i don't have anything to say, except "happy birthday" to my dear friend and cherished lover. you know who you are.

treading water

today, i was subtly put on notice that i have to improve my job performance (within a relatively short time frame) or i'm gonna be stuck in my present position until i die or retire, whichever somes first.

the good news is the issues are fixable. kinda. i think. the bad news is that i'm taking the news badly. i'm embarrassed and ashamed that i've wallowed in mediocrity for so long that my reputation is uh, tarnished. i'm pretty disgusted with myself for playing this game.

i worry that it isn't really fixable - i see a similar dynamic in everything i do. ignore the instructions, don't take notes, wing it till i can't anymore, and end up at the junction of epic failure and shattered illusions.

i've said it before - just show up and do what you're told. in other words, do what's required.

i hate tv

i hate tv. i own one and i watch it periodically, but every time i do i feel empty and cheated. it seriously bores the shit out of me to sit in front of the thing, and i wind up shutting it off, annoyed.

i'm annoyed with the violence. CSI has like, 4 shows, and each one starts with a mutilated corpse in the establishing shot. and CSI is only one franchise; there are others i'm sure. i don't need to be traumatized by the sight of mutilated corpses every day.

i'm annoyed with the pressure to BUY MORE STUFF. "If you don't smoke Tarrytons, Fuck You!" i don't need to consume more chinese-made plastic shiny shit to be happy. really. the cognitive dissonance induced by a relentless barrage of YOU ARE NOT HAPPY BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE OUR PRODUCT messages from that screen pisses me off.

Throwing Christians to the Lions (or Reality Shows): annoyed. I personally do not need to witness the suffering of others in order to feel better about myself. (Oh, look at that fool. I make MUCH better choices than THAT fool. Thank heavens.) who are these millions of viewers?

televised sports: boring boring boring.

i do engage in a lot of screen time - i spend more time in front of a computer than my nose in books, or doing something creative. or spending time with other real-life humans. but a lot of those humans want to watch tv. and i don't wanna.

i rationalize my choices by telling myself that i at least have more control over the content i consume and interact with the information that i receive. and interact with other computer humans.

in the last few years that my dad was alive, he used to phone me and ask me to Google something for him once in a while. he learned just enough to use e-mail and that was it. he never e-mailed me; he had one friend he would write to.

his Google requests were great conversation starters, and i miss them.

analysis paralysis

considerate [kənˈsɪdərɪt]
adj
1. thoughtful towards other people; kind
2. Rare carefully thought out; considered
considerately adv
considerateness n


Thesaurus:
Adj.
1.
considerate - showing concern for the rights and feelings of others; "friends considerate enough to leave us alone"

Related Words
kind - having or showing a tender and considerate and helpful nature; used especially of persons and their behavior; "kind to sick patients"; "a kind master"; "kind words showing understanding and sympathy"; "thanked her for her kind letter"
unselfish - disregarding your own advantages and welfare over those of others
tactful - having or showing a sense of what is fitting and considerate in dealing with others; "she was tactful enough not to shatter his illusion"; "a tactful remark eased her embarrassment"

Antonyms
inconsiderate - lacking regard for the rights or feelings of others; "shockingly inconsiderate behavior"


pro·ac·tive 
–adjective
serving to prepare for, intervene in, or control an expected occurrence or situation, esp. a negative or difficult one; anticipatory: proactive measures against crime.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. -Henry David Thoreau

last night i had dinner with my mom and aunt - aunt was in a nasty auto crash in january and has been off work ever since. she's doing all kinds of physiotherapy and she's been at the hospital a lot. i haven't seen her since my dad died, and she's "that aunt" - the one who sends a dozen e-mail forwards a day. jokes and prayers. i delete most of them on sight.



last night she informed us that after a lot of physical therapy and a number of scans of various kinds, she's being referred out to an oncology surgeon kind of guy because there is a mass in one of her lungs, it's not benign, and while she quit smoking 24 years ago, she smoked two packs a day for 20, 25 years.



she's frightened, and understandably so. we haven't been particularly close, and the news is a bit sad, but i'm wondering if i've hardened myself to death, because i don't feel anything except annoyed.

EDIT: i just took a photo of myself to send to my boyfriend and looked at it, and realized my face does not look like someone who is annoyed. it looks like someone on the verge of tears, with a stupid fake smile on her face.

i got an answer to the other day's rhetorical question about why people are so mean. it's because other people allow it.

after a hard ride on the drama llama, a friend of a friend (now former friend of my friend) returned to a girlfriend who dumped him at a most inopportune moment. i'll spare the boring details but i can assure you that far too many innocent people were abused in the course of approximately 72 hours and the sobbing, whining, histrionic DRAMA this dude perpetrated on all these people only served to alienate his friends when she took him back.

the sadness lies in the pattern. she's dumped him before. she'll dump him again. he'll cry again. and very very soon there will be no one to lean on, and he'll probably die, taking her with him. remember the dude in the news from six months ago, who killed his wife in Vegas and hung himself in a cheap motel room in Hope, BC? yeah. they're a lot like that. childish, weak, irresponsible fucktards. and in their late 30's. more than old enough to know better, act better.

then again, maybe i'm not finding it all that sad. maybe i'm too annoyed to really give a shit.

a very dear friend wrote some time ago that "one of the most frustrating things in life is that you cannot heal the hurt in another person's heart".

very true. but while we may not be able to heal the hurt, we can show up and support the ones who are hurting. it's relatively easy to do, given what's going on with the one who hurts. they're the ones who feel the pain and have to do the real work.

this reminds me that: 1. i've been missing my dad a little bit today, 2. that i need to check up on another friend of mine 3. that i think my boyfriend is one of the most excellent humans i have ever met and 4. still trying to understand, after all these years, how people can be such cowards in relationships that they string someone else along for months or years, with lies and deceit and fakery and bullshit like "i don't know what i want" and "maybe we have a future".

how can they NOT KNOW how much they are hurting someone else? it fucking boggles me.