from every shires ende

Another no.

It’s a good thing I haven’t been counting them, because it’s a pretty high number now. The yes count remains locked at zero, however.

In the movies, in books, on tv, in the imaginations of my friends, there’s some girl out there for guys like me.

I’m not *completely* unappealing. Twice in my life women have indicated interest in me. In the long run neither worked out, though for different reasons in each case. One time it was mostly my issues. The other time it wasn’t.

What both situations had in common was that the woman knew me for awhile first. It’s pretty clear that I’m not the kind of guy women are attracted to on first meeting them. It takes a long while, and even then only rarely occurs.

As far as me indicating an interest (initiating) and it being reciprocated, that is only in my dreams.

Only in my dreams.

Loser: Person who loses: Me.

Today there was concrete proof that I am physically stronger than my father. I have mixed emotions on that one. It’s probably been the case for a while now, but today I was able to compress some hydraulic rods during installation that he couldn’t quite get.

I’m not a young guy. Like I said, it’s probably been this way for some time. My dad isn’t old yet. Not really. He’s in his mid-fifties. On one hand, there is kind of a joy at being able to do something better than your dad, because that’s who you compare so much of yourself to, at least if you’re me. I’m usually wanting in that department, because my dad is pretty talented at just about everything.

On the other hand, the minute I realized that I had just done something physically that he couldn’t, I realized the implications. I wanted to shout, “Take it back!”

This is the sort of thing that would usually happen when the son is in his late teens or early twenties, but I was never athletic or good with tools or willing to really work very hard back then.

When I made it to my thirties, my tenacity and willingness to push harder came out.

He’s always had that, and he still has that more than I do. He’s still tougher than me in pretty much every way.

But I have it more now than I ever did.

I’m down, and I don’t really have a good reason or anything to say about it except that when you are alone and you’re down, there’s no one to help shoulder the burden at all.

Not that there always is when you aren’t alone.

But when you are alone, that’s the only choice.

I’m stuck in that area between the seed of an idea and the realization of it.

Game design stuff. I’m zeroing in on an area of the rules I want to improve, and I know what to do in broad terms, but not in detail.

It’s like looking at a pile of bones and knowing that these particular ones would be useful to make a hand, but not knowing how to assemble it.

I’m bad at metaphors.

The more work I put into the new game project, the more work I know that it will take to finish.

So much work that I know I’ve only barely begun.

—-

Allergies. Pollen everywhere.

—-

I was out a few nights ago and stopped at an intersection at about eleven at night, waiting for the light to change. After a minute I got bumped by the car behind me.

No, I hadn’t missed the light, it was a long one, and the car behind me, the only other one at the intersection, had been stopped for at least thirty seconds before this gentle vehicular contact.

It was probably a one mile per hour “collision.”

I glanced in the rear view mirror, and I’m not sure how many people were in the car behind me, but it was more than three. All I made out were silhouettes.

It smelled like a setup to me, and I reacted without clearly thinking about the situation. I stepped on the gas and got the hell out of there. It was instinct.

I can’t justify it with certainty, but I’m kind of proud of my instinctual response. I think it was a good one.

By the way, my vehicle was completely unharmed. So was I.

—-

I transition to “full-time” employment status next week. Nothing really changes for me personally.

—-

I have emotions and stuff, but I try not to.

I’m under an NDA at work.

Today was one of those days when I actually would have participated in a high five. Ordinarily I am a conscientious objector to male bravado, especially of the frat-boy variety, but it was a special day.

I guess that’s all I can say about that.

—-

I made progress on (but didn’t complete) any of my current goals last weekend.

—-

The thought keeps coming to me that I wish everyone could know what it’s like to feel rejected and mostly unwanted for more than a decade. Mostly because that would change the things people say.

Instead of them seeing the big empty spot (that I perceive) in my life as a hole to backfill with “At least you don’t have the relationship problems that I do!” and “You are better off alone!,” they would be able to say “Oh! That’s what it feels like. Damn. You know, that’s hard to deal with and now I understand that your good days mostly suck and your bad days suck more.”

(People who don’t want relationships are exempt - but observation makes me suspect that self-reported non-desire of or repulsion to the idea of being in a relationship is grossly overstated.)

So anyway, my evil thought lately is that I wish everyone hurt like this or at least truly understood it.

—-

I’m so sick of politics. Why can’t there be a rational, non-religious, socially liberal, fiscally moderate candidate who is concerned with the erosion of liberty and who wants to end the war on drugs, end private prisons, end eternal copyright, and believes in a free market economy and that science should be a priority?

A consequence of learning a little bit of Old English, Icelandic, and Norwegian (only a smattering), is that now most of the Viking-inspired invented words in the fantasy genre have started sounding really wrong to me.

Of course, I don’t know a lick of Old Norse, even though much of it is fairly intelligible if you learn any of the three languages I’ve learned a bit of lately.

I closed my old blog. I did that a while ago actually.

I *might* start a new (public) blog, specifically for fiction writing, but nothing personal (except what comes through in the writing.)

But the things I have on my plate right now are:

Work:
Big project at work, probably immediately followed by more big projects.

I’m teaching myself electronics and micro controllers.

I need to refresh my (quite modest) programming abilities. (JavaScript / C++). I was pretty handy at Visual Basic back in the day, but I don’t think it’s a living language anymore.

I need to qualify to operate a natural gas boiler under full pressure next month.

Take a safety refresher course and a schematics course. (Both are boring, but necessary.)

I keep trying to angle my way toward PLC (programmable logic controller - an industrial type of controller)and instrumentation work.

Oh crap! I just realized I need to take a crapload of ultrasonic readings ASAP. (Sounds more complicated than it is, but I have a ton of them to do and log.)

I have some CAD work on my plate, if and when I get the details of the project.

I will probably lose my office in the next few weeks. Sigh. For the first time, I actually kind of need one.

Game Company:
We’re developing a new product. The scope of the project is still up in the air but it has the potential to take things to the next level. (Full-length hardback book with professional quality.)

Then we will be rewriting our existing product for a release before the above-mentioned project.

And a website redesign. (Which would go live before either of the previous two projects would go live.)

Yes, I work backwards. I do the thing that is the last released first, and work toward the completing the first released project first. There is a reason for that.

Most little hobby companies / vanity presses like us tend to dream big and accomplish little. That’s why we try to never tease our plans. We like to announce that we’re “doing” something right after it’s really completed.

This time we are going to try a bit of social marketing and each project released will help us snowball toward the next.

We don’t want to make empty promises, so we plan to have all of our ducks in a row before going live with anything.

The only risk is that we will have to be patient at that point and not tip our hand too soon.

—-

Personal:

Get back to writing fiction.

Put new rotors on my truck.

Buy a tackle box to hold electronic parts.

Wish List Personal:

Build a scaled down arcade machine.

Build a super-geek electronic device that’s way too nerdy to get into here.

Build a modern pc that looks like something from the 1970s.

Super Wish List:

Kiss a girl, hold hands, be comfortable around another human being, feel like everything might be okay, not feel like an imposition on the attention of others, be desired and know it, believe it, come in at least second on the priority list of someone else at least briefly and repeatedly even if only occasionally.