The Life Experience ~ Spring '09

[bloodyrosemccoy]

What I Learned Since The Spring Equinox

• My sister thinks my lack of desire for a mate is weird.
• “Anhedonia” is the medical term for an inability to feel joy.
• Wasps are the god damn SUPERVILLAINS of nature. Now, I knew that some wasps were disgusting monstrous horror-movie-inspirations from the very depths of your worst nightmares, but I didn’t realize the sheer variety of horrifying parasitic atrocities they’d commit against trees, grass, spiders, butterflies, and beetles.*
• Wyoming and Colorado state laws require you to move to the left lane when you see someone on the shoulder.
• While Star Trek TOS is almost entirely made up of homoerotic moments, the winner of all the episodes I’ve seen was “Mirror, Mirror.”
• Octavia Butler is even more rocking than I was led to believe. Took me way too long to find one of her books.
• Mark Hamill can do three different crazy laughs.
• Bill O’Reilly writes kids’ books. I didn’t need to know that.
• When stroked, alligators can be sedated. They also make a hilarious warnk sound before they do.
• Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome perfectly describes my bedtime habits, and is in fact very, very difficult to treat. Take that, people who think I’m just not trying!
• It’s almost nice to find out you have a “disorder,” because at least you know you’re not a one-of-a-kind freak.
• In the world of my aunt, dark wizards and lawyers are apparently always hovering around little old ladies just waiting for them to have heart attacks. That’s why it’s imperative that it be kept secret from everyone, including, preferably, most of the little old lady’s children.
• Your hips have to be forward for front stance in tae kwon do. I’ve been doing it wrong for years.
• Even one stellar job interview doesn’t guarantee you the job.
• There’s a really nice section of Salt Lake City off on the other side of Downtown that I never knew existed—and which I should keep in mind for whenever I want to actually move out.
• I am not the only person in the world who thinks Strunk & White were full of shit! Yay!
• Bad movies based on good books touch a serious nerve in people.
• Uhura’s first name is Nyota.
• Arc flash is an ionization of the air around an electrical system with sufficient voltage and no grounding. It’s an impressive and unfortunate cause of death among electricians.
• Wire-wrap jewelry is pretty straightforward in its basics, but mastering it is less easy.
• There is such a thing as an antidepressant that works without making me fall down
• The life of a Mormon missionary is even more regimented and awful that I could have imagined. You’re never even supposed to be out of sight of your partner. I realize this is probably in order to keep missionaries out of mischief, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.

*I am of the strict mammalian opinion that being eaten from the outside in is fair, and the proper sequence of events is 1. Kill, 2. then eat. If that happens to me I’m bummed but figure, well, fair play. But eating alive, and/or from the inside out, is definitely a foul.

Comments

[neintales.livejournal.com]

Many people find lack of desire for a mate to be weird. I get funny looks about that myself, along with lectures of how I can't expect Mr. or Ms. Right to just 'fall into my lap' and how I need to go out and LOOK. Fortunately not from my mother, or my closer friends, but it is eye-rollingly popular for more distant relatives and well-meaning acquaintances to go for such discussions.

Also, yes, wire wrapping has been the bane of my jewelry making existence. I snap wire and waste wire sooo damn much trying to twist it, and my results are always horribly messy. Which of course means I need more practice, but practicing frustrates me terribly and burns through my equipment money so much that it's a complete and utter BLEH.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Bizarre, isn't it? And they don't seem to understand that I find their desire to find someone equally weird--the difference is, I don't lecture people on how sad it is that they prefer something different. I should point out that my sister is cool about it even if she doesn't understand it, but a lot of people seem to be offended that I don't burningly desire a significant other. Or people regard me with pity that I'll be all alone because that is, apparently, Teh Sad.

Have you ever been accused of just claiming sour grapes?

[neintales.livejournal.com]

Hm. I can't really remember being accused of claiming sour grapes as such...

And ditto on the wanting someone equally weird... also my big thing is I want someone who is less high maintenance than me/more stable in ways I'm not. So I tend to crush maybe on someone, and then I get to know them, and realize that things will Not Be Good because they need ME to be stronger than I can be, and I'd need them to be stronger than they can be... objects of crushes always seem to wind up either seriously OCD or depressive themselves, and I back up fast, and also lose the crush...so far since my big burn in middle-schoolish things have never gotten serious.

..well, or I crush on straight girls or gay guys. Sometimes they're pretty stable, but... heh... yeeah. Doesn't work out either ;)

Someone I talked to about it once said they suspect that I'm sabotaging myself a little by always making sure to only be attracted to people I either have no chance of getting (animated characters, Lucy Liu) or that I know I'll have a GOOD reason to avoid (OCD friends, psychopaths)... but no real idea, and so far no real worries about it either.

[shadesofmauve]

But...but if you don't *want* someone that way, then you're not missing them. That's...kind of how it works. It's as absurd as being worried that you'll crave a food you dislike.

The only explanation is they're projecting. High fidelity, intense projection. In technicolor.

(btw, not in your shoes with regard to partners, but have certainly encountered the same thing in terms of other life choices, ie, kids).

[sofish-sasha.livejournal.com]

Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome? Is that when your own sleeping habits don't match the whole day/night thing? In that case I have it too. When left to my own devices I tend to wake/get up around one in the afternoon, and fall asleep around, say, 3 or 4 in the morning (after lying in bed for hours).
At least in the summer. In the (long, dark) winter I just want to sleep as much as possible.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That's the one. And no matter how often you try to fix your schedule, one day off and you're back going to bed at 4 a.m.?

I used to tell people I get the right amount of sleep, just at all the wrong hours. Turns out that's part of the description.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

And here I thought my body was just on a circadian clock other than Earth's. I actually still maintain that my ideal day is 27 hours long.

[stormteller.livejournal.com]

DSPS seems to me like one of those conditions that, like ADD, is far more pervasive than the psychologists think and so vaguely defined that there's no real point in trying to diagnose it in people. All I know is that, left to my own devices, I naturally try to sleep at around 5 AM and wake at 12:30 or so. If forced to disregard this schedule, I need another hour or more of sleep just to keep up.

As for the asexuality, I assumed that was the case with myself for a long time before realizing I have a desire for a specific mate, who I've never met or seen, which is quite frustrating. But so long as I'm not thinking of Her I have no real attraction to other people. Nowadays I call myself a monosexual.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The biggest problem with "conditions," in my view, is that we always think of them as something negative. There's no really good word to describe one without making it sound like, well, a disorder. Trying to describe synesthesia in neutral terms as "it's a condition" is kinda pointless.

I do, however, like having a name put to something that I've always thought just meant I had failed at some basic aspect of life, like sleeping. Knowing that it's been recognized as something that happens to people is something of a relief.

Synesthesia

[shadesofmauve]

I think you should tell people it's a Special Ability. Or super power. I always thought it'd be all kind of awesome to be a synesthete.

Or is it synesthesiac? The first way sound less negative.

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

Tentacle babies!


...er, sorry. That is the main thought I have associated with the Xenogenesis trilogy. (Also the people who decided I was an Ooloi and busy gathering genetic samples from everyone while giving them shoulder rubs.)

[kadharonon.livejournal.com]

I rather liked the idea as well, though I think I was sort of in the minority... I actually read it in a class, and since about 3/4 of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Society was in it, we'd have discussions about it at the dinner table. Granted, I'm a little squicked by the tentacles, or I would be, I expect, and I am not sure how I would deal with eventually being squicked out by touching my non-ooloi partners, as I am a ridiculously tactile person... But the idea is tempting nonetheless.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I've got it under the title Lilith's Brood, which isn't half as cool, but it's the same story so bleah. I'm on the last book now.

My only problem with the Oankali was the coercion and force--their alien point of view clashed with my view on human rights. Which was, of course, part of the point. But if aliens had offered it to whoever wanted some tentacle babies, I'd be all over the offer. Which interests me, because I'd be curious to see why the Oankali didn't find any geeks among the humans who were like, "Are you ALIENS? FUCK YEAH! WHERE DO I SIGN UP?"

[vorindi]

But would such a reaction have met their qualifications for sanity and stability, or whatever it was they were looking for?

[stagemanager.livejournal.com]

I am finding I am much more prone to reading entries if they consist solely of bulleted lists.

I don't have a lack of desire for a mate; I have just finally resigned myself to the apparent fact that I will never find one. Somehow, I'm becoming okay with that.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I'm in the process of becoming OK with that. Or at least trying to.

[stagemanager.livejournal.com]

Dude. You were born, like, 10 days after I graduated high school. But I think I could be okay with that. ;)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I get like that with bullets, too.

I figure life is whatever you're okay with. But then I always thought "love the one you're with" was advice on being able to live with yourself, so maybe my sister's right. ;)

[westrider.livejournal.com]

DSPS sounds pretty much like me, too, with a pretty major delay. I do best falling asleep right around sunrise, and sleeping through most of the day.

Your first point actually just triggered a realization for me: I don't want a mate, I want a partner. I'm to sleepy to verbalize the exact difference there, but it makes sense inside my head.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Actually, I am so with you on the partner thing. I would be fine going through life with someone around, but I think the thing is it's not a big concern for me. And I'd prefer a comfortable friendship to real romance.

Not sure if that's what you meant, but it's a distinction for me.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't complain about having a romantic element, but what I really want is someone who keeps pushing me to do my best and supporting me in that, and for whom I do the same.

There are a couple of Characters in The Legacy of Gird*, by Elizabeth Moon (I think they come in during the second book, Liar's Oath, but they might show up at the end of Surrender None), who pretty much perfectly show what I'm talking about in the purely platonic case. Sandtiger and Del from Jennifer Roberson's Sword Dancer series exemplify what I'd be looking for in a romance pretty much.

That said, I've gotten pretty used to being alone, and am most of the time more or less OK with the fact I'm going to be alone for the foreseeable future. I don't particularly like doing things that involve leaving my apartment, rather dislike meeting new people, and am entirely mystified by how people become more than friends.

* Not Elizabeth Moon's best, by a long shot, but still a very good couple of books. If you haven't read her stuff, you should check some of it out. She's one of my favorite authors right now.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

"Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome"

Holy crap, I have this!! My medication makes it worse, too.

And I believe "Anhedonia" refers to the lack of feeling any emotions, really. It's the technical term for that sort of blah numbness that characterizes major depression.

"Octavia Butler is even more rocking than I was led to believe" YES.

[evilcresyluna.livejournal.com]

Oh darn, not quite my weirdness. While I do tend towards falling asleep at 3-4am and waking up early afternoon, I will continue to cycle through, going from that to sleeping at 8am-4pm, and so on. I once overslept when I didn't start my shift until 6pm. Today, I've been on vacation, so we went to bed 4amish, woke up at 1pm and I still took a nap around 6pm. Right now my work is so wacky and random with hours that it is pretty much impossible to definitely work on regular sleep/wake hours. Sometimes I go to work at 7am, or 3pm, or 3am, and sometimes I get out at 4pm, midnight, 3am... I usually don't do a full night shift but that doesn't mean I never do so.
Re: anhedonia - we usually use it in not just inability to experience joy, like "oh wow what a beautiful new baby! and a sunrise! and world peace!" kind of joy, but like enjoyment in anything. Everything is a gray dull unhappiness.

[marsdejahthoris.livejournal.com]

Huh, interesting. *found this entry a bit late, but felt the need to comment.*

*I'm asexual, and yes, people think it's very weird. My mother, on the other hand, thinks it explains a HELL of a lot, and has no problem with it, especially as it drops my chances of unwanted pregnancy through the floor. :) My mom is awesome.

*Mark Hamill kicks ass and takes names.

*I've discovered that my sleep cycle seems to drift anywhere from 3 AM to 11 to 5 AM to noon. ... I cannot seem to sleep past noon, whatever I do. But I can't go to BED before 3. ... And everybody else in my family goes to bed no later than midnight and is up by 8.