(no subject)

Work is delightfully slow right now, but of course this is the wrong time for slow. I can work and travel my ass off now, but there are no such demands. Instead, how about I babble about nothing? Still with me? Want to hear my musings? Well, here you are then!

Booty call! I had an old mostly-gay girl-friend call me out of the blue and ask me out for a drink Wed. I would have loved to have gone, but unfortunately I'm just not the up and out with no prior plan type - and I worked the next day. She started probing me with questions, volunteered some info of her own, and I realized it was a booty call. Now, the girl is smokin hot, smokin! I find booty calls a little offensive. Glad you want a piece of this, but I think I'm worth a plan, don't you? You gotta work for this pussy. Still, per my rule of "You're only as attractive as the last person you say no to," I'm hawt as hell right now.

Cronie-os. Meh. The night was fabulous for me in terms of crowd, and I still love the location. The music blew giant monkey balls though. First of all, the music was too loud in the back of the club. It's reasonable to blow it out up front on the dance floor, but in the back where you're trying to talk it should come down a bit. There is no escaping, and it really makes you want to leave earlier than you otherwise would. Some annoying girl DJ'd, and played nothing but synth - add in the fact she screwed up beat matching when she didn't realize she had both channels playing over the speakers...ugh. She didn't heed the dance floor she cleared. Then Tony inexplicably played a bunch of radio-friendly music. I mean a mainstream tune or two is ok, but it was like 5. I think that brought us to midnight and we gave up and left.

Satan and Shogun - how and why these books influenced me. First, where I was in life when I hit these books. I had no friends. Well, very few, and I didn't really recognize the ones I had. I felt rather than being wanted, I was allowed to tag along. Several things happened around the same time.
1. I took a graduate course in social psychology. The important outgrowth from that was that I learned there was a thing called "social skills." I used to think of social situations, likes and dislikes, and interactions as being belief or issue based. The idea that the same idea presented in different ways based on the audience might be received differently really hit home.
2. I was bludgeoned by a good friend, Katryn, into accepting blame for my "situation." I complained to her, my friend and lover, that I had no friends. I said this was due to my circumstances, how I was working full-time while going to grad school. She noted that telling your friends you have no friends is not a winner (with humor). She then put the onus back on me - pointing out that no matter where you are, you encounter a lot of people through the average week or month. If I had met so many different people, if I didn't make friends - I couldn't blame my circumstances or the people I met - not all of them. No, with all that exposure, if I was unhappy with the results, I had to look to see what I was doing that left me in that state. She also took me to the Roxy for the first time.
3. Shogun - in the book, the characters all have multiple agendas, and everything they say usually is said not to convey the message in the words, but to inspire others to take actions or convey information to inspire others to take actions that would aide the character's agenda(s). I used the concept to question the motives of pretty much everything everyone around me said and did. For a period of time I was insanely paranoid, but I did learn to recognize lies, decipher why people said things, look beyond the spoken words, and defend against social "attacks."
4. Satan - in this book, after all these horrors occur to the main character, a friend points out two important things to him. The first is that he is selfish. He wants every woman to be his wife, every friend to be deathly loyal, and he's constantly disappointed with how people don't fit his view of life. It had never occurred to him that pushing people into his boxes was not what they wanted or necessarily good for them. Second, and far more important, was that the people that screwed him over were not after him personally. People did horrible things to him, but each did those things because of what they wanted. It wasn't personal.

Somehow through all of the above I formed a "new philosophy on life." I lost a lot of anger, and took responsibility for my own actions. I became more understanding of the needs of others. I stopped giving with an expectation of a return in kind. Granted, I overdid several things such as the social paranoia...but as a phase, it was very constructive. Those lessons, when toned down and combined with my slightly more refined social skills, helped me tremendously and still do today. I'd love to pass those lessons on to any of you who might need them - this is why you hear these themes recurring in my writing. Learn from them if you can.