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August 27th, 2009
07:49 pm - Crossposting political-civilization-ish stuff
I started a community on DreamWidth, The International Conspiracy of Mad Scientists, for posts about saving civilization and related topics. Should I create that community here too, for those who don't yet have DW invites? Should I crosspost my ICMS posts to my regular LJ (this account)? Just trying to figure out how to get the project a little attention; opinions solicited, suggestions welcome.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/confused.gif) curious
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May 25th, 2009
10:33 am - Star Trek vs. Demonization
The other day, it somehow came up that ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) harena's 12-year-old wanted to watch the "Devil in the Dark" episode of Star Trek. Having not watched it in maybe a decade or more, I sat down and watched it with him (from a VHS tape I apparently recorded in ~1987).
== BEGIN SPOILERS ==
For those not familiar with the episode: a human mining colony is experiencing sudden and mysterious deaths as well as missing and damaged mining equipment, all of which are soon traced to a frightening creature who strikes with lightning speed and vanishes, horribly charring its victims with acid and leaving nothing but ashes and bits of bone. The creature even completely removes a pump vital to the colony's survival. The colonists and their leader understandably want the creature killed. Long story short: Spock makes mental contact with the creature, finds that it is very intelligent and that the humans have been unknowingly destroying its eggs; its attacks and vandalism were an attempt to protect the eggs and drive the humans off. Spock arranges a truce, the creature returns the pump, and she and her children begin helping with mining operations, making them all "embarrassingly rich".
== END SPOILERS ==
At the end, we were talking about how this is an example of why it's better to try and understand your "enemies" than to fight them, and it occurred to me that this is probably the thing I liked most about Star Trek: positive-sum thinking, as exemplified by things like talking to an "enemy" and finding that what they want is totally compatible with what we want, and all we have to do is avoid stepping on their toes; the idea that trustworthiness and communication are more important than weaponry; that we don't have to destroy others in order to get what we want; and so on.
Further, it occurred to me that the basic premise of this episode -- the "devil" in the dark becomes an ally -- epitomizes the exact opposite of the kind of "demonization" thinking nurtured and promoted by the neocons: there are those among us who may seem innocent but are in fact enemies of everything we hold dear; they must be sought out and eliminated, without negotiation.
Lately I've been having some rather intensive online discussion with a fellow claiming to be a "progressive" conservative. I was initially rather skeptical that "progressive conservatism" wasn't an oxymoron by definition, but it's looking like it may actually be theoretically possible, depending on how you define "conservatism" -- if nothing else, I'm beginning to think that "progressive conservatism" is as good a name as any for a philosophy which is primarily being practiced, these days, by those calling themselves "liberals".
What he hasn't been able to show me, as far as I can tell, is how the public policy choices he supports are any more "conservative" than choices I might prefer.
I had labeled the philosophy I was defending as "rational liberalism", to avoid confusion the wide range of "liberal" values, much or most of which I agree with but which can get pretty loopy in places (albeit generally less alarming or outright dangerous than many neocon beliefs), but after watching this episode I found the phrase "Star Trek liberalism" bouncing around my head...
...and then it occurred to me that what I am actually doing is saying something like this: Neocon/Republican philosophy is a radical departure from the values which seem the best to me and which I grew up with, many of which are demonstrated by the better Star Trek episodes. The moral values displayed in those episodes are the values I want to preserve, in the face of the "post-9/11 world" claims that we must clamp down on freedoms and lower our standards if we expect to survive the terrorists (and abortionists and gays and America-hating liberals).
In short: I am a Star Trek conservative.
Originally posted as a comment on Contrary Brin; reposted here with some important nuances I forgot to include earlier
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November 3rd, 2008
11:31 am - Yet Another TMBG Filk
I apologize for filking twice in a row on the same song, but there was this conversation in the car this morning about people not being able to deal with change, and... this just kind of happened. (I wish I'd thought of it a few months ago, but c'est la life.) Feel free to sing it with your friends as you wait in line to vote.
Which explains why they're voting for McCain
Which explains why they're voting and promoting for McCain
Though McCain is so lame
But they want him just the same, all the same, it's insane
Which explains why they're voting for McCain
Which explains why we're noting that they're voting for McCain
'cause McCain is the same
And they really don't want change, don't want change, it's too strange
Which explains why they're voting for McCain
When you listen to him speak, he starts turning off your brain
He's a maverick, they claim,
But that word is not the same as the thing that they claim
Is the reason why they're voting for McCain
'Cause Obama has a brain, and that scares them half insane
'Cause we need more wars to win
But that doesn't figure in
With the world overseas
Which explains why they're voting for McCain....
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) amused
Current Music: "Which Describes How You're Feeling", TMBG, Apollo 18
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October 28th, 2008
05:58 pm - watershed events
I hadn't expected this to feel as traumatic as it has been feeling, because we've gone through this before...
Mel left today for the Navy.
Some background for those of you who don't know the story behind this:
:: Mel is harena's oldest, who graduated from Earlham College with a degree in physics and came back to live with us while he figured out what to do next. Relatives put pressure on us to use "tough love" or even "kick him out" and otherwise get him motivated to find a job – but that really never seemed like the right approach, and being harsh isn't something we're good at, and what with the growing crisis of Josh, among many other things, we didn't really have time to put any heart into pursuing a more reasonable approach, although I had made a start towards discussing things with him to find out what he wanted to do.
:: ...and then suddenly, out of the blue, last spring he announced that he was joining the Navy. For a 4-year stint, no less. It's some special photography program, about which I sort of assumed we would find out more as the summer wore on... but we still don't really know anything, except that it's 4 years and he does have to go through boot camp. Very much not a casual fling. He's been doing physical training every day, without fail, for several months now... and taking calls from his recruiter on a fairly regular basis as well. The other day I even overheard part of their conversation because the answering machine picked up before he did: "Have you thought over your decision?" "Yes, I have." "You still want to do this?" "Yes."
As I said, we've been through this, or something like it, before: when Mel was at college, there was a twice-yearly ritual (at the end of each summer and Christmas break) of watching him get more and more tense as the vacation drew to a close, working out the flight details, taking him to the airport. Even that was a little traumatic, because it meant a lot of changes: we would no longer have an automatic babysitter, an extra pair of eyes and ears to watch out for Josh, an extra adult to help wrestle Josh back into the house if needed (which we did at least twice).
But we always knew he'd be back within 6 months, and that he'd be in touch the whole time he was away (IM and email), and we knew something about the kind of place he was in (i.e. college life), and we were kind of used to him not being around since he was at college more than at home.
This is different. We don't know anything about the Navy, really, except what we've seen in movies -- which generally paint it as a rather soulless or at best authoritarian institution. I'm sure the depictions are way off the mark in a lot of ways... but that doesn't really help, because it means we just don't know what it's like – especially for someone who is (as far as we can tell) pretty much a solid-core liberal and pacifist.
Also... back in 2006, when Mel graduated, Josh hadn't yet become a major problem. He was still more or less pre-adolescent. There hadn't yet been any incidents where he refused to come inside, or escaped from the house, or ran away across town. Since then, we've needed that extra person on more occasions than I can remember -- to help wrestle Josh inside, to run after Josh (while I grabbed clothes and got in the car) when Josh escaped at 11 pm one night, to shut down Josh's movie when it ended 2 hours after our bedtime so Josh wouldn't be up all night watching it and therefore unwakeable for school at 6:15 the next morning, to listen for Josh returning or trying to escape or destroying something...
...or just to have an adult in the house on Saturday morning while we run down to the Farmers Market for 45 minutes, or while we do belated groceries after fetching the kids because there wasn't time to do them during the day, or while we zip out for dinner with friends or family visiting town, or taking one of the kids to a birthday party or play-date on the weekend, or even just while we fetch Zander from afterschool (Benjamin already being at home and probably deeply in a computer game so not available to come along, even if Josh is already taken care of).
Now, all those things will require one of us to stay home, at least until we have a living situation for Josh, or else get Josh dressed and bring him along (which simply doesn't work for a lot of things). Even after Josh is safely ensconced somewhere – which is, mind you, a project we've been working on for a number of years now – they will probably still require lining up a babysitter if we're both going to get to go (at least until Z is a little older), which is something neither of us are good at (and not money we are desperately needing to spend, either).
Everything becomes more awkward, and requires the hypertwins to do more things separately, which is something hypertwins do not like to do.
Mel was also the one I fobbed B & Z off onto when they wanted to play a board game, or when they had detailed questions about certain fictional universes or games. Mel loaned them his Dr. Who DVDs repeatedly, thereby keeping them provided with good educational material to watch and leaving me free to do other stuff.
We've had over 2 years to get used to always having that spare adult around, except for the few times that he went out with friends to a movie or some other event. He, in turn, has become more in tune with his younger brothers' needs and wants – not just Josh, but the other two – and his indispensability has inevitably increased over time.
So I think I'm feeling just a little cast out into the wilderness.
On the other hand, I won't have to do his dishes anymore. We can buy fewer groceries, which means less to carry in. We can probably make use of his room for storage (although we need to leave some space for visitors) -- possibly even making the storage unit redundant and thereby saving $100/month and a lot of back-and-forth travel to get stock. But it remains to be seen how much of a plus those things will actually be, and somehow they don't do much to counter the weird feeling of loss.
I'm sure Harena's feeling worse – Mel is her firstborn, after all – but I hadn't expected this punched-in-the-gut feeling.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/sad.gif) sad
Current Music: silence
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February 11th, 2008
04:34 pm
which explains why you need to do this form
which explains why we plead that you need to do this form
'cause this form is the norm, keeps you covered in a storm, in a storm you'll be warm
which explains why you need to do this form
(whiiiiiich.... exxxxxxxxxx.... plaaiiiins.... whhhyyyyyyy.... youuuuuuu.... neeeeeeeed.... tooooooooo....)
which explains why you need to do this form
when your drain isn't draining and your rooms aren't getting warm
but the form doesn't warm as your heart gets filled with scorn, as you're torn by some bore
who explains why you need to do this form
he complains that you're draining him and now he feels forlorn
but his words don't inspire any further great desire, great desire to conspire
which explaaaaaainnnnns... why you need to fill this forrrrrrrm.
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December 7th, 2007
01:36 pm
A brief parody, by me (sung to the tune of "The Age of Aquarius")
- When a looooon.... is in the White House
- And Democrats... align with Mars
- Then waaaaar... will take our planet
- To aaaarr....maggeddon and beyond!
- This is the dawning of the age of the terrorists, age of the terrorists... the terrorists! The ter-ror-iiiiists...
- Weaponry of mass destruction, power-games and lust abounding
- Oblivious to all derision, scheming lying politicians hope to cover their ambitions to live the Book of Revelations with
- the terrorists, the terrorists!
(The "to live the" bit is a bit awkward; I want to make it something like "from the" to avoid the extra syllable, but that seems too ambiguous. More of a rewrite like "politicians planning out their life's ambitions from the" might work, but then it clashes with the verb-tense in the earlier part of the sentence and... ennh. Maybe something will come to me later.)
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07:15 am
Having to read my last two entries over and over again (I had to! Really!!) in pursuit of the recent brief comment-skirmish with artemisfowl2nd (Rtizy), I feel inspired to give a minor update.
Episode 1 of Leviticus Helms is about 3/4 complete, but I stopped working on it awhile back when I had some urgent stuff to deal with and didn't want to clear that stuff out of my mental deskspace to work on anything else (such as writing satire, which my inner critics tell me nobody will get anyway, and even if they get it, it isn't all that funny, so why am I wasting time on it when there is more important stuff to do). I am now realizing that the crisis is more or less over, so I can go back to working on that and maybe finish it off.
Finishing anything off, however, doesn't feel like much of an accomplishment when I don't know when I'll actually be able to get around to recording it. I finished off another piece, "Stand Up to Your Rights" on (...checks wiki...) October 5, and still haven't done any recording on it. (And huh, the HypertWiki isn't showing any stats at the bottom anymore. WTF? Time to upgrade, I guess, that being easier than picking through the code to figure out what's going wrong...)
Also, somewhere in there, listening to an old song-fragment I must have recorded back in the 80s sometime made me realize that it went quite well with another song-fragment I came up with just the other day, and together they make a whole song. Which I need to record.
There's no-one left to love you and no-one to hold you tight
Good night, sweet dreams, good night.
And you wake up in the morning and you try to feel all right
Good night, sweet dreams, good night.
(That's the basic lyric idea; still some lines to fill in.)
And there are about a dozen other directions I could wander off in, narratively speaking, but they don't seem relevant enough. Oh... right... the creative-stuff site is online, but still has only minimal substance. I think I want a nicer look for it, too. I've been taking pictures and scanning autumn leaves, so what else is new...
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October 8th, 2007
01:45 pm - Yes, It's An Update!
A friend has porded me to post here again (what, twice in the same year??). ( So, in more or less random order... )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/blah.gif) apathetic
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January 23rd, 2007
09:48 pm - Your Brilliant Career (song; available for download)
So I've only now figured out that I should post here whenever I have a new song available. (Or did I figure it out earlier, and just forgot? Whatever.)
"Your Brilliant Career" (MP3 | lyrics) is a song which started with some lyrics Tigger came up with in the summer of 1985. (It was at least the first verse, maybe also the second or part of it.) It's electric guitar (run through a Moog for the pulsating effect), multiple overdubs of Livia's old piano (now gone), and vocals. The current version is sort of a rough draft of "the best possible mix of what I recorded in 1992"; later I'll go back and add more instruments (and probably redo the vocals for the verses; I was using a $20 mic at the time). I want it to sound more like "Mean Mr. Mustard".
Current Mood: sore
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May 31st, 2006
09:08 pm - hunting ferocious jobs with a freshly-sharpened toothpick
So I happened to notice (I already have forgotten how) that there's a job near here for which I qualify. It was posted two weeks ago, but I emailed the company and found out that it is still unfilled. Of course, I immediately start worrying that this means there will be a huge pool of candidates to compete with, and I will be at the very end of the list.( more whining... )
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April 23rd, 2006
08:20 am
(I wanted to post this entry last Monday, but the time just hasn't happened. This is a frequent occurrence, and is probably the main reason why I don't journal more often.)
Apparently at least one person was bothered by my semi-recent post about religion. I'm not actually sure if he was bothered by the post itself or (instead) by subsequent chatroom discussion about it, but after talking about it with harena, I realized that I should probably clarify some things.
( more about religion )
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April 15th, 2006
07:48 pm
A set of related thoughts which I'll eventually turn into a wiki entry somewhere, if time permits:
( Things that are wrong with religion )
I had something else to say, about gender roles and reproduction, but it's not coming together at the moment.
Current Mood: meh
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June 15th, 2005
08:05 am
Starting June 5, I've been keeping a sort of journal-ish thing here. MediaWiki does have an RSS feed, which could conceivably be used for the SluggySquad RSS aggregator, but unfortunately it feeds updates on *all* the pages in the site, which would be a bit of overkill (I sometimes do 50 updates a day), and I haven't yet figured out a way of filtering for just one page (e.g. the "What Woozle Is Doing Right Now" page).
So if anyone knows how to get RSS feeds off particular pages in MediaWiki...
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November 18th, 2004
07:04 pm - The New Great Divide
Ever since the election went the way it did, it has become a sort of hobby (horse?) -- or perhaps crusade -- of mine to try and find out what has happened: how the majority of America (including some people I respect) can have elected someone who seem to many of us to have been so clearly the wrong person.
Towards that end, I would like to hear reactions to this piece, from those on the winning side:
God has graciously granted America a reprieve from the agenda of paganism
Is the writer perhaps misreading Mr. Bush's agenda, perhaps over-interpreting his conservative slant? Or does this letter play very differently to some people -- less threatening?
I don't expect to get any comments, but I had to ask. (Those aligned with the voting minority are welcome to respond as well, but of course you'd probably be preaching to the choir.)
Current Mood: inquisitive
Current Music: Sibelian - "The Sin Eater", from _The Soul Rush_
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November 12th, 2004
07:30 pm - audio update
For anyone who follows these things and happened not to be around in chat when I mentioned it, I've posted a new version of "Kryptonite Werewolves of Alabama". The new version fixes some minor things which bugged me about the intro and the ending, and a couple of minor volume level issues in the middle.
I'm also considering posting an intermangling of "In My Life" (The Beatles) and "Shoot High Aim Low" (Yes), but part of me seems to think it's too contrived and this is sapping my enthusiasm for putting any effort into doing so.
Other intermanglings in the queue to attempt when I have time:
- "American Woman" / "Whole Lotta Love"
- "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" / "Brand New Key"
- "The Way Life's Meant to Be" (ELO) / "Oh What a Shame" (Roy Wood) / "Heroes and Villains" (Beach Boys) / "Pale and Precious" (Dukes of Stratosphear)
- "Longer" (Dan Fogelberg) / "Here, There, and Everywhere" (Beatles) / "Woman" (Lennon)
I haven't checked any of these to be sure they're in the same key (or close enough for a little pitch-shifting), so it may be that none of them will work.
Current Music: the sound of PC fans and Fedora Core 3 installing
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November 9th, 2004
12:00 pm - social inventions, and using anxiety for constructive purposes
I don't know why it only just today occurred to me to use this for posting inventional ideas. Maybe it occurred to me before and I immediately came back with "<whine>but I want to post those ideas in such-and-such a place in such-and-such a way or I won't be haaaa-peeeee!</whine>" and perhaps I have only just today somehow come around to the idea that it's not worth waiting for such-and-such.
So.
Today's Invention Sketch: ( Controversial Issue Discussion Wiki )
I think I might even be able to use this idea to discuss gender dysphoria, open discussion of which has caused difficulty for me in the past. Earlier attempts to discuss it on the web resulted in much panic and negativity from relatives; if there was a wiki, I could post all such comments publicly or invite the commenters to do it themselves, thus preventing the feeling of being taken to the principal's office and given a stern lecture, and giving me the benefit of many additional opinions. Trusting the opinion of single individuals has not been good for me in the past; it was at times when I was cut off from outside opinions (friends) that I made some of the worst choices of my life.
So if I have time, I'll be working on that idea.
(Note to Tenebram: yes, I still have the Job Coop in the front of my head too. Both of these ideas address some very significant things for me.)
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May 23rd, 2004
02:55 pm - attention deficit, part 2
(I'm in a foul mood now because I had this entry mostly typed ( more whining... ))
Actually, just the staring-out-the-window wasn't quite the point. That would be mild; that would be like having a car which tends to stall a lot, but you can always get it cranked again.
What I was trying to describe is more like having a car which tends to stall when the traffic is thickest, and which can only be restarted by pulling off to the side of the road and waiting until there's nobody coming.
This seems related to two further things I have figured out lately.
Thing One. I seem to have enormous difficulty seeing The Big Picture. Or perhaps I can see it just fine when I get there, but I *really hate* the process of switching back and forth between The Big Picture and whatever immediate task I'm working on, especially if that task is complicated or detailed.
For example, when I'm deeply immersed in something I will often find it almost impossible to substantially and truthfully answer the question "How are you doing?" I have a general feeling of how I'm doing, but I have to really think hard to pull up any details.
What it feels like, metaphorically, is rather like working under the house -- on a sewer pipe or something else messy. I have to get out from the awkward position I've shoved myself into behind the sewer pipe, scoot forward, roll over on my back to fit under the air duct, slide down the dirt gradient, step over the tools accumulated at the entry to the crawlspace, get onto the stairs without knocking anything over, climb up the stairs (again without knocking anything over), open the basement door, go upstairs, take a shower and get fresh clothes so I can be presentable, find my notes, review them so I can remember what they're about, then go into the living room to make a quick presentation on my status (hopefully with PowerPoint slides for illustration, otherwise the questioner won't know what the hell I'm talking about).
This is a problem, because it means that I run into trouble when the situation changes and what I am working on now needs to be shelved in favor of something else -- or when what I am actually doing has gradually mutated from what I was supposed to be doing, or when I've gotten hot on the trail of some interesting sub-problem which really should be dealt with later. Climbing a tree to look around always seems like such a waste of time when you're making progress hacking your way through the jungle, even if it turns out you've been going in circles... (which is, after all, what Woozles do best...)
So half the time I find myself wanting someone *else* to be in charge of the big picture so I can just focus on the details (which can work as long as you trust the judgement of the person who is dealing with the big picture), and half the time I want the freedom to just plunge into whatever interests me -- so I don't need to switch tasks until I'm ready.
Thing Two has to do with why I seem to be having difficulty with making efforts towards becoming gainfully (or at least paidfully) employed again.
In order to explain this, I have to digress a bit about my ( employment history... )
The problem now is that I've put all the effort into getting where I thought I would be 20 years later if I worked at it... but I'm further behind than ever.
I thought by now I would be in that place where I would be able to be creative *and* still earn a living. I even thought that by now I should be able to apply the word "successful" to myself, or even "financially secure" if not "financially independent" (I remember working out, in 1986 or so, how much I would need to have in savings in order to be able to live off the interest; that was my goal).
This makes it very difficult to feel motivated to keep looking for employment. The shortfall between {what I need in order to feel like it's worth doing} and {what I'm likely to actually get} has become too extreme.
The one solution I saw was to work at something menial, like pizza delivery, which wouldn't require any major mental effort (I *did* apply for a delivery job; I'm *not* being lazy!) but it seemed like everybody had a problem with that, and my parents started throwing money at me rather than allow me to sink to that level. (They seemed to see it as sinking.)
Other than that, all I can do is continue to work on the business and hope it starts to bring in enough so I can keep some for myself. (Other possibilities venture into the realm of another topic for another time, so I will leave them there for now.)
Current Music: Weezer, "Say It Ain't So", playing over and over on the mental jukebox :-P
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May 16th, 2004
11:26 am - attention deficit, and task-management
Ok, I've been observing this pattern for awhile and I think I may have figured something out.
The situation is when I'm working on a large task which is difficult to concentrate on. What happens is that if I have any other little tasks to do, and there's a distraction, I always forget about the little task when I get back -- I end up working on the big one again. The reason is that, because it's difficult to concentrate on, I've got myself drilled to keep re-focusing on it when other things come up. So of course as soon as the smaller task leaves my immediate focus, the re-focusing kicks in and I go back to the bigger task.
(Which is part of why I can't get certain types of work done when the kids are around, but that probably goes without saying.)
Is this a common problem?
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May 2nd, 2004
11:35 am - I'm suspicious...
I just discovered that I actually made $1.20 at Amazon this quarter, doing the affiliate thing.
( details... ) That isn't much, and they won't send me anything until the total tops $100... but it's encouraging, especially since I've done no advertising and that page is basically all by itself, no associated site to bring people in.
What's even more unusual is that I was able to front some bills for Harena this month, and I haven't needed to ask for the money back. Sales were up significantly for April, but I didn't think they were up *that* much.
So... I'm Suspicious.
I'm also looking into doing a demo of the music-subscribing idea now, starting with some of the indy music I still have in stock from the Red House Store and using Amazon to provide the rest... (And a small part of me is afraid that if I start talking about this, *tomorrow* the bank balance will be negative and I'll suddenly remember the charges I forgot to put in the register.) And the Dead Bear I tried to sell on Ebay didn't, but somehow I'm not surprised.
Current Music: Depeche Mode
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March 7th, 2004
05:47 pm - The Henry Encounter
Henry was Jenny's favorite teacher. (Jenny was Harena's little sister, for those who don't know; she apparently killed herself in 1983, which ultimately precipitated my leaving home two years later. Long story.) He was also, I think, Tigger's favorite, or at least high on the list; in any case, he always had a special spot reserved in the pantheon of teachers (and grownups, for that matter) among members of the Goresum Foursum. I never knew him that well, but certainly heard a lot about him from the others.
Anyway, we got into a brief conversation -- Harena also knowing him (and he recognizing her) from when her eldest was at CFS -- and two things came up which stuck in my mind.
First: it emerged that there had been some discussion of Jenny, because a lot of people at the school now only know her as the name on "The Jenny Fund" (I'm not even sure of the official name), a trust fund her parents established to promote teacher development there (something like that), and those who knew her as a person wanted to keep the memory alive of who she actually was.
I suggested that we should be in touch because of the large part she had played in my life; he sorta didn't respond. I knew that I would probably get that sort of response, because that's what usually seems to happen, but it still makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong. I mean, from his POV, here's somebody you've discovered who knew this person whose memory you're trying to keep alive; don't you want to talk with them and compare notes?
Second: He asked what I'd been up to since leaving CFS. What came out of my mouth (I hate conversationally answering questions for which there is no simple answer) was that I had been recovering from a decade of bad decisions, er, resulting from bad decisions... well, a decade of basically not being myself.
(I imagine he thought drugs or something. I don't know what he actually thought, but that's what I imagine he thought. I was talking mainly about getting married when I had always been opposed to the idea of marriage, on principle, and other decisions I could probably write a novel about.)
And now I can't remember quite what it was I wanted to say about that. Maybe I just needed to describe the encounter because it seemed significant. If I figure out what else I wanted to say, I'll add it on later.
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