I had this whole great thing about Christians and participation and shock films worked up, even containing a witty Stevie Wonder reference, and it got wasted on a network timeout. If my server had a personality, I could punish it for such misdeeds, but as is it wouldn’t understand the purpose of the torments.

Anyway, I think the gist was, if I’ve ever made your life hard by trying to get you out of your comfort zone when you couldn’t be budged, I’m sorry. I reserve the right to find this unworldliness a small character flaw, but I don’t have any right to give you shit about it. I’m your friend. I chose to accept you, all of you, when I signed on. It’s your choice whether, and under which circumstances, to accept me in return. That’s your right.

Also I, as an engineer, really need to unlearn my habit of mincing words. It’s totally awful and gets in my way constantly.

Today I was reminded about one of the facts of Life:

Things aren’t really at their easiest when they are easy. Things are easiest (and best) when they are moderately hard.

That’s because the easy way out is a false goal. Short-term easy and long-term Good rarely line up, not from where I’m standing anyhow. Every day of my life, maybe a dozen times a day, I make a certain choice. Not exactly between Good and Evil, although there is often a “right” answer and I know what it is. It’s the choice to help myself or not. It happens when I’m mustering effort to fight the magnetic pull of my bedsheets; it happens when someone leaves out a box of empty calories in the office kitchenette. It happens when I prioritize between a “pet” software enhancement and the next in my queue of bug fixes. When I decide whether I’ve got time to pop over to the gym with my sledgehammer. When I choose whether to show up for blues lessons.

It happens a particular lot when I have to interact with the orbit of providers and professionals, the IRS, insurers, etc. To clean my room. To look after myself.

As a child I did not learn that chores and drudgery were best approached head-on, that the pressure of snowballing tasks outweighs the freedom from work. I experienced it from the wrong end, but I never learned. It’s in my nature to resent that life doesn’t let me rest on my laurels.

But the fact remains, and while I’ve learned to find pleasure in the routine avoidance of unedifying labor, I find no joy.

I need less pleasure in my life, and more joy. I can’t reach my potential the way I’ve been doing things, because without joy in life, I’m lethargic. Parts of me are just turned off for lengthy periods. Parts that keep promising they’ll do neat things, and which other geeks would find attractive.

Have I done things today that were the Right Thing for me? And how will I do the Right Thing tomorrow? These can be troubling questions, because my self-awareness has always been critical, not strategic. The complete answer requires an external observer. An anchor.

Lovers are by far the best anchors, but friends and relations work too, and I’ve got a few of those that do me a lot of good. Anchors help you stay sharp and balanced, pointing you in the right direction and then letting go, so that you get through the lame stuff a bit more easily. It’s a bit like being a throwing knife. But with a lot less bloodshed. Okay, it isn’t really like that. Whatever.

It’s for a completely different reason, but the reek of polymer is much like the varnish smell when we first moved in. Ginneh will be unpleasantly surprised when she gets home, I daresay. Unfortunately the tub needed fixing. See, when they renovated our awesome antique bathtub the first time, they covered the inside with  some kind of airtight plastic skin, which was great until it got an air pocket and tore. I’m not sure what they did with it this time, but it stinks and we can’t use the shower til tomorrow night.

God, so much stuff happens and I’m not even getting it all down. I should be keeping it in mind that my long-term recollection of life events is piss-poor and that not blogging usually means I’m not paying enough attention to my e-self generally. Last week I went in for career day at Olin, got there in time to eat fancy cheese while mostly only talking to the same people I always talk to, got some wonderful hugs, and got to watch the VP debates in typical Olin fashion, which is kind of like being an audience member of Mystery Science Theater 3000–groans, laughter and all. It’s not like either of them screwed up big, they’re just more interested in playing at politics than they are in having a proper debate, and it gets a little absurd at times.

We’re surrendering to teh evul and getting Comcast from now until I find an excuse to dump their lame, overpriced arse. It sounds like our area may be getting Verizon FiOS soon, and it’s batshit crazy how much bandwidth we could have for the same amount we’ll pay for Comcast’s “cheap” service. Blargh.

Public Service Announceent: National Novel Writing Month is coming up everybody. Best start thinking ahead. Unfortunately the upcoming release at work has most of my attention; I’ll have to see what I can come up with over the next couple weekends. Odd how it seems much further into October already than it is.