Life as an Extreme Sport

Category: …and everything else

Mostly everything else in a brain-academic way.

In Moving, as Life, a Matter of Balance

...and everything else

help me find a reason…

I stand in the middle of the bedroom and count boxes. They’re all clearly labeled; I’ve made a point of labeling all sides so that no matter how a box is grabbed, it will be easy to see where to place it on the other side of this move. Box: Bedroom: TShirts + Tops (+sweaters). Box: Bedroom: Tanks, Tees, + Business. Box: Bedroom: Long + Business Skirts.

It goes on. There are, as a matter of fact, eight boxes of clothing. There will probably be another after I do laundry, plus a small backpack of clothing for the day or two after moving, when I am too tired to unpack.

Help me find a reason
Before my judgment day
To make some big, big money
So’s I can run away

Is eight boxes of clothing too much? I don’t know. I know that some people in the simple living community would consider anything beyond a backpack of possessions (so, I’d have to ditch the cats, too) as too much, and not true to the spirit of simple living.

I know that on the other side of the equation are people like Michael S. Rosenwald of the Washington Post, hoarders with piles and some degree of awareness of the problem.

And then there’s me – the between. Are eight boxes of clothes too much? If you want to pick up and move on a moment’s notice, probably (I’m doing this in less than a week of packing, but that’s going to be too long for people who live out of a backpack). But it’s also a concession to reality. Taking a closer look at the boxes, I see that they begin to break down into neat categories: business formal, business casual, my own casual (still rather unabashedly goth). My living choice – of wearing clothing that I am comfortable with when I am not in a professional environment, that captures what I see as the external manifestations of my own quirky personality – means that I, by necessity, have to have more clothing than if I were happy to wear business casual clothing all the time. I haven’t actually been in an environment where I’ve had to wear business clothing of any type for two-odd years; however, I have always been aware of the fact that I will move back into that world, and in fact this upcoming move is another step back into that environment. Business clothing of any type is expensive, and I couldn’t justify getting rid of clothing that I genuinely liked, knowing that if I did it would just need to be replaced in a relatively short period of time. That falls too much on the side of conspicuous consumption – getting rid of something that is fine just because you don’t need it now and can replace it later.

But there’s certainly a balance between acknowledging the reality of a life in transition (as I have been these last few years) and verging over into hoarding every small thing. Will I really darn those socks with the hole in the toe? Is that top really going to be bleached back to white? Will I use that skirt the moths got to for a pattern, ever?

In a room full of mirrors
I want to do that again
Good god what’s the reason
For this killing game
I only want everything

So far, the balance seems to be held between extremes, for which I’m grateful. I’m sure that those who advocate a stark minimalist lifestyle (mistaking it for a simple lifestyle, when in fact they are not at all the same thing) find my life one of excess. I’m sure that most people, happily in the middle with me, trying to balance their consumption with their ideals, their desire to live simply with the necessity of managing difficult public faces, merely and simply relate. And I’m sure that those who have drifted away from the balance into hoarding, and are aware of it, look at my life with some grateful envy – I have not become consumed by my possessions.

Then I look at the stacks of bankers boxes full of books neatly lined up against my living room wall – 15 or so, the last time I counted – and sigh, and the mental debate begins again.

Help me get that again
Hey hey hey
Before my judgment day

difficult decluttering

...and everything else

There’s something I’ve been putting off doing for a while now, for no real good reason: cleaning out my bookmarks in Firefox. I had links in there from as far back as early 2007; links for tracking flights for my last boss, blog post data and background research, cover ideas for the journal I was working on at the time.

Being a relatively normal web user, who still finds links worth keeping, I had created a situation where every time I needed to find a link, I had to scroll past the detritus of the past three-odd years. And a lot of that detritus was – is – a painful reminder of all the ways my life went so badly off the rails since late 2006. I often ended up looking away as I scrolled to the bottom of a long list of links, knowing that what I wanted had to be in those last five or ten links. Out of sight, out of mind, literally implemented.

I knew that I had to clean the bookmarks out. I’ve known it for months. I’ve known it for years. But doing that meant having to look at the links; it meant having to evaluate links, having to look at things I haven’t looked at in years. Things that still sting. Reminders of when I glowed so brightly, before it all fell apart.

Intellectually, I can acknowledge that much of what’s happened was outside of my control, but people have separated emotion and intellect for a long time, and for good reason.

The thing is, by not facing the past, accepting the changes, and clearing out the detritus from that time frame, I was keeping it around. Even if I looked away from the bookmarks menu as I scrolled down in an effort to find whatever it was I was looking for, I still saw it – I still knew what I was looking away from. And in some ways, I guess that meant I was letting it control me.

I sat down earlier today, shortly after changing the title of this blog, and I cleared out my bookmarks. I created folders for themes, deleted most of the old folders and links that were there, and put other things away in categories I won’t use right now, but maybe I’ll use again some day. Was it the easiest thing in the world? No. But neither was it as hard, or as tedious, as I thought it would be. Many of the links were dead, and those that weren’t just… were. Yes, they had memories attached, but that’s all they were: memories.

It’s just the first step in the digital cleanup I need to do, both on this blog and on my computer as a whole. And even though it’s data, and the literal weight of the computer doesn’t change, I feel lighter already.

STS-132 Atlantis: Flawless Launch

...and everything else

There comes a moment in every shuttle launch where I waiver – can I watch this? Can my nerves take it? Inevitably, I watch, and inevitably I hold my breath as “go with throttle up” is announced. Go, go, go – will she go all the way? Or will she break apart, 73 seconds into her launch. The indelible memory of Challenger repeats itself in my mind’s eye at every launch; Columbia repeats on every landing.

Today my stomach tied itself in new knots as Atlantis sat on the launch pad – a launch pad I flew over just a few weeks ago, my face pressed against the plane window in complete awe and astonishment at seeing something so amazing with my own eyes. I felt myself hold my breath, hold and hold as the engines lit, go with throttle up, up and up she went, until Atlantis was nothing more than a bright, glowing star against the afternoon sky. And as I let my breath out, so came the tears that rise with every successful launch, every successful landing. Tears of awe, amazement, remembered sorrow, and joy, sheer joy at the power and creativity and inventiveness of humanity.

We can reach the stars – or, at least, the far side of the moon.

The Invisible Made Visible

...and everything else, Chronic Pain Bites, life and living

While I have never been terribly quiet in discussing my disability, I also acknowledge that I am, for a disabled person, in a privileged class. I can “pass” as normal – that is, I don’t look outwardly disabled. There are a host of issues that come with this, including a lack of “validity” from both normals and disabled folks. (I don’t look “sick”, so how can I be “sick”? Comes from both sides of the aisle.) But, problems aside, I fully acknowledge that it is nice to go out in public and not have the public gaze focused on me. Been there, done that, definitely didn’t like it.

Which is what makes this so strange
The invisible made visible. on Twitpic

I haven’t been visibly identified as disabled in a long time. When I fly, for various reasons, I normally fly United, and I pay for the upgrade that allows me extra leg room and space. This comfortably addresses my issues, and there’s nothing else I really need to do, other than make sure I select smart seating when I am booking my flight.

For various reasons, I am flying Southwest today. I haven’t flown Southwest since I was a child, so I had no idea what to “do”. I tried to contact Southwest air via their Twitter account, and they promptly ignored me. Their customer service agents, over the phone, told me there was nothing they could do – just try to sign in early enough to get priority boarding. Sigh. So I read over the information on the website, and they said to contact customer service at the airport – so I did. I explained that I am disabled and that I do need advanced boarding and he asked for a doctor’s note.

Oh, from the doctor I haven’t had since August. Sure, I’ll get right on that thing that wasn’t mentioned on the website.

I volunteered to show Adam, the customer service rep, the pain patches covering my right arm. He laughed, said that wouldn’t be necessary, and explained my boarding process, handing over the above blue tag.

Now I am sitting here, and irrationally, I feel branded. Like everyone is staring at me – which of course isn’t true, unless you count the adorable moppet who appears to find me the most fascinating thing ever. Still, next to me is this bright blue boarding pass, clearly printed PREBOARD – and why.

Is the person across from me looking over his newspaper to look at me? Figure out what is wrong with me? Wonder why I have armwarmers on, which cover most of the pain patches and hide them from visibility? (Practically speaking, they keep them on, but is that what it looks like?)

Is the woman with the three young children trying to figure out why I get to board ahead of her?

Is that a scowl from the very well-dressed man the fact I might get the seat he wants?

Maybe more importantly, why do I care? Why does it feel so exposed and vulnerable to have people know I get to board a whopping few minutes ahead of them? These are people I don’t know and will never know; we will be spending at most three hours together on a packed flight.

And yet, and yet. I sit here and wonder: should I exaggerate my limp? Avoid full mobile range of my right arm, to emphasize that I am indeed broken, and not just gaming the system? Should I put on airs and affected manners just to verify I am legit, really and honestly? And ultimately, if the gate agents don’t care, why should I?