Daily Archives: December 13, 2011

who am i?

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I’ve been watching Breaking Bad for the last week or so (I’ve become completely addicted to it) and one of the scenes made me start to think hard enough that my mind wandered and I had to pause the program.  In the scene, Jesse Pinkman is in a post-rehab meeting; and the meeting leader says something along the lines of, “You don’t come here to be a better person.  You come here to learn to accept the person that you are.”

As I said, it sort of made me think.  As far as I know, I accept the person that I am – but I’m not overly sure that I really know myself.  I tried coming up with one-size-fits-all adjectives to describe me honestly, but none of them really fit.  This exercise, of course, depressed the hell out of me and has caused me to wonder  what the answer is to today’s blog entry:  Who am I?

More specifically, what defines me?  What is it that I like doing?  What don’t I like doing? If money were no object, what would I do with myself?  What talents, if any, do I possess and are any of them worth pursuing from an “I like this” point of view?

So I’ve been thinking about this on and off for the last few days and decided I’d try to figure it out – in bits an pieces – with this little FN blog.  Not all at once, of course; and I’m not going to turn this thing into a tell-all (that’s what my original blog was becoming, which is why it is no longer open to the public).  As I think of it, though, I’ll try to hash things out.

I really like photography.  I do.  I’m not that great at it (and I do wonder if getting my stupid eyes checked would help), but I honestly enjoy it.  The feeling that I get when a really good photo comes straight out of my camera is one that I can’t describe.  I want to show it to the world, hang it on my wall, and – perhaps most importantly (and most maddeningly) – do it again.  When I see a great picture taken by someone else, I get jealous.  Not necessarily because I didn’t take it, but because if I take the same picture – even if it’s just as good or better – it still isn’t mine.  Somebody else did it first, and anything I get after that is just copying.  Screwed up, huh?  I might still love the shot that I get, but on some level I’m annoyed with myself because I didn’t think of it first.

In other news, I saw a suggested topic from one of those “Post-A-Day” blogs today that went something like, “How do you decide on your New Year’s resolutions?”

It’s an interesting question in an odd sort of way.  How do you decide which resolutions about which to be resolute?  Is that the question?  Or is it, “Why do you keep making the same promises to yourself, year after year, whether publicly or not, when you never succeed in keeping those promises?”  I mean, if I wanted to set a goal for myself and be relatively assured that I’d make that goal, it’d be something along the lines of, “I resolve that I will not wear soiled underwear during the entire 2012 calendar year.”

Now, this might be a no-brainer to some of you; but try keeping that goal when you’re camping for a few days in the middle of nowhere.  It’s not a completely safe goal if that’s the case – but I could keep it by just going commando.  So there’s that.

Those other goals, though (and I do make them – or at least think about them – every frigging year), have almost become pointless.  I mean, if there’s this “resolution” that you want to make (and keep), then why haven’t you made it and kept it previously?  Furthermore, most of the “big” resolutions are always negative.  As in, “I will not smoke this year,” or “I will not drink this year,” or “I will not eat chocolate this year” (that last one, by the way, is one of those goals that I could fly through).  And, with those negative goals, what does the person who makes them always do on December 31 – the day before those negative resolutions go into effect?

You got it.  Mr. Resolve goes out of his way to binge like hell on the very thing(s) that he’s determined to give up.   And he wonders why he’s already failed to live up to his expectations by about January 3rd.

Why not make some positive resolutions?  “I will put $5 into a cookie jar every week.”  That of course, doesn’t limit you from taking $3 out of the cookie jar every week…

Anyway, I don’t know what makes me think I’ll be able to do/not do something next year that I’ve been not doing/doing for long enough that I think I have to start/stop doing it; but I still make the damned resolutions every year, and I’m sure I’ll do it again in a few weeks.

This time, though, I think I’ll just make my resolutions on a weekly basis.  Who knows?  Maybe I can keep one going for 52 consecutive weeks.

TWD

Monday

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I knew I was going to be tired today.   Got about 4 hours of sleep on Saturday because I stayed up half the night watching season three of Breaking Bad on Netflix.  I was not aware that the 4th season isn’t available (will desperately look for it online tonight, because I’m completely hooked at this point).

Since at least college (and probably long before then), I’ve been able to function normally on the day after I don’t get enough sleep; but – regardless of how much sleep I get on that next day – I will be wiped out TWO days after not getting enough sleep.

You’d think I’d learn, huh?

Fleck (left) and Buddy chow down
In spite of walking around like a zombie at 6:30 this morning (Boo’s been letting me sleep in these days.  I might actually have to set an alarm if she keeps this up), the morning started out on a happy note because I learned that Fleck has moved into the new accommodations that I set up for my squatter kitties yesterday afternoon.
Who’s Fleck?  He’s one of about six feral cats that live in my back yard.  Several of them seem to spend most of their time either under my deck or in the “extreme” back yard (the part separated from the rest of my land by a French drain and several large privet trees), but most of them make the occasional journey up to the deck itself, and they can be seen sunning themselves on my outdoor table during nice weather.
A few of them have gotten quite used to me, which isn’t a total surprise because they’ve been getting food from me literally since before their eyes were open.  Their mom was, at any rate.  Fleck, oddly enough, was not one of those kittens who was born under the deck last summer.  I first noticed him – fully grown – hanging out in my front yard about two years ago.  Since then, I’ve spotted him now and then either hiding under the deck or slinking away through the backyard privet; but over the last few weeks he has become much more sociable and can be counted on to make his way to the deck whenever I open the back door (a noise that several of the cats have come to associate with food – for good reason).  He has come to enjoy having his head scratched and vocalizes quite a bit whenever he sees me.
My favorite little squatter cat is named Buddy, one of the kittens in the second litter born this summer.  He’s never been overly afraid of me, and about a month ago he just decided to be my outdoor pet.  Whether I give him food or not, he’ll come running to me when I go outside, and he’ll usually flop over and look at me with big eyes until I scratch his tummy.  
So yesterday, I moved the top of a litter box that had been sitting in the backyard for two or three years up to the deck and put some rags under it in the hope that Buddy would make his way to it and give up his under-the-deck sleeping quarters now that the weather has turned decidedly chilly.  Should you be wondering, the litter box top was in the backyard for the same reason – it’s basically a plastic dome that I put out there so that the cats would have a dry place to go.
Buddy didn’t seem too impressed with the setup yesterday afternoon; but when I opened the door this morning to put some food out for the feral feline buffet, Fleck nonchalantly squeezed out from under the box top, yawned, stretched, looked at me, squeaked happily, and started chowing down.
When I went out tonight to check on everybody, it appeared that Buddy may be sharing my little cat condo with his much bigger pal.  It made me smile.  They’re both very sweet cats, and I like having them out there to keep the rodents away.
On the musical front, I got a nice surprise last night.  A small group from the GBB did some red bucket caroling for the Salvation Army on Friday, which was fun; and the same group plus two more got together at the HQ of the SA last night to provide music for a Christmas dinner that they were having for their recovery groups (alcohol, drugs, etc).  We did this primarily because the SA lets the band use their temple as a rehearsal space and also lets us house music and equipment in an upstairs mechanical room – for free.  That being the case, we try to help them out with music whenever we can.  
We were told on Friday that we might possibly receive gift cards as a thanks for playing at the dinner – which is awfully nice of the SA – so it was completely unexpected and made for a really great night when, after being given a dinner and getting to listen to a (pretty good) comedian perform, we were also each given $100 in cash.
Hope all those suckers in the GBB who were too busy to help out hear about that!
Oh – and I got to play TUBA at both the Friday gig and the Sunday one.  As far as I know, I’ll be doing it again this Friday (another red bucket deal at an Atlanta mall).  After being on the tenor horn for the last 6 months, it was both a challenge and an incredible amount of fun to play the big horn.  Inspired me to maybe practice it a bit between Christmas and New Year’s, when I’ll have the house to myself and won’t have to go to work.  I’d really like to get my chops back into shape if possible.
TWD