of normalcy

the man who often stands at the corner where the off-ramp meets the city street is talking to himself this morning. his attention is directed into the weedy roadside, and he's only half-facing the road, but i can see his mouth moving in that distinctive rhythmic way that denotes talking. i can't tell if he is making sound, if he is actually talking out loud, but there's an attitude of sincerity about him.

normally, he stares at the exiting cars. well, normal in this case being what is normal for him, what is usual for him. i wouldn't say it is precisely normal to stand beside the off-ramp and stare into cars. his stare is simultaneously intense and unfocused, as if he is looking completely through car, driver, passengers, detritus of the commute, and studying the road itself.

but, today his attention is elsewhere and this somehow causes in me a stab of homesickness as palpable as the mingled taste of toothpaste and coffee on my tongue.

the signal changes and i am reminded of my place in the river of traffic. i am reminded of my normal. away i float on the current of purpose that propels the fully employed.

you say manic, i say potato.

at work we have a benefit called humana vitality. it's basically the gamification of fitness.

you find the website, join up, make a profile, and start earning points. you get points for having the (at my place of work, required) basic health screening, and then if your numbers are (as are mine) in the above-average range, you get more points. you get points for visiting the doctor, the dentist, for giving blood, for exercise.

all these points add up and you can spend them at the vitality mall to purchase fitness equipment, fitness gear, and (paradoxically) movie tickets. i made quite a splash during the entry and quickly had enough points to get something, but didn't have the interest to shop. i even had enough points for a device, but didn't really want one. who needs it? meh.

then came STEPPING INTO SPRING!

another aspect of the program is challenges. you can start a challenge, invite other people to the challenge, join other peoples' challenges. the HR department started a challenge called "stepping into spring" where teams compete to see who can get the most steps. the only way to get your steps counted is to link a device or app to the system. i wanted to join the challenge but didn't like the apps. what i really needed was a device. where to get one... where to get one...

heh.

i hopped on the humana vitality mall and found a nice little garmin device. i had it linked and counting right away. devices are so easy these days. the device syncs to an app and the app syncs to humana vitality.

so now i am counting steps every day, all day long. at first, it was a thing to get 10,000 but then i saw that 10,000 is relatively simple. now i am all about the 15, 17, 20,000.

it takes less than a minute to walk 100 steps and you only have to do that 10 times to get a thousand and you only have to do THAT 20 times to get 20,000. it's just not that hard.

so, now i am all about the walking and walking. take the long way to the restroom. take the long way to the meeting. walk around the block before work. walk around the block at lunch. i also spend a lot of time walking in place at my stand-up desk.

i was less than uninterested... really, i resisted getting a device. i didn't want another thing, another bond, tie, link. i didn't want to have a "here i am" broadcaster strapped to my wrist. didn't want any of that... until the competition. i am really a bit of a whore for competition. i couldn't resist anymore.

i started STEPPING INTO SPRING about 4 days after it started and now i am leading my team and in the top 10 overall.

walking walking walking counting counting counting.

still, i am ambivalent about the device. i truly don't like the tethered feeling it gives me and i really don't like having one of what everyone else in the world has. as ruthlessly normcore as i am, it's just a byproduct of being me. i am not choosing normcore, i simply am normcore because of my choices. these fitness bands are the epitome of normcore and simultaneously, not really me. if it were me, i'd have it no matter what status it has vis-a-vis normcore, but since it's not really me, and it is normcore, it's like i have chosen the fitness band BECAUSE it's normcore. see? i haven't chosen it because it's "me" so i must have chosen it because it's normcore. see? see?? are you getting any of this???

bottom line, i am a mad counting beast right now, but after the competition is over, the tether will be broken.

of whisky and trig points

today i saw a headline about how jon savage won the 2016 penderyn music book prize. i was like, what the hell kind of prize is that?

so i click the link and learn that this is the second year of existence for the penderyn music book prize, which is as it sounds - a prize specifically for books about pop music. there's a panel, nominees, an announced short list, and then an announced winner. the chosen one is given "a cheque for £1,000 and a bottle of Penderyn whisky". i'm like, what the hell kind of whisky is that?

so i google it and learn that penderyn is a tiny town in wales and home of the only whisky distillery in wales.

Penderyn is a rural village in Cynon Valley, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. It is located near Hirwaun, and for postal purposes it comes under the town of Aberdare in the Cynon Valley in the county of Rhondda Cynon Taf in Wales.

It lies on the A4059 road between Hirwaun and Brecon and is the last settlement on that road in the county of Rhondda Cynon Taf before the border with Powys to the north. The village sits just within the southern boundary of the Brecon Beacons National Park. The River Cynon passes through the area.

It is the home of Penderyn Whisky, produced by the Penderyn Distillery (formerly the Welsh Whisky Company (Y Cwmni Wisgi Cymreig)). The award winning single malt whisky is the only whisky distilled in Wales, launched in 2004 after an absence of whisky distilling in Wales for more than 100 years.

Within the village, there are two chapels (Siloam Chapel and Soar Chapel) and one church (St Cynog's Church).

reading this gives me that homesick-esque feeling, that wistfulness of knowing that there is a beautiful little town i will never see and a world full of languages i'll never understand.

BUCK UP THERE, LASSIE!

so i'm perusing the wikipedia entry on penderyn, looking at the picture of siloam chapel, which looks about a million years old, and observing the map on which penderyn is a wee dot. i learn pen means "head of" and deryn comes from aderyn, bird, so the town is called bird head. i find this amusing.

under the see also section is this: "Moel Penderyn - prominent local landmark". well, THAT looks intriguing. so i click.

turns out, moel penderyn is a hill on the edge of penderyn village. i assume moel means hill...? this particular moel has at its summit a "trig point".

okay, a WHAT?

now i am really intrigued. this sounds absolutely fascinating.

so i google it.

turns out a trig point - also known as a triangulation station, triangulation pillar, trigonometrical station, trigonometrical point, trig station, trig beacon, or trig - is a fixed surveying station. it's like, a completely known point from which other points are triangulated.

oh my.

i don't know what i thought surveyors were doing, but i am starting to realise they were probably doing something completely different than i thought they were doing because - wait for it - their are KNOWN POINTS. who knew??

now i am wondering about trig points near me and turns out we can look them up! (check out http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/datasheets/.) i choose "search by county", pick my state then county, and then choose all the options to see the datasheets.

okay, stop my train. have you ever seen one of these things? you could literally find the actual trig point from the datasheet! yeah, i know. that's what they're for.

FD0655 STATION DESCRIPTION
FD0655
FD0655'DESCRIBED BY TN HIGHWAY DEPT 1963
FD0655'6.6 MI N FROM SPRING HILL.
FD0655'FROM THE POST OFFICE IN SPRING HILL GO NORTH ON U.S. HIGHWAY 31
FD0655'FOR 6.6 MILES TO THE MARK ON THE RIGHT. THE MARK IS LOCATED
FD0655'53.5 FEET NORTHEAST OF THE CENTERLINE OF U.S. HIGHWAY 31, 36
FD0655'FEET SOUTHEAST OF A POWER POLE. THE MARK IS A STANDARD TENNESSEE
FD0655'HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT DISK CEMENTED IN A DRILLED HOLE IN THE NORTH
FD0655'WEST END OF A 19 FOOT CONCRETE CULVERT.
FD0655
FD0655 STATION RECOVERY (1984)
FD0655
FD0655'RECOVERY NOTE BY NATIONAL GEODETIC SURVEY 1984
FD0655'RECOVERED IN GOOD CONDITION. NOTE, LOCATED 25.9 METERS (85.0 FT) WEST
FD0655'OF THE NORTH END AND ACROSS THE SOUTHBOUND LANE OF HIGHWAY 31 FROM A
FD0655'LARGE BILLBOARD SIGN.
FD0655'THE MARK IS ABOVE LEVEL WITH HIGHWAY.

fascinating, fascinating, fascinating. the information is fascinating and i plan to look into it even more and in fact, scout out some of these places.

also fascinating is that in about 15 minutes, i have gone from wistful pining for the world i'll never see, to realising i am not even looking at the world i have right here.

tangential humour spectra

it was april fools the other day and it got me thinking how i frequently cannot discern between what's funny and what's mean. (because, you know, i think about myself, like, all the time.) anyway, i only know this tidbit about myself because i'll often say something i believe to be funny, and someone else will be all, oh that's mean. huh - i'll think - really?

the family in which i grew up was diagnosably dysfunctional, but hell, whose wasn't? i mean, we had our shit and all, but it wasn't any better or worse than anyone else's shit. it was just shitty shit. that's all.

one of our "things" was that we'd express love through insults. classic irish, not that unusual, but when you grow up that way, you're just going to have trouble telling funny from mean. or, come to think of it, love from mean. or, love from funny? anyway, you going to come out a bit mixed up.

thing is, when you are the mixed up one, you don't know it. it's not like i go around all the time in consternation over my mean humour - because, to me, it's just humour. it's y'all who think its mean.

plus, it's not like y'all are consistent or anything. sometimes i say something funny and you think it's funny and sometimes you think it's mean. how'm i supposed to learn anything about the funny-mean spectrum if you are totally not consistent about what's what?

PLUS, add in all the times that you don't think it's funny and also don't particularly think it's mean. all those times when it's just a dud. i am fairly certain most people are dealing with this -- the funny-unfunny spectrum -- without any tangential humour spectra.

i'm dealing with both the funny-unfunny and also the funny-mean, but i don't actually see the funny-mean, so for me, it's all funny-unfunny. and, for me, funny is primary, so i'll take mean if i have to, but unfunny is not acceptable.

and that, my friends, is why i say mean shit.

get used to it.