simplerich

January 28, 1986.

The year was the same year I graduated. I was in Germany. I was listening to German radio, the station was SWF3 (pronounced ESS VAY EFF DRY) a new wave/pop station at the time, not sure what it is now. A song finished and a news guy came on, said the Challenger had exploded during take off and they’d give us more when they had more… then they went back to the music. I was staring at the wall thinking WTF? So, I went downstairs and asked Mom & Dad to turn on the TV and told them what I’d heard. They were watching, well, Dad was watching a video (possibly even recorded on beta) so he switched over to AFN (Armed Forces Network tv) and there it was. We sat and watched for a while. Nothing like the news coverage was here in the US I am positive.

I don’t remember the German stations canceling everything except the just-over-a-minute of launch over and over again with reporter voices over the top of it for hours.

I remember being in Orlando when the next one launched. In the intervening years since anything had launched my room mate and I had both graduated and joined the Navy, met each other, and we were in the Navy in Orlando instead of  me in Germany and him in Iowa. This time it didn’t blow up. It seemed like everybody on the lake held their breath, but maybe it was just me. It’s amazing that as far away as we were we could see it… that’s a lot of smoke. They should probably look at a greener alternative, like solar powered rockets.

Anyway. The explosion… that was 25 years ago today. That was the first “Do you remember where you were…” thing I was alive for. The second was the WTC stuff. It sucks that 2 out of 3 of those are bad memories. (The third is where were you when you knew that they were the one for you. That’s a good memory and yeah, I remember where I was. )

My monkey list is still there. I haven’t done a Seinfeld Calendar for it yet, but that’s because I haven’t found a calendar yet that I like. I’ve been keeping track so that counts. Some things that I haven’t done are the yoga. Any story that starts with “I knew I was scooping the snow wrong but thought…” can only possibly end one way and yes, there is a heating pad involved lol. I knew better while I was doing it. But what’re ya going to do ya know?

The crossword puzzle thing is going well. I’ve been doing the New York Times ones, Monday and Tuesdays so far… and, me being me, I’ve been doing them competitively for time with a friend who is also doing them.

The reading has been going well too. I’m an avid reader who wasn’t making sure he made time to read so I was more of an avid almost reader… horseshoes and handgrenades. Intent doesn’t finish things you know? So, I’ve penciled in reading… no, I’ve PENNED in reading as part of my routine and surprisingly  (not really) when I make the time to do it I have the time to do it. Weird how that works. I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and really enjoyed it. There are two more and I haven’t read them yet. I have the next one on my kindle ready to go. I’m just reading something different first, Cryoburn, Sci-Fi brain candy, the like 13th in a series… maybe not 13th, maybe 9th? It’s way up there and I love the protagonist. Miles Vorkosigan.

I haven’t been running it’s been in the single digits and I canceled my gym membership to save money (I took a giant pay cut a while back and did a small cut in spending… did you see the disparity in those adjectives there? Yeah… I was noticing it too.). Combine that with my back shenanigans from snow scooping and I have been doing some aerobic activity and other work-outy stuff to improve general fitness levels. If I say lots of Dance Dance Revolution on the 360 and you laugh at me then I’ll say it was erm… Kinect Adventures that came with the motion sensor device thingee. I’ve been doing both.

I’ve been enjoying cooking at home more. I really do like to cook, and I found that the grocery store nearest the house (I hate it. They have a VERY limited selection of EVERYTHING, but they’re close and I’m less tempted to overspend if they have nothing I want.) has an excellent butcher and meat selection. That’s all they have that I like. Period. Their tilapia fillets are HUGE. They’re fully twice as big as the ones I used to get. I had tilapia twice this week. It was good enough to have another time, but I think the room mate would have objected!

Rich, this is a management type blog, why are you talking all this personal crap? Nobody cares… well, maybe your mom, but at least two other people read this!

I started with a plan and things got messed up. Miles Vorkosigan from the Vorkosigan novels which I mentioned above says that no plan survives contact with the enemy. You’ve got to be flexible. You’ve got to be able to adapt and that’s what’s had to happen here. If you look at the direction my plan was going I’m still going that direction even though there have been bumps in the road. This is normal. It’s so very rare that things go perfectly according to plan that when they do I’m afraid I’ve missed something. that sounds like a pessimistic outlook but I think there’s some truth to it.

I was once part of the group of people helping organize the take-over of 4 stores in another state. I put together everything I could think of that we’d need in little go-bags. It was stuff we’d need on days one through five. It was also stuff that someone else was supposed to be sure was shipped to arrive the day we did. I didn’t count on them getting it there right or knowing what we needed or would need. I took an emergency go-bag full of stuff that would get us through in case something went wrong. I counted on it going wrong and I wanted us to be able to do our jobs. Those go-bags came in super handy because some stuff arrived on time but was in a box that wasn’t opened for days and some stuff never arrived at all. The plan was to not need to go-bags. No plan survives contact with the enemy. I didn’t know I’d monkey with my back when I made the plan but I didn’t scrap everything. I’m doing what I can and looking forward to when I can get more done… Forward momentum (Also a big idea for Miles Vorkosigan in those books I’m reading at present.) is a big idea and it’s a good thing.

Kind of a nothing blog entry, more of an update and to let you know I haven’t forgotten about my list or my blog. Going to see about getting the valve cover gasket changed here in a bit so I’ll let y’all get back to your regularly scheduled program. (Which, if you’re reading this on Sunday may involve cheering against Greenbay. *grin*)

In a previous post I’d talked about the idea that I had monkeys I wanted to train this year instead of making resolutions. The post and idea came from the personal development blog, Dragos Roua is writing. (If you haven’t added him to your RSS feed it’s worth your time to do so.)

I’ll bullet point some monkeys I hope to train over the next year. I’m not doing this the same way he is, but that’s OK with me. If he objects I can quit calling them monkeys and call them dolphins and act like I don’t know what he’s talking about. *grin*

• Half an hour of yoga at least five days a week.
• At least 3 crossword puzzles a week.
• Read at least half an hour with an hour being better for relaxation. Not work related reading.
• Start running again. Redo the C25k. (On non-running days do some sort of exercise that isn’t legs)
• Get down to 165lbs and stay there for a while. I went from 205 to 175 but want another 10lbs.
• Cook and eat at home at least twice as often as I eat out… at least!
• Get my bike running and get it to stop shooting gas out the bottom, that’s not good I think… and ride at least a couple hundred miles this summer.
• Finish my novel. It’s half done now with the first draft. The first draft is at a stopping point, but in retrospect I need to finish writing it. It isn’t done yet. I know that now. Ugh. I’m going to have to print it to read it. Why’s ink so expensive again? What’s it made out of? Crushed baby hearts?

One of my qualifications for the monkeys this year was that they not cost much if anything as they’re part of an overall plan to reduce expenses and increase savings. I am also going for quality of life things. The exception to the expense thing is the bike, that may cost some money… if nothing else to replace the gas it sprays onto the ground when I try and crank it.

Another of the qualifications was that they be about me and not about work. That sounds terrible in a management type blog, but a happy manager is a better manager and honestly, last year I didn’t take enough time for me. I was unhappy a lot of 2010 and I’m not going to do that again in 2011 if I get a vote in it. (I think I do get a vote in it. I’d like to react less and act more.)

So, those are my monkeys that I plan on training… or dolphins if there’s an objection in the comments from Dragos.

A friend of mine sent me this and it is/was timely and sums up how I felt about New Year’s Resolutions this year.

I didn’t make any resolutions this year. I instead thought I should work on personal improvement overall… Not one area, but generally. I wasn’t clear on a process but it was starting with better health, and I started eating more in line with that. More vegetables, less eating out, more cooking from fresh, less meat, and smaller portions. I quit my gym membership, but that was a money thing. I wasn’t using it any more so paying was stupid. I’ve got home gym stuff I can use and it’s already paid for. I plan to continue the work on my NaNoWriMo novel, it needs work. Just lots of stuff to do, but no plan. I know me and that was, already a recipe for failure. If I don’t have a plan of attack I tend to flounder. It’s why I was so successful learning to run with the Couch to 5k Program. It was very structured. I do well with structure.

Enter Train your Monkeys.

An inner “monkey” is a drastically undeveloped part of yourself. You may think at it like a long term goal which was never attained. Or like a deeply buried dream you never dared to dream until the end. Or something you declared to yourself you’re going to follow up through, but never did.

A “monkey” is a goal frozen in its evolution. Like a genome which was never able to reach the human form. It was only strong enough to mimic its human shape but at the core level it’s just an unfinished project.

That is perfect! He’s got a previous post where he is going to Train 12 Monkeys this year, one a month. That’s a little more erm… that time line won’t work for what I’m going for with some of them, but I like the idea. I also like the idea that if I can pick a certain number and areas I can post progress as it happens… some sort of bloggy-accountability. So, look for me to be listing my monkeys soon.

One tool I know I’ll be using is the Seinfeld Calendar. First — I need to get a calendar. This is one where online isn’t as good. I want it on the wall and I want the big visible to everybody checks on it.

I’m excited. I’ve gone from vague numinous thoughts to something a little more concrete. Yeah. I know we’re all supposed to start on January 1st, but I was so incredibly sick then… it wasn’t a good time to start. I want this to be well thought out. So, first step is to name the Monkeys and post to you guys what my goals are and how I hope to measure them. I may or may not give the metrics and time lines on some of them… I haven’t decided yet. What I will do is have the post where I name the monkeys done by next Monday. Come back and see what the monkeys are.

You got any monkeys that need training? Let me know!  I’d love to hear about them!

Today people are wearing purple in memory of those kids who killed themselves as a result of bullying because they were gay. It gets better is a series of youtube posts people have put up telling gay kids today that it WILL get better to PLEASE don’t kill yourselves. Bullying has been in the news a lot lately, and these dead kids, the number was 7 for a while, but that’s an arbitrary number and time frame. There’s no counting who has died because they couldn’t face the idea of how the world would treat them if they were gay. Whether that threat was real or perceived the dead kids tell us it felt really real to them.

I’m gay. I’ve been gay for a very long time. I knew I was gay in junior high and remember the name of the guy I had a my first crush on. That being said, I also remember the name of the girl who sat next to me in social studies in 7th grade who had the most amazing auburn hair, the beginning of my obsession with red heads started right there in 7th grade. I thought she was great… but my crush… that was a boy.

I’ve been best friends with the same guy now since the Summer of 1988. I assume everybody I know knows I’m gay, but sometimes someone will find out or I’ll say something and they’ll say, “I didn’t know you were gay. You don’t ACT gay.” My response is easy. I don’t act gay because being gay isn’t an act. It’s part of who I am, like being right handed, incredibly modest, astonishingly good looking, amazingly talented, and all those other wonderful aspects of my personality that I just can’t help. I don’t choose to be right handed. It just feels like someone else doing it if I use my left hand, and my penmanship isn’t as good. I AM talking about hand-writing here people. Get your mind out of the gutter.

That’s a big part of the gay thing. Nobody has a problem with us being best friends. The problem comes in when people start talking about sex or marriage. I’ve had family members say, “of course you’re against gay marriage.” For the life of me I couldn’t think why they would think I was against it. I happen to not be for it for us because I have too much pride to go up before the straight oligarchy and ask if Massah won’t please let us get married if it’s not too much trouble… then only two years later have the marriage revoked by some law when they change their minds. I don’t ask permission to love him and I don’t need permission to love him. And YOU don’t need permission to love who you want to. Screw anybody who says you do… well, maybe that was a bad choice of words, but you know what I mean. F@#^ h8! (Lots of the eff-bomb behind that link)

If I’m ever in a position where I’m in a hospital and someone denies him entrance to see me because we’re not family I had better die because when I get out and get better I will hurt that person. We shouldn’t have to be married to be on a visitors list. We’ve been best friends for years, and been through some great and not so great times together. If any family member ever said I had to choose between him and them I’d miss my family deeply, but if they loved me they wouldn’t put me in a position to say good bye to them. I can’t see any of them saying that. I’m lucky that way I guess. If any of them have a problem with who I am they have been smart enough to keep their mouths shut about it. All that being said, if he asked tomorrow I’d say yes. Seriously lol.

Bullying. Talk to some body. If you can’t talk to your parents talk to a guidance counselor, a teacher you trust, somebody. Let them know. I know you’re thinking it’d only make it worse, but you know what… if you’re thinking about killing yourself, how much worse do you think it’s going to get? Before you do it, before you hang yourself, shoot yourself, drive into something and die… before you do ANY of that, please call someone. 1-800-SUICIDE works. Call them. Go over to postsecret.com and read those stories, read all of them, it gets better.

Is it easy being gay? Not all the time, no. There are idiots out there all the time who will be idiots, but it’s honestly not because it’s you. They don’t like anybody. They don’t like people with different colored skin, strange accents, different school colors, whatever. They’re just haters. Don’t give the world over to them by leaving. Don’t let them win. They don’t deserve it. God knows there’s enough people in power right now on the political scene that built a career out of hating. In everything but politics, it gets better.

Today sucks. Tomorrow might suck too, but it might not. It might be better, but you won’t find out if you end it today. I promise it gets better. Don’t die over it. Don’t give the Neanderthals the victory. Don’t let them win by quitting early. Some days will be harder than others, but all of them make us who we are, and who you are, and who you’re going to turn into is infinitely better than the haters. And you know what? A lot of those haters will eventually turn out to be decent people. Wouldn’t you like to live long enough to watch them get fat bald and old and have them find you and apologize? Wouldn’t you love to find out years later that they were haters because they were into wearing girl’s underwear and didn’t know how to deal with it? There’s so much  to live for, the best revenge against the haters IS to live and watch them fall apart while you keep it together. Trust me on this one. It doesn’t suck to be better looking and making more money than somebody who was a jerk to you.

And to the rest of you reading this… look around, make sure you’re not one of those people sending signals that the gays aren’t really people. Next time you’re making fun of a big ole sissy-Mary who has purses fall out of his mouth every time he talks… it’s just possible that Little Timmy sitting there at the table is hearing you and wondering if you’d feel the same way about him if you knew about his crush on the guy that sits in front of him in Math class. Is the gay joke you’re going to tell in a mean-spirited way more important to you than your own kids’ self-worth. If it is then go for it, and buy a plot. Your kids need your support. If they’d rather die than talk to you I’d say there’s a problem. No, I’m not saying kids killing themselves is the parents’ fault. I’m saying when a parent contributes to the hatred and self-loathing that they could have done things differently. Even if the parentals are asses, the thing is, we all move out at some point and have our own lives, don’t let anybody’s small-mindedness define who you are. It gets better.

To summarize. It gets better. Don’t die. Not today.