Campfyre Stories

At the very most, it takes me a hour and a half to get ready to leave the house.  This includes a shower, doing my hair and makeup, getting dressed and accessorizing.  Usually it takes less than that.  When it comes to the physical stuff, I am a pretty low-maintenance woman.  I pride myself, and always have, on my ability to leave the house quickly and not keep people waiting.

But I can’t explain it, I start getting ready about 4 hours before I need to leave.  Every single time I start getting ready 4 hours before I need to walk out the door.

This then leaves me with two and a half hours (at least!) of waiting around watching the clock tick.  I’m all dressed up with no place to go - literally, at least no place to go yet.  This happens when I have a date, when I’m going out on the town, when I have a job interview, when I’m in any way, shape or form intending to impress someone and I’m not sure why I do it or where it comes from.

I change my clothes several times, I wander around making sure I have absolutely everything I could possibly need - emptying and rebuilding the contents of my bag several times, I try every combination of matching earrings, necklaces, etc.  On the rare occasion that someone is around to witness this (generally Spawn or Chaos), they are amused at my antics and ask silly questions like "Why do you start getting ready so much earlier than you need?"  The answer to that question is I don’t know.  I just do.  It’s ridiculous, but I’ve done it for as long as I can remember.  I’m always ready to walk out the door well before it’s time to walk out the door.

*shrug*  At least I don’t keep people waiting, I guess…

Who would you lie for?  Who would you die for?  Who would you visit in the hospital?  How many people outside of your family would you dare to tell that you love them?  What are your boundaries and what are your definitions?

I have a friend, a very good friend who listed me as her beneficiary for her life insurance policy.  She considers me her best friend and I feel the same way about her.  When she told me about the life insurance thing I was touched, when she told me again several years later (since I had completely forgotten), she brought me to tears.  I don’t really want to think about death much at all, but knowing that she trusts me with that kind of responsibility is, to me, what that real deep friendship is.

I think that most people have few true friends in their lives.  Sure, you have friends that last lifetimes and maybe even people you love so much that you might as well consider them family, but there’s a certain bond that comes about only a couple of times and even then, only if you’re lucky.  It’s something that doesn’t come anywhere near romance, but allows you to still say "I love you" and, as importantly, to hear it.  I think that for men it’s probably a little different, without the physical affection and, probably, without the words, but I’ve been lucky enough to see that bond between some men as well as some women.

I think there are people who don’t know who their best friend is.  If you asked them, they would give you one answer, but if you asked those around them, they would know who it really was.  I also think that there are some people who just don’t have one and whenever I see that, it makes me sad. 

You have to understand, I spent a significant portion of my life not having a best friend.  Much of that was simply because I hadn’t yet learned how to trust people, but also it was because we had moved so many times that I just couldn’t open myself up to the loss.  When I finally met my best friend it was years and years later, when neither one of us was looking.  It took her saying for me to even realize that I finally had that, for real.

This is the person who knows more of my secrets that anyone else, except possibly my brother, but she probably knows more than he does.  She can tell when something’s wrong before she picks up the phone, she can call me and break down and I’ll understand every word she says.  She’s the one I run to when things get to be too much and I do the same for her. 

I always wished I had a sister, but this is even better, since we don’t have to be rivals for our parents’ affection, but the irony in that is that we love each other’s parents as much as we can, and we understand all the drama that ties in with family life.

When I sat down to write, I didn’t have a theme or subject or intention, but I wasn’t really expecting this.  I expected it, as I started, to be something a little more general.  Now that I’ve written it I can’t help but wonder whether or not people know who their best friend is, or even if they have one.  Married couples usually think that their spouse is their best friend, but I think that most of them are wrong, because your best friend is the one who stands by you during your fights with your spouse, h/she’s the one who is the shoulder you cry on during breakups and that is never your girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife or any other kind of partner.  Your best friend transcends all of those other things and is just there for you.

So I challenge you, all of you who made it to the end of this entry.  Think about who your best friend is, and then ask around, your significant other, your friends, and see if it’s really who you think it is.

Mine’s the one who lets me cry on her shoulder, calls me her voice of reason and tells me she loves me.  Interestingly enough, she’s one of the few who are really close to me and don’t actually read my blog.  So she never knows when I say nice thing about her.

And I almost think that that’s the way it should be.

I wish there was a way to capture scents to save for later.  Not in a sickly-sweet perfume type of way, but more to share with others.  The dogwoods on my street smell wonderful, there is nothing better than catching a whiff of a lilac tree (bush?) while walking down the street.  The sound of mowers doesn’t annoy me because I know it leads to the smell of freshly mown grass, which is one of my favorite smells.

I think this is at least part of why I’m not overly fond of perfumes, because regardless of what the label on the bottle calls the scent, it doesn’t actually smell the way those things smell in real life.

That’s all really.  There’s no real point to this entry.

No, that’s not true, they didn’t really, but on the very off-chance that Andy does stumble across this, I want him to know that I am not one for empty threats or empty promises

I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed out back until much later, not that it would have stopped me.  Even had I known earlier I still would have found a way, it was a whim, not something integral to my plans.

I went by myself with the intention of hanging out with the band that I have come to respect and adore.  I hadn’t heard of the other two bands before, but I went with an open mind looking forward to the concert as a whole.  I wandered around for a bit before the concert started and chatted up the merch guy.  What can I say, it got me some free stickers, which is always a very cool thing.  I found a spot near enough to see and hear well for the first band, who I had never heard of, The Lashes, from Seattle.  They were good and I enjoyed hearing them, so when I saw them standing outside, I picked up and went out back to chat up the band (sans Ben, the lead singer, who was busy signing autographs).  Nice guys, all.  I figure it’s always a good idea to befriend whatever bands are playing, especially if you’re trying to get in with another.  Of course, I must have made an impression later when I finally did meet Ben, explaining that we missed each other before as he was "off whoring himself to the fans".  heh.

OK Go was up next and pardon me for repeating myself, but they give good show.  These guys are most excellent performers and they seem to really bask in being rockstars.  They really perform to the audience and play off the crowd.  I doubt anyone would have known that Damian was under the weather had he not told us at the beginning of their set.  They’re just a fun band to watch and, when the people in the crowd get over themselves enough to get into the music, it’s an excellent experience.  I didn’t immediately accost them, but I did make my way outside again to chat with Damian about the guy he recommended to me three days before.  They were spirited inside to sign autographs, so I went inside, but took my time heading over to the table where they stood.  It was then that I pitched my…  a-HEM…  inspiring idea, but Damian was sick and Dan doesn’t do that, so it was up to Tim who was unlikely, and Andy…  although I guess inspiration is not something often offered to these guys…  I surprised them.

Next up was She Wants Revenge.  Again, a band I had not heard before.  They were good, but not really my thing.  They’re a little more gothy or emo than I tend to like, but I still enjoyed the show.  Right as they started I ran into a couple of friends who I hadn’t seen in probably a year or more, so I went out back (this was my third time) to catch a signal so i could send a text message about running into these two, and that’s when I got busted.  "Miss, we need you to come inside, only the bands are allowed out here."

*sigh*  After heading outside to accost the bands twice already, I get busted for sending an unrelated text message.  However, since I am, in fact, a reasonable person, I went inside, was properly repentant and didn’t get thrown out of the club (unlike a couple of girls who were giddy and reckless and, I have a feeling were trying to get thrown out.  Before the end of the show, they were successful.)

Once the show was over, I stuck around to find out what was going on.  I was still hoping that Andy would take me up on my offer, but he wasn’t really to be found at that point.  I did have a chance to chat with Tim for a while, who is a very cool, very sweet guy and, while I find that Damian is one of the nicest, most polite people I’ve encountered (what little encounter I’ve had), the poor guy really was sick and pretty much just kept to himself. 

The lead singer from She Wants Revenge, Justin, came and introduced himself to me, which was cool.  He was a nice guy to chat with.  For all my girls who’ve shared in this conversation, you all would have been duly impressed with the sheer number of men in dress hats.  I made a point to express my approval and our various conversations on the subject with all of them.

I finally tracked down the last man, Andy, at the very end of the night.  They weren’t expecting it, so they weren’t really up for it.  *sigh* for bad timing on small things.  So I chatted him up for a while and he hugged me as a consolation prize which was a little odd, but who am I to refuse any hug from any source?  The thing is that these guys - all of them, from all three bands, are just good guys.  Really nice guys.  These are the type of people I want to hang out with.  I choose my friends carefully and the qualities that I look for are exhibited in these other folks, who happen to have some measure of fame and celebrity.  I don’t track them down or engage them in conversation to say "Neener neener I met a rock star" I do it because I believe that spending time with these people will enrich my life or my night somehow.

And, of course, it gets me that much closer to my goal of wanting to know everyone.

Ahh, Mother’s Day.  I’m meh on the topic as a whole, but the Tulip Fest really makes the holiday for me.  i appreciate my mother every day of the year and don’t feel like I need a designated day to appreciate her with the rest of the world.  Not that I don’t celebrate Mother’s Day, I do, but I don’t really need it.  So I didn’t write a tribute to my mother in my blog.  I’m sure she understands.

Girl got into town late Friday night, which meant that we were up til the wee hours of Saturday morning catching up and having girl talk.  it was Saturday, though, that she was really here for.  We got down there just before OK Go (who Girl was unfamiliar with) started playing, giving us some time to run into a couple people we knew and to find a decent place to start.

I say start because I am, and have been for most of my life, a seasoned concert goer - especially for outdoor concerts.  Outdoors or general admission, it is my abject purpose to get as close to the stage as possible, and I am GOOD at this.  I see every available opening and pretty much keep moving until I’m satisfied.  I’ve been doing this for as long as I’ve been going to concerts unchaperoned and can only assume that my parents taught me this, so I turned to Girl and said, "Have you ever been to an outdoor concert with me?"  She said no, to which i responded, "This is how I do.  Keep up and I’ll get us up close.  If I lose you, meet after this is over at the EQX tent."  She kept up.  I got us close.

And, my gods, do they give good show.  Well dressed with stage presence and really good…  shoot, really good EVERYTHING.  Vocals, backing vocals, insturmentation, lyrics, you name it.  They have a very "British Invasion" feel to them, but it doesn’t distract from what they give out.  Damian jumped down into the audience and basked in the love of the teenage girls and, of course, at the end of their set, we were treated to a live performance of their music video "A Million Ways."

Then it was off to the line.  The line to meet the band, get autographs, etc.  We two, at 30, were the oldest people in that line who were not designated camera-holding parents.  Of course, we were also not giddy in that fourteen year old EEEEEEEEEEE!  I’M MEETING THE BAND!!!!!  SIGN MY BOOBIES!!!!! kind of way…  we enjoyed them, Girl enjoying her first exposure, me enjoying my first live concert of theirs and we chatted a bit.  Damian suggested I check out a guy called MC Paul Barman, who was his roommate in college.  He’s pretty decent, check him out.  It felt good to chat with them, but the line made me feel rushed.  However, I intend to get another chance… that comes later.

TMBG played after OK Go.  i was less than impressed.  It wasn’t them, it was the sound, which was pretty insanely bad, and a shame, because I do like TMBG.  *sigh*  Oh well, it gave us a chance to wander about the Tulip Fest for a while before we decided it was just too chilly and headed on home to beat the rain.  Girl took off for a while and the Spawn and I had our time together, which was unexpected and very nice.  After Spawn went to bed and Girl had come back we again stayed up until the wee hours, just hanging out.  I think it was therapeutic for both of us, just having a chance to catch up and relax.

Sunday, Mother’s Day, Spawn gave me a t-shirt he made that says "Chocobo Power!", which has become an in-joke between the two of us after finding a Chocobo powered ship in Final Fantasy X, which i finally beat after some 50 hours of play.  He was very proud of it and I adore it

Anyway, Girl left early on Sunday, leaving Spawn and I to enjoy Mother’s Day and to take the Child of Chaos for long enough for my little brother, RC2 to take mom out to a movie.  All in all it was a wonderful weekend, and the upcoming week should prove to continue this trend.

I am currently  working on finding a way to see OK Go play at Northern Lights tomorrow night.  I know that most of you out there are not rockstars, but if anyone wants to come with me, let me know and we’ll figure it out.  However, be forewarned, I am on a mission.  That’s all I’m saying about it right now, we’ll see how things go at the actual show.

But no more writing for today, I can’t sit here any longer.

In a conversation on Jason’s blog, I made a comment that blogging was one of the most selfish hobbies out there.  That we put ourselves out and subject our willing readers to whatever opinions, diatribes and color schemes that we feel at the moment and, because of all those things, it’s a selfish undertaking.

Jason took exception to this and wrote his own piece in regards, that’s it’s more exhibitionism than selfishness that fuels the desire to publish our personal thoughts for the world at learge to read (not that they do, but they can if they want to). 

I think that a lot of bloggers would take exception to the phrasing, simply because the world "selfish" has negative connotations.  The definition is neutral "Being only or chiefly concerned with oneself", but we’ve made that to be a bad thing.  Certainly someone solely concered with him/herself is generally not someone most people choose to spend time with, simply because it’s too draining, but everyone has a measure of selfishness that ties in with our ability to survive on a daily basis.  We are forced to make choices that are exclusive to us and in our best interest, just to get through a day.  This can be as simple as not answering the phone to have some alone time or  as frivolous as buying ourselves flowers.  Either way, selfish is not something that you either are or are not, everyone has some measure of selfishness to them. 

The thing is, I’ve seen a lot of blogs and the vast, vast majority of them are personal diaries, mine included.  There are millions of people out there who write, every day, about the mundane things in their lives.  Some of them are interesting to outsiders, some aren’t, most are looking for some kind of validation - you’re not alone, you are a worthy individual, people DO like you, you have nice [insert body part displayed in photos] and it is a form of exhibitionism, even when it’s not trying to be a form of validation.

But every day, or maybe just once a week we diary bloggers sit and tell our secrets, reveal our inner thoughts and give away pieces of ourselves to whoever cares to read it.  Why is it selfish?  Because at its core a blog is still about the author, even when it’s themed.  Political blogs are op/ed - people will stop reading them if they disagree with the stances or how they’re presented.   Movie review blogs focus on  the blogger’s personal preferences and are limited by the interest of the blogger.  even Celebrity blogs are concerned with the people that the blogger is interested in.  It’s geared toward spouting off on our own viewpoints and it is the perfect medium for that, the fascinating part is that people actually waste spend time reading the words of folks they don’t know and are intrigued by what they see….

I don’t think that it has to be an egotistical or narcissistic hobby, though it can be.  It’s not necessarily a "I’ve talked enough about me, YOU talk about me for a while" kind of situation, but if we’re writing with the sole purpose of espousing our opinions (generally in the hopes that others will agree with us), how can it be anything but selfish?  Losing the negative connotations, if we write a blog that is chiefly concerned with ourselves, then by definition, the blog is a selfish undertaking. 

The biggest problem that I find is in the word "selfish", for most of us, it takes us back to kindergarten and sharing.  It is selfish if we don’t share and selfish is bad.  That and coloring in the lines is what I remember learning in kindergarten, but selfish is so much more than that and it’s not a negative word unless it overtakes you. 

And, think about it, how many people actually share their blogs?  Sure, we all share our words and there’s the occassional community/group/couple blog, but for the most part our blogs are our own (and if you don’t like it, close the browser).  We’re not going to let someone else decide on how it should look or what kind of content we each are going to publish.  How is it anything BUT selfish, really?

Some disjointed thoughts for today.

Just before I found that Escher link I received an email from an old friend of mine.  He was letting me know that he had found an Escher book that I had loaned him probably 2-3 years ago and wanted to return it to me.  Last night I was doing some purging of the house and I found a CD with him singing and playing a song I wrote the lyrics to.  While walking around downtown today I ran into him on the street.  This seems to happen a lot with this particular person.  I’m ok with that

I have a quick wit, a sharp tongue and I love to flirt with anyone and everyone.  Sometimes this gets me into trouble (minor, fun trouble in most cases), but more often than not it’s the thrill of flirting with a reluctant or unpracticed partner that really gets me going.  I love to make someone’s day by flirting and playing and coaxing them along with me, but I also love being able to surprise someone with a witty retort to a smile-laden jab.

An early scene in the movie showed the Wizard of Oz on one of the marquees in Times Square, then took a page from that book and mixed black and white with color.  I think I’m the only one who made that connection.  This is the second time I’ve seen David Straithairn in black and white…  is this a trend for him?  I’m consistently astounded by the number of people who have never heard of Bettie Page, especially men…  I guess they’re too young or maybe just uninterested in the history and evolution of porn, but why is it that so many women know who she is?  And why (moreso) do they all (myself included) seem to want to know MORE??  Then again, it’s highly possible that it’s just the women I know and that this is not an accurate representation of the population.

A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless for this part) who has an…  *A-HEM*…  ample chest was lamenting the seeming  lack of "boob guys", but it’s more a lack of boob guys who are not also boob talkers.  I actually know (and have known over the years) quite a few of them, but, then, I dress to lure those fellas.  So, if there are any boob guys out there (Ed), I have to ask…  do you notice the boobs regardless of the packaging or does an artful display make a difference?  In other words, are they something to play with or something pretty to look at or both?  Probably, this is again, something that women will never  understand.  Doesn’t stop me from asking, though.

Efficiency is overrated in our personal lives.  We were efficient today, and what did it get us?  Over an hour and a half of time to be killed.  Lark Street is truly a wealth of funky shops and important information.

If you got a miniature rubber ducky in the mail with no return address and no note, what would your reaction be?  Would you assume it came from me or would you wonder forever?  Would you treasure it or give it away?  But I will put a return address…  anonymous rubber water fowl is really not my style.

I think that I would like to create a word one day.  Not in the sense of mispronouncing something and later legitimizing it, but actually coming up with a completely new word.  I should probably think of a meaning for it first.  I would not need to do this if someone would actually create the reverse dictionary I’ve been asking for forever.  Someday someone will listen to me and go ahead and make a program where you can type in the definition and it will give you the word.  Remember, folks, you read it here first.

Everywhere I go, I run into *someone* I know.  This is cool, but I never run into the people that I’d like to see…  for them I need to make an appointment.  I don’t mind doing that, but I think I would prefer running into people more often…  having them drop in or even feeling more comfortable with the idea of dropping in on them.  i think, though, that the casual dropping in and even just getting out and walking around so you can run into people you know is something that went away with the last century.  It doesn’t happen nearly as much, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that I’m the only one who misses it…

Girl gets into town on Friday night.  I am so excited, since this is probably the last time we’ll see each other until she finished cooking school.  We’re going to hit up Tulip Fest, see They Might Be Giants and OK Go in concert and then we’ll do the festival.  I have the Spawn for Mother’s Day and I think that even if Girl’s visit is my only present (unlikely) that this will rank up there as one of the best Mother’s Day weekends ever.  I’m really looking forward to this

Yeah, ok, I think I’m done for now.

For the past and next couple of weeks, Princess and I have all our movies picked out.  I like this, since it saves us the trauma of trying to pick out what movie we’re going to see every week, but it also ensures that the movies we most want to see are seen while they’re still playing in the theater.  This is good when you consider how many good movies we missed because we saw something else or because we just waited too long.

Last week we saw Hard Candy because I had seen a review that intrigued me.  In a nutshell, this movie is a vengeance movie about a girl vs. a pedophile, and even with the artsy-fartsy description, you can tell there’s going to be something off about it.  I was first creeped out by the makeup of the audience.  There was one lone girl there, one couple, Princess and me…  and an insane number of men.  The five guys, many of them old, sitting in the front, the three younger guys sitting behind us, the heavy breathing guy, alone, sitting directly behind us, and a handful of others that I couldn’t see clearly, but there were only four women in the entire theater.  It was somewhat disconcerting.

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No, not the television show.

I’ve been thinking about my career an awful lot lately.  Not only thinking about what I want to do and where I want to do it, which is a obvious issue at the moment, but also about where I’ve been and how/what I’ve learned.  One of the things that I’ve realized is that I really think of the man who gave me my first job in IT as my mentor and I think I really want to tell that story.

I had been a secretary for five long years and I wanted no more of it.  I bounced to job after job after job, miserable after every one of them, never staying anywhere more than 6 months, until I finally realized it wasn’t the companies or the people there, it was the job I was doing and it just wasn’t doing it for me.  When I started playing the role of basic tech support and administrative assistant/receptionist (for the same pay as I was hired as a receptionist), I realized that I preferred the computer work, loathed the secretarial stuff and could get paid a whole lot better for working with technology.  Though I had discovered the internet (and become FyreGoddess) several years before, it took the hands-on experience of rewiring (in quite the bootleg manner - with a crimper, a friend and a lot of creativity on a Saturday afternoon) a network connection for me to realize, I could get paid to play with technology.  In an unheard of move for me, I quit my job with nothing else lined up, little experience, but a go-getter attitude.
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It’s really just a very limiting word.  There’s not a lot you can do with it, either.  It ends the argument, usually with proof of impossibility, but is it that concrete and finite an answer?

MC Escher has always greatly appealed to me as an artist.  I remember seeing several of his drawings from a young age, but one in particular hung in our living room and was a constant source of distraction and study for me.  Not the least of my fascination had to do with impossible objects and optical illusions, something, along with magic, that has always captivated me, from the time I was very young.  I took apart an Escher calendar to hang some of the pictures on my walls.  I think I may still have a picture or two from way back then, but the best piece in my Escher collection has got to be the pop-up book, closely followed by the blacklight t-shirt.

But you may be wondering why I’m talking about Escher at all.  It was prompted by an article that I found this morning about these amazing Israeli computer geeks who took Escher’s impossible objects and made them real.  They started with, go figure, computer design and went from there.  The results are impressive.  What’s even more impressive, though, is that they kept going with their own impossible objects.  And yet, I’m still not satisfied.  Yes, this is incredibly frikkin’ cool, but…

I can’t help but think about the fact that these have long been held as impossible or unattainable objects.  These are not "supposed" to exist in the real world.  That’s part of what makes the whole thing so incredible and so fascinating is that these are not supposed to exist in a tangible state.  But they do.  So how do we reconcile that?  Or, more importantly, for me anyway, how can we trust that the concept of "impossible" has any actual meaning?  Is there such a thing as not actually possible or is it more like "impossible until someone achieves it"?  I’m leaning toward the second answer, since…

Probably I started off with a point, however, that’s gone now.  I got distracted by my search on the word "impossible", probably trying to link to whatever point I intended to make.  Instead, what I found was this cool page on impossible things.  The page ends with the following quote:

Needless to say, one should not try to do anything impossible. But more than that, one is morally obligated not to do anything impossible.

I think that, overall, this site requires more exploration…

You know, for a single word search, impossible has yielded some really interesting results…
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