I am late to the game on this one. And if anyone has noticed I may be a little late to the game at Hubski in general, or may have been. I am juggling things including a growing hate of my current/new job and I find that I have less Hubski time (or at least it seems to me) as a result. I did just get a new tattoo. Take a look: I am very happy with it. There is some background information here but I figured I'd elaborate a bit more and do it justice here, so mk here is a better answer. I'm sorry, I don't Hubski mobile well, and I responded to you on mobile. This is generally the summation I've gotten down to tell people (it still takes a few minutes, it's a complex story, but all the better for such a tattoo, I think): So, Jimmy Fallon's father, James. He's a scientist, he studies brains. One day he was in the science-y medical place where they look at brain scans. At that time he was doing two studies: one was a familial, casual personal study looking at brain scans of his family members, I think for genetic diseases or trends, not sure. The other was a formal study of psychopathy. At this point it should be mentioned that the brain scans of psychopaths are visibly different from those of non-psychopaths; different areas "light up," to be a layman about it. Anyway, James is in his study, lookin' at a brain scan and he thinks "Aha! We have a perfect example of a psychopath here! Wonderful!" Then he looked at his notes. Turned out, that scan wasn't from the psychopathy study. It was from his family. So he looked up who it belonged to, and it turned out to be - him! Well, he was nonviolent, he'd never killed or tried to kill anybody, but he did indeed otherwise fall into classic psychopath behaviors. So they interviewed him, and I think he wrote a book. In the first link I provide the Hubski link for the article I read, in which they interviewed James. One of the things they asked him about was love, and romance. And he admits that "even the most hardcore, cold intellectual wants to believe in the romantic notion." He calls it a "disappointment," when he realized he would never have that. That specific paragraph in which they discuss this "romantic notion," as he terms it, really resonated with me. Why? Well, because I try to think I'm that cold, hardcore intellectual. That I don't need love or want love. But deep down at the heart of it, I do. I know I do, though I may deny it or say I'm not capable of being in a relationship or anything. But you know what? If a psychopath can admit that even he wanted love - a person who genuinely probably isn't capable of it, at least as we know it - then I can too, or at least, I should be reminded of that. To me, it means - everyone wants love. No matter how we deny it. :) Poetry - it's coming. Got a really exciting opportunity tomorrow actually, I'm going to go to a poetry workshop group up in Philly for the first time, see how they are. Maybe I will join. I am hoping it's a good opportunity to get regular feedback on my work by people I trust to "know" poetry. (It can be hard to swallow poetry advice from people who don't read it a lot. I admit. I have my sensitivity there.) Nothing new to announce about January 2015, besides the Deer Skin poem which I know you saw went up and my poem over at Cider House Review. Bop Dead City will put two of my poems in their January issue whenever it goes live but to spare the expectation of any of you buying it I may re-post them online once it goes up - linky I still have the goal of self-releasing a hand-bound small selection of poems by end of 1Q2015 but there are 2 poems I want to have feedback on before I'll feel totally content with them so the project has been on hold waiting for tomorrow's workshop (where I am being brave and asking them to look at the first of the two). 2014 was extraordinarily good for publications for me. I am hoping 2015 will match it but not optimistic and as usual not enjoying the submission process. :) Uh, the boyfriend. Hmm. It's not great but I'm hoping it'll improve. Long story short is he thinks/feels we're at 100% but I am not at 100%. I am hoping it gets better. He's making some life choices I am sure he feels are very necessary and important but I am having a hard time agreeing with them. Because he is a dreamer and I am not. But they won't harm him if they don't pan out, it's just frustrating to watch him 'try' knowing he will most likely get nowhere. However I suppose he has to feel like he's done it instead of just - wake up and smell the coffee. Haha. Hard to sum. Not really worth going into more, though. Overall - things are OK. I hope they get better, but they aren't bad and could be much worse. Best wishes to you TNG and thanks for the care._refugee_ -Did you just get a new tattoo? I recall seeing something like that while trying to peruse Hubski on my phone, while my daughter was at dance class. How is the poetry coming along? Any new publications on the horizon? It seems 2014 was a good year for you in that regard, right? How is life with the boyfriend? All good?
Steve! How's it going? I hope work doesn't grind you down too much - glad to here that the kids are good, though! It's funny - I was just tidying up in my room and was looking at the two TNG albums, thinking about how I haven't been on Hubski in so long, and the first thing I see is this post. I kind of drifted away a while ago and have only lurked occasionally since. My bare feet are currently hibernating - it's been really cold over the past few months; I think I've only barefooted outside twice since November. But with the weather just about starting to get warmer, my feet will be coming back out. The longest trek I've done is the Camino de Santiago which I'm sure I mentioned when I was last on Hubski - about 950k, I think, or something like that. we started in early October and finished in mid-November. My initial plan to do it entirely barefoot was thwarted when I discovered just how gravelly the paths are; in the end, I did about 350k barefoot. I'm still happy about that, but I intend to do my next camino entirely barefoot - and I'm definitely doing it again, because it was a fantastic experience. The country was beautiful and the people I met were wonderful; I really think some of the friendships made will last for a long time. In fact, we had a meetup here in Ireland at the start of January. Actually, two of our friends who we met on the camino - and who met each other there - have gotten engaged! And the fiancé is opening an English school in Korea that my girlfriend and I plan on teaching in for a year or so. It's very hard to talk about the camino beyond saying "it was amazing!" because it all really amounts to "we were in a lovely place" or "we met a really cool person" or "we had a great time"; kind of had-to-be-there stories. Still, I highly recommend it to anyone. I was going to make a Hubski post but most of our photos were lost (along with the camera). Not much is happening lately - after the camino, I had to settle down to a cold and uneventful winter; the camino ate up more or less all of my funds, and with English teaching being so seasonal I basically haven't worked since September. Thankfully, I got a bit of odd work in January and some weekend stuff back home, but more importantly I'm back teaching tomorrow! At least for now. It's finicky work. That's part of the reason why I'm excited to go to Korea in a few months - somewhere different, but also with consistent work so I'm not broke half of the year. I'm glad to be back working and feeling productive because lately I've been in a bit of a slump. I've been waking up late and spending most of the day farting around doing nothing; I also feel like my brain is turning to mush since I left university. But I've started getting up earlier and reading more, so I'm starting to feel better. I missed your annual New Year's Resolution thread, so I'll make up for it here. I have the same goals as the past two years - running (and sticking with it) and playing mandolin (and sticking with it). I also want to read more - I think last year I read something like ten books - this year I'm hoping to read five times as many. And lastly, I intend on giving up smoking - I don't want to be a Closet Smoker any more! So, basically, I have the most stereotypical New Year's goals ever (and apparently have learned nothing from those of the past few years). That's pretty much it. It's great to see that things are going well with other Hubskiers. I hope to see more of you around here!