If you were to look in our kitchen windows right now (which would actually be kind of creepy), you’d see two middle-aged bears dancing to Taylor Dayne’s “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” from 1993.
The Jump.
About 20 years ago I worked for an organization that is now called “The Arc.” Back then it was still called The Association for Retarded Citizens, a name that I didn’t really care for because the word “retarded” has such negative connotations to it. In fact, I have to hold back on hostile retaliatory impulses when I hear someone use the word “retarded”. It’s such an awful word.
Back to my point.
While working at The Arc, my last position with the organization was “Community Residence Coordinator.” Basically, I was responsible for the staff, facilities and physical plant for a cluster of group homes. My co-supervisor, a wonderful woman by the name of Tammy, was responsible for the mental and physical well-being of the residents (whom I still refer to as “the folks”). She was much like a case-worker. Tammy helped the folks formulate reasonable goals for achievement and made sure that they were comfortable in the home that I supervised.
Tammy was very outgoing. We could sit in our shared office space and chat for hours. Both of us had risen through the ranks, having both been Residence Managers (we managed one residence for one 35 hour shift per week) before the supervisory we held together. I enjoyed talking with Tammy because she was so well-spoken. She could conduct case review meetings with ease; I always stammered and stuttered when speaking in front of the staff during weekly staff meetings. It wasn’t a lack of confidence, it was a lack of comfort on my behalf. I just don’t like interacting with other people.
I wanted to be more outgoing and be more like other people: at ease in social situations, part of the crowd, banging empty shot glasses down on the bar when everyone was half-cocked during a night on the town. But the truth of the matter is, I’m not really wired that way. I like being part of a big group gathering when I can watch from the outside. I’m not afraid. I’m not shy. I just don’t like being in that type of space. I can do it, but it’s not what I like the most. It’s kind of like the bar scenario; I liked being in a bar best when I was alone or with Earl in the DJ booth, contributing to the party with my DJing skills from my own little corner.
I don’t know if Tammy was a partier or not. I suspect she may have been. We did talk about skydiving once and she went ahead and did it. She jumped from a hot-air balloon and had a hell of a time. There was a part of me that wanted to do that. Not for the thrill of doing it or the rush of wind blowing by my face or the sense of flying through the air. I wanted to skydive so that I could prove to the world that I could do it. Even though I really wanted to be just reading a book or in my “alone space”, I would show everyone that I was just as capable as they were at doing wild, adventurous, outgoing things. People always loved the outgoing people. I wanted to be loved in that way. That’s one of the reasons I was a radio DJ for a while. It would make me seem outgoing. It would make me seem to be part of the world. I didn’t care about being known. Truth of the matter is that I would have been just as content doing the behind the scenes work for the station.
I did end up bungee jumping at the county fair. That was my way of proving that I could come out of my corner and seek out adrenaline rushes and be outgoing and be spontaneous and do crazy things. When I finally got my self settled on the ground after that bungee jump, I felt the sense of accomplishment that I thought I would because I had proven to the world (and in fact, on the radio) that I had done just that. I didn’t feel fulfilled from the rush of adrenaline, I felt that I had completed what was expected of me. I had done something outgoing.
Most gay men surround themselves with lots of people. They have friends, they have lovers, they have friends with benefits. All of that is well and good, for them. I’m wired differently. I like my smaller circles. I would rather have a couple of very trusted friends over a whole gaggle of people that are doing their thing in their world together. Try as I might, that just doesn’t fit. I have a husband that gets me most of the time, though I probably frustrate the hell out of him some of the time. My first reaction to a group gathering seems to be negative. I need to stop that knee jerk reaction, that’s a fault of mine. I just need a few minutes to process a situation before jumping into it. I’m going to work on that for my next revolutionary ride around the sun.
Now I’m going to go sit in the corner and read a good book (well, an iPad version of a book) for the rest of my lunch hour. It’s a great way to recharge.
Organization.
So the geek in me has been doing some cleaning up of my computing habits over the past couple of days and I suddenly remembered that I had a Flickr account. Ok, I admit that I hadn’t completely forgotten that I had a Flickr account but I hadn’t used it in a while. I got bored with taking a photo of myself everyday and posting it, because while in many ways I am quite vain, I don’t think of myself as the photogenic, so maybe I’ll find another way to do a photo-a-day thing, maybe starting with my birthday or something.
So I posed the question Twitter as to whether folks still used Flickr or not and the response was a definite yes. One of the issues that I have with using Flickr is that they haven’t released an official iPad app. I tend to post photos on Instagram these days, and while I have the option to send my photos to Flickr in the process, I don’t like my Flickr photos to be cropped in the same manner as my Instagram photos are. I guess I’m just strange like that.
Now that I think about it, I have photos shoved all over the place on the internet in an attempt to reach people that I think would be interested in seeing my photos. There’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, this blog and Flickr. I also have photos on Google+, Tumblr and there’d probably be some still on TextAmerica if that service was still around. TextAmerica was a service that you sent your photos too from your flip phone – back in 2003 or so.
I guess the issue is that I don’t have one place I can put all the photos I want to share and have them be seen by all the people that might have an interest in them. Some people are on Facebook, others wouldn’t be caught dead on Facebook. Some are on Instagram, others find that too elite. A few folks are on Google+ but lately everyone over there hates anything or anyone that has any sort of interest in Apple products and quite frankly, as much as I say I’m going to switch to Linux full-time someday, I really don’t have the energy, stamina or lack of social engagements on my calendar to devote the time required to get a Linux workstation working to my liking.
Getting back to Flickr, I think the lack of an iPad app is what has impeded me from posting photos to that service. Maybe I should get to know iPhoto on the iPad so that I can easily get photos to where I want them to go.
My gods this is definitely a first world problem.
As a breath of fresh air, here is a photo I took the other night from our back lawn. It’s being stored on Flickr.
If anyone has a suggestion as to what service I can use to get all of my photos to all of the places I want them to go, drop me a line in the comments section of this entry. As others can attest, I enjoy replying to each and every comment left here.
Funky Live.
Completely live, here’s Leo Sayer with “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” from 1976. I remember listening to this song from the back seat of the ’71 Heavy Chevy.
And he did it without the ridiculous “in-ears” that folks on stage use these days. Yay for monitor speakers.
Weather.
The official National Weather Service forecast has announced a high of 84F today with 0% chance of precipitation.
Weather.com has announced a high of 83F today with 0% chance of precipitation.
The weather app on Microsoft’s Bing, after it’s three crashes to a blank screen, announced a high of 84F today with 0% chance of precipitation.
It’s raining.
Feet.
One of the more frustrating things about working at the office is that I have to wear pants. Now before you jump to any conclusions about my attire when I’m working at home, I have to tell you that I have always been a “shorts” kind of guy. I like wearing shorts, especially during these hot summer months, but I have been known to wear shorts during the winter as well. Shorts and a sweatshirt works well for me.
If I can’t wear shorts for whatever reason, I need to be barefooted. I drive back and forth to the office barefooted. I have heard that this is illegal in New York State (driving barefooted) but I don’t really know how the officer sitting in the median on the interstate, talking on his cell phone, is able to tell whether I am wearing shoes or not when I’m driving. So I break this supposed law and drive barefoot. It’s quite comfortable.
This is ironic, I suppose, because I tend to wear my jump boots when I’m wearing shorts. And wearing jump boots does not lend itself to being barefooted. But I like the way boots feel (not a sneakers guy at all). At work, where I need to wear pants, I wear my engineer boots. I love my jump boots and the thought of needing to replace them makes me a little sad.
My engineer boots are off right now, as I am sitting in the Jeep in the coveted shady spot while typing this. My feet are enjoying a sigh of relief.
When I first started working from home, I started out needing to wear shoes to feel focused. This necessity isn’t holding water anymore, because last week I worked at home whilst barefooted and I got a lot done. I do wear a shirt and shorts, though. I can’t imagine talking on a conference call while in my birthday suit. Not even on my birthday.
One of the things I absolutely love about my occasionally boot-cladded, sometimes barefooted feet is when I have the opportunity to enjoy a reflexology session by a skilled person good with feet. I had this a GREAT foot massage about a year ago in a mall outside of Denver. I think I might need to seek this out again (though getting to Denver might be pricey). I’m really big on massage. I wonder why I never looked into becoming a massage therapist. I know I enjoy getting massaged and I actually enjoy rubbing people (and seeing/feeling their energy as I am doing it).
It’s all about the energy. And that’s why I like being barefooted, so I am more grounded and closer to the energy of Mother Earth. When I am barefooted I tend to feel more free.
And then I ramble more.
Dreaming.
So this has been the first weekend of my new on-call routine as dictated by my realigned position at work. I still have the habit of comparing on-call experiences to what used to constitute my on-call routine with my old job (over two years ago). Whenever I hear a Motorola pager ring I still go into something that resembles a seizure before I throw the closest, heaviest object at a wall. Fortunately, not many people carry pagers these days. If they do, they’re probably on-call for the company I used to work at.
Not knowing how busy on-call would be, Earl and I kept it close to The Manor this weekend. Yesterday evening we ventured out to the nearby “beach” town of Sylvan Beach. This little village is situated on the eastern end of Oneida Lake. Oneida Lake is the largest inland lake within New York State and is kind of an orphan in that it’s not one of the Finger Lakes. When watching the sunset from Sylvan Beach it looks like a skinny ocean view, as the lake does reach out to the horizon.
We stopped at Eddie’s for dinner. This is your typical family restaurant affair and if memory serves correctly, a place my grandparents would go from time to time. Last night’s special was chicken and biscuits.
It was delicious.
Afterwards, Earl and I walked around the amusement area, played some skee ball and then walked up near the water.
I didn’t catch the scores in the photo. On the left I had reached 250, on the right, Earl had reached 190.
I liked the way this tree looked against the lake with the sun in the background.
The backside of the amusement park. Earl stops to take an Instagram photo.
Here’s a photo of a happy couple.
While we were in Sylvan Beach, we stopped at one of the store fronts that showed various real estate listings. We found a beautiful log cabin on 6 1/2 acres in the middle of the woods. It was a five bedroom cabin and looked relatively new. We found the place and took a gander. It’s a steal. We dreamed about it a bit and spent the rest of our ride talking about the logistics. It’s not close to anything that we need to be close to (as far as location goes) but it would be a nice getaway location.
It’s always good to dream.
Friday Dance Party.
This song always makes me dance. Here’s Kylie Minogue with “Get Outta My Way” from 2010.
