Note : think of blog entry title

Being freshly awoken, I have zero idea of what to write about today. To be honest, my brain is just not there yet.

But I am eating and drinking Diet Coke, and that should help.

Until then, here goes whatever.

My toilet overflowed a little. And then it overflowed a little more when I stuck the plunger in there to clear the clog.  I must have done something highly uncharacteristic and walked away from a toilet as it flushes without waiting to see how it goes.

When you have the toilet-clogging history I do – I have to unclog my toilet once a day, minimum – you learn never to turn your back on a flushing toilet because that can lead to disaster. You must stand ready and alert because you might need to jiggle the handle to stop the flow then grab the plunger and prepare to do battle.

Pooping away from home can be very nerve-wracking for me for this very reason.

Cleaning up the spillage exceeds my modest life-competency capacities, so I have enlisted Joe’s help. Once more, I need Joe to rescue me from my own misfortunes.

And the fact that it is something toilet-related sets off all kinds of fucked up Freudian shame issues for me, but luckily I am not yet awake enough for that to have much effect on my mood.

Thank goodness all that was in there was pee.

Been having trouble staying focused lately. I keep drifting off into reverie. It’s happened three times already as I have been typing this. Woops, there goes number four.

This is usually a sign that I need more sleep. It’s like a microdose form of the microsleeps that come from extreme sleep deprivation. I don’t actually fall asleep, I just slip into a line of thinking and free association and end up just sitting here, lost in thought, and then have to drag myself back to the present.

It’s not unpleasant. In fact, the reverie itself is kind of pleasant. A dreamer’s paradise, I suppose, being able to go entirely into our own minds without losing contact with reality and plunging into the dark and unclean waters of the subconscious mind.

Makes it damned frustrating to try to get anything done, though. Such as blogging.

Playing another large-ish quest mod. This one is called the Grey Cowl of Nocturnal. 

So far it’s very puzzle-heavy, without a lot of combat. Normally I would find that frustrating, but the puzzles and the level designs are interesting and challenging enough that I don’t find myself spoiling for a fight very often.

Only had to peek at a walkthrough twice, both times minor. I don’t feel too bad aboyut that because I solved a hell of a lot of tricky puzzles all my myself, and so my batting average is quite high.

Still, it rankles my gamer’s pride. Esp[ecially because the two times I had to do it were for things I totally could have figured out myself if I had given myself more time.

In my defense, I was burning through a hell of a lot of brain calories and mentally tired.

If only mental activity was as good as physical activity when it came to promoting health. I’d be positively aglow with wholesomeness.

Mental activity does burn actual, non-metaphorical calories, though. So I suppose I would be even fatter if I didn’t spend all day working my very metaphorical brain muscles through media consumption.

I am way past the point where such things are optional. Like a star athlete, my mental workout are mandatory because my “muscles” demand it.

If I was in a situation where I had no books and no access to video games and no other suitable substitutes, I think I would go crazy.

In fact, I might go semi-catatonic because all I would end up doing would be lying or sitting down and dreaming my life away in that exact same kind of reverie I talked about earlier in this post.

And I would get really, really good at masturbating.

Of course, all that presupposes that I can’t write. If I can write, then that is what I would do most of the time. I imagine I would be like one of those loonies that filss binder after binder with tales of the life he wishes he was living.

Plus the usual obvious psychmacheas, bizarre psychosexual fantasies, Book of Revelations-level spritual journeys, and grandiose pontifications.

Doesn’t sound half bad, actually. I will consider it my backup plan.

Like I have said in this space before, I would love to go somewhere, say for a long weekend, where it is nice and quiet and away from it all, with only a computer with no internet capabilities and only a text editor installed.

Base on past experiences with internet outages, my mind would soon be bursting with inspiration and I would end up wrting like hell the whole time.

Dunno if any of it would be any good – going into that feverish state of mind is a lot like an acid trip in that I have no idea whether it would be a good trip or a bad trip – but it would probably do me a lot of good.

It would relieve a lot of that word pressure in my head and hopefully clear my mind and let me work out some of my issues via writing.

That’s not going to happen in my current world of distractions, but my dream getaway would be the ideal conditions for it.

That’s more or less what was happening with last November’s NaNoWriMo novel. It wasn’t quite as unhinged and psychedelic (sp?) as I had planned, but it still helped me a lot because I got some ideas oyut of my head and onto the page.

Plus, of course, lots of smutty stuff. Mostly implied rather than described, but implies so heavily that even a Mormon child would figure it out.

I really should give porn writing a try. I am sure. I could write some amazing stuff.

And what the hell, people might actually pay for that kinda stuff.

Money. What a concept.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

 

 

First, brown the beef

My brain feels like ground beef that has been turned over a few times in the frying pan so that it is brown on the outside – browned – but not fully cooked.

I have spent the day wrangling with a very tough and very long Skyrim quest I downloaded, and while it was quite good in terms of art direction, special effects, voice acting,  script, and other important artistic arenas, two of the dungeons were insanely and absurdly long and left me with the feeling of being rather put upon by the thing.

It’s almost like they know that once I start something like a quest and found I like it, I will be mercilessly driven to complete it by my inner compulsions and so from that point on, I am their bitch.

And the more they throw at me, the harder I will work, because on some level. I take it as a challenge to my determination and I refuse to lose that kind of challenge.

I can lose all kind of contests and be no more disappointed than the next guy.

But I do not lose contests of will. Period.  To the point where it is quite clearly insane. I can easily imagine being in a scenario where the only sane, logical, and sensible thing to do would be to give up and let my opponent win, and I would ignore all that and keep hanging on no matter what.

And all the while the crazy part of my brain would be shouting things in a Patrick Warburton voice voice. Thing like ‘MY WILL IS ABSOLUTE’ and “I WILL NOT BE DENIED” and “ARGBARGLE TIN SNIP MAKE OTTER POPS ELECTRIC!”

Told you it waxs crazy.

So yeah. Kinda psycho in that department. The good side of it is that it gices me the potential for extraordinary determination in getting things done. If it’s a task I understand and know how to do and the only missing ingredient is effort, I am your guy. I enjoy taking on large amounts of work and conquering them through will and determination.

To me, that’s fun.

Of course, the odds are pretty good that, somewhere along the line, I will find the most efficient way for me to do said task. That’s just part of who I am. I optimize. I improve efficiency. I zero in on wasted effort or wasted resources and redesign them out of the system with a vengeance.

I think that is part of the phenomenon I call my “alacrity”. It’s my ability to do some tasks faster – sometimes WAY faster – than most people.

Actually, all three of the things I have already mentioned – crazy levels of determination, a love of the challenge of a large task, and my need to optimize – probably all contribute to the phenomenon.

Plus another thing – my ability to deep focus on a task. When I am doing something repetitive that has a bit of process to it – addressing and stamping a stack of envelopes, say – I get into the zone.

It’s like all that unfocused energy of mine is now harnessed into the task and drives me forward like I am steam powered and the process does not disengage until I am done.

I suppose that means that I could burn myself out with overwork in the right situation. I tend to associate burnout with type-A personality types who wear themselves out with all the energy and ambition and end up with ulcers and heart attacks.

But I could easily end up in the same boat purely from love of the work I am doing or at least from the joy I get from conquering large tasks.

I’ve had this scenario in my mind for a long time where I am the new guy at the office and happily volunteer to take on all the dirty gruntwork that people hate having to do.

And to others, it might seem like I am making a doormat of myself, but in reality it is all a product of my Machiavellian genius. To wit :

  1. It would be a way to instantly make people happy I am around and make a good impression on all my co-workers and my boss.
  2. By taking on these tasks, I learn a lot about the business from the bottom up.
  3. Most importantly, by reliving people of these tasks, I make them dependent on me In fact, I make myself indispensible and increase my work value in the eyes of my immediate boss.
  4. Oh, and I prove I am not just a team player, I am the best team player in the whole office and, by example, make the others look lazy and slow.

All while they pat me on the back and tell me how happy they are to have me around.

Of course, I would have to avoid becoming an actual doormat to people, so now and then I would have to subtly remind people of the Time Before when they had to do all their own grunt work.

And they will never, ever want to go back to that. Why? Because the tasks they delegated to me will be low status tasks and therefore going back to doing them will be percieved as a loss of status.

And people will do damned near anything to prevent a loss of status.

I should be on one of those reality shows. I would totally be the nice guy who turns out to be a total mastermind who has been pulling the strings all along.

It would be like being a supervillain but with lower overhead costs.

If executed properly, my little plan could arrange things so neatly around my own needs that all I would have to do is look a little sad or get sick for one day and suddenly everyone would be showering me with attention and good vibes.

The problem comes when you try to get promoted, I suppose.

Nobody will want you to leave!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.