Category: General

The sudden sads

General

“On my way home! Need anything?” I texted dad.

“I have a script ready at Albertsons but I need to go up there after you get home” he texted back.

“Can do!” I sent and pulled out of the parking lot. I listened to the Accidental Tech boys argue about storage media as I drove through the traffic of southeast Portland. Surface streets only. No freeways or highways for me. The days were getting cooler, sunset is coming sooner and sooner in the day. Fall had definitely fallen. I was tired but not sleepy, just wanted to go home and chill but still felt a duty to help dad out.

The ATP boys were particularly argumentative and it was very entertaining, if a bit stressful. Listening to them was sort of like cringe comedy sometimes except they’re mock-angry with each other. And anger is often hilarious. I used to say that all the time in the past.

I normally back in to my reserved parking spot but because I knew I was going to be leaving again soon, and because parking in front-first put the passenger door closer to the sidewalk, making it easier for dad, I parked normally.

“You’re home!” he said from the couch when I walked in. The couch faced at a right angle to the front door, and with the pin in his neck, he could not turn his head to see me. He was wearing his coat and hat, and it was kind of chilly in the apartment, so I turned up the heat a little. I chatted with him about work as he stood up and walked toward the door with me.

Night was definitely on the way as I drove him to the Albertsons. We were in the Magic Hour, just before sunset, and the colors were muted but beautiful. The sky had some clouds but mostly shone with a dark pale blue color.

“Any word on the house?” I asked him. He’s staying with me while his apartment is being remediated for asbestos and water damage.

“Lisa (my sister) said that they had the sheetrock up and were painting it. Probably be done by…” he paused. “Probably be done by, uh, her birthday. Middle of November.”

A car cut me off to cross two lanes. “The squirrels are out tonight, dad.” My turn to pause. “I’m going to miss having you around.”

Dad was quiet.

As I drove in to the parking lot, I asked dad if we needed anything from the store and he said I could shop around while he was waiting at the pharmacy counter.

An Alberston's store front from the parking lot, with the darkening evening sky hanging above it.

I snapped a picture of the Albertsons sign, the beige stucco facade and the lit-up blue and white sign against the fading blue sky, with amber parking lot lights… it was pretty. I was glad I’d captured the scene.

Dad looked thin and tired, hunched over as we walked through the parking lot to the store. He went off to the back corner and I took a spin through the aisle. The bread I like was on sale, buy one get one free, so I had two loaves in hand when I caught up with him. “We can put one in the freezer,” I explained, and he grunted assent.

Meds obtained, we went though the checkout counter. No bad needed, miss. Dad wanted to get some cigarettes but the counter where they kept them had a line of people waiting and no checker behind. A lady asked a security guard if anyone was working the counter and the security guard didn’t know, politely. Dad decided he had enough smokes for tonight and he’d take the bus to the 7-11 tomorrow. We headed back out into the twilight.

I got to the car ahead of dad, unlocked the doors, and sat behind the wheel. The light outside was dying but beautifully. I sent the picture I took to Tracy, just to share. Dad got in, buckled up.

“This is the kind of light Spielberg likes to film in,” I said. Dad smiled, nodded.

I’m glad I have been here to help him out. I am going to miss him when he is not around.

Do you ever, suddenly, without warning, get the sads? Yeah. Me, too. Strange how swiftly it happens.

6 Months of Writing

General

Six months ago yesterday, I started writing daily. Although in the beginning I sometimes fell short, I mostly kept my committment to writing at least 500 words a day. For the longest time, I posted what I wrote. Recently, because I wanted to focus on writing and not necessarily posting, I stopped sharing my daily writings but I have kept up the streak.

Last night, curious about how much I’ve done, I sat down and added it all up. I wanted to mark the milestone. Because I do my writing in Writer, a distraction-free online text editor, I didn’t have an easy way to add up the word count. I had to do it manually, which was a bit of a pain. Luckily I only have to do that part once because now it’s all in a tidy spreadsheet.

I have written, in 6 months of intentional, habitual practice, just over one hundred thousand words. In fact, yesterday I passed that mark; the total as of last night is 100,323 words.

I was proud, and it made me cry a bit. That’s a lot of words. 100,323 divided by 182 days means an average of about 551 words a day. That daily number is easy enough to reach; clearly I can do it because I have done it. But 100K? That feels like a stretch. But I have demonstrated that I can do that, too.

Not every daily piece of writing is good writing. And they are not all on the same topic. Each one is whatever I wanted to write at the moment I sat down. Some of it is garbage (by my personal standards) and some of it is good (also by my own internal measure) but all of it is mine.

Is it time to ask a new question? Build on my success? Perhaps, perhaps. The obvious next step would be, can I do my daily writing towards a goal other than word count? Could I tell one continuous narrative?

I don’t know. Can I?

On This Day

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Tomorrow will mark 22 years since I purchased the domain bamoon.com and began using it for my main space on the internets. Trying to think of a good way to celebrate.

Not to spoil things too much but the celebration will likely involve writing some words. Just sayin’.

Streak update

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My 500 words a day streak continues. In private, as mentioned previously. I haven’t been writing anything coherent, just tapping out words until I reach my goal, so haven’t posted anything here. I’m glad you are still out there watching and reading my posts. I promise to have more substantial or at least entertaining things to say, soon. I know that habit forms the foundation for inspiration, after all.

Even a Marvel movie

General

I came downstairs on Friday with some dishes and to get a refill of water and saw Jeff Goldblum on the TV. “Whatcha watching, dad?”

“Oh I was scrolling around and saw this new show.” He used the remote to bring up the title. Kaos. “It’s a little weird but I kinda like it.”

I paused, behind him, watching for a moment. “Is that Netflix?” Dad grunted a yes. “Oh that’s that new show where he’s playing Zeus?” Dad grunted again. “Not really your normal kind of thing.”

“Jeff Goldblum is amazing. I’ll watch anything with him in it. Even if it’s a little weird.”

I laughed and walked in to the kitchen to put my dishes in the dishwasher. As I was filling up my water bottle, I shouted out to the living room. “Even a Marvel movie?” Dad did not like Marvel movies. They were too weird.

But dad sounded interested. “Oh, was he in a Marvel movie?”

“Yes, he was in Thor: Ragnarok. It’s very funny for a superhero flick.” I walked out, paused again behind him. I put my hand on his shoulder, briefly. “He plays a bad guy.”

“Well, I might just have to watch that one. Like I said, I’ll watch anything with Jeff Goldblum in it.”

Stay tuned. I will post an update after he watches one of the better Marvel movies.

Famous for kindness

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Wrote tonight about minor celebrities, people whose work I admire but are unknown to most of the population. I was inspired by a video about Tony Hawk, pro skateboarder, who tells many stories about people telling him he looks like that famous pro skateboarder, but don’t believe him when he tells them that he is in fact that pro skateboarder.

What a surreal experience it would be to have that happen. I’ve never been famous in that way. Well, briefly. I’ll write more about that later. But this idea of minor celebrity ties back to XOXO Festival for me. Most of the speakers and guests through the years have been people whose work I was somewhat familiar with, but the one thing they all have in common is that they create work on the internet, and they were known to Andy Baio or Andy McMillan, both minor celebrities in this same way.

I don’t want to mythologize the Andys; I do want to say that they are seekers of and magnets for the coolest things you’ll ever find on the internet. Indie games, digital artists, writers with deep knowledge of esoteric and lost topics, the Andy’s seek them out and promote them. They lead a small community of like-minded, inclusive, and kind people.

This is the viewpoint I’m writing my final post about the final XOXO. A very specific kind of community for the people involved, focused on a specific kind of fame for people. A fame of empathy and imagination. That’s the best kind. Stay tuned.

555 Words about a shitty day

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I won’t be posting it, but I did sit down and write today. I had a shitty day. Long story made short, I was on-call for work, and had to deal with not one, not two, but three different clients having network and server downtime on a long weekend. And that caused me to have to cancel my D&D game.

Boo. But that’s behind me now. Tomorrow will be better.

My first year with XOXO

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Still processing XOXO and the profound effect it has had on me since I first learned about it. Which was way back in 2013, the second year for it. I’d missed the first incarnation entirely despite being, even back then, chronically online. I knew who Andy Baio was: chief technology officer (CTO) for Kickstarter, an amazing crowdfunding platform, and also the blogger behind Waxy.org. To me, he was the guy who creates and finds cool things on the internet. Finding out that he lived in my hometown, and that he was behind an art-tech festival, I knew I needed to see it and maybe be a small part of it.

In August of 2013 I had quit my job out of depression and grief and had no plans to go back to work. I emailed the info email account for this festival, XOXO, and asked if it was too late to volunteer and help. I got no answer, but I resolved to watch for it again next year.

For the year after that, I tried scraping nickels off the internet using Mechanical Turk, a far more exploitative crowd-sourcing app, only falling farther and farther behind on rent and other expenses. But in the summer of 2014, I saw on Twitter that they were again asking for volunteers for this festival, and I immediately emailed. I got a response from Andy McMillan almost immediately, and I was in. I could be with the cool kids. I wasn’t a cool kid, but at least I could help them run their show.

It’s funny to me now that I have almost no blog posts about that. I have one, and it focuses on one single lesson I learned: do the things you love often, make it a habit. That lesson is one I have learned from many different sources, and clearly, as I blog here for the 149th day in a row, a lesson I am still putting to good use. If for nothing else, Jonathan Mann, the Song-A-Day guy, thank you for reinforcing that drive in me.

But holy cats the other speakers that year! Dan Harmon, who I only knew as the creator of Community, inventor of the Story Circle, and Harmontown host, was there, doing a version of his podcast live from the stage at XOXO. Before the show, wandering around, I saw him talking to a woman, and screwed up my courage to go tell him that I loved his work. I politely waited while they exchanged some kind of tense argument, and the woman pointed at me and said something about me being his typical fan.

I mean, sure, I was (and am) a chubby, bald, cis, white dude. Fair, I suppose. I considered myself a feminist and socialist at the time, although many miles of travel down those roads still stretched before me (and still do) so it stung a little. But then Dan Harmon defended me. “What is that supposed to mean?” he challenged her. “This guy is just some random guy, he’s here at this festival the same as you. What is it you’re trying to say?”

I didn’t stick around and I don’t remember how the conversation went. It is entirely possible my memory is incomplete or a fuzzy confabulation. But I remember Dan being argumentative, I recall the woman being dismissive, and I remember feeling awkward. I was glad I got to tell Dan I loved his work though. I still do. He taught me to acknowledge my failings, because that’s the only way to overcome them.

That year I told many creators and writers and artists that I loved their work. What’s funny is, I never saw myself as a creator, writer, or artist. Not then, even with 10 years of blog posts and two first drafts of novels under my belt. I didn’t think what I was doing was on the same level as the folk at XOXO 2013, because my blog traffic was tiny, and I never published those drafts, and the only drawing I did was for myself.

But I am a writer, creator, and artist. I do it because I can’t not do it. I blog here. I make amazing maps for my D&D game and craft stories and lore that my players tell me is deep, rich, and engaging. I do it because I love doing it, and have fun doing it. I’ve been living the XOXO dream, whether I allowed myself to admit it or not. Thank you, Andy B. and Andy M. Your inspriation and energy are a positive force in the world.

This post isn’t about that

General

I am very sleepy tonight. Not sure why I’m so tired today except of course for the disordered sleeping from the past couple of nights. I go to bed early, wake up in the middle of the night, can’t get right back to sleep, and by the time I do there’s only a few hours left until the alarm goes off. A couple of nights of that would be enough to tire out anyone, I think.

Still need to write something, so I’m relying on habit, as is my usual tactic. It’s warm in this room even though the weather has cooled a bit. The room is warm because this is where my computer sits, and my computer, being a gaming PC, produces a lot of excess heat. I am not using the extra graphics capability right now. Right now I’m typing out green words on a black background, my writing style of choice. This green-on-black reminds me of terminals, and command lines, and old old writing programs. I don’t stop to examine why I like it, I just do.

Spent most of the day wishing I could be thinking and writing D&D stuff but instead, I had to do work stuff. Boring, stressful, work stuff. Not going to talk about that now, though. I’d rather not think about it. There must be something else for me to write about?

Would it be D&D? I have to set up a WordPress site for Biscuit Con at some point. That’s D&D related. I have some really fun ideas for the next few sessions of my campaign. I can’t really post about them here because my players might see it, but let me just say that this next phase of the campaign is set in and around a druid grove. I think my players think of the druids as bad guys. I’m not going to say one way or the other. They, like all my other factions, have their goals, and what they would do to achieve those goals, and not everyone in the faction agrees on either of those points 100%. This should be a nice break, though, from fighting undead and kobolds for them. I get to use other enemies. Fun stuff.

XOXO is coming. My first volunteer shift is this coming Thursday after work. I can’t remember what I’m doing but it’ll be good to be among the techno-artists again. I have severe imposter syndrome for my own sake but I really like the hopeful, progressive, creative, and techno-focused vibe from the founders, staff, volunteers, guests, and attendees for this conference. I wrote about what it is a few days ago; go check out that post.

If you’re reading this and you’re an XOXO-ian, say hi! I think somehow I got a burst of traffic from there. This isn’t an XOXO focused post, though. I’m just fumbling my way to 500 words so I can go rest. I’m pretty close now, so perhaps you’ll forgive me if I don’t try to find a nice “button” ending. But thanks for reading. I love you all.

Duty vs. Caring

General

Had a check-in with my team lead today. They like to have one-on-one talks every couple of weeks. They ask how I’m feeling, what, if anything, I need, figure out plans for the future. We almost never focus on specific tickets or clients; our talks are more about how I feel overall about the job, about life, about goals and stuff.

It’s great. Have I said how much I really like this job? I can’t stop the anxiety brain; that anxiety is baked in after all these years, it’s not going away. I will always have that insinuating voice in the back of my head, the one that tells me I’m no good, that I’m messing up, that no one likes me. But on good days, I can tell that voice to shut the fuck up. And I am pleased to report I have been having more and more good days lately.

Despite what I said, today my team lead (let’s call them T.) started out talking about a specific call, mostly because we had just finished dealing with it. The client was upset because they thought we had been ignoring their issue today, and that their issue had been caused by a network outage that they also thought we had ignored. It was sort of a mess, and I was on the front lines, since I was the one who had to communicate with the client.

To be clear, the network outage was not something we could control, and we did, in fact, notify the client over the weekend when we got notified about the outage. The client ignored those notifications. And the other issue was… how can I talk about this without giving away company secrets? The other issue was unrelated to the network outage, as near as we can tell, was entirely the domain of a third-party service provider, and was the result of a settings change that the third-party told us was a) impossible to make and b) undocumented – there was no log or ticket for the settings change.

Someone is lying and I am reasonably sure it isn’t us. Either the client made the change, or the third-party service provider did. We will not be able to tell, but it got fixed and that’s as far as me and the company I work for should care about.

My team lead, T., however, started my one-on-one by talking about how it irked that the client was upset with us when we did all we could to fix their issue. And T. could not stop thinking about it. I absolutely saw T’s point of view. Here’s what I offered them:

I also feel a responsibility, a duty, to do my best. If I don’t feel that, for whatever reason, then I do not do things. I let things slide or ignore them. I push when I have that sense of duty.

But my sense of duty is based in rules. It’s got an algorithm. Duty means I have a process, or I can create one. Caring, on the other hand, is emotional. It’s about empathy, it’s about a connection to the issue or the people involved. Maybe we need to separate the rational duty from the emotional care. Save the emotional care for better things.

T. appreciated that, and having talked it out, we were able to move on to other, better topics. It was a good meeting.