Hanging Out

A couple of weeks ago, Cap'n Peanut mentioned that he and PigPen were planning on going somewhere to watch UFC 96 and invited me to tag along and I, of course, said sure. However, a few days later Peanut let me know that the plans were off because his parents were having a birthday dinner for his older brother that evening. In the end it worked out, since I would have had to have left early from the Singles Game and Movie Night to meet up with them, and thus would have missed out on tormenting Trouble and Lizard with one of my Christmas presents while watching Back to the Future on Mei-mei's parents' garage door*, but I was still a little bummed not to get to hang out with PigPen and Peanut. Since I'm trying to be more proactive in maintaining my friendships and not not sitting around waiting for people to come to me, I emailed Peanut earlier today to ask if he and PigPen had any plans in place for this weekend, or if they might be free to hang out with me. Peanut replied that they were both free, and wanted to know what sort of plans I had in mind.

I really wanted to reply "I already said: to hang out. Duh!" but thought that such a tone might be counterproductive to actually getting them to hang out with me.

Peanut's reply asking what I wanted to do is a pretty good example of a difference in mindset I've noticed between several of my friends and myself, with my friends being much more action/event oriented while I often couldn't care less. It happens often with Peanut, who isn't much of a sit-around type of guy; it happens with Shack-Fu, who is very task-oriented at times; it happens with Li'l Random, who is difficult to pin down even with very specific plans, let alone nebulous ones; and it happens with Zinger and Pooh-Bear, who will often meet my requests to come visit with questions of if I had anything special I wanted to do. And almost every time my friends try to get some solid plan out of me, I respond with a "doesn't really matter to me" sort of attitude.

It's not that I don't want to go out and do stuff; it's just that, for me, going out and doing stuff isn't necessary for me to enjoy myself. When I call someone up and ask if they want to hang out, it's because I want to be around them, talk with them, joke with them, pick on them, etc. To me, it doesn't matter if this happens waiting in line at the movies, in the middle of an amusement park, or just sitting at one of our homes around the TV set. As long as I'm spending time with my friends, I'm content. And, yeah, some of my favorite memories stem from going out and doing stuff with my friends: the birth of Hyper Force 3000; Bumper Bowling; St. Valentine's Day Meal of Doom; any number of trips to Texas Road House with Cap'n Shack-Fu . . . the list goes on and on. But by the same token, I have incredibly fond memories of just sitting around the house with my friends, swapping stories and goofing around.

Once upon a time, such a focus on activities would get to me as, in my usual neurotic way, I would turn it around in my head as a sign that people really didn't want to hang out with me without something else going on to distract them from me. But as I've matured, I've come to accept that this is just another one of the personality quirks, much like the True Colors system or the Languages of Love/Appreciation; I may be content to sit at home and gab, but others need more stimulation, need to get out of the house and experience something. And as long as both sides understand that about the other, things can run much more smoothly, and with luck not devolved into "What do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do? I asked you first" territory.

So, which category do you fall into, my blog monkeys? Are you a "go-go-go-go-go!" person? Or a "Stay or go, it doesn't matter as long as I'm with my pals" person? Comment hungry bloggers want to know!

Back to my email conversation with Peanut: I did respond with a crack about how if I had to plan things the deal was off, which followed by some ideas about what we could do -- ideas that I had already come up with before my original email because I pretty much knew that a request for concrete plans would be forthcoming.

Who says I can't learn?

*A story for another time . . . perhaps

A Dynamic Shift

As I've mentioned before, I often spend great portions of my time dissecting the ins and outs of the interpersonal chemistry and group dynamics of those around me. While my previous posts focused on questions of what forms the basis of such dynamics, my blog post the other day brought to mind an example of a dynamic in which I have observed a sizable shift in a positive direction. Gradually over the last couple of years, I have reached the point that time spent with PigPen and Cap'n Peanut leaves me feeling like part of a trio of good friends, and not just a third wheel tagalong.

It's not that I always felt like a third wheel when hanging out with them, but more often than not, if I was around the two of them for an extended period of time, I would eventually slip into that self-defeating, Outsider state of mind. There were several things which contributed to this, on both ends. On my end of things, there was my natural, neurotic Outsider tendencies, which are really always just a moment away from kicking into full gear in any social situation. But there were a number of factors in the PigPen/Peanut dynamic that exacerbated my neurosis. To start off with, PigPen and Peanut had been best friends for years and years before either one of them met me, breeding a bevy of inside jokes, commonalities, and shared experiences that can be daunting to a newcomer at the best of times, but even more so when you factor in the specifics of the duo's behavior.

For you see, much as the combination of PigPen and Cap'n Shack-Fu results in HyperTwin activity that dwarfs their usual hyper behavior, and the combination of Li'l Random and myself leads to Odd Squodd weirdness which sometimes makes our individual randomness seem logical, so does the combo of PigPen and Peanut result in a ratcheting up of their normal behavior to a sometimes intimidating degree. In their case, the amplified behavior is of the trash talking, insult/put-down humor variety. Once the two of them get on a roll, it's a sight to behold, as they feed of each other's energy and go all out to one-up each other; woe to any outsider who tries to get a shot in on one of them, for they are then hit with both barrels from the united pair.

Adding to the joy was the fact that my status as PigPen's perpetual whipping boy was also usually amped up. So, for example , if Peanut made a crack at my expense, PigPen would jump in and join in the attack; if I were to take a crack at Peanut, PigPen would retaliate on his behalf, even if my crack at Peanut had me taking PigPen's side; can't imagine how that could spark my Outsider complex, can you?

A brief aside: Since people tend to read much more bitterness and vitriol into these sort of posts than what I intend, let me take a moment to state for the record that as far as I'm concerned none of this was malicious or purposeful. PigPen was just trying to zing me like he always did day in and day out, just like I tried to zing him; once again, our friendship is based on mutual antagonism, and I am as guilty of starting crap with him as he is of starting crap with me. That being said, when Peanut got added into the mix, I couldn't help feeling like I was constantly being ganged up on and marginalized. I know that wasn't his intent, but it's how I perceived it, and over time I began to feel more and more like PigPen didn't want me around in general, and resented me impinging on his time with his best friend in specific.

So, what changed? A couple of things.

I think the first and most significant change was that Peanut and I became good friends. You see, even though Peanut and I had known each other for a while before I even met PigPen, let alone moved in with him, we were more passing acquaintances than friends. For the longest time, I thought he didn't like me for some reason; after I moved in with PigPen and got to hang out with Peanut more, I soon learned that what I had read as disdain and dislike was actually a variation of the same misunderstanding that occurred when I first met iamam and Rebel Monkey -- turns out that Peanut wasn't always comfortable when in a new group, and kept to himself until he got more acclimated. Sound like anyone else you know?

Anyway, over time Peanut and I got more chances to hang out one on one, and I gradually began to dismiss the thought that he only put up with me because I was rooming with his best friend, and started to accept that he considered me a friend in my own right. Once I made that mental shift, and began to believe that Peanut actually wanted me around and I wasn't just getting invited along out of pity, that third wheel mentality started to fade. But it wasn't quite vanquished, because I had only dealt with one part of the equation.

The other part of the equation, of course, was my growing paranoia that PigPen really didn't want me around. How did I confront this problem? By employing a radical solution: I talked to him about it. Using my patented Paranoia Resolution Formula, we each figured out where the other one was coming from, and moved on from there. Sadly, by the time I'd finally burned away all of my self-consciousness regarding my place in the group, it was only another month or so before they both moved to Lewisville, and my chances to see them vastly decreased. But at least now that I do get to see them, I can just relax and have a good time, and not question my place in the group.

Although I'd been cognizant of the shift in our mini-group dynamic on some level, it was the day after the evening of multiple buttkickings that I really started to reflect on how large a change there had been. Yeah, PigPen and Peanut still egg each other on to a crazy degree, and yeah, there are times when they gang up on me; but there are also times when Peanut and I gang up on PigPen, and there are times when it's every man for himself, and there are times when we're all united against someone or something else. I no longer let their long standing friendship trigger my Outsider complex; instead I just sit back and enjoy the moments when their long history manifests itself, and spend the rest of my time forging the bonds of the newer friendship I'm building with both of them now.

Amazing what can happen when I get out of my own way, isn't it?

25 Random Things

Earlier this week I got tagged in a meme on Facebook by Trouble's new roomie, Lizard (pre-existing nickname, I assure you). Since I was going to fill it out and post on Facebook anyway, I figured I'd go ahead and use it as a blog post as well.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

I'll do the tag thing on Facebook; here, you just get the list

1. I'm generally not a big fan of giving pets common human names like Jack or Pete or the like; I tend to like more eclectic/esoteric/bizarre names. This carries over into my fiction writing, where I tend to give animals names of comic book characters.

2. I've never fired a real gun in my life. Rubber dart guns, plastic disc guns, Nerf guns, paintball guns, yes; actual lethal weapons, no. Cap'n Shack-Fu has eagerly offered to rectify that situation for me, but things haven't worked out so far.

3. I have a horrible head for numbers; they tend to go in one ear and out the other. This also applies to dates, which is part of why I never really liked history in school. I can count on one hand the number of birthdays of friends and family I can remember that aren't linked to a holiday.

4. I have a reputation as a picky eater, which is probably well-deserved. When I was younger it was next to impossible to get me to try new things; my cousin Lori once threatened me with great bodily harm if I didn't try the lasagna she made. I'm much more willing to try new things these days, just as long as it doesn't cost me anything and I know I have something Todd-approved as a backup.

5. I don't know how to drive a stick-shift. I've had many people offer to teach me over the years, but never have actually followed through on it.

6. When I live by myself, it's a struggle not to turn into a bit of a hermit. I get home, change immediately into my comfy, not-going-back-out-in-public-tonight clothes, and am then ready for a night filled with doing absolutely nothing. If I get a call from someone wanting to do something spontaneous, my first thought is "but I'd have to get dressed in presentable clothes!" I am much better about accepting spontaneous invites now than I once was, but there are times when I just have my mind set on staying home being lazy, and nothing is going to change that.

7. I often get impatient waiting in drive-throughs waiting for people to figure out what they want to order, but that's probably because when it comes to eating out, I usually find one thing I like and order it every time. Clan Stoneheart would often joke about having a "Todd special" at Hideaway Pizza, i.e. pepperoni pizza and coke.

8. I stay in touch much better with friends who use IM than friends only email. For some reason, I have no problem just saying "hey" in an IM, but if I start to write an email I feel like it needs to be much more involved. Subsequently, I will often think "I need to email so-and-so" but will put it off because I don't have time at that moment to compose anything substantial enough.

9. When I was six years old, I got to go to Hawaii with my parents. My strongest memories are of standing on the shore letting the waves wash the sand away from around my feet; going to an aquarium and seeing a show starring a fat penguin called Fred; and watching a bizarre Japanese television show. It's the last one that sticks in my mind the most; something about a guy in a rubber squid-man suit shooting off the top of his head so that it flies through the air, knocking over another man, covering him up and transforming him into a small canister, which the squid man this puts into a container revealed in his head when the squid top flew off . . . something about that just stuck with me. If I could ever find out what that show was and somehow see it again, I would be a happy, happy man.

10. I generally don't do well being put on the spot and being asked to make quick decisions. I am a muller; I like to think things through thoroughly before voicing my opinion or advice.

11. One of the organizations I was most active in in high school was the Technology Student Association. My first year, I was part of the parliamentary procedure team that won first place at the national conference. A few months later, we were asked to film an instructional video to be given to other TSA chapters in Oklahoma. Many years later while I was working at OSU, I volunteered to help judge at the state conference in OKC, and was actually recognized by a few people from the video. Makes me wonder if that tape of 8th grade Todd acting as Sgt. at Arms is still floating around out there.

12. I rarely stop a movie once I've started it; there's always a part of me that hopes to find a redeeming moment in the film to make it not a total waste of my time. Sometimes this pays off; sometimes it doesn't. Every once in a while I run into something so painful I can't make it through; this seems to happen more often the older I get.

13. A lot of people I know talk about how when they read it's like a movie in their head. Me, not so much; yes, I love to read, but I'm not generally a "visual" reader. Yes, when I get into a good book I get sucked into it and tune out the rest of the world, but I suppose my focus is more on the writing itself -- cadence, meter, alliteration, dialogue, characterization, etc. -- so unless a writer is very heavy into descriptions, I don't automatically generate a mental movie. This, of course, has led to issues in my own writing, as I have to fight to avoid the "talking head" syndrome and actually write some descriptions and action sequences.

14. It's sometimes hard for me to focus or concentrate in total silence. I almost always have the TV on or some music playing so I can have background noise. Of course, I have to be careful what I use as background, otherwise I find myself watching the TV or, in the case of music, singing along.

15. I am not an overly organized person, as anyone who has ever lived or worked with me can attest. I will occasionally be overcome with a need to attempt to organize things, but I either (a) run out of steam before finishing or (b) succeed initially but then don't keep up with the system.

16. If most of my Parkerite friends hadn't been so gung-ho about moving out of the dorms, I probably would have stayed in Parker until I graduated. For some reason, the "no alcohol" policy and "no member of the opposite sex on your floor after curfew" rule didn't seem to bother me like they did others . . .

17. When I do something and feel guilty about it, I invariably tell on myself

18. I never realized I enjoyed spicy foods until after I went off to college; my parents neither one eat spicy stuff, so I never really tried any until much later.

19. The places I'd most like to visit are Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the U.K. Yes, I primarily want to visit English speaking countries, but the language has nothing to do with it. I've just been fascinated by Australia and the U.K. for as long as I can remember, and have heard nothing but good things about New Zealand. As for Japan, well, I've always wanted to visit someplace that triggered total sensory overload . . .

20. My handwriting is horrible. When I was doing a research paper for my Senior English class in high school, my teacher made me type up my rough draft because she refused to try to decipher such a massive chunk of my illegible writing. And I couldn't even complain to my mom about the teacher since, y'know, my mom was the teacher.

21. I talk to my parents on the phone an average of a couple of hours a week . . . typically all in one sitting. We are a chatty people.

22. When I was in college, I picked up the skill of twirling a pen in my fingers from my roomie Wrath teh Berzerkr; that skill has now become a habit that I do almost without thinking. Over the years, many people have tried to emulate it, and invariable they ask me to "do it slowly," a request that robs all momentum from the object, making the twirling impossible. I will occasionally meet someone else who also does it; so far, everyone who has either (a) learned it in debate in high school or (b) learned it from someone who was in debate in high school.

23. Although I have eliminated or reduced many of my irrational insecurities over the years, they still rear their heads in my reluctance to initiate telephone conversations or instigate plans with others. Part fear of rejection, part neurotic certainty that my random call is an annoyance. I can probably count the number of people I'll call up with no hesitation on one hand.

24. I used to cheat at Candyland; I would stack the deck, and then ask my mom to play. As a cover, I would let her go first. That's one of the few deceptions I really remember perpetrating in my childhood. Yeah, I was a goody-two-shoes, but is anyone really surprised by that?

25. I spent way too much time coming up with this list because I was trying to come up with stuff that I haven't talked about in my blog, and I didn't want it to just be a bunch of one sentence statements. Yes, I have a problem, but we all knew that, right?

The Pros and Cons of Emotional Exhaustion

So, after two weeks of Monday through Friday blogging, I wind up with a week of Tuesday-only blogging. What's up with that, you might be asking, especially those who went rappelling last weekend and were eagerly awaiting my blog post; interestingly enough, therein lies part of the problem.

Last weekend Cap'n Shack-Fu was granted a brief reprieve from deployment thanks to jury duty and doctors' appointments; since there was no telling how long it might be before he gets sent out again, he and PigPen planned a quick rappelling trip on Sunday. Throughout the day, I lost count of how many times I was told "Ooo, that's got to go in the blog!" or "That needs to be the blog title!" or "Boy, you should start carrying a notebook around with you so you don't forget any of this, it's gold!" etc. Now, while on the one hand it's nice that the group was so interested in seeing my take on things, at the same time the constant reference to how much they were looking forward to reading said blog did what such a statement of high expectations always does to me: it made me freeze up in fear that nothing I wrote would measure up.

"But hold on," you might be saying, "that only explains why you didn't post about the rappelling trip; what about Movie Monday? Or Fragmented Friday? Or any other day?" Well, like I said, the rappelling trip was only part of the problem. The rest of the problem is, well, complicated.

You see, despite having a lot of fun at times this weekend, there was a lot of other, less happy-go-lucky stuff going on at the same time, stuff that was affecting people I care about, stuff that was activating my high Blue tendencies and making me switch into overly-empathetic mode and putting the weight of worrying about everyone else's problem on my shoulders . . . in other words, stuff that I can't really talk about in any detail. Yes, I know it stinks when I only talk in generalities, but honestly the situations that were going on around me had next to nothing to do with me, other than me being kind of caught up in it all as the guy that people feel comfortable talking to, so I can't in good conscience go into any detail whatsoever. Suffice it to say that by the time Monday rolled around I was mentally and emotionally exhausted, especially as some of the emotional fallout from the weekend drifted over into the next several days, and was unable to summon the willpower to write about much of anything.

Now, I went back and forth on whether to even mention the emotionally exhausting portion of the weekend, since in the past when I have remarked on this sort of thing people's reactions have been to say "Well, I won't burden you with my problems anymore because I don't want you to get so stress out." Which is not in any way shape or form what I want. I mean, I have to admit I like being the guy people trust enough to talk to about what's going on in their lives; I like the fact that people know that if they ask me to keep something to myself, I will; I like being able to be there for my friends and offer my empathy and sympathy and advice, even if no one ever, ever takes said advice, ever. Ever. There are times that I learn things that I really don't want to know, but even in those cases I often think it's better than the alternative for me. Honestly, it would probably do me more mental damage if people stopped confiding stuff in me, because I'd most likely slip into neurotic what-have-I-done-to-lose-their-trust mode. That's right, I'm going to find a way to be emotionally exhausted and a mental basketcase with or without y'all's help; at least if it's from being the confidant and secret-keeper, it will come from a place of feeling trusted, wanted and needed.

Yes, I am a horribly needy bastage, but we all knew that already, right?

In all seriousness, last weekend was a case where there were multiple things going on all weekend long, and I was busy trying to process one problem while another one sneaked up behind me and whacked me upside the head with a psychic two-by-four; individually I probably could have handled any one of the situations okay, but taken all at once . . . I will say that, while I was in the middle of it all, there was a large part of me asking "Why me?" But, once the dust has settled, I can look back and realize that the only thing I would really change would not be being in the middle of it all, but instead how I dealt with being in the middle; if I could have said this instead of that, done that instead of this, found a better way to help my friends in need -- that's what I would change. Everything else pales next to that.

Frazzled Friday - Over-Thinking

I, my dear, dear blog monkeys, am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. For the past, oh, two weeks or so, my usual amount of over-analyzation, recursive introspection, mental compositions*, and other paranoid and and neurotic tendencies have been amped up by a factor of 15 or so. Why is that? Heck if I know. All I can tell you is that my brain has been going practically non-stop, sometimes focusing on good stuff, sometimes focusing on bad; it hasn't all been doom and gloom, surprisingly**, but neither has it all been sunshine and lollipops. Been a little bit of a roller coaster ride, and I don't know if the ups and downs are more exhausting than just continual downs, but either way, I am ready for a break.

I do think part of what has gotten me in ultra-contemplative mode is the fact that there are some changes coming up in the next few months that I'm not looking forward to, the end result of which is that there's a good possibility that by October my four closest friends will be removed from my regular life due to moves and deployments and life-changing career choices. Over the last couple of years I've come to rely on these guys for a lot, and the thought of not being able to just call up Shack-Fu to see if he wants to come over, or spontaneously pick a fight with PigPen when I'm feeling froggy, or not being able to hang out with Cap'n Peanut while he waits at our place for PigPen to get ready for their weekly hijinks, or not being able to leave Li'l Random a voicemail and see if I actually get to see him face to face before he gets around to returning my call . . . yeah, it's got me a bit discombobulated. I know that's not the only factor, mind you, but I think it's a pretty big one.

One of the problem with having my brain running ninety to nothing nearly non-stop is that it keeps me from sleeping effectively at night, which makes me sluggish and loopy the next day, which just allows the runaway mental processes more leeway in their never-ending rampage behind my eyes. The compulsion to carry these thoughts through to completion and the barrage of other thoughts that have swarmed up to take the place of the complete thoughts has left me too distracted to do much of anything requiring an attention span, including reading or watching movies/TV. I have managed to get the storm in my head to quiet down on occasion; when my parents were visiting I was fine as long as I was with them, but as soon as they headed back to their hotel, wham! Mental overdrive again. Probably the best cure for this so far has been my judo class; kind of hard to have all of the worries of the world swarming in your mind when you're trying your best not to get thrown on your head.

Quick semi-digression: last night I had to randori while the whole class (around 20 people) was watching, and yet somehow I managed not to be horribly self-conscious. In fact, as I was sparring with another white belt, I could see him getting incredibly frustrated at not being able to take me down, and he finally let it distract him enough that I was able to get the take-down on him -- quite possibly the first time in my life that during some sort of athletic competition I kept my cool and did what I needed to while the other person melted down. Gotta say, it was a good feeling, wouldn't mind feeling it more often.

The reason the above was only a semi-digression is that I think me being able to shed my self-conscious about performing in front of the group, being able to be aggressive and finish off my opponent, and even being willing to volunteer when they asked if anybody wanted to go again*** gave me enough of a mental boost to escape the more negative tendencies of my hyper-driven mind, and I was actually able to use some of the relaxation techniques PigPen showed me many moons ago to clear my mind and go to sleep last night.****

With luck, I can now get my brain to drop back down into it's normal amount of paranoia, composition and neurotic over-analysis; much more of this and my brain will be well and truly fried.


*By that I mean composing emails and hypothetical future conversations and the like . . . there's a reason this is my 5th full blog post of the week
**Cap'n Peanut even commented that my rambling missive to him early last week was surprisingly lacking in the self-loathing department
*** Didn't do quite as well the second time, but I was going against the higher belt I usually train with, so he knows all my tricks . . . all two of them.
****Twas not the first night I'd tried the techniques this week, just the first time I got them to work.

Orange Power vs. The Moody Blue Pt. 2 - Savor the Irony

Y'know, it's been a while since I've had a really, truly, neurosis-fueled rambling blog post . . . I think we're well overdue, don't you, my blog monkeys?

Not counting my parents, I currently have 4 individuals who get to regularly bear the brunt of my most neurotic ramblings, which I generally convey in the form of horrendously long emails which enable me to make sure I touch on every point I want to cover; however, 25% of these individuals (i.e. PigPen) prefer to have these conversations face-to-face in order to respond in real-time. Last week, I had some stuff that had been bothering me which I was wanting to cover with PigPen, and I had been having trouble finding a time when we could both sit down and hash stuff out, so I emailed him one morning asking if he could set some time aside that evening so we could talk, and he said sure. However, that conversation didn't take place because not too long after PigPen got home from work, he got a call from Li'l Random and went out to do something with him instead, only acknowledging the fact that he was skipping out on our planned conversation as he was halfway out the door, an acknowledgment that I assumed at the time only came because he saw the perturbed look on my face and suddenly thought "Oh, crap." I was not too happy with him, not so much because he went out instead of staying in and talking -- I mean, I know I would rather go hang out with Li'l Random rather than listen to me spew neurotic crap for the zillionth time -- but because it felt to me like I was just an afterthought. However, once I began to think about the fact that one of the things I had wanted to talk to him about was the fact that I had started to feel like he was always blowing me off, and now I couldn't talk to him about him always blowing me off because he had, in fact, blown me off, well, you just have to savor the irony, y'know?

Anyway, PigPen and I got to sit down and have our talk the next evening and straightened everything out*; I've decided that pretty much every serious conversation I have with PigPen boils down into the following Paranoia Resolution Formula:

Me: Hey, bud, it bothered me when you [insert action here].
Him: Well, when I [insert action here], it's because [insert basic reasoning here]
Me: Well, to me it felt more like you did it because of [insert paranoid interpretation of action here]
Him: No, it's because of [insert basic reasoning here]; you see, [insert expanded line of thought and additional situational information here]
Me: Okay, that makes sense, but do you see why I thought [insert paranoid interpretation of action here], since I didn't know about [insert expanded line of thought and additional situational information here]?
Him: Yeah, sorry, didn't mean it to come across like [insert paranoid interpretation of action here] at all, it really was because of [insert basic reasoning here].
Me: Cool, glad we got that straightened out. Moving on, it bothered me when you [insert next misinterpreted action here] . . .

And so on and so forth. Sure, there are variations along the way, but most of the time what it boils down to is this: PigPen and I view the world much, much differently. Often, this is a good thing; I really do think that having a close friend who challenges your point of view and makes you think outside your comfort zone is a positive, and out of all of my friends, I definitely find PigPen the most challenging. The biggest problem in those situations is actually remembering that your friend has vastly different thought processes than you do, so you don't ascribe your own motivations to their actions -- a trap I still fall into at times despite my best efforts.

I'll let one example kind of stand for the rest: PigPen and I really don't hang out much at all outside of what manifests as a natural result of us living in the same house: watching TV, playing video games, beating the crap out of each other, etc. And when we do occasionally hang out with other people outside the house, such as when we had weekly lunches at Frilly's with Cap'n Shack-Fu and Li'l Random before PigPen's work schedule made it impossible, I usually feel like a third wheel since PigPen would often ignore me and focus totally on the others, thus triggering Outsider Complex and Disposable Friend Syndrome issues galore. But after we talked about it, it became clear that it was just a case of his extroverted, HyperTwin Orange personality clashing with my overly emotional Blue personality.

You see, PigPen by his very nature craves a variety of interactions an experiences; in his mind, our time hanging out at home more than fulfills his quota of Todd-based interactions, so when he wants to go out and do something, he doesn't automatically include me because he wants to vary his experiences and we're in a group he's focusing on the people he doesn't see all the time. Of course, for me, and my Blue-driven need to develop deep and lasting bonds, when I want to go out and do something, I want to do it with that small group of people I feel closest to because I want to strengthen those bonds with shared experiences -- I'll admit that sometimes this makes me a bit insular, but when it comes to my Best Friends, I could hang out with them practically 24-7 and not get tired of it.

So, taking those Frilly's lunches as an example: for PigPen, that was probably the only time that week he was going to get to hang out with Shack-Fu and Randomino, and so he was more focused on directing his attention and humor and conversation towards them, and not the guy he saw and talked to almost every day. Totally understandable; unfortunately, what would wind up happening is that, by dint of the force of his extroverted Orange personality, all conversation at the table would revolve around PigPen interacting with those two to the exclusion of yours truly, who would sit back wallowing in my very Blue sense of estrangement because I had convinced myself it was a sign of PigPen's growing disdain for me.

Now, while misinterpreting the actions of my friends in such as way that I construe their innocent words and deeds as more negative and harmful than they were intended, I would like to point out that I am not alone in this; I can think of at least a couple of times when PigPen took something I said or did and filtered it through his own prism of personality, ascribing much less friendly motivations to my actions than what I had meant. Of course, I'm much more prone to it than he is -- much, much, much more -- but it gives me some small comfort to know that I'm not the only one who stumbles.

The cool thing about my friendship with PigPen is, even though our brains work in totally different ways -- and even though PigPen's favorite game in the world is "PigPen Wins!" which is the worst freaking game on the planet for anyone other than PigPen and which he plays pretty much every minute of every day -- we're both willing to concede that neither way is the only way, and that there is a need for give and take. Yeah, sometimes we might go round and round for a bit trying to get the other one to understand where we're coming from, but that's become less frequent over time; I think of it like a jigsaw puzzle, where in the beginning you have all of these pieces scattered all over the place and you're trying to figure out how in the world they can come together to make a coherent whole, but once you've develop a base to work from, you no longer have to struggle to get your bearings, but instead just have to figure out how this latest piece you've discovered fits into the whole. I have a much better understanding of how PigPen thinks now than I did when I first moved in a couple of years ago, and vice versa, but as all of this shows, neither of our pictures are quite complete yet -- nor will they ever be, to be honest, but every little bit helps.

When I start to get caught up in the trap of paranoia and Outsider Complex and the like, the one thing I have to focus on is this: PigPen is my friend. And while he may not consider me one of his Best Friends like I think of him, he still does consider me a good friend -- the biggest evidence of this is the fact that if he didn't, he wouldn't have put up with even a tenth of the crap he's had to wade through while thanks to my neurotic tendencies. And when he says or does something that triggers my paranoia, I can't give in to my self-doubt and assume the worst -- that I've managed to damage the friendship, wear out my welcome, overwhelm him with so much neurotic crap that he's ready to run for the hills -- but instead approach him and run through our familiar Paranoia Resolution Formula until we're both one step closer to maybe never having to run through it again.

Yeah, I know, fat chance of that, but a paranoid and neurotic freak of nature can dream, can't he?



*Yes, he explained his reasoning behind the earlier night's blow-off to my satisfaction; hopefully I was able to explain the reasoning behind my perturbed state to his

I'm Even Neurotic in My Dreams

I've been fighting off some sort of bug for most of the week, which is part of why there hasn't been any posting this week; the other part is, of course, that I am horribly lazy. Anyway, last night was the first time all week that I slept soundly enough to have any real dream time, which was cool in that I actually got some rest for once, but not so cool in that they were pretty much all stress dreams, with me finding myself in one anxiety-causing situation after another. I don't recall all the particulars but I do recall (a) doing a zip-line over a huge chasm with no safety harness; (b) being the subject of an impromptu underwater rescue drill in white-water rapids with little hope of being actually rescued; (c) fearing that a stubborn Shack-Fu's refusal to give budge in his position while arguing with law enforcement officials on some rinky-dink point was going to get us all thrown in jail; and (d) having the geeky cast of The Big Bang Theory do experiments outside in a garden. That last might not sound all that stress inducing, until you consider the ramifications of fussy, germaphobic Sheldon being in lots of dirt surrounded by bugs and birds and other living things. This was the section that ended my dream, as something got on Sheldon's leg, and he shouted out, jumping up and swatting at it . . . at which point I promptly woke up and shot out of bed, grasping the same leg which was contracted in a painful muscle cramp. Quite an odd example of the mind-body connection, no?

It is a sure sign of my illness-and-medication addled state of being that it wasn't until I was done relating the story to Gemini this morning on the way to work that the ramifications of me having even partially identified with Sheldon in my dream dawned on me. Looks like I may need a bit more sleep after all.

Colors Commentaries

A few more True Colors related anecdotes for you.

During the workshop, one of the Greens I supervise turned to me, pointed out his low Blue*, and said "You're my point of stress, boss." I informed him that, as a Blue, that hurt my feelings greatly, but since I was a peacemaker, I would forgive him.

Speaking of the "point of stress" idea, I did want to point out that, yes, people with the same color scheme as you can also be your point of stress; for example, Oranges tend to be very competitive and crave the spotlight, and can be very put out if another Orange threatens their status as center of attention.

As I mentioned in the previous post, pretty much every cubicle has their colors posted, generally following the standard we used when labeling ourselves for the workshop: four equally sized dots arranged left to right from highest color to lowest. Well, pretty much every cubicle in the two units dominated by traditional Golds; in the Blue/Green dominated Serials and Electronic Resources unit our colors are displayed a bit more creatively; one coworker has a bar graph showing her score on each; another has a donut graph doing the same; I stuck with the circles, but had them arranged vertically, not horizontally, and varied the size of each to demonstrate which colors were strongest; and, finally, one coworker broke out of the chart/graph box completely:


On the individual tests, I often come out showing slightly more Gold than Green, whereas when I read the personality descriptions themselves, the Green feels much stronger in me; I think that may be because so much of Gold behavior is learned behavior, and most of the Gold questions have to do with following rules, and I tend to follow the rules not because I think all rules are there for a reason as because my high Blue leads me to avoid conflict, and why rock the boat when you don't have to?

Zinger turned out to be low Blue, marking yet another good friend for whom I am a point of stress; he was also low Orange, which happens to be the highest color of his wife, Pooh-Bear. Of course, Pooh-Bear also scored a zero on Gold, and three guesses what Zinger's strongest color was . . .

Out of curiosity, I tried out some other online personality exams, particularly the ones associated with Meyers-Briggs style analysis; took five different tests, and got five totally different results, not a single one of which spoke to my true personality as much as True Colors did -- do with that what you will.


*The same Green remarked more than once that the color results were fitting for him because, quoth he, he has "all the emotion of a rock."

My True Colors Shining Through or "The Moody Blue vs. Orange Power"

Last week at work we spent the day in a "True Colors" workshop. "True Colors" is a personality profiling system which assigns a specific color to four distinct personality types: free-wheeling orange, structured gold, logical green, and sensitive blue. The idea is to determine which color is your primary color, which your secondary, etc. and to utilize that knowledge in how you deal with others in both your personal and professional life. Just reading the descriptions on their website beforehand, I guessed that my "True Colors" color scheme would be Blue Green Gold Orange; sure enough, when I did the super-quick and easy assessment -- based mainly on a "which grouping of words best describes you" questionnaire -- that's how I came out. Well, to be honest, I came out with Blue 24 (highest possible score), Orange 6 (lowest possible score), and Green and Gold tied at 15 apiece, but as the workshop went on it became clearer and clearer that it was the overly-analytical, skeptical Green that ruled me more than the structured, detail-oriented Gold.

After we had determined our colors, I started leafing through a hand-out the lady leading the seminar had created with some broad descriptions of the colors. It was scary just how accurate the Blue description was for me: "Want to be genuine caring, and understanding. Relationship oriented . . .may have their feelings hurt easily and take comments personally . . .tend to use more abstract words in their speech . . . want [friends} with whom they can share their deepest feelings . . . belong to groups for the opportunities to make friends and form new relationships . . ." Yeah, it was the "feelings hurt" and "take comments personally" things that really set of the "That's me!" alarms, but a lot of stuff in there clicked. And, the stuff that didn't could be easily explained by my overly-sensitive Blue being tempered by my secondary color, Green, which was described thusly: "Seek knowledge . . .Want to have a rationale for everything . . . Skeptical . . . think through every detail before making a decision . . ." So, overly emotional with a tendency to over-analyze the actions of all around them; that's me to a tee!

The seminar leader pointed out that some of the colors are generally diametrically opposed, and those whose two highest colors fall into this category are usually much more prone to stress, anxiety, etc. Three guesses as to whether Blue and Green fit into this category . . .

Another thing we were cautioned about was that people who ranked high in whichever color was our lowest would be a "point of stress" in our daily lives. My lowest color was Orange, which is described as "Action oriented . . .Generally excited . . . Absorbed in the action of the moment . . . Seek adventure and stimulation . . . [prefer] to be spontaneous . . . enjoy the camaraderie of team sports . . . find it hard to follow rules . . ." Three guesses which of my closest friends is a text-book Orange . . .

A-ha! I am the Orangiest Orange that ever Oranged! I WIN!

When I informed The Lovable PigPen that he was my point of stress, he cried out "YES!," did a celebratory arm pump, and told me that he took that as a personal point of pride.

One of the interesting things about the process was seeing what color patterns my co-workers fell into; ever since the seminar, everyone has posted their colors up on their cubicle walls, and conversations are now peppered with phrases like "my Blue is really strong today" and "stop being such an Orange!" The vast majority of our office were high Golds, which isn't surprising, since supposedly over 50% of the adult population falls into the Gold category, and the number is usually even higher in library workers, since the Gold is described as "lik[ing] responsibility, accountability and predictability . . . serve and do their duty . . . protect and preserve . . . look to the past and tradition . . . like ceremonies and rules . . . security and stability . . get the right things at the right time to the right people . . . excellent with detail . . . " Sounds pretty librarian-ish to me. Of course, the unit I'm currently supervising is the exception to this: three Blues, two Greens, and not a Gold in sight. It sort of makes sense: when working with the constantly shifting world of Serials and Electronic Resources like we do, being focused on structure and tradition will just drive you insane.

One of the things I liked about the True Colors personality schema was the fact that in addition to being pretty user-friendly and intuitive, it fully embraced the idea that while each of us might have a dominant personality trait, none of us are totally one color to the exclusion of all others. In other words, we all exhibit some trace of each one. My Orange may be low in terms of seeking excitement and adventure and spontaneity, but it shows up big time in terms of my competitive nature -- a competitive nature that, perhaps not surprisingly, comes out the strongest when I'm dealing with that champion of Orange Power, PigPen. Also, out of the different personality evaluations I've seen, this is the first one that really seemed to have me pegged, but I'm sure your mileage may vary depending on whether you are one of those who can easily be pigeonholed by the test's specifics or not.

In the end, I realize that this sort of pop psychology has little scientific foundation, but at the same time, it can be a great tool in helping people examine how they relate to each other.

If you're interested in seeing where your True Colors fall, you can use this page to take a key-word evaluation like the one we used, or you can go here to take a much more story-problem style test. And please feel free to share your results in the comments section; I'm unendingly curious about where all of you blog monkeys fall.

Thankful Thursday 2008

This past year has been a bit of a roller-coaster ride for me. Joy over finally getting back into working out was dampened by multiple injuries; despair over the loss of the Blue Beast was tempered by the acquisition of my new car*; pleasure at finally getting a significant raise was strained by the fact that for several months I was the only one of my roommates getting a steady paycheck, and then I had car payments to worry about, and then medical bills on top of that . . . and then the bulk of the last four months I've been fighting to climb out of the downward spiral that my broken digit, subsequent surgery, and ongoing recovery have plunged me into. Yes, over the past year I've suffered through intense humiliation, rampant paranoia, and senseless depression the likes of which have not been seen since my college days; on at least one occasion I was so overcome with hurt and anger that I lost all capacity for speech and could only stand there, fighting back tears of rage. And yet, despite the pitfalls the befell me throughout the year, I am still thankful for many things, most especially my friends.

I am thankful for Cap'n Peanut who has become a really good friend to me over the last several months, and who is at the forefront of the "motivate Todd to get off his butt and get in shape" movement.

I am thankful for Redneck Diva, who went out of her way to make sure that my birthday spent away from the friends I had planned to be with was not a birthday spent without friends after all.

I am thankful for Zinger, and Poohbear, and Bubblegum Tate, and Kookamama, and Cedric the Destroyer, and all of those whose efforts to keep in touch help remind me that, depsite my paranoia, out of sight does not automatically mean out of mind.

I am thankful for new friends like Cap'n Bubbles and Mei-Mei and Doc Jetson and Blondie Blaarrrgghhh** and the other, still nicknameless ones whose presence has added new energy to the Singles group.

I am thankful for my not-so-new friends (too numerous to name lest I be accused of playing favorites) who have been a source of support through unstable times.

And, last but not least, I am thankful that, for the first time in over a decade***, I have added to the ranks of those I consider my Best Friends; it's hard for me to believe that at this time last year I was still just getting to know PigPen and Cap'n Shack-Fu, and barely knew Li'l Random at all and now they're like family to me. I am thankful for the countless times over the last year that they have suffered through one of my neurotic attacks, have patiently talked me through my black moods, have dragged me kicking and screaming out of the realm of negativity, have responded to my crazy ways with nothing but compassion, understanding, and the occasional metaphoric slap upside the head****. I am thankful that, on occasion, I have been able to offer them help and advice as well, although I can't help but feel they're getting the short end of the stick, here. I am thankful because this only child now has four people who are like brothers to him, and that's four more than he ever thought he'd have growing up.

Happy Thanksgiving, my blog monkeys; don't forget to tell those you care about how thankful you are for their presence in your lives.

*No, Li'l Random, I have not named it yet.
**Look, Blondie, I figure out how to spell it!
***Good grief, was college really that long ago?
****And the slightly less frequent physical slap, such as The Lovable PigPen delivered to me Tuesday night every time I'd apologize needlessly "Stop saying you're sorry!" [slap!] Happy Slapsgiving, indeed.

A Neurotic Narrative Need

There are times I wish I kept an actual journal of my day-to-day activities. Oh, sure, the blog serves to record some of the larger, stranger aspects of my life, but there are plenty of other things that don't make it on here -- sometimes because they're too personal, sometimes because they're too sensitive, sometimes because I can't quite capture the right way to express them, sometimes because I run out of time, and sometimes because the events don't strike me as entertaining enough to warrant a blog post. And, as time goes by, those events which fall through the cracks for any of the above reasons become dimmer and spottier in my memory, which can lead to frustration down the road.

You see, one of my many, many, many personality quirks is my desire to be able to look back on the ins and outs of my life and analyze the narrative structure of chains of events. This is especially compelling during those times when I have an epiphany about a change in my life -- whenever I become cognizant of a shift in my perceptions of people or things around me, my first impulse is to scrutinize the actions and events which led up or contributed to that shift, in order to better understand it. My Secret Origin posts were basically an accumulation of this sort of internal scrutiny which had built up in my brain over the years. Sometimes this drive is a useful tool, aiding me in discovering where I went wrong in my choices or behavior; sometimes it's nothing more than a mental exercise that my borderline OCD forces me to complete in order to get any rest.

It's this latter drive which has brought these thoughts to the forefront of my mind recently, as my attempts to plot out the narrative of a significant change in my thought processes have been stymied by a lack of hard data -- data which was never tracked because the path to the change in my mind was marked by the subtlest of events. There was no sign from above, no earth-shattering catastrophe that instituted the change, no bolt from the blue to knock me for a loop. No, try as I may, I am unable to find any hard evidence to help me answer the question "At what point over the year that I've known him did I start to consider Li'l Random McEvil one of my Best Friends?"

Yes, you saw that right: capital-B capital-F. Sometime over the course of this previous year, I was finally able to batter that no-more-Best-Friend-barrier in my mind to pieces. In fact, Li'l Random is not the only recipient of this dubious honor; both Cap'n Shack-Fu and The Lovable PigPen have been added to that list of people who have been faced with the full depths of my psychotic and neurotic tendencies and not run off screaming into the night.

To be honest, I've been a little reticent to write about the whole "Best Friend" thing due to my usual paranoia -- I mean, what if one of my good-but-not-quite-Best friends read about this and is then overcome by hurt and betrayal as they wonder why in the world they didn't make the grade? Granted, the thought that anyone out there is actually clamoring to be claimed as my Best Friend is pretty ludicrous -- especially if they were to realize just how vulnerable that would make them to being overrun by my most neurotic and paranoid worries and fears at all times -- but the fact that I could conceivably see myself reacting in such a way made me gun-shy. Plus, there's that whole "too personal" stumbling block; when I wrote about my friendships with Ol' Vick, G'ovich, and Flunky, there was the comfort of many years of distance to help soften any hard feelings; by the time I started CoIM, Flunky had been firmly entrenched in my mind as My Best Friend for over a decade -- hardly breaking news. But singling out a few of the Singles for special recognition made me feel weird, especially in my role as teacher of the Foundations of Fellowship class -- what if others felt like I was playing favorites?

But, the truth remains that, while I count most of The Singles among my "good friends," in any group there are going to be people you feel closer to than others, and to try to act like all friendships are created equally borders on hypocrisy. So in the interest of full disclosure -- and, to be perfectly frank, neurotic obsession -- I find myself copping to the fact that over the past year, these three men have earned their place as my Honorary Brothers and Best Friends. Of course, that sort of brings us back to the question at hand, which is "how did they earn it?"

With PigPen, I may not have a clear picture of how and when he made the transition from "random roomie" to "good friend," but I have a crystal clear image of the night he graduated from "good" to "Best," the night he first saw my full neurotic self unleashed and responded with his pledge to help me overcome my negative self-image. With Cap'n Shack-Fu it gets hazy, although I can sorta kinda point to examples of sharing our problems with each other as roadmarks; with Li'l Random, it gets even hazier still. I can't recall exactly how he went from being Shack's co-worker/friend to being my friend to being One of My Favorite People in the World^tm, to being one of my Best Friends. There are no inciting incidents, no cathartic bonding sessions, no nothing outside of general hanging out and a gradual realization that we share a brain. Oh, sure, there have been plenty of cathartic bonding sessions as I've unloaded my neurotic ramblings on him, but all of that came after the determination of Best Friend status, and not before.

I think.

Dang it, this is why I need a journal!

Sure, in the grand scheme of things, this is not that important of an issue; who cares if I can recall the exact moment Li'l Random went from some guy in my class to someone I consider a brother? Well, obviously, I care, but why? Because I'm an obsessive freak? Probably. But maybe there's another reason.

When PigPen first began his campaign to break me of my self-defeatist attitude, he counseled me to create a mental mantelpiece, and to populate it with memorabilia of all the victories in my life, both large and small; that way, when I start to slide into my more negative thought processes, I can take those imaginary trophies off the shelf, dust them off, and let the recollection of the positive things in life wash away the negative.

I think in a way my drive to chronicle my life serves as a companion to the mental mantelpiece, only the narrative is more of a mental scrapbook, a collection of snapshots of my life which form a timeline that serves to make the positive things more tangible to me and help stave off the dark times of doubtfulness. At those times when I'm overcome with fear and paranoia, when I read too much into meaningless comments, when I become convinced that my occasional self-loathing can't help but be reflected in how others see me . . . at those times this mental scrapbook can serve as a lifeline of sorts, something to hold on to and remind me that, despite whatever stupid minutiae may be sending me into a spiral right now, there is a wealth of events which serve as proof that, contrary to what the voices in my head might say, I am not all alone. One of the biggest paranoid delusions I've had to combat over the years is the idea that those people I care for the most don't really care about me, and that I've deluded myself by becoming attached to people who only suffer my existence grudgingly. It doesn't strike me very often anymore, but on occasion . . . But with a narrative in place to chronicle the ups and downs of my friendships, I can stave off these fears by focusing on our shared history.

Although, I'm leaning more towards the "I'm a freak" interpretation . . .

To Sleep, Perchance NOT to Dream

A while back I talked about my dreaming habits, and mentioned that I will go through long periods where I don't remember my dreams with brief periods of vivid dreaming; I am currently in one of those vivid dreaming phases, and I am completely and totally ready for it to stop immediately.

Seriously.

You see, these aren't just my normal*, run of the mill dreams. No, for the past couple of weeks my sleep has been filled with dreams with are intense, intricate, involved, and, most importantly, irritating. Very, very irritating. "Wake up so ticked off that I want to punch somebody in the face" irritating. While the specific details may vary, the gist of the dreams are essentially the same: people around me being combative, obstinate, obtuse, and overall annoying to the point of inducing within me homicidal rage. Yes, if a dream is a wish your heart makes as Cinderella would have us believe, then apparently my heart has a bit of a death wish.

The worst part about it is that thanks to these dreams I don't wake up well-rested and refreshed, but rather tense, angry, and worn down. I've never had such an extended run of untenable dreams, and I'm hoping that once they stop I won't soon have another batch. But most of all I'm hoping that this current dream cycle comes to a sudden end before what's left of my sanity does.

*Normal**
**Yes, that running gag is still going on, although the surplus usage of the word in Dexter, Heroes, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has almost burned the Boys of Benjiman Street out on it . . . almost.

A Question of Chemistry Continued: Groupings Dynamical

Hey, remember when I did a post about interpersonal chemistry and I actually got lots of feedback on it and I said I'd do a follow-up post? No? Well, guess that's not too surprising, since that was about, oh, four months ago. Back then I talked briefly about the chemistry between two people; today my thoughts are turned more towards chemistry of slightly larger groupings.

I've long been fascinated by group dynamics, and how the presence or absence of a single person can drastically affect the actions and behavior of others. Sometimes the reasoning behind these changes are obvious (e.g. a group of guys toning down their raucous behavior because of a female addition to the group) but often the reasons can be much subtler and more difficult to pin down.

When reflecting on the time I spend hanging out with various iterations of my groups of friends, I find that I tend to think of certain combinations as (for want of a better phrase) “optimal” configurations. For these groupings, all the personalities, backgrounds, senses of humor, etc. gel just right, and, in my eyes at least, the group becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Of course, for me, the gauge I use for determining these optimal groupings is generally the amount of time I spend laughing when I’m with a group. If I tend to laugh so hard that I injure myself more often when I’m with configuration A than with configuration B, then configuration A is my optimal grouping.

My prime example of this is Clan Stoneheart. I always have more fun when I’m hanging out with Zinger, Pooh-Bear, and Coronela all at once than I do when one or more is missing. It’s not that I don’t enjoy hanging out with each of them individually; it’s that, somehow, for some reason, when all four of us are together it creates just the right blend of comfort level, shared history, personality quirks, and so forth to enhance the enjoyment of any given situation. Another example can be found among the Book Monkeys, where the combo of Rebel Monkey, The Mag, Rose Hips the Enforcer, and myself tended to turn even the most mundane of tasks into a laugh riot.

Now, the neurotic side of me demands that I stress that the groupings I just mentioned are not the only ones which I find enjoyable; they’re just the ones that popped immediately into my head since they’re two of the longer-standing examples. Also, they’re both kind of “critical mass” style groupings, wherein that special exponential increase in side-splitting laughter doesn’t occur until you reach your full contingent. Those sort of groupings stand out more to me than groupings whose optimization is more situational (watching certain types of movies; going to sporting events; playing games, etc.) since these event-oriented groupings are, on the surface at least, much easier to understand the mechanics of.

Of course, when you have these optimal configurations, they can be thrown off balance not only by the lack of a crucial member, but also by the addition of an extra one. Sometimes it’s because the additional group member doesn't mesh well with everyone else, and thus throws everyone off their game; when there’s a group member who doesn’t quite get your oddball jokes, or a little too reticent to join in on your HyperForce antics, it can’t help but put the brakes on things. But at other times, it’s because they do mesh well with almost everyone. And this is where we start to move into discussing an important factor here: personal perception. After all, while I may consider a particular grouping to be premium, for all I know any other member could see my presence as the albatross around the neck of the group that drags down everyone’s fun; or, to take a slightly less self-deprecating tack, maybe that particular configuration is a blast for everyone involved, but to some people it would be even more of a blast if one other person were added to the mix. For me, a lot of the times when the addition of another person throws off my perception of perfect group chemistry, it’s generally because the new addition somehow steals focus from me, diluting my impact on the group as a whole. I know that might sound a bit selfish, and there’s a good reason for that: it kind of is. But, I doubt there are many who, given the choice of feeling like an integral part of a group and feeling like a fifth wheel will choose the fifth wheel status. With my tendency to think of myself in terms of The Outsider, I’m probably more prone to going down this road of thought than others.

One of the dangers of thinking in these terms is the possibility of it leading to cliquish behavior; if you think of Grouping A as the best of all possible worlds, then you’re not as likely to welcome the inclusion of another member with open arms. I know I've fallen into this trap before, being so worried that a new addition to a group might throw things off kilter that I've been less than welcoming which, in turn, often throws things off kilter.

Being a bit of a paranoiac, it naturally occurred to me that some blog monkeys might read about this and wonder if they themselves are part of any such optimum grouping, or if they, instead serve merely as a distraction from my preferred group configurations. All I can say is, if you are thinking like that, please stop immediately; that way lies madness.

Trust me, I know whereof I speak.

So, tell me, my blog monkeys: am I the only one who looks at groupings of friends and sees patterns like this? Or do some of you also have these optimal configurations floating in your heads?

Like Sands Through the Hourglass . . .

Hey, Redneck Diva, if you need any inspiration for your assigned genre in this round of the WitToI challenge, just drive on down to visit me for a few days: my life is a soap opera.

An horrible, infuriating, breakdown-inducing soap opera.

I play may roles in the soap opera that is my life, but the role which seems to have taken over recently is that of the peace-maker, the mediator, the "can't we all just get along?" guy. I try to squash conflict whenever I can by playing devil's advocate; trying to make sure that all involved parties know where the other parties are coming from; trying to straighten out miscommunications; trying to dig others out of the dark pit of pessimism and paranoia -- yes, basically trying to make sure that none of my friends act like my younger, uber-neurotic self, using my overly developed obsession to over-analyze situations for good instead of self-destruction.

Most of the time, I don't mind playing this role because it makes me feel good to know I might have been able to help my friends work through some tricky problems. But sometimes, when the involved parties are constantly taking umbrage at the words and actions of one another and I spend more time and energy worrying about how I'm going to keep things from exploding than I do actually sleeping . . . at those times, the role's not quite as rewarding, and I worry that my life's going to go from "soap opera" to "murder mystery." And, right now, my whole week has been one of those times.

Although, on the bright side, if that were to happen today, then I'd at least have something to write about for my assigned genre in the challenge . . .

Random Is as Random Does

All righty, this one may be a tad lengthy, but I'm in total stream of consciousness mode here. I blame all the time I spent hanging out with fellow Odd Squodder Li'l Dill the past few days; he's randomized my brain!

• I mentioned recently that I want to change Li'l Dill's nickname into something that fits him better, and reserve the pickle-related nick for those rare occasions when it might seem fitting. Unfortunately, while Li'l Dill is still the Nickname Magnet, most of those nicknames are highly specialized and only brought out when appropriate. Right now, I'm leaning towards something along the lines of Professor Random or the Randomizer or something equally unoriginal utilizing some form of "random."
  
  
• For those of you wondering, I now provide shoddy photographic evidence of my new car
  
  I know it doesn't have quite as much, um, "character" as The Blue Beast
  
  but I'm sure after a few years of my tender neglect, it will. I have yet to come up with a name for the car; my favorite suggestion so far is The Great White Hope, courtesy of The Anti-Cap'n, but somehow that doesn't feel quite right.
  
  
• Speaking of names and The Anti-Cap'n: much like with The Great Randomini, I've long been searching for a more appropriate nick for The A.C., but have long been stymied. As long as I'm shaking things up for Pan's Randomoso, I figured I'd push forward with a new nick for my roomie. Top options are his video game handle (Lord Nykon), his MySpace handle (Gemini), his intended softball handle (Maverick), or a nice combo (Anti-Cap'n Lord Nykon, the Gemini Maverick). I am undecided.
  
  
• Trouble called me from Colorado (where she's currently in training to be a rafting guide for the summer) the day after my surprise party to see how it all went. She asked me if the party-goers had been dressed up as super-heroes; I immediately asked "Was that Random McRandomson or Cap'n Shack-Fu's suggestion?" She confirmed my suspicion that the idea was courtesy of The Random Avenger. It's too bad that they didn't follow through on that idea, because while I might have suspected a party being thrown in my honor, walking into a room filled with caped crusaders would have caught me totally off-guard.
  
  
• Sunday night I had dinner with One of My Favorite Random Generators in the World^tm and his pal B.B., and if my side hadn't already been hurting after my latest grappling match with PigPen* it would have been after B.B. got done regaling me with his tales of how Random McEvil only plays the nice guy at church, when in fact he is the devil. That little piece of performance art is worthy of a blog post in and of itself, but I mention it now in passing just to comment on how cathartic the non-stop laughter was. Trust me; after the last few weeks, I needed pain-inducing laughter.
  
  
• Only a few more days until karate classes start up; I'm hoping that my current injuries and slow-healing nature don't cause me too much of a problem. I don't know if I've really conveyed how big of a deal this is for me; for most people, it's just signing up for a karate class, but for me it's signing up for a class where at times I'm going to be basically put on display and judged for how well I'm doing in a physical activity. Voluntarily putting myself in this position is a major step for me, which is why when people react to the news by snickering, guffawing, or laughing hysterically while they ask "Can I come and watch?", well, it kind of makes me see red, as well as question the wisdom of going through with it. I know it's not meant maliciously, and I know I've brought it on myself with my many years of physical inactivity, but that doesn't make it any easier for my self-doubting and self-loathing nature to take. Regardless, I'm still planning on going through with it; time will tell how wise a decision that really is.
  
  
• Last night Squiggly, her younger sister, Anti-Cap'n Lord Nykon the Maverick Gemini, and I went out to watch PigPen's Monday night softball team finally start their play-offs, but it was difficult to enjoy the game thanks to a swarm of the most aggressive mosquitoes I've ever seen. Squiggly came prepared with pest repellent, but unfortunately the can was practically empty and did little to deter the flying bloodsuckers. Now, I don't know if it's from getting caught in the rain before the game while talking to Captain Random at the gym, standing out in the open air where allergens could assail me, being eaten alive by what Squiggly called Africanized Attack Mosquitoes, or the accidental inhaling and ingestion of the ineffective bug spray, but something in my activities last night has left me feeling a bit sickly.
  
  
• Despite being bruised, battered, bitten, possibly broken, and consumed with overall "blah," I'm actually in a remarkably good mood, all things considered; probably the best mood I've been in since the unfortunate tailbone-busting incident weeks ago. And I have my friends to thank for it; over the last few days I've had a chance to sit down with a few of the guys and work through some of the stuff that's been dragging me down into the dumps that past month or so. Now I've corrected some misunderstandings (on both my part and on others), been slapped upside the head for acting like a self-defeating dumbass (yeah, that was mainly courtesy of PigPen), and in general just had reaffirmed that in the grand scheme of things I am truly a lucky and blessed individual. We'll just have to see how long this positive state lasts this time around; PigPen has already said he couldn't possibly pencil in dealing with another of my neurotic breaks until at least mid-July, so I guess I'll have to hold it together at least until then.
  
  
• How better to end this random ramblings than with our very own Captain Random's theme song**
  

Captain Random
Odd Squodd weirdo
His non sequitur's will
Make your mind blow
Randomness personified
And his twisted mind his only guide


Yeah, one of these days Li’l Random is going to snap, and it’s all going to be my fault; at least I know that when I do push him over the edge, my subsequent death will be committed in a terribly original and surprising way, 'cause that's how the Random Raider rolls.

*Yes, that's right, hurt myself again; think I'm going to change my name to Cap'n Injury Prone.
**Sung to this tune

Requiem for a Blue Car

Good news: my cell phone is working.

Bad news: my car isn't.

Yes, after almost exactly 12 years of ownership (I got the Blue Beast right before my 20th birthday), my poor, beat-up, run-down automobile has finally reached the point where fixing what ails it ain't worth the cost. Kind of wish it had reached that point before I spent money on an oil change and tune-up instead of after, but such is life; while doing work on it, the mechanics discovered that the timing was about to go out, and warned me that the engine might not have long to live. My parents offered to help me out paying for repairs if necessary. Then my day yesterday went something like this:

• Car won't start
• Dad calls and offers to take money they offered for repairs and apply to down payment on new(ish) car
• Dad goes car shopping in Miamuh for me
• Dad finds car he highly recommends I purchase (2006 Kia Optima)
• Plan is made: I'll ride back to Miamuh with folks after their visit and get car then
  
• Plan is changed: Folks will pay for me to fly up on Friday, take care of car on Monday.
• Plan is changed again to flying up Thursday night when I remind them that Monday is Memorial Day
• Plan is changed yet again when I discover the huge price difference between morning and night flights; Thursday morning it is

Now, those who know me well know that I am not a spontaneous person; I hate making on-the-spot decisions of any sort, and something as major as new car purchase just ramps the usual stress up several degrees. Throw in on top of this the fact that I'm sleep-deprived; already stretched thin financially; dealing with some other, non-bloggable and highly stress-inducing issues; and still nursing a sore tailbone which does not relish the thought of the 5 1/2 hour drive back to Denton, new car or not, and you have a very frazzled Cap'n Neurotic on your hands.

Plus, with everything that's been going on recently, I'd really been looking forward to a nice, long, relaxing weekend where I could just sit around, not worry about anything, and enjoy time with my friends and family. While I'll still get to see the family, and might be able to squeeze in a quick visit with a high school friend or two, the promise of a totally relaxing time got thrown out the window the instant dealing with airports and hours of driving got thrown into the mix.

Don't get me wrong; I am incredibly thankful for all that my parents are doing for me here, and I realize just how blessed I am to have family and friends who are willing and able to help out in a time of need. Things are just moving more quickly than my neurotic mind likes, and I'm having trouble shifting mental gears to accommodate everything. I'm just going to have to focus on the positives (having a car with working AC, working cruise control, CD player, etc.) instead of the negatives (disruption of plans, budgeting for car payments).

The next step, of course, is figuring out what the heck I'm going to do with the dead car in our driveway . . .

Cap'n T.M.I.

I have friends who are very stoic, friends who don't like to complain; friends who could be set on fire while being attacked by a swarm of killer bees and rabid squirrels all while suffering from an intense bout of food poisoning and still not say anything to anyone because they don't want folks to worry about them.

It should be only too obvious to you blog monkeys by now that this is not a trait I share.

I try to keep my problems to myself; really I do. But I find myself overwhelmed by this strange compulsion to share all the minutia of my life with others and, all too often, the minutia that's most pressing on my mind is whatever problem (major or minor (usually minor)) is afflicting me at the moment. Sometimes this is a way of working through the problem, especially those problems which keep me up all night with my mind racing; those are the ones that I have to share with someone else in order to get them out of my head. Flunky has probably been the target of these sorts of conversations more often than anyone outside of my parents, although there are others who have found themselves drafted into service to my neuroses (Dr. G’ovich, Papa Lightbulb, and iamam to name a few) ; PigPen is the most recent addition to the list, and I’m sure by this point he’s desperate to figure out how to get removed from it.

I think that sometimes I wind up blurting things out as result of the fact that I can't stand to sit in silence with someone; my neurotic brain always goes to the worst possible scenario, wondering why they aren't talking to me, wondering if I have done something to tick them off, wondering if there's anything I can do to test the waters and find out just how bad I've screwed things up this time without realizing it, I know, I'll tell them all about the nasty papercut I got at work while opening up the mail, that'll be sure to break the ice, oh, no, they're looking at me like I'm some lunatic, retreat, retreat!

Or, y'know, something like that.

Of course, sharing my woes isn't the only way that I overwhelm friends and family with meaningless trivia about my day to day existence. There's also the usual "here's an amusing anecdote" style conversation, which never seems to be as amusing to others as it is to me; don't know whether I should blame that more on a difference in opinion of what is and isn't "interesting," or on my lackluster verbal storytelling skills. I mean, it's always a bad sign when the people you're trying to regale with stories try to have a conversation over you or are too busy screaming at the TV to pay any attention to what you’re saying, right? I thought so.

I also have a tendency to tell on myself when I do something I feel guilty about; did it as a little kid, did it in college, do it still today. When other people try to guilt trip me, I get stubborn and dig in my heels; when I guilt trip myself, I give in every time.

And then, of course, there is the way I can't keep from telling embarrassing stories about myself; whenever I do something potentially mentally scarring, I always tell myself that I'm not going to tell anybody, but it's never too long before the need to overshare wins out and I'm telling everyone I meet about my latest blunder. Since the advent of CoIM, many of these embarrassing moments have been immortalized online for the enjoyment of generations to come -- since I'm frequently accused of writing embarrassing things about others while painting myself in a positive light, I figure that relating some of my less than shining moments should be enough to mollify those who feel like they've been unfairly singled out for mockery.

In keeping with this, I have to say that I am currently sitting on two highly embarrassing and humiliating moments from this past week, both of which started with me trying to engage in some physical activity (one which harkens back to my recent violent streak and one which didn’t), and which both ended with me, flat on my face, showered with pain and humiliation. I really hadn't wanted to share either one with anyone, but I should have known that was a futile desire; the first one was spread quickly by PigPen, sole witness* to the event, who found my humiliation too entertaining not to share with one and all, which has caused me to threaten to retract several of my positive comments about him, but it’s a hollow threat, and he knows it. Meanwhile, the second bout of humiliation has had a lasting after-effect which has pushed it from "embarrassing moment" to "current problem" status, and is thus much more difficult for me to keep from blabbing to one and all. Subsequently, these stories have been spread to a few select individuals, but I have so far managed to suppress the desire to post them to the blog for one and all to see. But I'm sure it's only a matter of time before my willpower fails me.

*For the record: while PigPen holds some culpability in the scenario, I freely admit that I brought it all upon myself, and was the one most directly responsible for my own discomfort and shame.

Fragmented Friday -- Let the Speculation Begin!

Time once again for random bits and pieces of my life presented in bullet point form.

• We have carpet again; they came and installed it on Tuesday, and PigPen and I spent most of the afternoon moving all of the furniture and electronics back in. It's nice being able to hang out downstairs again, instead of having us all hole up in our separate rooms. Of course, when the rainstorm hit on Wednesday, I was highly paranoid about the water levels, checking constantly to make sure we weren't in danger, a fact that PigPen let go unremarked -- until, of course, we were around other people, at which point he took great delight in demonstrating my neurotic behavior for the amusement of others.
  
  
• I'm not sure which Bubblegum Tate is more excited about: the fact that he won the Write in the Thick of It writing challenge this week, or that he is now a proud papa. Oh, sure, if you ask him, I'm sure he'll say that whole "miracle of birth" thing, but I think we all know the truth . . .
  
  
• Speaking of the challenge, PigPen insinuated pretty strongly that the only reason I got more votes than he did was because more of the people who frequent WitToI know me than know him since he was positive that his story was better than mine; of course, he prefaced this with the phrase "no offense," which made it all better, so I am not secretly harboring a grudge which will lead to his eventual demise. Not at all.
  
  
• Following yesterday's post about the growing Legend of Shack-Fu, I got some interesting reactions: Bubblegum Tate wants me to drag Cap'n Shack-Fu up the next time I head Tate's way so that he can meet the legend in the flesh, while Zinger was much more interested in knowing where he could get his hands on some of those emergency lights, for reasons a bit less altruistic than the Shack-man, I'm sure. When I mentioned this to Cap'n Shack last night, he said that he does sometimes wonder what the non-Singles blog monkeys think of him after reading all my stories; PigPen, who apparently feels I sometimes paint him in a less than glamorous light, agreed. All I can say is, at least I haven't created a blog specifically to detail how PigPen is the source of all Eeeeeeeeevil -- not yet, anyway.
  
  
• It's official: the May 15th season finale of Gilmore Girls will serve as the series finale as well. I know PigPen will be heartbroken; now he'll have to find another show to mock me for liking. Guess I could make it easy on him and start watching Ugly Betty again . . .
  
  
• My dad somehow managed to get four days off in a row on the weekend of my birthday, so mis padres will be heading down Denton way to help me celebrate. What fun and exciting things will we be doing? Who knows? Although we found a few things to do around the DFW area the last couple of times they visited -- last summer it was Six Flags -- I have a feeling that there will be much sitting around the house and hotel room this time around. Since they're probably staying through that Monday, they might actually get to meet some more of The Singles; so far only Bizarro-Zinger and The Anti-Cap'n have had the pleasure. It's always interesting to me when my folks and my friends interact, since I get to find out how my parents' impressions of my friends match up with mine, and I also get to see my friends realize that that certain of my quirks are come by naturally.
  
  
• No, I didn't go to the midnight showing of Spider-Man 3; to be honest, I have no idea when I'm going to see it, although I hope it's sooner rather than later.
  
  
• Last night, I allowed something to happen which I had vowed to myself never would; I am surprisingly less depressed about it than I had thought I would be, but at the same time, my mind keeps going back to it. No, it's not a huge deal, and no, it does not involve sex, drugs, rock & roll, or anything remotely profane . . . although, I will admit there might have been a few not-so-clean words coming out of my mouth when it happened. And now, let the speculation begin!

Cap'n Mingle, I Am Not

I don't think I'm really built for conferences. It's not the meeting and discussion forums and such; those are fine, often informative and occasionally entertaining as well. No, where I stumble is is the area of "networking." By now all of you faithful blog monkeys should know how
well the "mingling with tons of new people" thing is going to work out for neurotic ol' me.

I am not a "mingler." The thought of going to some welcome mixer and trying to strike up
conversations with complete strangers fills me with some existential dread. And it's not even so much a fear of rejection per se -- more like a fear of the intense boredom which would come about as a result of said rejection.

It would be different if I had someone alongside me to act as a buffer and/or backup; a wing-librarian, if you will. But while there are a few of my co-workers here at the conference, none of them are ones I normally hag out with, so there's not exactly a lot of reassurance of
the "I'll have someone to talk to" variety there. So, when it came time last night to decide if I should go to the big welcome party, rather than calling up my co-worker who I carpooled to San Antonio with to see if she was going, I opted instead to stay at the hotel and try to rest up for the rest of the conference.

Well, that and watch Lost.

Tonight I'm supposed to have dinner with reps from one of our primary vendors;
while the prospect of free food is always appealing, the accompanying mingling is not. At least I'll be able to retreat behind a wall of shop-talk -- I hope.

Comments on Chemistry

Well, my post on personal chemistry a few weeks back generated more responses than anything else I've done in a while, in the form of comments, IMs, and emails. And the other day, while I was working on a companion post about group dynamics, I received another email on the topic, this time from my former co-worker iamam. Her thoughts struck a chord with me, so I asked her if I could share them with the rest of you blog monkeys:

I, too, am void of instant friendships. However, I have on more than one occasion suddenly realized that someone else considers me a friend, and the reason I say, "suddenly realized" is because up until that moment that said friend did something that solidified friendship to me, I didn't think that we knew each other well enough to be considered friends. It would be something like someone confiding in me or calling me at home or asking me if I want to go to a movie, and then I just think, "Hey, she thinks we're friends!"

I think that the people who feel instant chemistry are the people who are people people. They view EACH person they meet as a possible new friend, and act accordingly. So, when two people persons meet, then you have those instant friendships. I'm more of a "proceed with caution" kind of girl. It's possible, though, that the friends I have who are people people thought that they hit it off with me a lot more than I did, because I was too busy assessing.

I find this interesting in a couple of different ways. First of all, iamam and I worked at the same library for probably close to 2 years before we really spoke to each other about anything other than work, let alone became friends. A lot of it had to do with the back that we were both "proceed with caution" type of people, and instead of recognizing that similarity, we both saw the other as being standoffish or stuck-up; she thought I was a bible-thumping prude, and I just thought she hated my guts, impressions we both formed without having a full-length conversation with each other. It wasn't until I transferred into the ILL position and actually worked in the same office with her that we realized that we were more similar than we had imagined. In the days before blogging, back when I still bottled most of my paranoia up, she was one of the two people I felt comfortable talking to about my neurotic life, primarily because she was one of the first people I had ever met who seemed to understand exactly where I was coming from.

Another thought her email sparked was the idea of those moments where you suddenly realize that someone has graduated from "acquaintance" to "friend"; I know I've experienced my fair share of "Wait, so-and-so actually likes me?" moments over the years. The most vivid one in my mind was my Senior year of high school, when I finally got it pounded into my head that the members of the youth group at my new church actually wanted me around; I also remember having a bit of an "hey, they like me, they really like me!" epiphany when J.D. (another co-worker of iamam and myself) started inviting me to hang out with him and his wife.

The idea of those instant connections being related to how much of a "people person" you are also struck me: I have wondered how common the "wait, he/she actually likes me?" thing is among the overall population, and how much of it is just a result of my neurotic refusal to acknowledge that people would actually want to hang out with me. Yes, I know I have a lot of friends which should put such thinking to the lie, but deep down I find that I still don't expect people to "click" with me due to my peronsal quirks, which leads me to hold back a bit, which keeps me from fully engaging, which can lead to some shock down the road when they see my personality in full effect. Which is straying from the topic a bit, but I'm suffering from little sleep and don't really care right now. Which is probably a good sign that I should stop typing and just post this. So, yeah, that's what I'm going to do.

Is it the weekend yet?