Shoot the Freaks - Live Human Target

[vicarz]

For once, despite school, I'm taking up too much time living to catch up on LJ.

Do you know why I hate republicans? It's not because of politics, religion, social or environmental issues. It's because they keep naming shit after their leaders. I flew from National Airport to Houston Intl...oh I'm sorry, from RONALD REAGAN National to GEORGE BUSH Houston. How pathetic and insecure they must be to keep slapping their name on things like trump.

The flight...egads you'd think someone throwing up would be eventful, but it paled in comparison to the fat man's gas...even after I switched seats.

I'm in Houston-ish. I am reminded that there is no city in the country where the radio sucks as badly as Washington, DC. There are many stations out here, and I've heard everything on the radio from classic rock to Tiesto. Tiesto, on the radio...in cow country. Followed by decades-old jazz, and I think on a regular station - not college radio. Why in the holy fuck is DC such a dead zone of crappy music? Even the urban music out here is more reliably good - angry w/o all the soul-garbage mixed in. The classics are better, the oldies are older. There are more stations. Sure there is jebus and country, and of course that Hispanic polka sounding crap, but overall the choices are more interesting.

People are more polite drivers here. Speed limits are 70.

Either a lot of Texas is on fire, or there are a lot of polluting factories that you can see from the sky.

I don't want to remember how much it sucked to wake up in the middle of the night before there was adult swim. Full metal alchemist makes me miss sleep that much less.

I'm still not ready to give this training. Last night I went out to dinner with the most boring man...I'm glad to have him working for my tax dollars, but another minute with him will make my soul feel scream for milk chan. "You dumbass!" I was looking forward to discussing the training, he wanted to go into an hour-long diatribe about the movement of different individuals through the organization over the last 10 or 20 years. How can you talk and not notice the complete lack of interest in your partner? Immune to the attempts to steer the conversation he droned on and on...I broke into the middle of some detail about the history of labor relations to say gee I'd love to go on, but I have to finish preparing for tomorrow.

I wanted to prepare for the workday tomorrow, while he was looking to bond socially as though a work-related stranger could make up for his life of social isolation. I should have told him to make an LJ.

This entire program is dumped on my department, who dumped it on me and paid consultants. They are dumping the mission to "fix their culture problems" on people outside of the management chain that either caused or were unable to stem the problems themselves. This one will not be working on a full night of sleep.

An hour later and I find that the one button-down shirt I brought with me had a collar button slaughtered by the cleaners - and there is no survivor to replace it with. Great.

Comments

[mreraser.livejournal.com]

"I'm in Houston-ish. I am reminded that there is no city in the country where the radio sucks as badly as Washington, DC. "


The FCC kills alot of morale! Cd Changers are the way!!!! You're in control, you're the DJ and you have no comercials!

[mpeace.livejournal.com]

How can you talk and not notice the complete lack of interest in your partner?

I've learned to pause and actively look for continuing interest from someone when I'm talking to them because I frequently can go on and on, blithely unaware that the person I'm talking to is bored. Sometimes I have to ask because I still can't tell. It is something I have to intentionally do, although sometimes I still mess it up. I did not know most people just know that sort of thing. I had always assumed that if someone didn't want to continue the topic at hand, they'd just say so. Apparently that is considered rude whereas to me it's just efficient.

[turbogrrl.livejournal.com]

Right, but the overarching purpose of conversation isn't efficiency. Language outside of telegrams and text messages is wonderfully broad because we have the mental bandwidth to process additional channels of information. Verbal conversation encode more than just words. Tone of voice- volume, forcefulness or tenativeness, passion or dispassion- these give us necessary information on the other participants. If it's a face-to-face conversation, then eye contact and body language are also very important and need to be interpreted. They're just as vital a part of communication as the exact words that someone chooses. Rarely do people throw explicit direction cards ina conversation like "this topic bores me; i wish to talk about this other thing". Because it *is* rude. It halts the organic flow of the conversation- it cuts it right off. And then, with some people, there's the question of actually getting a word in edgewise.

But it sounds like you've adapted your behaviour to better mesh with those around you even if you don't understand why, and that's pretty cool

[mpeace.livejournal.com]

Verbal conversation encode more than just words. Tone of voice- volume, forcefulness or tenativeness, passion or dispassion- these give us necessary information on the other participants.

That is precisely the sort of thing I was unaware of as a young child. As I got into my teens, I figured out I was obviously missing something in the way people interacted so I ended up reading a great deal of psychology books and learning just what some of those things are.

If it's a face-to-face conversation, then eye contact and body language are also very important and need to be interpreted.

I have a hard time making eye contact, even looking at faces in general, for any length of time especially people I haven't known for very long so looking for hints to a person's emotional state there is not a natural behavior for me. I frequently appear to be feeling something other that what I actually am feeling. Looking "bored" or "angry" or "upset" tend to be my default expressions. In the same way that I've learned to better read someone's unspoken language, I've learned to be better at projecting it from my side. I call it my social mask but I don't always remember to put it on, to match my internal emotion with my external appearance.

Sometimes this obviously results in problems and sometimes it is just randomly funny. A few days ago my husband asked me why I was staring at the wall looking so pissed off. My reply: I was thinking about a possible better design for a pancake skillet and wondering if someone has already made one and, if not, would it be worth the trouble of looking into patenting the idea?

But it sounds like you've adapted your behaviour to better mesh with those around you even if you don't understand why, and that's pretty cool

I can understand in a way. I have a better grasp of people's motivations now. They frequently strike me as completely illogical but since the majority of people are like that and that is the world I have to operate in, I try to comply with at least some of the standard social behaviors. The imperfect attempt and my imperfect comprehension of these things leads to some issues but I consider it a ongoing process so hopefully the rough spots will get smoothed out over time.

[jennbits.livejournal.com]

I move from Houston, you go to Houston. The universe conspires.

The hispanic polka sounding crap is called "Tejano." I miss my city.

[jennbits.livejournal.com]

Oh, the jazz station is 95.7 :)

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was a jazz station - just freaky and mixed. Tiesto is dance music. I think it was KTRU but I'm not sure.