Campfyre Stories

This is proving to be a very difficult week.  I mean, ok, Tuesday I smashed my thumb with the hammer.  That sucks, but I’m pretty accident prone, so it’s not really surprising.  Then my "fixed" bed woke me up by crashing to the ground on Wednesday morning.  I wound up working late because my projects were exploding.  Yesterday more projects exploded and it was all so bad that it gave me a raging headache that started around 1 and didn’t end until probably 8pm.  I also wound up working late again. 

I was in a foul mood when I got home and had a raging headache.  Spawn, being very understanding (and knowing not to poke the bear) made dinner, so I ate, took a hot bath and went to bed early.  And just as I started to fall asleep, the phone rang.  Girl said "Oh, honey, I’m sorry, go back to sleep" and despite my best efforts, I laid awake for a good 4 hours or so before that was even possible…  woke up late and rushed enough to not have time to pack a lunch or eat breakfast.

So before I left work I set up the coffee pot.  Our regular guy who gets in early and makes the coffee is on vacation and I guess I’m next in line for doing it.  Since we’re not supposed to use the tap water, it takes a while to fill the pot with water from the cooler, so I went ahead and did that.  I figure, this will make the whole thing easier in the morning.

Yeah…  it would have, except that some people (and I know who they are), at some point after 5, when I left, decided to make 2 pots of coffee and then leave half of each pot sitting out.  They also left all their cups in the sink and grounds, creamer and sugar ALL over the counter.  So I wash out the coffee pots.  I fill the one with water.  I go into the drawer to get the filter and the coffee and there are dry coffee grounds ALL.  OVER.  THE.  DRAWER.

If I came home to a mess like this, Spawn would hear about it at a very high volume.  If it wasn’t Spawn’s doing, I would probably chase the cats around.  Coming into a mess like this at work, there’s very little I can do.  I’m pretty sure I know who it was, but I can’t prove it, and the emails from high up have gone around about not leaving messes like this for other people to clean up, but it makes no difference.  It’s also not a pleasant way to start the day…  come into work to no coffee and someone else’s mess, which you have to (at least partly) clean up in order to have coffee at all? 

And it seems petty, I’m sure, but it’s just one more craptastic piece to these 4 days and counting.

Attention anyone who communicates in writing!

The entire point of communication is to be understood by the people with whom you are communicating.

Teh hole point of cummunication is 2b understood by teh ppl your talking to.

You may not like it, but I’d bet that you understood the second sentence as well as the first, laden though it was with spelling mistakes and incorrect grammar.  If you understood what I was saying, then my grammar was sufficient to the task.

The extent of your vocabulary doesn’t matter.  The more $.50 words you use, the fewer people who will understand you.  If you use jargon, people who are outside of the area to which that jargon applies will not understand you.

All of this applies to any form of written communication, be it email, internet postings, submitted papers for publication, etc.  It doesn’t matter what your purpose in writing is, the ultimate issue at hand is whether or not your audience is going to understand what the hell you’re trying to say.

The entire point of communication is to be understood by the people with whom you are communicating.

Teh hole point of cummunication is 2b understood by teh ppl your talking to.

For the most part, we fall somewhere in between correct grammar and internet-speak, perhaps leaning to one side or the other.  "They" say that the optimum reading level for which to write is 8th grade.  What that means is that when you write for a general audience, you should be writing in such a way that anyone with at least an 8th grade education can quickly and easily comprehend your point.  While this may seem "dumbed-down", you have to consider that the vast majority of Americans do not read on a regular basis.  They are literate, but not literary.  The 8th grade reading level assumes that *most* people will be able to easily understand you.

Even more than not being understood, a big problem with writing at a high-level is alienation.  If you are trying to make yourself seem smarter by using obscure or uncommon words, one of two things are likely to happen.  Either your audience will look up the unknown word (if the meaning cannot be garnered from the context) or their eyes will glaze over and they won’t take in what you’re attempting to convey.  There is a limit, however, to the extent to which people will go to understand the words you choose.

The problem comes in when people perceive you as using too many high-level words or phrases.  In the attempt to be seen as intelligent, people who are actually intelligent will begin to suspect that it’s merely a ruse and you’re using those words in order to seem something you’re not.  People who are less intelligent (perhaps than you actually are) will perceive you as pretentious and looking down on them.  Either way, this causes you to become alienated from your audience and, regardless of the validity of the points you’re making, you become irrelevant to the situation at hand.

The entire point of communication is to be understood by the people with whom you are communicating.

Teh hole point of cummunication is 2b understood by teh ppl your talking to.

Grammar nazis on the internet, then, are actually hurting the cause of writing by picking apart incorrect grammar when it already was sufficient to the task of being understood by the target audience.  If the information being conveyed is readily understood, then your work is complete.  If the information being conveyed is well-structured, grammatically correct and filled with high-level vocabulary and it is not easily understood, or it is easily misunderstood, then you have failed in your attempt to contribute to the greater discussion.

Get it?  When it comes to basic communication, it is less important to be correct than it is to be understood.

The problem with l33t-sp33k is that it is hard for many people to understand and/or decipher.  It should be considered a niche dialect of English and not fitting for general communication.  The problem with aLtErNaTiNg CaPs or ALL CAPS is that it is difficult to read, and therefore to understand.  It’s not cute, it’s not clever, it’s a lot of work to go to for people to not understand you.  The problem with poor grammar and bad spelling is that it causes some people to be compelled to prove themselves smarter than you.  That said, unless it is really atrocious, it doesn’t actually cause or facilitate a lack of comprehension.

Again, if you understand what I am saying to you, then my grammar is sufficient to the task.  That is the only thing that matters.  If you’ve decided to write in such a way that people will have difficulty understanding what you have to say, then you might as well say nothing at all.

At the very least, others will wish that you had.

So I was trying to fix my bed for real when I smashed the middle of my thumb with the hammer.  Stupid little cat came in and distracted me.  It hurts and it’s in a most inconvenient spot.  At least it’s not obviously visible and the only people who will probably notice will be the ones I show, saying, "Wanna see something gross?"  (It’s not all that gross, though.)

And then, this morning, I woke up to my bed crashing down.  Apparently my "fixing" made it worse than it was when it was just cobbed together.  Figures.

I keep talking to (and reading the blogs of) people who bitch about how they gain weight whenever they’re in relationships.  Don’t really want to hear about it, to be honest.  I’m the opposite.  I lose weight when I’m in a relationship (it’s the sex or lack thereof).  Lucky me, you might be thinking, to be fit and happy at the same time…  not so much, though, because the other side of that is fat and lonely, and because it’s hormonal and my doctor doesn’t believe me, there’s not much I can do about it.

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This entry was inspired by the coloring book "Girls are not Chicks".  Above is an image (used with permission) from the book that really spoke to me.  I encourage you to check out their site.

I think that the word "feminist" has gotten a bad rap.  It’s all too often believed to mean "women are better than men" as opposed to the more realistic "men and women should have the same rights and reap the same rewards for taking the same risks".  Part of that has to do with the stereotype of militant feminists at the beginning the feminist movement in the US.  There’s a measure of extremism that was necessary in order to get it off the ground, but also, extremists tend to be more vocal on any topic than moderates.

I consider myself a feminist.  Anything men can do, women can do.  Not better, not faster, just can do, also.  I believe that there are situations where men are better equipped to handle themselves and situations where women are better equipped to handle themselves.  I don’t believe that equality means lowering the standards of a job description in order to allow the opposite sex to participate, I believe that it means "if you meet the criteria, you should be a candidate."  I believe that whoever gets to the door first should hold it for the people who are in the immediate vicinity.  I believe that anyone who needs assistance should have the door held for them.  I hold doors open for men, women, children and I expect they will do the same for me if the alternative is me being hit by that door when/if they don’t.

I have a friend who is kind of the antithesis of a feminist.  It’s not that he disagrees with equality, he just thinks that men are often more oppressed than women and that women complain about things that men have worse, that one of the effects of feminism has been to both de-masculize men and to deride them if they behave in ways considered to be effeminate.  As I was composing a rough outline of the things I wanted to say, I realized that he’s not entirely wrong in some of that thinking.

The whole concept of the metrosexual movement is that men should embrace some of the major oppressors of women.  They are encouraged to follow the fashion industry, to spend additional money on beauty products, to rid themselves of unnecessary body hair, to create themselves in ways that will cause society to rank them among the "beautiful people" without regard to who they are/how they feel inside.  It’s less prevalent in men than in women, but it’s becoming more common.

And is this really the answer?  To have some semblance of equality do men have to become more like women and women become more like men?  It’s a common thought, regardless of the amount of truth in it.

Honestly, the whole male/female, masculine/feminine dichotomy is something I’ve battled with quite a lot in my life.  I’ve never been all that stereotypically feminine.  I don’t put crap in my hair, I don’t use makeup, I don’t buy clothes based on what’s in fashion at the moment, I’m not demure, I don’t need help, I know how to use tools and how to fix things around the house…  I don’t get all wrapped up in gender differences and, frankly, I find that I prefer the company of men to the company of women on a regular basis.

When I was younger this led to statements like "Oh, jeez, Fyre, sorry about [what I just said]. I forgot you were a girl."

Not "I forgot you were here", but "I forgot you were a girl."

The first couple of times, it’s kind of funny.  The next couple of times, it’s annoying.  When it happens regularly and turns out to happen in different social circles it becomes incredibly depressing.

So I turned it around and started using "being a girl" as a label for certain stereotypical things.  "I’m just being a girl about this.  I need to gain some perspective."  "Yeah, I went to this event and I actually dressed like a girl!  Makeup, crap in my hair, hose, heels, little black dress, the whole nine…"  I stopped thinking about why I was doing it or what it meant, really, because everyone, EVERYONE knew what I was talking about.

And then I was telling a story to a friend of mine who I can only refer to as a "gentleman"; who holds doors (opens car doors!) for women and even insists upon it sometimes, practices hat etiquette and generally treats women like they are "ladies" on a regular basis.  I said, "Yeah, man, I even looked like a girl that night." and he said, "Huh?  What are you talking about?  I mean, it’s not like you look masculine at other times."

AND HE WAS RIGHT.  This type of man who is generally regarded as the opposite of feminism, someone who values certain traditions of interaction between men and women had unwittingly called me out on behavior that I wasn’t even aware of.  I had decided, on some level, that because I wasn’t a part of some of the stereotypical cultural traditions of US women, that because my friends would "forget" that I was a girl, that I was less of a girl for it.  And I’m not.

I embrace pink in some situations.  I find it to be a pleasant color.  I like to look and feel pretty.  I like sparkly things.  I like having cleavage and I like showing it off.  The other day I bought a pair of shoes just because they were cute (which was a mistake because they’re not very comfortable :-/).  I read Glamour - I mock the makeup and fashion stuff, but I enjoy the articles and have subscribed in the past.  I have found that sometimes "shopping therapy" really does make things better.

I also don’t really like babies, so don’t ask me to coo over their pictures.  I believe that marriage is a stupid concept, so I won’t fawn all over an engagement ring.  I don’t ask for help I don’t need.  I don’t think that every problem is best solved by talking it out.  I don’t expect "him" to pay for dinner.  I don’t want or need preferential treatment, but in exchange, I don’t want to be punished for having tits, either.

I have a problem with labels, but I don’t have a problem with words.  I have no issues with the word "bitch" or with some women embracing it, but I don’t like it being directed at me because I"m not one.  I like the word "girl" because I do have many child-like qualities to my personality.  I also like the word "chick" because, to me, it has a certain synonimity with "hip".  I can understand the women who prefer to not be called "girls" or anything other than "women", but I don’t fall into that category.  You have to pick your battles, I guess, and that’s just not one of mine.

I want girls to be able to play with trucks and not be questioned.  I want boys to be able to wear whatever they want without being thought of as "gay".  I want for people to be treated in ways that are based on who they are, not the level of conformity to social "norms" that they exhibit.  I want for women to not be assumptively assigned to take notes or get coffee or do the filing because of their gender.  I want men to not be encouraged to be stoic and emotionally distant simply because there’s something dangling between their legs.  I want people to be treated equally and I want them to not have to fight for respect that is given to those who already fit the prescribed mold.  I want stay-at-home moms given the same respect for working moms given the same respect as women who are childless by choice, because it was supposed to be about having all the choices available to us and not about invalidating traditional choices.

And for all that, I still consider myself a feminist.  Not a militant one, not an extremist one, just a woman looking for equality in the new millenium.

Imagine a church.

The high curved ceilings, the deep, ornate pulpit, the columns to either side, the chandeliers, the statues in the alcoves to either side.  Unless you’ve never been in a Catholic church, you surely have some idea what I’m talking about.

Now gut it.

Turn the pulpit into a stage with a black drop cloth against the wall.  Put folding chairs in the back and sit people on the floor in the front.  Make sure that the audience consists of a tight, familial community who exist on the fringe.  Put Kimya Dawson (who had a couple of songs featured in the movie Juno) on the stage alone with her guitar.

That’s where I was last night.

In a place where I’d be infinitely more surprised to not recognize people, a surprise hug from an unknown person is taken in stride because, probably, I know her.  If I don’t, it’s no big deal because she’s bound to still be (extended, unrelated) family.

Dawson caters to the kids without neglecting the adults and allows herself to not get hung up by the fact of there being kids around and give the adults in the audience a good show.  She encourages an audience that doesn’t need any encouragement to be in the moment, participatory or even just singing along.  A performer couldn’t ask for a more enthusiastic reception.

That said, it wasn’t really my thing.  While I could listen to a song or two if I happened across them on the radio (or, say, in a movie?) a half-hour was too much and an hour was Far Too Long for me.  I can offer you a measure of forgiveness for your guitar being out of tune, but not from the very start, not for the entire show (getting worse) and certainly not when you acknowledge that there’s a problem and propose to not solve it with a conspiratorial "Shhh!  Don’t tell."  That’s ok, we all already knew.

But, if other people enjoyed it, more power to ‘em.  I didn’t plan on going to this show, I just wanted to spend some time with Mom, who happened to have free tickets.  So that’s where we spent time and we came away with about the same opinion.  Sure, she’s cute, but that’s not enough for either of us.

My mom bought me a coloring book that is already working to inspire me to write a big long post and to connect some of the things that I’ve said before and scattered among my archives.  I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get all my ducks in a row to do that before the weekend, but we shall see what happens.

In the meantime, I got to spend quality time with my mom, see (in passing) people I don’t see nearly as often as I’d like and I walked away with (I think) a pretty decent post for today.  It’s never a loss if I at least come away with a good story.

(Warning, this starts without context on purpose.)

Lately, I’ve been hearing quite a few people say "You only regret things you actually did and not the things you didn’t do,"  but I just don’t buy it.

How many times have we all been faced with a decision "Do this now or walk away", walked away and spent time later on wondering what would have happened "if only…"?  Personally, I think that the biggest regrets of my life are for things I didn’t do, rather than things I did because, at least having done whatever, I know how it ended.

Years ago a friend of mine was approached by a man she knew fairly well.  "I need a wife," he said, "or they’re going to deport me."  She didn’t know what to do.  She went back and forth on the issue and she asked me what I thought.  I told her, "Well, if you do it, you may not be happy, it may turn out to be a bad situation, but if you don’t do it, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering if you did the right thing."  And it was true.  Even though her "marriage" was a really difficult time in her life, even though it made her crazy and gave her all kinds of new issues to work through, at least she knows what happened.  Maybe it was a mistake, but it’s not so much a regret.

I mean, we’ve all made mistakes in our lives, but I’d hope that we also learned from most of them.  Do I regret having touched a hot stove when I was little?  Not really, because I learned why we don’t do that.  Maybe I wish I hadn’t burned myself, but if I hadn’t, then I’d probably run the risk of a greater injury somewhere down the line.

Talking about sex, I keep seeing people say that they’ve never met someone who regretted having waited until marriage.  I have.  I actually know a lot of people who regretted never having experienced someone other than their partner.  In fact, the only people I’ve heard of who regretted having sex didn’t regret having lost their virginity, they regretted the specifics - this guy, not using a condom, getting pregnant.  I mean think about the regrets you have for not having approached someone or given them your number compared to the number of regrets you have for acting on an attraction.  Honestly, which side has more?

For me, I think, 9 times out of 10 if I’m going to regret something, it’s because of inaction, not because of an action that turned out to be a mistake.  At least with mistakes, I know what the outcome was…

I don’t know, I’m just kind of rambling here.

I slept in on Saturday, which I do whenever I can.  Got up, made some coffee and just woke up for the first hour or so, then I decided that a hair cut could wait no longer, so I went on my way to the salon.  I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to fit me in, but I had a couple of other things to do, so I didn’t mind.

"Give me a few minutes to get to you," she said, "and go back there.  There’s a party in the back."  So to the back I went, and there was a "party" (of sorts) back there.  My good buddy Ed, who I hadn’t seen since the Superbowl happened to be hanging around…  we’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to get together for months now, so of all the people I could have run into randomly, he was the one I most *needed* to see.

I got my hair cut, picked out two pair of jeans (on sale, that fit and are flattering - hells yeah), got a shot glass to round out the 21 y/o’s gift and accompanied Ed while he grabbed some luch.  Probably, all told it took me 2-3 hours.

And then I RAN home.

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…said the man behind me on the bus.

But it’s not.  Not really.  I mean, sure, technology is prevalent in our lives nowadays and certainly, it’s a higher technology than, say, the technology in a VCR or an answering machine, but that doesn’t make it actually high technology.  In fact, high technology is now and has always been inaccessible to the everyman.  You have to work with military contracts or medical research or something similar to even be aware of a lot of the HIGH technology that’s out there.

MP3 players, digital cameras, DVD players, flash drives, personal computers, etc., etc.  This is not high tech, not by a long shot.  This is medium tech, it’s not cutting edge, but it’s not quite "primitive" either, and everyone has access to it.  You might be able to make the case that something like Blu-Ray is the highest tech of storage media or that gaming technologies can be considered hi-tech, but I can’t imagine that you’d successfully be able to argue that something that available isn’t already being surpassed by another technology that few are even aware of.  This is the stuff of science fiction, kids, and it’s coming soon to a box store near you.

The context of the guy’s statement (which wasn’t made to me, I just happened to overhear) was that computers are everywhere.  That you can’t do much of anything without having to work with technology on some level, and I understand the point that he was making, but I can’t reconcile this idea that technology that has become commonplace and that, really, hasn’t changed all that drastically in this decade is still considered "hi-tech".  I mean, is this the type of guy whose VCR clock is STILL flashing at 12:00 because he can’t figure out how to program it?  On some level, it wouldn’t surprise me.

I don’t know…  the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that hi-tech can’t actually exist in our real lives, or not for long.  I’ve been brooding on this and trying to come up with a workable definition, but it’s all just so subjective.  Surely components to things that are no longer hi-tech may be invented or revamped in hi-tech ways, but does that make the overall product as hi-tech as the component?  I suppose that may be true for some people, but without major changes, I don’t think it works.  The whole auto-park feature on cars is pretty hi-tech, but that doesn’t make the actually car all that hi-tech unless it’s decked out, even then, you’d be hard-pressed to convince me that not having to parallel park makes your car, as a whole, hi-tech.

The further we progress, technologically, the more difficult (for me, anyway) the standards for a definition of "hi-tech" actually become.  I mean, cutting-edge needs to be a factor for sure, but what about older inventions that have only just found their niche in the mainstream?  What to think about technologies that are unarguably something "new and different" but just don’t work right?  What is an innovative leap great enough to render the previous version of whatever all but obsolete?

It seems to me that new terminology is needed to sum up technology.  I mean, sure, a pen and paper are unarguable LOW technology, but does that mean that a standard $3 calculator is, by default, hi-tech, simply because it is higher than some wood pulped/carved/molded into a workable shape?  I think not.

But the bottom line, for me, is that I don’t think that it matters how old you are or what you’ve done for a living.  Unless you’re spending your days gaping stupidly at things like automatic doors, digital watches and the ridiculous number of channels available on cable, you’ve got at least some perspective on the issue.

Surrounded by technology?  Absolutely, we are.  Does that necessarily make the technology HIGH?  Not really.  Once it becomes a part of the daily lives of most people, once it becomes easily attainable, it loses it’s cutting-edge value.

I make really good coffee.  I know this because countless people have told me that I do.  There are people I know who never drink coffee unless I make it.  This is fine.

That said, I don’t make coffee on workdays.  I simply do not have the time in my get-out-of-bed-throw-on-some-clothes-and-book-out-the-door morning schedule.  Even with the timer on the coffee pot, I’m pretty sure I would be hard-pressed to so much as pour a cup of coffee while passing through the kitchen.  So I snooze on the bus ride in and I get my coffee in the office.

And at 7:30am, I like my coffee already made.  I’m not a morning person and as long as someone has already made the coffee, I am a happy camper.  If, by some chance, the man who makes the 7am coffee is on vacation and *I* have to make the coffee, I am surly and grumpy and not very dexterous. 

After that first cup, I like my coffee the way C. makes it.  He uses a pouch and a half and the coffee is nice and strong and yum.  If he hasn’t made that coffee I will either be disappointed in the weak coffee available or I’ll happily make it myself.

Then, around 2:30 or 3 when the fatigue and sleepiness sets in, once again, I like my coffee already made.  Usually I have to make that particular pot because I think pretty much everyone wants their coffee already made at that time of day.

At any other time, I like my coffee free.  Generally this means I will make it myself, and I do make a damn good pot of coffee.  If I’m going to pay for it, I like my coffee pretentious.  Give me a cappuccino, but don’t be an idiot and give me a latte.

But despite all of that, the bottom line for me is, if I have to get up at 6am, I like my coffee already made.  Everything else is just gravy.

I knew it was going to be a good time when, immediately upon walking into the fund raiser, I was invited to a party.  Running into one of my oldest friends, who I hadn’t seen in around 3 years was a wonderful surprise; I’m just disappointed that we didn’t have more time to catch up.

There are people who know me, generally through work, but sometimes through other situations, who are astounded at how much I manage to fit into my (so-called) free time.  I mean, I talk about being busy, but, on some level, I just can’t really grasp how little time I actually have available.  Every time I try to make time to spend with a friend, I discover that the constraints on my time are extremely limiting, and yet, I can still take that last-minute invitation and say "I’ll be there in 20 minutes."

And the constraints on my time ARE limiting.  I mean, I have Spawn with me 2 days a week (Monday and Thursday) and every other weekend.  I *can* schedule things when he’s technically with me, but having limited time, I don’t like to give up what little we have to spend.  Every Tuesday is movie night, and the movie generally lets out before 9, but most people assume that if I have a movie, that’s all I can possibly do.  Every other Wednesday for another handful of weeks I babysit my niece, and alternating Wednesdays I do my grocery shopping.

Every weekday is almost surely out, unless whoever wants some of my time is willing to stay up Far Too Late on a school night.

Weekends, though, seem to fill up quick.  While I try not to make plans without Spawn for his weekends with me, the older he gets, the freer I feel to do that.  Hence, going to this fund raiser this weekend while he stayed home.  That said, people will often start with "Do you have the kid this weekend?" and an answer of yes means that I don’t even get the invitation.  Not that this is a bad thing…  I often feel like I’m running myself ragged and as much as I’d like to, say, take a class or add another recurring appointment, there’s just no way that’s going to happen.

My manager asks me on Friday, "Any interesting plans?"  and the answer isn’t always yes, but when he asks me on Monday "So, what did you do this weekend?"  I ALWAYS have a story to tell, censored though it may be.  Heh.

So we updated the white board calendar (possibly the smartest purchase I have ever made) and filled in all the details and appointments and scheduling that we had.  Spawn commented on  how empty the month was (as was March), but the reality is that, while the plans may not have been made as yet, they will come, and whether or not the calendar actually fills up is irrelevant to the amount of activity that will take place over the course of the month.

And, really, when you take it all into consideration, is it any wonder that I blog?