Intrepid Street

Today I am starting a journey. A journey of remembrance.  A journey of the written word.

I have found that I live in the moment. Perhaps too much. My recollection of the details, the moments has never been fantastic. As time has progressed, I have gotten better at recollection. Not good enough. Friday at lunch, Monday at lunch. Both days I said to myself, my wife would love to hear this story. Friday, I knew there was something to share. Not what. Today, I told her the tale in broad strokes.

It has always been like this for me. I don’t view this as a degradation of my neurons. Broad strokes and large events, I recall. Details and the minutia that entertains and consumes our existence, not so much.

I shall attempt to record pieces of each day here. Over time, I hope, I will recall more. Recollect greater detail. Relay stories of my day.

Welcome to my journey.

A new team member joined us at Work today. While spending the morning with me, and then lunch, we got to know each other a tad. What an amazing guy. Rather open too. Perhaps too open. Too personal. Some items are not for even anonymous sharing.

Turns out that he has lived out west for about five years. Interacting with various groups that approach life differently. Interacting as in coming across and having to deal with them. Being judged.

He also spends quite a significant amount of time playing in several sports leagues. Rather intensely. So much that going to work is how he relaxes.

He’s going to be a good addition to the team and is fitting right in.

Lunch. Occasionally conversations of interest occur over lunch. Occasionally. Today marginally fell into the occasional category. It was brought up that a youngish person did something stupid that could have, should have, killed them. They lived. No death there.

In jest, sort of, I commented this might be a good argument for reinstating evolution. It was my pleasure to witness a discussion between two smart young ladies over what separates evolution and natural selection. First stated that they were the same. Second said they weren’t the same. Second elaborated that natural selection was sort of a subset of, it leads to, evolution. Being a subset made natural selection not evolution. Someone suggested, perhaps me, there may be hair-splitting by axes going on.

What was the tale that began this conversation? What not so smart task did the person of youth perform? I do not recall.

 

Later that same day.

What do you do when you receive an email whose subject line starts with “FLUB”? You start a chain of events leading to a request for a google search of “… umbrella.” Telling the recipient they are one of the best not widely known bands out there. Having completely made up the band name. Having the co-worker reply with a link to a Canadian rapper’s website. Bluff called.

Good thing I sent my wife the website URL. I’ll update this after she gets home.

 

——— UPDATE ———

Forever Umbrella, search for them, I dare you.

 

I am a news junky. News. Not rumor. Not opinion. Well, a little but of opinion, if it is presented as such. I am addicted to NPR. It is rare that I have listened to enough NPR. These two items are almost certainly related.

As is customary, I listened to NPR on the journey to the office this morning. Their piece, Chicago Homeless Encampment Creates, Enforces Its Own Rules, spoke to me. First up was how a society treats those that are less fortunate or in its care reflects greatly on the quality of that society. We are not nearly as enlightened as we would like to think. Secondly, how is it that a group in these profound dire straits can organize and do a better job at society than those that supposedly lead us?

Everything else pales. I think the wife and I will take part in a women’s march on Saturday.

Other things of note took place today. Nothing worth distracting from that though.

 

I’m torn. I rather like football. Of the American sort. I enjoy football from the rest of the world’s perspective too, but not the point. It is such a brutal sport, doing significant damage to those who play it. They might know this when they start down the path. Probably are not in a position to care. The riches offered to them compared to offerings from other paths. Am I right to enjoy and support it?

There was a post here on Iain M. Banks The Culture. It was eaten. This post is here now.

Die Hard, Christmas movie or not. Christmas movie, no doubt. Arguably the best one ever. Period.

When I met our cat she wanted nothing to do with me. She also wanted nothing to do with anyone. I would walk into the room, she would leave with all due haste. Read that as run from the room. Should she decide not to run, if there was any suspicion I might approach to scratch her, the Flash moves slower. The doorbell ring and she’s lounging in the living room? Woosh, gone upstairs to the back of some closet.

Except in the middle of the night. She would wander close to the bed. If I draped my arm over the side she would sniff at my hand. Eventually, she would let me scratch her until she realized what was happening and then she would move off into the dark. Over time she would hang out for a bit longer and longer.

After a while, we placed ottomans at the head of the bed. She gradually decided it was okay to hop onto them and lay down there. Scratches occurred there. She was hooked and didn’t know it.

Years pass.

Tonight, after getting home from work, guess who has been following me around the house meowing for scratches at each stop?

I’m working on placing character sheets on a website. The point is to take the raw character data and leverage web display technologies to vary the output based on how I want to use the character sheet.

I’ve nailed the input piece of the raw data to the website. I have the data displaying on the website. Now comes the tough part, getting it to look the way I want it to. Time to get serious about learning more than just surface CSS.

Ouch.

Normalization. Exhaustion. Coping.

All three are relevant to the world we live in, the times we inhabit. How do we prevent normalization without being exhausted and while coping with our current reality? It is a tricky balancing act.

Comedy is part of how we cope. The comedy can reduce the shock factor of current events, normalization.

The sheer pace of events, of what the fuck moments, leads to a tendency to want to disengage for a moment or two, for a vacation fr0m events. Otherwise, we have exhaustion. Part of how we cope. Being disengaged, ignoring the world, can lead to normalization.

When you are exposed to a set of circumstances continually over time, it is natural for those events to become common. The trick is to not get used to them. To continue to fight in your own way.