800 @ 50.50             40 400
        Main floor:     1500 @ 65.00            97 500
        Total:                                  167 900

I'm pretty sure the cheese vendor didn't pony up anywhere near $165 000, and that was just one event. In addition to Chick and Brubeck, there are 4 other headliners, plus the myriad of smaller performers -- probably around 40 groups over the whole time.

So it strikes me as petty when the concert is made possible by the cheese vendor. It isn't. This thing is for-profit, lots of people are making money on it. We, the attendees, are the ones making it possible. It's nice they didn't have to borrow as much money to make this happen, instead getting it in advertising from the various vendors, but they still aren't the ones making the thing possible.

The other thing that twigs me is the government money. To get it started, fine; but now the concert is running and profitable (or headed firmly that way) I don't think the concert is going to need public funding much longer. However, I think it probably will continue to get it.

The senator and county executive touting themselves on the banners, though, blurs the line between the government subsidy and personal donations by those people. They didn't give the money to support the concert, we the people did. If she or her party wants to give money to advertise here, fine, but if it's my tax money then it shouldn't have her name in big letters.

The Rochester Jazz Festival is made possible by the patrons who are coming out to listen to the jazz, and a wee bit of taxpayer money. Those are the people to thank.

30. 2005-06-17 17:53 (Friday) journal

I bumped into the RIJF festival promoter today, and took the opportunity to ask about the senator's funding. He did not, in fact, donate the money; he just got public funds pushed to the festival.

31. 2005-07-09 10:47 (Saturday) journal

I arrived back in Rochester Thursday evening, after spending a week at mom & dad's and a week visiting Mike & Tina and hiking a section of the Appalachian trail from Monasses Gap to Harper's Ferry. There was a section called the "Roller Coaster", which is very hilly, but I did okay. There's a beautiful hostel called "Bear's Den" which is at the top of one of the mountains. We stayed there the night after we did the first 2/3 of the roller coaster, which was nice because we didn't need to deal with setting up camp that night. One of the thru-hikers was doing laundry, so we tossed in socks and stuff so I never got exceptionally nasty smelling on the trip. Overall I had a good time, and I notice I was much more emotional when I heard the song "Country Road" on the way back.

Of course, the emotion is probably also in part because I've been off my medication. I mail-ordered them to get the better price my prescription plan offers, but they screwed around with the order and the order didn't arrive before I left for Connecticut. For the last week and a half or so, I've been dizzy, occasionally more emotional, and had low blood pressure when mom measured it. I've been curious how I'll respond to things without the medication, so when I got home I didn't start taking any. Yesterday, I went out and did McCollege paperwork and started getting school uniform together and stuff. All went well until I got to Target, where I got very nervous, overly emotional, and generally weird. I actually got through shopping, but on leaving the store broke down in tears of joy for having escaped being in the giant box, so I called a friend and talked for a while until I felt ready to drive. Even then, though, I'm not sure I should have been driving, there were some weird moods and thoughts hitting me as I drove home.

Getting home, I was really tired, like I drained everything out of me. I took my meds and laid in bed for a while, then forced myself to get dinner and watched some TV since I wasn't up to going out. I don't remember being hit that hard by emotional volatility, but maybe I never noticed it before.

In other excitement, I ripped someone apart on a mailing list. She expressed a viewpoint that was utterly stupid, and I tore into it. She turned the tables and tried to make me look stupid by saying I should read more carefully, and that I'd read the opposite of what she wrote. So I went back and re-read, and it was obvious she was being manipulative and trying to change what she said -- whether that was because she just misspoke or changed sides, I don't know. So I tore into her for trying to turn the tables and making me look stupid, pointing out where she was being manipulative, and asking if this was the result of a misspeak or what.

She finally shut up for once in her frigging life and didn't respond. On the one hand, I'm glad because she's annoying and snooty and I think for once she finally got cornered in a way that she has to acknowledge what she's done. On the other hand, I feel kinda weird because she's doing it a sort of egotistical way that I had a few years ago. Frankly, this whole thing reminds me of things that used to fly on the RIT VAX Notes system.

I guess what I feel is a desire to help her grow up and stop playing children's games. It's odd, because she really irritates me, but I feel sorry for her because I cornered her and I think I've probably really hurt her. Yet, I don't feel like I did anything wrong; she needs to be be punished for trying to hide her error and blame it on someone else. Negative feedback is necessary to convince someone that the wrong way of doing something will not be tolerated by others. If anything, I feel a sort of mild sympathy for her.

32. Zippers and Air Conditioning

2005-07-25 01:50 (Monday) journal

First, zippers are evil. Not in any theological sense, just that they are so bloody convenient and so annoying at the same time. They're exactly the device needed for sealing two things together effectively, but if a nip of fabric folds over and gets wedged in them, they jam. If there's a loose string, they jam. If they get off the track, they jam. With the proliferation of cheap crap from Wal*Mart and the like, there's cheap zippers that stop holding tight after relatively little wear, making them increasingly annoying on articles that aren't nearly worn out save the failing zipper. Thus, zippers are evil. And probably companies that tempt us with cheap crap that really isn't very good, but we buy it because we're dumb and then the zipper stops working after only a few months.

The other thing I'm thinking about is air conditioning. I never realized before that the reason the mall is so freaking cold in the summer is because people are used to it, at least the people who go to malls. The people who can afford to buy crap at malls have air conditioned cars, air conditioned houses, air conditioned jobs and air conditioned lives. For those of us who aren't always in it, our bodies' tolerances must adjust a little bit as the seasons change - not that 30C or 70% humidity is comfortable to me, but I think ideally for me, about 23 - 25C with low humidity is comfortable, but for people used to air conditioning it's more like 20 or 21C, and they have less tolerance for humidity.

I went to Galla Central House with Sue, Amanda, Jessica, and Dave this weekend, Dave, Beth, and I did a long day-hike on Saturday, which was enjoyable and had some beautiful views.

I still get a sense of being an outsider to the religion... I sometimes feel that I'm sort of here as a sanity check, to poke them if they go off course or get stuck. Given that idea, I'm concerned about things there. Something feels off, something feels missed... My gut tells me everyone involved is going astray either by being mislead or by choice. Yet I'm not sure on several people what is their issue I sense, but I think in most cases it surrounds lives not being in good order.

I know my life isn't in good order. I suppose I'm still cleaning up from when I crashed two years ago, but there's more to it. I'm lazy now in a way I wasn't before. I'm bad about getting a lot of stuff done in good fashion, preferring to ignore or procrastinate. So, given that my life isn't in good order, what am I saying about myself? And what can I say about the order?

33. Corporatization of the World

2005-08-12 01:27 (Friday) journal

I spent some time hanging with fuschia today, and she inspired an idea that hadn't occurred to me: the idea that corporations see us as resources to which they sell their wares, and that that blind utilitarian view of us was probably a stepping stone to us viewing corporations as these evil megaliths.

Presumably at some point in the past, things were mostly 1:1. You knew the shopkeeper at the corner, and they knew you, and neither wanted to see the other suffer. You both wanted to do alright, and not screw the other.

Then came corporations. They set up rule-books and remotely operate these instances of companies here and there, and they don't know who their resources come from and they don't know where their crap goes, so it's easy to get greedy. They don't know who they're screwing; there's no faces to go with the idea "customer" or "minimum wage employee with no health benefits".

Growing up, we had Caldor stores, which was a Connecticut chain. Stars was a local Torrington store, and Bradleys was a northeast chain. Kings had a couple stores around the region. The grocery stores were all regional chains or independents affiliated with some group like IGA (independent grocers of America). A lot of the products they carried were American-made, so buying stuff related the idea of giving a job to some other American.

That's not true anymore. Torrington has Wal*Mart, BJ's, Staples, all which are national stores. The grocery stores are all large regional chains - I don't think there's a single independent store left. And what they sell, I don't imagine gives a good job to anyone. I'm buying stuff from a faceless corporation who gets their supplies from another faceless corporation who hires people working for cheap. Thus, a company is just a resource where crap comes from, and I can get better or worse deals. The idea of stealing from them doesn't really bother me, though I don't expect I would; but I have no problem with failing to correct mistakes they make in my favor. Who am I screwing? There's no faces to go with the idea of "store owner" or "making sure Donna in Jewelry gets a decent wage and gets to keep her health insurance." (They don't get those anyway.)

34. Yard sale

2005-08-28 00:34 (Sunday) journal

I'm having a yard sale this weekend, and I find part of the culling process to be emotionally strange. Intellectually, I can determine what I don't need and should get rid of. When I did a lot of culling last year, I got rid of a lot of the easy things that have no use to me, nor any sentimental value. Now, a lot of the things I don't need are gifts I've been given. They're around and in the way, so it's important to get rid of them. However, it stirs the emotions to know I'm sending away things that people chose for me. Some of them are really nice things, too, but I still just don't need them.

I've asked people to stop giving me things, and some people have. I keep getting some stuff, though, and I really don't want to get it. Receiving stuff means I have to get rid of it, because I don't need it. How do I explain to people that giving me stuff just makes work for me? I understand that people give me things because they're trying to do something nice for me. I don't want to hurt their feelings.

Jessica leaves Rochester tomorrow. Though a new friend, she had fit into the mold of the Looneys in both attitude and availability. I'm going to miss her.

35. First day back at University

2005-09-06 21:13 (Tuesday) journal

Today was my first day back at university, this time going for massage therapy at Monroe Community College. I'm a little intimidated by things so far, I think a little because there's worries in my mind that I won't be able to keep up or handle the stress after my breakdown at Heidelberg. It's not going to be easy; I've been used to things in the intellectual domain, things I already had experience with and things that came easy. I think I'm in foreign territory now.

In massage class as we did introductions and went over the syllabus, then did an exercise about people's worries. A lot of other people are intimated by anatomy class too. The thing that struck me, though, is just how counter-culture I am. A lot of them were worried about people's hairy bodies, or having to massage butts... but I'm supposed to call them "glutes" now. There's this whole thing about draping so we don't see client's naughty bits, and others are intimidated by it -- either being draped wrong by someone, or draping someone wrong. Completely foreign feelings to me now, though I remember a time when I would have been bothered by these things.

36. 2005-09-13 18:05 (Tuesday) journal

happy Mood: happy

Yee-haw! Sensei in massage class took me aside today and we talked about my work, and she's cool with it. She wasn't sure if it was something I would ever talk about in class, but my feeling on this matter is that other students don't really need to know. Thus, I think I'm through all the issues that worried me starting at MCC.

Now if I can just keep up...

37. 2005-09-19 14:30 (Monday) journal

angry Mood: angry
)

RTS still sucks. I wanted to take the 18 loop anti-clockwise starting from Mount Hope, which is scheduled at 14:12. It never showed up, as usual. My guess is it came down Mt. Hope and turned up Elmwood, rather than just coming down Elmwood like the 18 clockwise does. So of course, being at the wrong corner of the intersection, I didn't see it. But how would I know? The schedule indicates nothing about which route around the hospital a particular bus takes, nor is there any indication at the 4 bus stops, one on each corner of the Mt. Hope / Elmwood intersection. So RTS still sucks.

Since I've been in Anatomy, I've been getting more agitated about the Christian anti-evolution bullshit. The more I learn about the body, the more evidence I see for evolution. Not that I'm not convinced there's Gods; this whole thing is pretty dang complex and the possibility of influence I can't deny. But, evolution happened, we weren't designed from scratch or our bodies would have a lot fewer spare components..

The issue I'm on about, though, is that as a polite person I've been taught not to point out what a bunch of dumb-fucks creationists are. I'm supposed to respect their religious views, and politely hold a different opinion. They, on the other hand, are on a quest from God to end rational thinking.

It's time to stop their nonsense, and it's time to stop being polite. If they're going to shove their crap-ass beliefs at me, it's time to point out what a bunch of small-minded scum-suckers they are. I'm not going to let bullshit dogma get in the way of truth anymore, just out of politeness. Truth is too important.

38. Cadaver Lab!

2005-09-23 17:49 (Friday) journal

excited Mood: excited

I'm psyched... the cadaver class is on.

Not that there aren't complications. It conflicts with the only lab period that doesn't conflict with my massage courses, at least for my instructor. Monday I'll have to talk to sensei and figure out how to work all of that out. There is an evening lab for adult courses, but sensei says they have a different pace. If it's not that much off, though, I'll just do that.

Somehow, I'm going to make this work.

39. 2005-10-12 11:41 (Wednesday) journal

I'm winding down from the last minute stuff of the RKS auction last week, but that's been replaced by a bunch of studying because I have a massage mid-term (kind of early for it, though), an anatomy lab exam and lab quiz this week. And a competency. I've passed the competency and taken the lab exam, mid-term and lab quiz to go.

I don't think I did as well as I should have on the lab exam. I think I screwed up a few things because I was panicking at the start, but that was probably only a few points... I really should have just been able to do better, to better identify tissues and remember the names of bone landmarks.

I've been amused by bottled water at RKS. A lot of the time, people open a bottle, drink a bit, and set it down and forget where it is. Toward the end of the night, I start collecting bottles and pouring them out before putting them in the recycle bin. Every time I do it, I just think `Money down the drain.' It seems to be such a literal version of the phrase.

40. 2005-10-23 02:51 (Sunday) journal

bears 1

I've wondered for a long time how, during city road reconstruction, they manage to not hit all the crap that's buried under the streets. With the new water line on my street, I have my answer: They don't not hit all the stuff. So far, they tore out at least one person's water service, cut the line that provided power to streetlights on one side of the street, nicked and cracked a gas line, busted someone's sewer service, back-hoed the cable line, and when I was talking to them one day they mentioned finding random old stuff that's down there that's undocumented (much of which they found after they'd already dug it out).

41. 2005-10-23 19:40 (Sunday) journal

I've been listening to Classical 96.3 from Toronto, which comes in on 103.1 in Rochester (they've got a second transmitter), and I'm intrigued by subtle differences in the adverts between Rochester and Toronto / US and Canada. I imagine some of the differences are also due to format differences; other classical stations I've heard are public broadcasting, and it seems reasonable there'd be a difference between advertising on Classical and Rock stations. On the other hand, Classical and Jazz advertising might be similar - but comparing to North Coast 105.9 WJZR, there are still differences.

The most obvious difference I've heard is the advertising by travel companies. In the states, they suggest the Caribbean. That's all I've ever heard, anywhere, for non-states destinations. Inside the states, you might hear adverts to one of the big cities or to Florida, Hawaii, or California. On the Canadian station, there are a lot of different destinations - they suggest African safaris, Mediterranean region. Today, there was an advert for a travel agency specializing in the 50+ crowd, and one of their suggestions was taking an ice-breaker to Antarctica. And, they were advertising it as adventure, not as relaxation.

Is this the heart of the difference? Are Americans so over-worked or so boring that we just want a boring old trip, go on the ship and sail around and gamble and eat? Only go places in extreme comfort, never any place where it's not warm or there might not be AC?

I'm sure you can arrange these other trips, but it seems odd that the focus of advertising, which reflects what works, is so myopic in the states.

42. 2005-12-02 22:27 (Friday) journal

Is one of the tenets of normal society that you're not supposed to ask questions about normal society?

43. 2005-12-04 14:04 (Sunday) journal

An hour-long drive to a party at Susie's combined with loud, good classical (first half) and Mugenshi mix the second half gave me the chance to meditate on ideas surrounding recent events at college, including allegations of sexual harassment. Reflecting on my behavior, I've considering the idea that there may be an undercurrent of flirting (verbal and/or non-verbal) to my social interactions that is so fundamentally part of me that I don't recognize it. This would explain the mysterious sexual aura that I have, and why guys are so weird around me when I go out dancing (or is that normal when a girl goes out dancing alone? I don't know.).

When I consider the idea of eliminating this flirtiveness I get a strong sense of threat to my identity, which tends to support the theory and that at a subconscious level I identify this behavior as an important part of me.

I talked with Jan, he commented that it's a possibility but didn't choose a definitive side. His thought is that it's more inherent in the way that I interact, and not an intentional attempt to flirt - though others may perceive it as such. I also talked with Sue, and she agrees with my theory as proposed. Both Mike and Tina agree more along Jan's lines, citing my tendency to be happy to share hugs and affections as an expression of simple friendship. The only dissenting opinion was Kage, who didn't see it at all.

Based on this, then, I'm considering that this is probably one of the triggers of the complaint.

I'm considering if this undercurrent is less distinct in me versus the Vanillas because of polyamory, and from the fact that my lovers come from my set of friends, and moving between the two is fluid. Vanillas clearly have separate categories, which may provide them with clear, separate rules for different categories; I don't have the categories in the same way (since movement between them is fluid) and so I don't have the distinct set of rules for each set of people.

The other observation of Mike and Tina requires defining new nomenclature: the adaptive self. As I'm interpreting it, the adaptive self is a modified self that one presents to the world in order to perform one's duties and interact. In NGE terms, the adaptive self is the me that others want me to be combined with the me that I need to be to get my responsibilities done (which in a way is the same thing). Mike's example is that of a sales person, who presents an adaptive self designed to be the slick bastard that gets people to buy shit. A danger is that in some cases, people can't "switch off" their adaptive self and be their true self; this could certainly be used to explain my prior male life as an adaptive self, and the process of transition as spending increasing time as my true self.

The observation is that, given the long time I've spent finding my identity, I may have such a strong sense of self-identity that it is difficult for me to present an adaptive self (whether because of unwillingness or cluelessness will be left as an exercise for the reader).

(And for the non-geeks out there, this expression roughly compares to "I ain't touchin' that question with a 10-foot pole.")

If I am to continue in the direction of massage therapy, I will need to be willing and capable of creating an adaptive self and operating as that adaptive self while I'm working. To express it another way, I will need to more actively pretend to be someone else while I'm working, and I'm not thrilled with that idea. Trying to be me is hard enough, trying to be me and pretend to be someone else sounds overwhelming, and likely to cause internal strife, depression, and and panic attacks.

This is a more intellectual, less-geeky way of expressing what I'd worked out a few days ago and brings my full-circle to what I wrote in my private diary: "Boy, that sounds like an unpleasant set of self-restrictions that is going to cause a call to panic() when I realize I'm not being myself. To self-impose this would be a dumb-ass thing to do."

44. Metadiscussion on friendship

2005-12-04 18:37 (Sunday) journal

pensive Mood: pensive

I've been thinking more about how people arrange their groups of friends. I'm theorizing that they have several classes, each of which has it's own associated methods of communicating and boundaries and so forth. I'm further proposing the idea that the typical classes include:

- Acquaintances.
- Friends.
- Lovers.
- Relatives.
- Children.

Acquaintances, friends, and lovers are the primary 3, deriving from an ancestor class of "peer" and each having varying privileges. Relatives probably approximate friends, but there's some special stuff in there, and children... well, all on their own because they're immature and so have special rules. (As children, substitute "adult" for children - they're the special case.)

I suspect internally, my classes would be friends, parents, and children. The fluid boundaries between friends and lovers certainly blends these two. I recognize intellectually boundaries between relatives, and implement them on this knowledge rather than actually separating the categories in my mind. Acquaintances may get its own category, but even there I suspect it's a much less distinct state, or at least less- used state, than in most people.

I may have to do some sort of study into this to confirm and expand on the theory.

It seems when it comes to how sexualized a conversation is perceived to be, or maybe sexually threatening, the relationship must be a second factor along with the matter of the discussion. Hence, although the matter of a conversation may be more sexual than another when considered independently, the relationship can change the the factor radically. I "erroneously" only make the determination based on the sex matter, ignoring the relationship.

Thus, this creates a situation where guys may discuss sex with their girlfriends and nobody cares (and I stand around wondering why the women aren't going ape-shit), yet mentioning something totally innocent -- "Oh, I never noticed your rose tattoo before." -- and they freak out (and then I'm left wondering just what the hell I'm doing that's so bloody awful).

45. Lull in the storm

2005-12-12 15:21 (Monday) journal

The excrement that's been impacting the air handler seems to have calmed down, at least in that no one's been bothering me about things. It's still been on my mind a lot, still feeling bad that I didn't recognize that I was hurting my classmates, but understanding that they didn't feel safe to approach me about the issues. It's unfortunate, because I want to make myself approachable and I work to take concerns to heart and not become defensive when someone brings an issue to me. Yet, it did no good in this case.

I feel like I'm in a good position for Anatomy, with my last lab exam tonight, final lecture exam Wednesday, and final next Monday. The Wednesday exam doesn't even do much; I've done well on 6 of the 7 that will count... though I might be able to pick up a few extra points.

I finished up the coloring book for cadaver lab, so that's out of the way. I've got my Swedish massage competency tomorrow, and a final for massage theory next week. It's goofy, anatomy is the much harder class but I feel much more confident about it because it feels more like what I expect a class to feel like. Massage is so lax, the lecture discussions seem to be so much of an overview and lack real meat, that I don't have a metaknowledge about what I've learned in it.

46. 2005-12-13 14:37 (Tuesday) journal

happy Mood: happy

I passed my massage competency.

Happy.

47. Prophecy & Tarot reading

2005-12-17 01:49 (Saturday) mirror journal

Did some Tarot work. If I'm understanding right, 2010 is the cross-point where action is to begin. Whether that's me distributing information, or me encountering a teacher is unclear. 2017 is the point where a lot of transformation needs to happen, and there will be major resistance to change. At the cross-point in 2025, there are multiple possibilities (based on how much success there is with creating change in 2017)... so nothing is known yet. By 2032, things will be at rest, either because they've achieved transformation gently or because the revolution is over. In the end, there will be more generosity, sharing, and appreciation of the things in life - in general, more actual experiencing of life rather than just getting through the motions of being alive.

I have loving friends in my life, yet I've still got issues and problems to work through. The perception by outsiders is that I'm greedy, or self-absorbed, or unclear with that I want from life / how I want it.

The relationship with Carissa is bad news.

48. How I communicate

2005-12-17 02:20 (Saturday) journal

I've started an e-mail conversation with a woman from school. She's commented (indirectly) on how I talk about stuff I've done, but not about how I've felt about things. Considering this, my web page, my touch history paper for massage class, it's clear I'm very open about the events of my life - even to the point where it confuses/offends Vanilla people, though the closer people I select to be in my life tend to be accepting of this trait.

The question is: what about my feelings?

When I want to talk about them, I struggle much more with words and descriptions, making it hard for me. Given time to work out the feelings and to select words, I can write emotionally very effectively - a fact proven by the alternate voices of my touch history paper. Even there, though, I wrote about an experience in a very emotional manner, a method I chose because I couldn't figure out how to describe my feelings from the main body of the paper. Thus, it seems there's something about emotions I don't know how to communicate.

I'm also much more guarded when talking about feelings. I'd happily talk about what I learned in anatomy last week, or a geeky project, or a recent BDSM toy acquisition. To talk about how I feel with someone I don't know closely feels dangerous, risky. I don't know how she'll react, I don't know if she'll be upset or not understand or if it'll risk a budding friendship.

I suspect this is backwards with respect to the "normals".

49. 2005-12-20 08:54 (Tuesday) journal

I believe I am much more cautious about presenting myself to new individuals who I'm attracted to than those who I'm not interested in. I think because of the attraction, I'm afraid of overstepping a boundary, and therefore the need for more care.

50. Butchering Bambi

2005-12-27 17:45 (Tuesday) journal

butchering deer

I had a new experience today, and I'm a little more a carnivore for it. A kid hit a deer in front of my parents house late last night, and it died. The cops left it on the side of the road (probably for the town to come pick it up), so I took it and butchered it. It's a surprising amount of work, though none too strenuous (dad set up a block & tackle to hang the deer from). It took about 6 hours from start to finish, though with experience I'm sure it's the kind of thing that speeds up significantly. So now there's 50 pounds of meat waiting to go in my brother's refrigerator.

Where's that extraneous 'd' come from in the word 'fridge'? There's no 'd' in refrigerator. Goofy English.

51. Wonder Woman

2005-12-27 18:34 (Tuesday) journal

I've been watching some Wonder Woman episodes that I got hold of. Okay, first: Linda Carter is HOT. The whole show is horribly written, but right on the edge of very camp. When it succeeds in being camp, it's very fun, but when it fails, it's very horrible. It's kind of funny watching how new sound and visual effects to go with Wonder Woman's superpowers get added after the first couple of episodes.

The show is so 70's: the costumes, the motif, the values, and especially the music.

52. mserv improvements

2005-12-29 18:10 (Thursday) journal

It's been a productive couple of days. I've written a new filter.c module for mserv that enhances the filter capability, and also improves its performance. I'm glad I finally got around to doing this project; it's been on my mind a while... and the skipping music server whenever the filter is changed is annoying.

I noticed yesterday evening that I was hypersensitive to loudness and mom babble. I wonder if focusing the language parts of my mind on coding causes them to become tired, and that's the weird feeling I get after coding now. I wonder why I didn't perceive it so much until the year I suffered the breakdown.

I've also gotten a little physiology reading done, although I want to get a lot more done before end of break.

I think I've taken care of the DPF issue finally, after contacting the hosting provider directly. It's unfortunate I had to go to this extent... I hate putting work on someone who isn't supposed to be the one responsible for it. I may have to send the dude at the hosting company a gift of some sort in thanks.

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