Logical disconnects

My life is plagued by a series of very logical decisions that come together to make me look totally crazy.  Example:

• When I'm bored at work, I listen to music to distract the distractable  bits of my brain.
• I've recently rediscovered my love for fast latin music, like merengue (example), so it's on my playlist
• I have a desk that can switch between sitting and standing heights.  I feel out of shape, so I switched it to stand mode.

Conclusion?  I'm dancing at work.

God dammit.

I swear I don't know what happened

There's this game making a big splash in the "people who play games" circles.  It's called Minecraft, and the main draw of the game is essentially the fact that you get a huge goddamn world (8x the horizontal surface of planet earth)for exploration and building.  This interests some people, I guess.  Up until this weekend, I was one of the apathetic masses.

I want my weekend back.

Here's the thing.  My first experience with Minecraft?  Terrible.  My blocky little avatar got dropped onto a hillside with marauding skeletons and I died unceremoniously.  The game has absolutely no tutorial, no help screen, and only a cursory explanation of the controls in order to help the player, but is definitely a game where ignorance = death and boredom.  I wrote it off as "not for me."  This was maybe half a year ago.

Last weekend, I made the mistake of watching a video "surviving your first night in Minecraft".  If you happen to find a video like this, don't watch it.  Save yourself.  Frankly, it's fascinating.  Should send up all kinds of warning signs, like "Stay away from this if you want to accomplish anything."  So I watched it and promptly fell headfirst into the damn game.

I still don't care about building elaborate, pretty shit.  I'm not that kind of player.  Basically, I built a two-story shack on the beach, a little fenced-off wheat farm, and a grassy area for my logging operations.  Nothing fancy, just everything I need to survive.  It's all covered in lights so I really don't see any monsters (there are monsters at night now) in my neck of the woods (beach?).  Having secured my safety, I decided to abandon my mine somewhere in the hills and just dig into the hill behind my shack.  My goal?  Rock bottom.  I was going to construct a spiral staircase to the bottom of the whole damn world, and find some gold and platinum while I was at it (so I could have the best equipment ever).

So I was putting in the fourth glass floor of the glass-walled lava silo overlooking my hellish lava farm when I lost all of my buckets to a freak lava-related accident.  There's still more lava, but I'm not really in a position to harvest it...and what the hell am I doing?  When did I plunge headlong into super-villainy?  I was just trying to dig!

No need to trouble the police

Lately, it seems like panic is the best response. Mostly because it's the only option that's not actively (directly?) harmful towards other people, and not panicking is so tiresome.  I was on the panic and flee into a cave train, up until, I don't know, Monday.

Is it still called a psychotic break when you start being super productive instead?

The nice thing about completing tasks (besides the panic subsiding) is that it makes you feel goooooood.  Flow is a hell of a drug, and every box I check in my Google task list is another hit.  About five minutes ago, I checked the supertask of a bunch of subtasks and they all got checked in at the same time. 

Aw yeah.  That's the stuff.

My sleep schedule, as usual, has taken the hit for this one, but my body, knowing me, has developed a kind of sleep inertia.  I can keep going for a couple of days with little problem, but the moment I sleep, I can't get up 'till it's satisfied or until I trick it into believing I'm about to die.  Ergo, my alarm clock is a random mix of warning sounds.

It's another one of those choose two trifectas, like "good, fast, and cheap" or "omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent," only this one pits sanity against productivity and, uh, hmm.  What was it?

I'm a little loopy.  You'll have to forgive the dug up yard: I put all the dirt back.  Bob?  No I haven't seen Bob.  Why?

It would be my leitmotif when striding into battle

You're highly unlikely to hear a genuine song about unaided, unadulterated procrastination ('Cause I Got High doesn't count).  The reason should be obvious: you write what you know, and, in this case, "what you know" and "writing" are mutually exclusive.

I would like to have such a song.  I get over being angry by listening to angry music and get over being depressed by listening to depressing music.  Maybe this last key is all I need to take over the world.

I make people jealous

Or, women, rather.  I don't understand why, because no one should be jealous or envious of me.  Well, maybe homeless people.  But still.

In the last couple of weeks, people (read: women) have told me the following:

"I'm so jealous of your hair." (my hairline is receding at enough of a rate that I have dreams about being Hulk Hogan.)

"How can you eat so much?  You must be 20 pounds overweight." (I am.  At least.)

"You're kind of my fashion icon.  I like how you don't care about your clothes." (Well, I don't, but I don't get any respect, either.)

"I wish I weren't so depressed.  You're always so happy and lucky." (Ok, that was a dude.)

It's true, the grass is always greener.  I heard an interview on NPR with some guy who wrote fiction about being depressed and also a family; he mentioned that he viewed minor, non-clinical depression as a kind of survival mechanism for people with shitty lives, like the Jews (his words).  Expect shittiness, and when you get it, you won't feel so bad.  I don't know where he gets his depression, because mine is all about being unable to function and having that prevent you from functioning.

I've heard that it's like ADHD; you have only so much concentration to spend on things that bore you/make you anxious and ADHD sufferers basically don't have a full stock like some people.  It may be possible to drain your supply so constantly that it's like you have some sort of problem without legitimately feeling like you're allowed to self-diagnose because then you would be another in the army of people ruining the American health care system.  Fortunately, it may very well be that the solution is to fix the stuff that's draining your supply.  Unless you're Jewish, apparently, in which case you're doomed to permanent pessimism and the resultant depression.

Meanwhile, ladies, really: be born Hispanic (ok, use only a Starburst-shaped amount (the candy) of shampoo and wash the roots of your hair (condition throughout) every other day), add 28 grams of dietary fiber to your diet (one of only a few proven ways to prevent insulin spikes), and, well, don't expect to get hired for any management positions.  Oh, and dude, when you're depressed, you remember all the bad things and none of the good, so you have a bias and that's why you think other people are happier.  It's Science.

It's apparently writing time at Conquista Keep

My father has chosen to write about homo chileno (which, if he bothered to know anything about the hated farce of taxonomy, is actually Homo sapiens chilensis); I'm, uh, here.  I don't know who's coming out ahead.

If you must know, Homo sapiens chilensis is a particularly proud subspecies, with a vestigial irony node.

In any case, I just ate shit on my bike an hour ago, which resulted in the realization that I totally have a job now.  Like, three times.  First, I have health insurance (although I'm fine).  Second, I have money to repair my bike tire (don't bike over grates, moron).  Third, my hands were riddled with scratches and fresh scars which still look worse than my crash damage.  This means I am working, because I am for some reason super bad about not fucking up my hands.  There's the key I took to the dorsal thenar space, the two times my bike tore a small hole in my thumb, the mystery scratch from fuck if I know, and, of course, the time J's parents' door took a bite out of the skin on my index finger.

I needed that skin, you know.  For things.  I'm not sure if they're remodeling or booby-trapping.

Oh man, I'm going to totally regret riding over that grate tomorrow.  More than I do now, I mean.  The superficial damage is pathetic but the bruises are going to be somewhat more of a problem.

Joker on Jack?

I am nothing if not accommodating.  Well, lazy maybe.  Also, possessing of an addiction to out-of-context lyric quoting, especially when I don't know what the song's about.

There's been a request to change the appearance of my descent into madness.  It's as easy as clicking a different appearance: however, each template comes in a set array of colors and I don't feel like adding the extra click to view different templates.

Sadly, the blogger template I'm using doesn't come in blue text on a black background.  So close.

Radish moment isn't tasty enough

I finished reading a book not too long ago.  The main concept is that my dad's friend wants to have extramarital sex.  With ladies.

Let me back up.

So His Lordship of the Undead (and, coincidentally, my father) has discovered that paranoia leads to losing friends and alienating people (well, more people.  The people who were cool with the undead thing).  This has lead him to latch on to the few remaining friends he has.  There's Serge A, who's in the closet to Chileans (and my dad) but not to our (my?) delicate Bay Area sensibilities, and Serge B, whose wife MOMY is also a friend, thanks mostly to her patience.  Oh, there's also Petey Whales, who's so in the mob, but he's a topic for another time.  Serge B is a dear friend, so when I was late to his house for dinner on account of getting lost and having to leave an actual social get-together with people under 50 (procrastination comes in small doses as well), he decided to give me a book for my birthday.

Philip Roth is apparently one of the Great American Writers of Our Day.  Or something.  Anyway, Everyman is about how Philip Roth believes it's ok to cheat on your wives (plural but in series) if life gives you a bum rap, and that everyone should understand like your unfailingly loving daughter does even though she's a victim of society.  I'm sure it's also deep and touching and shit.  Whatever.

Three years later, I actually read the book.  On account of shame, I read it a few hours before the social event I had to attend before I had to go for another dinner at MOMY's hands (which have an excellent way with food).  Characteristically late, I arrived with one question on the mind.

What the fuck?

It should be available over-the-counter

Self-control is an expendable resource.

Don't take my pseudoscience word for it: this was discovered.  Scientifically.  By some people.  Basically, they took some "subjects" (victims) and plunked them before chocolate chip cookies (and ginger for some reason (I think), but I don't remember the experiment very well).  The victims were split into two groups: those tortured with not being allowed to eat fresh, delicious baked goods, and those visited with the boon of sweet cookie-consumption freedom (I guess ginger people were the control?  I dunno).  Then, they were given an impossible problem and told to, you know, have at it.  Two amazing things resulted from this experiment; A) no one cheated, and B) people who had to restrain themselves from eating cookies gave up on the problem way faster.  In half the time, on average.  Ergo, self-control: expendable.

So I totally lost my shit at my dad today, because he took two thirds of the salad.  Let me explain.  He took two thirds of the salad: I lost my shit.

Wait, let's try that again.

Ok, so my dad took two-thirds of the salad, because he just takes the treats he likes all the time without regard for other people's shares.  It's like it never registers that others might want some tomatoes, avocado, chocolate, or salad.  Anyway, I am apartment-hunting, which somewhat poetically makes me impossible to live with, so I asked him if he took two portions of salad, because I learned passive aggression from some of the best in the business.  Well, actually, he can't be that good because he didn't notice the trap and ran right into it: "uh, yeah, twice."  I shot him my mom's dirty look (hooray submissive gesture tendencies) which he countered with some drunken bluster about how I should take all of the salad. I lost my shit.

There, vaguely less crazy.

Part of what's happening here is that I am constantly out of self control.  Another part is that I was taught lessons through shame by the people who are not living up to those lessons.  But mostly it's that I want some avocado too, dammit.

[EDIT] It's radishes, not ginger.  Thanks go to J for reminding me and for the link:
http://www.fastcompany.com/video/why-change-is-so-hard-self-control-is-exhaustible

Now what do I do with all this Challenge?

I'm somewhat of a serial mooch.

I would analogize to the trade of murdering several people for kicks, but a funny man once said that if you have to explain how two things differ, then they cannot be said to be like each other.  I have a problem in that I keep thinking sitcoms offer good advice instead of just my kind of humor (cheap, easy, yourmom-esque).

I have decided that maybe my friends resent my inability to remember to bring snacks, money, or drinks and will start hating me secretly, inside.  So I'm making cookies.  Because who could possibly be allergic to salt, sugar, gluten, or "natural flavors"?

Of course, I kept on procrastinating going shopping until the very last day, and I didn't give myself enough time to run errands, so the places with good butter closed and I am left with Challenge brand butter, the butter of my youth (before my mother discovered that Supermarkets Are Bad).  I seem to remember bad times the last time I tried using Challenge, but that shit is already in the oven.  I get to try them in like 25 minutes, and then decide if the endeavor is worth continuing or if I should just swing by the bakery and get real shortbread from competent people.

Plan B is so you remember to feel ashamed about your failings under plan A. But it's also so no one knows how big your fail is, since by all accounts, you succeeded.  Gotta keep your fires under control.

I fought the payroll system, and I won

No six-guns were involved.

So I came into work late because I had gone to bed late finishing up something for work.  Fortunately, work is hourly and totally ok with this nonsense.  Anyway, today is "did you get your hours in yesterday dammit" day, and I was uncharacteristically prepared, which of course meant that the system had some sort of issue with me.

The gist of it (gist is not slang but in fact a real word from old french or some shit) is that I didn't work on Memorial Day.  Work told me I should count my hours weekly: the payroll system actually counts weeks as starting on the first of the month (and the eighth (eight-ththththth), sixteenth, and 23rd.  Notice the extra floating days on the end of every other week there).  Thus, when I didn't work on Memorial Day (not just any day in May) and instead made that shit up on Saturday, June 5th, the system lost its shit.  "You w0rked t00 many h0urs.  They sh0uld be 0vertime.  Why are y0u w0rking 0vertime? Y0u sh0uld w0rk 40 h0urs a week.  Dude." Then I tried to explain it to people.

Apparently people believing that the system is right and that I worked overtime (I didn't) even though I didn't (goddammit) makes me lose my shit.  After losing my shit at payroll cruncher A, fellow non-exempt person B, and payroll head C, I decided it was time to call calming fiancée J.  J got me to speak like a rational human being again, and C fixed everything by just letting me lie and say I worked overtime and then overriding that shit like a badass.

So yeah, me 1: payroll system 0.  Take that, time tracker.

In space, no one can read you scream

I've discovered that sanity is not, in fact, an expendable renewable resource.  Instead, it's like land cards in the game Magic: The Gathering; you keep having to tap it to survive and some jackass next to you can steal or destroy it for, like, nothing.

The older I get, the harder it is for me to sleep.  This is partially because I suffer from that apnea you get when allergies clog your goddamn nose, and partially because I care more about the things I'm not doing as the years go by (whoo stress yeah).  In the past 6 months of living at home, my sleep cycle, allergies, and amount of free time have all worsened, inasmuch as each of those can have a "worse" setting.  Meanwhile, my dad is sleeping better, sneezing less, and watching 5 hours of TV a day on top of his copious internet news consumption.

Today, the Conquistador Lord threw a hissy fit because my mother and I did not arrive in time to sate his lordship's hunger with our meager meal offerings.  We have steady, paying jobs.  He burns his savings on Trappist Beer while awaiting the outcome of his minions' latest failed venture and the world cup matches of the day.

I need to fucking move out al-goddamn-ready.