Have You Seen This Hot Astrologer?

Sitting here in the taint between Christmas and New Years, feeling a little off in tha moment, but in general am doing fine. My Christmas was well, whatever, average, I suppose. I have this sense that the more Christmases I experience, the less spectacular they will be. The more you have, I think, the less you value, maybe. I don't know.

I have filled out the application for grad school, and I sent it in about a week ago. It's due by Jan 5, for the fall of 2010, which is now less than a year away. I filled out the application to the specific department, which isn't due until March, I just have to send it in, want to find out if they want it mailed or faxed. The next things to do are to work on my portfolio, and to apply for financial aid, and I can't apply for financial aid until February, because I need the year's tax forms, and those won't be ready until then. So, I guess the next thing for me to do is to hit the portfolio hard and heavy. I can do that, for sure.

I went to work today. This time of year is always strange for work. I worked four days the week before Christmas, took Friday off, so had a three day weekend, worked Mon and Tues last week and had Wed through Sun off, and today and tomorrow I work, and then I don't go in again until next Monday. Lots of time to goof off, eh? Or lots of time to get busy with things I need to do without work. I wonder which will win out? So I went to work today and was totally unproductive. Our department is under a spending freeze, so I can't get any wood, paint, hardware, anything until the City figures out how to balance the budget. It's very draining, emotionally wise, and ambitions are running low. Almost all my projects are frozen and will continue to be so for a while. It's a good reason to find other opportunities.

The whole day has been off. I feel like I'm straddling many different worlds, present work and future grad school, marriage and separation, Oklahoma and Minnesota, straight life and gay life. I'm not a new age-y person, but I found a horoscope that has proven to be pretty accurate about the goings-on of my life. It's called SoulgardenTV, and you can find it on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/SoulGardenTV . It's friendly, palatable and relatable, not like Ms. Cleo with the fake Jamaican accent and the crystal ball hoohaw. Take it for what it presents itself to be. Plus the "Stand-up Astologer," Christopher Witecki, is so damn cute.
Anyway, when I'm not staring at him, I am actually listening to what he has to say , and this week is a week of major transformations of what we are to what we will become, and this odd feeling I am having is just a part of that. Even without this base, I can fall to my old standby, "This too, shall pass" and know that things will work themselves out. I just have to go through some lumpy times. And now I can do that while watching a babe.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

That feels weird, talking like that. Talking about cute guys like I did.. I feel like a perv. Well, no, I don't feel like a perv. I never talk like that, though. It doesn't feel natural. So now I go to my inner dialogue:

Me: What a hunk! omg, did I just say that?

Inner me: yeah. you just said that.

Me: That's wrong for me to talk like that.

Inner me: Why is it wrong?

Me: I don't know. It just doesn't feel right.

Inner me: do you think he's cute?

Me: Yeah

Inner me: So it's ok to express that.

Me: Well, alright, but it doesn't seem natural.

Inner me: Why not?

Me: Because I never have talked like that before.

Inner me: ...and that is because...

Me: because I was in the closet?

Inner me: and being in the closet caused you to do what?

Me: Suppress my desires.

Inner me: and because you suppress your desires, what happened?

Me: I didn't strive for my desires.

Inner me: and now you are...?

Me: ...regretting it.

pause

Me: but it still feels wrong. It objectifies him as eye candy, something to look at. Nothing more, and I don't do that to people. I know there is more to a person than the way he or she looks or appears.

Inner me: and by saying that you think he is cute, you think you are saying that he is only cute and nothing more?

Me: no, I'm not saying that. I'm saying..that his inner qualities are broader than his appearance.

I'm not a perv.

Inner me: do you want to have sex with him?

Me: I want to have sex with anyone.

Inner me: excuse me?

Ok, I think that's enough inner dialogue for right now.... Till next time!

Adding Apples

Woke up this morning andsaw the kids watching Saturday morning cartoons. Jack was eating cereal on a little tv table, and Lilly was upside down in the Lay-z-boy. I wiped some of the eye crust from my eyes and stumbled into the kitchen where I made some coffee, and loaded the dishwasher when I saw that Lilly's homework on the counter.

"Lilly, you were supposta do your homework yesterday!" I reminded her.

She bounced into the kitchen and said in her trademark fast speak "Ohyeah iforgottodothat." She gathered up the papers and went back to the tv room and started setting herself up.

After a few minutes she called out, "Daaaaaaad, I need your help!"

I looked over her shoulder and looked at the page of additions and subtractions she was working on. About 120 problems were lined out like an anal retentive's M&Ms on the sheet and she was right about in the middle of them. Simple problems of adding and subtracting single digit numbers.

"What's 6 take away 4?" she asked as she bounced up and down in the chair. She had written a 2 for the answer. "Is this right?"

I asked her if she was taught how to check her work by adding her answer with the bottom number to get the top number. She is more confident at adding than subtracting. "2 plus 4 is... 6!" she squealed and she waved her arms in the air. She almost stabbed me with her pencil.

"Yes," I smiled "that's how you check your work."

"Butsomeoftheseareaddingandsomearesubtractingandthey'reallmixedup,daddy"

"You know how to check your adding?" She nodded enthusiastically. "Do you need me to help you any more?" She shook here head without transisitioning and with just as much energy. "Okay, bobble-head, you're doing great!" She giggled to the pet name as I went back to the kitchen to finish the dishes.

With the coffee poured, the dishwasher on, the girls cratching her pencil on paper and cartoon voices emitting from the television, I went outside, I went outside for my morning smoke and I thought about that interaction with her. I'm no great mathematics theorist, like my brother is, but I like to play with ideas in my head. I started wondering about checking math. Isn't it interesting that the way you check Addition is the same way that you check Subtraction. Add the sum to the subtractor and you get the origin number in Subtraction. Minus the difference from the second second number to get the first number in Addition. Pretty easy stuff, really, for an adult. but the interesting part comes in when you try to do the checking with the opposite numbers. In Addition, you can sutract either either or the numbers from the sum to get the other number, but in Subtraction, this doesn't happen. This is easier to illustrate than to explain.

I'll use these simple problems: 4+5=9 and 8-6=2.

In checking addition, you can say either 9-4=5 or 9-5=4. Either way the sum is the same amount. In checking subtraction it doesn't work the same way. 2+6=8, which is correct checking, but 2+8 does not equal 8, it equals 10.

So that led me to this pondering: In Addition, does it really matter in what order the addition numbers are. 4+5=5+4=9, correct? Yes, of course it's correct. but are they the same numbers? is the 4 in the first equation the same as the 4 in the second equation? I say they are not. If you have 4 apple and your friend loans you 5 more apples, you are holding 9 apples. If you have 5 apples and your friend loans you 4 apples, you are holding 9 apples. but when it comes time to returning your apples to your friend, you have a real dilemma. do you give him 4 apples or 5 apples? Breaking it down to numbers, 4+5 does not equal 5+4, because what you start out with must be the same as you end with when checking. If you were holding 8 apples and you loaned 6 of them to your friend, you would be left hold 2 apples, and when your friend returned those to you, you would have 8 again, not 10.

Hmm. So what am I getting at? I'm not really sure. I guess what I'm saying is that by checking your addition it is important to know that the problem 4+5 is not the same as 5+4, even though the sums might both be 9, they are different 9s with different qualities. And THAT I think is what was interesting to me. That 9 does not always equal 9 fully. Each number has different qualities depending on its own unique history.

That's enough of that. Lilly came in wants a snack.

"What do you want for a snack, Lilly?"

She smiles and wiggles around "Can I have an apple, Daddy?"

"Absolutely"

"Can you cut it up?"

"ok"

She looks at me seriously. "Only cut it into six pieces this time, please, not eight like last time," is her explicit request.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I can't eat eight slices."

Post-partum

/me crashes on the couch, exhausted

Sunday was the end of the Make him Over Hunt 2, and I finished it at the eleventh hour. I had been dillying and dallying with this hunt over the past month, and in the last week, I crammed in finding as many of the symbols as I could. I turned the little eyeball off for everyone so I could streamline it as much as possible (apologies to anyone who was trying to reach me), and I ignored lucky chairs and other freebies. (well, I hit a few). I almost thought I wouldn't make it, but I did.

I have this love/hate relationship with these hunts, and I don't know why. I love the challenge and fun of finding something that has been so impishly and cleverly hidden, I love the banter on the group chat window, most of the stores are very nice, and besides, free shit! Not that I need more free stuff. My inventory has buckled and bloated over my personal limit of 2ok, like an over-yeasted bread roll and I decide to go on another treasure hunt? I must like banging my head against the wall searching through that stuff. But it's fun. The hate part I think is that it does take all my focus away from other things going on in SL, and now that I'm done, I'll have my share of post-partum set in, and I'll just wander about trying to think of how to occupy myself. Organize the treasures will of course be one thing to do, but otherwise? don't know.

I kinda miss the clubs, and I kinda miss the rpping in fantasy realms. I'll probably do that for a while. I don't see any hunts on the radar that really grab my attention, so I'll cool it with those. I still need to define myself, as to what the hell does it mean to be Leigh Eel. Leigh is an extension of my RL persona, (Real name Greg, btw, if anyone is interested) as is the case with most SLlers. Of course I missed Opacus, but I never put him off when he calls. He's the main reason for the dilly-dallying that I mentioned.

There was a party after the hunt, but it was Sunday morning, and I didn't really didn't intend to be online that morning. Was going to do a bunch of housework (God, the garage is such a pit) but my obsession overcame. What good is an obsession if it doesn't overcome? So after the hunt, I skipped the party, even though I would have liked to meet some of the guys who were also hunting, but well.. wait until MHOH3... (btw there is talks about a third one... if you are interested in getting some nice stuff, it'd be a good opportunity.)

Now, back to aimless wanderings...

Hoorayi

Whoa, when I neglect something I really neglect it. The Mums are dried up, the dog is starving and there are no more clean dishes in the cupboards. and when was the last update? Hmm.. I remember the subject was Opacus and I getting partnered, I suppose I could give a little update on that. It's pure wonderfulness. The end.
Is probably the reason I have been neglecting things, too. I haven't done too much Rpping online, and haven't been very social, either. My RL is gearing up and I am online less often than before. What has happened is I would get online and not really have anyplace to go, or to see and would spend most of my time going through inventory. Whoopie. That is sarcasm. it is the exact opposite of Whoopie!, in fact there should be a punctuation mark invented just to show how not "Whoopie!" it is, the anti-exclamation mark. Whoopiei Yayi Hurrahi
Whatever.
I've been doing treasure hunts online. Make Him Over is having a sequel, and I'm halfheartedly doing that. I don't need more clothes and skins and stuff, I just like searching, and if I don't complete it all, that's ok. One of the past treasure hunts had a party afterwards, which I didn't know about until too late. I wonder if MHOH2 will. I think I'd go to that, I'll take off my antisocial hat and practice my woot woot.
Wooti Wooti
Opacus isn't spending too much time on Avilion, either. Apparantly there was a falling out when a key player decided to retire from SL and there was some miscommunication as to who the next leader was going to be, and some unpleasant exchanges were made between the combat classes and the owner of the sim. I don't feel I have enough information to explain this in great detail, so I'll just leave it at this. Sore feelings were had.
Morty has been keeping contact with me, and a few others as well.. Lenny and Daffyd, Tiffy, Del, Gaffer and frankie, and a few others. I met a new fella named Orion (sweet guy, I think he's single. I'm not though, if I were, I surely would try a little harder to attract his attentions) I don't see Rammy and Rico nearly as often as I'd like (hint hint, Rammy, I know you're reading this) but I do know they are busy with RL.
I haven't kept up with the blogroll either, so if there's fascinating news to be had from those I normally read, sorry guys, I'll try to catch up.
Not a grand post. no lofty thoughts or anything. I just moved a ton of flagstones to re-do my sidewalk, and so all my energies have been going into my back rather than into my brain, So if you're looking for something zen-like, well, you might have to read it again and plug your own zen-desire into some wordage I may have not intented. It's cool, I don't mind. I'll blog again, I'm sure. See ya around!

Light and Opaque

It wasn't prearranged. Opacus and I were hanging out. And it happened, quite organically.

First, some catch-up:

I've been doing some treasure hunts lately. Gridwide ones. I did the Make Him Over Hunt, and then the GLBT one, and the Just For The Guys one. Also casually picked up some other ones like the one with the magnifying glass and the one with the beachball. One sure way to expand your inventory like some treasure hunts. Most of it was good stuff, though. Don't remember which one it was, but one of the prizes was three sion eggs. Hadn't heard of this before, but I tried it out. Was absolutely thrilled to find out I had living chickies

Thing about these chickens is the need to eat. and they need to sleep and they need daylight and night light. My skybox is in chiaroscuro, as I mentioned before, which is a private sim owned by Greville Oh. And he had the sun fixed to daylight there, which to me didn't matter one way or the other.But now the chickens needed the sun unfixed in the sky, cause they went into status for four days in a row. So I contacted him and he said he'd do it, no problem.. So that was good.

Then I went to Colorado in RL vacation for a week, and asked Mortyian Emor to feed the chickens.. He'said he would, no problem. Thanks I said, and went on my merry way. I came back a week later, and found the chickens asleep in stasis. When Morty and Greville talked to me later, I found out what happened. Morty wasn't able to feed the chickens because the food kept disappearing due to auto-return. So he talked to Grev and Grev set the sun, because the chickens don't need food whent they are asleep. When I told him I was back from vacation, Greville unfixed the sun again.

Apparantly this didn't affect the chickens.. they were in stasis again for another 4 days. I decided that that was that. And so I bought a plot of mainland to raise the chickens. I have a premium account and had never claimed my land, so now was as good a time as any. I looked around the grid for a while, kinda seeing what was out the, when I realized that my friend Tiffy had some land and she had said that her and her neighbors were a really tight, friendly group who got along well. I liked the idea of knowing who the neighbors are and liking them, so I asked if there was any land nearby for sale, and yes there was. I am now neighbors with Tiffy Vella and her pet rhinocerous Ionesco. So I set up a tipi and chicken coop and a little pond and made a happy little home.

So yesterday I came online and was trying to clean up my inventory in Chiaroscuro, which is a never ending job with all these treasure hunt items. And I noticed Opacus was on. I called him up and said hello, and we had some pleasantries :) He reminded me that my chickens were almost out of food, so I rushed over to them and set up a bowl. He was waiting for me there. That taken care of, we tried to figure out what to do. I'd rather do stuff with Opacus than do stupid ol inventory any day.

We bounced around to several sims. got a free quilt and Bible, and went down a waterslide. He did some 7 seas fishing, which I never got into. and then bounced around some more, went to some lame freebies shop, and trying to figure out to do, I suggested we go to Jungle Wear, where at least we could figure it out in a decent shop. So we went there, and I bought myself some decent chest hair. Still couldn't figure out what to do, so I found a porch swing and he and I just sat on it for a while, enjoying each other's company.

We talked about this and that, little stuff and eventually we talked about bigger stuff. I asked him if he ever thought of partnering with me and he said he had, and I told him I had too. And I said I would like to do it with him and he wanted to too, and it got really swell and great and we got partnered right there on the spot! It wasn't prearranged at all.

We don't have any sort of ceremony planned. which isn't to say there won't be one, but we didn't plan any of this, just did it. I contacted Leniad to see if there was anywhere he would suggest we go to celebratw, and he suggested a pool party at Sweetgrass, and we went there.. It was loud and busy and I made an announcement in local chat to everyone, but it was soon drowned out by the Woot Woots, which was ok for me. The Dj or host kept calling me Light, apparantly not reading my name right. and I liked how that worked with Opacus' name, which derives from opaque.

So Light partners with Opaque this day of August 2, 2009.

Crystallized Moments

It's funny, art is.. the way it captures a moment and freezes it in time. A photo still, a written word, a melody crystalizes a moment and suddenly this pure energy is given edges where context and meaning can grip and hold the moment.

If you've ever taken a photograph that was...just...perfect..., you know what I mean. Or if you've ever said the exact phrase that solved a problem eloquently and succinctly, the type of phrase you stop to taste and savor, you have had a touch of art. And these things happened, forgotten if not recorded. If the timing was off, a passing car's squealing tires would mar a symphony, and the child's bee-like attention would blur the photo.

There is a reason why there are masterpieces in the world. There is a reason Edvard Munch's The Scream is terrifying and laughable at once. Salvador Dali's devotion and dedication to his wife Gala are intricately wedged between bowls of rotten fruit and stilted tigers. Painting require attention and time, unlke a photo, which is immediate. But it's not the process of painting that garners the genius, and sometimes it's not even the painting itself. Sometimes its the story around the painting. Grant Wood's American Gothic was a flop when it was first display. It won 300 dollars in a contest, but then became sort of a laughing stock of mid-America. Almost eighty years later it is the pivotal litmus test of Midwestern American Art, the comparison.

As I reread my earlier blog articles, I am somewhat confounded as to why I may have said this or that, whether what I said is actually true, or only slivenly true. Not that I would lie. I have no reason to lie. But I might be neglecting important elements to the story or portraying only a singular perspective. There is always more that one can put onto a story or essay. Despite the photo's indication, the child doesn't always sit so still.

The Best versus The Great

Ok, I reserve myself to being a casual blogger. Last one was a month ago, and I hadn't even touched on the millions of issues that I wish to write about. But all one can do is make an effort, correct?

So perhaps my ambitions are too high for my output. This is my own opinion. For a very long time, I feel, I have been quite lazy about making efforts. In a sense, I have felt worn out, overworked, under-appreciated, and unfulfilled. And it is my hope that that stone has been turned over. Since last October I have been going to a therapist (in RL) for a variety of reasons, primarily depression and angst towards my changing life. And since then, numerous events have changed in my life. My last therapy session was this past Tuesday, and by last I don't just mean my latest. It was my last session, for both my therapist and I feel I have developed the specific tools that I need to overcome my particular issues. I should only need to visit her if my depressions and anxieties are too overwelming for me for me to cope ably. Also these past few weeks, the department in which I work has had some major rennovations in how we the members deal with each other as individuals and as a team. At first, the consensus was that the activities we participated would be merely the latest attempt to fix an unfixable problem. It seemed to most of us the only remedy was an amputation of workers. This past week has been an eye opener for all of us in the department, I feel, and I think we may be on the right track.

I joined facebook, both in real life and for my SL persona. (you may request friendship, if you so wish. I don't think I'd turn anyone away) and i reunited with friends from WAAYY back.. and in a more reflective moment, I realized that the past is the past, and one cannot redo it, though one can learn from it.. That was also an important revelation that we came upon in our work rennovation.

And the future is and always will be malleable. The only certainty is death, but we cannot know the details of that. So what does that leave us? Obviously that leaves us only with the present. This is not a major world shaking revelation.. Countless generations have discovered this before I have, and I have known this before, as well. But sometimes it's important to return to the idea, you know, every once in a while, to help us find out where are feet are planted.

I know I have potential for great things, and I know that I have accomplished great things. I hope and expect to do great things in the future. But what makes them so great? there are manhy historical examples of people we nowadays consider "great", who themselves may have, in their own context have actually been pretty regular people who did the best they could. Thomas Edison, for example, was considered "addled" as a child, but he went on to change the entire 20th century. His first patent was a flop, and one of his inventions killed a man (the flouroscope). He was also deaf since the age of 12. Knowing these "failures" of such a highly esteemed man brings him off his pedestal a little bit, and makes him a bit more "human".

I make mistakes. Some I admit to and some I do not. And some I am aware of and some I am not. Being "great" doesn't mean infallible, nor does it mean being famous or acclaimed. There are millions, billions of great people in the past and in the present who go about their daily lives with no acknowledgement. One shouldn't be so worried about "greatness" as I often am. One should perhaps be more concerned about being and doing the best one can.

Is a little reminder to myself.