of vigilance and bed-making

i'm sure you've heard by now what happened in orlando this morning -- in the wee hours, a terrorist attacked a nightclub, killing 50 and injuring another 50 or more people. what the hell, am i right??

we were watching the news coverage today and at one point, i got up to use the toilet. walking through the bedroom to the lavatory, i saw the bed was unmade. i thought i should make it and then the next immediate thought was who the fuck cares about the damn bed. people have been killed. damn. THEN i thought it would be great to just get back in bed and pull up the covers and not think about shit like people getting shot.

and that's when i realized i had to make the bed.

partially, i had to keep myself from crawling back in, and a made bed is a definite disinvitation to crawl back in. the simple act of putting effort into making something neat contributes to the disinclination to mess it up.

partially, i had to do something normal. the way news coverage today is comprised of reports which purport to be updates but are not substantively different one to the next -- this microscopic examination is not normal. making the bed is normal and doing something normal puts life back into perspective.

not that it's not normal to care about the world or be concerned about horrific violence. of course that's normal. you just can't let it consume you.

you just can't. vigilance against getting consumed by events is the linchpin of sanity.

after planes hit the twin towers on 9/11, i was sitting in my office glued to (then nascent) internet news, mainlining twizzlers. you know, as one does. into the afternoon as normalcy began to peek out around the corners, a coworker sent an email about sign-ups for an upcoming 5k. at first, i was like, what the hell - the world is ending and we're talking about 5k's?!

but that email did perform the valuable service of pulling my brain back from the brink. "you don't want to go there," it said. "and what's more, you don't have to. look, we're all over here, being normal. come be normal with us."

of course, it wasn't that easy. there was a cavernous gap between the morning of 9/11 and normalcy. but just like making the bed, reading and mentally processing that email reset my perspective.

these actions are a mental respite. they could be no more than momentary, like a water station in a marathon. the race isn't over, but it's a wee break, a chance to take stock, and hey look, i'm not ready to quit yet.

i made the bed, and went on from there to do some laundry and wash the cars.

because i'm not ready to quit yet.

i think you get the point.

i promised myself i'd write today, but i really have nothing at all to say, so i'll tell you a game we used to play, when i was but a child. it would always make us laugh, to see which one would be the last, spontaneously a rhyme to cast, when i was but a child.

it went thuslywise: starting from a normal everyday conversation, someone would note the organically arising rhyme and they'd call it out, and it would go from there. is this a 'real' game? maybe it's a party game? i don't know. we never played it on purpose as a game. it was always organic and spontaneous.

as in...


alfa: they're building an arena at the boat dock.

beeda: a marina arena?

alfa: yes.

(pause)

beeda: what do you call a venue at the toe dancers' boat dock?

alfa: ballerina marina arena.

alfa: what do you call a venue at the toe dancers' boat dock on an island off the coast of california?

beeda: catalina ballerina marina arena

beeda: what do you call an eatery at a venue at the toe dancers' boat dock on an island off the coast of california?

alfa: catalina ballerina marina arena cantina

alfa: what do you call a legal notice served at an eatery at a venue at the toe dancers' boat dock on an island off the coast of california?

beeda: catalina ballerina marina arena cantina subpoena

beeda: what do you call a legal notice served to a dish of pasta at an eatery at a venue at the toe dancers' boat dock on an island off the coast of california?

alfa: catalina ballerina marina arena cantina semolina subpoena



... i think you get the point.

my sweet disbelieving heart

i could live here. i mean, if i needed a place to land, to reestablish, this could be that place. thing is, despite your disbelief, you are my heart. if an occurrence were to pull, pluck, or rip my heart from me, the last place i'd want to be is the place where i'd been with my heart. every traffic signal, every blade of grass, every child on a bicycle, every cup of coffee, library book, trip to target... everything would evoke nothing but you. like someone suffering a traumatic head injury, i'd have no taste, no smell, no feel for anything in a world gone grey and flat without you.

i could not be
only me
in the place
we were we.

so, anyways, i could live here.

the streets are laid out in nice even blocks, perfect for navigating by car or by foot. the houses are a bit down at the heels but the yards are kept and each contains its own flowering bush, a rose or gardenia or somesuch. there is a starbucks on every fucking block - and sometimes two! in chipotle and in walgreens and in the funny little organic market where the selection is so narrow, they are always playing a song i like. literally, always. keane. postal service. death cab. bastille. phoenix. miike snow. some band called american tomahawk. some guy called jamie scott. the mall has a barnes & noble and a dollar store. public transportation is omnipresent and inexpensive. being outside is an actual thing that people actually choose to do on a regular basis - bicycling, hiking, jogging. and here, grey skies are normal.

the people are friendly, but not in a way that gets in your way. not invasive, i mean. they make eye contact. they smile. they aren't belligerent when you place your order or ask where the cheez-its are. they aren't standoffish. they're just nice, on a normal scale. they recycle and accommodate vegetarians, but they aren't combative - if you forget to drop your water bottle in the correct bin, they don't castigate you. on the whole, people here are easy going. could be because pot is legal here... or could be why it's legal.

yeah, this place has good outlets - i could plug right in. so, i'll remember it's here if i ever need it, but i hope i'll never need it. i hope i'll always have the only thing i ever really wanted... you - my sweet disbelieving heart.

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.