When I actually like a girl, I take it slow and take the time to get to know her. But for some reason, it never works out in that way and we end up friends.

The girls that I have little interest in other than sex always want relationships. Is it just because we always want what we can’t have? I don’t know.

But it seems like if I want to date someone, I should just have sex with them immediately, then they will be the ones wanting a relationship.

Or is this simply a correlation/causation mistake on my part?

Le sigh.

At least I’m in the best shape of my life and not having any trouble in the short-term companionship department.

Busy as all hell. Swamped with school work, midterms coming up faster than I can really believe (first one today), and trying to get my fledgling dj career going. But it’s a good busy, at least I’m doing stuff with my life. Everything will work out in the end, it’s just going to be a crapton of work.

Finally had a weekend of “rest,” though I was no less busy than on any other weekend, at least I got a bunch of “me” time. Should have done more homework over the weekend instead of spending a bunch of hours reading for fun, but I’m not stressed about it because I can catch up tonight.

Got to go for a good long ride with Jim yesterday, I’m super glad I picked up the bike.

When it’s bad, this too shall pass. When it’s good, remember it for when it’s bad. No moment exists except this present moment, and thus no moment can ever be more important than this one.

I think I’ve had more people tell me I look tired this past two weeks than in any other period of my life. So far I’ve heard it at least two or three times per day. I’m doing about 70+ hours per week right now between work, school, and homework, and also another 16/week of my motorcycle riding course. I’ve also probably drank more coffee since school started than I have in the rest of my life combined. But it’s all worth it.

Getting my life together, going to school, got my eyes done, bought a motorcycle, meeting new people, doing new things… life is good. I’m tired as all hell but it could be worse.

Supposedly the engineering course load is way heavier in first year than in second and third years, just to weed out the weak and uncommitted. Apparently there’s a 50% failure/drop-out rate in year one for engineering students. I’m not even done the second full week and I can see why. The amount and level of work they are piling on us is absolutely absurd. I almost feel bad for all the kids who dove into this head first right after high school, at least I have the advantage of some real life experience under my belt and can manage my time well when I have to.

All I know is that I am going to stick with it, and that it is worth the time and money I’m putting in to it. That, and that it’ll be nice to sleep in when I finally get a chance to on October 1.

It’s September! That means that it is time for you to get the fall version of SPRING FEVER! Doesn’t everyone on the street look so good you could just eat them! But you shouldn’t. That is just your brain having problems. You do not really want to eat them, probably! Probably you just want to get to know them so well that you can kiss, and then kiss maybe again and again until it is time to stop kissing and you can just go about your business until you see someone even BETTER.

Imagine you are a normal, everyday nine-to-five employee. For the sake of convenience, and for the sake of paralellism with my own life, let’s say you’re a quick dresser with a small commute and you shower at night, so you wake up at eight. You go to work, have your lovely day, are awake and functional for all of the happy, warm, bright parts of the day (though the midday sun might be a bit too hot for you sometimes) and, after work, come home in the evening, eat dinner, and chat with your friends until you go to bed at around eleven or midnight. Note, by the way, how you escape the coldest, darkest part of the night.

For the sake, again, of argument, you’re well-adapted to your lifestyle: you’re rather slim, you lose excess body heat fairly quickly, and you don’t squint at bright lights. You don’t see very well at night, but in decent lighting you’re like an eagle. You like activity, and socialization, and the accomplishment of goals. In short, in an neolithic society, you would have been perfectly suited to join the hunters and gatherers during the day shift.

Now, let’s flash to another scenario, one that actually applies to me and to most of my friends. I go to work at 3:00 PM, and generally get out around 10:00 or 10:30. Might be slightly less time than the 9-5, but I don’t get the paid hour’s lunch of the standard salaried businessman, either. As such, I wake up at two, eat a little breakfast, have a lovely day at work, return home and, during those lovely cold, dark parts of the night, relax with my friends until I head to sleep at around five or six in the morning. Notice how I escape the hottest, brightest part of the day!

And like the previous example, I, too, am well-adapted. I’m a little on the heavy side, which provides me with ample insulation for the cold; however, I don’t shunt heat too easily. My pupils are the size of dinnerplates, allowing me near-perfect night vision– I can make out the contours of obstacles in a room by just the LED light of an alarm clock– but, as a compensation, even rather bright indoor light makes me squint, not even TOUCHING midday sun. (They don’t actually MAKE prescription sunglasses dark enough for me and my optometrist to be happy.) I like being sessile, thinking more than doing, observing more than affecting. In short, in a neolithic society, I’d have been perfectly qualified to be the midnight-to-six night watchman.

Now, let’s go back to “you,” the hypothetical ideal diurnal human. Suppose that your boss, out of the blue, said to you, one day, “Okay, ah, I’m gonna ask you to come in at four in the morning.” Well, first you’d think it was a mistake. Maybe he meant someone else. You don’t go to work in the middle of the night! What the fuck? Well, it turns out he’s serious, and, unless you want to fall asleep in the middle of the goddamn day, you have to go to bed at midnight (you’ll try to get to sleep earlier, but no, you’re biologically wired by this point) and wake up at three in the morning after maybe one shiftless sleep cycle, when it’s dark and cold and alien, drive to work, chainsmoking and drinking coffee to stay conscious, and communicate with… With Night People. Night People are scary. Who in their right mind would be awake at four in the morning? Unsavory folks, that’s who. Sure, maybe some truck drivers, policemen, bakers, a few people necessary for the functioning of civilized society, and the occasional nice person who just happens to wake up at a weird hour, but mostly it’s drug dealers, prostitutes, thieves, others of questionable morality. And for some reason, when you get to work, nobody thinks it’s odd. Everyone acts like it’s normal. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS SYSTEM, you ask yourself in all-caps in your head.

Flashback to me, going in to work at ten in the morning, after falling asleep at six, getting three hours, and drinking a pot of coffee to wake up. Squinting against the sun, smoking three cigarettes on the way to work, completely out of my element, I ponder, who the fuck is AWAKE at ten in the morning? Sure, maybe some bank tellers, teachers, farmers, people necessary for the functioning of civilized society, and maybe some unfortunate souls who are otherwise good people but just wake up at odd hours, but mostly it’s unsavory folk. Clergymen, businesspeople, used car salesmen, people of questionable morality. And why, why in the name of all the gods, did nobody think it was weird? Here I am awake in the middle of my goddamn night and nobody’s sympathizing, everyone just thinks I’m lazy or weird for waking up so late, ignoring that I get the same amount of sleep they do.

Most of them would like to wake up at noon, they say. “So why don’t you, then?” I ask. Some of them have jobs. “Find a job that fits your life,” I say, “that’s what I did.” Then they get kinda shifty. Part of it may be that, well, there AREN’T many jobs for the evening-active, except in food service and self-employment, and there’s a massive gap between those two, skill-wise. Granted, it’s one I plan on crossing (once I have my Ph.D, I plan on opening an after-business-hours psychotherapy practice) but it’s one in which the majority of Americans fall.

But imagine: What if the millions upon millions of Americans who’d rather go to bed at three and wake up at noon mobilized? Created a new temporal class? In urban areas, the nocturnals have already done it, and nocturnal culture thrives, but the noon-to-two class is still marginalized. There aren’t any offices that have 1:00-9:00 hours, nowhere you can get breakfast at twelve-thirty or lunch at five. And very few places still serve dinner at eleven.

Why is our society still discriminating against something so basic as sleep schedules? We are a civilization dominated by diurnalists with hard-ons for agriculture. Farmers wake up with the dawn, so the closer we get to that, the more moral we are, and anyone who wakes up after noon is a sluggabed.

You know what I say to that? Fuck that. If you can find the freedom to wake up and go to bed when it suits you, just fucking do it. It’ll be a little hard now, but in a few years, if enough people just go with their natural sleep cycles, I see the world following. Where there is a customer base, there will be business. Where there is business, there will be the other amenities of society. With any luck, in five or ten years, we nocturnalists will see the day when we can get a fine gourmet dinner at three in the morning. Until then… We’re stuck with “We don’t serve YOUR kind here.”

*****

Stolen long ago from a site that no longer exists.

RIP Parker Summers
July 16 2011

Ever since I determined that I am most likely gluten-intolerant and cut all gluten-containing foods out of my diet, I have been far healthier and happier. Unfortunately, that comes at a cost of not being able to have many of the things I used to enjoy, including breads, pizza, sandwiches and pancakes/waffles. And most people know how much I love my waffles.

Thanks to one of the guys at work who mentioned that he has a family member who is a celiac, I have discovered Kinnikinnick gluten-free pancake/waffle mix. I tend to be very wary of anything that promises to be “just as good as the real thing,” as most of the time the marketers who say that are just talking out of their rear ends. But this time they are right. The batter made by following the directions on the box is a little bit on the thick side, so I thinned it out with an extra tbsp of oil and about the same of water. I liberally sprayed the waffle iron with a cooking spray, and had no sticking issues. The first thing I noticed about the waffles is that they smell AMAZING. Before the first one was ready, I found myself thinking that if they taste half as good as they smell, then they will be awesome. And they were. The finished product is light and fluffy, has a nice amount of crispness, and has a light vanilla/nutty taste, though neither of those ingredients are included in the mix.

I can’t believe that I am writing this, but I think that these waffles are the best I have ever had, bar none. The finished product has everything one could want in a waffle. I am even eating the second one completely plain, with none of my usual peanut butter, nutella, or syrup toppings. Kinnikinnick has made a believer out of me, and I look forward to trying some of their other products.

From The Crown of Individuality, 1909
By William George Jordan

There are only two classes of people who never make mistakes—they are the dead and the unborn. Mistakes are the inevitable accompaniment of the greatest gift given to man—individual freedom of action. If he were only a pawn in the fingers of Omnipotence, with no self-moving power, man would never make a mistake, but his very immunity would degrade him to the ranks of the lower animals and the plants. An oyster never makes a mistake—it has not the mind that would permit it to forsake an instinct.

Let us be glad of the dignity of our privilege to make mistakes, glad of the wisdom that enables us to recognize them, glad of the power that permits us to turn their light as a glowing illumination along the pathway of our future.

Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom, the assessments we pay on our stock of experience, the raw material of error to be transformed into higher living. Without them there would be no individual growth, no progress, no conquest. Mistakes are the knots, the tangles, the broken threads, the dropped stitches in the web of our living. They are the misdeals in judgment, our unwise investments in morals, the profit and loss account of wisdom. They are the misleading bypaths from the straight road of truth and truth in our highest living is but the accuracy of the soul.

Life is simply time given to man to learn how to live. Mistakes are always part of learning. The real dignity of life consists in cultivating a fine attitude towards our own mistakes and those of others. It is the fine tolerance of a fine soul. Man becomes great, not through never making mistakes, but by profiting by those he does make; by being satisfied with a single rendition of a mistake, not encoring it into a continuous performance; by getting from it the honey of new, regenerating inspiration with no irritating sting of morbid regret; by building better to-day because of his poor yesterday; and by rising with renewed strength, finer purpose and freshened courage every time he falls.

In great chain factories, power machines are specially built to test chains—to make them fail, to show their weakness, to reveal the mistakes of workmanship. Let us thank God when a mistake shows us the weak link in the chain of our living. It is a new revelation of how to live. It means the rich red blood of a new inspiration.

If we have made an error, done a wrong, been unjust to another or to ourselves, or, like the Pharisee, passed by some opportunity for good, we should have the courage to face our mistake squarely, to call it boldly by its right name, to acknowledge it frankly and to put in no flimsy alibis of excuse to protect an anemic self-esteem.

If we have been selfish, unselfishness should atone; if we have wronged, we should right; if we have hurt, we should heal; if we have taken unjustly, we should restore; if we have been unfair, we should become just. Every possible reparation should be made. If confession of regret for the wrong and for our inability to set it right be the maximum of our power let us at least do that. A quick atonement sometimes almost effaces the memory. If foolish pride stands in our way we are aggravating the first mistake by a new one. Some people’s mistakes are never born singly—they come in litters.

Those who waken to the realization of their wrong act, weeks, months or years later, sometimes feel it is better to let confession or reparation lapse, that it is too late to reopen a closed account; but men rarely feel deeply wounded if asked to accept payment on an old promissory note—outlawed for years.

Some people like to wander in the cemetery of their past errors, to reread the old epitaphs and to spend hours in mourning over the grave of a wrong. This new mistake does not antidote the old one. The remorse that paralyzes hope, corrodes purpose, and deadens energy is not moral health, it is—an indigestion of the soul that cannot assimilate an act. It is selfish, cowardly surrender to the dominance of the past. It is lost motion in morals; it does no good to the individual, to the injured, to others, or to the world. If the past be unworthy live it down; if it be worthy live up to it and—surpass it.

Omnipotence cannot change the past, so why should we try? Our duty is to compel that past to vitalize our future with new courage and purpose, making it a larger, greater future than would have been possible without the past that has so grieved us. If we can get real, fine, appetizing dividends from our mistakes they prove themselves not losses but—wise investments. They seem like old mining shares, laid aside in the lavender of memory of our optimism and now, by some sudden change in the market of speculation, proved to be of real value.

Musing over the dreams of youth, the golden hopes that have not blossomed into deeds, is a dangerous mental dissipation. In very small doses it may stimulate; in large ones it weakens effort. It over-emphasizes the past at the expense of the present; it adds weights, not wings, to purpose. “It might have been” is the lullaby of regret with which man often puts to sleep the mighty courage and confidence that should inspire him. We do not need narcotics in life so much as we need tonics. We may try sometimes, sadly and speculatively, to reconstruct our life from some date in the past when we might have taken a different course. We build on a dead “if.” This is the most unwise brand of air-castle.

The other road always looks attractive. Distant sails are always white; far-off hills always green. It may perhaps have been the poorer road after all, could our imagination, through some magic, see with perfect vision the finality of its possibility. The other road might have meant wealth but less happiness; fame might have charmed our ears with the sweet music of praise, but the little hand of love that rests so trustingly in ours might have been denied us. Death itself might have come earlier to us or his touch stilled the beatings of a heart we hold dearer than our own. What the other road might have meant no eternity of conjecture could ever reveal; no omnipotence could enable us now to walk therein even if we wished.

It is a greater mistake to err in purpose, in aim, in principle, than in our method of attaining them…Right principles are vital and primary. They bring the maximum of profit from mistakes, reduce the loss to a minimum. False pride perpetuates our mistakes, deters us from confessing them, debars us from repairing them and ceasing them.

Let us never accept mistakes as final; let us organize victory out of the broken ranks of failure and, despite all odds, fight on calmly, courageously, unflinchingly, serenely confident that, in the end, right living and right doing must triumph.

I’m starting to seriously second-guess myself with this whole military thing. I find myself wondering if I’m only doing it as a way to stop borrowing money to get by. I’ve said any number of times that I’m only really doing it for the free school, and that’s still true. I’m just starting to wonder if there isn’t perhaps a different way to get a similar result in the long run.

I want to go to school so I can make more money than I could otherwise (and also so I can do something I think I’ll enjoy). I want to make that extra money so I can buy myself shiny toys (we all know how much I love my toys), a house, and other such quasi-essential things. Also, that money will make my life a lot easier when I decide to have kids of my own, which while it is not something I plan on doing in the immediate future, it is something that is definitely on the table for within the next 10 years, assuming I find someone who is worth actually procreating with, rather than just practicing the act. A pension would be nice in the long term as well.

I’ve always said that I won’t have kids until I can afford to give them a less financially limited upbringing than I had. Not that I ever wanted for anything, for sure. Everything I ever needed was always there for me in abundance, as well as many things I thought I wanted but turned out not to. But money was always a concern for us. Whenever we went anywhere, we usually had a limit of “each person can get a meal of no more than $X cost.” Or “we can do X or Y, but we can’t afford to do both.” This is not to say that I plan on giving my kids whatever they ask for, far from it in fact, but I’d rather say “No, you can’t have [shiny object] because you were a shithead this week” instead of “we just can’t afford it right now.”

Now that I think about it, that’s probably one of the reasons I historically tend to be less than fantastic at resisting impulse-buying things (though I’ve become a lot better at it in the past couple of years). For me, money was something to be hoarded and spent on something that made me happy in the short term, some kind of “treat,” rather than something I would save and put away for a rainy day.

The military career would give me a pretty reasonable salary, all things considered. Certainly much better than I would make without going to school at all. But, taking the degree on my own and working in the private sector could set me better in the long run. The military has a set wage progression, which realistically caps around ~$110-120k/year at best (or maybe as low as ~$90k) after set incremental yearly increases. This cap would be reached around the time I hit 50-55 years of age for the high end, or age 46 for the low end. The civilian route however has essentially no wage ceiling. For the first year or two out of university, I would most likely be making roughly the same amount in the private sector as I would be in the military, with most likely around 5-10% more salary as a civilian. Around year 5, my salary as a Captain in the navy would be roughly $70k/year. In the private sector however, my salary range would be a bare minimum of $70k, a realistic estimate of around ~$85k, with an upward limit of well over $100k. If I were to sell my soul to the petroleum industry for those five years, my salary could be double that, or more. That possibly puts me at or above the realistic maximum military age 50 salary cap by age 35, a minimum of 10 years earlier. The military plays the trump card of the pension hours starting as soon as school starts, but with foresight and relatively intelligent planning, proper investing with a private-sector job would more than make up for that lack. I could also most likely count on having a reasonable pension from any company I work for until I start my own consulting or engineering firm.

I was extremely lucky as a kid to have a relatively stable life for the most part. My parents both did their best to make sure that I didn’t have to move, that I was able to go to good schools, and that there was as little major turmoil in my living situation as possible.

The military lifestyle is definitely not conducive to raising children. Is it possible? Of course it is. Thousands of families are doing it as I write this. But is it optimal? I don’t think so, at least not for my personal set of values and ideals. As a naval officer, I would be required to spend a not-insignificant amount of time away from home, at least for the first 10 years or so of my career after school, roughly until age 40. That means missed birthdays, school concerts, and I’m sure a lot of “firsts.” First words, first steps, first broken bone, first love, first fight, first “A”, first job, first car, first broken heart. That’s not even considering the fact that in addition to all of that time away, my family might have to move across the country any number of times if they want to be able to even consider seeing me on a semi-regular basis. That could mean moving schools, losing friends, and changing everything for kids at a time in their life when having something (anything) stable in their life could be all that they really want or need. I’m sure the life of the army brat does have some advantages. Travel and exposure to many parts of Canada perhaps? With a high-paying private sector job (and, ideally, a wife with the same) we would have the ability to take vacations to wherever we choose, rather than where the military decides they need us. We could do it on our own time, and see places the military would never take us. We’d be doing it on our own dime, but also our own terms.

In the short term, especially the next four years, the civilian route is without a doubt the more difficult one. With no government salary, I would be forced to continue to work my ass off just to pay my bills. But, I have a decent paying job at the Keg, and I should be getting more money soon. With a relatively stable $15+/hour job, I could afford to pay all of my bills. I’m managing now on $12/hr, but it’s tight. At $15, which I should be making soonish, it’ll be a lot easier. I won’t have much left over, and I won’t be able to pay down any of the debt I’ve accumulated, but I wouldn’t expect to have any extra on a government salary either.

I would have no problem getting student loans. Well, no difficulty anyways. I would rather not if at all possible, but that’s life. At the high end, I expect those loans to total around $60,000 for four years of school. At the low end, half of that. Once done school, my loan payments would balance out with the slightly lower pay and extra deductions taken off my paycheque as a government employee, so that would balance out fairly closely in the long run. I would most likely be able to have that debt paid off within 5 years of school being completed, if I could manage to keep my belt fairly snug for that time. That would put me on equal footing 5 years after school in both paths, with the probability of a higher salary on the civilian side of things, but at most 5 years of pensionable time in rather than the 9 I would have via the military program.

I don’t know which route I’m leaning more towards at this point. Both have advantages and disadvantages. The military would be easier in the short term. The civilian route is financially better in the long term.

In the private sector, if my boss tells me to go drive around in a circle in an area where there were a bunch of people who wanted to kill me because of who I worked for, I could tell him to get fucked. One can’t do that in the military. I’m a big fan of not dying, believe it or not. And I don’t believe enough in our military’s current operations to think that throwing my life away would do any good. I’m quite happy to be Canadian, but I don’t think I’m ready to die because we’re trying to “stop bad people from doing bad things.” Sure, we’re supposed to be out of the sandbox within a few years, but who knows what the US/UN will drag us into next time. Libya maybe? While the current operation is relatively low risk for our navy, that doesn’t mean the next one will be. I certainly don’t want to have to take that chance just because I don’t feel like going further into debt.

“I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.”- Kurt Cobain

At the present moment, I am nothing that anyone would have expected or wished for me to be. However, rather than the typical reaction of panic and concern for the opinions of others, I am perfectly at peace being in complete acceptance of all my imperfections and shortcomings.

Bob Dylan had it right. Kurt Cobain had it right. All those whom we respect and admire had at some point in their lives chosen the path not often followed. And that is how they made history. What I think people still seem to overlook with their lives, is that they can be whoever they want to be. They can do whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it. EVERYONE knows this, and yet they still have a hard time accepting it and following through with it.

And when it comes down to it, no one can tell you what will or won’t make you happy either. No one can say that going down the path you are currently on will leave you stranded and disappointed. Only you determine your own happiness. And who are we to judge?

I do not train because it is healthy for me. I don’t write because I am expecting a reciprocation from others of all my thoughts. I do these things because I want to, and because I can. I have bad habits of my own. The only time I know when it is good to come clean, is when I see it affecting me negatively and I begin to wish that I did not have that habit. In which case, I will do my best to break it so as to not add any unnecessary misery to my life.

But never let anyone tell you that what you love to do, and what makes you happy, is not what you should be doing with your life. Think about what you want to do, and then go do it. You only have one life to live.

You are never too young to love, and you are never too young to die. There is no such thing as shortening your life, or extending it. Life is the longest thing you will ever get to experience, whether that is 12 years, or 90. What you do during your life is what counts. I just hope that joy comes from whatever you decide to do.

And at this point in time, if I have a seemingly bad habit, well so be it. I still have a heart that beats, and a body that breathes, and it makes me no less of a person than anyone else. I am still biologically programmed to do all the things that humans ought to do, and if I deviate from that natal plan somewhat, then I am perfectly content with that.

I will not judge you if you dye your hair green, or if you get a sex change. If you wear brightly colored mismatch clothing, or a jump suit walking downtown. If you have different goals, likes, or feelings, that is okay. How terribly dull life would be if we were all the same, and listened only to what others thought would be best for us.

No one can create you. You only create yourself. You were not put on this earth to decorate someone else’s world. You were coincidentally gifted with a life to live however you so choose to live it. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that you were born to please others.

A life lived in fear of disappointing those around you is a life not lived at all.

“All I can be is me – whoever that is.” – Bob Dylan

* * * * *

Stolen from the cookie monster, with some minor edits by me.