gratitude + envy + concern

gratitude + envy + concern

(this news item posted on February.10.2008)

gratitude:

I am so grateful every time I get an opportunity to participate in making great music. I can not understand why some people are not. Of late I have seen people make some really great music and be MAD after. What's the point in that? Just create some joy, everything else will work itself out.

envy:

I sometimes wonder if it's even possible for a person like me to even get into a relationship with complete and total honesty any more. I get all kinds of envious of people in my community who've had the opportunity to be in love with people that I wish I had the opportunity to be in love with. And then I tell myself "Oh sure, if I were willing to be a liar and dust off all of those weapons of manipulation, I could have those opportunities too." I feel better when I tell myself that. But in reality, I'm mostly just envious that many people have the ability to tell the people they're attracted to how they feel about them and I often do not.

concern:

For many, many years the house next door was occupied by various neighbors that screamed at their children and terrorized their little ones quite publicly. Now the house always has it's curtains drawn and there are occasional sounds of muted arguing and once in a great while you see timid children out in front of the house. I like to tell myself it's none of my business. That's easiest.

500 + 56 + 30

500 + 56 + 30
(this news item posted on February.03.2008)

So maybe you noticed, maybe you didn't, but I had a numbers theme going through my journal for a while. One of the first posts I intended to make, in fact, one of the ideas that gave me the idea for numbered journal entries was going to be an entry called 500.

500 - 500 was going to be an entry about having 500 friends. On myspace. I had 498 at the time and I was just going to wait a couple days assuming I'd get a couple more friends and then write about who those friends are. Basically: a quarter of them are --or were at one time-- actual local friends that I see from time to time; 13% are people that I know and have met and hung out with in real life but live far away (mostly UU friends), and another 13% are causes that added me or I added because that seemed like the thing to do; A good 11% are bands, mostly ones that I really like, that I like to keep up with their CD releases and touring schedule and stuff; About 8% are books, other authors, book reviewers or bookstores; 5% are local businesses or activist groups that I want to keep in touch with; 4% are people I do not know --people who added me out of the blue that seemed like really awesome people or friends of friends or people I have no clue about but haven't taken the time to delete; and another 4% are local bands and musicians; 3% are pages of famous people that I really like and/or extremely well done fan sites for famous people I really like; and then the remaining handful are pages for movies (mostly documentaries) that I added for some reason or another.

So I still dunno if I'll ever quite reach 500. The 490s seems to be my limit, and looking through the thing just reminds me that I need to remove a few.

Whatevs.

56 - I was, one upon a time, going to write an update post about all of the numbers at work. Featuring the pallet jack I once wrote about, 56. For anyone who might care, that pallet jack is doing just fine. I stopped using it for a while because the slightly better pallet jack that my boss always used to use back then became available to me. But now that one's in the shop and I've been reacquainted with my old buddy. For a machine it has many great sounds and sensations that are unique to it: almost gives it a personality.

30 - And in new news, my friend Jon and I are starting up a website for UUs over age 30. Trying to figure out how to unlock the potential in that age group and give back some of what was given to us when we were in the Young Adult category, and how to infuse UUism in general with all of the wonderfully life-afirming things that Young Adults seem to get and some older UUs out in the congregations may not completely grok.

Should be a fun ride. More details to follow on that I'm sure.


So that's that then.

-Alex