2000-07-14 - 23:39:30

Currently playing on the internal soundtrack: "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys", by Traffic. I followed a link to a journal called "No [Ideas?], No Spark", and look what happened.

My ears are ringing too, in several different pitches. I think they do this constantly. Tinnitus. Apparently lots of folks with hearing loss have tinnitus. I've known people who had this who needed to listen to white noise in order to study or fall asleep (rushing water, ocean waves, falling rain). I usually don't notice the ringing.

Speaking of white noise, my mom bought my brother these little machines (one for his apartment, one for his guest room at her house) that play white noise. She got the idea because he leaves the computer on all night for the fan noise. His machines have are four or five different kinds of noise. It also plays a heartbeat. My brother hates this. Intimations of mortality, or something like that. If you want to freak him out real good, sneak into his room and press the heartbeat button.

WHAT I DID TODAY

So. I spent all day today working at home, waiting for the plumber. We've got water leaking out from behind the electric outlet in the powder room. It's a little disturbing. The plumber was supposed to show up between 10 and 12, and of course he never showed up at all, despite repeated calls to his beeper. This is the second time this has happened -- last time it was with the Corian people. I would be irritated, except that I practically expected this.

I was going to go to the Friday night skate tonight, but it thunderstormed. Crap.

Poindexter has invited Tommy over. He and Tommy sit around making fun of each other all day, from what I've heard. I don't think he's going to show up, because Poindexter offers the invitation like "if you have nothing better to do, come over." I like Tommy a lot and want to find him a nice girlfriend (since he wants one), but I have no girl friends.

IS IT EVELYNNE OR EVAN?

I haven't figured out why that is. That I have no girl friends, I mean, other than my mom, cousin S, and "cousin" A. I don't seem to click with girls anymore. I think I spent too much time with Sam and his male friends in college, and now I spend all my time with Poindexter. I've forgotten how to relate to females, and think more like a guy. I really need to work on this. I even tend to find myself at a loss for words around girls, can't figure out what to talk to them about, which makes no sense.

Poindexter has maintained for some time that I'm really a guy. Last night he scornfully told me that "You're a GIRL" when I didn't express enough excitement over the prospect of the "best car chase ever made" in "Bullitt". Well, then I saw the scene. LOL! That's a hell of a car chase, isn't it? I wish I could've seen it in the theatres. All those dizzying shots going downhill with the bay off in the distance. It was just too cool. It *is* the best car chase scene ever, and it was the first one, so all the ones I've seen in other movies must have bored me because they were derivative.

A LITTLE PHILOSOPHY

I spent some time reading recently-updated diaries here on Diaryland. I am most amused by the teenagers who think they are Serious and Deep because they're cynical beyond belief. I wonder, will they maintain that cynicism as they get older, or will they come around to a more balanced view of the world?

My personal philosophy is that life is what you make of it. While luck comes into play to a certain extent (and I feel that I've had quite a bit of good luck) I think a lot of people are unhappy because they focus too much on the negative and focus all their happiness on one or two things they haven't attained yet.

[Disclaimer: I am not talking about people who are clinically depressed. And I'm not talking about getting irritated with things and complaining. Everybody does that. I'm talking about people who are ignoring the good things in their lives and only looking at the not-so-good, which is usually changeable but they're not working to change it, which is another discussion entirely so I'll stop here before I digress further.]

Supposedly this kind of thinking (optimism or pessimism) is hard-wired into your brain. I'll buy that, but I also think it's not set in stone. I think you may have a tendency to be one or the other, but you can also choose to change how you think. For example, I have a tendency to be quite the anxiety-ridden hypochondriac, but through several little mind tricks I invented for myself, plus exercise and knowing that I need a routine, I've managed to keep both the anxiety and the hypochondriasis away for the most part.

I believe that, if you're aware of it and work at it, you can choose to think more positively about anything. For instance, I am hard of hearing. I can hear some, but not well enough to talk on the telephone, follow group conversations, listen to talk radio, or talk to people in bars and restaurants. I could have decided that being "handicapped" sucks and it's too hard to make friends and everything is just too damn hard.

Instead, I talk to people everywhere I go. Every time I do this, as soon as I misunderstand something (which *always* happens) I have to explain: "Can you repeat that? I have trouble hearing." I thank my lucky stars that I can use the internet instead of the telephone. Poindexter tells me what's on Howard. And I have people over to the house instead of socializing in bars. And I'm glad that I've got a built-in bullshit detector, because anyone who isn't patient enough to deal with my hearing isn't worth my time anyway.

Aside from this kind of look-on-the-positive-side approach, I am also a big believer in cherishing the little things in life. Just about everything there is about living is wonderful, if you stop and think about it. One woman found enough of these things to write a book, "14,000 Things To Be Happy About".

Once, when a friend of mine was going through a difficult time, I would try desperately to cheer him up. One thing that he did enjoy was ending our letters with our own personal things to be happy about. In that spirit, I'll end this entry (and probably subsequent ones) with my own.

Here are some things that made me happy today, despite the missing plumber and missed skate and the fact that it's 10:20 and Timmy hasn't showed up (obviously he doesn't love me at all):

Sleeping in an extra half hour

Having a freshly-swept kitchen floor

High temperatures for the day below average for a DC summer

Hearing "Linus and Lucy" on a commercial

Poindexter arriving home and looking thrilled to see me

A friendly toddler grinning a one-tooth grin at me

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