This Erstwhile Friend and Paramour (original) (raw)

(no subject)	[Jul. 29th, 2008\|02:22 am]half the wit, all the fun!
I keep wanting to become a person I know I can never be. It sucks on most days. But on the days when I don't bother to try and be someone else, I think I do arright.
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(no subject)	[Jul. 12th, 2008\|11:26 pm]half the wit, all the fun!
Of course, I have much better things to do with my time than to re-read the entire Harry Potter Series. But as this is my vacation, and reading Harry Potter is highly entertaining and requires very little work on my part, that is what I have opted to do with my time. Sorry if this disappoints you.So I started with Book 1 today, which I haven't read since the first time I read it, and I can't even remember when that was. I want to write about a scene from the first book I had forgotten about and which, despite the fact that I am a grown person, really spoke to how I have been feeling about my life lately.In one scene of the book, Harry discovers the Mirror of Erised, which shows in your reflection the thing your heart desires most. Harry sees his family. I didn't think too much while reading this, put the book down a few minutes ago, and decided to call A. before I went to bed, since I needed his address to mail him something.After our halting and awkward conversation, I hung up the phone and, much to my surprise, found I was crying. My crying is always the sort of thing that sneaks up on me, because (and perhaps this is a genetic failure of some kind) I can't ever see it coming until the tears are flooding my eyes. I don't know about other people, but my crying is also always accompanied by this odd sort of achey pain where my jaw meets my skull, and its on the whole pretty unpleasant. As I cried (and as I continue to do so) I got to thinking about the Mirror of Erised, and realized this is a pretty lofty symbol to introduce to kids. As an adult, I find it asks a question that is very piercing and painful. Harry asks Dumbledore in the book (and perhaps is also asking the reader) "What do you see when you look in the mirror?" Asking yourself what your heart desires most is a challenging question as an adult, because I think we are taught so hard to ignore what our heart desires the most. Sometimes, we teach ourselves to ignore what our heart desires because it hurts so bad when we do not have it. I know that is what I have done. I feel sometimes like I've spent every moment of my adult life teaching myself to ignore what it is my heart desires because they are things that I cannot have. Maybe this is just the pain of growing older. Maybe that's why it aches in my jaws when I cry, because there is the pain of all the years of emotional denial that had to go somewhere. It just picked the spot that I would be least likely to pay attention to.So I got to thinking of all the things that would be in my reflection in the Mirror of Erised, and Dumbledore's response to Harry which is "I am holding a pair of thick woolen socks." It seems kind of like a silly response at first. But then I think maybe it's not so silly. Maybe the response is the author trying to express to us that the older we get, the less and less we are able to give an answer to that question.I think of all the things I wish that I could have, or could have had, in my life. Affectionate parents; more acceptance from my fellow youth; a summer at Cornell's School for Advanced Studies; normal clothes as a child; more support as a high school student; a more meaningful first kiss; to have been treated with dignity during the worst break up of my life; to hear A. have said at least once the words I know (or have to believe for my own sake) he must have once felt in his heart; the simple love of a good and decent person; my friends by my side and not hundreds of miles apart from each other; to be closer to my sister; to believe in myself; to have the strength and courage to meet new people; not to feel constantly ashamed of who I am and how I look to others; to be forgiving and not hold grudges; to learn to be still and silent instead of flitty and boisterous.The biggest one, though, the one that has never changed, not since I was old enough to articulate the feeling in my bright and colorful Lisa Frank journals that kept my darkest thoughts, is to be loved by someone unabashedly and without requirement just for being who I am.I feel like every love I have ever known has somehow been contingent, and that the demands those loves have placed on me have warped me, maimed me, cut me, and strangled me into the person I am today. And when I look at it this way, I wonder, is it really any surprise that I hate myself so much? I could never meet anyone else's criteria, and I was to busy trying to be loved, so I never really bothered to have my own.I never thought that reading a children's novel could be so revealing. In this thought process, I feel like I've unlocked some major secret of my own psychology. Why is it that I feel an utter lack of confidence in anything and everything that I do? Why is that despite having what is obviously according to societal standards a very successful life I feel like a complete and utter failure almost constantly? Why do compliments make me wince, and insults seem completely reasonable? I'm not really sure what to do with this knowledge, except that I can know answer the question that Harry asks Dumbledore about the mirror.What do I see when I look into the mirror? I see a person that is whole.
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(no subject)

[Jul. 12th, 2008|11:26 pm]half the wit, all the fun!

Of course, I have much better things to do with my time than to re-read the entire Harry Potter Series. But as this is my vacation, and reading Harry Potter is highly entertaining and requires very little work on my part, that is what I have opted to do with my time. Sorry if this disappoints you.So I started with Book 1 today, which I haven't read since the first time I read it, and I can't even remember when that was. I want to write about a scene from the first book I had forgotten about and which, despite the fact that I am a grown person, really spoke to how I have been feeling about my life lately.In one scene of the book, Harry discovers the Mirror of Erised, which shows in your reflection the thing your heart desires most. Harry sees his family. I didn't think too much while reading this, put the book down a few minutes ago, and decided to call A. before I went to bed, since I needed his address to mail him something.After our halting and awkward conversation, I hung up the phone and, much to my surprise, found I was crying. My crying is always the sort of thing that sneaks up on me, because (and perhaps this is a genetic failure of some kind) I can't ever see it coming until the tears are flooding my eyes. I don't know about other people, but my crying is also always accompanied by this odd sort of achey pain where my jaw meets my skull, and its on the whole pretty unpleasant. As I cried (and as I continue to do so) I got to thinking about the Mirror of Erised, and realized this is a pretty lofty symbol to introduce to kids. As an adult, I find it asks a question that is very piercing and painful. Harry asks Dumbledore in the book (and perhaps is also asking the reader) "What do you see when you look in the mirror?" Asking yourself what your heart desires most is a challenging question as an adult, because I think we are taught so hard to ignore what our heart desires the most. Sometimes, we teach ourselves to ignore what our heart desires because it hurts so bad when we do not have it. I know that is what I have done. I feel sometimes like I've spent every moment of my adult life teaching myself to ignore what it is my heart desires because they are things that I cannot have. Maybe this is just the pain of growing older. Maybe that's why it aches in my jaws when I cry, because there is the pain of all the years of emotional denial that had to go somewhere. It just picked the spot that I would be least likely to pay attention to.So I got to thinking of all the things that would be in my reflection in the Mirror of Erised, and Dumbledore's response to Harry which is "I am holding a pair of thick woolen socks." It seems kind of like a silly response at first. But then I think maybe it's not so silly. Maybe the response is the author trying to express to us that the older we get, the less and less we are able to give an answer to that question.I think of all the things I wish that I could have, or could have had, in my life. Affectionate parents; more acceptance from my fellow youth; a summer at Cornell's School for Advanced Studies; normal clothes as a child; more support as a high school student; a more meaningful first kiss; to have been treated with dignity during the worst break up of my life; to hear A. have said at least once the words I know (or have to believe for my own sake) he must have once felt in his heart; the simple love of a good and decent person; my friends by my side and not hundreds of miles apart from each other; to be closer to my sister; to believe in myself; to have the strength and courage to meet new people; not to feel constantly ashamed of who I am and how I look to others; to be forgiving and not hold grudges; to learn to be still and silent instead of flitty and boisterous.The biggest one, though, the one that has never changed, not since I was old enough to articulate the feeling in my bright and colorful Lisa Frank journals that kept my darkest thoughts, is to be loved by someone unabashedly and without requirement just for being who I am.I feel like every love I have ever known has somehow been contingent, and that the demands those loves have placed on me have warped me, maimed me, cut me, and strangled me into the person I am today. And when I look at it this way, I wonder, is it really any surprise that I hate myself so much? I could never meet anyone else's criteria, and I was to busy trying to be loved, so I never really bothered to have my own.I never thought that reading a children's novel could be so revealing. In this thought process, I feel like I've unlocked some major secret of my own psychology. Why is it that I feel an utter lack of confidence in anything and everything that I do? Why is that despite having what is obviously according to societal standards a very successful life I feel like a complete and utter failure almost constantly? Why do compliments make me wince, and insults seem completely reasonable? I'm not really sure what to do with this knowledge, except that I can know answer the question that Harry asks Dumbledore about the mirror.What do I see when I look into the mirror? I see a person that is whole.

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(no subject)	[Jun. 6th, 2008\|06:00 pm]half the wit, all the fun!
w00t first post from the new iMac! I'm still adjusting and kinda freaking out about how huge this monitor feels compared to my itty bitty laptop. So far, so good.
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(no subject)	[May. 6th, 2008\|10:26 pm]half the wit, all the fun!
Help send the message to the University of Florida that the advanced study of Philosophy as a discipline is not something to be eliminated in a time of budgetary crisis, and that the actions of the University of Florida are detrimental, not only to the reputation of the institution as a whole, but also to an important discipline in academia. Please sign the petition below to show your support.http://www.thepetitionsite.com/145/petition-to-president-machen-to-keep-philosophys-phd-program
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(no subject)

[May. 6th, 2008|10:26 pm]half the wit, all the fun!

Help send the message to the University of Florida that the advanced study of Philosophy as a discipline is not something to be eliminated in a time of budgetary crisis, and that the actions of the University of Florida are detrimental, not only to the reputation of the institution as a whole, but also to an important discipline in academia. Please sign the petition below to show your support.http://www.thepetitionsite.com/145/petition-to-president-machen-to-keep-philosophys-phd-program

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(no subject)	[Apr. 20th, 2008\|11:22 pm]half the wit, all the fun!
I wish there was no such thing as being left behind.
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LiveJournal Content Strike	[Mar. 20th, 2008\|10:45 am]half the wit, all the fun!
So of you may be unaware of the recent changes in Livejournal. (I certainly wasn't.) So I thought I'd do my best to explain them to the best of my knowledge here for you, and explain the content strike going on tomorrow.I've been on Livejournal since 2001. At the time, Livejournal was a community project, run on volunteer efforts. The site was originally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick (http://bradfitz.com/) and run primarily by volunteers from the LJ community.Three years ago, when Brad sold LJ to Six Apart because as I seem to recall him saying in a post, the level of growth required more professional management. When Six Apart bought Livejournal, various pledges were made, including two important ones: 1) to keep the site free to users, with an option to pay for an account, and 2) to keep the site advertisement-free. Six Apart then broke pledge (2), but most people were comfortable with the shift -- free users could upgrade to a "Plus" account and get additional features in exchange for viewing advertisements. In theory, no one but plus users would see ads. That, of course, only happened in theory. In practice, ads eventually leaked their way to various places on the site. (Brad explains this pretty well here: http://brad.livejournal.com/2368071.html)Approx. four months ago, Six Apart sold Livejournal to SUP (which already ran Russian Livejournal). SUP created a subsidiary company called Livejournal, Inc. to run Livejournal. This past weeek, SUP decided to -- without taking the advice the Livejournal Advisory Board (which includes Brad among other early LJ developers) -- to abolish "Basic" accounts (those free accounts without ads and with minimal features). As of now, Basic accounts created before March 12, 2008, are "grand-fathered" in, but no one is really sure how long that will last. In other words, for those of us with "basic" accounts, how long will it be before LJ abolishes those and ads take over?Furthermore, there have been some actions on behalf of the new owners of Livejournal that seem a lot like censorship and homophobia. See here: http://stewardess.insanejournal.com/228245.html?format=lightI've been on Livejournal for a long time. Not as long as some, to be sure, but I think 7 years is maybe the longest relationship I've had with just about any one or any thing. I liked the original philosophy of Livejournal as community effort, available for free. After all, one of the driving forces of Livejournal are the various communities. So some dedicated LJers are organizing a Content Strike, and asking other members to participate in act of solidarity.No content means no logging in, no viewing, no posting comments, no posting entries for a 24 hour period. This affects the stats of the site as a whole (posts, log-ins, views, etc.) and in turn affects ad revenue. The goal of the strike is to prove to the new owners of Livejournal that this site is content driven; that without the many bloggers and writers and communities out there, this site would not be what it is today. I am participating in the strike, and one of the organizers has several good posts about it here. http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/tag/content+strikeFor those of us on the Eastern Time Zone in the US the Content Strike begins tonight at 8:00 p.m. Here are the timezones I know have LJ friends in:Thursday, March 20, 5:00 PM -- San Francisco; Los AngelesThursday, March 20, 6:00 PM -- Mexico City; DenverThursday, March 20, 7:00 PM -- ChicagoThursday, March 20, 8:00 PM -- Montreal; New YorkI encourage all of you to participate in this strike. Even if you have a Plus account or don't mind ads, this means that future users or communities may not be created because other people don't want to deal with ads. (Less content for you.) It also means that the ads might change or get worse. (Can you imagine LJ looking like Myspace?) Thanks for listening to me rant a bit. Hope this was informative.
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LiveJournal Content Strike

[Mar. 20th, 2008|10:45 am]half the wit, all the fun!

So of you may be unaware of the recent changes in Livejournal. (I certainly wasn't.) So I thought I'd do my best to explain them to the best of my knowledge here for you, and explain the content strike going on tomorrow.I've been on Livejournal since 2001. At the time, Livejournal was a community project, run on volunteer efforts. The site was originally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick (http://bradfitz.com/) and run primarily by volunteers from the LJ community.Three years ago, when Brad sold LJ to Six Apart because as I seem to recall him saying in a post, the level of growth required more professional management. When Six Apart bought Livejournal, various pledges were made, including two important ones: 1) to keep the site free to users, with an option to pay for an account, and 2) to keep the site advertisement-free. Six Apart then broke pledge (2), but most people were comfortable with the shift -- free users could upgrade to a "Plus" account and get additional features in exchange for viewing advertisements. In theory, no one but plus users would see ads. That, of course, only happened in theory. In practice, ads eventually leaked their way to various places on the site. (Brad explains this pretty well here: http://brad.livejournal.com/2368071.html)Approx. four months ago, Six Apart sold Livejournal to SUP (which already ran Russian Livejournal). SUP created a subsidiary company called Livejournal, Inc. to run Livejournal. This past weeek, SUP decided to -- without taking the advice the Livejournal Advisory Board (which includes Brad among other early LJ developers) -- to abolish "Basic" accounts (those free accounts without ads and with minimal features). As of now, Basic accounts created before March 12, 2008, are "grand-fathered" in, but no one is really sure how long that will last. In other words, for those of us with "basic" accounts, how long will it be before LJ abolishes those and ads take over?Furthermore, there have been some actions on behalf of the new owners of Livejournal that seem a lot like censorship and homophobia. See here: http://stewardess.insanejournal.com/228245.html?format=lightI've been on Livejournal for a long time. Not as long as some, to be sure, but I think 7 years is maybe the longest relationship I've had with just about any one or any thing. I liked the original philosophy of Livejournal as community effort, available for free. After all, one of the driving forces of Livejournal are the various communities. So some dedicated LJers are organizing a Content Strike, and asking other members to participate in act of solidarity.No content means no logging in, no viewing, no posting comments, no posting entries for a 24 hour period. This affects the stats of the site as a whole (posts, log-ins, views, etc.) and in turn affects ad revenue. The goal of the strike is to prove to the new owners of Livejournal that this site is content driven; that without the many bloggers and writers and communities out there, this site would not be what it is today. I am participating in the strike, and one of the organizers has several good posts about it here. http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/tag/content+strikeFor those of us on the Eastern Time Zone in the US the Content Strike begins tonight at 8:00 p.m. Here are the timezones I know have LJ friends in:Thursday, March 20, 5:00 PM -- San Francisco; Los AngelesThursday, March 20, 6:00 PM -- Mexico City; DenverThursday, March 20, 7:00 PM -- ChicagoThursday, March 20, 8:00 PM -- Montreal; New YorkI encourage all of you to participate in this strike. Even if you have a Plus account or don't mind ads, this means that future users or communities may not be created because other people don't want to deal with ads. (Less content for you.) It also means that the ads might change or get worse. (Can you imagine LJ looking like Myspace?) Thanks for listening to me rant a bit. Hope this was informative.

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Friends only.	[Mar. 18th, 2008\|04:57 pm]half the wit, all the fun!
For work-related privacy reasons, my entire journal is now friends-only. As individuality has come under attack, and personal expressions of self (no matter how irrelevant) can now determine the course of entire careers, I felt it was the only appropriate course of action.If you are a student or former student, I regret to say I cannot add you to my blog.If you are a current or former co-worker or colleague seeking to read my thoughts, please leave a comment and I will make a judgment about whether or not it is professionally appropriate for me to share these thoughts with you.If you are a random person or by-stander and you want to be friends, leave me a comment and I'll respond.
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Friends only.

[Mar. 18th, 2008|04:57 pm]half the wit, all the fun!

For work-related privacy reasons, my entire journal is now friends-only. As individuality has come under attack, and personal expressions of self (no matter how irrelevant) can now determine the course of entire careers, I felt it was the only appropriate course of action.If you are a student or former student, I regret to say I cannot add you to my blog.If you are a current or former co-worker or colleague seeking to read my thoughts, please leave a comment and I will make a judgment about whether or not it is professionally appropriate for me to share these thoughts with you.If you are a random person or by-stander and you want to be friends, leave me a comment and I'll respond.

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Small Victories	[Mar. 22nd, 2007\|01:50 pm]half the wit, all the fun!
So, around this time last year, I decided to move out of my apartment mid-lease and sue my landlord for doing a crap job. (See http://community.livejournal.com/fsu_noles/2902105.html, http://community.livejournal.com/fsu_noles/2944249.html for details)After a year of messiness and interestate phone calls, I won!I won't call it a complete victory, because the judge renigged on the 68/monthdamagessheagreedtoduringthetrial,andonlyawardedmehalfofmyfilingfees.ButIdidgetbackmy68/month damages she agreed to during the trial, and only awarded me half of my filing fees. But I did get back my 68/monthdamagessheagreedtoduringthetrial,andonlyawardedmehalfofmyfilingfees.ButIdidgetbackmy568 security deposit and a puny 68indamages.Mytotalsettlementis68 in damages. My total settlement is 68indamages.Mytotalsettlementis787. The landlord has to send me a check by April 1st or it goes against his credit report and I have the right to put a lien on his property and charge interest.It's not much, but its something!
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Small Victories

[Mar. 22nd, 2007|01:50 pm]half the wit, all the fun!

So, around this time last year, I decided to move out of my apartment mid-lease and sue my landlord for doing a crap job. (See http://community.livejournal.com/fsu_noles/2902105.html, http://community.livejournal.com/fsu_noles/2944249.html for details)After a year of messiness and interestate phone calls, I won!I won't call it a complete victory, because the judge renigged on the 68/monthdamagessheagreedtoduringthetrial,andonlyawardedmehalfofmyfilingfees.ButIdidgetbackmy68/month damages she agreed to during the trial, and only awarded me half of my filing fees. But I did get back my 68/monthdamagessheagreedtoduringthetrial,andonlyawardedmehalfofmyfilingfees.ButIdidgetbackmy568 security deposit and a puny 68indamages.Mytotalsettlementis68 in damages. My total settlement is 68indamages.Mytotalsettlementis787. The landlord has to send me a check by April 1st or it goes against his credit report and I have the right to put a lien on his property and charge interest.It's not much, but its something!

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