Hope

There are some people who, no matter what life throws at them, remain optimistic and hopeful for the future.  Their perseverance in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges always serve as an inspiration for me. 
One person I know - or rather know of - was recently diagnosed with a fatal disease, about which little is known.  He has maintained his life as it was before, despite the growing symptoms which make commonplace actions and tasks difficult.  He recently gave an incredibly inspirational speech about his attitude.  He said that one morning, despite the fact that he was struggling to maintain a normal lifestyle and had difficulty with even the smallest of everyday tasks, he persisted in his decision that 'today was going to be a good day.  Perhaps even a great day.'  Unlike many terminally ill patients, he has kept his job, and intends to perform his duties until he is no longer able.  His courage and tenacity are astonishing.
As I mentioned, little is known about his disease, and there is no known prevention, treatment, or cure.  He decided soon after his diagnosis that he would participate in a scientific study, in the hopes that he would be able to help other patients in his situation get better treatment and better care. 
He even acknowledged that he might well end up in the study's control group.  He acknowledged that that would stink for him.  And yet he still chose to participate in the study, knowing that in all likelihood, he will never know whether he actually got the treatment or the placebo.  That, right there, is courage.  And optimism.  And above all, hope.
In one episode of Dr. Who, the Doctor says, "One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel." This is one of the angels who make this world worth living in.
Thank you.

Helping

I love to help people, to make people happy.  A word of thanks or a helping hand when someone least expects it is always a pleasant surprise.  I love the satisfaction of a job well done, especially when that job in no way benefits myself.  That selfless helping spirit is contagious, too.  Others of like mind chip in, and before you know it, you have half a dozen people contributing to a job they don't have to.  In many cases, it is just the right thing to do, or the nice thing to do.  It's not required of you, and no one asked you to do it, but you do it nonetheless. It is this fact that makes the entire process so satisfying. 
I love the feeling of helping, of having helped, and of being helped.  It's a great cycle.  I have found that by pure acts of - not charity, because that implies a lowliness on the part of the helped, but perhaps... selfless helping, I have gained some people's trust or friendship.  A hug on a bad day or a smile when someone needs it most is enough to brighten someone's life just slightly.  And then, when I'm having a bad day, I have no lack of people to turn to.  People who are willing to help me without keeping track or necessarily expecting anything in return ("okay, I've helped you twice, but you've only helped me once - you owe me big time").  People who are willing to return a smile, offer a hug or condolence, or just be there beside me when I need them. 
It's fantastic.  I help them.  They help me.  Together, we make the world a brighter, happier, and better place.  

Plan ahead

So here's the plan.

Now that I know I'm going to be writing something long-ish, I am going to have a hard time not writing it.  I've been sort of noodling a certain story for a couple of years.  My sister has been wanting me to actually write it for ages.  I'm thinking that for now, what I'll do is set up the world a bit through some short anecdotes.  With some luck, I'll also digitize a map I previously drew of the world and add some to it (wouldn't a topographical map be cool?)
I recently started reading Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.  Tolkien does an excellent job of building up his world - sometimes too well.  I've heard multiple people describe his books, especially The Two Towers, as slow-moving and excruciatingly dull.  However, his writing, particularly the incredible continuity and attention to detail, have earned him a place in the hall of the immortal fantasy writers - his creation a fantastic economic success that authors and publishers have been trying to reproduce for the remainder of the genre's history.
I can see that it would seem slow at first.  My biggest problem is that I want to be able to imagine all the history Tolkien is talking about.  So when he says that some hobbits migrated over the Misty Mountains north of Rivendell, I have to go to the map at the front of the book and find all those places.  As a result, I have a better understanding of the history, but reading is slow going.  I spent a full 20 minutes on just two pages in the prologue!
In all honesty, I don't think I want to be that detailed in my worldbuilding.  After all, I'm not really interested in creating my own language, or mapping out the times so that I know exactly when the moons are full and can set events accordingly.
I guess I've rambled enough for today.  I'll consider starting the story's setup tomorrow.
Good night!

Computers

Yeah.  Computers are good tools.  As a programmer, I really like them.  They're incredibly powerful, and they are the most pedantic of beasts, taking everything literally as the programmer commands. 
Anyhow, I've decided this tools thing is not going to work out.  So I'm calling it quits on that one.  I'm thinking I might start to get slightly more serious about writing fiction, but if I do that, it won't really start until the beginning of next year, which gives me half a month to come up with some good ideas.  So that's the plan for now. 
And today, I'd like to give a few random ramblings about stories.  I always love a happy ending.  There's always this feeling of perfection at a good, happy conclusion.  It's really cool.  But at the same time, I always feel like those can be somewhat unrealistic.  When a main character finishes a fantastic quest and finds the love of his/her life, it's always very satisfying.  But I can't help wondering if it will last, if that friendship will fade away with the trials of time and stresses of the exciting lives main characters always seem to live. 
Authors always portray characters as living in a perfect world, which real people really don't have the luxury of doing.  Perfect people, perfect events, perfect relationships.  I suppose that's part of what stories are about.  Escaping into an unreal world different from or better than our own. 
I guess I just feel like they should also offer insight into our own world as well as taking us away to a different one.  And wouldn't the best way to do that be to replicate it in some respects? 
This is an issue I will have to resolve before I start writing anything longer than what I did last week.  My perfectionism is kicking in again. 

I'm grateful for spending time on things that will make others happy.  Their pleasure transfers almost directly into my own.  It's an enjoyable process on both ends, and one I spent the majority of the morning doing.

Have a nice day!

Multi-tools

Multi-tools are awesome.  For those who don't know what a multi-tool is, it's a category of tool which has many tools in one, generally in a compact arrangement easily carried. For instance, a Swiss Army knife is a type of multi-tool. 
A good multi-tool can be useful in a wide variety of situations.  A screwdriver flip-out with detachable bits is useful in opening or closing tightened compartments.  A knife is useful for cutting apples.  A nail file is always nice to have, and a corkscrew can't hurt.  Pliers can be handy for getting into tight spaces, and scissors that you can carry around in a pocket can always come in handy.  A toothpick is useful for, well, picking your teeth. 
From the most mundane to the most ridiculous (I once saw a miniaturized saw and a mini-hammer on a multi-tool), multi-tools can be incredibly useful in everyday life, as well as in dealing with the extraordinary. 
Along with duct tape, multi-tools can probably be used in some way or another to solve the vast majority of the world's problems. 

On a more mundane note, today was a pretty darn good day.  I was productive and efficient, and accomplished quite a lot.  I got Mathematica 8 onto my computer, and was fiddling with some of its functionality - it is awesome!  More on that later, hopefully. 

The vvshvut-vvshvut

I've been asking a few friends about favorite tools, and my favorite response so far has been 'the most useful tool in the kitchen is the mixer - no - the vvshvut-vvshvut.'  See, I've always called it that.  I think that its official title is an immersion blender, or some such nonsense.  It has always made more sense to call it by the noise it makes -vvvvshvut!
The thing is, it really is a remarkably useful device.  For blending small quantities, of liquids especially, the vvshvut-vvshvut can't be beaten.  It blends it thoroughly and quickly, all while emitting a loud, obnoxious, and yet slightly endearing noise which gave it its name.
I had a long discussion this morning about how to spell vvshvut-vvshvut.  My initial thought was vshfut-vshfut.  Someone suggested something with more v's: vvshut-vvshut or vshvut-vshvut.  I finally settled on the spelling which is the title of this post: lots and lots of v's.  vvvvvvvvssssshhhvvvut-vvvvvvvvssssshhhvvvut  might be more fitting, but it's also much harder to type, so I figure I can compromise with only three v's per syllable.
Fun stuff, huh?
I'm grateful for warm coats on cold mornings. 

Hammer

Well, tools are kind of cool, and useful by definition. I figured I'd start with a very common tool - one many people think of when you say 'tool.'
The hammer is a very useful tool.  It can be used for...um...nailing things to other things.  And sometimes pulling nails out.  Hmm...this is turning out to be harder than I thought.
What else are hammers good for? They are fantastic at flattening things. A bit of force applied judiciously to just about anything can do some serious damage or alter it for the better, and hammers, with their dense, heavy, heads and easy-to-hold handles, are fantastic as a force-applying instrument.
They are also an intriguing mix of dangerous and useful.  Used correctly, hammers have historically been some of the most constructive of tools, though I think screwdrivers and drills are doing better at this point.  But they can also be used as potent weapons, good for wreaking havoc and destruction.  An interesting mix.

Hammers are pretty neat.

This tool week is going to be tricky.  I'll have to give it a bit more thought.

G'night!

A brief mention and summary

First off, I got an awesome suggestion from a friend which I need to write something on.  Not much, but something is better than nothing, right?
One morning, Jeff woke up in an alien environment.  Everything around him was black or gray, and seemed to be metallic or plastic - he couldn't tell specifically.  All around him were sparks, which seemed to travel along the metal, almost faster than his eye could follow.  He wandered around, noting strange patterns in the landscape.  It had such intriguingly random-seeming paths.  He tried to follow a vein of copper along a green ground, but found that the vein soon dove deep underground, where he was helpless to follow it.  From everywhere and nowhere, he heard and felt a great thumping, sometimes nearby, often distant.  Now that his eyes had adjusted, Jeff noticed that he seemed to be in a cave, entirely covered by the strange mix of metallic and almost plastic components.  Looking off into the distance, he saw a glint of light almost on the horizon (if there was one).  Without any better ideas for destinations in mind, he set off to find the source.   He journeyed for forty days and forty nights.  (No, actually, it took him what felt like a couple of hours to reach it. Still, close enough.)  
At long last, he reached the light source.  It seemed to lead up into open air.  By now thoroughly sick of this enormous cave, Jeff climbed slowly up the wall and pulled himself laboriously out into the open.  He stood up and looked around, taking a measure of his surroundings.  
The person typing, upon seeing a miniscule man emerge from the edge of the keyboard, screamed. 
Jeff never looked at a computer in quite the same way again. 

And now for a summary of the week:
This week was a tremendously enjoyable one for blogging.  I found that I had an absurd amount of fun writing about funny or intriguing phenomena.  However, I did notice I strayed from the path of 'absurd situations' and into the realm of general fantasy or speculative fiction.  Many of my short tales consisted of me taking a simple idea and expanding upon it.  It was very similar to my considerations on infinite elasticity or hardness (by the way, I recently read about the debate in Newton's time about how infinitely hard a-toms could possibly interact with each other.  Kind of fun to know I'm not the only one considering such concepts), but with a fictional bent.
I was also surprised how fixated I was on good endings.  I would spend 15-20 minutes writing a post, and wouldn't be able to stop, simply because the ending wasn't quite right.  Most of my endings were a not-so-subtle attempt at a comment on something I considered profound.  The story of the invisible Alex was one of my favorites.  I loved the idea, and for a long time, I thought I'd just have to have him end up insane.  What other possible endings could there be to such a situation?  But I wasn't satisfied with that.  So I threw some of my own opinions on observation and the beauty of the universe in, and ended up extremely happy with the tale.
Yes, I know there were some inconsistencies in nearly all of the posts I wrote this week.  I did very little in the way of proofreading, and generally liked the posts the way they were when I did.  Changing the result of such spontaneous expression on my part seemed like a minor crime.

As for this next week, the topic is going to be: (insert long pause as I consider possibilities) (now insert another one as I play piano to procrastinate) (one more, because three is almost invariably better than two) tools.  Any kind of tool - physical, mental, virtual, anything.

I may need some help on this one, guys.  Comments (constructive ones, at least) are always appreciated.

Thanks!  I'm grateful for Ultimate and fresh snow on warm nights.

A quick one...

There was a sign ahead.  I was driving along the winding country road, admiring the scenery and considering my route and plans for the day.  I squinted to read ahead.  What was that it said?  Ah, yes, wombat crossing.  Funny.  I haven't seen a wombat in years.  I didn't change anything significantly about my driving.  Wombats aren't that much of a problem.  
A flash of color caught my eye.  A colorful bird, highlighted against the dark canopy.  I followed it as I drove.  It was a straight stretch, I could drive while watching the sky.  
I glanced back at the road.  And did a major double-take.  I saw a wombat.  That on its own stunned me; I'd never actually seen one before in the wild, just in zoos.  It was a strange creature.  Compact, very heavy-set, and yet graceful in its own unique way.  
Then, I realized I needed to stop.  And fast. The wombat was speeding towards me at about 50 miles per hour.  Shoot.  I lifted my foot off the accelerator, and then paused for another moment.  I saw another wombat.  And another.  There was a whole string of wombats crossing the road at the same place, just a hundred yards past the sign.  I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late.  I rammed into two of them at once.  The car stopped instantly.  My seatbelt snapped into place, the airbag exploded in my face.  I was stopped in the very middle of the road, and as I watched, more and more wombats flooded out over me. They plodded along dully, ignoring their surroundings.  
Wombat after wombat after wombat.  All trudging towards some unknown destination, not stopping for anything. 

Falling

She was falling.  She had always fallen.  She knew nothing else.  Only the blissful peace and silence of the fall.  The eternal fall - always surrounded by the whoosh of air and brush of breeze.  Never stopping, never slowing.  Buffeted by wind, she traveled.  But no place was different from any other.  All were only perpetual falls.  She met another faller. They coexisted for a while.  After such solitary existence, neither knew how to communicate, or even that such a thing might exist.  But they were both happy to have met another of their kind.  Eventually, the winds, chaotic and ever-changing, separated them, and they went their separate ways.  She had no real concept of time, but as she fell, centuries passed.  She met one other faller, but only for a brief instant, as they collided in a gale-force wind storm. She felt different after that.  An unusual feeling in such a consistent and predictable life.  She didn't have a word for it, or any way to express her feelings, but humans would have called what she felt happiness.  Helpless to name the sensation, she went on. And on.  And on.  
Falling into the ever-lasting void. 

Fire

The fire danced in the ring of stones at the campsite, jumping up and falling back as if possessed by an alien spirit.  As the campers looked on, the fire jumped and jittered faster and faster.  They put it down to an increased breeze, which ruffled their hair and chilled their noses.  
Then, for no apparent reason, the fire all clumped at the tip of the highest log.  To the shock of the onlookers, it then tentatively bobbed upward, leaving the fire pit entirely.  It rotated slowly on a vertical axis, as if getting a grip on its surroundings.  All of a sudden, it let out an ear-piercing shriek and rocketed into the air.  The flame ball trailed tendrils of red-hot nothingness as it shot out of the circle of astonished and confused campers.  It shrank as it rose higher and higher, then started growing again as an immense fireball shot back down from the sky.  The campers scattered, their stunned silence shattered as each of them let loose a primal scream of terror.  
The flames came to an abrupt halt about two feet off the ground.  Pausing as if in thought, it began to compress, growing brighter and brighter as it did so.  Eventually, it was a speck of such bright white that none of the watchers could even look in its general direction without risking permanent eye damage. 
Some whimpers and moans escaped the again-silent audience as a searing wall of heat surged out from the ball, burning everything in its path.  Then the ball zipped away, faster than the blinded eye could follow, to pursue its own adventures.  
The campers did their best to forget it. 

Invisible

At exactly 12:03 pm UTC on December 17th, Alex disappeared.  He didn't notice anything specifically at the time.  He had just looked at his watch for the third time in as many minutes, waiting for his lunch break.  He wasn't sure exactly when the change occurred.  He thought on the moment extensively later.  He concluded he must have been while he was typing on his desktop, writing up the that week's sales analysis for his company.  Engrossed in the statistics, he didn't notice his disappearance until he tried to look at his watch.  It wasn't there. Nor, for that matter, was his arm.  Or his shirt.  Performing a more detailed checkup, Alex realized that he wasn't there at all.  He could see none of himself, though he seemed to be able to control his body.  He sent the mental message to his arm, and he assumed it moved, though it was hard to tell.  To verify this, he moved one arm in a direction so as to hit his other arm.  To his vast astonishment, nothing happened.  He felt no impact in his arms, no touch of skin on skin. 
Baffled, he rose and picked up his lunch, then walked out of his office.  Deciding against human company, he headed to an out-of-use conference room and settled down. 
Slightly belatedly, he realized he hadn't felt anything on his way.  When he walked, he felt no impact of his feet on the ground.  When he opened the conference room door, he did not feel the door on his hand.  His heart pounded.  What was going on with him?  And why?  As if in a dream, he tried to pinch himself.  Nothing.  A sob escaped his lips.  Why could he not feel anything?  And to make matters worse, though he knew that he had sobbed, he had felt nothing, heard nothing.  He did not exist.  
Frantically, he pushed back his chair.  And passed straight through it.  'No! No!' his mind cried out, but he could make no sound to be heard.  
Alex convinced himself this was just a bad dream.  But as time wore on and nothing happened, his conviction lessened and lessened.  Finally, he was forced to accept that this was his life now.  He was stuck as an unseen, unheard, unfelt presence in a world revolving around sense.  He could watch and listen as events unfolded, but could do nothing to alter them.  
After a few years, he could take it no longer.  His silent ravings and pacing increased, and he no longer saw the things around him.  In a rage, he picked up and threw imaginary objects, screaming his silent anger to the world.  That couldn't last forever, though.  He slept.  And as he slept, he dreamed of a beautiful world.  One that did not need to be felt to be admired.  One in which his existence would matter to nothing and no one.  
He paid a visit to a library, where he read over people's shoulders.  He saw many picture books, read some fragments of fiction, and at last stumbled upon Descartes.  Cogito ergo sum.  I think therefore I am.  He could imagine no greater gift from a man long dead.  Cogito ergo sum.  He existed after all.  It was simply that he had transcended the world of matter and extension, and passed on to a new realm.  
For the next several years, Alex traveled the world.  He hitched rides from people he did not know and who did not see him.  He walked for hundreds of miles at a time, for without a body, he knew no fatigue.  He sought out the peaceful places in the world.  A lonely beach.  A vibrant forest.  A beautiful sunrise over the remains of a devastating forest fire.  He visited all these and more.  His sanity returned, slowly and in pieces, but returning nonetheless.  What did he care if he could not change the world?  He could still admire it in all its glory.  
Centuries later, Alex was on the first of many manned intergalactic missions.  He was one of the first Earthlings to see the Milky Way rise over the horizon of a foreign planet.  He explored first one, then another, then another still, finding always sights to be seen and sounds to be heard.  He became a roaming traveler, knowing all and known by none.  In time, he even found a modicum of inner peace.  
The universe was a glorious thing to see and hear, and he, the unseen, unheard, unfelt, was there to admire it all. 

Watches

At birth, everyone was given a watch.  Before the umbilical cord was cut, every child, including Kia, had a tiny watch put on their left wrist.  It was designed to expand with her as she grew.  This watch would define Kia's time for the rest of her life.  Her parents, quickly approaching old age and in a hurry to raise their only child, sped up her watch for the first several years of her life, and slowed down their own.  As a result, in a mere 5 years of their time, she had grown into a charming and attractive young woman.  19 years had passed for her.  She, like every other child, attended an individualized school with a robotic teacher for the first 18 years of her life, and then graduated.  
She was a fundamentally social adult, but none of her friends' times moved at the same rate as hers, making meeting at a given time and place impossible.  When she made a friend, she would stay with them for a few days, and then the two of them would go their separate ways.  It was considered the ultimate devotion in their society to change your own watch to match another's, something only married couples chose to do.  
There were no public clocks in the squares of the towns.  The sun rose and set erratically.  No one could record its travel, because time was not regulated.  Science faltered and then came to a halting stop at this lack of consistency, and the society was stuck with a medieval level of technology and knowledge.  No one knew any better.  
Kia eventually found a man she loved. They set their times at a grand ceremony attended by none but themselves, and had three children, whom they raised slowly but eventually relinquished to the greater world.  There came a day when Kia could no longer wind her watch. She passed away peacefully in her sleep, the hands on her watch coming to a complete halt in the dead of night.  Her husband reverently released her watch from her wrist, and placed it in a thin glass case.  She and her watch were buried together in a graveyard which knew no time.  


Generations passed.  Kia's children had more and more children, and several generations later, her thirty-times great grandchild was born. His name was Roo, and he, too, received a watch at birth.  In time, Roo grew to become a great statesman, and the man who first began to regulate time. People were strongly encouraged to set their watches to the speed of a great clock in the center of the land, and gradually, over the course of a hundred years, the individual watches went out of style, leaving only great, public clocks, scattered across the nation.  Even several millenia later, wearing a watch was considered bad luck, a tremendous divide between the wearer and the rest of the world.  
The sun rose and set with a regular beat, and people lived, loved, laughed and died to the ticking of the same grand clock. 

Upside-down?

One morning, everyone in the world woke up upside-down.  And I'm not talking wrong-side-of-the-bed.  I'm talking seriously upside-down.  Rather than being on the ground, people walked on some sort of false ground in the air.  There was a definite boundary here.  Everything was on the same sphere, suspended several miles above the Earth's surface.  Mountain climbers suddenly found themselves without mountains, and thus without a job.  Runners rejoiced, for they no longer had to run hills.  Children laughed, and cried, and ran around as fast as their legs would carry them, admiring the strange sights and sensations.  Clouds floated through cities and dropped rain away from them.  The thin air was to blame for the deaths of millions of ill and elderly, and world population was suddenly not so much of a problem.  As the day wore on, though, people discovered a dilemma.  There was no food.  Sure, some larger households would be able to survive for weeks on their sizable pantries, but many of the less well-off would be starving within a few days.  By four that afternoon, NASA engineers and scientists had regrouped.  After a few futile hours of arguing over the cause of this strange mishap, they agreed that they would have to send well-equipped expeditions back to Earth to bring food back to the people.  Around ten pm, they called it quits for the night and agreed to meet again the next day to plan their excursions. 
The next morning, everyone woke up as usual, firmly planted on the Earth.  No one was ever sure whether it had been a dream. 

This week's theme

Now, to set a new record for most blog posts in a day, I'd like to announce my newest idea for my blog: themed weeks.  Each week in the next few (I'm not sure how long this will last), I will choose a topic and write something about it on each day of the week.  On Saturday, I will summarize my posts and come up with a new topic.  This week's theme: absurd situations.

Shoot.  I'm stuck.   Where am I?  Why is it so dark?  Why does the world seem to spin so much and so quickly?  It seems like my inner ear is going on a microscopic roller coaster ride without giving me (as agreed in Bodily Contract Section IV.A.2) two weeks of advance warning. 
I am surrounded by soft fabric.  At my feet I can feel something soft enough to be fleece.  My left arm is pressed against a cloth-like object.  All around me is a damp smell, like a mix of wet dog and cleaning solution.  The spinning is getting nauseating.  At last, at long, long, last, the world comes to a halt.  I still can't see anything, but at least my inner ears are no longer revolting.  Once I regain control of my rebellious stomach, I decide to determine my location by experiment.  I flail a leg.  It makes a muffled clanging noise as my shin suddenly sends a piercing message to me: "Ouch!  Don't do that!" Well, that wasn't very helpful.  In a slightly more controlled manner, I poke my other leg around.  It encounters a soft resistance. Moving on, I jab my right elbow backwards.  You'd think I'd learn.  My funny bone joins my shin in its painful chorus.  In addition to that is a hollow, metallic ringing which echoes painfully in the confined space.  Finally, I tentatively push outward with my left arm.  It meets a slight resistance, and then breaks through.  Light painfully floods into my eyes, and I fall out of the dryer onto the Laundromat floor.  

Any suggestions for absurd situations or week themes are quite welcome.  Either tell me in person or leave a comment on one of my posts.  

It was only a matter of time

Or Oops. 
Yeah, I knew this would happen eventually.  I knew that I would eventually forget to blog for a day.  So this is my response.  Sort of a make-up post. 
The funny thing is that as I collapsed into bed last night, it occurred to me that I hadn't blogged.  I made to drag myself back out of bed, then thought the better of it.  You have to pick your battles.  And for me, this just wasn't one of them. 
I've discovered that in the last year.  I'm a notorious perfectionist.  When I do a job, I don't just do it well, I strive for perfection.  Most people might say that's a good thing.  And in small amounts, it is.  But I get to the point where I can't give up on things.  Not wanting to give up is one thing.  Not being able to is completely different.  And knowing that I will not give up on something once started, I had a tendency of not starting many things that I probably would have enjoyed, but probably would not be able to finish.  This perfectionism paralysis held me in its grip for many years.  In the last year or two, though, I've begun to label things as 'good enough.'  This is a huge leap forward in coping with perfectionism, but it is hard to relinquish the goal of absolute perfection.  I still work far harder on many things than is expected of me, but I know when I need to stop, and I can.  And a little extra work is almost invariably appreciated, by me and by the people who assigned the work in the first place. 
Getting a grip on my perfectionism has allowed me to branch out and try things I'd never before considered.  I work hard on them, decide whether or not I like them, and, if I decide that I don't, know how to give up.  This is what I call choosing my battles.  I prioritize and do select things very well, knowing full well that this is at the expense of other tasks. 
And last night, blogging just wasn't at the top of my list. 

I'm glad for perfectionism, which pushes me to be my very best, but far more grateful for my growing ability to overcome it and choose my battles. 

Thank you

You will probably never read this.  I've heard of your legendary distaste for blogs.  "All angst and nonsense," you said.  I'm sorry that this form of communication has lost your trust.  I've tried to avoid such complaints and bitterness in my blog, but I'm afraid that this post may descend to that level. 
When I injured myself again, (Yes, again.  I've been on an injury streak since the late summer) I mentioned that I'd known for a while that I just needed to stop running for two weeks.  And then you said those revelatory words: "I thought you were smarter than that."  The funny thing is, I'd never thought of it that way before.  I knew it was bad to just push through an injury.  But, I thought, as long as it wasn't hurting, I could run without a problem.  I had a vague knowledge that it was probably weakening it in the long run, but I pushed that distasteful idea aside, and ran anyway.  I'd never considered it a foolish act.  Just a driven one.  I viewed it as a type of 'toughness' highly desirable in a good runner.
What a fool I've been.
So thank you for abruptly knocking some sense into me.  Clearly I needed it.  And as a painful as that revelation was, I think that it will pay off in the end.  I am taking two weeks off.  I'll find other things to do with my time.

I'm glad that I have friends who are willing to make those sometimes painful observations that I am sure will change me for the better.

On a happier note, I got a pair of incredibly cheap running shoes today on super-clearance.  They're Vibram FiveFingers, a novel new type of shoe that is specifically designed to not have extra padding. As such, it forces runners to run efficiently with minimal impact on the ground, decreasing damage to ligaments, tendons, and bones.
Note: I'm sorry if the above link seems like advertising.  I'm not advertising, just making sure that I give credit where credit is due.  Vibram has done a pretty good job.  I've spoken to runners who swear by the FiveFingers, even while running on coarse gravel.  They're a remarkable product. 
I'm currently in the process of breaking them in.  I suppose I can take my time, since I'm not going running for the next two weeks.  Anyhow, it's cold outside, and I have no desire to freeze a couple of toes off.

Oh, and I'm grateful for snow, too.

Ouch

It's funny and yet totally reasonable how much pain affects us.  From a evolutionary and anatomical standpoint, pain is a necessary evil.  It allows our bodies to tell us when something isn't working quite right, and therefore allows us to adjust our behavior accordingly.
Some people are born with a genetic disorder which prevents pain receptors from functioning properly.  In other words, they feel no pain.  These poor children have to go through all sorts of terrible experiences.  Because they cannot feel pain, small children have been known to pull their own eyes out, because the texture of the eyeball and its location make it an interesting toy for those just mastering the use of their hands. 
But enough gruesome stories.  The point is that pain is very much necessary for an ordinary life.  But some pain just seems pointless.  A stitch in my side while running does nothing but slow me down and make me breathe harder, which only makes the pain worse.  What's the point?  Probably it's my body telling me to slow down and rest.  But in all honesty, if I were in pursuit of prey or running from a predator, such pain serves absolutely no purpose.
I am also amazed by the ability of people to sympathize with others' pain. When a friend looks exhausted and bedraggled, I can't help but feel a bit of that, too.  Happiness rubs off, too, but with not nearly as much of an effect.  All I can do is hug my friend tight and hope she recovers soon.

I'm grateful to warm (relatively, at least) weather that allows me to play Ultimate by night.

Blogging

How to write a good blog post:

1. Come up with a topic
2. Write something about it
3. Read over what you wrote
4. Rewrite it and make sure it's organized
5. Return to step 3
   

 How to write one of my blog posts:

1. Come up with a topic or steal one from somewhere else
2. Write whatever comes to mind until you run out of time, get bored, or run out of ideas
3. Post

Hmm...anyone else see a problem here?  I just don't feel like I have enough time to do any of the ideas I write on justice.  My organizational skills feel quite lacking, and I don't much like some of the posts I've churned out recently.  One of the problems with blogging is that I hold myself to much higher standards than when I'm only writing for myself.  When I'm writing in my journal, I have no qualms about illegibility, incomprehensibility, or brevity.  Here, though, I feel obliged to write a fairly substantial amount of organized, comprehensible text (no, it doesn't look like much to you writers out there, but it's a heck of a lot of writing for me) on an intriguing topic, keeping everything vague enough so as not to be identifiable.  Well, shoot.  If anyone knows of a way to add more hours to the day while still getting a decent amount of sleep, you should tell me how to do it, and then go get some sort of Nobel Prize for pure awesomeness and practicality.  Thanks in advance!

I'm grateful for the ability to write, and the clarity that I sometimes arrive at thanks to writing. 
(Yeah, I know, it's no longer November, and that 'I'm grateful' thing was supposed to end yesterday, but in my opinion, it never hurts to have something to be upbeat about, especially after such a down-hearted blog post as this one)