I get fully vaccinated today bless UP

My date was successful in every way except in the way that engenders new dates. At the very end of the evening, around 1 AM or so, when we were alone together, he told me, we couldn't possibly date because of the distance, but if I wanted to hook up, you know, of course that would be fine. And I said no, I wouldn't be doing that, and I left.

I had a very fun time though, and I felt things. And the guy was super attractive to me and I think this helps me isolate some more of the traits I'm looking for in a person.

Some people who you'd definitely tag as being "on my side" (moms and friends) think that the dude could've been more careful with my feelings. If he knew he didn't want to date me because I lived in VA, he knew that before I ever came up for the weekend. And it is accurate to note that the dude is the one who pushed some escalation of the expectations of the date; he's the one that asked to call me on Thursday (and we spent 40 minutes speaking). He's the one who kind of kept bringing up relationship expectations when we hung out.

I think that's ok. I think people can be confused. I was willing to see how things could be. It turns out he doesn't have family near me like I thought, so that's a factor that changed over the course of us hanging out (just because I'd made a wrong supposition). I do have to admit this isn't the first time a guy has had me at his place at 1 AM after several, several hours of hanging out -- to only tell me then that he's unavailable for some reason. (This is the second.) I don't know.

I got to get fabulously dressed up, I even painted my toenails, and I looked amazing. I'm confident that as a date/weekend, I freakin' killed it. So, although rejected, I left the weekend really appreciative of 95% of the experience. Kahneman says that we have bad memories, and we will judge an entire experience based on the last 5 seconds or minutes of it. If that little bit of time is negative, we'll perceive the whole thing negatively, even if most of it was positive. I'm not going to do that with my weekend. I enjoyed a heck of a lot of it. :)

And then I ran 9.32 miles on Monday because fuck it, if I get rejected, I'm going to go out there and get me a win. (PS. Wasn't it a mutual rejection anyway? He rejected dating me, while I rejected having sex with him.)

Musings from adulthood ---

I am putting my head down, reading Atomic Habits, journaling, running, creating art daily, eating clean, drinking lots of water. These are my goals, day to day. (That and working.) It is working for me.

I will be going back home to DE for the next two weekends in a row, it looks like. Then I have some friends from DE coming to visit me and the local breweries here! I have a nice number of things on the short term horizon to look forward to.

Yes, my grandmother is dying. This is an event that will be more about my mom, and aunts and uncle, than me. I am trying to be there for them, now and when it happens. It is not so sad for me -- and also, I feel like this need to live life with health and balance -- is probably a part of it. But it is certainly helping me mentally to feel I am living healthily and well.

37 miles ran so far this September :)

So like obviously we need to step up our game and make it 50/50, eh pals??!

I bought a drawing tablet! Time to enter the future, instead of drawing everything by hand, scanning copies to my computer, and having to burn hours on digital clean up in Clip Studio Art before an image might even be potentially ready to load into the design software I've been using. Let's see how this experiment progresses!

Self-publishing your own indie art poetry chapbooks at home results in a phenomenal amount of paper waste. It’s simply astounding.

(Part of my problem is I have a MAC for my personal and Windows for work. I’ve been formatting and working the doc in one word program then trying to send it to and print it from another. Yes, I just admitted I’m trying to steal as much paper, ink and electricity as I can for this thing from work. Sue me. 50 copies of 22 pages is an awful lot and that’s without factoring in for all the draft copies, fucked up print jobs, and well yeah those are my only two major factors but still they are quite significant.)

You’d think exporting the file to a pdf and sending it to the other computer would work, but even that isn’t coming out right this morning. I’m trying to print the PDF As a booklet, which adobe has a preset for which is supposed to do just what I need. Welp, the PDF option isn’t working; the printer keeps flipping the pages in the wrong direction so half the book is upside down.

I might have to admit defeat with printing most of this at work and bite the bullet and stock up on printer ink. I’ve been able to print correct copies just fine on my Brother. Somehow two weeks ago I managed to print correct copies here at work too but I don’t want to misprint another 22 pages if I’m wrong. 44 pages of straight waste rather kills me.

I’m very excited about the book project/relaunch of my Etsy shop that will go along with it. It’s my main free time project right now. the book is finally in final print decent as it’s gonna be and way better than I expected edition. 12 copies already printed and bound but their errors are minor and I’m gonna sell them for $5 each anyway. 38-48ish more to go!

I submitted a very cool, very exciting art project to a journal I have a good relationship with and had previously contacted about their interest in art -- so, crossing my fingers, but I am hopeful I will be able to share it with you guys soon. Until then I'm afraid I can't share any images - and I really wish I could because I think you lot would get a serious kick from them.

I had been knitting like a fiend on a sweater, but with the hot weather, knitting in wool just...I mean, sheesh, I'm already sweaty. I feel like I'm funneling a lot of that time towards sketching/art lately - at least this past week - I appreciate both how seamlessly that transition's happened, and how much fun I'm having doing what I consider to be Cool Stuff with my downtime.

Here's some more fun pictures because, well...they're just kinda fun.

RIP, Extreme Makeover. As a shirt, you were perfect, and as a shirt, you will be missed.

(note upon posting: what follows here is a discussion which revolves around certain personal feelings I have which I choose, generally, not to discuss with many people and which I have not ever really delved into publicly on Hubski. these feelings are difficult to put into words. please respect me, and them. this is also, i acknowledge, an overly wordy exploration of them.)

Bought in 2005 for less than ten dollars, on post-Halloween clearance by my mother in a J. C. Penny's for me while I was "reading in the car," aka texting my first real boyfriend and, I remember clearly, having honestly one of many unpleasant little mental crisis-moments endemic to the fun and vicious control/self-loathing issues from which I suffered at the time, "Extreme Makeover" waltzed into my life, a love story on the sly. At first I was nonplussed. It's unusual for my mother to peg my style so completely, even to this day, so my first reaction to the shirt was lukewarm. It was unlikely to even be the right size, knowing her.

But "Extreme Makeover" turned out to be the perfect size, not only a medium (as was correct) but a comfortable medium, a loose medium that was not too loose, a shirt that I could wear when I felt fat but which was never so big that I felt it made me look fat. The skull combined with its quippy caption only became more amusing, more in line with my sense of humor, over the years. The shirt itself was black, which was essential if I was going to love it, and simple, which you can tell because after describing the fit, front decal, and background color I have nothing left to describe about "Extreme Makeover" at all. Which is hard for me, because for me, for years, this was The Perfect Shirt, and this is its' eulogy, and I want you to know why.

Wouldn't you think a Perfect Shirt would have a million awesome descriptive elements that a person loved about it?

I'm sure part of what made "Extreme Makeover" so perfect, for me, was its simplicity.

Forgive me as I segue into overly personal and revealing backstory.

I have difficulty with getting dressed. Or maybe I have difficulty with confidence, or maybe I have issues about appearance and presentation. I should stop trying to put this into words and instead put it into examples: sometimes, I've been known to get dressed in a comfortable, cute outfit to go out to the bar with my friends, drive 45 minutes to the bar, get out of the car, and walk past the first reflective storefront mirror-window on the way to the bar. By that point I will "realize" ('determine' is probably more accurate) that my outfit is terrible, it will attract too much attention, I feel uncomfortable in it, I cannot go out like this, and my full-body reflection in the glass windows will only serve as evidence towards this. Sometimes I walk up and down a block or two of sidewalk, determined to meet my friends now anyway, then turning around as I change my mind. Sometimes I do this a few times. Sometimes I get in my car, drive home, and change. Sometimes I make it to the bar and fret about what I am wearing, constantly.

For more context: I live and bar in a college town, where I am surrounded by lithe carefree late-teens-and-twenty-something ladies who I see on Main Street sporting literally every possible combination or lack of combination of outre, on-trend, revealing, attention-grabbing apparel which you could ever imagine. Realistically, this is an environment which, if I could base my comfort level rationally on my clothing-surroundings, I should feel able to wear anything. For more, more context: Items which have caused such a crisis as I've described above include, for instance, a pair of denim short shorts. A black sundress. A retro blue-and-green-swirled dress which went to the knee and had sequins on it (the sequins contributed to the dilemma). A pair of 3-in wedge heels. What I am trying to say is that I understand everyone, to some degree, may relate to the feelings of mine I describe; however, for me, these feelings seem to come more frequently, influence my mood more severely, and generally unduly able to disturb my intentions compared to the 'norm.' Whatever that is.

Call it what you want: I have difficulty getting dressed. (You should hear the "professional officewear" side of this conversation!)

As such, over time, I've discovered there are certain pieces of clothing which can save my mental life. I call them "safe" clothes. They're pieces which, no matter what, I can throw on, go out in public, and feel comfortable. They must, of course, also confirm to my aesthete; I'm sure it's a combination of "I agree with the vibe this shirt is putting out" as well as "I never have to question how I feel I look in this shirt" which leads to these perennial, and mental-life-saving, favorite "comfort clothes." I need such pieces, or there would be days I would not go out in public because of how I felt about myself and how I looked in all the rest of my perfectly normal, perfectly-fine-fitting clothing.

"Extreme Makeover" was the first such piece of safe clothing, for me. It was a safe shirt for years before I realized that's what it was; before I realized the concept of "safe shirts" and before I began consciously trying to make sure I always had a small collection of them in my wardrobe; before I began to identify their hallmarks and seek them out.

It is no surprise "Extreme Makeover" has thrown in its proverbial towel; what is more of a surprise is how well it's held up to the frequent wear for the past 13 years. I remember reaching for this shirt constantly. I remember how "Extreme Makeover" resolved every single put-on-every-single-shirt-you-own-and-hate-the-way-you-look-in-all-of-them session as soon as I saw it, grabbed it, pulled it on. Really, each time it was a sigh of relief.

This shirt represents mental security to me in a very real and (I suspect) deeper-than-the-norm way.

Thank you, "Extreme Makeover." Sometimes idiots thought you were a Punisher T, and I suspect lots of times people didn't properly get what you were about.

Today I held you up to the light and I could see straight through you. You'd gotten so old your decal was wearing into holes. Your letters have been discolored for a long time. I knew this day was coming. And I have other safe shirts now, other shirts I can trust the way I learned I could trust you. Implicitly. Forever.

Thank you, Extreme Makeover, and RIP.

LOL man writes article about how we maybe don't have to work FT to be happy, refugee takes the opportunity to work FT on an extra full length response - maybe I should've taken the hint here and gone for some brevity - :P

___

I guess I have two major responses to this article.

First, the Bushmen-work-15-hours-a-week-and-that's-an-ideal-lifestyle part: I confess. I did a little more research. It was funny. The first few articles I found all said about the same thing - in slightly less vague terms - as this one. That's cuz they all had the same author. Here's one.

Then I found some other articles. It turns out this guy studies the Bushmen, has for 25 years (that's cool; he's an expert) and he wrote a book about them - which is what fed these articles, essentially. That was good context to have. I just wasn't confident i was getting a full and precise picture from this first link. Terms like "The Bushmen made a good living" struck me as genetic and vague; what is "a good living"? How are we defining and determining that?

It turns out, Bushmen spend 15 hours a week acquiring food, it's true. Then they spend another 15-20 hours a week on domestic chores and etc. That brings their workweek total a lot closer to the regular 40 we Americans clock in.

I also think it's important to consider: it's great that these Bushmen live in a fecund and stable environment where they can depend on food sources being consistently available year-round, but I doubt that is the norm for hunter-gatherer societies across the world as a whole. There are a lot of places where you have to stock up food while it's available, because in the cold season, or the dry season, or the wet season, or whatever, your food sources become more scarce, the weather becomes harsher (so hunting is harder/more taxing), and essentially, you hit lean times.

It's good for the Bushmen that it works, but I think it's a questionable premise to say, "Because it works for these guys, it would work for everyone!" And of course, Suzman neglects to mention the other 15-20 hours a week the Bushmen spend working on things that aren't just finding and hunting down food.

__

My second thought is...less concrete and less provable, but none of the articles I reviewed really succeeded in proving its counter, so I'm going to put it out there.

But our drive to work is not an intrinsic part of who we are

Honestly - and I know I confessed I'm all order-y and productivity-focused and regimented and whatever earlier this week - but honestly, 1) there's literally nothing in any of the 4 articles I saw to support this conclusion; 2) on a personal level, I have to disagree. I can't claim to speak for everyone else but I don't think I'm so special that I'm the only person who feels this way either. I absolutely have a deep, intrinsic drive to create, to produce, to identify work/tasks/projects and set myself in orderly fashion upon completing them.

When I first got a full time job, I was a young procrastinating can-coast-or-fake-it sort of kid. I devoted most of my work time to avoiding work. I crammed in work last minute in intense intervals, delivered stuff on time and generally correctly, and then I'd spend the next 2 weeks doing nothing until my due dates came around again.

It was not a fun time.

I don't think most people who clock 40 hours/week actually work every minute. (I do think some jobs and classes of jobs do fill most of that 40; retail work, restaurant work, customer associate-phone work, for instance.) My work management doesn't think that either; when they did productivity planning they set the expectation that regular capacity was about 80%. Or 32 hours a week. Which is now on par with the whole Bushmen work investment discovered above.

My life got better when I accepted work. Now I'm speaking personally, but my life is significantly better and I am much happier and more successful when I have goals; when I have expectations for myself and have to meet them; when I am challenged; when I have sustainable routines and habits and consistency.

I can come up with lots of stuff to do in my down time - my non-work time.

Do you know how long 40 hours/week is? I can come up with enough entertaining bullshit and personal objectives and self-driven projects to fill my 72 hours of free time every week. But if I suddenly had 40 more hours available on top of that...

...I mean, I'd basically have to find or give myself a job in order to fill that hole.

And I'd do it. Because I don't think work is just about making money, or putting food on the table. I think people benefit from structure; from direction; from tasks and turn-around times and action items and deliverables. I think work is good for people as a whole because it gives people as a whole something to do.

You think America's fucked up now? Give the whole country 25 more hours a week to watch TV and post on Facebook and drool. I bet that obesity problem would become a mega obesity problem real quick, and if TV programming's bad now...well, I don't think all that free time we'll have is going to make it less sensationalist. In fact, I think the reverse.

Some people don't need a job to get that work. And I know I am generally more self-driven and derive more feelgoods from productivity than probably the average person is. I'm not bragging, frankly it'd be a little cool if I could tone down the "BUT WHAT ARE YOU DOING OF VALUE RIGHT NOW?" from time to time. It took me a long time to accept that life is a journey to be enjoyed - not a direct path up a high mountain to one defined and measurable pinnacle of success.

But, life being a journey and all that...

I never knew anyone who got very far running on satisfaction and indolence.

__

I think - a 15 hour work week or no work week sounds great in theory.

I question how many people would agree with that after going a full month without working.

And of those people who would - I would have to question - are they actually happier, more content, and all their needs fulfilled? Or are they just high off of - well - a lack of responsibility? How are they spending their new free time? Sinking 40 hours a week into alcohol, TV, weed, reddit-browsing, facebook posting, video games and napping might influence a person to call themselves "happier than when they spent that time working" -- but I for one -- would seriously doubt that assessment.

--

articles referenced

same author but more stringent article - NYT

financial times book review by other author

npr

If you pick one, read the NPR article, I think it's the most coolheadedly best

I agree, but would like to also add I feel these characteristics are those you see in zealots of any stripe, conservative or ultra-lib -- living in a college town with lots of varyingly "woke"-stage friends, there are definite collectives of young ultra-liberals around who also thrive on the anger and the attention and the falsely-derived meaning of their life they pull from loud protesting and agonizing about such Incomprehensibly Life Important Issues as the fact that the university doesn't offer gender neutral bathrooms in most (if not all) buildings.

These are the same people who opt to go guerilla with their equality warfare and "fix" problems by, say, painting up graffiti in the form of gender-enlightened quotes all over every wall and stall of the men's and women's bathrooms in a single art building and cover up the "Men" and "Female" signs by the doors with "Gender Neutral" advocating/pontificating/polemicizing 3-paragraph posters. Congratulations, you "fixed" the University's gender-neutral bathroom problem. In one building. In two bathrooms which total can service 5 people at once. Wow. What an impact.

When instead they could've tried, I don't know, sitting down with some tenured professors or deans, making their arguments, and seeing if there's a symbiotic way that their needs can be met, their perceived inequality issues mitigated or resolved. Never communicate if you can shout instead, right? At least if you're 19, 20, 21, 22 and lost and scared and confused about the meaning of life - your life, that is.

Hell, it was the goddamn Art department - I am pretty sure if this group of malcontents had run their restorative idea through proper-enough channels, gathered support from TAs and a few LGBT profs, they could have gotten permission to do the same exact thing (at least as a temporary semester-long living/performance art installation, I mean, c'mon sell it right and liberal art professors would absolutely eat that shit up). But instead they basically vandalized a university building. Because that was the right choice. And then were quoted in the student newspaper 2 weeks later as being utterly shocked and astounded that their guerrilla group had been identified and now punished with the responsibility of cleaning both of the two 2/3-stall bathrooms up, or at least back to prior condition.

Sorry, people piss me off in real life and I bring it here.

As a venting addendum, to finish my portrait: the ring-leader of this group is the type of person who posted an anti-Memorial Day meme on Veteran's Day. Because finding something to be angry about is more important than insignificant facts.

I am extremely hungover (or rather was around 6 AM but now mending satisfactorily) and now 28. I can't think of any sage advice to hand out, but maybe if you guys have any specific pressing questions I can take a whack at it.

Also, now sporting an extremely skinned knee. Wanna see?

Remembering now how last night I saw a girl I sort of know and told her I thought she was really cool and I thought I annoyed her last time I saw her but I hoped not because I thought she was a neat person. And so on. She told me that was definitely not the case, and we did two back-to-back shots.

woof

  Advice to a poet:
  don't. 
  
  Advice to a poet:
  One day you'll understand
  that parable about the child who realizes
  her parent used to art
  and wasn't half bad at it - 
  but then stopped?
  from the perspective of the papa
  or the mama and it won't be 
  so sad anymore. 

  Advice to a poet: life,
  and love, change shape
  over time. They're always there, but they won't
  always rhyme.

Yesterday I got home from the red-eye back from CA, slept about 7 hours, got to see my girl, and then slept another 7 hours. I had dreams about Halloween.

I have all of next week off and I'm very looking forward to it. The 31st I'll go out of course, so off on the 1st is a necessity; then from the 4th - 6th Jess and I will go to this cool mote in the Catskills. We're staying in Fred's Lair. (I guess this is the weekend where if I have any true stalkers, they're invited to come out of the woodwork.) Mostly, I'm just excited to have some time off work. I haven't taken a full week off of work in over a year and lately, it's been both very busy and very draining. This long weekend from T's wedding has certainly helped, but now the next 3 days are going to be pretty full of work as I make sure I'm caught up in order to take all these days off. (Thanks to a lot of prep for this, I will be.)

I'm still fuck-tired. I'm hoping to head home at lunch, work from home the afternoon, and then get out for a run around 4. It's nice to be back in a place where it's truly cold again, or at least cold for fall. I have realized I actually am one of those people who prefers brisk temperatures, not warm ones. 50 degrees, especially when moving, is actually really pleasant.

Actually, into his bag of holding.