Trust the Ferret, the Ferret is Wise

Man, I definitely should have been taking science classes all along. We haven't even started doing much of anything, and it's fun, because I'm learning stuff. And now I have an excuse to buy a lab coat from American Science and Surplus. Don't think the lab teacher will let me use my Girl Genius goggles though. It's okay, they don't fit over my glasses anyway. I guess I could get prescription lenses put in them, but I'm not sure I'm that dedicated a nerd.

And I've been jamming to music from Jonathan Coulton and Songs to Wear Pants To for the past hour.

And I decided a while ago I wanted to pursue Civil and Environmental Engineering, which is what I'm taking the classes for, so now I have something to work toward and stuff.

Plus an awesome girlfriend I totally love.

So yeah, I'm in a pretty good mood lately, and I'm re-embracing my nerdity, which is probably part of why. So, hey, almost completely good mood. I still find that a little remarkable. Heh.

Next time when planning a trip, plan things out more in advance. Procrastination sucks, seriously.

I've gone several days without the Internet. Not completely, and not because the net was down, but because I was busy and away from home. Nothing exciting, though. And now I should be working on a class presentation, even when I'd rather be doing many other things. So more later, maybe. Unless some of the people I know decide to do a "We're not doing anything else the day before Half Price Candy Day" get-together after class and work. Then you'll have to wait till Wednesday.

Carry on. And remember, if the police ask, it's not stalking, you're just starring in a romantic comedy.

I don't look like me in the mirror. I don't sound like me on tape. At least not the me I think I am. Maybe it's just that I don't spend a lot of time looking at mirrors, or listening to myself on tape. Which I suppose would be pretty good places to start with the admonishment of know thyself, because nobody else can see how you see yourself inside, they just see how you look and act. That was one of the points I took away from Batman Begins. Even here, when all you can see of me is the text I put up from my brain, I know I don't look the same as things are from this end, there's a whole network of associations and assumptions and knowledge in my head that none of the rest of you possess, which probably makes me come off as a pretentious git a good bit of the time.

So who do I look like, to me? Honestly? I'm not sure I know, weird as that sounds. It's one of the problems I have with writing, I'm really not very good at physical descriptions of people. Part of it may be the Internet's fault, where people aren't defined by their looks, but how they act, how they type, they're made up of words and behaviours and knowledge and interactions, not meat and goop. Who cares how somebody named XXAragornXX looks? Sometimes you have an icon to go by, but that's rarely a picture of them, it's a cartoon, or a quote, or a character they like, or whatever they've picked, it's not what they look like. So who cares?

See, from the inside, you don't have a face. Not like other people. It's not THERE. Not consciously, since you can never see it. It's one of the unspoken, unstudied assumptions of life. At least for some of us. Other people may spend hours in front of the mirror, tweaking their faces with makeup or practicing smiles and things, making it into a mask they understand, but I never have. Learning how it works and how to control their faces, rather than just flailing around, like other people. It occurs to me that the proceeding sentence may be complete bullshit, and probably is. Nevertheless.

The same with voice. Many people, especially singers, learn to study and control it. I never have, outside of the reflexive and instinctual ways that we've all evolved to. Talking's there to convey information. But it does that on many other levels than just the words that're spoken, so with speech, I'm far less literate than I am here, where all you see of me is the tapping of my fingers on plastic keys.

So what's my point? I'm not sure I have one. I know school's taught us all to format things like this, with one introductory paragraph, then three paragraphs of stuff, then a paragraph summing up, but I'm not sure I really have a point, or something I can point at here as something you're supposed to learn. Other than I'm a nerd, but you're all familiar with that anyway. I was just struck by the thought the other day, when walking past a mirror, that I didn't really look like me. Which was a really weird thought. I mean, I'm not even certain I'd recognize myself if I ran into myself somewhere. Well, I probably would, but it'd be one of those "Wait, I know them from somewhere..." things where it'd take several seconds for me to put my finger on it. I suspect there wouldn't be any "shock of recognition", much as books talk about it on people meeting their evil twins.

If there's anything to get from this, it's that "know thyself" means more than just sitting around on a pillow and thinking thoughts about the you you think you are. It means you have to get familiar with all parts of yourself, including the parts you normally can't see, or just ignore. Physical and mental. And I'm pretty sure, kung-fu movies aside, knowing yourself isn't something that can be accomplished very well in isolation on a mountain. Much of yourself is how you interact with other people, if you learn it in isolation, you miss big portions of what you are. Or even whole selves, there's people who act completely different depending on who they're around or what they're doing. Maybe there is no unified "self", just the total of all the different selves you act like, all tied together by successively sharing the same body. I don't know. I'm not sure there's any way to know something like that, and if trying to find out would be more than self-indulgent wankery.

Technorati Tags: Mindscribbles, Me, Life, The Universe, and Everything, Journal

I think my life has Cerebus Syndrome.

There is a quote on the wall in the music department, where I work nearly every day. It says "People whose sensibility is destroyed by music in trains, airports, lifts, cannot concentrate on a Beethoven quartet."

I can't help but reflect on the irony as I try and tune out the shitty in-store play music it's my responsibility to keep running. Even though I think the quote is full of it.

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Things that piss me off about the Christmas Holiday Season, much as I enjoy Christmas:

1: Decorations up at the beginning of October. FUCKING OCTOBER.

2: "A Christmas Story". I hate this movie. It's not funny. At all. But it's a "Christmas classic." Sure. It's about a whole family being dicks to each other back in the 40s, in a setting and era that has very little in common with my anything I have to deal with. Every character in the movie is mean and none of them are likable, not even the narrating kid. Hate.

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If most people think everybody else is having more sex than them, then there's some extreme over-estimation of the amount of getting it on going on. Admittedly, at least half of a group is going to be below average, on average, but a few sluts and porn stars can REALLY skew the results, even with large sample sizes.

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Yay for biofeedback. I've noticed being hungry makes most of my emotions exaggerated. Well, the negative ones, anyway. Amazing how much better having food can make me feel. Or maybe most of my problems are but small ones, they're just so close they seem huge.

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When did Sesame Street turn into The Elmo Show?

I bought a pair of video games today, the first I've bought in months, at least. And I only got these because they were $10 each at Target. I got Longest Journey and Starship Tycoon. And... That's all there really is to say there, I guess.

Though I've noticed my life is almost completely about entertainment, either for me or selling other people crappy CDs to entertain them, which really isn't very much point to a life at all, I think.

Apparently, at Ruby Tuesday's, they do something a bit unusual.

Everywhere else I've gone, when they sell cheese sticks, they are basically chunks of mozzarella string cheese, chopped into lengths, then breaded and deep fried. Also, delicious.

However, at Ruby Tuesday's apparently, they make their cheese sticks out of cream cheese. Yeah, I have no idea why either. And no, they're not particularly good. Especially when you're expecting Mozzarella. A word to the wise.

A series of random short things about today, to keep from posting 80 one sentence posts.

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There was a guy on the sidewalk as I was driving in to work today. He was carrying a sign, and had several more propped up against telephone poles and things. A one man anti-war protest, on some random street corner out here. The sign he was carrying said "Do unto others..." on one side, and "Thou shalt not kill." on the other. Couple of the other signs said things like "War and Greed are un-Christian."

I dunno how much difference he made, or if anybody else ever stopped and helped him carry signs, but good on him. I'm not quite sure what I think on the war in Iraq right now, but that's mainly because it's been so incredibly fucked up I don't know if there's any good solutions at this point.

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US Copyright law is largely bullshit right now. Why are movies and music and books like 50 years old still copyrighted? The publishers have long since made their money back on them. Most of the creators are dead, and the ones that aren't, honestly, I don't think it makes THAT much difference. Why should we let immortal corporations charge us rent for our culture? They're not contributing, in fact, they're stifling new creation. If there's any moral or economic reason why, I'd like to hear it. Aside from "The companies make lots of money and give lots of it to Congress and most people don't notice enough to pay attention to the issue."

I could go on about this for hours. And probably will later.

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I have several pieces of surfer Buddha things I need to write up, but haven't gotten to. So I expect when I do, it'll ramble, and I'll probably miss half of what I was planning to say, as conversations veer off. Also, they involve a lightsaber, and why Luke Skywalker kicks ass.

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I am sure my abilities at wiping down tables and flipping chairs from constantly helping the cafe people close will look excellent on my resume.

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I wish I had a scanner. Then I could do a very badly drawn journal comic. Or I wish the cool mac app that Eric Burns is using for the Adventures of John Stark was for PC, not just Mac. Or I had a Mac. But me am poor, no wasting money on anything computer-ey right now. I have more interesting things to blow money on.

Arr, mateys, I be spending most of me day trying to avoid actually doing anything. And by that I mean cleaning.

On the other hand, my room is much less dusty and full of cat hair now. Now I just have to pump the bilges.

So, for your edification, here's a meme about politics that tells nothing you couldn't already guess!

( meme ahoy )