It's My Brain's Fault

I may have figured out why I cannot, for the life of me, stay awake in meetings and training sessions: There are no Attention Triggers.

I've made this up, but it makes perfect sense to me, so you can't disagree even if you disagree.

Here's my theory: Our minds, as we grow up, become conditioned to pay attention to certain triggers -- someone calling our name, a raised voice, the mention of subjects we're interested in. As a musician, my ears perked up at the mention of "trombones" or "brass," and tuned out when other sections were being spoken to. Parents learn to pick out their children's cries. Without being fully conscious of it, we probably know when the commericials are done and we need to get from the kitchen to the living room to watch more of our favorite show, or we can tell when a family member has pulled into the driveway.

The meetings at work have a complete lack of Attention Triggers for me. They don't discuss things that I'm interested in, or even fully understand, and they're usually explained in a drone by people who are perfectly nice and perfectly knowledgeable but not exactly on their way to winning Entertainer of the Year. I try to pay attention, but every ounce of gray matter floating inside my skull is convinced that there are at least a dozen other things worth thinking about, so it does that instead. OK, there is one small part that cares about being good, but the rest of my brain seems to believe that, to quote Dark Helmet, "Good is dumb."

Mutual Anger. Nice!

I was annoyed at my roommate for not being like me. I just found out he was annoyed with me for the same reason. Somehow, that made me feel a whole lot better. I think that, more than anything, I'd been struggling with my own anger, and how it made me feel like a bad, judgmental person. Now I feel like we're even, and have a mutual understanding about our mutual misunderstanding.

Being a messy human is awkward and gross, but getting it out in the open can be relieving and fun*. The rest of this day will be much better now.


*That's what she said.

Four Out of Five Ain't Bad

Change, baby!

The tiniest things make the difference between happening and not happening. Over the last few weeks, the right tiny things fell into place and look to be bringing about the kind of change I've been waiting for for the last ten years. I'm not making any predictions yet, but am instead determined to enjoy the present and enjoy the process. But I can't pretend it hasn't occurred to me that this could change everything, and hoo boy, is that exciting.

It would allow me to be an Actress, Musician, Writer, and Comedian. No Princess promises yet, but the thought that I could even get to have all four of those creative outlets at once is amazing enough. I'll take it!

And I'll keep you all posted. Sorry for being a bit vague about it at the moment. I may be approaching the point where I have to ditch the anonymity, and let my blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and personal selves meet. I'll be Out There, last name and all, for the world to see and judge, and I may have to delete some of the posts and tweets that could hurt people's feelings. I'm up for letting myself look ugly as long as it's real, but there's a lot to be said for consideration and discretion. That should be an interesting balance to strike.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, just know that fun is a-stirrin' in Hollyland, and the world at large could benefit (or be appalled) in the near future!

I Don't Like Phone Calls

I've figured it out.

I've always been a little afraid of the phone, especially when it comes to making calls. Receiving can be OK, but I've found I'm not always a huge fan of that, either. Yet texts are fine. I've also learned that I hugely prefer e-mail to instant messaging. And I think I've finally figured out why.

I feel interrupted when contacted via a medium that demands instant reponse; whereas things that can sit for a while, for which I can take my time to process and think about my responses, are fine. And I get really, really scared at the thought of interrupting somebody else, not knowing whether they'll be free or in the mood to interact with me, and I'll have to navigate a potentially awkward situation without the benefit of facial expressions or hand gestures and all the reciprocal communication contained therein. Yikes!

Some of you are probably worried now, but don't be. I don't always hate calls or messaging. It is interesting, though, what accounts for our preferred methods of communication.

Messy, Messy, Messy!

I think I'm reaching the point where the rubber hits the road in terms of being able to be myself in all my flawed splendor. Like in the way I'm leaving comments on my pastor's blog, even when I don't come off as sunshiny, or even rational. Just putting stuff out there, because even if it's not all brilliant or it's not all understood or appreciated, at least I tried.

This applies to lots of areas, not just having points of view. It applies to creativity, and turning ideas into works, even when they don't always come out as you'd hoped. And it applies to relationships, showing genuine enthusiasm to be around someone instead of playing it cool.

It means allowing myself to be unabashedly geeky, unapologetically unironic, fully engaged, exposed, anal and not "cool" with everything when I'm NOT cool with everything, and left wide open to criticism. It means letting people see my flaws, and not always trying to paint them prettily first. It means being OK when I don't know where I stand with everybody, when not all confusion is cleared up, and when some of my ideas get shot down as soon as they're spoken.

Ze Frank talks about the difficulty of "moving from 0 to 1," of how beginning something is harder than keeping it going, and how our ideas will always look better when they live only in our heads and never make the transition from Idea to Creation.

I'm leaving zero.

I Am a Commenter!

A few months ago, I began reading my pastor's blog, and I took a leap of courage and left some comments on it. There are some posts that don't interest me at all, and others that I feel so strongly about that I get quite caught up in it, and I find myself checking the blog every fifteen minutes to see if other people have read my comment and what responses they have.

I get scared, too. I care what people think, and I've had some pretty harrowing experiences with being misjudged (outside that particular blog), so I've always got my eye out for that. But I'm learning, over and over again, that putting my feelings and opinions out there is a brave and vulnerable thing, and I don't have to apologize for having genuine reactions. I'd grown so used to valuing my intellectual detachment, wanting to be unassailable in my arguments, but lately my heart has begun leaping ahead of my brain and I say things that are entirely assailable, but that I also feel deeply.

Well, good. I'm not objective, and that is progress.

Wakefulness Fail

It's not like I set the bar all that high.

Today's goal at work: Remain awake while other people are watching.

Nope. Couldn't even do that. Kept nodding during a 2 1/2 hour training meeting, which was pure theory to me -- I'd never worked on the kinds of projects they were talking about, so while I understood the words, their combined meaning bounced off my head like bullets off Superman's chest. I was impervious.

Ugh. Whatever they pump through the vents in those conference rooms, I sure could use some of it near my bed around 11pm on weeknights. I'm almost never sleepy then.

Down with Haters

That's it.

People have been so insistent about complaining about the snow -- often in comments after my own Facebook wall posts, wherein I specifically asked that they let me have my fun and not hate all over the snow-- that I've now lost my own joy in it. Instead of being entranced when the flakes fall, I see what they see: A wet, inconvenient mess.

I'm pissed. It was quite disrespectful, really.

They managed to spread their whininess until it seeped into me, and now I have less joy than I used to. And frankly, I didn't have a heck of a lot to spare.

I really wish people would keep their stupid yaps shut when they have nothing but negative things to say.

Except for me, of course, when I'm complaining about the negative people, because that's totally legit.

Sports for Comedians

I've got the Super Bowl on, and it has me feeling wistful for the best Super Bowl party I've ever attended. It was last year, and it was hosted by this guy who created an online group for stand-up comedians in Boston. I'm not a stand-up, but I joined, and the party was perfect for me -- full of people who weren't all that into the game itself, but appreciated the cultural experience and focused during the commercials, making lots and lots and lots of hilarious comments throughout the whole thing. And the pomtini, perhaps the single strongest drink I've ever had, which didn't hurt the fun none. If I remember correctly, the only piece of sport knowledge I came away with was, "The Cardinals are basically douchebags."

Sigh. Missing you, Comedians' Party.