Its the last day of March

I have 15 posts; that's less than half of the 31 days in March, so here is post 16, to go over the half-way point. Yeah me!

I wrote. Sunday night & Monday night. 500ish words each time. Off of my goal of 1,000, but maybe more reasonable and less intimidating. I'm writing a relatively emotionally charged part. Guy goes to see girlfriend he hasn't seen or talked to since his wrongful arrest on drug gang charges. Did I mention she's from an uber-conservative Indian family; that he hasn't been introduced to yet?

I LOVE this part of the story, in a grey, nebulous kind of way. I say that because while I feel like this is a good, emotional point, that a LOT of the rest of the book to this point is leading to this moment, and its is kind of a catalyst for the last quarter, its a tough challenge to write. Talk about awkward. You are dating a girl, get arrested as a drug gang leader and get the city's drug problems pinned on your family, don't talk to the girl after your out on bail, and then WHAMMO, show up one very early morning at her door, with the knowledge in her head as the only lead left in your quest to clear your family's name.

Tough to write, tough to make realistic emotionally. And perhaps toughest: Tough to sell how she will finally break down and join the hero after such an abuse without going too deus ex machina on the whole scene. I'm just starting to get into the meat of the meet, so the next day or two of writing should be interesting stuff.

I'm slammed at work. Still working out on the Men's Health Belly Off Challenge, which I highly recommend, but am just to damn lazy and busy to link to, so you'll have to find it yourself if you are interested.

Maybe "Me Run With Scissors One Day"

Finished "Me Talk Pretty One Day." I'm split in my thoughts. Good, but not nearly as good as Burroughs. Though very, very similar in style. Both are odd, gay, alcohol/drug dependent, possibly mentally-deficient individuals. Though on this last, its definitely Sedaris in a landslide.

I'm mixed on another area as well. A part of me is jealous. They tell these great personal stories. Some of that is being able to package stories well and fill in the normally fuzzy details with outrageous thoughts; and some appears to be, I think, great insight into themselves and the world around them. I think I have stories that could be funny and book worthy, if I was more introspective and embellished the fuzzy areas a bit. You know, added insights and what have you. I have a few bouncing around in my head. Maybe I'll post one someday.

But another part of me wonders this as well: Is that really insight that Burroughs and Sedaris have, or is it actually, pretty much the opposite? Do they have these stories because they never really did any introspection as they went along in life and thus have crazy, unreasonable stories stemming from issues that any other normal person would have worked out?

I guess it is insight of a kind, gained in looking back on years of absolute blindness.

I think some of my problem is that I've never been that "blind" to myself. Maybe being gay, and having to keep that secret, keeps you shut off from yourself, leading to great revelations later on. Maybe. Maybe the alcohol dependence is all tied up in that. Maybe. It is interesting that both are gay and addicts.

I just feel that, if you go around saying "candlestick" to everyone you meet in France because its the only French word you know, its a good story, but its either heavily embellished or you are kind of an annoying moron. I just wouldn't do that because, well, I have the sense not too, frankly. At least I'd like to think so.

And frankly, for all the glowing descriptions of Hugh in the book, he's either so severely damaged that he can only keep Sedaris, or he's a saint. It's funny to read, but I have a hunch I'd kill Sedaris if I lived with him. Maybe that's part of it. I tend to shy from that level of borderline "needs to institutionalized" behavior and thinking and thus don't have the crazy stories I would otherwise.

And that probably ruins lots of my stories. I think I could be a straight, married, normal, well-adjusted Burroughs, if I was willing to not be so well-adjusted. If I let my 3 on a 10 scale stories spiral out of control they could become 8 on a 10 scale stories.

To outline, or fly by the seat of my pants?

That really is the question at this point in my novel.

As I've said before, I'm past the 15 or 20 pieces of this story that were "clear" to me. I have another 5 or so that have opened up as a result of those 15 or 20, but from there on out, its all a nebulous grey fog.

And that's got me wondering: Do I try to outline the rest of the story? Put the pieces I have on a time line and then fill in blanks and complete the story before writing? Do I sit and actually work out the rest of the writing I have to do, or do I just resolve to sit down and write and see what happens from there?

I have some ideas for pieces I have to write. As I said, I've got 5 or so. And I've got a general idea of where its all going and what will happen. But am I better off writing this down now or waiting? Writing it down now would seem to be, well, writing, and I think I might have trouble not just breaking into narrative storytelling, which would defeat the whole purpose. An outline isn't an outline if you just write one really long piece everytime you try your hand at it. Also, I think an outline might constrain: Not that I couldn't stray, I mean, I do have creative license, but that outline may color my thinking or how I want to go. It might seem more forced.

Anyway, that's what I'm mulling now.

UPDATE: I'm holding off a pretty much completed post about "Pretty" so as to not bump this post. I'll post that tomorrow, or sometime over the weekend, perhaps.,

UPDATE II: Just realized you can schedule a post for a set time in the future, so my new post will go up Friday morning. Ordinarily I would post it myself, but I'm probably taking off Friday, so I might not be available. That blogger - its on top of stuff like this.

I'm a writer; and apparently a disgusting, gluttonous pig.

I don't even want to post what I ate today. I had to leave the office for lunch while they upgraded my computer. Which was perfect, because I needed to pick up onions for dinner. Mission accomplished.

This all goes down hill when I saw M&Ms, on clearance, for $1.39 instead of $3+. Mmmmmmmm. M&Ms. I won't say how much of the bag I ate.

Well, OK, twist my arm why don't you. I will say: I didn't eat any of the bag.

Now, as to what was inside the bag, well ... I found the contents less resistible, sadly. Let's just say I won't have any bugs at my cube due to food lying around. Thankfully, I only opened 1 of the 2 bags I bought. But when I thought about what I ate, it made me physically sick.

I also bought some chips and salsa (fruit/vegetable alert!) and had a sandwich for lunch, so it wasn't a total loss. Right?

Things, they are a changing

I wrote! 1000+ words! Decent stuff!

I changed my workout up. I'm now doing the Men's Health: Belly Off! No-Gym Classic. I think I'll drop the pushup challenge while I do this one.

Write it down: I'm a writer, damn it!

I consider myself a writer/researcher/thinker first. My "real" job is writing, though not creative, and my "second" job is writing, though not profitable. It's actually quite a conundrom.

So I AM a writer. You can question how good of one, but you can't question that I am.

That said, why aren't I writing more? Partly its because I'm in that part of a book where I become frozen. I can usually "see" 15-20 parts of my book. That's the case with "The Needles On Pinetree Ave."

Now that I'm past those charted waters however, the writing becomes, not harder exactly, but...

And that's the crux of the problem. I don't know why it is whatever it is now. I guess this last half or so requires deeper mining, the material is more obscured. That's part of it.

I think some of it is that I'm hurtling along at a snail's pace towards the fini. Ending the story, wraping everything into one package is tough. I can write; I can edit. I'm paid farely nicely for doing those things. I can tell stories. My wife ignores them all the time.

What I don't do is end stories.

What I'm drinking now

Irish breakfast, Casablanca twist, Fujian Baroque & Dragonwell

Alright. Time to take a break from the anger and vitriol and take a deep breath. In other words - its tea time!

I'm currently enjoying a cup of Fujian Baroque, a pretty full flavor tea. Malty with a chocolatey aftertaste that is just great. I have this, or Irish breakfast, in the morning.

It's Dragonwell in the afternoon. It's definitely a green, but its more subtle, less grassy than some. Has a bit of a smokiness that, for its price, I'm not sure I'm wild about. Still, the leaves are as flat as those of Sencha, but much, much wider. Its interesting, and it makes scooping up the tea something of an adventure. Casablanca twist is pretty minty, and I rely on that pretty much solely as an after dinner drink. Not pictured is Sencha Overture. A grassy green that is my everyday tea at work.

Tea is a perfect time filler, like today when I'm waiting for my appointment to have my stitches taken out. I did a limited workout Wednesday - nothing that required gripping, just some push ups and leg work. Thursday the tingling was really down and I had a lot more movement in my thumb. Today its even better. I'm starting to be able to grip things. That's a nice change after a week and a half of walking around - as Renee likes to say - like Bob Dole.

I finished Curious Minds. After the last essay, as Pink Floyd said, "I'd thought I'd something more to say." Turns out that after going back to it, I really didn't. I'm currently zooming through David Sedaris' book "Me talk pretty one day."

And I've written 25 "parts" - they aren't really chapters, I'm not writing a 50 chapter book - in my book. Two this week alone. I'm guessing that's about 28,000 words, give or take - half way. I'm starting to see the light at the end of the chunnel. Instead of 50 different things to write about and directions to go, the plot is narrowing. Threads are wrapping up. Conclusions are being reached. The path ahead is clearer. The pinpoint of light that I can see is inspiring me to write more, but some of the parts left are the harder pieces: Fill in stuff - the stuff that binds the "big" pieces I could see to each other. The minutea that makes it all flow and connect.

July. It took me Dec/Jan/Feb. to get here, plus parts of Nov./Mar, so I'm guessing July is when I finish the draft. I'm shooting for earlier. Not sure how long it will take to make it a manuscript - I will need to read through it, edit it, & then find some poor sap to read through it and provide thoughts. Then its a manuscript and I can start on Project II, already in progress (though on a 10-year commercial break).

BONUS - an interesting post from reason.com on the world after newspapers & an interesting piece on how newspapers are still profitable, just at a more "normal" 10% rate, rather than the 20% to 30% rate they have been. Oh, and 85% of their costs are tied up in paper, ink, trucks etc. In other words, all the "hard copy" stuff. In other words, even on greatly reduced advertising income an online-only paper could pay relatively healthy staff.

Faux outrage (or more embarrassing - real outrage)

Reason has hit it on the head again. This time regarding Senate outrage about the AIG bonuses. I had heard on talk radio driving home yesterday that the bailout to AIG specifically protected bonuses agreed to prior to Feb. 11, 2009. It was a righty show, so I wanted to check before I got all indignant.

Now, Reason has said the same thing. The provision was included by Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd (D- Conn.). It really is unreal. They voted for the bailout, with few, if any conditions, specifically included an allowance for bonuses, and then express outrage when bonuses are paid and propose a special tax on the bonuses they approved.

From Reason: "It not only is dishonest but also means they, in a breathtaking abuse of power, believe using punitive taxation to appropriate someone's salary is a legitimate function of government."

Obama has asked his Treasury Secretary to pursue every avenue to block the bonuses. To bad he and his fellow Dems didn't think about this before, you know, they specifically approved the bonuses. Its sad that Congress could overlook that this would happen; its dishonest and shameful to specifically allow for it and then express shock. I'm sickened, angry and fearful.

As Reason points out, AIG and the government/people had a contract (the bailout), and now the government/people want out because they don't like the terms they agreed to and created.

That's just now how it works. Or at least it isn't.

0 = 0 = Zero

from slate.com: Obama's Change-o-meter is at... drum roll please ... 0. That's zero. As in Z-E-R-O. Not as in no change in the number, as in no change in politics.

If it wasn't so sad, it'd be funny.

Meanwhile Obama is blasting away at AIG for handing out bonuses that may have been required by contract. Here's a thought, if we hadn't bailed them out, this wouldn't be an issue. At the very least, government oversight has (once again) failed the American people.

And if we hadn't bailed them out, where would we be, exactly? Bad economy, check. High unemployment, check. Bank sector in the toilet, check. AIG in the dump, check.

Keep in mind, the bailouts were supposed to give AIG time to sell off assets to allow for payback of the bailout. Assets sold to date: 0. Again, zero.

I'm not defending the bonuses, which many would say should also number zero. You can certainly find fault, and many, many will. But isn't it slightly more egregious that our four or so "bailouts" later we still have a bum economy, no asset sales and no indication that an asset sale is on the horizon.

Bankruptcy, while it would have been a shock to the industry, wouldn't have shocked it much more than the Dow at 12 year lows and it would have resulted in a forced, and managed and manageable break up and sale.

The Mind-emotion parallel

Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, being blogged on slate.com says...

Although we think we act because of the way we feel, in
fact, we often feel because of the way we act. For example, studies show that
even an artificially induced smile brings about happier emotions, and a recent
experiment suggested that people who use Botox are less prone to anger because
they can’t make angry faces.

Interesting. What else?

"Philosopher and psychologist William James explained: “Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.” Although this “fake it ‘till you feel it” strategy might seem fake or inauthentic, I’ve found it to be almost creepily effective."

I hate this whole line of thinking that leads to the conclusion that actively choosing a path outside of your "instinct" or comfort zone means you are somehow fake, that you should "be who you are." Why not be who you want? What's creepy about actively choosing what you think is right rather than being affected by your upbringing?

I like the "action and feeling go together" part. Yeah, if you take the right actions, you will feel the right things.

It takes great presence of mind, and a lot of self-discipline, but whenever I can manage to act lighthearted or friendly or receptive to criticism or whatever is the opposite of my grouchy, gruff, defensive instinct in the moment, I really transform my mood.

Yes, exactly. It takes "a great presence of mind" and a lot of self-discipline. The key here is that it requires this work only at first. Man uses his mind for survival. To the extent that our choices further our survival, happiness and contentment are usually our default or "instinct" state. If we make choices that don't further our existance, our subconcious knows that our choices aren't furthering survival and the resulting contradiction creates tension, conflict and feelings of unease. Rational decision makers, people who actually consider a problem and make a reasoned choice, seldom are uneasy. They may agonize over a decision, both before and after making it, but they seldom have an overwhelming sense of "unease." They know they can use reason to correct most, if not all, situations they face. Unease comes from knowing that you don't have, or more accurately, don' t utilize, the means for their own survival. Thus, they survive mostly because we have advanced where we far enough from death that each decision isn't a mortal one.

Back to the original quote. As you employ the proper reaction more and more, as you put the proper thinking into effect again and again, you'll find that its becomes your default "instinct," and not that gruff part.

Aristotle's on point thoughts have been summed up thusly: What we need, in order to live well, is a proper appreciation of the way in which such goods as friendship, pleasure, virtue, honor and wealth fit together as a whole. In order to apply that general understanding to particular cases, we must acquire, through proper upbringing and habits, the ability to see, on each occasion, which course of action is best supported by reasons.

And it was Rand who said "Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values." Of course, as I explained, "values" can't be just anything. They have to flow from the furthering of our existance.

This led Rand to conclude that "Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values."

Are you more Tigger-ish or Eeyore-ish?

I'm more of a "Tigger" type.

I recently ran across this quote from a respectable figure ...

"Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination"
~ Mark Twain

It made me cringe. I was kind of working up to a post about it, but hadn't really fleshed it all out and didn't want to write about it right then. Partly because of this, and partly because I didn't want it to be a rant against Twain, or the quote, or a rant at all. I wanted it to be a more disciplined analysis, I guess. Something real and solid. And real. So what did I do? I added pics of stupid cartoons, that's what.

Then I (re)stumbled upon Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project at the always excellent Slate.com. She spent years looking at and studying happiness for her book and hypothises that its a myth that happy people are annoying & stupid. I can't encourage you enough to read this first one. It notes that happiness has nearly everything going for it as far as outlook, friendliness, success, life fullfillment, work success, etc. Yet people still make comments like this one...

"Happy people are idiots." Thank you Charles de Gaulle - you idiot.

Rubin asks...

"I often wonder why happiness has such a bad reputation. It's more pleasant to be happy, and it's more pleasant to be around happy people, and it's more challenging to be happier than to be less happy—why is happiness so often maligned and seen as lazy and easy?"

Anyway, I pretty much agree with her. Being unhappy, unfulfilled or disgruntled is always cast as the "cool" attitude. Its Leo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road, its the theme of a host of suburban angst movies starting in my mind with, but I'm sure much earlier, American Beauty. Meanwhile, the happy guy is always borderline mentally damaged, ala Forest Gump. But happiness is a much harder state to achieve, especially in these trying times. As Rubin asks, why the bad rap?

A few reasons, really. Its bad form to brag. Since happiness is like money - while distained its still sought after as more ideal than not - its not polite to point it out that you've got vaults full of the stuff stored at the bank. As a corrollary, happy people are by their nature content with themselves and probably don't find a need to point it out.

Unhappy people on the other hand, have a natural, or learned, disposition to see the negative. Negative infers conflict, and great conflict makes for great books, movies, plays, et al. Thus, the most unhappy person gets an audience and viola, he's a respected voice on nearly any topic he wishes to spout off on. Happiness included. Twain, for instance, was a great writer and sometimes wise thinker. But honestly, what gives him any rep as far as happiness goes? Quiet honestly, the quote alone pretty much exhibits his lack of familiarity with happiness. As does De Gaulles.

I'll end with these two things....
A) look around you. Things, no matter how bad they are, could be worse, both on a macro, and generally, on a micro level. We live in a prosperous, thriving time, even considering the recent downturn. There is almost NO circumstance where you couldn't have it worse, either today, or sometime in the past. (Wow - happy people really are idiots! And annoying! lol.)

B) the remainder of the Rubin's 10 myths..

people are unable to raise their level of happiness
Venting anger relieves it
Insisting on "the best" makes you happier
A treat will cheer you up
Money can't buy happiness
doing "random acts of kindness" brings happiness
"you'll be happy as soon as..."
Spending time alone will make you happy
Its selfish to try to be happier.

I'll probably blog these more over the next couple weeks, but that's it for now.

*** The images in this post are not my own. These images may be protected by copyright laws. I'm probably in violation of one copyright law or another for using these images. Not something I relish or support, but if someone confirms that I am, or asks that I take them down, I will. Right now, I'm considering them used under the "fair use" doctrine and thus legal. ***

Thumbs, all thumbs

Here's a pic of my thumb Tuesday in its bulky bandage and "sling" - 40 hours after the stitches and probably 42 hours after the cutting.

This bandage is off now and I'm running solely on neosporin and bandaids for protection. I was actually feeling really, really well about my thumb after the gauze came off. Actually thought I might be doing push ups soon. Then I made the mistake of putting a little weight on the heel of my hand. Boy did that produce a deep fiery burn.

The left side of my thumb, just beside the nail, feels tingly to the touch now. I'm hoping its a result of my overreaching earlier, or the general fact that I had a knife through the meat just below it recently, and not something serious.

If I get adventurous, maybe I'll post a pic of the stitches and the entrance and exit wounds.

Posts likely to come less frequently - putting a knife through your thumb will do that

Yep. Pocket knife. In one side, out the other.

So you'll excuse me if the spelling isn't perfect on this one. Its a but of a struggle to type with a 1" bandage on your thumb. Still, I think I'm doing OK so far. But trust me, I've deleted or backspaced pretty much every other word.

Two hour hospital stay. 2 stitches.

Kind of put a crimp in my plan to work on my novel Sunday night. HOpefully getting back to that tonight, or at least later this week.

Two new thoughts from Curious Minds - PLUS a bonus: Push up update!

Marc D. Hauser gets it pretty close to how I feel about myself with this quote:

"I'm intellectually promiscuous - and proud of it!"

Unlike some people who find one topic or another boring, or a whole bunch of topics boring - or conversely have one area of interest - I'm interested in just about anything factual about anything. I can get interested in just about any sport, even if I can't play it, any topic, even if I could never fully grasp it. Thus, though I love chess, I don't play nearly as much as I'd like, because I frequently find myself diverted to other activities. On the bright side, TV is never boring, because inevitably there is something on that I haven't seen.

I've always been interested in ideas, and facts, really, of any kind. Thus I couldn't settle on a single topic for this blog and it became 1000 & 1 Things. The other good thing: I can strike up a conversation with just about anyone, because the chances of what they have to say being boring to me is a scintilla.

But the main thing that got a post percolating was this sentence from Ray Kurzweil:

"To this day, I continue to be convinced of that fundamental philosophy: No matter what quandaries we face - business problems, health issues, relationship difficulties - there is an idea that can enable us to prevail. Furthermore, we can find that idea. And when we find it, we need to implement it."

I'm convinced too, Ray. This all sounds somewhat familiar. This meshes well with my belief - "borrowed" heavily from Ayn Rand - that all life on earth has certain courses of action that it must take to survive. Man's is intellectual/rational. Thus we can (indeed, to survive we must) perceive the hard evidence and facts around us and act accordingly. If we act properly in line with what is objectively best for us, good results occur. If we act contrary to our nature and the factual world, bad results occur. The very concept that there is an idea that can solve our problems, we just have to find it (but we are able to do that!) is pretty optimistic and somewhat contrary to the current worldview. Being that Kurzweil is a tech guy, he might have been talking about "ideas" as more of a concrete phenomenon than I am, but I think the point is the same.

PUSH UP UPDATE - I'm going to stop posting after every day, there's just not enough interesting stuff to post on about the challenge and trying to time the posts to not push out the other posts is a challenge unto itself.

Having said that, Day 2 went very well, and I thought I might complete the whole set. As it was, I got 25 after taking 1:30 off, resting 30 more second and then doing the final 20.

Have no fear - I didn't kill myself shoveling

I know I promised an afternoon update YESTERDAY on the push up challenge progress, but well, what can I say other than mea culpa?

Week 5, Day 1 (anyone else feel Deja Vuish?) went very well. Day 1 is the shorter routine. I can't remember the exact numbers, and no, I don't have time to research them, but its something like 36, 40, 30, 24 > 40.

I was wondering how this would go, since I only did 38 on my test Sunday. But that was after a long Saturday night and an early morning.

Well, like I said, it went well. I did the entire group up until the challenge at the end. I upped the 60 second break to 90 seconds, did 20, then took 30 more seconds and finished off the last 20.

Not too bad.

How broke would you have to be to revert back to dial up?

gamercircle.net raises the question here.

My answer: Well, pretty broke, actually.

Its funny, probably almost exclusively to me, since my parents still HAVE dial up. Not for lack of wanting, but for actual lack of any alternative.

The article notes that sub-$10 subscriptions to dial up have increased in the wake of the stock market melt down and appropriately concludes "This recession has just gotten serious."

I agree. I often try to wrap my brain around what I would do with a dial up connection, and remember back to the days when that's all I had. I really can't do it. I'd say the XBox Live account, most of my TV service and my landline phone would all go first, second and third. Then I'd consider other things I could cut out, like cutting back on exercise to use, and thus need, less calories and forgoing eating altogether.

OTHER: Push up update coming this afternoon, that is if I don't kill myself shoveling snow.