Hardly even a real post

I guess I am writing about not writing. I feel a need to put something up.

The problem is not that I don't have anything to say; I have too much to say. There are all of these different paths to go down, but they would take multiple posts, and I don't like starting a series on a Wednesday, because I won't get back to it until Monday. Also, I am not sure there is a point in pursuing some of them now, though I might get back to them later. So I am just going to state my problems tonight, and then at some point during the two music reviews, travel review, and preparedness post, decide what I am going to write about next week.

The first problem is that I am tired. I worked over fifty hours last week, and will this week too. The overtime is allowed because we are busy, and that also means that I am working a little more frantically, even if it were normal hours. Normally my job doesn't take up too much mental energy, but it can, and right now it is.

The tiredness is worse because I am lonely and feeling disconnected. That is not a new thing, but there are spells where it is worse, and I can't handle it as well when I have less physical energy. This means I am having crying jags and feeling colder, and also being more irritable, because there is nothing left. I will overreact to simple questions. Even when I manage to make conversation, it is more strained, like my volume is louder and not relaxed. I am aware of it, but I can't change it right now.

Also, I have given too much time this week to educating people. This is not a good use of my time. They don't really want the education, and I don't enjoy it, but there are some things that I really cannot let stand, and since I am the one looking up articles and going into complicated explanations, it takes a greater toll on me.

(I ranted on Facebook that I can do this, and after I keep making my points, and they don't have anything to say, they just ask "Well how do you propose to fix it?" I think I need to quit answering that question. I mean, I usually have some ideas, but it's always lengthy, and really, since we got there by them denying that anything needed fixing, and that's just a reaction to being wrong, the proper response is probably something like "The first step is to get people to quit denying the issue" or something like that. I don't know. I am really tired.)

I am still worried about money. That one isn't going away. It is frustrating for me because I think the best chance of making any money is a screenplay, and I meant to be working on that, but I can't seem to work on anything but the sequel to Family Blood. Okay, I published two books last year, but Cara had already been written, and just needed some editing, and with Family Blood, already having it in screenplay form made it just a simple matter of adapting. Starting a novel from scratch takes longer.

Still, it seems to be necessary. Maybe someone needs it, and that could be me. The characters are dealing with grief and issues of self-worth and healing, so there are connections.

That's where I am basically - exhausted and lonely. I am going out for my birthday Saturday, and I was looking forward to it, and now I am not sure that I am, but I hope I still will. I just know that the week after our first normal week, I want to take off.

I will say, that without knowing whether I am going to spend more blogging time on politics next week, one of the things that came up in other discussions was unpaid overtime. I am getting paid for it, so I have an incentive, but it is brutal. Seeing the toll that it is taking on me and knowing that some employers will take that labor without compensation reminds me just how evil they are.

Narrative

There are three things that have happened recently:

• A bomb was planted outside the office of the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP.
• Two men shot up a magazine office in France, killing 12 and wounding eleven others.
• Boko Haram massacred people in Nigeria. The death toll may be as many as 2000, but counting has been difficult.

The first question would be which has gotten the most news coverage, but that's too easy. The first significant coverage of the NAACP bombing was how people were upset that it wasn't covered, starting about two days after it occurred. The Boko Haram story has been seen on a news crawl across the bottom of the screen, but Charlie Hebdo is getting major coverage of the incident itself, the response by other cartoonists, the social media response, think pieces about the social media response, the protest march, and stories about how the leaders at the protest march staged a fake photo opportunity.

That makes the question "why"; how do the news channels choose what to cover?

There is a saying, "If it bleeds, it leads." Based on that, the NAACP bombing isn't that big a story. Fortunately the gasoline can did not detonate, so there were no fatalities. However, still based on that, the priority story should have been Nigeria. There are a lot more dead, and the threat of much more destruction, because the Charlie Hebdo shooters are dead now but Boko Haram is still active.

Of course, Nigeria is very far away from the United States, and Boko Haram is not a direct threat, perhaps, but based on an elevation of domestic interests, then the NAACP should have been the lead story. That is terrorism on our native soil, because when an anonymous bomber targets an organization working for social good, what else could you possibly call it? Yes, the Charlie Hebdo shooting was an assault to freedom of the press, but the NAACP bombing is a general attack on civil rights. That sounds important, right? But that's not how it played out.

It is possible that the story of brown people shooting white people was considered more urgent and important than a white person trying to blow up black people or black people massacring other black people. I don't want to think that's how it goes, but it's possible.

I mean, you can't give equal coverage to every story, but you will still cover a lot of stories and combined together they will create some kind of narrative about the world. So let us consider that in light of this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/21/randolph-linn-fox-news-mosque-arson_n_2345708.html

An Indiana man got riled up by Fox News before setting fire to a mosque.

I don't doubt that the beer played a role, but reading his responses to the judge, he knows no Muslims, or anything about Islam, only what he hears on Fox News and on the radio.

"Every day you turn on the TV, you see Muslims trying to kill Americans."

But you could see Muslims killing other Muslims, which might lead you to believe it wasn't merely a matter of race and religion, or you might see racists trying to set back civil rights, both by crude methods like bombing and more sophisticated methods like rolling back sections of the Voting Rights Act. There are a lot of different potential stories out there, but this is the one he received.

Which is of course one reason why it is important to have more than one source of news, but it might also be something for each individual source of news to think about.

Fired up

A friend of mine lost his job recently.

I found out when I heard his voice over the news. I looked, and yes, that was his face, and his name, and him being interviewed about the job loss.

He had, in frustration over how black lives are given less value by law enforcement and media, posted something on Facebook about how we should see cops die, and then there is the funeral and honors and everyone grieves and it was completely different. That went viral, and his employer fired him.

(I am not going to name him or his employer, but if you're interested and have not heard of it, it can be found. Honestly a lot of the online coverage has not been very good reporting, but for the interview that I saw, I believe he represented himself well.)

My first response was to groan and think "Why?", but I still felt that the firing was unfair. I went to the employer's site and complained. I was generically thanked for that feedback, which meant absolutely nothing, but I also got a fair amount of blowback from other people who saw it, and there were some interesting things about that.

One is that my friend later told me that the post that went viral showed an edited page, and he didn't know how that happened. He still had posted something, and Oregon is still at-will employment, so that doesn't make as much difference as it could, but that still bothered me.

Also, one of the replies that I got to my post came right out and said that people were searching for posts in support of Mike Brown and Eric Garner, and those people were being reported to their employers. I had known about the police calling at least one Ferguson protester's employer. That was in person, but I couldn't really be surprised that there was online targeting happening, and that probably explains how my friend's post got picked up.

In addition, apparently I almost got a threat. My sister saw one person ask how my employer would feel about my comments. When I went to look, it was gone, probably because nothing I said was really incriminating. I said that it was unfair to fire him over personal speech, and that it was also very clear that the post was not an actual call for violence - not terribly extreme.

It was interesting that anyone jumped on my post at all. I did write it on the page, but it was not linked to a post about the firing or an article. Again, it lends credibility to people being out there looking for things to jump on.

Their arguments actually reinforced my support for my friend. I thought what he posted was a poor choice, but all of the complaints that came at me, and initial posts on articles I saw, were saying how they would be afraid to shop at the store where he worked. I don't believe them for a minute. I know he's not dangerous. While I am sure that - as a tall and muscular black man - they would be scared to see him in an alley (though he dresses well so would probably not be wearing a hoodie), I don't think anyone sincerely believed he was calling for violence or that they would be in danger while he was working.

He said a shocking thing to make people think. I got that from the beginning. Seeing how fiercely that is opposed - and not just opposed when seen, but people are actively seeking out dissent so they can attack livelihoods - that is why you need freedom of speech. And no, I do not think that means that his employer can't fire him; it means that his employer shouldn't fire him.

People say a lot of horrible things, and they may get ignored, or they may get vigorously defended. "That's satire", "you just don't have a sense of humor", "they've got a right to say it". Except that when you are arguing that black lives matter, some people will really go out of their way to stop you from saying it.

(Or they will try and hijack it to "All lives matter" which is true, it just misses the point that black lives are not treated like they matter and that needs to be addressed.)

There are people who don't want it addressed. They cannot be allowed to make that decision.

Band Review: Andrew Ferris

Andrew Ferris has elements of pop, folk, and indie, and those things are completely fair to say, but my strongest thought was that there is sort of a combination here of James Taylor and the Smiths.

I know that sounds strange. I believe the James Taylor vibe comes from the heavy acoustic elements, and maybe also from the voice. I remember seeing an update from Andrew a month or so ago that said he was going busking, and that sounded totally plausible.

On the other hand, the lyrics, and the sometimes atypical musical combinations, did make me think of Morrissey. The first song I heard was "Smile" which is surprisingly upbeat for starting out about how we are all going to die, but then also it is on the Yellow Lorry album, and there is a Red Lorry album, which may have gotten me thinking about "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out".

Not all of the songs are in that vein. Sometimes it feels like there is almost more of a country and Roaring 20s influence, which gives a fair amount of variety. There is a sense of playfulness and humor to many of the songs, especially "Something Changed." My favorite song was probably "With This Heart".

Fully acknowledging all of that, my overall thought is still James Taylor and the Smiths. I know that would not be for everyone, but if you think it might be for you, I don't know where else you would get it.

http://www.andrewferris.com/

https://www.facebook.com/andrewferrismusic

https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewFerrisMusic

https://twitter.com/iamandrewferris

Band Review: Lowws

Lowws is an indie pop ambiance band from Oxford. That is their description, but I have to say that even though there are not currently many songs available, they convey greater depth than most of the other ambient bands I have listened to. There is emotion in the music, and an air of something otherworldly.

Previously known as The Sea The Sea, the band is currently doing some regrouping and getting ready to strengthen their web presence. They have potential, and should keep up their efforts.

https://www.facebook.com/lowwshq

https://soundcloud.com/lowws

https://twitter.com/LowwsHQ

Prejudice and Pride

There are some current events that I really want to react to, but I think it's best if I stick with the plan. In a way, it does all relate.

There are two thoughts that I left out of yesterday's post.

One is that it is easy to be racist in Portland because there are so few people of color, but that's not a very good excuse. I'm going to relate a different story that I read about the same time as the BrownInPDX Tumblr, but I don't think it was from there.

A black woman had applied for a job and she thought she had done well on the interview, but then she was told "I hired one of you before and she quit after a day, so you can see why I'm reluctant."

I guess my first response is to think of some of the horrible white employees I have seen, but that's not really an answer. The difference is that you see enough Caucasians that you know that it's not definitive. Shouldn't it be obvious then that other skin colors are not definitive? That just because you have only met a few black and brown people, it does not mean that there is not just as great variety of personality and characteristics as white? That sounds obvious, right?

So here are the things that I want to point out. One is about the stereotyping that we do. Yes there are often code words that are used, so we can pretend it's not about skin color, but the racist roots are there. The purpose is to maintain a social hierarchy where some people get to be on top, and people below them will defend their right to be on top as long as they don't have to be on the bottom.

I just finished One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest last night. In those terms, the "pecking parties" may not be the point of "the Combine", but they do help keep it functioning smoothly. I see the desire to be above someone else manifest in a lot of different ways.

That is not how we are supposed to be. Any satisfaction that comes from it is illusory, and it produces real pain.

If the issue is that people want to feel special, it is also completely unnecessary. You are already special. I'm religious, so I will say that you're a child of God, and that makes you special. If you don't like that, you're a human being. You are capable of love and creativity. You can ask questions about and ponder your own existence in a way that other species can't. You are special - not more special than anyone else, but you don't need to be.

That leads to the other important part. When people see an Asian woman walking by, and assume she is Chinese, and greet her with "Ni hao", I believe there is a brag in there. Look! I know a Chinese greeting!

You are also reducing that woman to an audience for your great knowledge, and ignoring the fact that if you are in the States that she has quite possibly lived her entire life here, that even if her heritage is Chinese and not one of many other possible countries of origin, she still may not even know Chinese, but no, really, the important thing is that you know a word in another language. You lived in Asia for a year, so you know you must warn the Thai restaurant to not put any baby corn in your food even though it is not mentioned on the menu and there is in fact none in the restaurant.

It would be easy to go into tangents about street harassment now, or hair touching, or various micro aggressions, but I'm not going to. There's already a lot out there. If you are open to letting other people tell their stories, you can find it, and if you're not, my repeating it will just annoy you.

What I can say is that if you do know things, people tend to figure it out. Normal interaction will let people know if you're intelligent. If you're ignorant, that shows too.

That's why it was appropriate that this set of posts started with a story about going around L.A. with Steve and Jen. After a different trip with them (in Yellowstone), I wrote a post about humble brags, and how they were so unnecessary. We could enjoy each others' company and accomplishments, and it was good.

It's important to remember how things can be when humans get it right.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2013/01/away-with-humble-brag.html

Baby Corn

Based on the people I follow on Twitter, I come across a lot of content that deals with racism that I would probably not otherwise see as a white person in the suburbs. One of those recent discoveries was the Brown In PDX Tumblr page. Reading over it was horrible in general, but this was the entry that made yesterday's post necessary:

http://browninpdx.tumblr.com/post/59124418747/baby-corn

I feel a need to dissect this a little.

First of all, Asia is big. We kind of covered that yesterday with some of the differences between Korean and Lao food. To be fair, they are not exactly neighbors. Vientiane and Seoul are about 3000 miles apart, so you should expect some differences.

I have heard some people talk about Northern versus Southern cuisine in India, and even people who don't eat a lot of Chinese food often recognize that there are some differences between Szechuan and Cantonese food. And Laos is not a particularly large country, but without me ever going there, and only interacting with the refugee population in two California cities, I still met people from at least three different mountain tribes. There were similarities, but there were also differences in food, language, and clothing.

I can only assume the woman in the story, when she lived in Asia, did not specifically live in Thailand, because surely then she would have said that, but what does she think Asia means? Let's even take out the Indian subcontinent and Russia (because it dips its toe in Europe), and the Middle East for no good reason, and still do you think that living in Mongolia would tell you what it's like to live in Malaysia? Shouldn't living abroad have made you less ignorant?

Okay, she was on shaky ground anyway. First of all, requesting things not on the menu your first time at a restaurant is questionable, and if you must do it at least leave the attitude behind.

Also, it is very questionable to use the term "you people". There are situations where it works. If I enter my work environment and find that my coworkers are standing around looking guilty in a sea of feathers and straw, I might reasonably say, especially if I have some managerial capacity, "You people have some explaining to do!"

On the other hand, if I am using "you people" to educate you about what foods you like, or what kind of characteristics you have, based on skin color that I have in fact mis-characterized because while the waitress did list Asian as a part of her heritage she also listed black and Caribbean, I am leaving myself open to criticism. I can see where employment in the Thai restaurant might seem like a context clue, but you think the largest continent on the planet is monolithic in its cuisine, so you lose all the points! Idiot! It would make more sense to walk into a French restaurant and insist that they make you a pizza in the name of Catherine de' Medici.

Incidentally, I think half the cooks at the Mongolian grill (which we all accept as not truly being characteristic of Mongolian food, but still tasting good) are Mexican, because one of them lived near our neighborhood. Actually, we had a next-door neighbor who was from Mexico but worked at an Indian restaurant too, so workplace is not a great predictor of heritage or ethnicity.

I believe tomorrow I will write a bit more about how we get people who feel so comfortable proclaiming their ignorance, and especially how we get them in Portland.

For now I will go back to my opening of yesterday, where Asian food makes me think "Yum!" That is pretty much true, because for me it means papaya salad and egg rolls and nasi goreng and Mongolian beef and pot stickers and bento and hom bao and a lot of different things that I like a lot. At the same time, Asian food includes sushi. With my combined aversions to fish, cucumber, and avocado, I do not love sushi. Asian food also includes a lot of foods that I have never tried, some of which I would probably love and others not.

(And the only thing I really remember seeing baby corn in was a dish of happy family that's claim to fame was including eight different vegetables. Adding it may have been a matter of running up the numbers, unless someone can use the baby corn clue to figure out what country that woman lived in.)

The continent of Asia includes mountains, hills, jungles, steppes, coastlines of oceans and rivers; of course there are lots of different foods. There are also different types of homes and jobs and modes of transportation. This could be said about even the smallest continent because there are some strong regional differences in Australia.

If you can accept that there are a lot of things that you don't know, and just enjoy the variety, that complexity is great. If you always feel like you know better than anyone else and need to show it, well, the world is the same size, but it's going to seem a lot smaller.

Asian Food

It is completely reasonable to think this is a terrible title. It works for my point, but that will not be completely clear until tomorrow's post. Personally, my first thought is "Yum!", but there are issues with that too.

About two months ago, my sisters and I were being shown around Los Angeles by Steve and Jen, two of our favorite people. Steve knows the city very well, and in general he thinks about things a lot, possibly over-analyzing, which I cannot criticize. This means that he can often provide little-known background information and make connections.

The discussion often turned to food. We would pass a restaurant, or a row of restaurants, or be near an area, and would start talking about that. While they do not self-describe as foodies, they have tried a lot of different places (and thought about them).

Anyway, there were two things that came up that made me think. One is that in talking about Korean food that you get in the States, Steve said that a lot of it is not what you would get in Korea, but it was developed here. The other was that in reference to Thai food, he said that the flavors were a lot more complex than Korean food, and it took some getting used to.

Just to give some context, Steve's parents came here from Korea, so that is his family background but he was raised here. I served a mission with Laotian refugees in Fresno, and Lao food is pretty similar to Thai food.

With the first comment, I had never known that about Korean American food. With the second, it made sense, but it was something that I never thought of.

I have done a little bit of Lao cooking, as well as watching natives cook. When I go into a Thai restaurant, most of the dishes sound familiar, but with different names. I am sure a lot of the dishes get Americanized too. For example, MSG was used a lot in the mission field; most restaurants probably shy away from it. There are other ingredients I doubt restaurants use, and I don't know what to call a lot of them because it's a different language with a different alphabet. So, there is something where I don't know what else to call it besides "rotten fish", but I bet it doesn't get used a lot.

Anyway, it was very common that regardless of your main ingredients, seasonings would involve something pungent (like shrimp paste), something sweet (like MSG or sugar or both), limes, and often chili peppers too. That gives you some fairly complex, layered flavors. I haven't tried any Korean recipes, but the seasonings do seem simpler from what I have tasted.

It was interesting to think about the differences in seasonings, but also not too surprising, because it is not unusual that as you get into hotter climates that more spices are used. Thinking about the Americanization of Korean food though also got me thinking about the camps.

Pho and banh mi are considered Vietnamese food, but a lot of Lao people served us pho. Now, I read in an article some time ago that those two dishes are considered to be influenced by the French colonists, both because of how they compare to other French and Vietnamese foods and because of their names. "Pho" the word is similar to "feu" for fire and as a food is somewhat similar to the Pot au Feu dish. "Banh" not only sounds like "pain" for bread, but is made with bread.

Okay, Laos was colonized by the French; did they get pho from that, or because when everyone was in the refugee camps, waiting for their chance to come to America, they all traded recipes? Maybe only for pho. Maybe the ingredients were easier to get.

While there I also once participated in a marathon egg-roll making session for Lao New Year. Is that a Lao food? Or something they borrowed from China? Or were they actually more like spring rolls and borrowed from Vietnam? I'm not sure.

Obviously you can eat and enjoy food without having a deep understanding of its origins, though that can enrich the experience. It's worth understanding that there is great complexity out there, and expecting complexity. Why I even mention that, I will get into tomorrow.

For now I will say that on that trip, though we discussed cuisines from many regions, we ate at an old-fashioned hamburger counter and a Jewish deli. And again, Yum!

Band Review: Nicholas Kade

There is a track on Nicholas Kade's 2012 album The Drive - "Deeper" that sounds like it is meant for slow dancing. It is not terribly slow, but it feels like you should be hanging on to your loved one, and finding the rhythm together.

(And if that sounds like a sexual reference, it's not. If I was going to go there I would point out "Bring Me Back".)

"Deeper" is probably my favorite track, though it was close with "Seven Hundred K", but the music is overall emotionally evocative, and well-preformed.

I focused on The Drive as it was kind of easier to find, but Kade himself has produced other work, both individually and in collaboration, and based on his web site will be continuing to do so. That's a good thing. I think he is one to watch.

http://www.kadesound.com/nk.html

http://www.reverbnation.com/nicholaskade

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk9l5GQbG9Lsy8naeZrDKQw

https://twitter.com/kadesound

Band Review: 0r4

Based in Milan, the proper pronunciation for that is Zero Erre Quattro. One thing he does is make chiptunes.

Recently I had reviewed a different chiptune maker and it got me into a discussion where someone was looking for other chiptunes, and I could recommend two. Not long ago I did not even know there was such a genre, so it felt good to be able to help someone.

One thing that sets 0r4's music apart is a cleanness of sound. Some artists will enhance their tracks with other instruments, but that does not seem to happen much here. (Tracks are made on a Gameboy Color with LSDJ according to his Facebook page.) There is still often a very danceable feel to the songs, while continuing to invoke the spirit of the games.

There is a greater selection of tracks available on Soundcloud, but there is a structured album available via the Bandcamp and Facebook pages, which may give a better sense of the artist's intentions.

http://0r4music.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/0r4milano

https://soundcloud.com/0r4

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDOZPTAIHeqtVx84hs5ivDw

https://twitter.com/zeroerrequattro

Marathon Reading

This year has involved learning more about my capabilities.

In some cases those are pretty good. Finishing Family Blood and the daily screenplay challenge in October had their difficulties, but I was able to do them, and I felt good about it.

I also planned to start the next screenplay right after Family Blood, and I was not really able to do that.

I needed a debriefing, for one thing, where I could get my head out of one world into the next. That took some journal writing, and research, and honestly, writing Family Ghosts would still be easier now than anything else, though I still believe that it will go better because I have done other things first.

In addition, sometimes I need to do non-writing things. That has mainly involved reading and video games.

I have mixed feelings about the video games. It doesn't feel productive, but if the point is to take a break, then refreshing my skills in Mappy and Dig Dug is a big change from writing.

For reading, I had several books that I was intending to read, and one I checked out by mistake, and one I had been reading forever and kind of hated but decided I would still finish, and I realized I was also really close to 100 books for the year. What if I just really focused on that?

Some of them were still just going too slowly though. I have currently completed ten books in December, which has only been possible because some of them were comic books and some were children's books, but I still want to read two more.

This would not be an issue if I did not have a social engagement tonight, or if I were not working extra hours right now. It would also not be an issue if one of the books weren't so pointlessly repetitive, or a different one - despite having interesting information - had been written in a more interesting manner, or if I had not played any video games at all, but only read. Still, I did read a lot.

I had decided once that life was too short to read annoying books, and I might have served myself better if I had stuck to that with two of these books, one of which I have already finished and one of which is still in progress. I was just feeling stubborn about them.

I am not ruling out reading two children's books tonight (my sister the kindergarten teacher has a wide selection) and then reading some in one of the other three books, but letting their completion happen in 2015. Regardless, there have been three trains of thought associated with this, and I want to get those down.

One is that challenging myself is good, but within reason. I love reading and writing, and they are both important to me, but burning me out won't help. The most pages I have ever written in a single day was, I think, 28, but then I didn't write again for a week. I have had weeks where 14 and 15 pages days were really common and I was able to keep going. Those weeks are ultimately more productive. It's important to build in breaks and recreation. That is especially important to remember while in the time of the year for my job where overtime is encouraged.

Two is that I know part of my frustration is that I am behind the schedule I want. I have books in lists arranged by things I want to learn, and timelines in mind for when I want to learn them. I am impatient for some of the things I don't know and the insight that I don't have yet. I am really impatient for the thing that I write that will ease my life financially.

If I gave up all reading or writing or exercise or any of those other things for a while, I might progress in one area, but I might also go bonkers. Caring about more than one thing makes me a better person and writer. And while my self-imposed deadlines aren't exactly arbitrary, they generally aren't world-enders.

The other thing is that I have realized that I have read a lot of Newberry winners, but not so much with the Caldecott winners. As I do care about art, and I have been impressed by the strength of many images in things I have read this year, that seems like something to work on in 2015.

Christmas Giving

Once I decided to make my book free it was easy to tell people about it because it was a gift.

Actually, let me back up. It was easy not to ask for money, but it still felt like I was asking for their time. Also, some people would be so impressed, but really, no one is checking for quality when you self-publish so anyone can do it. I will admit there is some accomplishment in completing it, but it doesn't feel that impressive.

Anyway, I did the general tweet and general Facebook post, then - knowing those are easy to overlook - started sending direct communications. First it was to the people whom I thought would recognize some of Sarah's problems as their own. That part was easy. Then it expanded to people who have encouraged me at various times, and friends, and fans of the All American Rejects. (I did not write to anyone in the Rejects, girlfriends, former girlfriends, or family members. That may have been a mistake, but it seemed presumptuous.)

I started thinking about other musicians, because while it could be easily seen as a vampire book, musicians should recognize many of the aspects of being in a band, and might enjoy it on that level. Mark's storyline in the sequel will relate to that even more.

I also started thinking about comic book people, because there are so many I like, some of whom have been really nice to me. Also, their work has given me pleasure. If I could return the favor, I want to do that.

It became a big concern that I was missing someone important, so I finally just expanded the full followers screen to look for names, and that took me back to last year.

A little over a year ago I started thinking of things I could do for people. I wanted to give everyone a Christmas present. It started because there were some things that I wanted to do for people and I realized I could. That was the real reason that I participated in Darkstar Day, because it was important to Steve Morris that people participated, and I could be one more participant. I bought Colleen's book. I took pictures of me with my bass and my dog for Bass Dogs. And I worried about missing people, so I created a spreadsheet.

There were three tabs: everyone I follow on Twitter, everyone I am friends with on Facebook, and then the people my family was praying for, because it's periodically good to check and see if there is something we should be doing besides praying.

Obviously I could not get everyone by Christmas, but I thought I could work from it over the year. I started on New Year's Day on Facebook by asking "What can I do for you?" They did not know why I was asking, but I did get three responses. I told Kim a story, and I became Chantelle's walking partner. I also kept blogging, though I would have done that even if Rebecca had not asked me to. I know social networking can be sterile and narcissistic, but it has been a good experience for me, and I thought it could be even better.

I did not keep the spreadsheet up. I did make more entries, but I found that except for the music reviews and songs of they day I was always in response mode. I would see that someone was having a rough time, and so I would send them 30 reasons to live, or send them something inspirational until they reached their 1-year clean mark, or whatever seemed appropriate.

This time around I wrote down several names to check on where I did not offer them the book, but I have messaged them, or seen an account change and followed the new account. I will be checking on those people for a while. It was just too many to get them all now, and for a lot of them it's probably not the book that they need.

This method is not bad. I do see people, and help them. Sometimes I know I make a difference, and sometimes I am not sure, but I try.

I do feel like there is this higher level, where I could be proactive instead of reactive. I do not seem to be capable of that yet. I am still so human.

So, this is my promise to you: I care about you. If I see a chance to brighten your day, or support you, I will. I am also really fallible, so if you think I can help you, ask. It makes life easier for both of us.

And if you missed Family Blood when it was free, you know, it's only $2.99. I would still love some reviews. They don't have to be long or fancy, just what you liked, or why you didn't like it, or something to let other people who know nothing about me whether or not this book is for them.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R1XYW62

With a little help from my friends

Last week I wrote about formative experiences that gave me an incorrect worldview. I was also thinking about the experiences that caused me to start unlearning. Often it took more than one experience for the sake of reinforcement. It was also interesting how often it was my friends that started to show me that I wasn't horrible.

That is an area where I have been really blessed, and there was some twisted luck, but it also leads to one more memory that I only recently think I understand.

One of the girls in my first grade class was Keena. We talked once about our middle names. If I remember correctly, her father told her that her middle name was Canadian Bacon and she was really embarrassed about that. In retrospect, I think he was just teasing her and she believed him. I can relate to that. She moved shortly after we talked and I was very sad.

We did not spend a lot of time together, so I always felt that it was weird that I remembered her so clearly, but then I put it together with two other things that happened in first grade, and I think I've got it now.

The other one I have written about, which was when a group of girls surrounded me on the playground and started talking about how fat I was. That was when I first saw myself as fat, and began disconnecting from my body, so it was a defining moment in that way. The other part, though, was the ringleader of that, Suzy, I kind of pictured as ruling all of the girls, so if she was against me I was out. I felt cut off from girls socially.

That might not have been so bad. I played with boys more anyway. At the time, it was pretty much all Star Wars and Buck Rogers, but that worked for me; I loved those things. I played with Casey a lot. He even came to my house for a Halloween party. I like him and thought he was cute. For reasons that I can only assume were silly, I wrote a list of boys I liked and put it in my desk. Shawna looked in my desk, saw it, and blabbed it, and Casey never spoke to me again. That kind of cut me off from boys.

I think that I did still play with other kids sometimes, but I really got to be a loner. I was already reading a lot, but I might have escaped more into it then.

In third grade I got lucky. Jennie moved here from Pennsylvania, and with a new kid I thought I had a chance. She became my first best friend.

I wasn't just lucky that someone came, but that it was her. She was also smart, and nice, and she was independent enough that it didn't matter if I wasn't popular. We played Dungeons & Dragons together (not with dice, we just made things up), and spent the nights at each other's houses.

Jennie also made it easier for me to be friends with other people. I know I had hung out with Josh before, but then we started hanging out again, first with him and Jonathan, and then Stephen. She is the reason I did Campfire in 6th grade, which led to my first time at a real restaurant, and my first attempts at woodworking and cooking. We did not always play together. One year I was almost always playing basketball at recess, and she might play Wall Ball or Four Square, which I never did, but we often jumped rope together and played imagination games. I still read a lot, but it wasn't my only option.

Then there were boundary changes, and all of the people I mentioned were going to Mountain View while I was going to Five Oaks. I imagined that the next three years would consist of hiding in the library, but against my expectations, I made friends. I found Karen, Anne, Ericka, Nicki, and Danielle, and then we ate lunch together, and sometimes had slumber parties, and did normal things.

Something that has been disturbing for me as I read about young girls is the concept of "frenemies". My friends and I were not mean to each other. I wondered why not. Was I missing something? Kind of.

Everyone else knew about frenemies. Jennie sat next to a pair in English, Ericka had a friend who pressured her to quit hanging out with us, and Karen got put on trial for being a bad friend before we met (they must have read Blubber). But we never did that to each other.

When I referred to twisted luck, what I meant was that I never realized that hanging out with people who were mean to you was an option. If they were mean to you, you were supposed to go away, I thought, and that's what I did.

There are pros and cons to that. I am socially awkward at times, and not skilled at small talk, but I am also straightforward, and have skipped many opportunities to have others whittle away at my self-esteem. There are girl things that I am bad at, but I feel like that is okay.

Here is the important thing: a weird, socially awkward kid was able to stumble upon great friends, who would be nice to her, and that she could cherish. There were kind people out there.

I am not still in touch with everyone. I have found some friendships that for a time were really good, and then we kind of outgrew, but it doesn't make the times when we were there for each other any less real. I have also found people that I know I will always want to hang onto. Sometimes there are long breaks between seeing each other, but then the catching up is good. Honestly, the busy lives aren't surprising when you see how talented and capable some of them are.

So looking back now, I think the reason Keena's move was so devastating was that it felt like my last shot at having a friend had evaporated, but it wasn't my last shot. It just took some time.

I still wouldn't mind catching up with her. I hope she found good friends where she went too.

Band Review: This Good Robot

I have wanted to check out the band for a while now, but this review is part of the magical thinking/summoning reviews I have been doing lately. It's a bit more complicated than the others.*

I want to let the band speak for itself to start, as their descriptors are more interesting than any I would use. At least on Facebook they list their genre as postindiefolkelectropopcore, and this is in the bio:

"Made up of comic book nerds, ex theater geeks and a few music theory snobs, This Good Robot is an 6-piece Science-Fiction/Indie-Rock band out of Long Island, NY. Pay attention, this song could save your life."

Personally I disagree with the "electro" in the genre line. There is a lot of acoustic, and while there certainly are times when they are plugged in, the term as generally used implies a greater emphasis on synthesizer than I hear. Their keyboards sound like actual piano. I would totally agree with simply postindiefolkpopcore.

Using my own descriptors, my first thought was that there is a real carnival atmosphere, with a feeling of wandering down a sideshow. It is amusing, but there is also an air of mystery and transience - maybe even some danger. The other thing it reminded me of was The Nightmare Before Christmas.

There is a sense of motion rather like a roller coaster on some songs, particularly "Woe is Barnaby Black" and some of "Call the Police", but there is a lot of rock in there as well. Even my favorite track, "The Human I Am", at first listen sounds like a quieter track, but there are some strong textures building and taking center stage on the bridge. It's an interesting mix, and it could easily be called eclectic, but then based on their bio, that sounds like what you should expect. Probably.

While there are no regular music videos on the Youtube channel, there is a fair amount of performance footage, as well as non-performance footage. It is interesting to watch them go back and forth between being really powerful performers and conversing as basically unassuming nerds (not a pejorative).

So it's a fun band, and worth checking out. Music is available via iTunes and Amazon, and tonight they play with Andrew WK and Patent Pending in Amityville, but I don't see any other scheduled show for a while.

http://www.thisgoodrobot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ThisGoodRobot

https://www.youtube.com/user/ThisGoodRobotMusic

https://soundcloud.com/ryanbirch-1

https://twitter.com/ThisGoodRobot

*Re the summoning, one friend has expressed a desire for a lineup consisting of frnkiero andthe cellabration, Science, and This Good Robot. It sounds good, and also sounds more probable than Science or This Good Robot making it out to Portland. So, that show, and me being able to go to it, would work, and I invoke it! That being said, I can totally imagine them sharing a bill with Gogol Bordello.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/12/musical-magical-thinking.html

Christmas Sing-along

I didn't want to review a new band today because of the holiday, but I do have something musical to write about.

About six years ago they had a Christmas sing-along at church that we really loved. They projected the lyrics overhead, so you didn't have to know the words. This is important, because a lot of people only know the openings of Christmas songs. There was a funny Saturday Night Live sketch about that where at the interfaith basketball league awards dinner they were trying to sing a carol together. After several false starts only the rabbi (as played by Elliott Gould) was able to sing one through to the end.

Our sing-along had a mix of hymns and traditional songs, and they did add in the Hallelujah Chorus, parts of which were hard to sing, but there were parts that went well enough that everyone could feel pretty good about it.

It was so much fun. We had a great time ourselves, and we invited a friend that we started hanging out with more after, so it was a good evening all around. We hoped they would do it every year.

They changed it. The next year they had what they called a Creche and Carol, where they had various Nativity displays around the building, and different soloists and musical groups performed. Apparently there was some singing along incorporated, but we never went.

Julie asked about it this year, and they had talked about doing something more like the sing-along again. One thing I understood with the other once is that you get higher attendance because more people have assignments. Not only do you get everyone who is signed up to sing, but the various people who would come to hear them sing, and then they hear the other people too.

Julie made it clear that this did not interest her at all. I don't know if that is why they went for a straight sing-along again. I tend to think so, but it may have just been time for a change. They announced it, we were excited, and we went.

The program made me grumpy. There were all of these soloists and instrumental performers and bell ringers listed. I suppose part of that was to increase the involvement again, but also, the part that made me grumpy was this incessant need to make things fancier.

That came through in some of the singing parts too. Here we will have you sing the melody, and here parts. Just sopranos here. Just men here. Those arrangements can sound good, but when you have people being guided and practicing them, it works better then it does in an unrehearsed setting. Also, singing parts takes all the joy out of singing for me. This is not the time to be fancy!

There are two things I need to point out about this. One is that it was still fun. Not quite as fun as if they didn't do all that, but there was still quite a bit of singing, and just singing without having to worry about parts is a very joyful thing. People should do that more. Maybe I need to organize my own sing-along.

The other thing came up on one of the songs. It was listed as a round, which I did not object to. I was thinking it would be "Christmas Bells Are Ringing" as covered by Nat King Cole, but it was a primary song I was unfamiliar with.

The round was okay, but I started thinking how a round could really work on the one I did know, and then I started thinking about what if instead of just the traditional round, the first groups started repeating the last lines, so at the end it was everyone singing "Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong, Christmas Bells are Ringing" really loud and full. So now I was doing it!

I hadn't realized how insidious getting fancy with Christmas music is.

The Road Not Traveled

I've told parts of this story before, though possibly not since 2008.

My second year in college, I fell in love hard. At first I saw a picture and couldn't stop thinking of him. I tried to shake it off, but he kept turning up in person, and then we started talking. For each stage, I was more into him than seemed reasonable or logical, based on the level of contact we'd had. With every contact in person, I felt like there was electricity flowing between us, though, and I had never felt that with anyone else. It wasn't easy to shake off.

I did not tell him that I loved him then. A big part of that was how ridiculous it would have sounded, but I believe I could have dealt with that if I had believed it to be at all possible that he could return my feelings, or that I could deserve to have good things happen to me. Sometimes I would get very angry with myself for being a coward or being lazy, but I wasn't either of those things. When courage or exertion were required for other people, or for things I felt responsible for, I had them. I just couldn't make that effort for me.

I did an in-depth self-examination back in 2008, and I came away with a few specific regrets most of which dealt with him, but I think the most significant one was for our first conversation. He said something about working on goals, and I should have asked him about that. I knew I wanted to write. I didn't know he wanted to act.

It was the sort of thing that could have bonded us. I remember at times thinking about how I wanted to make movies, and wondering if he would be interested in that. I didn't find out that in fact he already was until after the last time I saw him, in 1993.

He has been in more movies than I have had screenplays produced, though it probably hasn't been everything he wanted either. For a time, I did imagine this life where we could have helped each other. Because we were coming at the same fields from different sides, we could build connections and contribute. I didn't see us becoming a top Hollywood power couple or anything, but I imagined that we could alternate between working for hire on bigger projects and making our own independent movies, and that it would be a really satisfying life.

That life could have been good. There are no guarantees of course, but I really wanted it.

I also want the life that I have now. It has some really hard parts, but there are people I have met and experiences I have had that are good, and they might not have been able to happen any other way.

I do hate that the biggest impediment to the other life was my own inability to value myself. If I had told him I loved him, or taken the less radical but still bold move of simply asking him out, he could easily have said no, but it would have been done. I could still have been the girl who believed in myself, so dated other people, or pushed harder on other opportunities. I could have been reconciled to being me much earlier, which is sometimes still pretty hard.

I do not only blame myself, because I feel like it must have been pretty obvious that I loved him, and he never acted on it either, so maybe my self-esteem issues didn't even matter for that, but they mattered for everything else.

So writing about this is perhaps mourning that life that was lost. After all, if you don't let yourself acknowledge your own pain, it leads to all kinds of problems - this week has been all about that.

Also, and this is the really important part, I need to not do that again. I don't want to miss other good possibilities simply because I don't believe that I can have good things. To say, "Yes, I deserve to be happy and successful" is a radical first step, but actually acting upon it, and changing established habits, is much harder.

The road I am on has it's good spots, but for whatever is ahead if I need to turn or merge or speed up or slow down, I want to be able to do it. I want to be aware of what is going on, and make good choices. That's my wish for 2015 and beyond.