Things at a Baseball Game

• Delightfully greasy food (declared guilt-free by means of birthday weekend)
• A great view of the outfield
• Young boys yelling "Right here!  Hit it here!" and pointing to their ball gloves
• A bachelor party that showed up already sloshed
• High fives with strangers when we score a run
• A very real wish that I had remembered to grab sunblock
• Over-sized beverages
• The best kind of chanters behind us, starting a weird, collective cheer to distract the center fielder
• The same part of the same song that you couldn't get out of your head from the third inning
• Fireworks
• A pair of girls in front of me spending an inning or two just taking pictures of themselves
• A man screaming "COTTON CANDY," seemingly unaware of the irony between the harshness of his tone and the innocence of his product
• Dancing with my father for the dance cam even though I was worried about tripping over my purse and subsequently the row in front of me
• Extra innings
• Watching clusters of people "dancing" or whatever the current demand was with one eye on the board to see if their efforts were validated
• A solid, echoing crack of a bat
• A sea of wriggling Abreu "Bleacher Creatures" (the giveaway before the game, see below) whenever he was up to bat
• One snazzy, behind-the-back pass to get a runner out
• Musing that people are never quite so animated as when they might get free stuff
• "Take me Out to the Ballgame" being sung when we're already there
• Clap. Clap. Clap-ca-clap-clap-clap.
• Good company

Abreu says bu-bye!

Revising

So, I've had a story idea for a long time, long enough that in the past five years I've worked on it for NaNoWriMo twice (both drafts vastly different) and poked at it many other times.  For one reason or another, I picked it up again.  And I've started making some MAJOR changes.  

There are a number of things that are the same, particularly in that my main character is rather disenfranchised with the world--that at least, has been consistent.  In fact, it's part of the main drive, finding what provokes you to care again, or at least finding what makes my main character care again and otherwise come to terms with their own mediocrity.  This means I've had to do a lot of thinking regarding what my character cares about in the first place.  I cannot discover my character as I write; I really need to understand.  Ordinarily and even in this blog, I work through the process, finding what I really want to say by talking through it, so this is a bit of a shift for me.  This time as I was hashing out some specifics, I asked myself why my character had up unto this point always been a guy.  Somewhere along the way, I had made a strange assumption that a male character might be easier.  

Eventually, I figured it out:  I associate disenfranchisement and/or numb feelings with a male figure more than I do a female figure.  This is reflected in movies and books already.  A female character tends to care about things and is expected or at least allowed to show emotion.  A male character is often expected to be stoic, unflappable.  

Somewhere in elementary school, it's no longer okay for young boys to cry.  Instead of finding support when emotions are running high, they're supposed to suck it up or "man-up."  A man who is in touch with his emotions or is "too sensitive" is weak, even undesirable.  Is there any wonder, then, that statistically there are more male suicides?
  
So I'm torn between two thoughts:  do I want to have a female character that makes it more normal for women to be distant if they choose or emphasize that there's a lot going on in my character's mind, even though he might seem distant?  

Whether I like it or not, there is a set of societal implications that will immediately land on my character as soon as I make a decision, even if I choose a character that rejects pronouns.  What set of assumptions do I want to work through?  

I'm most familiar with the female expectations--pressures on appearance, assumptions of frailty, etc.  And there's certainly that idea of "write what you know."  And yet, I appreciate the challenge of trying to think further outside of myself.  

Where that leaves me, then, is to go back and ask the character what is right for that character.  I still haven't fully decided, although I'm certainly leaning a direction if only for experimentation's sake.  The difference is now I'm walking into the discussion with my eyes further opened to some of my own biases.  With this interesting moment of clarity about some of the preconceived ideas that I have accepted, I very much wonder what other ideas I also need to work through, how many other concepts I have accepted without thinking through them.  

Whom I Spend my Time With

I was onsite a few weeks back, meaning that I was teaching my group in person rather than over the phone or our office's version of Skype.  What was interesting about this trip was that I was not the only Skywardian that was going to be working with this school.  In fact, there were three other people who were going to be there, one of which was from my office.  The project manager that assigned me to this site pointed it out to me, in case I wanted to reach out to the others.  

I thought it was a great idea.  I drafted up an email inviting the members from the other office to all have dinner together, put some faces to names we've seen in the call queue.  Upon the second email I sent, I got a wishy-washy reply that they were going to try and connect with another Skywardian that was nearby, someone I gather that used to be in the same office but had since gone remote, but would let us know.  Never heard anything back.  Shrugged it off, figuring that they were having fun reconnecting and it had slipped their mind.  Made the invitation again the next night through my office mate since he would see them directly and ended up with another wishy-washy maybe--we told them where the two of us (myself and my buddy from the IL office) were going, they said they'd let us know. 

I was not surprised that we didn't hear from them again.  And being blown off for the third time, well, good riddance because I wasn't going to try with this group anymore.  I had made the invitation, been gracious, and clearly they were not interested in meeting up.  
Am I still annoyed at them?  A little, I suppose.  But like I said, good riddance.  I was done investing my energy at that point, having supplied ample opportunity.  

I have done this with old friends, too.  There are names I have erased from my phone because each time I've made an invitation or offer, there was no real response.  This has only officially happened twice where I made the active decision to stop trying to contact that person any more, but I doubt that either party really noticed.  I don't take offense when people don't follow up on the "We should hang out sometime" vagaries--these declare good intent, but are seldom an actual plan.  What I mean are those instances when a specific time and/or date are suggested and then a) not responding at all, b) not suggesting an alternative time, c) not showing up at an agreed times or d) some mixture thereof, meaning that you're left feeling blown off.

I get that we're all busy.  I do not expect anyone to drop everything that they're doing to hang out with us.  Andy and I are blessed in that there are a number of people that we want to spend time with and amazingly people who also want to spend time with us.  However, when someone makes the effort to suggest a catch-up time or general hang-age, I do try to suggest an alternative if I cannot make the one offered; the other party has displayed genuine interest, ergo I want to reciprocate in kind.  There has to be some kind of unwritten rule, here, that I follow without knowing the name.

We all have a finite amount of energy and of time.  I appreciate that people will take time out of their schedule for me; I hope that others do the same in turn.  In fact, I selfishly hope that others particularly appreciate that I choose to spend my energy (which is always in a weird state of flux) with them.

Truly, though, and there is a lot of cliche in this, we need to remember to be grateful for the time that we have together.  That idea that I'm living on borrowed time has not left me, even though I'm doing much, much better than I have been; there are elements of this mindset that can be worth keeping.  I will spread myself as thinly as possible to be a part of the lives of those who want me to be in theirs and even insert myself otherwise, but I recognize that energy is a finite resource.  Thus, the tension sets in, afraid to miss out but needing to ensure that I have enough energy to carry on.  I've become less repentant in ceasing to offer those invitations when the interest is not returned.  I have much more control in my life now that I can choose whom I wish to spend time with.  I've also grown up enough that I can still be friends with someone and not see them every week.  

In this rambling post, I suppose the crux I want to say is that I hope we can respect everybody's time but also respect when someone chooses not to spend that time, on either side of the issue.  I am not aiming to explicitly guilt anyone into calling me.  In fact, I know of a few people that I need to reach out to because it has been too long on my end.  As such, I will say this:  to all my friends that I have seen recently and to those I haven't, thank you for being a part of my life whatever chapter it was or is.  

Something Green

I told Andy that for my birthday I wanted something green for my desk.  Today I received a package and an early birthday present.  

The irony, though, was that my bright and fresh live plant was surrounded by Styrofoam packing peanuts.   I spent about fifteen minutes taking handfuls out of the box at a time so that I could pull it out without them going everywhere, filling my empty trash can about two thirds full by the time I was completely done. 

There it is!  All unpacked, watered, and under a lamp at my desk.  Already makes the work-space brighter and happier as I kept looking over at it and smiling.

I will try very, very hard not to kill it.  

Progress Report

**Mandatory Progress Report**
I've set out some goals for myself over the last while and I need to document for my own sake how things have progressed, if only to help keep the on keeping on.

• Piano Lessons--tonight was the first night that I forgot my music to my piano lesson (first time in over a year, mind you).  That's a win in and of itself.  But all in all, I think I'm getting pretty well close to if not surpassing where I left off when I stopped lessons last time.  I'm trying harder material and getting through it.  I might even be officially intermediate now instead of beginner. 
• Health--overall, we're definitely on a good path.  I've been long enough on the new medication and seen enough improvement that I will officially say that the new meds are working for me.  I've seen signficate improvement overall to my general wellbeing.  I don't see blood in my stool, I can eat a wider range of things, and my energy levels are much better as a whole.  Through my new diet, I've also lost at least fifteen pounds HEALTHFULLY (as opposed to Crohn's complications).  
• Exercise--I've been working on incorporating exercise again.  It starts and stops as things ebb and flow, when I have an off week or something crops back up again to knock me on my butt for a little while longer.  That's frustrating on many levels to have to start and stop, yet this is still a good deal better that where I was last year.  
• Attitude--feeling more optimistic as a whole progress thing.  Generalized status is optimistic with the knowledge that I've been through tougher things before if we start on a downward spiral again.
• And this blog--I have hit fifty posts, ya'll!  That's a lovely little benchmark.  I've very much enjoyed writing out random thoughts and delving into others by writing them out.  I've been re-reading some of my more favorite posts and resisting the urge to go back and edit.  Wherever I was at, that was a snapshot of what I was feeling then and the perspective that I have now, even in this short of time, can be quite interesting.  Here's to another fifty more!

Whatever you are doing to improve yourself, keep going!  Read a book a week, exercise once more a month than you have been, whatever goals you are setting for yourself.  Keep at it!  Any time is a good time to start a habit that will improve you.  

Originality is the Art of Concealing your Sources

I had Andy watching Singing in the Rain with me the other day.  He had never seen it before.  Around the time we got to the "Good Morning" song, Andy looks at me and exclaims, "I didn't know this was from this!"  I've sung this song on many a morning.  

Another example--for some reason one day, I sang part of a Doors song at Andy one day with "Hello, I love you; won't you tell me your name?" which he chimed back with a cheerful "Andy!"  It became a call and response for a while.  Fast-forward to a couple of years later, there was a Time Life compilation commercial and a clip of that song starts playing.  Conversation went something like this:

Andy:  "It's a real song!"
Me:  "...y-yeah..."
Andy:  "I thought you made it up!"  
Me:  "...you really have never heard this song before?  You thought I made it up?"  *starts giggling*
Andy:  "Yes!  We need to buy this!"
Me:  "Honey, the whole thing is like $200."
Andy:  *pause* "...we need to download this song!"

This kind of thing has happened more than Andy might like me to admit.  Slowly, Andy is learning something:  I'm not as original as he thought I was; I just have a pretty good memory.

There's a verse that haunts me from time to time from Ecclesiastes, that there is nothing new under the sun.  I find this comforting on some level that whatever I'm going through can be overcome because it has been before, but I also find it terrifying that I'm not the special snowflake I think I am.  I've wrestled with these thoughts in my writing--what can I say that hasn't already been said before?  Is it possible to have an original thought?

So many things factor into your thoughts, from the more obvious things to the subtle and the random TV commercial jingle that you can never forget for some reason (CROSSFIRE!).  The exact combination may never repeat itself, perhaps, but even in compiling these various influences, is that then yours?  Yes and no.  A collage is made of many pieces of other things but artfully put together by someone else.  Every idea, creation, etc. is effectively a collage.  We have this habit of wanting to claim all of the materials as our own, but we are the vantage point that instead puts things together toward a purpose creating from the materials available.

And yet we fault the artist when their inspiration is so obvious.  How close to someone else's idea is too close?  I'm going to keep with the collage analogy.  If your collage has a single image, that's clearly plagiarism, taking someone else's idea and calling it your own.  If you have a collage that has three images in it, few people will credit you.  But take from many sources and suddenly "plagiarism" has turned into "research."  

Where that line is between plagiarism and research, that's a tough one.  Depends on the person to some extent and it also depends on what kind of idea is being pitched.  A book as compared to an idea for bettering the workplace will have some different standards for originality.  Another factor can be how much the "researcher" benefits from what they've taken (ie, take my idea and write a poem off it for your friends, that's fine; take my idea and land a million dollar book deal, not fine).  

And again, the more obscure your source is, the better, because then at least your collage is made up of more unique parts (and more likely to be credited to you, for that matter).  If you can build a collage into a collage, well, then we're getting all kinds of fancy, but that is what we do effectively in our thinking--taking ideas made up of other ideas made up of other ideas and filtered through our own experience.  As we live, we collect experiences and instigate others.  We're all collaborating as a part of something bigger by sharing our experiences.  How those elements may or not be turned into art from there, who's to say?  What moments stick with us from movies or life and what pieces will be quickly forgotten?  

I end up back at the same question--do I have originality or just a good memory?  Does it matter?  I still have the ability to surprise my husband, my friends, my family, but most importantly myself.  And that's enough.