...depending on whether the one who is counting started at the beginning of year one or at the end.
A decade ago today I was in London, at the Millenium Dome, and apparently we left the dome at most an hour before the security incident that made the news that same day. By then I was walking along the Thames with my then-boyfriend, to a bench next to the Thames Barrier, my favorite architectural landmark in London, and possibly the world. Ten years later, I have been out of the country only once, as far north as Whistler, north of Vancouver, B.C., Canada. So, decadal resolution #1 has to be TRAVEL. This next ten years, while the world is still relatively at peace and fuel and security concerns have not yet prevented average citizens from travelling overseas, I must at least get back to Britain. I really want to walk the length of Hadrian's Wall, and go hiking in Scotland. If possible I still want to earn a PhD in Aberystwyth, though perhaps I am straying away from rural ecology too much already. Hmmm. No idea what use a degree in political science earned in Colorado could possibly be to a life in Britain, but at least theory should be useful, I hope.
Resolution #2 is a bit more complicated. I am turning 31 this year, and while I might not exactly prefer to live in a classic romantic novel, I know I am missing out on a rather significant part of human life in not experiencing much romance. Unfortunately, romance is complicated, stressful and sometimes downright miserable. I am, for now, in a community that tends to value romance less than the general public, in a world that seems to prefe bickering and complaining to romance anyway. Getting a graduate degree is important, and so long as I am in school, it is important to focus on school. However, school and degrees are tools for life, not life itself. Eventually, in this next decade, real people and my relationships with them need to take precedence entirely over academic life and books.
Resolution #3, a fairly frivalous one compared to the first two, made its way into the list because it won't go away. I want to meet Josh Groban, the singer, and not just for a few seconds. My short-list of favorite celebrities has mostly formed recently, within the past two years or so, since I really hadn't had one before then. Most of the men on that list are actors, and I know little about who they really are. Maybe I would like them, any maybe not. I'd love to meet them as well, but the more I know about Mr. Groban, the more he seems like the people I already know and like. Right now our careers are opposite in shape, so that he is at the height of his career now, while mine is still building, and by the time I am the intellectual giant I am constructing, he will be winding down. Somewhere in the middle, maybe, there's a chance we might be able to meet as equals, and if the Universe wills it, maybe we might even strike up a lasting friendship.
The sun is now setting on the last day of 2009, and as the Universe eases into the new year, may life continue to improve with the ages.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Chess and Personal Philosophy
As is true for most great art, the musical Chess, leaves a lot of the interpretation of its themes and story to the viewer. The characters are real enough, and through their songs and lines, fleshed out enough to provide a believable scenario, yet it is not definite what exactly the motivations are for these characters. Certainly, if I was writing a professional piece sufficiently important to bother the performers about it, it would be illuminating to ask Josh, Idina, Adam and Kerry what their characters' thoughts and motivations were when they were singing these parts, but short of that, I am nonetheless beginning to doubt strongly that Tim Rice in his synopsis for the insert adequately and accurately describes the story that was really playing itself out on the stage at the Royal Albert Hall.
I have listened to the entire track-list of Chess in Concert several times in the past 24 hours, and I really can't hear Anatoly as being dishonest in his assertion of his patriotism to 'Mother Russia,' and it is really not surprising when his relationship with Florence sours that he would choose to return to the USSR. Even within the rather cynical, pessimistic idea of the "Nobody's on Nobody's Side" theme, I would have to be either strongly biased against the USSR/ Russia or would have to be in a really bad mood to think Anatoly would reject his homeland so completely for a woman he just met. Florence, meanwhile, seems charmed by Anatoly, but I'm not convinced love has much to do with her running off with him. She is loyal, but not exactly in touch with her feelings, and no wonder when we consider her past. She has a lot she is avoiding, and I get the sense that she is attaching herself as a loyal supporter to great men rather than looking out for herself.
Freddie, bored with chess itself, has been dabbling in manipulation of real people as an outgrowth of his boardgame. Quite plausibly Anatoly, Freddie's match intellectually, recognizes some of this, though he does not catch on that Freddie is allowing Anatoly and Florence to become acquainted to gain a hold on Anatoly, just in case. This, to Freddie, is not a moral or ethical issue, because it is still all just a game. Really, until the Russians try to play Freddie as a piece of their own, Freddie remains emotionally detached from this whole story, a man apart from the events as they unfold, "watching the game" and "controlling it" and fully believing that he can have Florence back whenever he decides he wants to have her again. Just as Freddie is outside the story, Anatoly is not a full participant in the story; he is so content with his chess that he has allowed the Russian government, his wife, his mistress, and everyone else around him play him to their various ends, not all of them nefarious, but none of his actual choosing.
It is debatable even within this interpretation whether Freddie ever really reconnects with humanity. He does, it seems, decide that he would rather have Anatoly win, rather than complete his ruin, but despite his soul-searching, he may be so far gone that there is no hope for him. Perhaps this is why he pushes Anatoly to win, so that he can live vicariously through the newly awakened Russian, who can and does claim his freedom to enjoy his own life on his own terms. Is Freddie a free actor ever?
Interestingly, as far as I can recall, only Anatoly ever says the word 'love' in this production, once about the USSR and once to Florence shortly before their relationship falls apart.
I have listened to the entire track-list of Chess in Concert several times in the past 24 hours, and I really can't hear Anatoly as being dishonest in his assertion of his patriotism to 'Mother Russia,' and it is really not surprising when his relationship with Florence sours that he would choose to return to the USSR. Even within the rather cynical, pessimistic idea of the "Nobody's on Nobody's Side" theme, I would have to be either strongly biased against the USSR/ Russia or would have to be in a really bad mood to think Anatoly would reject his homeland so completely for a woman he just met. Florence, meanwhile, seems charmed by Anatoly, but I'm not convinced love has much to do with her running off with him. She is loyal, but not exactly in touch with her feelings, and no wonder when we consider her past. She has a lot she is avoiding, and I get the sense that she is attaching herself as a loyal supporter to great men rather than looking out for herself.
Freddie, bored with chess itself, has been dabbling in manipulation of real people as an outgrowth of his boardgame. Quite plausibly Anatoly, Freddie's match intellectually, recognizes some of this, though he does not catch on that Freddie is allowing Anatoly and Florence to become acquainted to gain a hold on Anatoly, just in case. This, to Freddie, is not a moral or ethical issue, because it is still all just a game. Really, until the Russians try to play Freddie as a piece of their own, Freddie remains emotionally detached from this whole story, a man apart from the events as they unfold, "watching the game" and "controlling it" and fully believing that he can have Florence back whenever he decides he wants to have her again. Just as Freddie is outside the story, Anatoly is not a full participant in the story; he is so content with his chess that he has allowed the Russian government, his wife, his mistress, and everyone else around him play him to their various ends, not all of them nefarious, but none of his actual choosing.
It is debatable even within this interpretation whether Freddie ever really reconnects with humanity. He does, it seems, decide that he would rather have Anatoly win, rather than complete his ruin, but despite his soul-searching, he may be so far gone that there is no hope for him. Perhaps this is why he pushes Anatoly to win, so that he can live vicariously through the newly awakened Russian, who can and does claim his freedom to enjoy his own life on his own terms. Is Freddie a free actor ever?
Interestingly, as far as I can recall, only Anatoly ever says the word 'love' in this production, once about the USSR and once to Florence shortly before their relationship falls apart.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Chess
I am sure I'll be mildly obsessed with the plot and implications of the musical Chess, as recorded in concert in London, in 2008. For once, this is a musical selection I would have bought even if Josh Groban had not been cast as one of the principal singers. While it sounds like a strong backing has not existed yet for a touring company to put this show on as a proper musical. [ who needs a dream? ... now I'm wher I want to be and who I want to be and doing what I said I would . . .] While Josh does not always sound as natural as full-time Broadway singers, he is very convincing as Anatoly, a nice, quiet chess player who falls in love with someone and begins on a path towards conscious self-definition. Actually his rendering of this character reminds me of a few people I have known who, if they were international chess players, would be a lot like this version of Anatoly.
I have been amusing myself this evening with the realization that the entirety of Act 2 is in fact a sort of chess game, the 6th game Anatoly never played the previous year against Freddie because Freddie didn't stay to play it out. This puts Anatoly Sergeyevich in the position of one of the king pieces, trying to keep from being placed in checkmate. Freddie, who Anatoly suggested in Act 1 was a clever player maneuvering and strategizing in real life as well as at the game table, has been playing still, ever since his girlfriend Florence ran off with Anatoly. It does beg th equestion of whether someone is playing Freddie, and certainly the CIA and the KGB try to use him, but this play against Anatoly's queen, Florence, fails, and perhaps Freddie knew it would. His final play is to talk to Anatoly about his opponent's game, and reinforcing to Anatoly that his greatest skill is as a chess player. This may well have tipped the balance, pushing Anatoly not to throw the game, and allowing Freddie to win his ultimate game. I am still debating parts of this concept, but Svetlana would almost obviously have to be the opposing queen, and Florence the queen on Anatoly's side.
I actually did google Chess in google Scholar, and found literally nothing, but no doubt there are blogs and reviews that pursue this interpretation of this lovely underperformed story.
On a minor note ( :)Yes, much of the musical utilizes minor keys, but no pun intended, really) I find the song Where I Want to Be quite powerful, and while with the ultra supportive and considerate Grobanites, Josh Groban may not feel much like this in his own personal celebrity career, I suspect the he has had days where this song would be deeply felt. This song captures very beautifully a part of the psychology of celebrity in general, and I can't help but recall while listening to Josh singing it, the whirlwind of attention that began his career on the music scene. And, for anyone for whom singing is their "primary talent" there is probably at least a small voice constantly in the background asking what happens if their voice should fail. Josh did try college, and as of the last time I checked, he still had not finished a degree yet in anything, so if he were to fail physically, by losing his hearing, or getting permanent damage to his throat, he has little outside the music industry to fall back on, not even a degree in music production. I'll bet, actually, that he has had quite a few days and nights when this song was exactly what he was feeling.
I have been amusing myself this evening with the realization that the entirety of Act 2 is in fact a sort of chess game, the 6th game Anatoly never played the previous year against Freddie because Freddie didn't stay to play it out. This puts Anatoly Sergeyevich in the position of one of the king pieces, trying to keep from being placed in checkmate. Freddie, who Anatoly suggested in Act 1 was a clever player maneuvering and strategizing in real life as well as at the game table, has been playing still, ever since his girlfriend Florence ran off with Anatoly. It does beg th equestion of whether someone is playing Freddie, and certainly the CIA and the KGB try to use him, but this play against Anatoly's queen, Florence, fails, and perhaps Freddie knew it would. His final play is to talk to Anatoly about his opponent's game, and reinforcing to Anatoly that his greatest skill is as a chess player. This may well have tipped the balance, pushing Anatoly not to throw the game, and allowing Freddie to win his ultimate game. I am still debating parts of this concept, but Svetlana would almost obviously have to be the opposing queen, and Florence the queen on Anatoly's side.
I actually did google Chess in google Scholar, and found literally nothing, but no doubt there are blogs and reviews that pursue this interpretation of this lovely underperformed story.
On a minor note ( :)Yes, much of the musical utilizes minor keys, but no pun intended, really) I find the song Where I Want to Be quite powerful, and while with the ultra supportive and considerate Grobanites, Josh Groban may not feel much like this in his own personal celebrity career, I suspect the he has had days where this song would be deeply felt. This song captures very beautifully a part of the psychology of celebrity in general, and I can't help but recall while listening to Josh singing it, the whirlwind of attention that began his career on the music scene. And, for anyone for whom singing is their "primary talent" there is probably at least a small voice constantly in the background asking what happens if their voice should fail. Josh did try college, and as of the last time I checked, he still had not finished a degree yet in anything, so if he were to fail physically, by losing his hearing, or getting permanent damage to his throat, he has little outside the music industry to fall back on, not even a degree in music production. I'll bet, actually, that he has had quite a few days and nights when this song was exactly what he was feeling.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Gaussian-like distribution of compatibility and its implications for dating
I vaguely recall having written this out before, but if so it was quite a while back, and much less developed.
While young people have always had at least some range of possible mates to choose from, modern Western norms permit a much wider range of choices, and a much broader span of appropriate ages at which to make such choices. Indeed, when remarriage after divorce or spousal death is included, most Western unmarried people are potentially mate-seeking from pre-teen years through extreme old age. Certainly the nature of the marriage relationship shifts depending on the life-stages of the people involved, so the relationships that fall under the umbrella-term 'marriage' include nearly platonic companionate arrangements among the elderly, traditional first marriages between young adults, and remarriage involving all the ex-spouses and existing children from any previous marriages. Since the desirable traits that determine a good match are also likely to shift depending on life-stages, the exact traits that make two people compatible are not only hard to determine precisely, but they are likely to be in a state of flux. Still, it is possible to describe and discuss the gestalt concept of general compatibility between two people.
Just as personality is determined by a large number of factors, some not conducive to measurement, compatibility is built up from the many and various traits of personality of both parties, plus the dynamics of interaction between them. Not only are details like shared hobbies and interests important to the overall compatibility of a relationship, but also the reactions of each party to these shared traits contributes to how well those two people interact. The sum of all these factors creates a degree of compatibility, which can be roughly ranked against that obtained for other relationships either party has. For instance, I could easily rank the compatibility of an old high school classmate with whom I was only ever slightly acquainted as much lower than my compatibility with a guy I fell in love with and dated, regardless of how long that dating lasted. Good friends of mine share higher compatibility with me, and practically everyone I meet and exchange pleasant conversation with is at least somewhat compatible, if only barely.
One could in theory gather up all these rankings for different relationships one has, and graph their distribution, and the result would likely be a skewed Gaussian curve, weighted towards compatibility because it is less likely that people meet very incompatible people. The very act of meeting someone implies a higher chance of higher compatibility, because it suggests the existence of at least some similar habits, interests and preferences. Charting all possible pair-wise relationships between myself and all people on Earth, a more even Gaussian distribution is likely to result.
So how does this have much to do with dating? My friends are all going to fall in the more compatible end of the compatibility distribution, and the closer and more compatible the relationship, the further from the mean the compatibility will be. Looking at the height of the curve at greater compatibility, a person whose compatibility with me is above 2 standard deviations from the mean in this distribution is one of a rather small set of people, relative to the total amount of people I might easily term friends. The 'One,' that perfect ideal mate that may or may not ever actually exist, would be even further out from the mean, and in between these two lie a lot of men and women with whom I am extremely compatible. The men in this group, if I happen to also find them attractive, might easily be potential dates, though it need not be the case that high compatibility always includes mutual attraction. Still, many of these men would, in the normal course of a lifetime, be at least considered as potential boyfriends. Also, if I have only met people who were at most 98% of the compatibility of that ideal 'One', and am, as far as I know, in love with a perfect guy in that 98% ranking, I might find I am not in love after all, and that the man at 98% is nothing compared to some new guy who turns up at 98.9%.
Of course, all this implies a sort of rational comprehensive decision strategy in my choice of dates, and in reality this never is possible. I've met quite a few higher-compatibility people so far in my graduate school career, because in choosing a field that interests me, I have preselected the people I am likely to meet. And, among these people, also not surprisingly, there are several men who are particularly interesting, and seem likely to be particularly compatible. However, I know practically nothing about these men. My estimations of compatibility in my relationships with them derive from all available data, but that data is not sufficient for me, or anyone else, to accurately determine a) which is most compatible with me, b) whether any of them are more compatible with me than my existing exboyfriends, or c) whether any of them are compatible enough that they would not wind up becoming exboyfriends too if I dated them. The only way to really generate good answers to these questions would be to get to know all these men much better, or to date them, one by one, till one man happens to not become an ex.
Taken in its extreme, this would suggest that one ought to not date at all, unless the 'One' shows up, which could not be recognizable without dating at least the potential 'One' long enough to not break up, or alternatively that it is simply impossible for a girl who wants to marry to ever have really good friendships with attractive men. This latter argument has been championed by quite a few people I have met, who can't imagine how gender relations could work any other way. For them an attractive interesting single man is a date, or an ex, or someone they have yet to meet, or perhaps he is already married, or gay, and thus not accessible. My approach, equally as foreign to them as theirs was to me, is almost entirely opposite.
My dating 'policy' works towards minimizing the number of exes I accumulate, on the notion that every ex I gain is a potential lost friendship. If a guy was compatible enough for me to date him, he was compatible enough to be a good friend, too, though the process of breaking up can render even high-compatibility relationships nearly intolerable. One can only have one boyfriend, but one can have an infinite number of friends, and while friendships wax and wane, they need never break up. So long as it is clear that what is going on is not dating, it is easily possible to hang out with all the guys a girl might otherwise date, and the only aspect of dating that cannot comfortably be enjoyed in these friendships is that of romantic physical intimacy. And, if it is not necessary to date these men, it is possible to fully develop good close friendships with all these men simultaneously. As my 'pro-dating' friends point out, this also means I am never going to kiss most if not all of them, let alone sleep with them, and I can't really argue otherwise, but at least if I ever ended up dating even just one or two of them, it is more likely that the resulting relationships would be more enduring and satisfying. And if this sort of dating relationship breaks up, it has a foundation enough that a lasting friendship can still result afterward.
While young people have always had at least some range of possible mates to choose from, modern Western norms permit a much wider range of choices, and a much broader span of appropriate ages at which to make such choices. Indeed, when remarriage after divorce or spousal death is included, most Western unmarried people are potentially mate-seeking from pre-teen years through extreme old age. Certainly the nature of the marriage relationship shifts depending on the life-stages of the people involved, so the relationships that fall under the umbrella-term 'marriage' include nearly platonic companionate arrangements among the elderly, traditional first marriages between young adults, and remarriage involving all the ex-spouses and existing children from any previous marriages. Since the desirable traits that determine a good match are also likely to shift depending on life-stages, the exact traits that make two people compatible are not only hard to determine precisely, but they are likely to be in a state of flux. Still, it is possible to describe and discuss the gestalt concept of general compatibility between two people.
Just as personality is determined by a large number of factors, some not conducive to measurement, compatibility is built up from the many and various traits of personality of both parties, plus the dynamics of interaction between them. Not only are details like shared hobbies and interests important to the overall compatibility of a relationship, but also the reactions of each party to these shared traits contributes to how well those two people interact. The sum of all these factors creates a degree of compatibility, which can be roughly ranked against that obtained for other relationships either party has. For instance, I could easily rank the compatibility of an old high school classmate with whom I was only ever slightly acquainted as much lower than my compatibility with a guy I fell in love with and dated, regardless of how long that dating lasted. Good friends of mine share higher compatibility with me, and practically everyone I meet and exchange pleasant conversation with is at least somewhat compatible, if only barely.
One could in theory gather up all these rankings for different relationships one has, and graph their distribution, and the result would likely be a skewed Gaussian curve, weighted towards compatibility because it is less likely that people meet very incompatible people. The very act of meeting someone implies a higher chance of higher compatibility, because it suggests the existence of at least some similar habits, interests and preferences. Charting all possible pair-wise relationships between myself and all people on Earth, a more even Gaussian distribution is likely to result.
So how does this have much to do with dating? My friends are all going to fall in the more compatible end of the compatibility distribution, and the closer and more compatible the relationship, the further from the mean the compatibility will be. Looking at the height of the curve at greater compatibility, a person whose compatibility with me is above 2 standard deviations from the mean in this distribution is one of a rather small set of people, relative to the total amount of people I might easily term friends. The 'One,' that perfect ideal mate that may or may not ever actually exist, would be even further out from the mean, and in between these two lie a lot of men and women with whom I am extremely compatible. The men in this group, if I happen to also find them attractive, might easily be potential dates, though it need not be the case that high compatibility always includes mutual attraction. Still, many of these men would, in the normal course of a lifetime, be at least considered as potential boyfriends. Also, if I have only met people who were at most 98% of the compatibility of that ideal 'One', and am, as far as I know, in love with a perfect guy in that 98% ranking, I might find I am not in love after all, and that the man at 98% is nothing compared to some new guy who turns up at 98.9%.
Of course, all this implies a sort of rational comprehensive decision strategy in my choice of dates, and in reality this never is possible. I've met quite a few higher-compatibility people so far in my graduate school career, because in choosing a field that interests me, I have preselected the people I am likely to meet. And, among these people, also not surprisingly, there are several men who are particularly interesting, and seem likely to be particularly compatible. However, I know practically nothing about these men. My estimations of compatibility in my relationships with them derive from all available data, but that data is not sufficient for me, or anyone else, to accurately determine a) which is most compatible with me, b) whether any of them are more compatible with me than my existing exboyfriends, or c) whether any of them are compatible enough that they would not wind up becoming exboyfriends too if I dated them. The only way to really generate good answers to these questions would be to get to know all these men much better, or to date them, one by one, till one man happens to not become an ex.
Taken in its extreme, this would suggest that one ought to not date at all, unless the 'One' shows up, which could not be recognizable without dating at least the potential 'One' long enough to not break up, or alternatively that it is simply impossible for a girl who wants to marry to ever have really good friendships with attractive men. This latter argument has been championed by quite a few people I have met, who can't imagine how gender relations could work any other way. For them an attractive interesting single man is a date, or an ex, or someone they have yet to meet, or perhaps he is already married, or gay, and thus not accessible. My approach, equally as foreign to them as theirs was to me, is almost entirely opposite.
My dating 'policy' works towards minimizing the number of exes I accumulate, on the notion that every ex I gain is a potential lost friendship. If a guy was compatible enough for me to date him, he was compatible enough to be a good friend, too, though the process of breaking up can render even high-compatibility relationships nearly intolerable. One can only have one boyfriend, but one can have an infinite number of friends, and while friendships wax and wane, they need never break up. So long as it is clear that what is going on is not dating, it is easily possible to hang out with all the guys a girl might otherwise date, and the only aspect of dating that cannot comfortably be enjoyed in these friendships is that of romantic physical intimacy. And, if it is not necessary to date these men, it is possible to fully develop good close friendships with all these men simultaneously. As my 'pro-dating' friends point out, this also means I am never going to kiss most if not all of them, let alone sleep with them, and I can't really argue otherwise, but at least if I ever ended up dating even just one or two of them, it is more likely that the resulting relationships would be more enduring and satisfying. And if this sort of dating relationship breaks up, it has a foundation enough that a lasting friendship can still result afterward.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Mood specificity
It is probably good that men are not in touch with their emotions so much sometimes, because some moods one can be in are pretty unrealistic. Like tonight. I am most definitely not interested in going out anywhere, with anyone, tonight; even if the man I am still quietly infatuated with called me up for a date, I would not have the energy for it tonight. Even a date at home would be too much, since I would be at least somewhat on the spot as hostess, especially with that guy, or really with either guy I was interested in this term. Maybe if I had been in the habit of having friends over just to "chill," I could handle that, but not entirely happily. Nor, annoyingly enough, am I in the mood to be home alone, no matter how many movies, BBC series, internet distractions and books I have, the cat is not sufficient company. I am in the mood for a quiet evening at home with a long term boyfriend/husband with whom I have been involved for a few years, despite the fact that such a person doesn't currently exist.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Contemplations on 'Access' and music
I wonder if maybe at a part of my brain's chemical cycling, when the potential for depression symptoms is becoming greater, the arrangement of neurotransmitters in my head makes the more emotionally charged part of my memory more easily accessible. Emotions involve a more central portion of the brain, and this part is where a lot of neurotransmitter imbalances are traced that seem linked to mood disorders. On a normal day, while certain words, phrases and songs are linked to my memories, I have more control over suppression of irrelevant thought patterns. If I am listening to Meatloaf's "Objects in the Rear-view Mirror", I may think about what parallels exist between this narrative and my own past, but I do not recall my own memories in the process, and am not really emotionally affected by the song. However, in this phase of my brain's functioning, when I listen to this song, I get a more complete recollection of my memories relating to this song, and all the emotions linked to these memories. I can be concentrating on the song or just hearing it in the background, and I get the same effect. In practice this just means maybe I should not play Meatloaf while I am in this phase, but it may also suggest more of how the brain may look in bipolar people during cycling.
Interestingly enough, while these songs that evoke personal, disturbing memories are quite potent in my current state, many other songs that in a growing depressive state could induce emotion, such as Whiskey Lullaby (Brad Paisley and Alison Kraus), have no effect on me. This reactivity seems limited to stimuli that can link to memories, and is not just me listening to too many sad songs. If I had it in my collection, Quiet Riot's "Thunderbirds" might be expected to elicit a stronger reaction, as it would link to my middle school years, and the song sequence from Peaceful Valley, that were sung after campfire by the staph. Nickle Creek's "The Lighthouse's Tale", which I am listening to now, can make me rather moody if I am more solidly in depression mode, but right now it is simply something to sing along to.
Unfortunately, I am not sure this observation is easily universalized by research. I can observe my own patterns easily enough, but I am hyper-aware of my own mental states, which most people are not, and I have a psychology degree to apply to my observations. Plus, most importantly, I have access to me own memories and reactions, to be able to tease apart the differences between my moods and thought processes. Even with very, very articulate and observant test subjects, I have no idea how this sort of information could be gathered accurately and reliably from multiple subjects to establish a pattern and analyze it further. Maybe with simultaneous brain scans and self-reporting I could correlate brain activity with articulated evoked responses while subjects are listening to a randomized audio playlist, including the subject's list of personally evocative songs, a set of other emotional songs, and some other control tracks (patriotic songs, lullabies, and songs the subject has indicated as uninteresting). Now all I need is a brain scanner, all the audio equipment, subjects, and all the necessary documentation for human-subjects research.
Interestingly enough, while these songs that evoke personal, disturbing memories are quite potent in my current state, many other songs that in a growing depressive state could induce emotion, such as Whiskey Lullaby (Brad Paisley and Alison Kraus), have no effect on me. This reactivity seems limited to stimuli that can link to memories, and is not just me listening to too many sad songs. If I had it in my collection, Quiet Riot's "Thunderbirds" might be expected to elicit a stronger reaction, as it would link to my middle school years, and the song sequence from Peaceful Valley, that were sung after campfire by the staph. Nickle Creek's "The Lighthouse's Tale", which I am listening to now, can make me rather moody if I am more solidly in depression mode, but right now it is simply something to sing along to.
Unfortunately, I am not sure this observation is easily universalized by research. I can observe my own patterns easily enough, but I am hyper-aware of my own mental states, which most people are not, and I have a psychology degree to apply to my observations. Plus, most importantly, I have access to me own memories and reactions, to be able to tease apart the differences between my moods and thought processes. Even with very, very articulate and observant test subjects, I have no idea how this sort of information could be gathered accurately and reliably from multiple subjects to establish a pattern and analyze it further. Maybe with simultaneous brain scans and self-reporting I could correlate brain activity with articulated evoked responses while subjects are listening to a randomized audio playlist, including the subject's list of personally evocative songs, a set of other emotional songs, and some other control tracks (patriotic songs, lullabies, and songs the subject has indicated as uninteresting). Now all I need is a brain scanner, all the audio equipment, subjects, and all the necessary documentation for human-subjects research.
Monday, October 26, 2009
MI-5 and other grand ideas
I've been pondering tonight the range of trouble I could get myself into if I was inclined to get drunk. MI-5 had lots of great situations, brought on during times of high stress, but directly precipitated by drunkenness. I already feel like I make a fool of myself plenty often as it is, so I could be quite a disaster in the making if I started drinking much. Actually, there is a second side to that idea, however, that I overanalyze too much, and that I don't actually act any more foolish than anyone else, whatever my perceptions. By this line of reasoning I might benefit from loosening up a bit and taking the chances I consciously prevent myself from considering now. Actually, even the friends most strongly opposed to alcohol, who vehemently reject the idea that I might drink the stuff, all have at some point suggested this 'loosening' effect as the one obvious benefit to my drinking. Why is this running through my head now? I'd have to be really sleep-deprived or drunk, or have nothing to lose, to be exact, but suffice it to say that the guy (It is always a guy, of course. Nothing else can have quite this sort of effect on people.) I would be/ ought to be talking to has no idea- won't have any idea the way things are going. I considered a few months back whether I was interested in dating during my MA, and came to no definite conclusions then. Now, of course, I have my committee pretty much formed, with a pretty solid start to my thesis development, and a growing sense of where I want to be in 5 years. Since the mystery guy is not an integral part of my life now, he is not included in those plans, and every semester that he remains the 'really nice, cute guy' I am not dating, he is less likely to fit into those plans. That is all nice and logical. Fine. I just have to make sure I don't wind up drinking too much, ever, in his company or with his friends, while I am in a mood like this one. I have few enough inhibitions against telling people awkward information while sober.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Pervasive power of moods
I've been pondering off and on all through the past two days, whether I had a bad day, or whether I simply am in an off mood, and I am certain it is the latter. No, yesterday was not one of my best ever, but while I didn't get my overview of the Republic of China constitution and government structure printed out in time for class, I remembered enough of it to present a more than adequate summary from memory for the class, and I picked out the comparisons that the professor seemed most interested in having introduced. I didn't finish reading the speech by Obama for my second class of the day before class started, but we never got to that after all, and I was at least as prepared for the discussion we did have as anyone else was. The only annoying or unpleasant detail of the entire day, really, was finding that the professor I work for as a TA has different ideas from me when it comes to grading student writing. This is hardly surprising, nor is it unusual, and any other week it would be like water off a duck's back, but in my present mood, this one detail made me grouchy enough to bite someone. Even finding out about a political party dedicated to applying Objectivist principles to real-life, something that makes my thesis very timely and potentially useful as something besides a paperweight, only barely made a dent in my overall constitution.
Actually, these past few days have been a successful test of cognitive intervention in controlling mood disorder transitioning. My mindset has been growing progressively more pessimistic all week. This translated over the weekend into passing thoughts about how none of the people I know at school are really 'friends,' since I don't see them except at school. This is a very common thought progression, a reinterpretation of social connections to distance oneself from everyone, creating a defensive, solitary bubble. But political science people, unlike some other academic groups I have known, are quite friendly and gregarious, and so are some of the revisionist and social historian history students down the hall. I suppose it would be possible to maintain an isolation bubble still within this community, but not without being noticed. Not only that, but I also have an advisor, who also happens to teach a class I am taking, so that I see her 3 days a week. Short of dropping out, it would be very hard to get away with classic depression-style distancing within such a community setting. And every positive social interaction chips away at the pseudo-logic supporting my 'social-pessimism'(Is there a term for this feeling? There has to be. It is a sort of revulsion, a compulsion to avoid people for my own safety, emotional or otherwise. It also is closely linked to a 'felt' belief that those people who act nice to me are faking friendship, maybe laughing behind my back or something. This last part is also a feeling, not a logical or reality enforced idea.) Maybe some of my fellow grad students ARE feigning friendship, but if so they are natural politicians who could sell anything to anyone, and I am glad to be blissfully ignorant. Even better for me, there are a few people in the department around whom I really can't maintain a depressive state, and I encountered three of them today. I'd bet that the presence of such people in communities where depressed people go when in recovery make a huge difference in recovery rates just in general. Two of the three people I was around today are the perpetually cheery type, and I know I have read a few studies that have at least mentioned them as potential antidotes to depressive spirals, but the third is just someone whose presence I particularly enjoy. I doubt such interactions are measurable for any sort of study short of self-reporting questionnaires.
Actually, these past few days have been a successful test of cognitive intervention in controlling mood disorder transitioning. My mindset has been growing progressively more pessimistic all week. This translated over the weekend into passing thoughts about how none of the people I know at school are really 'friends,' since I don't see them except at school. This is a very common thought progression, a reinterpretation of social connections to distance oneself from everyone, creating a defensive, solitary bubble. But political science people, unlike some other academic groups I have known, are quite friendly and gregarious, and so are some of the revisionist and social historian history students down the hall. I suppose it would be possible to maintain an isolation bubble still within this community, but not without being noticed. Not only that, but I also have an advisor, who also happens to teach a class I am taking, so that I see her 3 days a week. Short of dropping out, it would be very hard to get away with classic depression-style distancing within such a community setting. And every positive social interaction chips away at the pseudo-logic supporting my 'social-pessimism'(Is there a term for this feeling? There has to be. It is a sort of revulsion, a compulsion to avoid people for my own safety, emotional or otherwise. It also is closely linked to a 'felt' belief that those people who act nice to me are faking friendship, maybe laughing behind my back or something. This last part is also a feeling, not a logical or reality enforced idea.) Maybe some of my fellow grad students ARE feigning friendship, but if so they are natural politicians who could sell anything to anyone, and I am glad to be blissfully ignorant. Even better for me, there are a few people in the department around whom I really can't maintain a depressive state, and I encountered three of them today. I'd bet that the presence of such people in communities where depressed people go when in recovery make a huge difference in recovery rates just in general. Two of the three people I was around today are the perpetually cheery type, and I know I have read a few studies that have at least mentioned them as potential antidotes to depressive spirals, but the third is just someone whose presence I particularly enjoy. I doubt such interactions are measurable for any sort of study short of self-reporting questionnaires.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Postponement, procrastination and processing
I am still of the opinion that prolonging a hypomanic phase is a bad idea, but I think that is what I have been doing over the past week or so. I thought yesterday that maybe I was actually getting properly sick, finally, a condition that would 'legally' permit me to take a few days off and actually recover, but while I was suddenly and inexplicably tired starting about noon on Wednesday, and had the full body ache that usually accompanies the flu for me, I was only nauseous for about half an hour, Friday evening at about 7, and have not yet had a fever. Does this mean I will not be taking legitimate sick days this term? I was joking around earlier about taking sick days anyway, but realistically I can't quite afford it. It would make reading political science textbooks easier, but as several folks have pointed out, some of the important discourses in this field are not in book form, and thus I am not yet up to determining my own reading list. Not only that, I am not sure absolutely which areas I will choose as my emphases. After talking with Susan, I am dropping environmental policy as redundant, and an area in which I am less likely to need particular instruction, and theory is a definite. But I am torn between policy and American politics now. Looking at the range of topics within each, I can see at least half of each as necessary to my chosen topic, but not the whole range of either. So I am reading parts of Susan's New Handbook of Political Science, a remarkably readable and pleasant book considering its title, and hoping that I can sort out which direction I will go, before this coming Wednesday morning. Since I am taking an economics course, and a course on environmental policy theory, I only have space in my schedule for one of the two disputed areas.
I am also grading, finally, this weekend. Thankfully, all the 50+ papers in my stack are readable, but to grade the middle-range papers I have to go back and review all the material they were given from which to develop their papers. The "clearly A" papers and "clearly D" papers were easy, but the differences between the ones in the middle are muddier to assess. Thus procrastination- they don't need to be graded till at least Tuesday anyway, and maybe, probably, later.
On top of this, I am also reviewing for an exam on program assessment/ policy analysis which I will be taking Monday morning, and writing a take-home essay-exam on green jobs and sustainability, which I finished 2 hours ago. And, if I still have time and energy tomorrow, I plan to go for a walk, weather permitting, and write a draft of the ecosystems science portion of my white paper. So, while I can feel my mood slipping decidedly towards depression, I am still being quite productive. It takes longer to get myself started, part of why I didn't write my take-home exam earlier, and my brain has been feeling muddy and slow, but once I get started, I can draw myself into a more productive mode again, possibly by sheer stubbornness. Nighttime has an effect too. I have always written better after 1am, so it isn't surprising that my brain feels better now (~3am). I am decidedly pessimistic about my would-be romantic interest, and am only barely emotionally engaged in that outcome, to the extent that I am not motivated to do anything to effect a positive outcome, despite my continued interest in this person. I also am pessimistic about my chosen thesis, despite the positive reception it received from both faculty I have recruited into my committee thus far. That has something to do with my reaction to the Ayn Rand Institute website, and to my literature search on Friday that yielded very little useful information. I have yet to look up Alan Greenspan's contributions to this range of conversations, and I know that he wrote several things that may be useful, and I know Objectivism well enough to be able to find papers relating to my topic regardless of whether they use the term "Objectivism" or mention Rand at all. Realistically, I may not refer to Rand much either, as I go further into my topic. Her work is a map for my research, but my goal is not to prove her right or wrong. I do not like the cultish atmosphere of the Ayn Rand Institute, and do not wish to write papers that serve to bolster their cause.
I am also grading, finally, this weekend. Thankfully, all the 50+ papers in my stack are readable, but to grade the middle-range papers I have to go back and review all the material they were given from which to develop their papers. The "clearly A" papers and "clearly D" papers were easy, but the differences between the ones in the middle are muddier to assess. Thus procrastination- they don't need to be graded till at least Tuesday anyway, and maybe, probably, later.
On top of this, I am also reviewing for an exam on program assessment/ policy analysis which I will be taking Monday morning, and writing a take-home essay-exam on green jobs and sustainability, which I finished 2 hours ago. And, if I still have time and energy tomorrow, I plan to go for a walk, weather permitting, and write a draft of the ecosystems science portion of my white paper. So, while I can feel my mood slipping decidedly towards depression, I am still being quite productive. It takes longer to get myself started, part of why I didn't write my take-home exam earlier, and my brain has been feeling muddy and slow, but once I get started, I can draw myself into a more productive mode again, possibly by sheer stubbornness. Nighttime has an effect too. I have always written better after 1am, so it isn't surprising that my brain feels better now (~3am). I am decidedly pessimistic about my would-be romantic interest, and am only barely emotionally engaged in that outcome, to the extent that I am not motivated to do anything to effect a positive outcome, despite my continued interest in this person. I also am pessimistic about my chosen thesis, despite the positive reception it received from both faculty I have recruited into my committee thus far. That has something to do with my reaction to the Ayn Rand Institute website, and to my literature search on Friday that yielded very little useful information. I have yet to look up Alan Greenspan's contributions to this range of conversations, and I know that he wrote several things that may be useful, and I know Objectivism well enough to be able to find papers relating to my topic regardless of whether they use the term "Objectivism" or mention Rand at all. Realistically, I may not refer to Rand much either, as I go further into my topic. Her work is a map for my research, but my goal is not to prove her right or wrong. I do not like the cultish atmosphere of the Ayn Rand Institute, and do not wish to write papers that serve to bolster their cause.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Exercise seratonin and grand plans
I am going to miss playing soccer this winter. I doubt my body is up to much still, but soccer requires only brief spurts of running, not enough to make my heart beat funny, but enough to set back my mood cycling. I may get to prolong this hypomanic state another week after all. I was starting to transition out of this one this weekend, and this morning was in an odd state in which I had the mental restlessness and fidgity manner of hypomania, but with an underlying exhaustion growing that would allow the mania to burn itself out. Now, after another game with just enough running, I am back to the phase I was in last week.
I may need this phase, since I am working out my plans for the next 3 years now. I don't think it really affects the papers I am working on this term, so if I am not exactly sure of my focus just yet I have some leeway, but registration for next term is coming up very soon. My department is structured around 5 emphases, and a MA student is expected to choose 2. I was originally thinking when I started this program that I wanted to have an international focus, but the problem of making sustainability and environmentalism reconciled in some fashion with Objectivism has become a major issue in my current sustainability studies. So, I am back to the issues I was stuck on in high school. I am going with environmental policy and political theory as my two emphases, I think.
It may take more than a soccer game though to keep my energy up. I can see how anxiety disorder is linked to depression disorders. It is hard to put into words, but the more my depression symptoms return, the harder it is to do certain sorts of new things, especially things like trying out the recreation center on campus. I am sure I will eventually, but right now the thought that I might benefit from exercising there is pitted against an unreasoned reluctance to be in that sort of new public place alone. I really didn't do much at the CU recreation center until I started hanging out with my first two boyfriends, and Joe wanted to work out there with me. My reluctance to enter gym facilities is the same feeling as my reluctance to enter new bars or restaurants without company. However, I have no anxiety about contacting or visiting the office hours of professors I have never met. Are there extrovert and introvert varieties of mood disorder presentations? I am naturally a decided introvert, and am most at ease in the company of one or two people. This trait seems to become amplified when my mood cycles.
Certainly autobiographical case studies are of very limited utility in devising effective treatment for anything, and I have no way of really assessing my own mental state to be sure I am not compromised as I am writing, but at the very least I can record questions and observations for later testing. I will probably go back on depo provera eventually, at which time my mood will stabilize again, so this is a fairly temporary project, but I hate the idea of getting too used to relying on a drug.
I may need this phase, since I am working out my plans for the next 3 years now. I don't think it really affects the papers I am working on this term, so if I am not exactly sure of my focus just yet I have some leeway, but registration for next term is coming up very soon. My department is structured around 5 emphases, and a MA student is expected to choose 2. I was originally thinking when I started this program that I wanted to have an international focus, but the problem of making sustainability and environmentalism reconciled in some fashion with Objectivism has become a major issue in my current sustainability studies. So, I am back to the issues I was stuck on in high school. I am going with environmental policy and political theory as my two emphases, I think.
It may take more than a soccer game though to keep my energy up. I can see how anxiety disorder is linked to depression disorders. It is hard to put into words, but the more my depression symptoms return, the harder it is to do certain sorts of new things, especially things like trying out the recreation center on campus. I am sure I will eventually, but right now the thought that I might benefit from exercising there is pitted against an unreasoned reluctance to be in that sort of new public place alone. I really didn't do much at the CU recreation center until I started hanging out with my first two boyfriends, and Joe wanted to work out there with me. My reluctance to enter gym facilities is the same feeling as my reluctance to enter new bars or restaurants without company. However, I have no anxiety about contacting or visiting the office hours of professors I have never met. Are there extrovert and introvert varieties of mood disorder presentations? I am naturally a decided introvert, and am most at ease in the company of one or two people. This trait seems to become amplified when my mood cycles.
Certainly autobiographical case studies are of very limited utility in devising effective treatment for anything, and I have no way of really assessing my own mental state to be sure I am not compromised as I am writing, but at the very least I can record questions and observations for later testing. I will probably go back on depo provera eventually, at which time my mood will stabilize again, so this is a fairly temporary project, but I hate the idea of getting too used to relying on a drug.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Our Days are Numbered?
I am rereading Atlas Shrugged, the whole thing, after all. I had intended simply to analyze John Galt's very long speech, Rand's directed summary of her philosophy, against the concepts of environmentalism and sustainability. I have never disproved any major tenets of Objectivism, and yet I am now taking a course in which we are discussing the concepts of globalization, sustainability and justice, in a classroom of students who would for the most part want to lynch me if I took a pure Objectivist stance on our discussion topics. At least my committee chair read Atlas Shrugged in high school too, and did, at least then, consider herself an Objectivist. As far as I know, though, the majority of the department here is aligned more towards Marxism and socialism. It was safe enough and comfortable enough to keep Objectivism in the back of my head when I was in the sciences, because whatever my colleagues held as their governing philosophy, their actions tended to agree with the values espoused by Objectivism. In science, even if the 'truth' is elusive, we could all agree on the importance of honest research practices and reliance on data in forming theories.
Now, of course, I am in a department at the very heart of the debates that built up Objectivism. Political science is all about the role of government in private lives and in business, economic and social systems, and the construction of value sets and goals that drive policy. Every time I read Atlas Shrugged before this, these issues were outside my primary range of inquiry in my classes, and constituted simply the basis for a hobby interest outside science. This time, I am reading this book knowing that I am involved in discussions every day that touch on these same issues. Rand was certainly a pessimist, and ignored important roles emotion and intuition play in our evaluation of our goals and values, but much of this book remains solid, most in fact, despite these flaws in her philosophy overall.
In high school I wrote a paper on Atlas Shrugged, in which I looked up the historical parallels to Rand's characters and events in this book, Andrew Carnegie, J.D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and the Pullman Strike, among many others. I wrote then about whether her storyline was an impossibility for real life, and while I optimistically stated that our real world is more robust and not so far gone as her book world, I still find this book disturbing now. I had studied then the arguments against FDR's programs to fix the Great Depression, and wondered how much longer those fixes would hold, and while I am not exactly expecting the entire US system to crack and crumble tomorrow, I still wonder. Eddie Willers, in the start of this book, is pondering the phrase "Your days are numbered," with the vague feeling that it applies to something bigger than just the old typewriter to which it had been applied. This is the feeling I have had increasingly this semester, looking at the complex maze of fixes, and patches on fixes, that make up our global and national systems. We escaped the fate of Rand's fictional world, eradicating monopolies and enforcing socialist measures, so far without collapse. For how long?
Now, of course, I am in a department at the very heart of the debates that built up Objectivism. Political science is all about the role of government in private lives and in business, economic and social systems, and the construction of value sets and goals that drive policy. Every time I read Atlas Shrugged before this, these issues were outside my primary range of inquiry in my classes, and constituted simply the basis for a hobby interest outside science. This time, I am reading this book knowing that I am involved in discussions every day that touch on these same issues. Rand was certainly a pessimist, and ignored important roles emotion and intuition play in our evaluation of our goals and values, but much of this book remains solid, most in fact, despite these flaws in her philosophy overall.
In high school I wrote a paper on Atlas Shrugged, in which I looked up the historical parallels to Rand's characters and events in this book, Andrew Carnegie, J.D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and the Pullman Strike, among many others. I wrote then about whether her storyline was an impossibility for real life, and while I optimistically stated that our real world is more robust and not so far gone as her book world, I still find this book disturbing now. I had studied then the arguments against FDR's programs to fix the Great Depression, and wondered how much longer those fixes would hold, and while I am not exactly expecting the entire US system to crack and crumble tomorrow, I still wonder. Eddie Willers, in the start of this book, is pondering the phrase "Your days are numbered," with the vague feeling that it applies to something bigger than just the old typewriter to which it had been applied. This is the feeling I have had increasingly this semester, looking at the complex maze of fixes, and patches on fixes, that make up our global and national systems. We escaped the fate of Rand's fictional world, eradicating monopolies and enforcing socialist measures, so far without collapse. For how long?
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Concessions to reality
I finally had to give in and accept that I am not able to focus enough of my energy on printmaking this term. At least I have a burin, scraper, and some linoleum pieces to work with for the rest of the year, and a plan for my project. Actually the only thing in it that really requires studio access is the background imagery anyway, and if I do callograph I only need the school studio for the press for one afternoon. Everything else can be hand-pressed, and can be done using a small roller I can get from the art supply store. I had thought maybe after soccer is over next week, I would go back to being in the studio on Mondays and Wednesdays, but looking at all the reading I want to accomplish to really do a decent job on this prairie dogs paper, I am not sure I will have the energy, even once my one-month long English class is over. Oh well. I do think I might tackle the paper mache faces and wrapped wires this term, and work up a set of imagery for the prints, and maybe I can print in late December or early January, between semesters, all but the callography, which maybe I can run on a slow day in mid-January when the regular students aren't ready to print yet anyway. And next semester I think I am going to try for a choir instead, for my fun class. I would have gone with a choir this term, but they all conflicted with something else I had to take. Next term ought to be somewhat more open.
Needless to say, my bipolar phase has shifted again. I am actually teetering on the edge of a hypomanic phase, with lots of excess energy in short bursts. Mt typing speed is pretty high right now, and my spelling and typing errors, typing fast, are still low, even for me. I couldn't sleep till almost 4:30 on Sunday night, and if I hadn't been running around a lot during our game on Monday, I might have not slept much on Monday night either. My appetite is almost gone, too, oddly enough, so I am functioning on less than 1000 Calories a day, and have to remind myself to eat. I think if I could stay in this phase for a few weeks I could have all ~70 pages of papers for all my classes written and edited to a professional standard within about two weeks, including all the reading and typing. I still only type at about 40 words per minute at my fastest, unfortunately, even on my smaller, laptop keyboard. Unfortunate, too, that this phase is extremely draining. Amusingly, it is a great phase for awkward or potentially upsetting social situations, since my brain is running so fast now that if I am upset about something, my brain is already moving on within hours, or even minutes, even with situations that in my depressed phase could upset me for weeks. It is as if those episodes happened months or years ago, and are already old history. It would be interesting to find out how universal these features are in bipolar people, especially those with bipolar II. I am not sure if a fully manic individual could really be introspective enough while manic to really make any decent observations of their disorder.
Actually, to the extent that I could develop a better understanding of how my brain functions while in the various phases and transitions of bipolar II, it is debatable whether bipolar II is even a disorder in my case. It certainly will always affect the ways in which I interact with 'normals,' but the same can be said of any personality trait. It would perhaps take a particularly observant, tolerant and interested individual to really provide me with a stable long-term romance, ever, and I can see why a lot of bipolar cases turn to self-destructive sexual habits, resorting to strings of one-night stands and other unstable, unhealthy behaviors. If they can't maintain a normal relationship, they would almost certainly, in their manic or hypomanic phases, seek out whatever relationship they could get. I can't quite imagine myself into such a state, but I have the advantage of over a decade of reading and studying psychology (16 years, at least, now, since I started reading about affective disorders). I also test, at least during manic phases, in the 'genius' range of IQ tests, and am decidedly not suggestible for things like hypnotism, so I am not representative of standard bipolar cases.
I suppose the next question I am interested in is whether I could artificially extend my hypomanic state beyond its normal course, without making myself dangerously depressed. It is probably a very bad idea to experiment with this during grad school; the temptation to hold my brain in a manic phase to finish major papers, and especially in a few years to finish my thesis, might be too great if I allow the possibility of doing this one during a semester. I seriously doubt I could ever be truly suicidal- I am too stubborn for that- yet I suspect that at some point holding mania artificially might precipitate an unnaturally severe depression in its wake. It would be irresponsibly arrogant of me to assume I could manage such a state, especially alongside the normal, and severe stress of graduate school. Probably I can find enough information from case studies, once I am no longer researching prairie dog management, to construct at least a theoretical base from which to consider this aspect of manipulation of bipolar states.
In the meantime, I obviously am not functioning 'normally' yet, cause it is now one o'clock in the morning, and I am only beginning to feel the fatigue, and Tuesdays are my longest. So, more fascinating observations and contemplations of my affective disorder will have to wait, while I finish the dinner I forgot to eat a few hours ago, and head off to sleep (hopefully).
Needless to say, my bipolar phase has shifted again. I am actually teetering on the edge of a hypomanic phase, with lots of excess energy in short bursts. Mt typing speed is pretty high right now, and my spelling and typing errors, typing fast, are still low, even for me. I couldn't sleep till almost 4:30 on Sunday night, and if I hadn't been running around a lot during our game on Monday, I might have not slept much on Monday night either. My appetite is almost gone, too, oddly enough, so I am functioning on less than 1000 Calories a day, and have to remind myself to eat. I think if I could stay in this phase for a few weeks I could have all ~70 pages of papers for all my classes written and edited to a professional standard within about two weeks, including all the reading and typing. I still only type at about 40 words per minute at my fastest, unfortunately, even on my smaller, laptop keyboard. Unfortunate, too, that this phase is extremely draining. Amusingly, it is a great phase for awkward or potentially upsetting social situations, since my brain is running so fast now that if I am upset about something, my brain is already moving on within hours, or even minutes, even with situations that in my depressed phase could upset me for weeks. It is as if those episodes happened months or years ago, and are already old history. It would be interesting to find out how universal these features are in bipolar people, especially those with bipolar II. I am not sure if a fully manic individual could really be introspective enough while manic to really make any decent observations of their disorder.
Actually, to the extent that I could develop a better understanding of how my brain functions while in the various phases and transitions of bipolar II, it is debatable whether bipolar II is even a disorder in my case. It certainly will always affect the ways in which I interact with 'normals,' but the same can be said of any personality trait. It would perhaps take a particularly observant, tolerant and interested individual to really provide me with a stable long-term romance, ever, and I can see why a lot of bipolar cases turn to self-destructive sexual habits, resorting to strings of one-night stands and other unstable, unhealthy behaviors. If they can't maintain a normal relationship, they would almost certainly, in their manic or hypomanic phases, seek out whatever relationship they could get. I can't quite imagine myself into such a state, but I have the advantage of over a decade of reading and studying psychology (16 years, at least, now, since I started reading about affective disorders). I also test, at least during manic phases, in the 'genius' range of IQ tests, and am decidedly not suggestible for things like hypnotism, so I am not representative of standard bipolar cases.
I suppose the next question I am interested in is whether I could artificially extend my hypomanic state beyond its normal course, without making myself dangerously depressed. It is probably a very bad idea to experiment with this during grad school; the temptation to hold my brain in a manic phase to finish major papers, and especially in a few years to finish my thesis, might be too great if I allow the possibility of doing this one during a semester. I seriously doubt I could ever be truly suicidal- I am too stubborn for that- yet I suspect that at some point holding mania artificially might precipitate an unnaturally severe depression in its wake. It would be irresponsibly arrogant of me to assume I could manage such a state, especially alongside the normal, and severe stress of graduate school. Probably I can find enough information from case studies, once I am no longer researching prairie dog management, to construct at least a theoretical base from which to consider this aspect of manipulation of bipolar states.
In the meantime, I obviously am not functioning 'normally' yet, cause it is now one o'clock in the morning, and I am only beginning to feel the fatigue, and Tuesdays are my longest. So, more fascinating observations and contemplations of my affective disorder will have to wait, while I finish the dinner I forgot to eat a few hours ago, and head off to sleep (hopefully).
Monday, September 28, 2009
Safety and solace in normalcy
Most days I really don't mind not being normal, and really it doesn't even come to mind much that I am not. Of course, defining normal is problematic when trying to look at real people. Lots of people have lousy parents, or strange relatives, or mild mental aberrations, or something in their histories that makes them technically unusual, or at least not "normal." Still, I don't get the feeling I quite fit within the single standard deviation range of normalcy set by my current grad student cohort. At least they are all quite smart, so my 'genius' IQ is pretty normal for once, and the fact that I read for pleasure is not peculiar. Nor did I score so high on the GRE as to be unusual. In fact, several of my good friends scored decidedly higher, especially in the math section, so I am not actually an outlier. [Yes, this is a good thing. People certainly do handicap themselves, and in standardized testing I most certainly do, in that I never study for them, or prepare for them ahead of time. I did take one practice test, part of it, to see if the style of their questions was the same, the night before this last one, but no more than that. Should I have scored higher, had I actually studied? Of course. But then I would again be an outlier.] Some days , though, for whatever reason, probably a certain concentration of seratonin or dopamine in my head, I find the feeling of being abnormal very decidedly unavoidable and unpleasant. I can't imagine going through life like this all the time. I suspect most people don't, because if it lasted very long, medication or suicide would be necessary. One day, or even one week would be fine, even interesting, but years would be unsurvivable. I never think, for instance, of my father, yet today I am quite aware of his existence, and of the who twisted, convoluted mess he made of our lives. It is still funny, so I am nowhere near as bad as I was as a teenager in this state, but I can't just be a grad student studying pie-in-the-sky ideals like social sustainability and poking at policies and international conflicts with tools of inquiry. [I am sure many of my fellow students have bits of their lives, too, that they forget about and put aside to make their present life possible and enjoyable, only I don't know them well enough to know.]
I always forget till nights like this just how distracting bipolar can be at the edges of depressive cycles. I can't concentrate on writing my essay exam, because while I can formulate my answers in my head, while sitting on a bench in a park, I can't keep my focus on my writing long enough to type those answers, and anything requiring looking something up seems like an insurmountable task. Nothing I can't finish tomorrow in the computer lab, where peer presence and social norms can fill in a bit for my own brain's lack, but it is frustrating that my brain cops out on me like that. And I can recall only 3 names of India's states at the moment, through the fog that was my memory. Thank goodness I overlearned everything for my policy class, so that my test this morning was drawing from deeper, more permanent memory. My typing speed is at least coming back, so maybe I am shifting out of it again. I am waiting for another few days at the opposite state, where I have all that extra energy, and learn and read extra fast, and can do practically anything I set my mind to, easily. I am not sure how I would have made it this far without those phases, though I suppose just being normal might be just as good. I do wonder if my IQ and my mood disorder are genetically linked, or if I could have had one without the other.
I wonder what I would be like, were I normal. I grew up isolated by my handicap and my religion, but had I been normal, I suppose I would have stayed in gymnastics, and probably done cheerleading. Assuming I didn't break my neck from the top of a human pyramid, I would certainly have still done choir, but without my discomfort with my hands, I would have been not just in small ensembles, but probably doing a few solos, too. And, with my dad as a lawyer, I would probably have finished law school by now, and be a new lawyer beginning my practice in Denver, renting a house with my cat, and quite possibly a boyfriend or husband. Sounds like a fun life. I imagine I would be doing criminal law, and would probably be involved in legal aide, specializing in cases involving children as victims, although I still love the logical puzzles of contracts and might dally in a bit of contract law. But I can't imagine myself as that person. She's just an imaginary Barbie doll. The real me has a crooked ex-lawyer for a dad, and keeps her mom at a distance as a fair and livable compromise between the past and present. The real me has a mood disorder that makes her extraordinarily sharp half the time and very foggily slow or tired for the rest. The real me knows that had I been born normal, my parents may have both been great, and might have stayed together, and that some part of my siblings' failings in their fight for a normal adult life have as a root the fact that I was not normal. Silly, I know, and not the whole story, sure, but it is still there. The real me can't drive, can't swim, and can only relax and enjoy bars, pubs and restaurants in my normal or manic phases. And instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, and finishing off my 2 year old bottle of honey whiskey, I tend to get philosophical and analytical and wind up writing. Eventually much of what I write may help for my Great American Novel, or maybe a book on mood disorders and self-management, but it still doesn't help me learn to be more normal. Oh well. Maybe I'll get lucky and meet some new folks who can see me as odd, eclectic and interesting instead of just weird or quiet or stuck up, and there's a decent chance that I have already met such people, lots of them, given the right settings for them to actually get to know me. In the meantime, the Universe obviously still has a plan of some sort for me.[And every time I start grumbling about that the Universe is in my imagination and that there is nothing at all directional or volitional in the overall operations of the Universe, I happen to find myself in a series of minor events so unlikely that I have to regain that open mind about the whole volitional Universe thing again.] So, the Universe has its plan, and I have a quiz tomorrow, And all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
I always forget till nights like this just how distracting bipolar can be at the edges of depressive cycles. I can't concentrate on writing my essay exam, because while I can formulate my answers in my head, while sitting on a bench in a park, I can't keep my focus on my writing long enough to type those answers, and anything requiring looking something up seems like an insurmountable task. Nothing I can't finish tomorrow in the computer lab, where peer presence and social norms can fill in a bit for my own brain's lack, but it is frustrating that my brain cops out on me like that. And I can recall only 3 names of India's states at the moment, through the fog that was my memory. Thank goodness I overlearned everything for my policy class, so that my test this morning was drawing from deeper, more permanent memory. My typing speed is at least coming back, so maybe I am shifting out of it again. I am waiting for another few days at the opposite state, where I have all that extra energy, and learn and read extra fast, and can do practically anything I set my mind to, easily. I am not sure how I would have made it this far without those phases, though I suppose just being normal might be just as good. I do wonder if my IQ and my mood disorder are genetically linked, or if I could have had one without the other.
I wonder what I would be like, were I normal. I grew up isolated by my handicap and my religion, but had I been normal, I suppose I would have stayed in gymnastics, and probably done cheerleading. Assuming I didn't break my neck from the top of a human pyramid, I would certainly have still done choir, but without my discomfort with my hands, I would have been not just in small ensembles, but probably doing a few solos, too. And, with my dad as a lawyer, I would probably have finished law school by now, and be a new lawyer beginning my practice in Denver, renting a house with my cat, and quite possibly a boyfriend or husband. Sounds like a fun life. I imagine I would be doing criminal law, and would probably be involved in legal aide, specializing in cases involving children as victims, although I still love the logical puzzles of contracts and might dally in a bit of contract law. But I can't imagine myself as that person. She's just an imaginary Barbie doll. The real me has a crooked ex-lawyer for a dad, and keeps her mom at a distance as a fair and livable compromise between the past and present. The real me has a mood disorder that makes her extraordinarily sharp half the time and very foggily slow or tired for the rest. The real me knows that had I been born normal, my parents may have both been great, and might have stayed together, and that some part of my siblings' failings in their fight for a normal adult life have as a root the fact that I was not normal. Silly, I know, and not the whole story, sure, but it is still there. The real me can't drive, can't swim, and can only relax and enjoy bars, pubs and restaurants in my normal or manic phases. And instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, and finishing off my 2 year old bottle of honey whiskey, I tend to get philosophical and analytical and wind up writing. Eventually much of what I write may help for my Great American Novel, or maybe a book on mood disorders and self-management, but it still doesn't help me learn to be more normal. Oh well. Maybe I'll get lucky and meet some new folks who can see me as odd, eclectic and interesting instead of just weird or quiet or stuck up, and there's a decent chance that I have already met such people, lots of them, given the right settings for them to actually get to know me. In the meantime, the Universe obviously still has a plan of some sort for me.[And every time I start grumbling about that the Universe is in my imagination and that there is nothing at all directional or volitional in the overall operations of the Universe, I happen to find myself in a series of minor events so unlikely that I have to regain that open mind about the whole volitional Universe thing again.] So, the Universe has its plan, and I have a quiz tomorrow, And all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
More musings on the roots of marital failure
I suppose I'll continue musing on this one for decades yet, though now that I am no longer a psychology student I doubt I will ever be writing up any formal papers on it now. (Actually, maybe not. I suppose I could always bail on environmental policy and wind up in some government agency dealing with this stuff, analyzing the extent to which government can influence the formation of healthy families, etc.) Anyway, one of the ads in the line-up during Mission Impossible III tonight is from Match.com, all about their questionnaire system. On the face of it, this system makes great sense. If I administered a 300 question personality profile to every cute single guy I meet while I am a grad student, and then ask out only those who score within a certain optimal range, assuming I know what is optimal, maybe I could guarantee I would be married by the time I finish my Masters. Maybe I would even still be happy with this guy for years afterwords. Somehow, though, I doubt it.
Actually just about any guy who would let me bully him into taking a questionnaire would be already self-selected into a certain range of personalities. Maybe I need a push-over, but I think it more likely that I would just walk all over such a guy by accident. But, lets just assume for a minute that the lucky guy was just humoring me, and thus is still a reasonable match. How much do questionnaires really tell me, or anyone? How much of relationships really relies on the answers one could give to any set of questions? There is, of course, also a picture to go with each potential match on a dating site, but knowing how attractive a complete stranger is, and a bunch of static answers wouldn't be enough to add up to relationship bliss either, I think.
Being a short, handicapped woman has so far always landed me loads of really unbelievably attractive male friends, all variously single, and all people who were or still are great friends. Many of them are probably married by now, but all of them, once we became well acquainted, are not "the one." I am sure most people, or at least most of those who didn't marry young, have a host of similar friends. And, most of the men I have dated were not among those I would have ranked as particularly good-looking. Each would have had very different answers to any set of questions. This is all just part of normal single life, but yet the process of mate selection, and the dynamics of normal relationships lie at the heart of marital failure and the 'demise' of the family.
So, what exactly brought all this on? The ad for match.com said that it was easy, because match.com "does all the work." I know dating can be frustrating, but laziness seems a poor way to make it better. Forming and maintaining a relationship takes some effort, even if it is the perfect one. Once someone or something else assumes responsibility for this effort, when do the people forming the relationship resume that effort? After all, at least in the meeting new people/ first dates stages there is novelty and excitement to move things along, making it easier to put in effort. A few months or years later, when the novelty is gone, there is also no dating site to make things easier. Sure, there is a role for dating sites, but it seems so much more exciting going out and doing things, and meeting new potential partners in these activities.
Actually just about any guy who would let me bully him into taking a questionnaire would be already self-selected into a certain range of personalities. Maybe I need a push-over, but I think it more likely that I would just walk all over such a guy by accident. But, lets just assume for a minute that the lucky guy was just humoring me, and thus is still a reasonable match. How much do questionnaires really tell me, or anyone? How much of relationships really relies on the answers one could give to any set of questions? There is, of course, also a picture to go with each potential match on a dating site, but knowing how attractive a complete stranger is, and a bunch of static answers wouldn't be enough to add up to relationship bliss either, I think.
Being a short, handicapped woman has so far always landed me loads of really unbelievably attractive male friends, all variously single, and all people who were or still are great friends. Many of them are probably married by now, but all of them, once we became well acquainted, are not "the one." I am sure most people, or at least most of those who didn't marry young, have a host of similar friends. And, most of the men I have dated were not among those I would have ranked as particularly good-looking. Each would have had very different answers to any set of questions. This is all just part of normal single life, but yet the process of mate selection, and the dynamics of normal relationships lie at the heart of marital failure and the 'demise' of the family.
So, what exactly brought all this on? The ad for match.com said that it was easy, because match.com "does all the work." I know dating can be frustrating, but laziness seems a poor way to make it better. Forming and maintaining a relationship takes some effort, even if it is the perfect one. Once someone or something else assumes responsibility for this effort, when do the people forming the relationship resume that effort? After all, at least in the meeting new people/ first dates stages there is novelty and excitement to move things along, making it easier to put in effort. A few months or years later, when the novelty is gone, there is also no dating site to make things easier. Sure, there is a role for dating sites, but it seems so much more exciting going out and doing things, and meeting new potential partners in these activities.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
STS-127
What a way to spend a night!
Actually it was a bit anti-climatic, watching the launch countdown for NASA's STS-127 mission, which once again was scrubbed due to a hydrogen fuel leak, at the same spot as was leaking during the last launch attempt.
I actually have not watched a launch since the Challenger exploded when I was a kid. I still remember sitting in the classroom at Daystar Seventh Day Adventist school with my classmates, mildly stunned at the explosion on the screen, and the bits of debris scattering in midair where the shuttle ought to have been. I was not traumatized, being too young and isolated from that part of the real world to be really concerned with what happened. But I have remembered that footage ever since, and as an adult I have, perhaps, a greater respect for the astronauts who walk eagerly into their shuttles, strapped to huge rockets whose controlled explosions will launch the shuttle into space. And the lighting for the STS 127 launch, had it gone up on schedule this morning, would have made for beautiful launch images.
So, the launch is again postponed, and we will all have to wait a few more days to watch this mission launch.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Survival in the Real World, Part 1
30 years into life in the real world, it seems that if there was a point to my life it would be at least somewhat apparent, and perhaps it is. I am admittedly biased by my species, but it seems that human life is in fact the point, and the happiness and health of humans. This, despite being rather tired of people after a week spent canvassing for a group that professes to support clean water, and that sends people out to collect money and signatures from folks, door to door, telling them that their signatures are simply a statement that they agree about the need to keep our country's water clean.
I am sure that some good is done by this group, but I am not sure it is something I want to spend more weeks involved with. Of course I like clean water, and of course I think that leaving large percentages of our water sources legally unprotected is unwise, but I am not sure I would want to give money to a canvasser. While this specific issue seems pretty straightforward, I find it interesting that as a person hired to walk around telling people about it, I am not at all informed as to what arguments have been made against the Clean Water Restoration Act. I am not sure there are any such reasonable arguments, but this non-profit group does not seem particularly inclined even to ask.
Clean Water Restoration Act, from GovTrack
Key to understanding my reservations about this non-profit is the dynamic of lies and half-truths as a substitute for honest communication between grassroots organizers and the public. After all, if everyone I have spoken to during my canvassing so far was in fact telling me the truth, there were maybe 4 houses out of 3.5 blocks of a nice middle-class neighborhood in Denver occupied by people with regular jobs. The rest were unemployed and had no money. If that is the case, the rest of us are really in trouble. So, of course, as a canvasser, whose goal is to bring in as many legitimate signatures as possible, and more importantly, as much money as possible, one must assume that the person at the door, who has just said they have no money to give, is lying, and really can give something, if only one doesn't give up. And, from the totals brought in by experienced, 'expert' canvassers, obviously some of them are lying. Still, I hate the feeling of expecting that those around me are dishonest, just as much as I hate the implied assumptions that the contacts we are talking to are 'like lemmings' and that they need us to explain things to them in very simple terms for them to understand. No, we need to use very simple terms to try to get contributions out of people based on their agreement that they like clean water, for instance, not based on any real understanding of what is going on.
Scary as it seems now to jump back into the world of unemployment, and to try once again to find a job, it seems there must be something better than this with which to occupy my time and pay my rent.
I am sure that some good is done by this group, but I am not sure it is something I want to spend more weeks involved with. Of course I like clean water, and of course I think that leaving large percentages of our water sources legally unprotected is unwise, but I am not sure I would want to give money to a canvasser. While this specific issue seems pretty straightforward, I find it interesting that as a person hired to walk around telling people about it, I am not at all informed as to what arguments have been made against the Clean Water Restoration Act. I am not sure there are any such reasonable arguments, but this non-profit group does not seem particularly inclined even to ask.
Clean Water Restoration Act, from GovTrack
Key to understanding my reservations about this non-profit is the dynamic of lies and half-truths as a substitute for honest communication between grassroots organizers and the public. After all, if everyone I have spoken to during my canvassing so far was in fact telling me the truth, there were maybe 4 houses out of 3.5 blocks of a nice middle-class neighborhood in Denver occupied by people with regular jobs. The rest were unemployed and had no money. If that is the case, the rest of us are really in trouble. So, of course, as a canvasser, whose goal is to bring in as many legitimate signatures as possible, and more importantly, as much money as possible, one must assume that the person at the door, who has just said they have no money to give, is lying, and really can give something, if only one doesn't give up. And, from the totals brought in by experienced, 'expert' canvassers, obviously some of them are lying. Still, I hate the feeling of expecting that those around me are dishonest, just as much as I hate the implied assumptions that the contacts we are talking to are 'like lemmings' and that they need us to explain things to them in very simple terms for them to understand. No, we need to use very simple terms to try to get contributions out of people based on their agreement that they like clean water, for instance, not based on any real understanding of what is going on.
Scary as it seems now to jump back into the world of unemployment, and to try once again to find a job, it seems there must be something better than this with which to occupy my time and pay my rent.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Ambrosia for my Mind
I finally, tonight, actually bothered to correct, or begin to correct an imbalance in my little world, one that has been bothering me for quite a while now. Since last March I have lived entirely without broadcast television, so that while I watch plenty of "TV" still, it is all from DVD's and VHS video, usually a specific series like Horatio Hornblower, Babylon 5, or Battlestar Galactica. I only regained adequate computer capabilities to use the Internet a few months ago. So, for the past year I have only had access to news through the occasional newspapers left out at work, or abandoned by previous customers at whatever restaurant I went to for lunch. Somehow I seem to have been at least reasonably well-informed relative to my now-former coworkers, but I wondered lately whether I would recognize such events as occur in the world of Battlestar Galactica if they were apening this week, as isolated and insulated from such events as I have been.
So tonight I have been reading the news. Not much new has happened, though the Swine Flu is an interesting story so far, remeniscent of the Bird Flu scare of previous years. I loved the story about the rescue of a ship's captain from pirates by the Navy SEALs; real life really is as interesting as a good Hornblower film. And all the continuing crap about North Korea and nukes still makes me wonder where this mess will end, an insane ruler with nuclear capabilities and a bunch of civilized countries wary of moving too fast for fear that they will set up a still worse situation. Will he keep to 'tests' and is that really our concern? Isn't it nice that at least if he only has enough plutonium for 1.5 bombs, and is going to use it for a test, he is at least not using it in an directly aggressive action against a neighbor? Intercontinental missles bother me more, but I think we don't have the whole story. I want to know who would side against us if we sent a strike team in and took out the insane leader said to be the 'reasoning' behind all this, and what the actual threats are to us based on what he and his allies can bring to bear against us. And, no, of course I don't buy that China is not arming itself, in part at least towards pressuring Taiwan to rejoin China. That makes no sense, knowing China's earlier position with respect to this issue.
Apparently being more or less away from the news for a year has not put me to far out of the loop, at least by the standards of public news channels, but it will be interesting to see what information is available to fill in the gaps when I am again in the vicinity of a college library system. Battlestar Galactica is an easier story to follow, and all the important information is right there in logical order to allow viewers to easily see all the connections and piece together each story, while the real versions of these stories remain in isolated bits, not all published at once, not all recognized as part of the same story, and not all easy to understand on their own, let alone in the big picture. We don't have a roadmap to tell us to go search for Earth, with a dying leader to guide us, and, oh, by the way, the bad guys are called Cylons, and they can be identified on sight or by bloodwork, and you are free to kill them at will. Our bad guys are relative. The Somali pirates may be becoming a distinct exception, as true bad guys on the same order as corrupt mob bosses and vicious dictators, but most of our conflicts have so many sides that just one conflict could present most of the major story patterns we enjoy in the course of a season of television.
And in the real world, unfortunately, Jamie Bamber is married with kids, so he is no more accessible to me than he would be if I was in the world of Battlestar Galactica. I am sure if I give the universe a chance, I will find men, or a man anyway, who I would consider more attractive than Jamie Bamber, but as of tonight he still stands as my number one most desireable man on this planet, displacing all previous contendors. So, yes, now that I have read all the world news I could find for tonight, tomorrow I will be back to watching BSG, and the lovely Lee Adama.
So tonight I have been reading the news. Not much new has happened, though the Swine Flu is an interesting story so far, remeniscent of the Bird Flu scare of previous years. I loved the story about the rescue of a ship's captain from pirates by the Navy SEALs; real life really is as interesting as a good Hornblower film. And all the continuing crap about North Korea and nukes still makes me wonder where this mess will end, an insane ruler with nuclear capabilities and a bunch of civilized countries wary of moving too fast for fear that they will set up a still worse situation. Will he keep to 'tests' and is that really our concern? Isn't it nice that at least if he only has enough plutonium for 1.5 bombs, and is going to use it for a test, he is at least not using it in an directly aggressive action against a neighbor? Intercontinental missles bother me more, but I think we don't have the whole story. I want to know who would side against us if we sent a strike team in and took out the insane leader said to be the 'reasoning' behind all this, and what the actual threats are to us based on what he and his allies can bring to bear against us. And, no, of course I don't buy that China is not arming itself, in part at least towards pressuring Taiwan to rejoin China. That makes no sense, knowing China's earlier position with respect to this issue.
Apparently being more or less away from the news for a year has not put me to far out of the loop, at least by the standards of public news channels, but it will be interesting to see what information is available to fill in the gaps when I am again in the vicinity of a college library system. Battlestar Galactica is an easier story to follow, and all the important information is right there in logical order to allow viewers to easily see all the connections and piece together each story, while the real versions of these stories remain in isolated bits, not all published at once, not all recognized as part of the same story, and not all easy to understand on their own, let alone in the big picture. We don't have a roadmap to tell us to go search for Earth, with a dying leader to guide us, and, oh, by the way, the bad guys are called Cylons, and they can be identified on sight or by bloodwork, and you are free to kill them at will. Our bad guys are relative. The Somali pirates may be becoming a distinct exception, as true bad guys on the same order as corrupt mob bosses and vicious dictators, but most of our conflicts have so many sides that just one conflict could present most of the major story patterns we enjoy in the course of a season of television.
And in the real world, unfortunately, Jamie Bamber is married with kids, so he is no more accessible to me than he would be if I was in the world of Battlestar Galactica. I am sure if I give the universe a chance, I will find men, or a man anyway, who I would consider more attractive than Jamie Bamber, but as of tonight he still stands as my number one most desireable man on this planet, displacing all previous contendors. So, yes, now that I have read all the world news I could find for tonight, tomorrow I will be back to watching BSG, and the lovely Lee Adama.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
What's in a name?
Over the past few weeks my sister has introduced me to an old TV series and an even older one, and several actors, namely Battlestar Galactica, Horatio Hornblower, and the actors Ioan Gruffudd, Jamie Bamber, and Paul McGann. Paul McGann is 49 years old, and knowing that, I cannot quite convince my brain to let me check him out, though I must admit he is pretty enough if I were older. Ioan and Jamie, on the other hand, are both withing 5 years or so of my age, and very pretty, though both married. Jamie has 3 daughters, and Ioan is expecting his first child sometime this year. No, btw, I am not obsessed, merely catching up. These guys have all been around long enough that their true fans know plenty more than any Wikipedia site could convey, and had I been at home with my sisters a bit longer in Pueblo I would surely have seen all the Horatio Hornblower series on A&E as it aired, not on DVD years later. Battlestar Galactica is another matter, however. I loved the original series, and I still am resistant to the new Starbuck character. The old Starbuck and Apollo were great, and I had no real desire to see the new series from the bits and pieces I picked up hanging around my sisters. Even now, I am not so into it as I might be if I could forget the tenuous connection between this series and the old one. I am watching this series finally, now, because of Mr. Bamber, easily the most attractive man I have seen on a television lately. Ioan Gruffudd is alright, and grows into his character nicely in the later Hornblower episodes, but after Bamber's character [Archie Kennedy] died I was not nearly as enthusiastic about the rest of the series. Ok, so the difference is not particularly significant, since this was such a great show, but it is still there. Jamie Bamber is great as Archie, and great as Lee Adama, too, though when I see him in Battlestar Galactica he is still the guy who played Archie in my mind so far. I can't call him "Jamie" very easily, though. And I happened across a Jamie Bamber fan site tonight that was making me rather uncomfortable, because it tends to refer to him simply as "Jamie." I have always disliked my name for myself, and while I have given up for the present trying to adopt a different one, I tried several times in the past to get people to call me something else, usually James, for lack of a better idea. I loved foreign language classes pre-college, as they always made you take a different name for the class. [I have gone by Anne-Marie, Silvia, Katja, Tunsnelda/Tunsi, and Marcel, all quite happily.] Still, I respond to "Jamie" and seeing 'my' name plastered all over a site like that, I am quite sure that I would never want to be so famous as to be the object of such obessive devotion. The man is gorgeous, but he is still a complete stranger. I won't protest if he wants to be photographed naked for PETA, but I doubt you will ever catch me trying to get an autograph from any of these men.
But, thanks to Ioan, I am starting to learn a bit of Welsh. I love his natural accent, and there is no chance I will be able to adopt a Welsh accent without a much better understanding of the Welsh language itself.
But, thanks to Ioan, I am starting to learn a bit of Welsh. I love his natural accent, and there is no chance I will be able to adopt a Welsh accent without a much better understanding of the Welsh language itself.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Turning Old
Well, I am now 30. Bleh. So thirty years and about 40 minutes ago I was born, and in that time I hope so far the good outweighs the bad by a bit. Cristina Galdos' birthday party years ago comes to mind, and how upset she was about her birthday. Well, there is not much going on now to be particularly upset about, but it would sure be nice if I could say with confidence that I have not wasted all those 30 years, or at least that in the remaining 70 that I have left I am sure to make good use of my time remaining. Staying at Dillards much longer would, I think, count as wasting time, but every time I find a plan that seems to look good for doing something else the Universe throws new problems into the mix. Now it is Tammy's finances, as well as the simple logistical problem that neither of us has a car. I am amazed some days that I have done as much as I have, considering that I don't drive. I think on her own that Tammy would simply never do anything, but in any case, it is falling entirely on me, and any decisions I do make meet with her immediate disapproval as soon as I have already made them. Any input she seems to have made tends to be nullified in her reluctance to actually do anything different. Ghrrrrrr.
So, I think I may have found a decent apartment in Ft. Collins, and I most likely could at least get a job at the Ross there, but she has other plans she neglected to consider such that her money has to go elsewhere. So, while she hates her job and REALLY wants to move out of Longmont, she is maybe not going anywhere anyway. Now, the big decision: do I move anyway, on my own? I have almost gone too far towards leaving Dillard's now to change my mind, so I need to leave soon, in any case.
If only birthdays came with three magic wishes, or at least good job offers in Ft. Collins, or something along those lines.
So, I think I may have found a decent apartment in Ft. Collins, and I most likely could at least get a job at the Ross there, but she has other plans she neglected to consider such that her money has to go elsewhere. So, while she hates her job and REALLY wants to move out of Longmont, she is maybe not going anywhere anyway. Now, the big decision: do I move anyway, on my own? I have almost gone too far towards leaving Dillard's now to change my mind, so I need to leave soon, in any case.
If only birthdays came with three magic wishes, or at least good job offers in Ft. Collins, or something along those lines.
Friday, March 6, 2009
The men of '39
Brian May's song '39 is a great classic Queen ballad, sung by him, with an acoustic guitar accompaniment, and a fun sci-fi fantasy storyline. The narrator is telling about how he and his fellow explorers left home one day, saying farewell to their loved ones, and when they returned after what for them was less than a year, they found that time had passed differently back home, such that the narrator meets not his beloved, but her daughter/son. I had only ever listened to this song at face value before, but tonight I am in another odd and somewhat pensive mood, and was glancing through pictures of recording artists at work in studios when this song came on. It struck me this time as a song about Queen, and other such artists. Brian, Roger and John are all about 60 years old now, roughly retirement age in any field, yet Queen(minus John, of course) just finished another tour. They are still living somewhat the lives of much younger men, rock stars, while the rest of the world is permitted to age as usual. By the time the rest of the world lets these men rest they will be quite old. It gets awkward to articulate this idea past this point without treading on uncertainty, since I don't know so much really about their lives now or then, but it seems to me that a rock star gets very little privacy, and they are unlikely to get to live openly among regular people, though having been in England for a bit I am not so sure if maybe the US and England differ on this a bit. Still, fans are fans. If you are a kid of Brian May, you probably do face some uneasy situations involving fans who want to get to your dad through you. You live on your guard as a matter of course. As a celebrity, you may find it hard to stop by a local grocery store anywhere, since someone might recognize you. And all this makes having a stable, normal marriage and family life very tough. No wonder John has receeded from view as much as possible. His kids actually seem to be able to use facebook relatively safely, even, since he is just a random guy with an electronics degree now. And no wonder Roger has had such a classic rocker's romantic history. The chaos of touring and all the rest is more like a continuation of adolescence and early adulthood. While you might get to be rather wise after going through something like what Queen experienced in losing Freddie, you are not so likely in that lifestyle to develop the sort of habits that make you attractive to your own age group later on. So Roger is dating someone closer to my age, instead, if the Internet is at all right. Of course Queen was not a heavy parties and drugs sort of band, part of why I can relate to these guys really; bands that did the wild parties and the alcohol left some rather impressive human wreckage in their wakes.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Romping through music history
Last week it was just a growing interest in Queen and electric guitars. But, through the wonders of Internet, I spent last night reading old interviews of Brian May in guitar magazines, pausing occasionally to pull up songs from Queen or Brian's solo albums, either off my computer or off YouTube, including those karaoke/instrumental tracks on YouTube that allow one to really hear the guitar parts, especially as I know the vocals well enough to keep from getting lost. I also pulled up the tracks Brian mentioned from other artists, especially Jeff Beck, and could listen to the bits Brian was talking about in all these songs, and could figure out what sounds go with the techniques mentioned in wikipedia for Brian's guitar parts. I learned more by far in those two hours or so last night than I learned in the few weeks of Music Appreciation 101 I waded through.
So tonight I am continuing my education. I am reading a book on important recording studios and the people who recorded with them, and at some point I realized I didn't really know what Otis Redding sounded like, or have much of a reference for Hank Williams, Sr., or really recall the sound of Roy Orbison's recordings. So I am back on YouTube, this time on a new playlist with no Queen, no Brian May. I really like Otis Redding, it turns out.
I really think this is how Music Appreciation should be taught. Give starting reference points, via required reading and in-class video/audio and then let students follow the music. A glass bead game of sorts, but with a focus mostly in music. Of course, the story of the producer at Stax Studio mixing Dock at the Bay after Otis died in a plane crash reminded me very strongly of Brian and Roger talking about making Made in Heaven off the material Freddie left behind, and Hank Williams is in there too, as he died very young. And Nat "King" Cole died at about the same age as Freddie, only of cancer. Brian's song, No One But You, is hovering in the back o my mind increasingly as I read this book. Sure, there are musicians, great and successful and talented, who did not die young, but it seems a lot of them did, maybe because they live their lives on a faster or bigger scale, and one way or another they wore out early. And of course the history of recorded music draws in the rest of the history of all of what else was going on at the time.
Really I wish now that I had more time for this. I am almost 30, and while I have a long time left before I am old, I feel old to be just getting into music as a serious pursuit. Yes, it seems silly, too. After all there are thousands of new musicians on the modern music scene every day, and I am just starting out. Maybe I have something valuable in me with respect to music, but maybe not, and I won't know except by trying. I have no band, and no friends currently who are making music, so for now I am just working on me. If the Universe wants me making music I will meet the right people and find the right situations to make it happen. I simply have to put in the effort to be ready for whatever the Universe throws my way. So, for now, it is my books- music industry, recording technology, physics- and the Internet, and my CD collection. And lots of writing and other creative pursuits. Making my own music was fairly easy back when I was a kid and used to using music as a form of my own self-expression, but I am not so used to it any longer. But as I seem to have reached a point where listening to other peoples' music i sno longer enough, I need to start making my own.
So tonight I am continuing my education. I am reading a book on important recording studios and the people who recorded with them, and at some point I realized I didn't really know what Otis Redding sounded like, or have much of a reference for Hank Williams, Sr., or really recall the sound of Roy Orbison's recordings. So I am back on YouTube, this time on a new playlist with no Queen, no Brian May. I really like Otis Redding, it turns out.
I really think this is how Music Appreciation should be taught. Give starting reference points, via required reading and in-class video/audio and then let students follow the music. A glass bead game of sorts, but with a focus mostly in music. Of course, the story of the producer at Stax Studio mixing Dock at the Bay after Otis died in a plane crash reminded me very strongly of Brian and Roger talking about making Made in Heaven off the material Freddie left behind, and Hank Williams is in there too, as he died very young. And Nat "King" Cole died at about the same age as Freddie, only of cancer. Brian's song, No One But You, is hovering in the back o my mind increasingly as I read this book. Sure, there are musicians, great and successful and talented, who did not die young, but it seems a lot of them did, maybe because they live their lives on a faster or bigger scale, and one way or another they wore out early. And of course the history of recorded music draws in the rest of the history of all of what else was going on at the time.
Really I wish now that I had more time for this. I am almost 30, and while I have a long time left before I am old, I feel old to be just getting into music as a serious pursuit. Yes, it seems silly, too. After all there are thousands of new musicians on the modern music scene every day, and I am just starting out. Maybe I have something valuable in me with respect to music, but maybe not, and I won't know except by trying. I have no band, and no friends currently who are making music, so for now I am just working on me. If the Universe wants me making music I will meet the right people and find the right situations to make it happen. I simply have to put in the effort to be ready for whatever the Universe throws my way. So, for now, it is my books- music industry, recording technology, physics- and the Internet, and my CD collection. And lots of writing and other creative pursuits. Making my own music was fairly easy back when I was a kid and used to using music as a form of my own self-expression, but I am not so used to it any longer. But as I seem to have reached a point where listening to other peoples' music i sno longer enough, I need to start making my own.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Karaoke Queen
Funny, but it is so much easier to sing Queen songs to karaoke tracks when I am 1) not looking at the prompter, and 2) when I trust myself about what to sing and when. It is not really all that different from finding when to come in after a long piano intro in choir, but the music is much more complicated and I had not really expected that I knew the percussion and base lines as well as I apparently do, at least as they related to the voice. Probably it is a good thing I did not have YouTube to find karaoke tracks on until recently because the experience of singing 'with' Queen is quite addictive. The more I let my mind settle into the music, the easier it is to feel the spaces where the lead vocals fit in, so even if I get lazy and forget the words, I still find myself humming the tune where it belongs. And while I obviously still really enjoy their music as is, it really is a lazy way of getting music to just listen to other people's recordings. I find singing with Queen more satisfying some days because I can't be lazy about the music that makes up the soundtrack of my life. I usually have music on when I wake up, and there is music when I am at work, though not of my choosing, and at home the music resumes as soon as I am on my computer. Some nights I do leave things silent, but I know what silence sounds like already, and if I don't need it I would rather hear something else. After all Life is shorter than one might think, and there is so littel time to really enjoy all that is around to be enjoyed.
Now I want to find me a band and do this stuff for real, write songs, perform them in a band on stage in front of a live audience, etc. I may never be able to play electric mandolin on stage or be a proper percussionist with my hands as they are, but I can sing, at least.
Now I want to find me a band and do this stuff for real, write songs, perform them in a band on stage in front of a live audience, etc. I may never be able to play electric mandolin on stage or be a proper percussionist with my hands as they are, but I can sing, at least.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
way too late, but well entertained nonetheless
I have just finished watching We Will Rock You, the musical, through the lovely medium of YouTube, all of it. I am sure it would have been a much more fulfilling experience when experienced live rather than late at night on a laptop screen in my room, though at least I was not disinclined to laugh as much as I wished when I wished. I was not entirely convinced in parts of this show, and I think I would have still preferred Les Miserables to this show even had I seen it live, but it was still hilarious and musically strong, and I really liked the casting. I love the character of Killer Queen, especially. And I shall never hear One Vision in quite the same light again thanks to this show.
It is a fun thought that through this show Queen has trained another whole generation to know to clap and move correctly to We Will Rock You and Radio GaGa, so that the audiences in this musical were still moving to the pattern set by Queen decades ago. We are perhaps well on our way to the world they describe in their musical, if more people were still into Queen, and if they could market their musical to the US. I do wonder how it would do in Denver. It is so flashy, with all the bright lights and constant moving and wiggling, and continuous loud music and noisemaking, more than Cats did by far, so maybe the odd choppy flow of the story and the not quite perfect fit of some of the lyrics to the storyline would smooth out for any modern audience. I liked Les Mis in part because it was a complete and elegant story, well portrayed, with great dynamics, and maybe I would have to see this musical a few times to really appreciate its different sense of storytelling and dynamics.
I found it amusing that just about at the point where Pop was telling the story about Queen, and the Hairy One's guitar, a spider emerged out of the darkness into the edge of my computer screen, so that I had to put the computer down, turn the light back on, and maneuver the spider away from the computer before I could concentrate on the show again. The spider is squished now, and it did not distract me from finding out about the guitar before it died, either. :)
But now it is time for bed. I was reading earlier tonight about the symptoms of rheumatic fever and scarlet fever as complications of untreated strep infections, and I am wondering if the odd allergy-like rashes I was getting on my legs after my sore throat got better again a few weeks ago was caused by the strep infection, along with the periodic swelling in my fingers. In any case my throat is quite sore again, and I feel flushed and feverish, and was feeling strange earlier at work, like the sort of mild floaty dizziness I get if I drink a couple shots of honey whiskey. I have probably not been completely free of strep since camp 2007, and leaving an infection that long I am relying on the strength of my immune system to keep me standing, despite stress and my poor diet and sleep patterns, and periodic depression. Maybe I can get some penicillin soon so I can finally get over it. It would suck if I reached my 31st birthday actually wanting to live on and to find myself dying anyway from an infection I never bothered to treat. I am probably dancing with bronchitis already, from the way it feels to breathe now, and I know the strain of strep that Missy's daughter had recently progressed to pneumonia, so it is a fairly tough one.
It is a fun thought that through this show Queen has trained another whole generation to know to clap and move correctly to We Will Rock You and Radio GaGa, so that the audiences in this musical were still moving to the pattern set by Queen decades ago. We are perhaps well on our way to the world they describe in their musical, if more people were still into Queen, and if they could market their musical to the US. I do wonder how it would do in Denver. It is so flashy, with all the bright lights and constant moving and wiggling, and continuous loud music and noisemaking, more than Cats did by far, so maybe the odd choppy flow of the story and the not quite perfect fit of some of the lyrics to the storyline would smooth out for any modern audience. I liked Les Mis in part because it was a complete and elegant story, well portrayed, with great dynamics, and maybe I would have to see this musical a few times to really appreciate its different sense of storytelling and dynamics.
I found it amusing that just about at the point where Pop was telling the story about Queen, and the Hairy One's guitar, a spider emerged out of the darkness into the edge of my computer screen, so that I had to put the computer down, turn the light back on, and maneuver the spider away from the computer before I could concentrate on the show again. The spider is squished now, and it did not distract me from finding out about the guitar before it died, either. :)
But now it is time for bed. I was reading earlier tonight about the symptoms of rheumatic fever and scarlet fever as complications of untreated strep infections, and I am wondering if the odd allergy-like rashes I was getting on my legs after my sore throat got better again a few weeks ago was caused by the strep infection, along with the periodic swelling in my fingers. In any case my throat is quite sore again, and I feel flushed and feverish, and was feeling strange earlier at work, like the sort of mild floaty dizziness I get if I drink a couple shots of honey whiskey. I have probably not been completely free of strep since camp 2007, and leaving an infection that long I am relying on the strength of my immune system to keep me standing, despite stress and my poor diet and sleep patterns, and periodic depression. Maybe I can get some penicillin soon so I can finally get over it. It would suck if I reached my 31st birthday actually wanting to live on and to find myself dying anyway from an infection I never bothered to treat. I am probably dancing with bronchitis already, from the way it feels to breathe now, and I know the strain of strep that Missy's daughter had recently progressed to pneumonia, so it is a fairly tough one.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Aphasia and strep
Ugh. I wish I had twice the hours in a normal day. That or a job where I could multitask more. All these ideas and projects and what I need most is just time. And on top of my many projects and interests I am also sick now, though not enough not to go to work, so far. My throat is sore again, and I feel like I must have a mild fever, though I have not taken my temperature yet. My guess is that the strep I had back at camp has never completely gone away, since I have not ever had a full course of antibiotics to treat it since camp, and it had been there for months before I started treating it then. Every so often it seems to come back, and the throat spray Kathy gave me seemed to help just enough that it went away last time, mostly. Now, though, maybe I might actually get to a clinic and get a culture taken and maybe get rid of it.
Fun experience though- I was scanning through all the books listed on Project Gutenberg for authors starting with U-Z, and my brain glitched on me, last night, not tonight. I all of a sudden was no longer familiar with the printed word "English" that appears after the title of every English language text on that site, though I could still recognize the letters and knew the meaning of the word. I know this is a type of aphasia, though only for a single word that I could tell. It only lasted a few minutes, and no one else would likely have ever had reason to notice since our brains have so many different mechanisms that reinforce our ability to use language, but it was rather cool to experience. It would suck if this indicated anything significant or permanent brain damage, like a hole or a tumor or some sort of brain disease, but I doubt I am ever likely to have anything like that in my young life. My medical drama is pretty much over for a while. Even if it were not true, I could not afford to involve the medical community in my care enough to know anything serious was wrong till it would most likely be fatal anyway. So short of something unavoidably bad, something that causes me to collapse or be otherwise unable to work or walk to work, I doubt I will know myself to ever be particularly ill. Right now I know I am ill, but nothing a little sleep, vitamins and food and fluids won't fix.
Fun experience though- I was scanning through all the books listed on Project Gutenberg for authors starting with U-Z, and my brain glitched on me, last night, not tonight. I all of a sudden was no longer familiar with the printed word "English" that appears after the title of every English language text on that site, though I could still recognize the letters and knew the meaning of the word. I know this is a type of aphasia, though only for a single word that I could tell. It only lasted a few minutes, and no one else would likely have ever had reason to notice since our brains have so many different mechanisms that reinforce our ability to use language, but it was rather cool to experience. It would suck if this indicated anything significant or permanent brain damage, like a hole or a tumor or some sort of brain disease, but I doubt I am ever likely to have anything like that in my young life. My medical drama is pretty much over for a while. Even if it were not true, I could not afford to involve the medical community in my care enough to know anything serious was wrong till it would most likely be fatal anyway. So short of something unavoidably bad, something that causes me to collapse or be otherwise unable to work or walk to work, I doubt I will know myself to ever be particularly ill. Right now I know I am ill, but nothing a little sleep, vitamins and food and fluids won't fix.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Scarcity and Demand
It is nice to know that had I not had all my tapes stolen I would have had a lot more than $200-worth of tapes in that case, since Queen tapes are so pricey on the used music market now. I do miss all the pictures in the album cover that are not in the CD jackets. And Europe! I can't imagine paying more than $10 for a used rock CD, but the cheapest I could find on Amazon for Wings of Tomorrow was over $30. Same for Europe, their first album under their bandname. This of course sucks since their first album was my favorite.
Somehow or another, albums from the Penguin Cafe Orchestra are either rare and expensive, or quite cheap. This is another where a new album might run $70, but other albums I actually ordered at around $5. Does this money return to the artists? We must hope some of it does.
I am liking the personalization on Amazon. I no longer have to do anything special to find albums by Roger Taylor, Brian May, or Queen, as they pop up on their own. Very handy since I am now on to solo albums, except for those 4 remaining Queen albums. I am still hoping for a cheaper copy of Sheer Heart Attack, especially since I got a cheaper copy of Hot Space finally.
Somehow or another, albums from the Penguin Cafe Orchestra are either rare and expensive, or quite cheap. This is another where a new album might run $70, but other albums I actually ordered at around $5. Does this money return to the artists? We must hope some of it does.
I am liking the personalization on Amazon. I no longer have to do anything special to find albums by Roger Taylor, Brian May, or Queen, as they pop up on their own. Very handy since I am now on to solo albums, except for those 4 remaining Queen albums. I am still hoping for a cheaper copy of Sheer Heart Attack, especially since I got a cheaper copy of Hot Space finally.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Physics 2 returns with a vengence
I was hoping I could avoid this part but it looks like I will have to read a lot of e&m physics to really make a guitar from scratch. I know I could possibly just buy one, but I really don't want to put much money into this yet, and I don't know that I could find a guitar I could physically play. So I may be writing a bit less often for a bit while I finish learning the physics I never quite mastered a decade ago. I don't want to buy pickups, cause they are expensive and I would like to understand them better. Plus, I don't know yet if in making my mandolin electric and tuning it with each string different, so 8 strings instead of four, if a standard pickup would even work best. I am enough of a nerd that making my first set of pickups would be satisfying, even if I wind up buying some later when I can actually play well enough to need them. I will have to figure out a neck design too, that allows me access to the strings while maintaining their tension and allowing multiple pickups. And I still don't quite get the part about how the sound gets out of the guitar. Stupid, I know, but perhaps understandable since I have no electric guitar to play with. If they are hooked up to an amp, is there a cord? Where is the amp? How big is it? When Brian is playing with three amps, is there a cord running from his guitar to the amps? Then how could he walk around onstage playing his guitar? I hope in a day or two this confusion will seem silly and I will understand completely.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Things that make depression seem like heaven.
Leave it to Brian May to once again be behind such life-changing sentiments as make the choice to live necessary and obvious, even to the most apathetic depression imaginable. Here I have been still allowing that I might choose to die in about a year from now, not for any real pain, but simply out of a sort of fundamental frustration with life and the universe. I just finished reading the stuff on Brian's page about Vicki, a girl who died a few years ago of terminal cancer. I can't say I was shamed into retracting my pact, because it is not a matter of shame. Rather, I am certain now that it is not life itself I need to decide on, but my way of living. If I had, as this girl, only months left to live, I would no doubt truly live every day of the rest of my life. Since I have no such certainty of death, I am allowing my life to slip away, mired in work at a department store I couldn't care less about, selling lots of crap to lots of people who need little or none of what I have to sell, wasting not only time, but material resources, energy and everything else, to bring me money with which I pay bills and buy a few needless trinkets. If I knew I was going to die in a year and a few weeks, I would have to do differently.
I have not made time or any decent effort lately at seeing my many friends, who I hope still remain my friends even after months and in some cases years of neglect on my part. This has been largely an effect of my depression, and yet I know well enough that if I was around my friends more I would have less severe depression, and it would not feel so awkward to see people. I am becoming a recluse, unnecessarily. I live in an annoying apartment, which I know most of my friends who have visited disliked being in. It has lousy ventilation, and even without cats would smell stale, and it is cold in the winter. My ex was still telling me almost the last time I talked to him that I overheat my apartment, cause in Washington I did like to keep my room at about 72 degrees occasionally. This apartment is lucky to hit 65, ever, except in the dead heat of late July. And I use these things as an easy excuse to not invite anyone over anymore. And since I live in Longmont, and can't drive, and most of my friends live elsewhere, it is easy to have no contact with anyone away from my place, too. If they lived here, I might meet up with them at Old Chicago's for dinner some night, or meet someone in Boulder for a concert at CU, and many of them would really not mind and could even drive me back to Longmont after. It simply takes some effort and motivation, which I was not possessed of.
Well, as being on facebook just a brief while has shown easily enough, I do still have friends, lots of them, and lots of incredibly good people who I am glad I have known. And as they mean more to me than my store, and are more rewarding than new shoes, I have to change something to make my friends my top priority after taking care of myself.
And hobbies- I own a piano, and a mandolin, and a pair of drumsticks, and I have enough of a science background to understand books on making electric mandolins, setting up sound studios, and anything else music related. I may not have a great volume to my voice, but I have a great range, and I know it. Heck, I have performed in choir concerts the Hallelujah Chorus in every part but bass. When properly warmed up I can sing all of every song Freddie has recorded, and I am quite capable of writing my own songs. Making music is a much bigger hobby than anything I have played at so far, but everything I do so far is something that requires little effort, and no committment, and it is all easy to drop or ignore. My life feels like it is made up of tons of tiny bits that take up all my life and all my energy, yet add up to practically nothing. I may miss some of the tiny bits if I concentrate on just one thing, but really. By my age, my favorite musicians (Queen) had made quite a few albums, toured all over playing music for thousands of fans at a time, and had been treated to countless priceless moments that are well worth losing some random time-wasting experiences.
I let depression and my handicap decide a lot for me. There is a lot that is not my handicap behind my not driving, for instance, and I will most likely be driving in the next few years, when I can afford to. I don't play my piano or mandolin because of my handicap, too, yet these instruments make sounds for me just as they do for others. I can type at almost 40wpm, faster than many of my friends, without thumbs, and on a 'normal' keyboard. Surely if I actually try to work with my instruments I can learn to play them, even if I can't ever play someone else's music. And I have a very strong will, which most days makes up for whatever mania or depression I am experiencing. Some days I have to admit the mood disorder and deal with it, but most days, till I get worn down or careless anyway, I can act as if I am just fine. Most people only know I have a mood disorder because I have told them. And as Brian and the author May Sarton demonstrate by example, in a creative life mood disorders can be used for what they are worth, adding a certain depth to music and writing that most 'normal' people never could reach.
Really if I concentrate on restoration ecology and music, and my friends, my life will be full enough, and maybe I could actually feel interesting enough as a person to be happy meeting Brian May.
I have not made time or any decent effort lately at seeing my many friends, who I hope still remain my friends even after months and in some cases years of neglect on my part. This has been largely an effect of my depression, and yet I know well enough that if I was around my friends more I would have less severe depression, and it would not feel so awkward to see people. I am becoming a recluse, unnecessarily. I live in an annoying apartment, which I know most of my friends who have visited disliked being in. It has lousy ventilation, and even without cats would smell stale, and it is cold in the winter. My ex was still telling me almost the last time I talked to him that I overheat my apartment, cause in Washington I did like to keep my room at about 72 degrees occasionally. This apartment is lucky to hit 65, ever, except in the dead heat of late July. And I use these things as an easy excuse to not invite anyone over anymore. And since I live in Longmont, and can't drive, and most of my friends live elsewhere, it is easy to have no contact with anyone away from my place, too. If they lived here, I might meet up with them at Old Chicago's for dinner some night, or meet someone in Boulder for a concert at CU, and many of them would really not mind and could even drive me back to Longmont after. It simply takes some effort and motivation, which I was not possessed of.
Well, as being on facebook just a brief while has shown easily enough, I do still have friends, lots of them, and lots of incredibly good people who I am glad I have known. And as they mean more to me than my store, and are more rewarding than new shoes, I have to change something to make my friends my top priority after taking care of myself.
And hobbies- I own a piano, and a mandolin, and a pair of drumsticks, and I have enough of a science background to understand books on making electric mandolins, setting up sound studios, and anything else music related. I may not have a great volume to my voice, but I have a great range, and I know it. Heck, I have performed in choir concerts the Hallelujah Chorus in every part but bass. When properly warmed up I can sing all of every song Freddie has recorded, and I am quite capable of writing my own songs. Making music is a much bigger hobby than anything I have played at so far, but everything I do so far is something that requires little effort, and no committment, and it is all easy to drop or ignore. My life feels like it is made up of tons of tiny bits that take up all my life and all my energy, yet add up to practically nothing. I may miss some of the tiny bits if I concentrate on just one thing, but really. By my age, my favorite musicians (Queen) had made quite a few albums, toured all over playing music for thousands of fans at a time, and had been treated to countless priceless moments that are well worth losing some random time-wasting experiences.
I let depression and my handicap decide a lot for me. There is a lot that is not my handicap behind my not driving, for instance, and I will most likely be driving in the next few years, when I can afford to. I don't play my piano or mandolin because of my handicap, too, yet these instruments make sounds for me just as they do for others. I can type at almost 40wpm, faster than many of my friends, without thumbs, and on a 'normal' keyboard. Surely if I actually try to work with my instruments I can learn to play them, even if I can't ever play someone else's music. And I have a very strong will, which most days makes up for whatever mania or depression I am experiencing. Some days I have to admit the mood disorder and deal with it, but most days, till I get worn down or careless anyway, I can act as if I am just fine. Most people only know I have a mood disorder because I have told them. And as Brian and the author May Sarton demonstrate by example, in a creative life mood disorders can be used for what they are worth, adding a certain depth to music and writing that most 'normal' people never could reach.
Really if I concentrate on restoration ecology and music, and my friends, my life will be full enough, and maybe I could actually feel interesting enough as a person to be happy meeting Brian May.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
New shoes and daydreaming
My card is working again, after a week blocked due to a miscommunication at my bank after my computer purchase. So I celebrated by buying a new pair of designer shoes. Actually I spent about $20, and I knew my card was working again cause the purchases I made of, yes more, Queen CD's went through finally.
Wow, what an experience. To sing one's song live with Luciano Pavarotti. Sounds horrible, but still quite an experience. I think playing guitar for Robert Plant is perhaps a higher achievement if a bit less high-class. He really should not have tried to comb out his hair like that though. It looks all frizzy and fluffy, not at all attractive, whereas his nice mop of curls looks great if he just lets his curls stay intact. He would have been a dull-looking man with short hair, but his curls make him distinctive, and, yes, attractive, though much too old for me.
I can feel the high of my hypomania beginning to really seep away now. I am fighting it, and Queen still helps, but I am losing energy. Yes, the Show Must Go On, and it will, but it may be mostly will for a while. I got pretty decent at managing my moods like this for a bit, before depo, and was only very rarely suicidal. Obviously this might still be unhealthy if I am suicidal at the end of March next year, but my pact still holds for now, and I can't consider death an option at all till then. So I might as well continue to ride the wave of this rock-star path. I have no idea what I am capable of in this, as I have never sang into a microphone, nor have I made music in ublic except in choir. Yet, I am not afraid of public speaking, and am rather flamboyant when in public, some days anyway. Most importantly I need to figure out how to reinvent myself, cause where I am now seems too much of a dead end. So maybe there are other aspects of me that can help. If I live past my 31st birthday I have to have something to live for, and otherwise I might as well jump figuratively instead of literally, and choose a new life instead of just giving up entirely. Who knows but maybe I will become good friends with Brian May and John and Roger, and live a life of my dreams if I give myself half a chance. All that is certainly more possible if I am still alive, even if it is still silly and highly unlikely. Maybe my dream guy, Jonathan, exists too, and I'll fall madly in love with him and live happily ever after, too.
I wonder that I never thought to google the names of the guys from those dreams. There is the skeptics' approach to such dreams. I know the first and last names of three of the four and the middle name as well for one of them, and if the Internet was not so infernally slow at night I might find out something interesting, though not finding them does not proove anything, any more than John Deacon's absence from the web makes him dead or imaginary. Not that a name like Brian Masters is distinctive or anything. No, I doubt I will ever meet those guys. Nice daydreams, but they are not real and can't be. I am much more likely to become best friends with Brian May. :)
Wow, what an experience. To sing one's song live with Luciano Pavarotti. Sounds horrible, but still quite an experience. I think playing guitar for Robert Plant is perhaps a higher achievement if a bit less high-class. He really should not have tried to comb out his hair like that though. It looks all frizzy and fluffy, not at all attractive, whereas his nice mop of curls looks great if he just lets his curls stay intact. He would have been a dull-looking man with short hair, but his curls make him distinctive, and, yes, attractive, though much too old for me.
I can feel the high of my hypomania beginning to really seep away now. I am fighting it, and Queen still helps, but I am losing energy. Yes, the Show Must Go On, and it will, but it may be mostly will for a while. I got pretty decent at managing my moods like this for a bit, before depo, and was only very rarely suicidal. Obviously this might still be unhealthy if I am suicidal at the end of March next year, but my pact still holds for now, and I can't consider death an option at all till then. So I might as well continue to ride the wave of this rock-star path. I have no idea what I am capable of in this, as I have never sang into a microphone, nor have I made music in ublic except in choir. Yet, I am not afraid of public speaking, and am rather flamboyant when in public, some days anyway. Most importantly I need to figure out how to reinvent myself, cause where I am now seems too much of a dead end. So maybe there are other aspects of me that can help. If I live past my 31st birthday I have to have something to live for, and otherwise I might as well jump figuratively instead of literally, and choose a new life instead of just giving up entirely. Who knows but maybe I will become good friends with Brian May and John and Roger, and live a life of my dreams if I give myself half a chance. All that is certainly more possible if I am still alive, even if it is still silly and highly unlikely. Maybe my dream guy, Jonathan, exists too, and I'll fall madly in love with him and live happily ever after, too.
I wonder that I never thought to google the names of the guys from those dreams. There is the skeptics' approach to such dreams. I know the first and last names of three of the four and the middle name as well for one of them, and if the Internet was not so infernally slow at night I might find out something interesting, though not finding them does not proove anything, any more than John Deacon's absence from the web makes him dead or imaginary. Not that a name like Brian Masters is distinctive or anything. No, I doubt I will ever meet those guys. Nice daydreams, but they are not real and can't be. I am much more likely to become best friends with Brian May. :)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Battle Rejoins
I have been wondering about this ever since I returned to Queen. Listening to Brian talking about writing "Too Much Love..." I suddenly am quite sure and aware that I am in fact cycling again. It is a weird phase now. I sleep very little and have some of the outward giddiness of hypomania, but it is as if I am fighting to hold on to that energy and craziness tooth and nail as I am inexorably slipping back the other direction into depression. It is maybe no big surprise then that I am back to Queen. The music has always been such a comfort, a friend that is always there, at least now that I have CD's and my computer to bring these voices back to me. The YouTube videos of songs I have never heard or heard of, and live performances that actually do sound at least as good as the studio versions, all this gives me little boosts that keep me less depressed, and listening to songs and interviews that bring back all that about Freddie and his death seems to be allowing me to attach my depression feelings to something external, something almost unbearably sad but at the same time not personal. It is truly painful for me right now to watch the last few music videos, especially "These are the Days of Our Lives" with that image of Freddie weak and nearing death, though I have seen it often enough the last time I was really 'into' Queen.
Maybe I ought to take to heart what I have been picking up through Brian May and May Sarton about how one can use one's mood disorder to the good. I will not resort to drug therapy, so I have to figure out other ways to deal with this. I have really latched on to this idea of making my mandolin electric, and maybe doing the electric double bass from my dreams too, and perhaps music is a channel I could benefit from. It seems rediculous that I at 30 could possibly have a career ahead as a musician, but so long as I can afford it, I would really enoy making and mixing my own tracks and putting together my own solo album. In my dreams Brian May is always involved in all this too, but that scene in Wayne's World with Alice Cooper comes to mind (We're not worthy! We're not worthy!)
It's a great dream, though. Brian May turns up at Dillards and is talking to Hayley at the fragrance counter, not that she is likely to know who he is, and that is I guess the point, cause she introduces me to him as a guy who might know what I am doing wrong with my pick-ups on my poor little mandolin, as he has built his own guitar. Why she is telling him all that about my project I don't know, but I guess I am having problems with getting the second and third pick-ups working and the music store people think I am crazy for wanting multiple pick-ups anyway. I chat with Brian briefly, trying not to be too self conscious and embarrassed, since maybe it is not Brian May, but simply someone else who looks and sounds like him and knows about building guitars, and then remember that I was getting change and really ave to go finish counting down my drawer so I can clock out on time. I pass him and Hayley again on the way back from turning in my bag, and Hayley, true to form for my usual experiences of walking home when there is weather of any kind, makes a big deal of my walking. Brian has been waiting for Anita, who is shopping with Mrs. Deacon, and she turns up as I am asserting that I will be just fine walking home in rain, that I won't melt, etc. She and Brian agree that I shouldnt have to walk home, and he insists on driving me home, ignoring my turning beet red at the thought of having to accept a ride from one of my rock heroes. He wants to see my mandolin, too. I am not sure how normal my idea is, really, but he thinks he might like to see it. So he gives me a ride home, and I show him my mandolin, and bring out my finished electric double bass, also with three sets of pick-ups, to show him that the arrangement itself has worked for me, if not on the much smaller mandolin, and he starts playing with my bass. We work on the mandolin a bit and he tells me he thinks he has something back at his hotel that might help.
The nex day, a day off for me, he shows up with the parts, and with John Deacon, who was bored and lured in by the idea of the electric double bass. Brian, John and I fiddle with the mandolin a bit more, both of them amused at my tuning it as an 8-string guitar, and then notice that I have been recording music, using my bass and the mandolin, and an electronic drum pad, with my voice. All the bits are charted out in a format remeniscent of a form I have seen on video of Queen's studio work, and while I am in my room for something, Brian starts listening to the trackon my computer. When I come back out he is talking with John about how it could be improved, mostly with adding backing vocals, which he has taken the liberty of singing and is in the process of layering in. I blush beet red again, of course. Brian May on my song! John is tweaking the bass line, and when they are done it sounds great and really rofessional, but not quite done. So Brian calls up Roger, who is also here, and he comes over, bringing along a few drums (bass, snare) and a few cymbals. An hour or so later we have a finished track, something I would enjoy listening to, though I still am uneasy about my voice being on a Queen track, especially the first ever Queen track since Made in Heaven to feature all the surviving members of Queen. The dream continues on, as Roger sends is producer friend an email with one minute of it attached, and gets a reply back by phone asking him if it is real, and when it would be ready for release as a sngle. Brian tells him that they think it is ready, but that it is my song, written and performed largely by me, and with the three of them only doing backing vocals, second percussion lines and a running bass line, at which point the producer guy realizes the significance of John's presence in the room. We are asked about a second track, a B'side, and John meanwhile has discovered another track on my computer for which I had written out a bass line that was too fast and comlicated for me to play, and has been playing it and tweaking it. By the end of the night we have, the four of us, recorded and mixed another track, from that bass line and my mandolin, extra percussion and voice, Brian and Roger's voices, and drum and guitar lines and solos from Brian and Roger. I think this is where I wake up, but there is a general impression that the story continues, and that the single is released and is ugely successful, to my extreme distress, as I still feel that it is rediculous that I could be the catalyst to bring John back into Queen, as the press insists, and that I could belong in the same studio or on the same stage as them. If I could shut up these common sensical voices and just enjoy the fantasy it would be a great dream, but I think a part of me wishes too strongly that this dream would translate to reality. Dumd and silly, I know, but there it is.
Maybe I ought to take to heart what I have been picking up through Brian May and May Sarton about how one can use one's mood disorder to the good. I will not resort to drug therapy, so I have to figure out other ways to deal with this. I have really latched on to this idea of making my mandolin electric, and maybe doing the electric double bass from my dreams too, and perhaps music is a channel I could benefit from. It seems rediculous that I at 30 could possibly have a career ahead as a musician, but so long as I can afford it, I would really enoy making and mixing my own tracks and putting together my own solo album. In my dreams Brian May is always involved in all this too, but that scene in Wayne's World with Alice Cooper comes to mind (We're not worthy! We're not worthy!)
It's a great dream, though. Brian May turns up at Dillards and is talking to Hayley at the fragrance counter, not that she is likely to know who he is, and that is I guess the point, cause she introduces me to him as a guy who might know what I am doing wrong with my pick-ups on my poor little mandolin, as he has built his own guitar. Why she is telling him all that about my project I don't know, but I guess I am having problems with getting the second and third pick-ups working and the music store people think I am crazy for wanting multiple pick-ups anyway. I chat with Brian briefly, trying not to be too self conscious and embarrassed, since maybe it is not Brian May, but simply someone else who looks and sounds like him and knows about building guitars, and then remember that I was getting change and really ave to go finish counting down my drawer so I can clock out on time. I pass him and Hayley again on the way back from turning in my bag, and Hayley, true to form for my usual experiences of walking home when there is weather of any kind, makes a big deal of my walking. Brian has been waiting for Anita, who is shopping with Mrs. Deacon, and she turns up as I am asserting that I will be just fine walking home in rain, that I won't melt, etc. She and Brian agree that I shouldnt have to walk home, and he insists on driving me home, ignoring my turning beet red at the thought of having to accept a ride from one of my rock heroes. He wants to see my mandolin, too. I am not sure how normal my idea is, really, but he thinks he might like to see it. So he gives me a ride home, and I show him my mandolin, and bring out my finished electric double bass, also with three sets of pick-ups, to show him that the arrangement itself has worked for me, if not on the much smaller mandolin, and he starts playing with my bass. We work on the mandolin a bit and he tells me he thinks he has something back at his hotel that might help.
The nex day, a day off for me, he shows up with the parts, and with John Deacon, who was bored and lured in by the idea of the electric double bass. Brian, John and I fiddle with the mandolin a bit more, both of them amused at my tuning it as an 8-string guitar, and then notice that I have been recording music, using my bass and the mandolin, and an electronic drum pad, with my voice. All the bits are charted out in a format remeniscent of a form I have seen on video of Queen's studio work, and while I am in my room for something, Brian starts listening to the trackon my computer. When I come back out he is talking with John about how it could be improved, mostly with adding backing vocals, which he has taken the liberty of singing and is in the process of layering in. I blush beet red again, of course. Brian May on my song! John is tweaking the bass line, and when they are done it sounds great and really rofessional, but not quite done. So Brian calls up Roger, who is also here, and he comes over, bringing along a few drums (bass, snare) and a few cymbals. An hour or so later we have a finished track, something I would enjoy listening to, though I still am uneasy about my voice being on a Queen track, especially the first ever Queen track since Made in Heaven to feature all the surviving members of Queen. The dream continues on, as Roger sends is producer friend an email with one minute of it attached, and gets a reply back by phone asking him if it is real, and when it would be ready for release as a sngle. Brian tells him that they think it is ready, but that it is my song, written and performed largely by me, and with the three of them only doing backing vocals, second percussion lines and a running bass line, at which point the producer guy realizes the significance of John's presence in the room. We are asked about a second track, a B'side, and John meanwhile has discovered another track on my computer for which I had written out a bass line that was too fast and comlicated for me to play, and has been playing it and tweaking it. By the end of the night we have, the four of us, recorded and mixed another track, from that bass line and my mandolin, extra percussion and voice, Brian and Roger's voices, and drum and guitar lines and solos from Brian and Roger. I think this is where I wake up, but there is a general impression that the story continues, and that the single is released and is ugely successful, to my extreme distress, as I still feel that it is rediculous that I could be the catalyst to bring John back into Queen, as the press insists, and that I could belong in the same studio or on the same stage as them. If I could shut up these common sensical voices and just enjoy the fantasy it would be a great dream, but I think a part of me wishes too strongly that this dream would translate to reality. Dumd and silly, I know, but there it is.
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