Sunday, June 30, 2002. Entry #175

My first introduction to journals came from my high school sweetheart.

I knew of the concept, of course, but had never considered doing it myself. She had been keeping journals since she was 14 or so, and had about three full books of stuff. I was curious, so she bought me my very first journal, and I tried it on for size.

I filled a couple books over the space of four or five years, but I can hardly look at them now. They're all a big testament to how stupid and self-centered I was. I know that hindsight is 20/20, but I just can't believe how shallow and insensitive I was. The entries ranged from cold, clinical reports on the events of the day to self-righteous smugness.

The biggest problem with my early journals is that I never used what I had written to examine myself. Sure, I may have written about a breakup, a new job, or what happened at school, but I never considered writing why I felt the way I did.

I have learned much more about myself writing this journal than I ever did in my paper one. I think it might be the audience of a public journal, in that I take the time to try to explain my feelings and reasonings. Honestly, I want my readers to understand me, to take home a little piece of my mind and remember it with fondness.

So when I write, I'll take an idea off the shelf in my brain and hold it up to the light for a good long look before I consign it to the Internet. I'm getting better at telling when I'm being real and honest, or when I'm completely full of crap. Not perfect, just better.

There was one positive thing I remember from writing a paper journal. My girlfriend always prefaced each book with what I thought of as an Inventory of Self. Sort of a character study telling the reader who the writer is, where they are in life, and catching them up on what they might have missed in the previous book.

It was like a moment of self-inspection, where I could compare where I was now to where I was then. A status report on my personal evolution, if you will.

I don't recall ever doing this here, and I know my personal site is lacking in the details, so I thought this anniversary might be time to do a little mental maintenance check, and see what's ticking away under my hood.

So what don't you know about me?

I'm 30, for a start. I was born on August 9, 1971, right here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

My folks are still together, and live here in town. My sister, brother-in-law and nephew also live here. My grandfather on my mother's side lives in Calgary, and my grandmother on my Dad's side lives out on Vancouver Island. My extended family isn't very big. My folks each have one brother, and I have six cousins in total.

I live with my sweetie Lisa. We've been together for about 2262 days now, and I don't see any signs of stopping. As corny as it sounds, she's the part of me that has been missing for most of life, and I cannot completely fathom how lucky I am to have her.

We have a whole whack-load of pets. Samantha and Emma are our cats, and Pippin (the Tiny Dinosaur) is a Senegal parrot. We've got Arvid the Pac-Man frog, and Molly, Idaho, Button and Jersey the guinea pigs. We've also got a 48-gallon fish tank.

I like to think I'm a smart fellow. Emode rates me as having a 135 IQ, but then again, they think that the character on 'Friends' I am most like is Joey, so you can tell how accurate they are. I do know a lot of junk, and do pretty well when I'm yelling answers at the shows on the Game Show Network.

Two years in college gave me a diploma in Journalism, and three-years in University gave me a load of knowledge in chemistry, biology, and physics that mainly proves useful in the aforementioned yelling at game shows.

I'm a very friendly person, and have such a small personal space 'bubble' that it's virtually nonexistent. I've a very tactile person, which means I like to be physically close to people. Touching the people I talk to makes me feel more comfortable, and I love to give and receive hugs.

On the flipside, I'm a touch claustrophobic, so a whole mass of people wedged around me gives me the heebie-jeebies. As long as I can move my arms, I'm fine, but pin my arms down and I wig out.

I'm also scared of spiders. And of falling. Oh, and I really hate people writing on me with pens and stuff.

I'm a big pop culture fan. Movies, TV, music of all varieties interest me. When people ask, 'What kind of music do you like?' I can honestly say, 'Everything'. I like to play games of all kinds. Card games, board games, computer games, role-playing games, whatever.

I've never been big on sports. I grew pretty quickly as a kid and never learned a lot of the physical skills most people take for granted. I still can't catch a football, but I can hit a baseball pretty good. I like to play golf, and have a truly wicked slice.

I love to read. I'm a big sci-fi/fantasy fan, but I've been known to pick up the occasional mystery or spy novel. I have an unreasoning fascination for the works of Stephen King, but other horror writers bore me.

Since I left college I've worked exclusively in Internet-related jobs, mostly in writing and designing for the web. While in college, I worked a construction inspector, and spent my summers sitting in my truck watching other people do hard work. When my application to join the pharmacy program was turned down, I briefly considered making a career out of my inspection job. Very briefly.

I like to think myself an artist. One thread that has passed through every part of my life since high school has been writing. I would love to be a published author, and make money off my words, but, to paraphrase Larry Niven, "I don't want to be a writer; I want to be an author. I don't want to write; I want to have written."

I am a lazy fellow. I procrastinate. Heck, I'm writing this entry with only a couple hours to spare before this anniversary is over. My laundry needs to be done, the piggies need their cages cleaned, and I'm fairly certain there are some dishes to be done somewhere.

I believe in God. I know that may scare some of you, but it's true. I also believe everyone in the world can believe whatever they want, even if that is nothing. I don't like to debate religion unless it's around two in the morning though.

I lead a good life. I know this is going to sound all tacked on, and too much like a Stuart Smalley affirmation, but I'm happy, I'm healthy, and people like me (doggone it).

I do worry. I worry that the money won't be there when I need it. I worry about my family's health. I worry that I'll lose my job, or that I won't ever find a job that is perfect for me. I worry that the world doesn't seem to share my optimism about where everything is going. I worry that the future will be more like Mad Max than Star Trek.

I have unreasonable fantasies. I wish I would win $34 million in the lottery and be able to spend $200 an hour for the next twenty years. I wish I had the power to locate lost objects and I'd never lose my wallet again. I wish I could unlock the creative muse that slumbers in my brain and write something truly marvelous.

I wish I could fly.

There has never been a life lived that is free of regrets. I have lots of my own.

I regret each person I've hurt in my life. I regret never showing my childhood friends how much I appreciated them.

I regret not knocking on my friend Darryl's door that August night to say hi, no matter how late it was. Perhaps things would have been different, and he wouldn't have died of an asthma attack the next day.

I regret poaching the girl my friend Dave was in love with, which cost me a friendship of many years.

I don't regret the choice Jessica and I made that one February, but I regret all the stupid 'choices' that led us to that point. More than ten years have gone by, and it still hurts so much that I'm unable to share the details with all of you.

I regret that I haven't yet proposed to Lisa, and that I may not show her often enough how much I truly love her.

And then there are goals that I will achieve. I will get married. I will have kids. I will achieve financial stability. I will own my own house. I will have a home entertainment theatre that will make me the envy of the neighborhood. I will live in love and friendship. And I will die when I am very, very old.

Let's wrap this up with a quote. It's really pretentious, but I like it.

"Now life is the only art that we are required to practice without preparation, and without being allowed the preliminary trials, the failures and botches, that are essential for the training of a mere beginner. In life, we must begin to give a public performance before we have acquired even a novice's skill; and often our moments of seeming mastery are upset by new demands, for which we have acquired no preparatory facility. Life is a score that we play at sight, not merely before we have divined the intentions of the composer, but even before we have mastered our instruments; even worse, a large part of the score has been only roughly indicated, and we must improvise the music for our particular instrument, over long passages. On these terms, the whole operation seems one of endless difficulty and frustration; and indeed, were it not for the fact that some of the passages have been played so often by our predecessors that, when we come to them, we seem to recall some of the score and can anticipate the natural sequence of the notes, we might often give up in sheer despair. The wonder is not that so much cacophony appears in our actual individual lives, but that there is any appearance of harmony and progression."
  - Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), U.S. social philosopher.
    The Conduct of Life, Harcourt (1951).

Thank you all for reading the last two years.

Okay now, move along. Nothing more to see here.

One Year Ago Today: I was still on hiatus, but in 1971, US Apollo 15 landed on Mare Imbrium on the Moon.

Two Years Ago Today: Mac Delight - Where I start off all the craziness with a rant about a McDonalds employee. What an auspicious beginning.

Mom Rating: 5 out of 5. Mom's impressed I could keep doing anything for two years straight.

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Take me home, big fella