The boyfriend (formerly known as not-boyfriend) gave me a few gifts for the holiday season including some Woot monkeys to “fire at your coworkers”. Since I like my coworkers, I’m instead trying to train them to do the phone support part of my job. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get them to type up the entire works of Shakespeare.
When you describe what a writer does, it’s almost more rewriting than writing. Rewrting sometimes hurts. It’s letting go of your attachments that are just that. At some point a piece of writing (or any kind of art) becomes its own thing outside of you, greater than you. It feels like a part of you. It came from you, but it’s not part of you anymore. You have to look at it with an objective, analytical mind, and think practically about what is best for it. Let it be and become what it was meant to be.
My middle school English teacher used to say “kill the baby” to refer to this editorial process. He said it in a very creepy and energetic way,
“Kill the baby!!!”
As much as I knew what he was trying to do, I say to this day, “Nooo, don’t kill the baby.”
There is editing and there is killing. It’s whole art and skill within itself to know when you’ve overworked something. With many forms of art, there’s no going back. An overworked charcoal or pastel drawing is going to be an overworked charcoal or pastel drawing no matter how much you want it to back to that fresh, exciting, perfect moment you passed. You can get to that point in writing too. The idea behind the writing is so overworked in your head that the words you are writing are no longer exciting, but lifeless.
I happen to be of the opinion that it’s better just to give the baby a haircut, trim it’s nails, give it a bath, and let it grow up.
Carolyn Snyder apparently has a lot of exciting analogies.
“…discussing paper prototyping without talking about usability testing is like trying to gossip without using pronouns.*
*The next time you throw a party, ask your guests to sing “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” sans pronouns before you’ll give them back their car keys- not because it’s an effective sobriety test, but because it’s funny.”
-Carolyn Snyder, Paper Prototyping
I think I’ll try that.
I’m interviewing for a different job at the company I work at. When you start interviewing for a job, sure, you want the job. When you’re in a multi-step interviewing process that extends over a week, you get very immersed in the idea of the job. You research it. You get ready for the questions about why you want it and why you’re so good that you’re the only person who could possibly fit this role. You start to think about ‘how it’s going to be great if’, and try very hard to not slip into ‘it’s going to be so great when’. Today I found out that I passed interviews round one, which means I get more interviews. Really, its sounds like being rewarded for eating your vegetables by eating more vegetables, but I’m still convinced there’s cake in this for me if I go far enough.
Mentally I can get ahead of myself. I think of all the different elaborate scenarios involving cake. I’m lost in the what ifs and the maybes.
It would be very easy for me to drop the phrase ‘the cake is a lie’ right now.
The not boyfriend is a rum cake I think. The mixing up of carriages and which side the horses go on it not always my fault. He’s certainly had his part in this.
Last post I joked about a ring, white picket fence, and four hundred babies, saying that would happen before he called me girlfriend. Next thing I know, he says that he loves me.
It was on the phone, so he couldn’t see what I’m sure was a priceless expression or me sliding down to the floor, leaning back against the door frame.
I said, “What did you say?” even though I was pretty sure I heard it the first time. I cried happy tears like a stupid diamond jewelry commercial.
Before he told me this he’d asked me a question out of the blue. It was the type of question where the person asking it prefaces it with a question. They ask if it’s okay to ask this strange question. How do you answer that question when you don’t know the next question? It’s a trap. It’s making the person feel like they’re okay in asking, as if they warned you and you consented knowing full well the consequences.
That’s not really consent, but me, you can really ask me anything and I’ll try to answer it, so I said, “Sure.”
Not-boyfriend asked me about what if I accidentally got pregnant. I’m sure he wasn’t looking for, “That would suck!” or, “That would never happen!” as an answer either. Unfortunately, my actual and quite honest answer of, “I don’t know,” wasn’t satisfactory either. I tried to elaborate on that answer with, “I’d talk to you,” which was also true, “But really, besides that, I don’t think I honestly know what I’d do in that situation. I think it would depend on a lot of things.”
I had to explain that no, it’s not something I’d already thought about and decided for future reference. It would be a lot of talking. It would be a lot of thinking. There would probably be tears and anxiety involved.
“Are you asking me if I’m pro choice?” He explained that is not what he’s asking, and even though he wants kids, he’s not pro-life or anything. He wasn’t thrilled about my answer, but he was satisfied that I would involve him and not just get an abortion without even saying anything.
“I know how much that would hurt you. You should understand I’d never do something like that to you.”
Then came something that might have been as powerful as saying, “I love you,” he tells me that if it happened and wanted to have a baby, he would want me to move in with him. He would want to take care of me. I joked that he was a perfect target for women trying to trap men, and we laughed a bit about it. He clarified that it wasn’t something he’d do for any crazy woman he’d dated. He just wanted to let me know that if against odds it happened, and if I kept it, he wanted us to have it together.
Saying, “I love you,” may equal, “I would have a child with you,” for some people, but I don’t think most guys who say one explicitly mean the other. It’s almost like it qualified the “I love you” with “This is how much I love you.”
The labels don’t matter. I don’t know why those labels have been such an issue, but with what we have become to each other, I guess really doesn’t matter.
I’ve been having some back, neck, and shoulder pain issues lately that have interfered with me enjoying my normal routine of kicking ass doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (which by the way involves no kicking, but my ass might sit on someone while submitting them). It’s equally painful to sit for long periods in front of a computer or in my truck which I need to do for the job thing. I always tap out before my neck gets really cranked, but let’s face it, that’s still just not good for soreness that’s already there. Sitting for long periods of time sounds harmless enough, but I assure you, it’s even worse. When I exercise my muscles get loose and happy. When I sit in the same spot all day driving, typing, or talking on the phone my muscles are like, “Um, can we like go do something?”. When I tell them no, they get unhappy and tight. Lately no amount of stretch breaks and lay on my cube floor breaks have been helping.
I turn to vitamin I. Vitamin I is also known as ibuprofen. I’m always the good person who takes it with food and drink, but apparently sometimes I still can’t handle it. I’ve been getting terrible heartburn off and on which may be due to taking more vitamin I than normal, or it could be completely unrelated. All I know is that if your back hurts in a tight, achey way and then your chest burns with pain at the same time, it interferes with your happiness.
I’ve been trying to get the not-boyfriend to give me awesome massages, but I swear he was way more interested in this activity before we were dating. I guess I shouldn’t think about that too much.
To be fair he has been sick and stressed and I’m sure that the last thing he wants to do is look at me and think, “More work I need to do. More that is expected of me!”
For those of you wondering about what a not-boyfriend is, since I don’t think I ever blogged about not-boyfriend, we’ve been dating since shortly after the boy dumped me. I call him not-boyfriend even though he has told me I can tell people he’s my boyfriend and he introduces us as boyfriend and girlfriend. I do this because I am silly over literal and dedicated to the truth. I mean, I can’t tell you the difference between him and a boyfriend, because all of the components are there, but we don’t call each other by these names. If we can’t say it to each other, it just feels weird saying it to other people. “This Guy I’m Dating” is just too much to say and/or type. I’m starting to try out the phrase, “My boyfriend was saying…” but I’m just not there yet. Those of you with a good sense of time (or are stalking me) will know me and the boy broke up last October. It’s now this November. If you ask not-boyfriend, he’ll say we “officially started dating” in February. If we don’t call each other boyfriend and girlfriend, how does one know when you officially start dating? I don’t know either. I personally also can’t recall anything about the month of February that indicated we were official then and not in January. Additionally I think we’ve since become closer in March and all those months after. Lately he’s been further confusing me about throwing in, “Now that we’re more serious,” and “Since we’ve become serious.”. You might be asking how serious it can be if you have issues with the words boyfriend and girlfriend? I don’t know, but if I suddenly have a ring, white picket fence, and four hundred babies and we’re still working on wording, someone might have to intervene. You may have to sit us down and say, “Look, you’re boyfriend and girlfriend. Just say it already fer chissakes.”
So I did get a massage this past weekend and it helped a lot, but it’s now Wednesday.
The massage was something like:
“You don’t feel that tight.”
“Yes, I’m making it up.”
“Nooo, that’s not what I meant. I’m just saying your back doesn’t feel that tight.”
“Well then you’re not pressing hard enough.”
“…”
“Can you go harder than that? …That’s what she said.”
“Is that too hard?”
“No, you can go harder than that.”
Eventually he cracked his knuckles loudly and declared that was all he could do. That is exactly what it feels like, no mater how much I stretch or rub the muscles, it still feels sore and tight. Before everyone recommends some fancy deep tissue massage, I have four words for you: You pay for it. I’ve never had a professional massage since I’ve never had expendable income (yet). Even if I could come up with the money to do one of these, I’m sure one little session will not be the end of it. Massages are an addictive drug even when you don’t have any pain. A professional massage when it gets rid of pain sounds like I’m filling up a credit card.
One thing that has been helping is using a heating pad before I work out to loosen me up. The gym I train at is nice enough to heat one up for me to put on my back while I begin to warm up. If it helps then, it can help at other times, right? So now I need to buy something. It always comes back to money.
As I was commuting this morning and posturing and stretching, wiggling in the driver seat, I decided it was time to visit a pharmacy to get a heating pad of my own. I couldn’t imagine sitting for at least eight more hours and then commuting home without doing something other than giving myself heartburn. In this case I think it’d be okay to be a few minutes late. This was going to make me into a happy worker bee.
There was a long line at the register of people buying one thing a piece. One of the guys in front of me tried to do the, “Oh, ladies first!” to a good looking woman who pointed out,
“There’s people behind you.” Score one for fairness, minus one for flirting. So much for looking at her backside.
“We all have like one item a piece, it shouldn’t take too long,” I stated to the line.
This apparently cued the guy in front of me to just start talking. He was certainly talking to the rest of the line, but he wasn’t continuing the conversation, “Man some retard was blaring his horn this morning and I was like I wish I had one of those devices that could just like disable someone’s electrical system. Z-pow! No more horn for you!”
I couldn’t think of any kind of response to fill the silence. He started again,
“Wow, I ate steak for breakfast. I have a wicked rush right now. It’s like my blood is on fire!”
Another register opened up to help the next person in line.
“I’m running late for work. Anyone mind if I cut in front?” a guy in back of me walks to the front of the line not waiting for anyone to answer.
“Ya, actually, I’m on my way to work too,” I say before he gets to the register. The guy glares, throws down the breakfast bar he has, and stalks out. Immediately a third cash register opens up, and one more person at the register finishes. As he walks out the door, he could have been going up to a free register.
I walked up, put down my heating pad, and commented on how some people just thing the world revolves around them.
That’s not the best part. The best part is me imagining him being late and telling his boss that he was late because of some *expletive* chick who wouldn’t let him cut in line. His coworkers all make non-committal noises and comments he takes as agreement as they really think, “Wow! What a jerkface!”. I love thwarting jerkfaces. Call it a hobby.
Someone I used to work with once inadvertently taught a very valuable lesson to a new Linux user who they were on the phone with. He told the user to run a command to remove a directory with some files in it located in their home folder. They were already in their home folder, so he asked them to run:
rm -rf folder_with_files
The customer ran the command with an asterisk thinking they were being clever and saving themselves time typing.
rm -rf part_of_folder_name *
They meant to run something a bit different.
rm -rf part_of_folder_name*
That space meant that they were actually listing two things to delete:
1. A folder that didn’t exist, because the whole folder name was not typed out.
2. Everything else.
Since they were in their home directory, this wiped out their whole home folder.
Let this be a warning to new Linux users.
Rm doesn’t have an undo.
And listen to what you’re being told when you call support.