Struggling against the almighty tides of eventuality

I wrote this about a week ago, in response to a then-current news item. Fearing a tide of Charles Village people (or anyone, really) who would read into this that I just didn’t give a shit about someone dying, and come and harass me, I didn’t post it. However, I guess at this point I’m either going to have to post it or delete it, and I’m getting tired of deleting the thoughts I have. So, while no longer timely (and thoroughly unedited), here’s my thoughts:

If you’re one of the people who follows me from Baltimore, you’re probably aware of the homicide that happened in Charles Village this weekend. I definitely am; it was at the end of my street. I wasn’t made aware of it until the next morning, somehow I missed the commotion that must have been made. However, I haven’t missed, for the past three days, repeated news crews, and a press conference the Commissioner of Police himself attended. Huzzah, you might be expecting me to say, the city is responding to a violent crime in my neighborhood with a swift hand and recognizing that there’s a problem.

Except I’m not saying that.

The thing is, and I know I’ll sound callous and unfeeling for saying it, is that Stephen Pitcairn is a small number in a large statistic. Baltimore is not a safe city. There have been one hundred and twenty homicides in the city limits this year so far. And while Mr. Pitcairn was doing valuable research, every single one of those other people were flesh and blood just the same, and so few have received the attention he has. It’s partially due to who he is, and partially to do with where he was when it happened.

And that’s really the problem. I don’t want people to marginalize his death, but I don’t want people to marginalize the 119 other people who’ve died this year, either. But they are marginalized, because so many of them occurred in poor, black neighborhoods where that’s just part of the deal. We just finally caught some of the spillover in our little hamlet between multiple sections of town people colloquially call “ghetto.”

I’ve seen a number of extra police in the days since it happened, typically buzzing around the exact location, as though there’s a mystical significance to that specific spot and any future murders would only take place there. I do not feel safer for the over-the-top show. I don’t feel any less safe than I did last week, as a matter of fact.

Because this is Baltimore, this is one of the murder capitals of the world, and if you felt invincible cause your house had some cute paint and you can walk to a farmer’s market in a parking lot, even though you can hear the semi-automatic fire that periodically rings out from Waverly, then you’re a fool. You’re not any less safe than you were before, your eyes have just been opened to the reality of where you live and you’re hysterical. And it’s disrespectful to the people who, when murders happen around the corner from them, are ignored.

It’s a major tragedy that Stephen Pitcairn died. It’s an outrage that the people who did it were released repeatedly into the world after apparently committing other robberies. But it shouldn’t be so much more than when someone else dies senselessly. The city is dying all around us, and we can’t just draw a line in the sand and say “Not HERE. You can kill them THERE but we will HAVE our painted ladies, damn it!” Cause the problem with a line in the sand is that when the wave comes crashing down it gets washed away.

Saturday, among other things, I went to the Windup Comics (“Comix”?) Fest[ival]. If that wrestling match with punctuation didn’t completely turn you off, you’ll now be entreated to a review of that experience:

I actually really liked it. Like DC Comic-con, it was pretty much a single room, i.e. The Windup Space on North Avenue in Baltimore. It had a completely different feel from that convention, though. More on that “feeling” thing later; first, location: fortunately for me, it was within walking distance (only about 6 or so blocks), so I didn’t have to worry about parking. Had that been a concern, it may have been less awesome because North Avenue isn’t always the nicest of streets. It was my first time at The Windup Space, and it seemed like a nice enough little bar. I can’t speak to the quality of drinks or service, though, cause I was mostly focusing on the comics (and I was poor that day).

As I said, this gathering had a completely different feel than my sole previous experience at a comics gathering. I think that’s because this event focused primarily on the artists, and not the retailers. There were a couple of retailers, but most of the people were actually local, independent, artists and writers. That can be attributed to the difference in who was the chief organizer: from what I understand, DC was organized by a retailer, and Windup was organized by an artist (in fact, one with whom I went to high school) and an art studio. Suffice it to say, without dragging out the comparisons much longer, I walked into DC Comic-con with a decent amount of money and nothing I wanted to spend it on, while I walked into this place and found plenty of stuff I wanted to buy but had almost no money with me.

The artists were all really friendly, and that was pretty great. I came in towards the end of the day, since it started about 1pm and closed at 7pm, and I wasn’t able to make it until after 5:30. In spite of what I heard was lower turnout than expected (maybe due to the rainy day and this being the first such event), everyone was pretty happy and readily willing to interact with me, explain what they were doing and selling, and just be generally quite congenial. I found a couple of things I really wanted to get, a couple of things I thought would be cool to check out, and a couple of things that were neat but not really my speed. Fortunately everyone had plenty of business cards and flyers, and I managed to get something from almost everyone so I could remember to check them out later.

Local Artists' Media

Ultimately I had to whittle down my must-purchase list to one item, which was the Floppy Boy comic on the left. While many things caught my attention, as I said, I stuck with this one because I thought it’d be particularly cool to have something written by someone I know personally. I wound up with Volume 2 rather than Volume 1, though, so I’ll have to pick up the rest of the collection later. It’s a collection of former-webcomics (the server blew up, I think, and if I remember correctly I was told it was “a long story”), which Gavin admitted were pretty hit-or-miss with the comedy, but I thought were pretty entertaining.

I’ll try to remember to update this later with links to the artists, as was my original intent, as the picture of a stack of flyers is clearly not legible enough to make them out, but I don’t have the physical copies with me. Hopefully in the meantime this link to Interrobang’s page on the festival (with list of artists) will suffice.

In closing: it was really an awesome show, and I’m glad I went. From what I heard from the organizers, they’re going to try to do it at least annually, if not twice a year, and I’ll definitely head back for more. If they can keep the same positive energy going towards it, I think it has the potential to turn into a Pretty Big Deal.

I went to DC Comicon this weekend, and the experience was not quite was I was expecting or hoping for. I’ve seen other people’s reactions to it, and they are wildly differing, to say the least. For the record, I agree more with the former than the latter. As a non-collector, it didn’t make me swoon to see leagues and leagues of not-very-recent books on display and for sale. The artists present were scattered around and I couldn’t tell if they were big names or small guys based on their positioning or presentation, and I’m not deep enough in the rabbit hole to intrinsically know the difference on name alone.

But more than that, was the major headache the second blog post mentioned: it was more like a VA Comicon #2. It was in Fairfax, which, while close to DC, is not actually DC. It’d be purely a matter of semantics, but the fact of the matter is that I live in Baltimore, and every extra mile is an extra pain in my ass. Plus, as I’ve discovered from working on a campus that’s huge and it isn’t easy to leave for some food and come back unless you want to eat away two hours, urban location can be pretty important. People should be able to socialize more than saying “Oh, you want at this box? Sure.” That was seriously the most social event I had while there. Of course, the George Mason University was probably the most receptive to the event, or charged much cheaper than any place in the heart of DC would, but if you’re going to announce a DC comics convention, you should be prepared to deal with what being in DC entails.

Aside from that, the logistical problems William mentioned were quite true. I wasn’t driving, so I had my phone out, alternating between the campus map and Google maps, and I still almost wound up leaving the campus accidentally before I turned around and got to the parking lot. We were followed from there by someone who had even less of an idea how to get there than I did, so I was feeling the pressure when it turned out we went up and around a building needlessly. Damn social anxiety. Then I was asked for directions on our way out by a deaf guy across the street, and hopefully my wild gesturing was helpful cause I don’t think he was close enough to read my lips and I still don’t know ASL.

One of the bigger busts was not the con’s fault, but my own, in that I was kind of looking forward to meeting the aforementioned William, cause he seems pretty cool and I prefer knowing people in real life when possible. Unfortunately, not realizing that he was likewise looking forward to meeting up and having made several circuits of the floor, I decided to go ahead and head out. Adding to the decision was the fact that I’d almost bumped into a couple of people several times, during which I stopped suddenly, right on my partner’s feet, while he was wearing flip-flops. Since he looked about ready to toss me out the nearest window by the second or third time I did it, it seemed a good idea not to risk further incidents. Again, none of this was anything to do with the con itself, just stuff that happened to…er, happen.

It wasn’t really a horrible experience, but it’s probably not one I’ll repeat unless a couple of things change for next year. It should be in DC. It should be more than a vendor room. It should have clear directions for parking and for getting to the convention. The $5 admission price is well under what I’d expect for a convention, but was about par or above for paying to pay for stuff. I have hopes for next year, but I’m not holding my breath too long.

I am looking forward to Baltimore Comic-Con though, I’ve heard it’s quality.

I’ve had a mishmash of thoughts today, so, what better place to toss them than a blog no one reads? Sure, why not!

First off: Free Comic Book Day was today, and it was fine. I went to Amazing Spiral in the Rotunda shopping center and picked up a couple of trade paperbacks (The Sandman vol. 6: “Fables and Reflections“, and Cable and Deadpool vol. 6: “Separation Anxiety“). While The Sandman series strikes me more like a heady novel-type read, the Cable and Deadpool has already been consumed as “lighter” fare, and was delicious. I know the sacrifice at the end has been undone via comic book magic but it was still pretty poignant, and the balance of the book was pretty hilarious. Still have yet to start the other one.

I picked up a couple of freebies too: War of the Supermen and Thor #1 (I think the second one the guy just threw in cause he was nice, not cause it was meant to be free). I’ve never been big on Norse mythology, and Marvel’s watered-down version certainly doesn’t make me leap for joy, but Thor #1 definitely makes me want to read more of this. Fortunately, it’s a year or two old, so I already can!

Second off: I got in a debate with someone over Steve Jobs’s recent “open letter” on Flash. She lauded him for standing firm on “this controversial issue.” Of course, it ain’t exactly health care and human rights we’re talking about here. It’s about an asshole sitting on top of a mountain of money and guarding it like a rabid Doberman. At any rate, he’s being douchey and claiming to be only acting in the best interests of consumers everywhere.

Hey Steve: shove your concerned protection, please. Thanks.

I don’t think, with a five-minute review process, that any app gets the entirety of its code checked for all possible security threat vectors, nor do I think it’s fully put through its paces to make sure it doesn’t crash (I use a couple relatively “popular” apps that crash all the fucking time). 3D games, lauded on the system, are complete energy whores. At no point does he acknowledge that his “it’s buggy and crash-happy” (paraphrased) argument holds water only when you admit that the entire ecosystem is built around such buggy, crash-happy, energy-sucking apps, mixed in with an overwhelming pile of shitty flashlight and fart apps. You’ve got a few gems, like Foursquare, but a lot of that 100,000+ library is pretty terrible. Anyway, I like my internet with Homestar Runner, and why the fuck do you think I need to be protected from what I want in the first place?

Oh yeah, that’s right, cause you’re a self-centered whiny little bitch. Adobe has been getting smacked around by your financial muscle, strong-armed by a skinny black-turtle-necked jackass who used them up and now that he’s done with them, is posting all the nude photos for everyone to laugh at. Yes, even the one with the bunny ears. Especially the one with the bunny ears. Like I said with the bullshit about Gizmodo, they’re allowed to be just as douchey as the market allows them to be with regards to their closed ecosystem and completely arbitrary approval process, but the key word, underlined and bolded for your convenience, is douchey. This is why I hate those guys, and that’s not even getting into how they’re playing at being Magnum P.I. and trying to go around the police (who are already banging down doors in a highly-suspect potentially-illegal action for them). They’re assholes through and through. The only argument that jumps out at me as logical in the whole tirade was “flash was designed for mice,” and even then it doesn’t have to use that idiom, it just does right now. It’s all preference, and Steve Jobs, in classic “I have the best brain ever, BOOM” douchebag fashion, is cramming his down everyone else’s throats.

Third, and finally, off: I think I’ve figured out what I want to call this blog. It references the blog post I wrote several months ago when I was just starting out. It’s part of a quote I feel really proud of, and that’s what I’d really like this blog to be about: writing I can later look back on and hopefully, for the most part, be proud of. Not all of it will be, of course, as I’ll probably look back on this post later and the inevitable back-and-forth about how justified Apple is in doing whatever it damn well pleases, or that maybe Deadpool is a lot more “deep” than I gave him credit for (anybody?!), and regret that I ever said anything.

Whatever.

The new title of the blog, in case you’re curious (and also stupid, cause it’s now in the header) is “An Oak In The Fall.”

Welcome.

I went to the “Spaghetti Disco” at the church up the street from me tonight. It’s a benefit for a library-ish community center, also up the street from me (though going the other direction). All in all, it wasn’t bad. It led me to a realization, though, or rather led me to realize something again:

I’m a bit rusty.

There are a number of things at which I’m rusty: playing music, playing Quake (not that I was ever particularly good), and playing the social scene. Alright, I’ll admit that last one didn’t work. I’m a sucker for trying to stretch the rule of threes. But the point is, I’m just not very good at socializing. It’s probably not a big shock, and in fact you could likely discern this from not-subtle contextual clues here on this very blog. But there is positivity in that I’m trying, I think.

I think the main thing I still have to get over is wondering whether or not people like me. From what I can understand of people who are successful at having friends, they don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. It may cross their mind from time to time, but it’s not the world-ending calamitous spiral into despair that it winds up being for me. Of course, that may be coming more from the fact that I’m a compulsive worrier than that I’m particularly bad at human interaction.

All things considered, though, I shouldn’t have anything to complain about with tonight. The event itself was pretty well organized, and definitely well attended. I finally met my foursquare nemesis, and he and his fiancée were cool people. Also, I found a beer which I don’t mind drinking (a rare breed indeed): Dundee Honey Brown. I wound up jetting after the raffle and the prizes, as the one beer I had didn’t get me loosened up enough to “shake [my] booty,” and as the bar was cash only I could not procure another. The building feeling that I was sticking out didn’t necessarily help, either.

But, like I always say at the end of these self-pitying blog posts, I must simply try to do better. It’s easy to complain about my failings, and probably necessarily cathartic in a way, but simply wallowing in it will not do. I’m not sure if I come off weird, or stupid, or any number of other negative adjectives. Most people probably wouldn’t tell me anyway, like a piece of food stuck on my chin. People are prone to such harmful niceties. But I can’t really let that be a defining issue for me. The only way to get better at performing is to perform more often. Being rusty shouldn’t be an excuse anymore.

This is mostly in response to this post by another Baltimore native, in addition to some conversation I’ve had with him since. The feelings I have simply could no longer be expressed in 140 characters or less, and I’m not a fan of the long-form multi-tweet thought.

I realize that Baltimore is not a city in the north or in the midwest; 3 feet of snow is not something that happens every winter. After all, we tend to get a nice “wintry mix” of about 3 inches of wet snow that melts the next day and it sends most people into a blind panic. Given that the entire city hasn’t collapsed into a swirling vortex of despair, I’d say we’re doing pretty well. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think we can do better.

Given that we got hit with two storms in quick succession, a good two feet followed a few days later by another foot or so, I realize that there’s much to be done. Streets that were formerly plowed now need to be gone over again, and in the middle of a city there’s not much place for all that snow to go. However, my street was visited by a plow about an hour or two before the first flakes of second storm. That’s fine, it helps keep the total amount to be plowed next time down. Of course, that’s assuming they actually plowed. After sitting at the end of my block for a good few minutes (I’d assume they were digging out, except they’d have to have been doing it by telekinesis), they trundled down our street, plowing about halfway before lifting the scoop up and continuing on out of our block.

It’s not a terrible thing to take a break, as I’m sure those guys had probably been driving around city streets for many hours. But, if you’re actually going to resume plowing, I’d appreciate it if you plowed the whole street, and not just a little bit. Sure, it’s a business at the end of the block and not houses, but we still need to drive there. Since that time, like much the rest of the street, there is now a nice patch of packed-in snow sitting on top of a sheet of ice. Very nice.

Again, they have a whole metric shitload of snow to move all around the city, and it’s not unreasonable to assume that a silly residential side-street will get less attention than the main thoroughfares. But I actually ventured out into the city in my car for the first time since Thursday today, and I was delayed a good few minutes by a snow removal crew. The street was fine; they were clearing parking spaces. For that, I wouldn’t fault them, because I know people have been complaining about parking spaces, snow removal routes, etc. However, they weren’t in front of houses, or even a heavy business district. They were clearing spots in front of a church, and a garage (access to the garage was already available). At this point, I’d say that maybe their time would be better spent clearing out the side streets.

I say that because, after eventually getting back to our house, I had to grab a shovel and spend 20 minutes trying to break up the ice in the center of the road so that we could have enough traction to actually park in our carefully-cleaned spot. As an aside, here’s a note to other Baltimore city-dwellers: we did not put a chair in our spot; that crap is tacky. We got lucky and got our spot back but were willing to grab a shovel and make another one if need be. We shoveled a patch of pavement; doesn’t mean we own it. Back to the topic: there’s definitely an issue with organization. Could I do it better? Probably not, but I didn’t run for a seat in the city government.

If it sounds like I’m ragging on the city too hard, it’s just a form of tough love: for someplace where the average annual snowfall is less than one of two storms that hit it in a week, it’s doing pretty well. Don’t just take a pat on the back, though: there’s still work to be done, and ways it can be better. And for city residents, it’s hard to refrain from being shrill, but many snow-removal crews have been working pretty damn hard to make up for a lack of preparation, so a little slack might not be out of order.

Update: I’ve set up my own blog for pain purposes.

In the past, I’ve written extensively on the subject of chronic pain, and opioid therapy to treat that pain. In those writings, I’ve mentioned as an aside that these things apply to me, being that I am a chronic pain patient. What I haven’t done is write extensively on my specific pain, my specific treatment, and how my pain changes my life. There are reasons for this.

The main reason is because–until recently–I didn’t want to believe that my pain affected my life at large. I didn’t want to believe that this can not only affect my life, but it in fact dictates the majority of my day. I wanted to believe that I could take medications and ignore it and continue on the path I’ve chosen without modifying anything. To my disdain, this is painfully untrue.

In high school, I participated in running sports like Cross Country and the long distance division of Track & Field. I ran 6-8 miles every night, and I was in fantastic shape. I continued to run after high school until I was around 19. At this age I started having a dull ache at my tailbone. It was intermittent and mild, so I’d take over-the-counter (OTC) analgesics like acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and naproxen. As time passed and my age grew, so did my pain. The pain spread to my entire lower back and started taking over my life. By the time I was 21 OTC analgesics weren’t working anymore, and I had no health insurance. After being turned away at free clinics under suspicion of drug-seeking, I started going to an ER on a regular basis. They’d occasionally give me a shot of hydromorphone or prescriptions for a few day’s worth of muscle relaxants and opioid analgesics, but 90% of the time they’d also turn me away under suspicion of drug-seeking. At this point, the pain was nearly constant and unbearable. The clinic the ER sent me to for follow-up had a lazy doctor who never treated anything but crotch-rot and runny noses. He sent me to Physical Therapy, and a litany of other specialists within the charity hospital. I had x-rays and MRIs and no one ever saw anything. So, again, I was ignored for what was presumed to be drug-seeking behavior. Then, the aforementioned clinic was aquired by new management, and with this came a new doctor. I gave him a shot, and gave him my history, and he decided to give me a chance. I went through two-week trials of every NSAID you can think of, until he finally agreed to give me opioid analgesics, under the condition that I would continue to try to figure out what was wrong with me, and that he would stop prescribing them when I did. Around the time I turned 22 I moved 900 miles from that clinic, to Baltimore.

In Baltimore I spent about a year making my way through an orthopedist, rheumatologist, gastroenterologist, and a cardiologist. The original orthopedist discontinued the opioids and gave me injections, which worked at first but quickly faded. He gave me a few month’s worth of opioids and referred me to a pain management doctor. This doctor diagnosed me with lateral facet joint hypertrophy, or more plainly, a severe form of arthritis in the joints of my spinal vertebrae. He continued the opioids and gave me a multitude of injections, which didn’t help much. I was still miserable despite the narcotics and one day I broke down crying and he decided to pull out all the stops and put me on some real opioid therapy. I started taking extended release morphine along with the hydrocodone I was already receiving. In the time since I’ve been on methadone, and now transdermal fentanyl fills the role of my 24/7 medication, and the hydrocodone has been replaced with oxycodone. I also have adjuvant medications like muscle relaxants and sedative/hypnotics. All in all, it took nearly four years to get my pain under control.

Now that I see a good doctor–who does his best to help me manage my pain–I thought my fight might be over. It took day after day of good days and bad days before it dawned on me that I only won a small battle, and while I’ll spend the rest of my life at war, I’ll never win. I’ll continue to have good days where the pain is balled up into a corner of my mind, and I’ll continue to have bad days where I’m balled up into a corner of my bed. I’ve always known this, but only recently has it really fully elucidated itself: I will be in gut-wrenching pain for the rest of my life.

Knowing that, it begins to dawn on me that I will be unable to live the life I want to live. A given activity may be restricted or even impossible for me to endure. Walks in the park are now a test of my pain threshold rather than a harmless stroll. Going out with my girlfriend to places like malls is now not only mind-blowingly boring, but back-breakingly painful (one might think this is a good thing, but any time together is good time together). Not only are these things difficult now, but my condition is degenerative; it will continue to get worse every single day, as will my pain. While a walk through the mall may seem hard now, walking at all may be an arduous task in the not-too-distant future.

So where do I go from there? Will I become legally disabled and unable to work? What of my plan to go to medical school? What of all the hard work I’ve already put into school? Medical disability programs in this country are pitiful, and a mere pittance compared to my current income, let alone the future income I could achieve with a medical license. Being a physician is physical work, and carries the longest hours of any profession. I’m not implying that I couldn’t get a degree, but what am I to do with it if my physical limitations continue unabated? Will I be seeing patients or will I be relegated to boring research?

The degeneration could be curbed by strong back muscles, but in order to get stronger I have to exercise, and that is quite difficult when mere walking is a test of pure will. I don’t believe any amount of medication in the world can change this. My medication barely allows me to function in the world. I’m lucky when I get out of bed and get back into it without some horrifying pain in-between, let alone adding purposeful physical exertion into every day. Perhaps if I take a morphine shower afterwards.

As things are I take quite a bit of strong, dangerous medication and it barely manages an uneventful day. I frequently employ the aid of a cane. If I so much as play with my little nieces or wrestle around with my girlfriend, I pay for it dearly. I used to think that bill would stop coming, but I really do realize now that bill controls my life. It controls what I can and can’t do. I can think “don’t let this control me, don’t let this be who I am,” and yet it is anyway. My pain is my life, and my life is pain.

I’ve updated the look of the blog, with a brand-spanking new theme I downloaded.  I like it pretty well, it displays the plugins in a much easier-to-read format, and I’ve always been partial to darker-colored themes.  I meant to update the title, as I found another blog a few months back with my exact same theme (the old one) and almost the exact same title.  It turns out my clever and witty acceptance of the sheer number of blogs in the universe wasn’t as original as I thought.  It’s kind of ironic.

Therefore, I need a new title.  I have space for a title and a subtitle.  Currently “JAB – Just Another Blog” and the Full Metal Jacket reference fill those two slots.  I’ve thought that maybe “Thoughts of a Dying Atheist” and “This body was born from death, all it can do is die” would work.  But, aside from the fact that no one would get that it’s a Muse song and a Doctor Who reference, I’m just not sure it really fits me.  I deleted the only draft of a post I was writing on theism, and I wouldn’t describe myself as an atheist anyway.  The deleted post covered it, but I’m not sure what I would call myself.

And that’s the final change.  I had about 6 drafts, all waiting for a mystical “some day” to be edited and posted.  That was an ever-growing pile of lies I was telling myself, so they’re gone.  I thought I had some good writing in a couple of pieces, but it was mostly the same steaming pile of crap over and over.  I don’t know how many times I can get away with saying I am sad about being lame, but I get the feeling if I want to find the line to cross I’ll have to turn around.  This is also somewhat like “The E-mail DMZ” only on steroids.  And a blog, you know, instead of E-mail.

When you click on that link, browse the site a bit.  The guy has some good ideas.

That’s all I got for now.

On the other side of the cloth wall of my cubicle sits a black guy.  So far, he hasn’t shown up for work yet today.  That’s unfortunate for me, cause I needed some information that only he has the skills to provide.  A few minutes ago, I heard discussion from his space, space he shares with another coworker who is in today.  Awesome!  I get my information at long last!

So I wheel myself out from behind the wall with great vigor, only to find that my coworker has not arrived, but rather a FedEx guy, who happens to be black.  “Oh no,” I think to myself, “I’ve just made a terribly racist assumption.”  You see, I recognized the voice as belonging to my coworker.  Being as they’re both black, naturally this meant it was that sole trait which registered in my brain.

Or is it really?  I know there’s a terrifically stupid assumption that “all [race] people look alike” that most racists make.  Naturally, it follows that “all [race] people sound alike” is a similarly racist statement.  Of course, I’ve never been good with identifying unseen voices.  When I first spoke with Eric and Matt on the phone, I couldn’t tell them apart, and as a white person that should be easy as pie for me, right?  They’re even from different areas of the country and have (supposedly) different accents.

So, after thinking so ashamedly of myself for a few minutes, I’ve finally figured out that maybe I’m not the worst human being ever for being voice-identification challenged.  But that leads me to wonder, how many times is it that we assume some sort of racial profiling is in effect because the person involved is of a specific race, when nothing could be further from the truth?  I realize there are plenty of instances where people do profile; but, sometimes maybe jumping the gun and assuming something is racist, i.e. taking special note of someone’s race to make that judgement, is actually the more racist part.

So, tonight was a good night.  I like to think, at least, that it went better than last year’s company Christmas Party (I don’t think we’ve regressed to the point of caring to call it a “Holiday Party”).  At this one, I didn’t make a point to yell out my sexual orientation loud enough for people in adjacent counties to be made aware.  That always counts as a success in my book.

I did try to have a serious conversation with my friend Eric about what we do at work and where we’re all going in the future.  I fear I may have been a bit meandering, but at least I made the effort.  I know I have trouble with that.  I always am concerned I’ll make a fool of myself, but alcohol has the wonderful effect of making me not give a shit.  I intentionally planned to have a discussion about these sorts of things at the party cause I knew I could talk after a drink or two.  I was at about my 5th when I started the conversation, and I think the content suffered as a result.  I hope the point came across, though.

I’m not really sure what I mean to say here, except that, after having a rough day (my furnace is broken and I may be getting gypped into a $2,500 repair for it, and my partner found a colony of spiders [like 30, literally] living on my computer equipment), I still count today as a success.  I tried to let a friend know I cared and supported his decisions but just wanted to help him make the best ones for himself.  I tried to let my partner know just how much and why I cared so much for him and about him.  Tomorrow, as I’m reading this more sober than I am now, I’ll probably groan and realize what an ass I’ve been, but for tonight I’ll let myself bask in the idea that maybe I did a couple things right on a crummy day.