Today's thoughts...

First thought happened while I was at lunch with my fellow computer geeks here at work. We have a monthly interdepartmental meeting for all the computer people in each department. This month was the annual barbecue, since school is out and things are slightly slower for IT folks here. So there I am, waiting in line to get ice cream after I ate my hot dog and hamburger. And I see one of the folks there, a young-ish girl, about my height, with a monstrous bowl of ice cream heaped with chocolate sprinkles and whipped cream! She is very thin, I would say somewhere around a size 4 or 6 (smaller than Lou is how I was comparing it.) And behind her was a larger girl, probably a size 16, with barely a scoop and some chocolate sauce on top. The first thing I thought was, "That girl HAS to be bulemic to have a bowl of ice cream like that! I bet she throws it all up later." My second thought was, "It's so unfair that she gets to eat that huge bowl while the girl behind her, clearly trying to watch what she eats, has the smaller bowl and is still overweight."

Both thoughts were serious, I wasn't being funny. Then I was kind of appalled at my own thoughts. Why should I think that way? Why should I care? Why was I so presumptive to think that the skinny girl must have an eating disorder to stay so thin, or that the larger girl was trying to lose weight? I was being kind of mean. And I didn't like it.

I can't stand the messages we get from the media every day to be so conscious of our appearance and weight and beauty and youth! They never used to get to me much when I was a teenager. But they get to me now. I think about my age. This weekend out in the sun, I was thinking that I looked older because of my makeup and that I better learn how not to make myself look older with makeup. I get happy every time someone gets surprised by my age. I used to look older when I was a teenager and now that I am older, I look younger than my age. I attribute it to good skin care, not smoking and purposely not tanning. I have been using Origins skin care products since I was 23, the year I got married, which is now 15 years ago. See what I mean?!?! This year is my 20th HS Reunion! I have gotten back in touch with people from HS or before through Facebook that I haven't spoken to in 20 years or more in some cases! This is insane! I am not this old! I feel like a kid inside. Not an immature, whiny kid; a fun-loving, playful kid. I think that's part of the reason that all this adult stuff gets me so down! I don't want to have to deal with all this serious stuff when I just want to have some fun. Of course, I do deal with it, but I have trouble balancing the two ends together, I think.

Whew! A lot going on in my head today.

Another thought is about my dumb boss. He is again doing stupid things today to make my life more complicated. Stuff which he should know better than to do. I work for him, he makes more than me, I should not have to clean up his messes. Fucking idiot.

Yet more thoughts are about what I have control of and what I do not. I can control my weight. I can control advancing my work skills and certifications. Therefore, I need to work on both of those things. I am not going to go into any elaborate plans here because I don't have any. The statement above is the plan. Simple as that.

So....what are your thoughts on any of the above, or anything else you are thinking today, internets?

Happy Birthday Wendela!

Posted to my LJ on April 14th, 2008 at 10:51 am

This is a formal Happy Motherfuckin' Birthday to my oldest friend, Wendy! By "oldest", I mean that this year, Wendy and I will have known each other for 35 (yes, THIRTY-FIVE) years!



We met on the corner of 146th Street and Booth Memorial Avenue in Flushing, Queens. The story goes that I was 3 and she was 4 and I am not sure how we were both on the corner, but it was soon after she had moved directly across the street from me. It was a kind of, "Hi, I'm Linda," "Hi, I'm Wendy," "Let's be friends," "Ok," sort of thing. We have been friends ever since then! There was a brief, summer-long period of turmoil when a third friend caused friction between us, but that was way back in 1981 and long since forgotten. We have gone through times when we didn't get in touch for several months, or a year, and didn't see each other for a couple of years at a time. But as soon as we saw each other we would always say hi the same way, by jumping up and down hugging because we were so happy to see each other again! It was never an issue that we didn't see each other or talk all the time. We would pick up just where we left off, catching each other up on our lives and our families' lives.We lived right across the street from each other for 9 years. When my family moved an hour north of NYC, she would come to visit me for a week or two at a time in the summer and we would try to swing a school vacation during the school year as well. I went to her brother's wedding and she was my maid of honor when I got married.

And four(ish) years ago, she was looking to move out of NYC (finally!) and happened to use my new home in RI as a stopover for a visit to a friend in MA. I took advantage of the time and took her around the interesting Providence sites and somehow got her to fall in love with the state enough that within a year she was living here, 2 1/2 miles from my house! It was, and still is, weird (but great!) to be living so close again.

We are the same age for a month and a half every year, and then she leaps another year forward. So, Wendy, Bi Buv Boo and wish you a happy, happy birthday!!!

BBB,
Blinbla

This is how long we have been friends...

Weekend Too Short

As usual, this weekend was too short. It's already Sunday night and I wish I had a day or two more off. I got stuff accomplished this weekend. I got some non-toxic cleaner stuff and cleaned the upstairs bathroom. It worked well, and smells WONDERFUL! Mrs. Meyers Clean Day cleaners. I also went out and did some yard work today. It's so overwhelming! There is so much to rake and bag and seed and water and mow and rake some more. But I am starting at least. Maybe before summer I will have the leaves all picked up. I wish I had $600 dollars to buy a walk-behind yard vac. I have a leaf blower/vac, but we just have SO much more than I think that thing can handle vacuuming up and mulching.

I have a couple of topics to write about this week. One is an idea from an article I read this week. The other is sort of an article. I am hoping to write a draft of an article and then hone it and...I dunno. I would love to be able to write semi-professionally. I dunno. Maybe I will write the article and try and see if anyone would want to publish it. We shall see.

Anyway, that was my weekend. How was yours?

Hope for this country...

This is exactly the type of thing that I would LIKE TO SEE AND READ ABOUT IN THE NEWS EVERY DAMN DAY!!! This is the type of thing that renews my faith that most people are good. And honestly, I think if we heard about and read more news like this, it would inspire more people to take that extra step for a stranger every day. Maybe not give a kidney, but smile and say thank you, or let the car in front of you go first, etc.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/03/27/heroes.andersen/index.html

I think there are more people out there that would do things like this than we all think. But tragedy, death, murder and bad news SELLS, so that is what the news outlets report larger and more prominently than stuff like this.

Think I'm going to write a letter. :-)

Gray area

It's hard to be me, to be human, to have emotions and emotional reactions to events in my life. For ANYONE, not just me. It's so frustrating when all the institutions that man has created - to manage his life, to create opportunity, to deal with finances, to make a living - are structured in a very black and white way, when human beings are about the farthest thing from black and white as you can get! It's either right or wrong, late or on time, accept or decline, approval or disapproval, honesty or dishonesty. It just seems that there are so many ways in which we try to make things clean cut for ourselves and I just think they all end up making life a living hell for us in the end.

I live in the gray. Everything about me is gray. There are shades of gray in everything I do and everything I see. But we are forced into these black and white boxes without being able to stay in the gray area. I really feel like this has to be one of the main reasons that people actually consider suicide. How long can you be forced to BE a certain way before it becomes impossible?

I am not even sure if this is all being explained right. But that is where I am today. Deeply entrenched in the gray, while being judged by the black and white standards.

Thankful

I am thankful for:
-being alive
-my sweetie, 'nuff said
-my family, even with all their problems
-my bestest friends who stick by me even when I am bitchy to them and ignore them and push back when they try to help and don't spend enough time with them, etc., etc.
-my pups
-advancements in pharmaceuticals
-having health insurance
-living in a free society
-the internets and computers
-my mother's chocolate mousse pie

I am not thankful for:
-this sinus headache

That's my list at this time. The sinus headache really needs to hit the road and go. This is the third day I have had it. It sucks.

saddened by the passing of a personality

When I got to work Monday morning and checked on LJ, as I normally do, I read a post from a friend who mentioned that she had read in someone else's LJ that Perry DeAngelis had passed away. I looked around and found it, though there was not more information. I checked with Lou as she is a longtime friend of the family and she had also heard about it from another friend.

I am so sad about this.

Perry was one of the founding board members of LIONE Rampant along with 6 other guys from NH and MA. They decided to start their own game after playing the only other one around at the time, NERO. They had their own ideas, each of them, and wanted to put their creative minds together and make their own game.

He wrote and played some of the most memorable events/characters/creatures/modules in my LARPing career. To this day, his penchant for making up the most bizarre, poorly-statted, late-night micro is infamous! At the final event of the LIONE 3 campaign this July, I gave one of the present board members a brick together with a roll of duct tape and called it "The Honorary Perry DeAngelis Award" - because this board member (Lee) always played the most evil, most conniving, most surprising characters in that campaign. I thought of it off-the-cuff the day before, and now I am so glad I did it. It's just a testament to the contribution that Perry made to that game and to the lives of the people who played it.

I was not in contact with Perry for the last few years. But when I searched Google on his name I found a lot of people who were. He was active in the New England Skeptics Society. I remember when he and Steve founded that and it was just them. There were a lot of listeners and members of the group that have been touched by his death, even though they never met him.

Skeptics Guide to the Universe-Main Page
Skeptics Guide Message Boards

Steve Novella's Blog and comments

One of the posts was from Perry's close friend Evan:

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:31 am Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey all,

Forgive my intrusion on this thread, but unlike Rebecca and Steve, I don't have blog or another place to type a few words.

I am going to save my deepest thoughts and recollections about Perry for the next show that we record. But I must say that reading all the posts here, at Steve and Rebecca's blogs, and the SGU fans site today has been both amazing and very difficult at the same time. Your words of kindness and expressions of heart-felt grief has brought me to tears several times today.

I just got home from an impromptu gathering at Steve's house with about a dozen of Perry's closest friends along with his sister Celeste. We hugged, laughed, told story after story over a delicious beef dinner that my wife prepared in Perry's honor (thank you Jen, my soulmate forever!), drank a little wine, laughed some more, told more stories .... you get the idea. It was a little strange, but there seemed to be no time for our tears of sorrow - we just wanted to talk about Perry as much as we possibly could, and we did so for hours on end.

It's here at my computer that I find myself wet around the eyes as I read every word that has been typed. Its kind of surreal. I can't say that I can't believe Perry is gone, only because he suffered for many many years with multiple diseases, and we knew that this unbearably sad day would have to occur. But what I can say is that your outpouring of raw emotion, kindness, and love is heart-felt, warming beyond words, and incredibly astute. I met Perry in 1986, and I admired him within about 2 minutes of talking to him. A life-long friendship was born. As I read all that you have written, I think back to my first moments of being in Perry's company and I say to myself "Yes, I know exactly what they are talking about and how they feel."

I can't thank you all enough for your words and thoughts. You're the ones that are helping make this agonizing pain bearable. Please continue to express your thoughts and feelings. This is extrememly theraputic for Steve, Bob, Jay, Rebecca, myself, and Perry's closest family and friends. I'm off to find a fresh box of tissues.

Evan
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And words from someone else who knew him as well:
John's post

Perry will be missed by a lot of people for a lot of reasons. You don't have to be a close friend to miss someone when they are gone.

Violinist plays to no one...

"If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?"

Article from the Washington Post on an experiment done in January. One of the foremost violinists in the world played at a metro station for 45 minutes during the morning rush hour commute. Guess how many people stopped to listen....

Read the article here

A more snooty take on the whole experiment

And an article on how classical music's audience is falling away due to age...

The quote from the article with which I opened this post is a paraphrase of the Welsh poet W.H. Davies. I firmly believe it. Everyone does it, and it is NOTHING to feel guilty about. It is, rather, something to be aware of and to try to overcome a little bit every day.

(from 4/13/07 LJ post)