Positively Glorious!

The Twitter sphere¹ is a strange place, admittedly, but it’s one that I find value in. Because of the idiosyncracies of that particular paradigm, I’ve become involved with Oregon Blogs, spoken at Ignite Portland #5, been a guest on Strange Love Live and become a part of The Portland Ten, not to mention meeting a large number of just really top notch and fabulous people, both here in Hood River and in the big, crazy city of Portland.

None of this would have been possible without my active involvement in the Twitter sphere. Well, honestly, all of this would have been somewhat more difficult, however, not impossible. The point is that I find value in micromessaging.

I hear people talk about how stupid it is to have this website where you just shout about “What you’re doing.”

“Who cares what you’re doing,” they complain, “it’s so stupid!”

I hear them and I smile and stay quiet. Twitter, like many things in the Web 2.1.0.2009build34 world, is something that either you get, or you don’t get. That is to say, it either provides you value, or it does not provide you value. Continue Reading »

1. Twitter is a micromessaging service that is more populated than– but not as cool as– the other micromessaging services based on Laconi.ca. If you don’t know what I just said, you may not find value in this essay. [↩]

I realize that many of the truths that I hold dear, I got from my father. Most of these are ideals that I am proud of, like “treat everyone you meet as if they are your cousin, for they very well might be.” That meant a lot to me growing up- many of my cousins were more like brothers and sisters to me. Still, there are others that I’m possibly not so proud of. One is a very specific view of things that women should and should not do. Continue Reading »

I had some bad news this morning. Really bad news- or good news if I can pull myself away from the pain of it. Another member of my family moved to Otherside Camp.

Interestingly, this passing comes with a lesson, at least for me. It’s a lesson that is directly applicable to my current desire to build something big and my current participation in an as-yet-not-openly-discussed program that I’ll describe as a “support group for people who are trying to move forward.”¹ It’s a good lesson, and so far it’s the best one that I’ve learned:

There’s always something.

Yeah, it’s simple and obvious, but for me, it’s a good lesson.

So far, my first three weeks of this group have been coincident with two deaths and a horrible sickness.² Not a single week has been, let’s say “clean.” I think my biggest lesson so far is just that. What does “clean” mean? Should the regular occurrences of life be the reason you don’t move forward?

One of the other members mentioned at a social last night that what he values in our group is the focus on making consistent progress, and I’m really beginning to appreciate that. I get a lot of stuff done, but I also get a lot more stuff merely started. I suspect that my previous style would have been to let a week or two slip by here and there if something like this happened- even if  I’m not actually doing anything about the something that “happened.”

Previously, I tended to be very unorganized, and that means that things could easily (and often) consume my full attention, regardless of their actual importance. Mind you, I’m not at all suggesting that the importance of this family member is small in any way. This occurrence deserves and requires attention. But my earlier style would have been to divert my attention if, say, I needed to wash my car, or if I decided that my bicycle chain was a bit too dirty.

There was an aspect of “all or nothing” to my progress that made “fits and starts” the rule of the day, with great pauses and slides in between both of those.

This week, I’m working on defining and planning ways to react to this new crisis, while keeping focused on the bigger picture. That’s pretty big for me. I’m not really sure how I would have reacted previously, but I suspect that I may not have thought much about my project at all until after the funeral- which is in a couple weeks. It’s not like I would’ve done or thought about anything during that time, I just would’ve put stuff off because there was a convenient reason. Oh how I loved those convenient justifications for procrastination!

Now, I grab my planner and reorganize the stuff that I have to get done in a consistent and considered manner. Even if things get pushed back, I’m choosing the things that get pushed back and doing so with both long- and short-term strategies in mind.

It feels good. Mostly because I know that I’m making time for the things that I want to accomplish, rather than just passively trying to get things done whenever they pop into my head. It means that I’m not missing out on things that I would previously be upset about.

1. There’s a press release or some such thing in the works for this group, and some people have heard about it, but I don’t want to steal anyone’s sailwind. [↩]
2. well, that’s a bit over the top- I’m a wimp, so this flu/fever/strep thing was horrible for me, but might have been a piece of cake for someone else. [↩]

I’ve decided that every once in a while I’m going to build a Wordle cloud from my main RSS feed, just to see how my blog looks at a glance. I must say, I’m pretty happy with the first cut. “Stories” is the biggest word there, which makes sense to me, a story teller. I like that “feel,” “write,” “make,” and “humanity” are all so prominent as well. Over all, this is a very positive cloud, and makes me smile and feel good to look at it.

Word Cloud from Wordle.net

Act II

LIGHTS come up on an office containing a single desk. Papers are scattered all over the office including on the desk, side table and floor. Sitting at the desk is a man. He is completely still and slouched in his chair as if trying to lay down. He has a blanket over his legs and is wearing a heavy wool sweater, scarf, vest, wool hat and wool fingerless gloves. He’s still shivering even though it is roughly 75 degrees in the office. He moves only to cough, or slowly drink from his cup of hot tea.

MUSIC plays, quietly at first, but quickly building to a normal volume, at which the man, still unmoving, begins to sing in a croaking voice.

John
I feel sickly, 
Oh, so sickly, 
I feel sickly and icky and blah! 
And I pity 
Any boy who feels like me to- (or three days from now when I’ll probably still be sick!) 

I feel awful, 
Oh, so dreadful 
I can’t fit all this snot in my head! 
And so sickly
That I hardly can believe I’m not dead. 

See the sickly boy in that mirror there: 
Who can that greenish ghoul be? 
Such a sickly face, 
Such an achy bod, 
Such a scratchy throat, 
Such a sickly me! 

I feel phlemmy 
And condemny, 
And I feel that of life I’m bereft, 
For I’m sickly
And I haven’t got a sick day left!! 

The music builds to a crechendo as happy co-workers enter from off-stage and dance around the still unmoving John, throwing papers, tossing phones, jumping up in the air and singing comic verses that are as poorly written as the ones above.

Eventually, after time mellows things, there will be much about my mother’s funeral dumped into The Pit of Despair. For now, however, I have a more comical find. While going through my mother’s– shall we say “extensive”– collection of photographs¹ I found a couple collections of me as a boy. I’ll forego the visit to Slideshow Boredom Hotel, and give you only two.

What do you mean? This IS my kill face!

This is me in the Army at bootcamp. They told us that we had to take a picture with our “kill” face. After about 5 minutes of coaching, my drill seargent just gave up on me and said “That’s good enough, get the hell out of my sight!”

After fighting in Desert Storm. This is me: "hardened"

This is me in Navy bootcamp, after going through the Army and fighting in Desert Storm. You’d think that being in an actual war would harden me. You know, make me into more of a badass or something. I will say that Navy bootcamp was a joke, and mostly consisted of my laughing at their feable attempts to scare me. However, I can’t make any claims to deserving the word “badass.” I’d say “little boy” more hit’s the mark!

Most of the experience of going through my mother’s apartment was terribly troubling. Finding pictures of me as a kid brought a bunch of smiles to my face.

1. She had childhood pictures of my grandmother’s nextdoor neighbor’s parents… as children. No, that is not a joke. [↩]