Done the last two days (21000111 We - 12 Th)

I must be getting old. {No, Dad, you've gotten old. Get used to it.}

Wednesday I left my bifocals at work and wore the computer glasses home. The prescriptions are close enough that I didn't notice until I went looking in my bag for the computer glasses. And yesterday I forgot both my usual bill-paying session, and my Thankful Thursday post. I haven't done a Songs for Saturday in weeks.

So much for momentum.

Nevertheless, I've been sleeping better, taking care of myself more or less, and getting quite a lot done at work. We went out to lunch Wednesday to mark the end of R and P's contracts; a tasty Indian place called Tandoori Oven. It seems to be a Bay Area local chain. Tasty and inexpensive. I still like buffets, though.

And R finally "got" what I was trying to explain to him yesterday about PTYs, with the result that everything is now working. Go us!

I also started work on thinning Plink's neck a little. I'm trying to get it down closer to where my other guitars are, to make the thumb barre on D and F a little easier. I think I'm about halfway there, mostly using a scraper.

Back to forgetting. I spent almost all of yesterday evening out in the living room with Colleen; it's possible that I was distracted by her food porn TV, and perhaps just by being away from my familiar desktop. It's definitely easier to work on the large screen, and I'm more likely to pay bills when I can actually reach out and touch them.

Some links, including fan "mail" for Wheelin' in comments to ysabetwordsmith's "Hard Things" post. Yay!!

( raw notes )

Forgetful Friday

It's a day late, but... I'm thankful for:

• Friends who care about me enough to call me on my bullshit.
• Being willing to listen, and fix my mistakes if possible, when they do.
• The scientific method, which is basically exactly that.
• Naomi and Colleen, who have been just that kind of friend when I needed it, more times than I like to think.
• Having been turned down by someone I'm now glad not to have gotten more deeply involved with.

River: Will you call me?

I'm going to try to keep this post pretty close to the surface; the next one downstream may cut a little deeper. You've been warned.

If you're my friend, and I do something wrong, or stupid, or hurtful, I really hope you'll be a good enough friend to tell me about it. If I make excuses, or try to feed you a line of bullshit, I hope you'll call me on it. I need you to call me on it -- that's how I learn.

I'm not all that good at being human. I make a lot of mistakes; and miss a lot of cues that might be obvious to someone more sensitive, and sometimes I hurt people without intending to. If you ignore it, or let me brush it off with an offhand apology, I'm likely to do it again.

My parents always told me that "just apologizing isn't enough."

Sure, I'll apologize, and try to repair the damage I caused. Sometimes it's not repairable, which makes me sad. I'll probably offer either an excuse, or an explanation. Don't let me get away with excuses.

I realize this is a difficult concept for some people, maybe even most people, but there's a big difference between an excuse and an explanation. An excuse involves putting the blame on somebody or something else. "The dog ate my homework." "He just came out of nowhere and rear-ended me." "I didn't mean to, I just sort of blew up."

An explanation is an attempt to identify something that I can do differently next time. "I put my homework where the dog could reach it." "I wasn't paying attention to the side streets; I must have been thinking about something else." "I seem to lose control when I get angry, and say things I don't really mean." See the difference?

My Dad was a scientist, and I'm a computer programmer. I know it deep in my bones -- I can't bullshit nature. I can't sweet-talk a computer. There's always an explanation, even if I don't know how to find it. People are more difficult, and I'm more difficult still. It's really easy for me to lie to myself. Or rather not lie, exactly, but to gloss over what really happened because knowing the truth, the reality, would make me uncomfortable.

A friend is, often, someone who's willing to point out uncomfortable truths. Someone who's willing to stand behind me and push me to own up to my mistakes, to stand beside me and hold my hand when I do.

If you see me doing something wrong, call me on it.