I came across a listing of my activity schedule from early 2004. I am pretty sure I actually did all of these things. I know some of them I just stuck my head in, others I put the whole thing together and ran (A’Labyrinthing).

2/28 Sat – Gaskells Ball
3/2 Tue – Oracles from the living tarot
3/6 Sat – A’Labyrinthing
3/7 Sun – Ridhwan meeting
3/12 Fri – Labyrinth at Grace Catherdral
3/14 Sun – Superman Day (watching all forms of Superman videos)
3/19 Fri – East Bay Friday night waltz
3/21 Sun – High Tea Birthday Party
3/27 Sat – Day at the Races Birthday party
3/27 Sat – Disaster House party?
4/3 Sat – Spring has Sprung Party

My current schedule?
5/30 Sat – phone call
6/6-7 – nothing
6/13-14 – nothing
6/20 Sat – nothing
6/21 Sun – phone call from Bali
5/4-5 – nothing

I am sure I will have little get togethers with a few friends during this time.

The pace is very different. The 2004 me would totally freak with my current schedule. The 2009 me is overwhelmed by even the thought of the old schedule. I do remember it being fun.

I am amazed at how much I have changed.

I haven’t had any sugar since Friday. 3 full days without feeling the need for sugar.

I had a good time at Baycon this year.

I wasn’t looking forward to it for many reasons but it felt important to go. I arrived around midnight on Friday. Walking into the hotel didn’t feel good and I was thinking I didn’t want to leave the room once I was there. I got to sleep by telling myself that I could leave at any time and I didn’t have to force myself to stay. There were a lot of negative memories in association with the hotel space and with some of the staff of the con. Also, I didn’t know how well I would do not working the con, how hard would it be to go back to being just a member and being on the outside. To add spice, I have been so non-social lately, I didn’t know how I would deal with so many people and with past friends that I haven’t seen in eons.

I am not really sure what happened but Sat went pretty well and I was having a nice time. Then it was time for the masquerade. There is a lot of detail I am skipping over (which is unlike me) but I got to do Line and then help direct the contestants. I was useful and I did something I love to do. Afterwards, I continued to sit where I was in the hallway as people went past. Friends and strangers would stop and talk to me. For hours. This is something that hasn’t happened for years. I got to hold court. People wanted to talk with me and came to me. I sat there from we think 8:30 pm to 2 am. Then I went to the party floor. I don’t normally like the parties. I am very uncomfortable but some of my best con experiences come out of time on the party floor so I at least try to put up with the discomfort and uneasy. Circumstances led to me sitting in one room for awhile (it is hard for this to happen) and I got to experience a hard science discussion that when above my head part of the time and was fun. I can’t remember the last time I ran into that but I do remember it from the very early days of my convention attending life. Sunday felt even better. Again I ended up talking for hours. It wasn’t as much fun but it felt good to be able to do it and I felt smart. I made it to the party floor when most of the parties where over so I didn’t have to say long and I am a little sad I didn’t get a chance to talk to some people. There was a nice interlude afterwards that will extend outside of con. Monday I was planning on heading home and saying goodbye to those I caught on my way out. Turns out I caught a lot of people and managed to get some conversations done that I wanted to get to during the con. Over the entire con, I got a lot of miscommunications cleared up that had been bothering me for a long time and that felt good. I managed to get over my uncomfort with staff and was just a regular member again.

There was a lot that I missed and usually I feel like I have lost out. I was mostly ok with it this year. I enjoyed what I had. I need to remember how to do this.

I talked to a lot of people and that went really well. I passed information on and made connections for more information. I have had trouble with my connecting the dots. I have lots of contacts and info and things haven’t been working out when I try to match ones that fit really well. I have decided to not try any more. But the connections I made this weekend all have to do with info I already have and are not depended on anyone or anything else. That feels good. I have 5 emails to send out because of these connections.

I am impressed with how well the con came together. I liked a lot of the changes I saw. I hope they become part of future cons. I am excited about upcoming Loscons and have no qualms about my dedication to that con. I was debating if I would be attending Baycon next year thinking that maybe I needed a break but I think things went so well it shouldn’t be an issue. I hope I can keep this approach to cons. This is near where I started when I began attending cons.

Now I am in kind of a limbo state. I am back in the real world and the non-social habit after a very social weekend. I had been getting a little more social over the last few weeks and it looks like my job has suffered. I am concerned about how a heavy social weekend will affect things at work. I took today off because I didn’t have the recovery time on Monday I thought I would have and have slept through most of the day. I wish I had a better con to reality reentry process in place.

Someone told me that they wanted to correct something they did because they felt they didn’t act with integrity and they see themselves as a person of integrity.

I don’t get this. that people act a particular way because they consider themselves as something and they want to conform to that something.

I see myself as certain things because that is the way I am, not the way I want to be or am trying to be. I don’t consider myself a truthful person. I will lie like a rug if it suits me. I tend to be honest (more honest than a lot of people) because I want the consequences of telling the truth. The same goes for every quality I can think of that I have heard that people have used to define themselves (things like moral, ethical, good, etc).

I think the most appropriate approach for self identity is to accept and be who you are and not try to fit a definition of who you are. Instead of defining who you want to be and trying to act that way, I think it makes more sense/works better if you focus the consequences you want and what parts of you work towards or against those consequences. It feels like people are trying to mold themselves into an external form rather than work from the inside out. I couldn’t understand why people would want to do it that way.

And me being me, I was pretty sure I was doing exactly what I was saying I didn’t do but I couldn’t see where I was doing it.

I think I finely have unraveled it.

I tend towards being truthful, I tend towards integrity, etc. That is just natural and the way that I am. It is the parts of me that get me what I want. I also want to work at a high level of communication. I want people to feel safe enough to call me on my shit. I want to be reasonable when there is a disagreement and work it out. I want to know when someone has trouble with me and doesn’t want to deal with me. These are consequences I want.

The issue here is that my natural instincts don’t lead to these consequences. I have to think and choose to do things that are not completely natural to get what I want. It requires that I put aside my pride and ego and focus on the other person (this is the easiest to see the need for and is getting easier to do). I requires swallowing my hurt and my fear and choosing to pay attention to the solution to a problem rather than retaliation or protection. It requires stepping out on a limb and confronting someone in a way they can handle to find out the truth when the partial truth, figured out based on actions and possibly very close to the actual truth, would be more useful and easier and a less painful way to letting go and getting away from the problem. (how’s that for a long run on sentence?) It requires risking saying things that might hurt others or end options but would lead to better outcomes and better understandings. It requires risking that what I am involved in could continue to be something that I don’t care much for and letting go of things that might be better because what I am involved in could turn out wonderful. It requires facing my fears and sitting with them instead of instantly running away. It requires that I tell people how well they did when it bothers me that they did well (ok, this one is really easy but I do have to think it through and I do have to admit to my issues at the same time).

To get to the consequences I want, I have to fight my natural instincts. I have laid an outside template over my typical way of doing things and I try to conform. I have to watch how I feel and figure out if it is something I want to let go through or something I should suppress. I think this is doing what I couldn’t understand others doing but with different semantics. I don’t even have a name/description for what I am trying to become. I want to see myself as an ______ person and I am placing expectations on myself to conform to that definition to make it happen.

And I guess with me being me, I am not concerned over things most people would do it for, but came up with something else that doesn’t even have a definition directly related to it.

You don’t call and we are out of contact and I care. When I think of what you can give me, I feel sad and feel ok about it. When I think of what I can give you, I am mad and I hate you. That is because I hurt and it takes getting angry and disliking you to deal with the hurt.

This does not apply to anyone on LJ. It is only here so that I can remember which feeling went with which when I look back at this time.

Note:
I have comments turned off because I am not using LJ as a social toolat this time. If you have something you want to tell me, then you can get ahold of me the regular ways.

At this time, I don’t have the eye dizzys and haven’t for at least a couple of months. I don’t know when they stopped. I know they got mild before they went away.

Last monday, April 27, on NPR was a special on dizziness with Dr. Timothy Hain, a dizziness expert at Northwestern University. There are little rocks in the inner ear that can get out and really mess up balance. So instead of having a screw loose, it is rocks in your head.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103463398

After some internet searching, it appears that Dr Hain is the go to guy for all things dizzy.

http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/

I wanted to make note of my current condition because I forget how long it has been with or without dizzies. I notice when they show up but not when they fade away.

I also figured out two more good descriptive words for me:
Gullible
Earnest
Good thing I don’t tolerate people who would take advantage of these attributes around me.

(still not reading LJ. I think I kicked the habit)