Island of the Lone Sane Thought

They're crap pics taken by the appraiser, but at least you get an idea. So here, a few before and after photos.

( Not dialup friendly. )

So I've been brooding rather intensely for a few days, and it's brought some focus about my interpersonal conversational skills. Or rather, lack thereof.

I don't think I have ever had a clearer picture of just how much effort it takes for me to converse with people. Depending on who I'm having the conversation with, I engage layers, sometimes multiple layers, of modifiers in my brain to prevent the wrong thing from being said. ( What I mean by layers... ) These layers engage to form a barrier to prevent me from hurting someone else's feelings, and they are based upon the person. The more layers that are engaged, the more I start thinking about them, and the more I have to put in intense effort to figure out what I can say, and the less I am actually able to get out that's intelligent and relevant.

So where did these layers come from? Well, my father is definitely where I eventually learned a lot of logic and analysis from. I am not logical by nature, you see. My "logic" is actually just a huge repository of remembered situations (or even remembered stories by other people). If something occurs, I look through my logic bag, and try to see if anything similar has happened to me, or if I've ever heard a story like that. Based on that, I'm sometimes able to formulate the best course. This "logic" also fuels the layers, in a way. I am very thoughtless in my conversations, and my father would often take me aside later and explain which things I'd said that were "wrong" and might have hurt the other person's feelings. ( How to succeed in insulting others without even trying. )

The emphasis on "right" and "wrong" words can be really difficult to get around. I often tailspin into paranoia, certain that someone is avoiding me because of something I've said, or implied, or that I wasn't interesting enough. This is exacerbated by society, in some ways. We are expected to not point out stupidity or insults in our conversations; most people will simply "be polite" and continue talking, and then later laugh about the gaffes to other people. I've done it myself. The problem with this is that I have to then rely on my faulty logic system and my elaborate layers system to prevent these gaffes, and sometimes it's just not possible. And because no one will tell you when you've really made a gaffe, I am left to imagine gaffes where there are none.

Of course, when I am certain about a real gaffe, it makes me cringe in a way that is pretty extreme, and I can beat myself up like nobody's business about it. I go back over old conversations, and I pull out flaws and magnify the stupid things I've said until I cannot understand why anyone would want to be friends with me, much less even talk to me. It's rather extreme, and usually I'm able to take a deep breath and slip off to the side of it. Sometimes, though, I sit and stew for a day or two, and this entry is the result of that. Just trying to understand the issues involved with this is helpful. ( Is it any wonder I like online communication better? )

Please don't look at this as "Now I have to reassure Valis that she is not an evil bitch from another galaxy and that I like her" situation. I'm serious. This is me trying to know myself, and sharing the process, and hoping to hear of your own conversational styles and experiences.

catyah gave me five things to post about. Here goes...


1. your LJ name, valis2 (even though you explained it to me the other night): Vast Artificial Life Intelligence System from the book by Philip K Dick, or awesome Japanese video game character. Your choice. The 2 is because valis is already taken.

2. Riptide (of course): I saw this show in the eighties, and I was moderately into it. Then I started watching the reruns on USA in the late eighties, and I really got into it, but then I forgot about it almost entirely. I mean, I would list it as one of the eighties shows I used to watch, like A*Team and Miami Vice, but I only remembered that there was a boat in it. Seriously. Then I discovered tinx_r's Steeper Than It Looks fic, and even though I couldn't remember which character was Nick and which was Cody, it was so good that I couldn't help but google the boys after I was done reading just so I could remember. And then I reread it. And then again. And then again. And then I went to work and thought about it all day, and when I got home I read it again. By that point Tinx was giving me a whole list of stuff to read, and once I found the glory of oddmonster and her writing, I was floored--I mean, seriously, this fandom is how small? And there are how many great writers? So that was a really awesome reintroduction to the show. And then I bought the DVDs and the rest is history.

3. Nick/Cody: Yum. ( Oh, I guess I should say more. )

4. Your new house: Um. I am still getting used to not hearing sirens, alarm clocks in other apartments, garbage trucks emptying dumpsters, people screaming or shouting, people having relations, loud thumping musical noise, car alarms, people making their cars beep at one o'clock in the morning, people slamming car doors, people talking loudly on the sidewalk at one o'clock in the morning, people slamming apartment doors, and dogs barking barking barking all the time. I am not used to the fact that there's no one above us. I am not used to the fact that I have a garage to park in now. I am not prepared for the landscaping, mowing, and drudgery of outside maintenance.

I am, however, delighted by stashing things in the basement. I don't think that will ever get old.

5. Lions!: I think this says it all.

There was a meme at some point about quirks. I started to quirkify an entry. Then pandora_nervosa tagged me. So here. Quirks!

• At work I have to do tons of cut and paste in Word, and the find/replace function is essential. Occasionally I use the wildcard option, and when I do, I often imagine I'm sending out a feral girl to savage the document, jumping into the words and screeching and growling as she runs on all fours through the pages. Sometimes she comes back with exactly what I'm looking for; sometimes she grabs nearly the whole document and drags it back to me, baring her ink-stained broken teeth, letters sticking out from underneath her dirty fingernails.


• My work involves five-digit numbers used to report medical procedures called CPT codes. (For example, 97010 is used to report having a hot or cold pack applied to a patient's body.) The description for one code always cracks me up: Prothrombin Time. Whenever I see that code, I imagine a medical superhero team shouting, "It's Prothrombin Time!" and shaking their pill jars furiously. Even sillier, it was mentioned on a recent CSI episode, and I nearly giggled myself off the couch.


• I am a fidgeter. A world-class fidgeter, if you will. My family sought to break me of it, and they succeeded. To a degree. Now I stealth fidget. If I'm seated while I'm talking to you, for instance, I will be making small right-angle triangles with my big toe. Or both big toes. Each corner of the triangle will have a musical tone and I will repeat this in my head over and over again as I move my toe(s) through their triangular paces. I also flex the muscles in my thighs or calves. All while listening to you and carrying on my side of the conversation. You probably had no idea, did you?


• iibnf is right. If you change your LJ name, I will completely forget who you are. I am so sorry. You could even begin every second entry with "OH HAI I USED TO BE NREXERSTEBBER, NOW I STEBBERNREXER" and I would still be lost on the very next entry. Even if it's only an hour later. I have successfully managed to remember two people who changed names, and that was only because one of them uses icons of herself and I actually know her in RL.

( Moar )

I was tagged by lady_branwyn, naughty thing.

I can't remember what the meme was, only that it was so amazingly yellow that I cannot in good conscience allow it to multiply on this journal without fear of tipping the yellow balance. You all know what happens if that occurs.

I've done this meme before, ages ago, I think. Here I go again. I'm certain that the answers are probably completely different this time. ha! Apparently consistency is not on my list, either.

1. Chocolate. Milk, generally. Especially Vosges Dark Milk Chocolate with Sea Salt and Hazelnuts. And Mauna Loa milk chocolate covered macadamia nuts.


2. Squid. All types, cuttles and colossus included. And crows. I love crows.


3. Fanfic. Especially snupin. Especially h/c with Snape in the hurt/comforted role. That's probably my biggest guilty pleasure of them all. Severus returning from a DE meeting, nearly shattered? Beautiful. Sad thing is, it doesn't matter if the SPAG is awful, the plot atrocious, the characters distorted into pod versions of themselves...if Snape is suffering, I'm there.


4. South Park. It grosses me out most of the time, but it also makes me laugh like an idjit. Also, reality TV shows like How Do I Look? and What Not To Wear and Survivor and American Idol and Amazing Race. Actually, any TV at all is pretty much a guilty pleasure, same with reading fanfic, though at least I can slide in a bit of eBay work during the reading. Now, do I remember to watch these shows? Heh. That's another story entirely.


5. Bad action movies. The Punisher (with Dolph, of course, the movie which proves that a room full of ninjas is no big deal if you have an automatic weapon), Flash Gordon (oh yeah, baby, one of my faves), the Perfect Weapon (with Jeff Speakman), Lost Boys, the Three Musketeers (Kiefer Sutherland Beefcake Edition). Also cheesy (and glorious) movies: Golden Earrings (one of my faves of all time), the Sea Hawk, the Adventures of Robin Hood (mmm, Errol), Captain Blood, the Black Swan (hells yes!)...the list goes on and on. Though, since I had a tape get stuck in the VCR, I haven't been watching them recently.

catsintheattic was asking me about my Excel schedule, and I thought, what the heck, I'll just make an entry about it and torture everyone.

I use a blank calendar format that I made myself (well, not like it's difficult). I then make a workbook containing several worksheets (each sheet corresponds to a new month), and as the years progress, I copy and paste the months and adjust the days.

Each worksheet is one month, and can be printed out on a single page. I use different colors for different things. Lavendar is for travelling, bright yellow is working the day job, and green is for shows.

See, most calendar templates are not very useful for me, because I like separate lines in each "cube" so that I can write out different things, like two appointments. And also, most programs make Sat/Sun too small, or they put Sun after Sat, and for me Sat & Sun are very much working days, so it really causes problems. I need full size cubes for those days because I work so much on weekends.

( Image underneath )

For all of the new and exciting people who've friended me recently, an introduction. A re-introduction for those of you who have suffered through my LJ for longer.

( About the lions, and more about me, me, me )

Glad you're here! Ask me a question if you're bored.

I'm going to start doing an occasional entry with stories from my bookselling days. Thought I'd give you a bit of background...okay, more like a couple pages of background. If you ever really wanted to know about me, here's some stuff.

( When I used to be a bookseller. Skip if you don't want to read a ramble about me as a bookseller. )