Tuesday random stuff

The other night, I was ALMOST asleep, when I heard what sounded like a beep followed by a woman's voice speaking. I was immediately fully awake - the beep was not unlike the "chime" that my parents have set to indicate a door is open (they have a security system). Which briefly freaked me out - "Is someone breaking in?" Of course, I was in MY house, not theirs. So then I wondered if a radio had somehow turned itself on. I had just decided I imagined it (I occasionally get what I think is kind of like hypnagogic hallucinations) and was going to go back to sleep when it happened again.

So I went out in the hall to see. It was my smoke detector - it chirped, and the recorded voice said "battery low." I just looked at it like, "Seriously? Seriously? At 10:30 pm on a Sunday night, you suddenly decide that?"

But I did change the batteries.

****

I never mentioned that my book of Grieg pieces came. So far the only one I've tried with any effort is "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen."

And you know what?

My Inner Cheerleader was (at least partly) right - I can play through the first page of it (all the farther I've tried so far). Slowly, haltingly, with a few mistakes (there's an accidental G-sharp I frequently miss - and heck, it's my OWN book so I should just write it in). But it's very satisfying to be able to play even the first page - it's quite complex, lots of "multifinger chords" (where you're playing 3 or 4 notes with the same hand), the sort of thing even not very long ago I would have been intimidated by.

It's very gratifying to improve at something like this. I'm still FAR from perfect - I really don't know where I would be considered in terms of skill, "intermediate" maybe, possibly "advanced intermediate." But for all the times I tried something and couldn't do it and feared that that was IT, that I had reached my absolute limit of being able to play (ever) and that I'd never be able to do anything more complex than what I was doing at the moment...I need to remind myself that not being able to do it NOW doesn't mean I will NEVER be able to do it. (A colleague once told me, in light of some frustration I was having with "not being able to do" something: "It seems to me that so much educationally has come so easily for you in your life, that you're not used to struggling." And he's right.)

***

It's hard to be too grumpy about Valentine's Day when you get cards from Ravelry friends, and e-cards from other people, and when one of your colleagues runs by on her way to class and throws a handful of Hershey's kisses at you.

But I admit, deep down...and this is something I need to learn to be Zen about and let go....there's still a part of me (the 14 year old, or early-20s year old, I don't know) part that still kind of hopes, still kind of believes, that by the end of the day she will get a declaration of love from someone who says they've long had feelings for her but was never brave to express them.

(Never mind my earlier comment some months back that 14-year-old me would probably run away, all freaked out, if that happened).

Of course, it's also remotely possible that there could be someone, but he could be holding back, for the same reason I tend to hold back on things like that: simple fear of rejection*.

Yeah, I was reminded of that again last night at CWF...the long-term study topic is facing fears, and last night was "fear of rejection."

The thing is, I think it's a really hard fear to overcome. I think especially when you've had some of the bad peer experiences in the past that I did - being laughed at by guys I confessed puppy love to, being rebuffed and then mocked by girls I tried to be friends with. Oh, I know: their reaction tells them more about them than it does about me, and you could also claim that not wanting to hang out with me is their loss (on a good day I'd agree with you; on a bad day I'd probably snort and go, "yeah, right"). But still, it sets up mental patterns that are really hard to defeat (especially when your tendency is extreme-introvert in the first place).

It's not like overcoming a fear of deep water, where a sympathetic swimming teacher who can take time to work with you and show you that you DO float, and you can swim back to the shallow end from the deep end can go a long way towards fixing things.

(*Though I think "remote possibility" is EXTREMELY remote. I don't even know that many unattached men, and at least one of the ones I know, I have a suspicion that he's gay.)

Well, at any rate, Drunk Hulk tweeted that "YOU ALL DRUNK HULK VALENTINE!" so I guess there's THAT.

***
The flake-out thing worked out okay. Another person stepped up to help and then said they were really sorry about the other person flaking out. I shrugged and said, "At least it got done; that's what's important." Because what else can you do? I can't even really be angry at the person who had the thing come up, though I will admit I don't appreciate their not having told me right away.

I suppose part of it is that that kind of thing - someone volunteering to do something and then something else coming up/them finding something "better" to do has happened to me enough that it doesn't really get to me so much any more. Not sure whether to be happy or sad about that fact. (Happy that I'm acclimated and don't go all ragey when it happens, or sad in that I seem to deal with a lot of people who don't keep responsibilities.)

***

It's still kind of cold in my office. And this is how sick society makes us: I was actually wondering if maybe I'd burn a few more calories sitting here in the cold than I do in a better-heated office.

Because yeah, burning five extra calories today is going to extend my life SO MUCH MORE.