mental floss

the plan friday after work was to head to the west alabama ice house for a bit, then to brasil to check out the local band sk-1 project, then to head to superhappyfunland to check out atarimatt (from bryan/college station) and drums and tuba (from california).
what ended up happening was i called brad and he was moving into his new apartment, so instead of going to the ice house i went to his apartment. i hung out there for a couple of hours and then headed over to brasil. by the time sk-1 project started, it was already after the time i was planning to leave to see atarimatt, so i just stayed at brasil. sk-1 project is a few folk playing mostly electronic equipment, including a speak and spell, mini-moog, some circuit-bent stuff, keyboards, samplers, etc. it’s fairly mellow electronic stuff generally, some ambient but mostly beat-oriented. i met chris and mary there, then brad and kelli showed up later, as did another coworker and an ex-coworker. jamie was there as well, but was sitting with the sugarhill gang the first half of the evening, looking pretty dazed. (i later learned she’d bent/scraped up her car on 59.) i talked with dan workman, who is in sk-1 project, and he seemed like a pretty cool guy. he had recently gotten “agape” in greek tattooed on his left forearm. he goes to ecclesia. we talked some about being a christian and our concepts of what a church should be, etc. like i said, he seemed pretty cool. i talked a bit with the main sk-1 project guy because he’s into circuit bending, but it was a pretty short conversation during their break and we never continued it.
saturday i bought the directors label “work of director” box set. it’s a collection of the earlier work of spike jonze, chris cunningham, and michel gondry. they all did some pretty innovate stuff in music and short-form videos before they moved on to other things. it includes a dvd and short book for each guy, a fourth dvd of more recent work and other extras, and a poster.
today i went over to the potts for calista’s second birthday party. a number of people i’ve known over the years showed up, and i had a good time talking with them.
afterward, i headed over to church to see jackson get a bible as a sort of “graduation” gift for going into older classes (i think). i ran late though, so i figured i missed it. but jack and sue had run late too, so we all missed it.
while we were wandering around skipping classes and church, i basically followed jack and sue. they ended up walking down the hallway on the second floor where we all met with tamara to negotiate money in our divorce. (after which she completely ignored it — and me — and took advantage of me in the legal system.) that whole experience at the church with tamara was rather traumatic for me. (i used to have a blog entry about it, but my server crashed in sept 2004 and i lost a lot of entries i made during the earlier months of me dealing with tamara’s infidelity and her subsequent loss of any sense of fairness or honor toward me or the situation.) well, even though that event took place about two years ago, today i seriously think i almost had a panic attack. i got really nervous and my heartbeat was probably up. it was classic “fight or flight” symptoms, and i almost turned back to go down the stairs instead of walking by the room. i actually kept my field of vision mostly turned away so i wouldn’t see the wall or hallway or door to the room. but i managed to make it by without too much of an incident. if you call what did happen “not much of an incident.” i felt kind of stupid for it still having that amount of effect on me. maybe that was just a fluke and it wouldn’t happen every time. i may have even walked by it once or twice before and done okay with it, i don’t remember.
as long as i’m talking about my mental/personality issues, let me mention something i’ve had for years and years. i’m mostly a loner and i will generally sort of go off by myself in public places, but i enjoy talking with people so i usually like it when they come over to talk with me. the odd thing is that usually at some later point in the event i’ll end up feeling like i’m not interesting or people don’t really want to talk to me or while talking to me they were wishing they could move on. and/or when things are over and i’m walking away i’ll feel like a social failure. even if i had some really good conversations and people seemed to enjoy interacting with me. and even if i can rationalize reasons that wouldn’t be the case, it’s pretty easy for me to just as easily see reasons that would be the case, and i tend to focus on the latter. i’m not sure why that is, but i’ve had that sort of pattern since at least junior high probably. it’s some kind of thing where i want people to like me, but i’m almost always convinced they really don’t. by that i don’t mean they dislike me (or maybe they do) or even hate me — more like at the best they just think of me as an okay guy, but mostly they just don’t think of me at all. i honestly pretty much believe this to be the case. basically i manage to find some reason to think i failed, whether it was because i talked too little or i talked too much, or i’m boring, or i’m offensive, or i’m not cool, or whatever. these feelings tend to be at their strongest right after something happens, so when i’m not busy self-analyzing things seem to be better or at least not as big of a deal. my self-esteem seems more stable and stronger when it’s not being put out in public for reaction or response.
and yes, this attribute could very well help explain why i’ve not dated much over the years. very astute observation! of course, you might want to throw some of my perfectionist tendencies and fear of failure into the mix too. …or maybe this trait is just an outcropping of those tendencies. looks like you’ve got some more psychoanalysis left.