Bible limitations

Growing up, I would frequently be told that if I wasn't reading the Bible, I wasn't following God.  I would just as frequently counter with "God can be found everywhere and you're limiting Him by stating that."  Or somethings to those effects.

There was always a large part of me that knew I was purposely avoiding the Bible because of the evil that was wielding it.  The controlling negativity was like a forcefield around the Book, and when curiosity got the better of me, I'd hide with it so I could read without a dramatic overture into my salvation (and the subsequent loss of it).  It wasn't about my turning toward the light or whatever, or being born again, or saved, or whatever.  I knew that was already done far earlier than I could ever explain.  It was about wanting to read a book, satiate curiosity, and to experience this sense of wonder and comfort and calm.

I still avoid the Book much of the time.  Not as purposely, mind you - that evil has been dead to me for two years now, and nobody cares if I read it or not (well, except a certain friend of mine, but she has scarcely a dribble of power over me compared to the power I gave my biological mother).  Nonetheless, the awareness of this avoidance still plagues me.  I can now acknowledge it more openly to myself, but I still don't make it a point to read it.  Then again, I counter, I know a lot of it.  Its stories were drilled into me rather effectively, despite all doubts.  But, I remind myself, when you hear a song about God or read anything having to do with Him, your first instinct is to bolt.  That's true, I admit.  I still harbour fear and resentment deep within for that one who would have had me turn away from Him.  "God can be found everywhere, you know," I then sense.  "After all your words, you are now the one limiting Him."

Something about casting the first stone?  I daresay, it's true.

My non-religious mother-in-law gave me a book called "Love Does" by Bob Goff.  It came with a warning that it is somewhat religious in that the guy talks a lot about God, but it was a good read nonetheless.  Her taste in books often mirrors my own, so I figured what the hey, and began reading.  Wonderful, lighthearted, happy, joyous, optimistic - this God-loving fellow has all of that to share and then some.  This is the opposite of what "she" would have read, yet here it is, God in all His glory, talking to me through this weird, witty, unflappable, undaunted, unhaunted lawyer-authour.  I frequently find myself stopping to smile and reflect on how happy I am that I didn't simply turn this book over to my religiously fanatic friend - although I will gladly turn it over to her once I'm done - I strongly suspect this is one book we would both enjoy.  Perhaps even discuss.  Probably not the last part, but maybe.

"The original sin is to limit the Is.  Don't."  Richard Bach wrote that in "Illusions:  The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah."  That has stuck with me since the first time I read it.  It resonated deeper than any bass string could ever have resonated.  It has helped me to get farther in life, because I know that I get in God's way an awful lot, and that one-liner helps me remember to get out of my own way so God can guide me towards what's best for me in the long run so I can do my tiny little part in whatever Plan is intended.  It tends to have the side effect of helping me be happier, too, and life seems generally easier.  Not to say I don't still stress over stuff like a normal human being, but because of that one-liner, I allow the stress to consume me knowing that it's normal and it will be over at some point so I can get back on track.  And I always do, somehow.  Some times, it takes longer than others.

This "Love Does" book, well, the guy says something I also liked.  He'd always thought you had to be someone special to be used by God.  Now he knows you just have to say "Yes."

It is perhaps ironic that the only items I have any desire of which are my mother's are her Bible and an orange cup, the last surviving cup of four.  The orange cup, because it's butt-ugly in its own pretty way and reminds me of the time she shattered one and made me clean it up because she had let so much rage build up that it exploded one day in the eighties.  The Bible is more curious.  It should represent everything I hated about her, yet it doesn't.  I have very fond memories of curling up with it and gently flipping through the thin, golden-edged pages, marveling at the Old English spellings and soaking them in at a young age.  It strongly influenced how I spell today, although I only realised that in the last ten years when I leafed through it some time ago and saw those spellings.  All those comments, arguments!  That's not how you spell colour, I was constantly reprimanded by both teacher and peer alike.  Most certainly is one way of spelling colour, I'd state unwaveringly, knowing it was also in the little red dictionary I carried with me everywhere I went.  But for years I could not figure out where I first saw those spellings or why I automatically went British on my fellow Americans.  Then one day, talking to Mum, there it was:  I picked up her Bible and leafed through it.  "Oh," I said.  What, she said.  "This is where I got those from."  "What?"  "'o-u' in colour, favourite, neighbour.  It's Old English.  This was my first book."

She likely believes my first book was a children's story she read to me when I was little.  She taught me to read very early on.  I remember those lessons, the ones she'd give me before she turned on me, back when she still had enough love to share with a wee one.  But I've considered her Bible my first real book for as long as I can remember.  It has always been there shining at me with its soft yellow-white glow, even when she'd wield its contents as she might a sword.

Why do I limit the Is so?  Why did I ever allow her to steer me away from that book?  Why wasn't I strong enough to read it in front of her?  Dunno.  Point of wonder, but then, back then, I was a happy soul shoved in a torturous cage of fear and isolation and oppression.  My internal fire was scarcely an ember, buried in sand, awaiting the day a pocket of air would appear to fan it back into an inferno that could eventually settle into a firmly warming crackle.  It simply wasn't time at the time.  I'm human, is what that boils down to.  Just like every human else.  :)

~nv

The Muse

Mom used to tell me I was tone deaf and quite frankly, she told me lots of things that were untrue about myself.  It took a long time to undo all her teachings and of course I still struggle with some of them.  It's made easier without her around trying to reinforce them all the time.  If it had been up to her, I'd be a single mom with five kids, no teeth, no friends, and would be living on welfare while taking care of her and telling her how awesome she is while believing I was the worst person on the face of the planet (which wouldn't be a huge leap from everyone else, really).

Eff that.

Instead, I took the useful skills she gave me - and yes, I know these may be somewhat contradictory - and put them to use, then built upon them.  Reading, love of learning, fierce independence, and the ability to think well ahead of many people... these have served me well.  She didn't want me to have my faith, she wanted me to have hers, but I somehow kept my beliefs anyway and never let her tempt me away from my own sense of that.

I have, with much awareness, kept my awareness of my intuition and observational skills (also a contradiction, since I find it difficult to notice and remember people's appearances, such as whether they're skinny, fat, black, white, etc), and had the nerve to build relationships with other people.  Even to the point of having my own reputation (it seems to help me, but I'm still not sure exactly what I'm known for, and I kinda don't really want to know but I hope it involves honesty and customer service in some fashion).

While my self confidence still struggles, I have mostly boosted it with a lot of help from chosen family, and many friends and colleagues over the years.  I have made personal choices to keep myself on the right track, to take care of myself and not forget my roots and the easy pitfalls I could have made if I hadn't climbed out.

It still struggles, though.  If I trust someone, and my instincts tell me they're wrong, but they insist they're right, I will go with their words over my own instincts.  And whenever I know inside that I'm hitting notes properly, I'm never sure that I really know.  There is always a part of me that wonders... is it just that Dale and his mother are tone-deaf themselves or so sensitive to my delicately fragile self-esteem that they tell me what I want to hear?  Are my friends unwilling to burst my bubble?  Is my own voice teacher lying to me to avoid her own failures?  But then I listen to a newer recording, or to someone online who I like the voice of, or watch as I'm spot-on with my phone's little measuring app... and I think, what the hell.  You may still have some moments, but by God, you're far from tone deaf.  You can do this.  With the amount of practicing you do (very little), you have come along amazingly well.

After weeks of not practicing, I managed to sing a song I'd practiced with my teacher some time ago, thrice, and got most of it with pretty much no effort... and I flipped the page upside down the first two times and simply changed the words as I kept up, as if I'd been doing it for years.  "--and the page is upside downnnn... remind meeeee to reprint this stupid little page... oh my that's so much betterrrr..." and I laughed a bit as I kept up, and then got back on track, catching little moments of slipping off a bit but just continuing on, not caring.  You know what?  Not everyone can do that.  Not everyone knows.  There was a time /I/ didn't know when I did that.  I may not be Mariah Carey or Celine Dion or Whitney Houston or Vienna Teng, but damn, that's pretty cool.

So after the lesson, I'm wandering around the house singing to Vienna Teng's "Gravity" and remember the bread rising in the oven - someone wanted to try some of my pan bread some day.  They may be back here with Dale later, so I figured I'd at least have it ready for cooking just in case they hung around before I had to leave.  Can I just be a normal person and make it as I always do?  No.  I toss it on the grill.  Of course.  I tried making some at camp last week and it came out awesome.  Never mind that we had charcoal, not gas.  Never mind that it was out in the open air, and I could position the rack well over the coals and still keep some heat on it.  Oh, no.  Plop.

Seems to be ok.  I shut off the gas and left it in there once the outside was hard but pre-burnt.  Then me in my infinite wisdom wandered around the house wanting lunch but not wanting to make it.  I could see it coming.  The flour came back out.  Next thing I knew, I had sour cream and butter mixed into what I'm guessing is a scone base.  It ends up on the griddle, the big greasy smooshed together pile of crumbly mess.  What was I thinking?  That will never flip.  I'm surprised it didn't totally fall apart.  I can hear myself tsk tsking my creative little child.  I could also hear it in the background, loudly wondering why it wasn't being listened to.  The parent!  That was the parent.  I remember those lessons, the parent, child, and adult... yup, that's a parent all right.  Eventually my spidey senses went off and I ventured back out to flip the mess.  I was right.  It was a little burnt on the bottom, but salvageable.  It flipped in piece.  Wait, what?  And that patient silence simply pushed my hand in the direction of the knob.  I shut off the gas, closed the lid, and walked away.  How long do I leave it out there?  No answer.  I will know when it's time.  She'll tell me.  I didn't even glance at a clock.

Is the child the creative one?  She did these things in an automated, non-thinking fashion, out of a simple decision.  It isn't even will, exactly.  It's simply intent.  There were no words.  It was a sheer line of singing accompanied by hands squishing flour and butter and sour cream into crumbles, taking note of the texture and being vaguely aware that I may need to clean that out from under my rings later.  She may be a child, I'm not sure.  She must be, because she is not the adult since she has desire, and she is certainly not the parent because she's not a bitchy I-told-you-you-suck mother.  She is the one I often call The Muse.  I like her.  A lot.  But she tends to come out on her own when she damned well feels like it.  She is never malicious, she just does whatever she feels like doing at any given time.  She is the one that tells me when I *must* write, she is the one that knows how to make my voice sing with feeling.  She knows how to play along to a song on the piano without studying first, and she's the one that makes me go do it as if I'm in a trance.  She can paint birds, cows, trees, landscapes, Sinclair's eyes, and sketch Dale's face with a light curtain partially obscuring it.  The Muse can make scones from scratch without a recipe the first time.  She tells me how to make bread and refuses to listen to directions.  Refuse isn't quite the word... she simply ignores instructions.  And she is very much in tune with my intuition.  I often think of how glad I am that she's not malevolent, because I swear she can do anything.

Mom may have inadvertently helped The Muse to form.  Leaving me alone for so long to my own devices, what else could have formed?  I was trapped in my own little world of not understanding people, of what boils down to an inner silence.  I had thought, and little interaction, and I was ok with that much of the time.  So later, when this little being was told to be someone else... the growth on the outside might have been listening and trying to conforming and being frequently scared and sad, but The Muse just sat there wrapped up in her little blanket having conversations with Love in her silent little way.  If that's my core coming out when it decides to, then it's no wonder I'm so damned strong, no wonder I was able to break away from the poison of my upbringing and be who I am now.  Nobody can tell Muse what to do.  She simply doesn't acknowledge restraint or direction from anyone other than herself and what I label as God for lack of a better name.

Oh, and... as I finished that last sentence, I overheard the very end of Richard Marx's Part of Me.  Something seemed off.  It didn't raise my little hackles as being /wrong/ but it was decided different.  My first thought was that his voice went flat or something and someone overlooked it and left it in there.  But no.  After four more listens, it finally hit me.  Double-tracking!  Sure enough, "Cause you're a part of meeeee" has at least two of him in it.  Elated, I let it finish and my head snapped back up.  WAIT!!  The second one had at least three, maybe four... I don't know... but it's even more obvious, and this time they're decidedly different notes.  Yeah, no doubt, different friggin' notes.  Wait... if that-- that means--

I'd been having problems singing along to the chorus piece of his "When You're Gone."  I found myself singing something other than what's on my sheet music, even though the first two pages seem fine and match up.  Sometimes pieces of it later on also match up, so I had no idea what I was doing wrong.  I told my voice teacher about it and she suggested I not use the word, "Wrong," because she'd heard me singing "different" notes in various chords before with other exercises or whatever.  We'd concluded after a while that I wasn't necessarily flat or sharp when I lost where I was, but that I was hearing an entire chord and my brain wasn't sure what part to sing so it selected something even if it wasn't the part that should be getting sung as the main melody line.  Sometimes it's one of the vocals, sometimes it's an instrument near the vocals, but it was never wrong, just a different part of the song.  It wasn't the melody, forsooth, so what's the difference, one might say.  But... it IS different.  It's far from being tone-deaf.  It's hearing too many things at once and not being able to decide which tone is in the melody and which ones aren't.

So I listened to When You're Gone and sure enough, he's multi-tracking in various pieces of the chorus (and after that), but not in the part I had no trouble with.  I should have know.  I thought it was the rasp, or the way the track was mixed.  But now that I'm aware of it, it's so friggin' obvious that it's there!

Doesn't mean I know which notes they all are, but at least now they're distinct enough to know they are different.  I've made a note for the teacher and have happily moved on.  Richard Marx is an awesome singer, but either he or someone on his team at the time knew that doing this would make his song that much more interesting and... rich.  It's no different from layering instruments together, or playing chords on a piano.  It's just that voices don't natively do that, so my brain is all confused.  Frankly, it's amazing that any of us can deal with any of that at all - sound is simply vibration, and for our brains to pick up vibrations from an ear drum and translate it into different instruments playing different vibrations at the same time... that is intensely awesome.

Aight, off we go then.

~nv

past desires vs wisdom

For years after becoming successful - to me, success is being happy - I had this deluded notion that I would be able to share all of my success with my loved ones. For the most part, this was true. Dale's mom, dad, and stepmom all enjoy coming down to our house for gatherings and such or just to visit. I have a handful of close friends who particularly enjoy my hosting (company) from time to time. Other times we go places like shows or rent a house for events or whatever. We find ways to see our peoples.

One of my biggest dreams was to share my happiness with my own mom. I often imagined her on the back deck watching wildlife or on the porch watching the birds and feeding squirrels. I would imagine her face as she'd gaze down the road from her room upstairs, enjoying the way the mountain that Dale and I got married on drifts down and meets the edge of the road. Or the way the sun moves across the yard. I would spend hours thinking of how happy she would be here, so peaceful, so serene. We would take her to the pond and spend time there in nature when the skeeters were not too miserable. We might even eat hot dogs and beans over a campfire. She would play with the cats and enjoy their company and make the occasional cream of wheat with lumps and we would laugh first thing in the morning and she would read books while we were at work and maybe she would eventually make friends with our next door neighbours.

I thought that if I provided a safe, supportive, happy home with everything she needed to eat and live, that she would finally enjoy some happiness in life. I could make her happy.

Then she told me, point-blank, to stop giving her gifts. By then I had begun to face reality that she would never change, that she was simply a miserable human being who enjoyed hurting me and even more than me, herself. But at that moment, I was given a very valuable lesson that didn't hit me until just now. And it was so obvious all along, but I refused to see it.

She had dreamt of me with upswept hair and pearls about my neck once, and was disappointed when as a kid I sat there farting at the breakfast table. She dreamt of me with false teeth, no friends, no one but her in my life. She wanted for me everything and more that she had - contempt and distrust for others, depression, fear, past rape by her brother, emotional abuse, and neverending catering to her every whim. She wanted me to be stoic and never express pain or the depression she said I had. I was never to be angry, to matter, to care about others, to let others in. I was to be hers, and hers alone, her sounding board, her mirror, an extension of her contempt for others, and extension of whatever she felt like being any given minute. I was to be the devil. I was evil incarnate. I was her future preacher. She wanted me to be to blame for her mistakes, for our bunnies' deaths, for her walking out on jobs, for her failures to provide for herself and get off the system she purported to hate and distrust.

And I. Totally. Disappointed her. Like so many children do, I was selfish and went off on my own to become an entirely different person than she had tried to shape.

I woke up at, ironically, 4:04 this morning with scattered imagery and a relaxed state of mind and all of a sudden I had figured it out.

I am my mother! I am obstinate, driven, intelligent, ornery, passionate, creative, strong, and fiercely independent. She decided early on that she would never marry into a world where she was abused at home. I have leaned on God to give my child everything that I could not.

My child is me.

All the years of imagining what it would be like to watch my mother's dis-ease giving way to her innate sunny disposition... and all the while, I was watching myself, not her, grow into the person I wanted her to be my whole life. Someone happy, loving. Someone I could depend on to keep me going, to support me, to help God set me back on my path when I would be led astray.

I will never have that one human being that gave birth to me love me for who I am, or to watch the sun streaming through the trees in the back yard, or set over the mountain where I made a commitment to one of the greatest people on earth official. She never wanted that. Any of it. She kept trying to tell me, and wouldn't stop trying to tell me. She had to be blatantly blatant about it for me to finally listen: Stop giving me gifts. Like, duh. She didn't want to be happy, ever, and really did not appreciate my shoving it down her throat. All of that disgustingly happy stuff is what I wanted for myself! I am the one sitting here watching the sunrise each morning and revelling in the life I have made. For me. Not her. She already has the life she wanted.

You really cannot make another person happy. You can only give yourself the world.

-nv

POEM: Windows

Wheels were turning in the night as the ocean fell

Over the edge of the world and the joy of birds

Echoed in the darkness

Yesterday lit the distance on fire

It burned until the embers lost their glow

A new world was born amidst the chaos

Rainy nights made pools reflecting the stars in the sky

The hand outside my window lost its nerve

And shriveled into indistinction

Another nightmare of the past

Sometimes I think of you and our memories

I laugh at some and cringe now and then

And I think, whatever happened to the love inside

Did she really ever have it

Or was she always --

I look out the window at the snowy fields below

The sun sets the fog aglow

Mountains lit up against a morning sky

There's a knock at the door

I turn to face the joy again

When the shoe fits...

I kicked off a boot, put on a shoe, kicked off a boot, and put on a –

 

GACK!  THAT'S THE BOOT I JUST KICKED OFF MY OTHER FOOT!  THAT FEELS HORRIBLE!!

 

 

consistency

I've recently begun using tasks in Outlook again.  It occurred to me that I kept feeling irritated by where they are when to the side of the inbox.  Why?  I finally figured out that it's because I want them to the left, not the right.  Like I have my notes in OneNote.  Details of tasks often end up in OneNote, and I have folders/notebooks and tasks to the left.  The workspace is on the right.

 

It's a subtle thing, and inconsequential really, but if Outlook had the ability to move that thing to the left, I would probably be happier.  Weird how such things bug people!

 

Anywho, back to work… just had to drop a thought.

 

-nv

Music

There are some things I've long "known" about my musical abilities (or lack thereof) because of what people have told me.

1.  I'm tone-deaf and totally lack the family's musical ear (mom).

2.  I have an annoying singing voice (okay, I told me that).

3.  I sing way off key (mom, and it wasn't off key, it was flat or sharp; so  much for her knowing what a "key" is).

4.  I can't sing (mom, probably 6th grade chorus teacher, several friends).

5.  I have rhythm - esp. when dancing (friends, a couple strangers at a bar once, people driving down the street back when I dance-walked to work).

I don't practice regularly.  I go through spurts of practicing.  Music, like sound in general, is both confusing and intensely interesting to me.  Sometimes it makes sense.  Sometimes I can't tell what the hell is going on.  I have long wondered if studying music so intensely at times also helps me with understanding people.  It's like it causes my brain to condition itself to zoning in on what it needs to in order to decrypt all the crap going on around me.  Noisy rooms are like songs full of instruments all playing at once, but in a form of discord.  To be able to pull out one instrument from 16 is to isolate one voice in a room full of humming lights, fish tank pumps, water trickles, a cat's toenails walking through the next room over, cars driving by, static of a speaker as an iphone sends out signals to its carrier, and the fan of a computer.

The latter, of course, being CAPD.

I started some time ago also suspecting that CAPD may have something to do with my music issues.  But then I see how someone else is so good and find out they practice a lot.  So I tell myself it's because I lack self-discipline to make myself practice.  Sure, to be sure, that's part of it.  But...

Then there are times when people tell me things that contradict what I've always "known" about my musical abilities.  Or lack thereof.

Examples:

With colleague, who is also a musician, listening to the Beach Boys... Me:  "Wait, in that song that I just heard for the first time ever, was that an augmented chord they just played?"  Him (rewinds):  "Yes, how did you know that?"  "I took music theory ten years ago..."  "But... How the hell did you even hear that the way they did it?"  "Dunno, just sounded like one.  There it is again!"  Strange look, as if I'd just grown three heads, but with confirmation that I'm right.  Yet I can't tell if a note is higher or lower than another note at times?  Seriously?

Piano tuner comes to tune the piano.  Me:  "These keys here are especially out of tune."  "Yes, they are.  Not by much, though.  Good ear."  "Oh, that must be why they keep changing on me, then."  "What do you mean?"  "Well, like these two... sometimes I know they're flat, other times I swear they're ok, and other times I swear they're sharp.  They must be going back and forth depending on if it's dry in here 'cause they're just starting to slip out of tune?"  His eyes pop open.  "Have you ever LOOKED at the inside of your piano?"  "Yeah, sure."  He opens it anyway and points at one of the sets of strings.  "That's this."  Hits a key.  I nod, noticing that it's hitting three strings.  I hadn't really noticed that before but it doesn't mean much yet.  "See how it hits three of the metal strings?"  "Yeah...?"  "This key is all three:  flat, sharp, and spot-on."  "So... every key on a piano does that to sound right?"  "No... all three strings, when properly tuned, should sound exactly the same.  When ANY of those strings are not spot-on, it's out of tune.  Each string can go flat OR sharp.  So... you've been hearing all three of those but you were right each time for one of the three strings.  Most people can't identify that."  "Well, I didn't.  I didn't know each key's strings had to be spot-on!"  "But you heard each string nonetheless.  The keys you pointed out are all exactly as you described - flat, sharp, and spot-on."  "Oh!"

Dale's playing an unfamiliar song on the computer.  "Hey, that little bass piece sounds just like this song over here I haven't listened to in five years.  Here, let me show you."  "What the... how did you even recognise that let alone remember..."  "I dunno, just did."  (several times this has happened.)

Randomly, I'm listening to a song (familiar or not) and I suddenly get up and start playing along on the piano.  "When did you learn that one?"  "I haven't yet and I'll probably forget how in two days."

Sometimes I'm at the piano and I just start playing whatever my fingers feel like playing.  I chalk this up to digested music theory and experience.  But then I make a mistake and I cringe.  It sounds wrong.  I am not always sure how to correct it, but I know it's wrong.

And now, singing instructor:  "Singing in parts is very difficult.  You have to be able to hear only yourself and keep yourself going even if other people around you are floundering... you have to be able to focus in on only one thing in the midst of all that other stuff."  Light comes on. That's CAPD.  OMG.  That IS CAPD.  I hear everything at once and have to work to focus on one thing.  And quite likely, every time I hear something, it sounds slightly different to me.  Just like a word.

I cannot be tone-deaf.  Otherwise I wouldn't be able to hit any notes at all, nor tell the minute differences between a set of strings for one single piano note, even if which one I hear varies from day to day.

What, then, must be happening, is that I hear (and was always on some level very aware of) /more/ detail in music than the majority of people and it confuses the shit out of me, just like normal sounds do... like speech with background sounds.

My voice /is/ trainable.  It's a muscle.  But I need to work way harder than some people because when I hear a note, it may sound different from day to day, just like speech does.  Studying music has indeed helped me isolate voices as well as tones, and probably vice-versa.

What a revelation.  Screw you, Mom.  I am NOT tone-deaf.  I DON'T suck.  If anything, I'm way more fucking advanced and the rest of the world just hasn't caught up to me yet, you self-righteous ass.  Not that it helps much with a world full of music that is run by people who don't hear things differently each time... but still.

Now if only I could always hold that fucking note...

Babymetal

Wow, I LOVE this group... excellent working music.  Good to dance to, too!

On Being Human

Many of my colleagues have been awesome over the years, but they take
the cake when I do something incredibly stupid and get a snicker with
"happens to the best of us." It takes a very sad human to put you down
because /they're/ human, a normal human to put you down because
/you're/ human, and a very special human to point out we're all /only/
human.

It is very easy to remain bitter about how others treat you, and very
hard to move on. It doesn't mean you can't move on, though, it just
means that the longer you hold yourself back, the longer you remain
miserable and angry and keep hurting other people, even those you love
most.

I used to think that forgiving someone and accepting them for who they
are was the same as constantly reminding yourself of this whenever
they gave you the same old shit. This is apparently wrong. You
forgive, you accept them as they are, and you move on, becoming more
of who you are yourself. No matter how much you love someone, you
can't love them fully by allowing them to walk all over you and put
you down. It is impossible.

You can dangle the carrot, but the horse has gotta want it or it'll
just rot off the stick.

~nv

APD: Hemisphere integration

I still often research APDs out of sheer curiosity to see the experiences of others and what's being done in the field, so today I ran across this... I found it interesting because while I'm not fully ambidextrous, I ate left-handed as a kid and my mom thought I was left-handed until I picked up a pencil with my right hand.  Most of the time, I've been right-handed, but have encountered many instances where I've confused people because they think I'm right-handed but I'm doing something left-handed... like shooting a bow in gym class, for example, or putting (golf) left-handed some days and right-handed others, or forgetting I'm right-handed and jotting something down with my left hand because the paper is to my left.  I seem to go through cycles of intense wordsmithing, logic and organization with random bursts of artistic streaks - even in music, which I generally suck at.  I've known for a long time that the two hemispheres of my brain cannot match the standard idea that one must control one set of skills and be dominant over the other, because... they /don't/ do that.  I have skills across the board that bubble up and then disappear, one second as if I'm naturally talented at something and the other, like I can't even do the basics of what I know I've done.  It's beyond mood although I call it that to avoid confusing people; it's either can or can't, and it changes.  And it can change fast, too, depending on how much "fuel" was spurring me on.  As if the ability has a tank and the tank feeds the ability until it runs out of gas, then too does the ability, and suddenly a new one pops up revving its engine.  It can last minutes or hours.

So, to read this little blip below, gave me a moment of ponder... but I think they may have oversimplified it, if there's anything to it at all.  I have excellent long term memory about some things, as Dale will attest to... right down to the chalk under a table, things people pissed me off about as a kid who wasn't speaking well yet, and the now-faded images of a 300-page-book I memorised by the time I was eleven or so.

All that said, however... I /will/ say that when I've been studying music and sounds for long periods of time (weeks), I notice a reduction in how bad the APD is.  People start to make more sense.  But, it's not permanent... the more computer-oriented I get, the less I can "get" people again.  I was also reading somewhere recently that right-hemisphere APDs often mean that the affect child may talk "flat" or "monotone" - bingo - and have difficulty discerning tone or meaning even if they understand the words themselves.  I found that interesting, too.  The thing that always bothered me about APD, though, is that I have always been a STRONG reader and an excellent speller.  It's the audio portion that sucks ass a lot of the time.  Apparently, I've been doing what many professionals do - shoving a list of symptoms at myself, comparing, and going, 'But they don't match up exactly.'  The thing is, it's not exactly a disability.  It may be classified as one, but I've compensated naturally for it, worked around it, and frankly, find it amusing... even though I still dislike crowds and still say the wrong thing often enough to be endeared to people as quirky, strange, and geeky even if well-intentioned.  Not everyone with auditory processing problems fits into a neat little box.  Some of us leak out and spill our rays of sunshine all over the other neat little boxes, whether the other neat little boxes like it or not.

ANYwho... the blip:

The next area of auditory function we need to assess is long-term memory. Can the individual learn auditorily and retain that information? If a child is having problems remembering math facts, etc. this is usually associated with what we call auditory dominance. We have found that to have good long-term memory, an individual should have all skilled functions on one side of the body, thus establishing what we call a dominant hemisphere of the brain. If the individual is right-handed (and the individual should have a dominant hand for all skilled activities and not be ambidextrous), then that individual should be right-eyed, right-eared and right-footed. Note which ear the individual uses for the telephone, which ear does that individual turn towards you to hear more clearly, to which ear does that individual bring an object to hear slight sounds like a watch.

Lack of a dominant hemisphere of the brain causes reversals, whether visual or auditory, and stuttering and long term memory problems.

-nv

And... he won

Buddy me jig.  Argh.

Dale is three points behind me. ..

... and we just went to round ten.  Ut oh.

Irony

I was driving home tonight with a touch of a headache in my left temple.  Headlights had their usual halos plus a radiance that made the road look fog-covered or my windshield encased in steam.  After thirty minutes, it was all I could bear stoically and I began crying.  Like that helps.  A voice in my head:  "You're so whiny."  Imagined, incessant chatter ensued.  The tears flowed harder.  The fog turned to rain; now all the lights were bright but streaked and shiny, so all reflective yellows danced furtively across the pavement before disappearing in the stagelights.  In my head, I envisioned myself pulling over to the side of the road, unable to drive safely or without excruciating pain.  In my head, the chatter turned to scorn.  "Jesus Christ, Whitney, they're just headlights.  I have to pee.  It's just another ten minutes.  Come on."  "You drive, then, because I can't," I cried silently.  "You know I can't drive stick," the voice reminded me derisively.  "Then we're sitting here for a few minutes until I can calm down this damned headache."  But the headlights continued to pass me, the road continued to disappear, the rain continued to spread the light into long shiny lines that were thankfully recognisable even if unclear.  The chatter didn't stop.  I didn't even know what she was saying anymore.  "Mom, I need quiet," I said, squinting through another spectrum of lights.  "Mom, please, just… OMG.  MOM.  SHUT THE FUCK UP!"  I was screaming now, the effort somehow helping the headache in the imaginatory-time, but in the real one, the lights were still criss-crossing across my line of sight, spreading into the car, spearing splintered lights into the darkness that I knew was an empty seat.

This must be what it's like to go crazy, I thought then, and turned onto my last major route home.  It was blessedly dark, my headlights now on high beams, lighting up the pavement and its lines effortlessly.  The shards of shiny glass dissipated.  The shooting pain in my temple quieted enough for me to see the darkness again and I made it home, safe, but exhausted.  I shut off the car and sat there for several minutes with my eyes closed, allowing my temple to quiet itself just a bit more before facing what might lie ahead.  I was terrified that Dale would be excited to receive me and would flash the light outside in welcome or worse, so much worse, turn on my den light for me as I entered.  When I finally exited the car, the single, tiny light on the porch illuminated the door knob just enough for my key, but he had unlocked the door to check mail so I knew better than to bother and left my hand unfettered by such detail.  I entered, prepared to cover my eyes with my hands, but nothing happened.

By some miracle, Dale was preoccupied with something.  When he finally came over, I had the chance to gruffly warn him not to turn on any lights in my presence.  The unspoken warning:  Or I'll kill you.  I meant this in the most loving way possible, of course, and he didn't deserve the gruffness.  But Dale, with his usual awesome self, simply got quiet, opened the door to retrieve the package I informed him of, and then went about shutting off the light in the kitchen for good measure before returning to his task, whatever that may have been before my headache unapologetically crashed through the door with me.

Once the Aleve attached cement shoes to the headache and drowned it in some river somewhere (I don't care where), Dale and I had some nice conversations over the stench of his bratwurst and the unsettled rumble of my still-somewhat-queasy stomach.  Listening to his day reminded me of my drive home and I related the event to him, laughing as I said, "And there was no one there."  I told him how I still find myself daydreaming about showing my mom the beauty of our house in person.  I added thoughtfully to myself:  And talking about our shared love for music, and listening to it together, and watching her prune the plants and turn the house into an even better greenhouse than it already is.  I dream of the banter and her voice as she talks for the animals and the silly old songs she sometimes sings to herself without fully realising it.  And then the last thought catches in my head behind a rusted, but very strong, double set of bars:  Maybe it's not such a bad idea if she did come to live with us.  The wistfulness then fades and the heavy memories of depression, put-downs, sarcasm, control, anger, pessimism, distrust, accusations, and scorn set in.  "Then I remember the other side of her," I say quietly, "and remember why those things are only pipedreams."  Because, I realized, even though I can accept her for who she is, I've never stopped wishing she was someone else.  "Now, your mom, we may be hesitant only because we like our space, the way things are… but the hesitation isn't about her.  We welcome her here.  We know we could live with her, and adapt to someone else being here."  In other words, no matter how much I love my mom, I know… she is the most difficult person I could ever ask to live with, and I know it.  Dale knows it.  Which is why the rusty bars exist, to block it from happening.  Seeing through the bars is one thing.  Passing through them ain't happening.

"I'm glad my mom is in your life," Dale offered, reading my thoughts.  "At least you get to experience normalcy."

"I am, too," I agreed.  "Many women, though, don't like their mother in laws… so not sure it's normal."  Dale nodded quickly in agreement, having realised this himself as soon as he'd said it was normal.  I added, however:  "But, I am very lucky to love mine and yeah, I get to watch what she's like with you and your brother, and am so blessed that she offers a great likeness of that to me as if I were her own.  It gives me the other side of things, levels things out."

Dale eventually chuckled and asked, "You know what's ironic?"  "What's that?"  "I just charged the batteries for that light today because it had stopped coming on."  I looked at where he was pointing - at the paper-covered motion detection light that aims into my den, and smiled.  "Oh.  Yeah, that is ironic that you'd do that the day I come home with a light-sensitive headache.  I put paper over the sensor on the stairway lighting too," I told him.  He looked down to see, and smiled.  "All fucking week their charge has been low and they were dim.  Today of all days, the sun comes out and they're brighter than ever."  Irony, indeed.

POEM: Orange Spots

ORANGE SPOTS

20151105 - c2015 wlc

 

She stole my chair

It was butt-warm

She looked so proud, content

Seconds pass and orange spots

Are falling through the stagnant air

 

Pitiful is she now

She stares outside

Dropping years within a minute

Seconds passing, snatching breath

She has always wanted out

 

Looks beyond the open door

Watches traffic pass her by

Sniffs the air, demands her freedom

Age a thing of distant past

She digs her way to ever more

 

Once was I she

Wanting all I couldn't have

The grass a-growing on the other side

Always greener than the prison cell

Of me

 

Me, who beat her cage's wall

Bruised and beaten, torn, still trapped

Then, somehow, I found the Key

The skies opened up, rain fell on me

And I knew I had it all

 

When this one door opened, I stood tall

Taller than I'd ever been

Always believing, reaching higher

Dancing in the rainfall every summer

Taking pictures in the fall

 

Lord, don't ever let me

Fall and want what isn't mine

Here with me is the rise and fall

Of the only life

I could ever need

 

I look beyond the open door

Watching traffic passing by

Breathe in the air, enjoying freedom

Age is coming soon, I know

I am loved forevermore

awesome list

Sometimes I run across an old note that references a user or computer I was once working with.  I always feel a pang with the memory along with getting a brief vision of the situation that brought me there.

I've always had "sh**" lists - mainly for systems I disliked.  The user I ran across today, however, was the first user to ever make it to my "awesome" list - in fact, I was so overjoyed with her follow up to a problem that I created that awesome list just to put her name on it.  It was a very deep pang but a fond and joyous memory.

Wherever you are, Awesome User # 1, thank you for that memory, even if it means I must now miss helping you.

~w

peppers are good

It's scary to me to realise that I've grown up, thus:

1. I eat my lunch (grilled burger leftover, grilled squash, grilled peppers)

2. I drink some mountain dew

3. I finish my last pepper

4. I reach for my snickers peanut butter bar and hesitate.  I don't want to ruin the last vestigial flavours of my lunch.

5. The snickers bar goes temporarily unmauled.

whee

I forgot how fulfilling it is to help people online...

wedding photos

Every now and then, because someone has a nice camera and only posts decent to nice photos on their websites, maybe even gotten published in a few magazines, people have the misconception that such folks are able and willing to take photos of just about anything.  Like weddings.

I recently became aware of a couple who falls into this category.  They were approached by a future wife to shoot a wedding coming up in a few weeks.  They carefully declined and, after a few back and forths, it seemed the thing was settled.  The future husband, who is family, then stated that the couple was needed to do the photos and pretty much, that's that.  The couple, who were originally invited to the wedding, are now captive photographers who can't enjoy it.  Of course, this was muted by "it'll be laid back, no worries."  Taking photos of someone's wedding is not laid-back.  Especially when you care about the couple getting married.

Obviously this did not settle well, but the newly-appointed photographers said fine, I mean, what are they supposed to do?  It's family, it's just a few photos in the grand scheme of things, right?

For anyone out there who'd like to put their beloved "guests" in the same position, please consider the feelings of said "guests."  Photography is an art mixed with skill.  It is also very dependent on lighting and experience.  Even people who routinely photograph people have trouble with weddings because they are a once-in-a-lifetime event.  The photographer will be intruding into others' spaces, they will be swapping equipment to get the best shot they can, they are limited to whatever equipment they have, and there will be constant worry about conditions such as rain, lighting, clouds, etc.  This is not a light-hearted request.  It is a nightmare.  The "laid-back" approach is anything but:  The photographer formerly known as guest is no longer a guest, but a ball of worry rather than someone who gets to enjoy a wedding.

A couple of our friends had insisted we take photos of their wedding.  I firmly told them no.  We would of course /take/ photos if they permitted it, but they could not and would not expect us to do the entire thing.  Our photos came out great, of course - the weather was exceptionally beautiful - but they never really "got" that we were not "it" and kept insisting we do additional stuff.  I happened to be "in" the wedding party, as well, and up until the day of the wedding, they didn't seem to understand that if you're in the wedding party, you are not going to be taking pictures.  I did, however, have to run around taking photos before and after, however, and Dale had to take photos of the whole event.  He was a wreck, I was a wreck, but we managed to enjoy ourselves somehow.  It's not an experience I'd like to repeat, though.  So I feel for the couple I've described.

Dale and I took photos of our own wedding via timer.  Unfortunately for us, it was very cloudy that day and while we're glad to have these photos, frankly, they came out like crap.  The best thing they did was capture the moment.  They are nothing I display, even if Dale does.  I do look back at them to remember our day.  That's all they do for me, though.  I had the presence of mind, thankfully, to insist on additional photos in the house where the flash would be effective and posing would work.  These came out nicely.  The long and short of it is:  I've seen both ends of this massacre.

For something that is supposed to now be based on love, I don't see why weddings are made to be so stressful for anyone other than hired help.  Dale and I knew we didn't care for much planning, so we set the date six months later and got our shit worked out well in advance, involving as few people as we thought we could get away with.  We didn't want the expense of a wedding, we didn't want people staring at us, and we didn't want to put anyone out.  The two people we did invite were witnesses we apparently didn't even need.  We're glad they were there and had said yes to hiking up the mountain, but if we'd known we didn't need witnesses, we probably wouldn't even have asked them.

I've read sites like this one that indicate a couple is being cheap by not hiring a photographer.  They give good reasons as to why a professional is a good idea.  They tell it from the side of "the budding photographer wants to take photos, please don't let them."  They leave out the idea that someone asks them to take photos because they can't afford a professional photographer.  Sorry, but I don't place such high importance on weddings that you should afford anything.  If something is important to you, save for it.  This American Dream thing where you should either be in debt or get something for nothing is really getting old.  Why do people have to have everything now?  Why can't people wait anymore?

It just seems to me that if you're going to invite someone to a wedding, you want them there because you care for them in some way, and they want to be there to be supportive.  Stressing someone out doesn't seem like a spot to put someone in that wants to be supportive.

But then, it's just a few photos, right?  And what do you say, no?  Saying no means you can't enjoy the wedding, either, because everyone will despise you for being rude on the couple's big day.  It shouldn't ever have come up, if you ask me.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the day I get to attend a wedding for people I care about where I get to attend the wedding.  I hope that photographer couple gets this blessing someday, too.

~nv

mac vs pc vs linux

Yes, here we go.  I wasn't sure if I could actually restore completely to a fresh hard drive from Time Machine, so I looked it up.  I ended up on a site and decided to scroll down to read user comments, see if there were any tips.  There were, but also the usual flame wars.

I've heard the three major sides to the story.  I've experienced much of it, too.  Note that I'm aware that "macs" should really be "OS X" and "PCs" should really be "Windows."  I am also aware that Linux has more flavors than Ben & Jerry's.  I only use the usual terminology because it's so common.

General Opinion #1:  Macs are easier to use than PCs, are easier to back up, and don't get viruses/are less likely to get viruses.

General Opinion #2:  Mac users spend a lot of money to be told what to do and how they're gonna do it.  They don't know anything about computers.  You can get a brand new PC for way less than the cost of a new mac and it'll perform better and isn't limited by compatibility.

General Opinion #3:  Both PC and Mac users are idiots and Linux is the only real OS out there.

I am so sick of this crap.  Here is what I think about it all.

1.  Easier?  No.  It really comes down to personal preference and how you tend to work/play.  Personally, I like Time Machine better than Acronis, Ghost, BESR, and Mozy, and it comes with all macs out of the box.  I didn't have to read twenty screenfuls of information to get it going or to restore from it.  Note /I/ didn't have to.  It may be harder for someone else to use.  Oh, and Macs DO get malware.  Mine did just yesterday, which is why I was double-checking what I thought Time Machine could do.

2.  It depends on what you intend to use something for and what you're comparing.  I think the laptop line is generally comparable price-wise and so are the all-in-ones.  I could never justify buying a mac pro... If I go with a nonportable computer, I'm building!!  However, when I bought my macbook pro, I found exactly what I wanted and then compared prices with similar laptops on the Windows side.  The pricing was similar.  I wanted iPhoto, GarageBand, iWeb, Time Machine, MS Office [for Windows], Windows 7, and to play with Linux and a few dumb games from time to time that only run in Windows.  I also intended to surf the net.  I opted to drop an extra grand into my new macbook to turn it into my dream computer... I maxed out the RAM.  I replaced the original hard drive with a 240GB SSD and the optical with a 750GB hybrid.  Then I bought Windows 7 Home and a copy of Fusion, downloaded my favourite Linux flavours, and I was off to the races.  Plus, now I have an external optical drive because I bought a kit to shove the macbook's optical drive into, which turned it into a USB connected drive.  It works with any computer that has USB.  I could have bought a windows laptop for the same price and that would have gotten me the one thing I'm lacking on this one:  Major gaming.  But, I am not a major gamer, I like building boxes, and I like having spare computers in case my primary is otherwise occupied.  So that gave me an excuse to have a cheapish gaming rig.  With a few used parts, I built a mid level rig for a few hundred less than my macbook.  And all I use it for is gaming, surfing, and... yeah, that's it.  By the way, I don't see how Apple told me to do anything I didn't want to.  They shoved a slow little drive in an otherwise beautifully sculpted work of art, and I tore it and the optical drive out to make things nicer for me.  I can run seven virtual machines simultaneously while using every native application plus photoshop elements and a few other odds and ends and some of the clunkier VMs simply slow down a bit.  Apple didn't tell me what to do at all.  And I have everything I wanted.  Except the gaming piece, but only if you want to be a doofus about it.

3. I've used several flavours of Linux but it's simply not my thing.  I grew up with DOS and Windows.  I shifted over to Mac at home but still use Windows a LOT - both at work and at home.  I still play around with Linux from time to time and it's gotten some reallllllly sweet distros now... but I just can't really appreciate the time investment required because I have less and less time to invest.  I particularly like Ubuntu because - get this - it reminds me of OS X and actually works on most platforms I've shoved it on, unlike several others I tried in the past.  I also like Knoppix and other bootable versions and keep a Knoppix VM around that does exactly that.  Why?  Sometimes it's nice to surf the web without worrying about getting hit with something.  Yeah, should have been doing that yesterday morning...  Oh, and why are mac and pc users automatically idiots?  I don't know, probably because I'm an idiot for not ONLY using Linux.  Darwin is technically a 'nix, but it doesn't count because it hides behind a mac.  I think people who say such things have issues with the logic centers in their brains.  Which is ironic considering they're smarter than us mac and pc weenies.

Computers are like religions.  Every side seems to think theirs is better when in reality they're all just a bit different.  Why are they different?  Because we are.

Rant over.  I gotta go check a backup.  ;)

~w

Regroup

Long, but good, day full of family visiting.

Now I'm regrouping in my den by revisiting a few of my old ways:  Organizing music on a PC, planning how to best back things up (on my turf, none of this cloud BS), ripping CDs whose music I seem to have lost on the computers, and listening to music being piped from Winamp to my little stereo with the awesome bookshelf speakers.  I love the old Sony sound.  OMG.

I can feel the energy pouring back into me.

I'm also labelling stuff.  I love labelling stuff...

~nv