But first, here’s something to make your heart glow.
Sorry to get political on you.
But today’s main project was this bit of video nostalgic by yours truly :
It’s all about my childhood, and is therefore rather depressing.
Also heartwarming, I’d like to think. But the depressing part is pretty god damned dark so thank you for enabling me to share that with the world and get some catharsis.
What strikes me about the whole thing now is how adult I sound. Almost like a real grownup. Almost like someone who has processed all the old pain.
Almost like someone who knows what the hell they’re doing.
And I do! Sorta. Kinda. Some of the time.
The rest of the time I just kind of wing it.
You’d be surprised at how well that can go.
Anyhow, as you might (or might not) imagine, that thing was a heck of a lot of work to edit. It was quite the project.
Another thing worth noting in passing : I removed so many ums and ahs and y’knows from the original raw video and yet there are still so many of them I missed!
I guess I was not fully focused today. I do think that over time I have been trending towards fewer verbal fillers like those but like most trends, it’s not a straight line.
Plus I was doing a lot of remembering. Awash in reverie, like I said. So my mind was not entirely on what I was saying.
I’m glad I got to “it wasn’t all bad” before the end. Most of the non-school memories in there are pretty nice, if not exactly thrilling.
And patient readers know that I have been trying to correct my terrible inner life narrative for some time now. I know that viewing my past like it was some kind of unrelenting hellscape is extremely bad for me and I know that, factually, while it wasn’t a great childhood, it wasn’t all bad, so I need to bring my unhealthy inner narrative more in line with what I know to be the literal truth.
But I guess there’s a certain narrative satisfaction to having your life story be easily reduced to a pithy caricature, even if that caricature is incredibly bleak.
The true depth and complexity of our lives doesn’t fit into our stories, and so we tend to strongly prefer the stories over messy, complicated reality.
The truth is that school wasn’t always horrible, not even elementary school. Sure I was a very lonely child but the bullying tapered off and there was times when class would be somewhat enjoyable or even fun.
And yeah I didn’t get a lot of attention at home. Which sucked. I often felt quite alienated from my own family.
But I had TV, books, and video games, and I got a lot of enjoyment from them.
So it wasn’t all bad. It had its good points and its bad points, just like everything else. It could have been a hell of a lot better but it could also have been a lot worse.
I can feel my attachment to the dark false narrative trying to keep it from changing, as though it’s clinging to it with inky tentacles.
Well it’s going to have to let go some time. The truth must win. The reality was more complicated than any cartoonishly simple narrative and no amount of longing for compact storytelling is going to change that.
And if I can just accept that there were good times too, then I might just be able to draw on those good memories when I feel down.
And that’s got to help.
More after the break.
From our So Cute It Hurts file
We have this very adorably obedient lil pupper.
I don’t know what it’s real name is but to me they will always be Bright Eyes.
For obvious reasons.
I just wanna scoop that lil doggo up and give them a smooch on the ears!
A brand new era
In other words, I finally got around to trying the new Thermos that Joe and Julian got me for my birthday almost a month ago.
It’s a pretty neato Thermos because not only does it feel good and weighty in my hand, and hold a surprising amount for its size, but it has an outer lid that doubles as a bowl and the cap has a built-in foldable spoon in a compartment on it!
That’s so cool. I love gadgets like that.
Patient readers know that I wanted a Thermos so I could transport wet things like soups and stews and chili from the kitchen to my lil den here in front of the computer.
Well the whole reason I hadn’t tried it out yet was that I kept forgetting to order anything like that when I got my groceries! D’oh.
But last Friday, at the last moment, I remembered.
Yay me and my eventual competence!
So tonight I heated up some No Name brand chicken noodle soup in the ol’ microwave, stuck it in the Thermos, and brought it to the computer in a saddlebag of my walker.
It has two.
And that operation was a success. But I can’t say I think much of No Name’s chicken noodle soup. I found the flavour to be pretty flat and thin and nowhere near as good as the Campbell’s Chicken Noodle I grew up eating.
I just looked it up and the No Name is $1.10 and the Campbell’s is $1.85, so I think I will be spending the extra 75 centers for flavour in the future.
I didn’t use the collapsible spoon. Try that another time, I guess.
All in all, the operation was a success. The Thermos, in all likeliness, played no part in the underwhelming flavour of the soup, and it was aces everywhere else.
I like my new toy.
I find the best toys result in food.
That’s why I have a slow cooker and a bread machine in storage!
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.
P.S. Wow, slides from my childhood and the epic story of my new Thermos.
I am really maxing out the banality today!