You know, I don't think I've ever seen so succint an explanation of Social Fallacies of Geeks. To sum it up:

• Ostracizers Are Evil - It's not truly a bad thing to exclude certain people at times. Especially if they're dicks.


• Friends Accept Me As I Am - Friends should be able to criticize you without losing your friendship.


• Friendship Before All - Your friends are precious to you. But so is your life


• Friendship is Transitive - Just because you're friends with A and friends with B doesn't mean A and B are, or should be, friends


• Friends Do Everything Together - It shouldn't be an insult if you don't call every friend you know to invite them to a given event

Well, not necessarily in that form. Rather, I was convinced that I was going to find the secret compartment, the hiding place for magic, and with the magic that I'd find there, I would gain the capability to gain more. There are several concrete images I hold to this day, including a variety of locations in the church that my maternal grandparents went to. There was a speaker in the ceiling that I was convinced was another podium. Parts of the pews would secrete secret scrolls when the right carvings were pressed. The crucifix would dispense a magic flute from Christ's right toe... they were all bizarrely detailed dreams and memories which seemed right at the time. There was supposed to be secret compartment behind the bed in my brother's room. The top of the sugar maple tree had a hidden cache that could grant powers. In my mind, they were all instant gratification, power granted without sacrifice, without cost, accessible to all who could understand and who knew the mysteries. So yeah, that basically describes gnōsis. And it fits with part of who I am, that part of me who refuses to believe that the mundane world that I perceive every day is the true world, who knows that there is magic somewhere if a fool only knew where to look, and that he could fly if he abandoned all fear of flying and believed.

I don't honestly know where the line between belief and self-delusion falls here. Human beings are such excellent pattern matchers that we see patterns where there are none. Whether it's lucky socks, patterns in primes, or believing that street lamps go out more often when we pass by, we want to make sense of the world and we tend to go from a conclusion and manufacture an explanation. And so I cannot yield to what I truly believe, for to do so, I'd just become one of those crazy people who jumped off a building thinking they would fly.

Or maybe, just maybe, I would fly.

Sadly, I will have forgotten most of the details before I finish writing this entry, but I just had a bizarre dream of three levels of dreams. Initially, I was in a fantasy world which I recognized as an RPG that I'd played years before, but had set aside. The characters included a pint-sized redheaded female thief (probably a halfling) who still looked like a child, a mixed-gender half-elf (zhe had breasts, but also had wedding tackle below the waist) wizard (also a redhead, I remember. Within the dream, I know I confused the characters at least once because of that), and... they're starting to drift back out of my head, but I know we had a warrior and a paladin in the group as well. No cleric, I'm pretty sure. Anyhow, within the dream, I was cognizant of having lived in this world, but also remembered it as a game I'd played. Since my departure, the group had been targeted for arrest and were constantly on the move (or maybe it was my presence that caused them to be pursued...) so we had to hide.

I would up staying with the thief, which got awkward because she apparently slept in little more than a set of skimpy bottoms. I remember turning my face to a wall and telling her that I'd gladly sleep on a separate bed, but she insisted, saying that she got lonely since no one in the group slept with her anymore. When she said that, I had a brief flashback to how we'd actually met her at a much earlier age, when she was just a baby, and that indeed, there had been many times that she'd slept beside one of us in an entirely platonic way. Now... she was still basically a child in body, but I knew that she'd actually become an adult in her mind. Nevertheless, I wound up stripping down to my underwear (I remember I was wearing anachronistically modern clothing) and gingerly lying down in the bed behind her, upon which she snuggled up to me and fell asleep rapidly. I remember in the dream commenting that she was warm, almost feverish, but then remembering that that was the way she always was, higher metabolism or the like.

The next thing I knew, I woke up in Pittsburgh. Or... something like Pittsburgh. I don't remember how exactly it happened, but I wound up stranded somewhere in town where I didn't clearly know where I was. Fortunately, my phone had some form of GPS, so I was able to follow it down cramped alleys that were nevertheless directly lit by the sun until I came upon a particular bridge setup that I knew I had been on before. There was a huge lake, and four suspension bridges, little more than footbridges, met in the center, albeit with a number of places where they branched off at right angles before meeting. Anyhow, the area had flooded, which meant that we would have to wade and possibly swim. I had no worries about it because I wasn't wearing any socks or shoes, but Crystal (who'd joined me where in the course of me wandering home) was a bit more concerned. Anyhow, while I was waiting for her to hitch up her pant legs, I realized I wasn't wearing pants (typical dream logic) and the guy sitting beside me warned me that the fly of my boxers was open. I thanked him, snapped it back up, and started wading over. Partway through, I found that the bridge had splintered and was starting to stab into my bare feet, so I moved into a doggy paddle. Which, as it turned out, was necessary because the bridge really had sunk further underwater than it looked. Anyhow... I remember we got past the bridges there and I pulled the splinters (several inches long!) out as well as a few weeds that had taken root in my feet (those hurt more to yank out than the splinters) and we walked a bit further. One of the places we walked through, I'd swear exists in real life, but I know has also appeared in my dreams, involving an extremely high bridge that moves between two peaks, made out of a white marble complete with ornate rails, had a little ornamental guard shack at one side. Another reminded me greatly of part of Louisville in the quiet little neighborhoods we passed through.

And then I wound up in my third dream. I think I woke up from the second one into this one. I was living in a house with at least five rooms to it that were set up in such a way that you could walk around the house in a circle, going from room to room. Anyhow, I remember stepping into the kitchen and seeing a tin of something (part of me wants to say it was a pie, but I think I actually remember it as being two pie tins with some other food placed in between them) floating right outside of the refrigerator. I remember grabbing the tin, shoving it in the refrigerator, and saying something like, "that's enough of that." I remember I saw a flirt of red around one of the corners, so I walked toward it. As I did so, I walked through a cold spot and realized that I was probably dealing with ghosts. I repeated the same maxim I have since childhood when in such situations, a prayer to God to keep my unharmed and not see any ghosts (I've been deathly afraid of ghosts since I was a child. I've never actually seen one, but just the hint of one can be enough to paralyze me for a few seconds in fear), and walked after her. After making a complete circle, each time always seeing that bit of movement in red, I stop and bellowed that the presence, whatever it was, was not welcome here, and I abjured it. I remember thinking that there was some formula that I was supposed to use here involving telling the ghost to rest in peace, but I could not recall it and shortly thereafter, the screen door banged open for a moment and the house was empty. The next thing I remember, I was viewing a cutscene where a super-villain was talking to one of his henchmen, berating her for getting caught when she was wearing the experimental gear that kept her slightly out of phase with reality. I remember the super-villain had bone-white hair that was pulled loose behind him and the henchman had red hair (again! Although this time a very artificial red color) piled up on the top of her head. And then... I remember no more although I'm fairly certain there were more dreams.

So, what does it all mean? ^_^ As usual, heck if I know. The two RPG characters I remember are probably vaguely modeled on Knaw and Vaarsuvias respectively. Other than that, I'm drawing no deeper meaning from my dreams than just random images based on memories and thoughts. Yeah, I know, boring.

You know me better than my other kith
To you I've truly shown my all in all
You know the demons that I've wrestled with
I've let you in within my secret hall
It wasn't easy but I knew I must.
I've let you see the bad in me and good
In hopes I might secure your love and trust
I've given you the greatest gift I could
Because I wanted you to understand
Because I wanted you to truly care
I bared to you my very heart and soul.
And yet that's why I'm driven to despair
..For when you saw the me beneath the guise
..You looked at me with horror in your eyes

Shooting victim identified as Sean Duggan, 29

Found out about this courtesy of a visitor to my site and the search results that led him here. Huh. It's not me. I'm living in New Jersey. But the name is right, as is the age. Kind of glad they didn't post a photo. What if he looked like me too?

So, I have to fast for 12 hours for my bloodwork in the physical I'm getting tomorrow and I'm really not loving it. *wrinkles nose* My body requires a lot of fuel to keep going and right now, my stomach practically feels hollow. *sigh* I know... millions of people starving to death. All I have to do is lay off of the food for 12 hours. Still something I wish I were not doing.

Had an incident on the Atomic Think Tank message boards. I recently signed up for a Martial Arts game set in Gotham City. I had a random encounter with a guy whose character was a Batman analogue crossed with The Shadow. He successfully diverted my attention and hid. My character, being a bruiser sort, picked up a random thug and pitched him towards a wall to lure out the vigilante. It worked, but the player was so offended at my choice of tactics (apparently he'd missed the premise of the game and just built a straight super-hero) that he threatened to quit. As a compromise, I rewrote my post so that my character was certain what the vigilante would catch the other guy. Still, it left a bad taste in my mouth. It was ruthless tactics. It was also perfectly in character. Eh.

Well, I should try for sleep. Physical in the morning followed by work and our last rehearsal for Merchant of Venice before we open. One of the guys was carrying a book around on stage. Luckily, he's kind of our understudy for one of the roles, so he shouldn't impact opening night. Still, not a good omen.

Oy... I am so tired. This show is draining, on top of work and recent allergy attacks. I think the show can still come together. It's been ugly, because we've had a number of actors out whether due to prior commitment or due to apathy on their parts. We're so tightly cast (we had to drop the part of Tubal for lack of a person to play him and we're doubling up our female characters to be servants) that we can't replace them no matter how little they excuse their behavior. Pile on to that our director being entirely not forceful enough, a stage manager who professes that it's "not her job to deal with props" and steps out during the show for smoke breaks every 10-20 minutes, our costumes being late... it's not as much of a fun time as I would like. What really gets my goat is that some of the actors haven't even bothered learning their lines. I can understand them not respecting the director. I can almost understand them deciding that the practices aren't worth their time (there is a lot of time wasted during most rehearsals), but taking on a job and then not learning your lines? That makes them look like incompetents! Meh, we'll pull through I know, and I'm in a worse mood than usual at the moment, so I'm painting a terribly bleak picture, but it is still frustrating. Were it not for the good friends in the cast who help me keep my spirits high, I might succumb to apathy myself.

Speaking of good friends, I have also had the good fortune to secure a date last Saturday. ^_^ I thoroughly muffed things from the long walk searching for a coffee shop that was not where I thought it was to my cards being refused at first at the Chinese place we stopped at (they didn't take Discover and my ATM card was replaced recently), but the girl professed that she had a good time and that she would like to do it again. *GLEE!* She's a terribly nice girl. Pretty, intelligent, religious... it makes you wonder what she sees in a shlub like me. Heh... and for my part, I'm relearning how to go about this dating thing again. I'm terribly out of practice and I'm having to figure out that balance between long term and short term thinking again. Ah, but I'll speak no further for fear of jinxing it.

Work is somewhat another matter. I... I'm just having a hard time being inspired lately. I do fine as long as I'm solving the problems of other people, but when it comes to my own assignments, I feel like I'm turning out lackluster code. Functional, but it could certainly be much better work. Oh well, evaluations will be coming up soon. Maybe I will learn more then.

Overall, life isn't all that bad. It's just a wee bit frustrating from time to time. Maybe if I wrote more so as to share my burden with my faithful readers out there...

Yes, I know it's been a long time. I've been feeling... uninspired. *shrug* A couple times, I've thought "Oh, I should go home and blog about this," but laziness always wins out. So, here I am, such as I am. What's going on in my life? Still doing Capoeira with the ASCAB center. I'm still... not terribly good at it. I still enjoy it for the most part, mostly because I don't really care that I'm bad at it anymore, but it is frustrating, both the times when I get too dizzy and out of breath and have to step out, and those times when I pair up with someone else and I can't help but feel I'm holding them back. I'm also in rehearsals for two shows. Merchant of Venice opens next week with Collingswood Shakespeare. And then, in November, I'll be playing the Fairy Godfather in a production of Sleeping Beauty with Village Playbox theater. I'm more excited over the latter. Merchant has been... eh. Attendance at practice has been low, at first because it was vacation time and a lot of people were out. Now... I feel like many of my fellow cast members have given up on the show. I will do my best, but I worry that the show will be lackluster. Sleeping Beauty will be a kid's show and I think it should be a blast!

Other things in life... Bev still wants me to move back down to Pittsburgh. The job market down there is as bad as it is up here, so I will be sticking with my current job for the time being. I have some friends down here and I'm slowly becoming a bit more social. Oh! There's a Young Adults group for church! ^_^ We spent the night discussing last Sunday's readings. It was interesting. Our priest is a bit liberal in my tastes — you could tell that he was carefully choosing his words at times so that he could state dogma while indicating that it wasn't necessarily his personal belief — but I was able to make some input on various subjects. And there are girls too. Woohoo for Holy Women! *wry grin* Quite honestly, getting a girlfriend here in town would be a significant factor in me sticking around. Maybe it's my biological clock ticking, but I really am feeling that urge to find someone and settle down.

One of my co-workers died on Friday. He wasn't anybody I was close to, but I knew his face. He did so young too, in his 40's, from an embolism. He'd been to the doctor the week before and was scheduled for a follow-up appointment, but he never made it to it. It's kind of scary really. It makes me wonder if I should be more worried about my health. Maybe I should go ahead and see a doctor for the occasional pain in my chest (I've been prone to it most of my life, but lately, it's been different. Less of a "feels like something's cramping along the sternum" and more of "someone stuck their fist into the left side of my rib cage and squeezed. My cholesterol readings are excellent as is my blood pressure. I don't eat as unhealthily as many people think. I exercise fairly regularly and I'm within my weight class. There probably isn't anything wrong, but how dumb will I feel if I guessed wrong? Heh... not at all since I'd probably be dead, but still.

No other real news, I guess. Still doing PbP games on Mutants and Masterminds. I'm enjoying myself. It's enough for now.

So, I'm really beginning to think that I'm just not well-suited for Capoeira. Practice wasn't horrible, although I still get tired and out of breath too quickly and I continue to have trouble with maintaining my balance on the kicks. Then, we did roda, the sparring circle. Except, it's not really sparring in the sense of most martial arts. It's kind of like a breakdance competition in some ways except that you do direct attacks at the other person, albeit without much force behind them and frequently intentionally kicking high when they duck. And I'm not used to that. Every other style I've done, you're not trying to hurt the other person, but you have to attack with intent. Here, I just can't seem to get the hang of it. Some of it's the inability to manage both the speed and the control. Even when I'm not directing any force into my kicks, it still has a fair amount of mass to it and to get my kicks above waist-high, I have to accelerate it a fair amount. If I try to take it slow, I just wind up getting tagged continuously in the ring and I'm told to do more. If I bring up the speed, I risk accidentally clocking someone. And when people jump in with a kick, my natural reaction is to defend myself and reflexes usually don't listen to the control side nearly as well. And there's other aspects too. I just don't get a lot of the movements. To paraphrase Zorba the Greek, "I think too much, boss." And when I just relax and let myself roll with it, that's when my combat instincts take over. Lastly, my endurance is lousy and that works against me for this style. There's a lot of extra movement in the style, dodging and flourishes, and I just can't do those if I want to be able to breathe when the attack comes in. My teacher once told me that the style emphasizes dodging over blocking or taking hits because you have to be ready to fight the next day. But, for me, if I try to do the dodges, I can't fight the guy I'm against now. Except, again, I'm thinking fighting and this is not fighting! Och! But the lack of endurance is hurting me on this issue too because as I get more tired, I drop further into my combat reflexes and it's harder to get my aching muscles to halt a kick in mid-motion because the other person forgot to dodge.

So, what happened today was that I was aiming a front kick at the guy and he dropped into a crouch. I don't know whether my foot dropped because I was trying to re-chamber to avoid over-extending or if Ijust automatically tracked the moving target, but I caught him lightly on the chin with my foot. Hitting people on the ground is a big no-no here (although I've never gotten a good answer for what one is supposed to do when the other person goes to ground), at least if you're still upright. I didn't mean to hit him at that. But it was just the topping of a night where my control was just not adequate. And, it may have been because I was already feeling down on myself for having accidentally tagged him, but I got the impression that no one believed me when I said it was an accident. Or maybe they just felt that it was an accident that would not have happened if I'd been adequately skilled. I don't know. Either way, this whole thing has got me a bit in the dumps. I'm going to keep going, of course — I signed a contract with them and I'm not going to throw away money — but I may have to make some decisions once the contract is up as to whether I want to continue. Maybe I'll try the Krav Maga school in the area.... won't do anything for removing combat reflexes, but maybe I'll take more to it. I really want to enjoy Capoeira. It's just... not agreeing with me.

I am scared to death that I'm falling into mediocrity.

I guess I should add some context. Like most people, I want to believe that I'm something special, that there's a quality in me that people can see and admire. Moreover, there's a part of me that's convinced that somehow, I'm exceptional, that there's something in me that will make me famous, that will make a mark on the world. Every day, the belief in the latter dies a little more. I know that I do have good qualities. I'm fairly intelligent, I'm a decent programmer, and I'm good enough at singing that people will compliment me on it. Back when I practiced, I wasn't half bad at swing dancing. I've had people tell me that I'm good at listening to them, and that I've given good advice in the past. I'm good at revising papers, tuning them to make them better. *shakes head* I guess, at the core of it, I have unrealistic expectations, of myself, always have. Anything I do, there's something in the back of my mind saying that I could be exceptional, that one day my talent will be recognized, that I'll make that breakthrough that will put me in the books. And, well, I'm starting to realize that it's as rational as the bit in my mind that whispers that I could fly if I really believed that I could (for those worried about me, no, I don't get these thoughts near cliff edges or anything. :-p I may be irrational, but I'm not crazy). Best case is that I'll live an ordinary life. I'll have my job which I'll be adequate in. I'll have my hobbies which I'll be good enough at to enjoy. And, God willing, I'll have a loving wife and kids to dote upon and bring up to be good people.

And, I guess that's a major source of my angst. I'm having trouble holding onto that hope of finding the right girl. So many of my friends are married, having kids, living life in love. Me... it's been months at least since I last even had a date. I just can't seem to find the right girl. Or maybe, I've found the right girl, but I haven't realized, or I just haven't figured out how to let her into my life. Girls I've known in the past flash through my mind and there's this constant litany of "you should have tried" ringing through my mind. I know I have fairly high standards. I know that I have some rigid criteria. But goshdarnit... there has to be some Catholic musical theatrical drop-dead gorgeous redhead out there for me! :-p Heck, I'll settle for just the first so long as they understand that theater and music will always be part of my life. *sigh* Meh... keep on trying, right? It's the old door-to-door salesman adage, that if you try 10 doors and 9 get slammed in your face, you're still making one sale out of every ten. Thing is, in this case, you have to wedge your heart into that doorframe every time, knowing the door's probably going to get slammed into it, but you're never going to make the sale if you don't.

So... yeah. I want to be somebody. And really, I want to be that somebody for that one person. Whoever she is. And I wouldn't mind doing something great, something...

And... I probably should leave it at that, but one of my original points was that part of the problem with me doing great things is that I recognize in myself a certain laziness which precludes it, that I won't even have the chance to do something great unless I buckle down. And in my heart, I know that that is unlikely. So, ultimately, the failure is completely mine own. And I can't change that without being someone else.