Path to Enlightened Insanity

So one of those things that I don’t really put out there that much is that I’m interested in Unitarian Universalism.

My first interest was peaked by Amanda Bennett of Lambda Union. She mentioned wanting to go to a UUA congregation a couple of times while we were hanging out in the Lambda Union Office back in the day.

The first congregation I actually got to was the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, while I was in town on an internship at Horizon Theatre. The thing that really struck me about the place is the person who welcomed me mentioned that I’m welcome, but if this doesn’t fit me they encouraged me to look elsewhere. This floored me, essentially because it was contrary to the usual response in organized religion that “we want you to be here”.

I wandered a little bit and visited Miami Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship a couple of times, although it never quite clicked, and at that time sleep was more valuable than it is now.

The whole UU bug really bit me once I moved to Cincinnati and kind of started going to St. John’s Unitarian Universalist Church where I eventually became one of the leaders of YADA, the “Young Adult Discussion and Action” (err, the Action was a bit thin as I remember, and interestingly enough I’m still listed as a leader…) Of course doing this my own way I never actually joined St. Johns.

After making the Seattle leap, I started looking around again, visiting the West Seattle Unitarian Universalist Fellowship a couple of times. But that wasn’t really the right fit for me..

Last week I finally dragged my ass over to the University Unitarian Church. This place really feels right. Last week I also practiced with the handbell choir for the first time. I really really really really enjoyed playing handbells. I played them for about seven years in middle and upper school and really missed them. I was pleased and impressed that the group respects each other enough to actually practice intently and put heaps of effort into it. Very little annoys me more than a musical group where people don’t respect each other and put time and effort into learning and performing
the music.

Ack, so I got off on a huge tangent that I never initially intended to go off on.. But there you have my UU history.. The point that I was actually wanting to get to is that this congregation and bell practice are something that I really think I could make part of a routine, and so far I’m two for two in making it a routine..

In many ways I have been resistant to routines, not seeing much value in them. I remember a counselor who I saw in my summer in Atlanta telling me that routines are a space from which we can build upon, and which provide us stability. (She should have made this point with a 2×4. No seriously counselors need to hit their patients over the head every so often so that the patients know the counselor is serious. Sure its odd from an ethics standpoint, but if your counselor hits you over the head you probably will remember what they told you. (either that or you’ll forget from the trauma, in either case it prevents you from having to kick yourself later.))

The other piece of this is last week I parlayed this into a visit to the library (right across the street from the church) and a run down to Pikes Place Market on the way home where I bought some produce and honey…

I finally feel that I’m making some progress and gaining some traction in meeting my goals, which really thrills me.

I’m just conscious of the fact that I need to keep putting forth effort to change in the ways I want to change.

Playing handbells is one of those.

I barely ever suggest that you go read something on this blog. That isn’t the defined purpose of this blog.. Usually I just post things over at Interesting Websites when I find something worth sharing.

I wandered across Jake’s blog after using one of those services to find bloggers near me. I’ve followed his entries now for a while, and I’ve emailed back and forth with him, and even chatted with him on the phone.

Coming out is never easy, but honestly his coming out story is beyond words.

He’s been posting it in sections. At the moment he just posted section four. Read them all in order:

• Coming Out Story, Introduction
• Coming Out Story, Part One
• Coming Out Story, Part Two
• Coming Out Story, Part Three
• Coming Out Story, Part Four

This entry was originally posted at Roaming Seattlite. For more information see Uh, the other blog..

This blog has reached the end of the road.

I’m not really sure if I ever made it clear over here, but this blog is actually a little closet for me.

I’ve been a blogger for quite some time, although at first I insisted on calling my blog an eJournal. (At the time blogs were really about being very link driven things, however the term has morphed to where it now fits my definition of an eJournal.)

I reached a point where I didn’t want to have everyone who read my blog worrying about me. Sure, its selfish in some ways but I just wanted some space.

I’ve come to the point where I don’t feel a need to have this little closet anymore. So I’ve integrated the entries (and comments) from here into my main blog Path to Enlightened Insanity via Defacted Musings. If you like this, take a look over there. I’ve got four years of entries for your reading pleasure.

I hinted that I’d start another blog.

I started Roaming Seattlite back awhile ago..

The time has come to close up shop on that blog, and I’m going to integrate those entries back here.

I’ve gotten back to a level of comfort with everything that happened and where I’m at now, that I don’t see a point of keeping them separate.

This entry was originally posted at Roaming Seattlite. For more information see Uh, the other blog..

I’m kinda annoyed at the medical/insurance mess right now..

Not really their fault, but I need to get a prescription of my anti-depressant, Effexor XR.

I hate the fact that I’m going to have to go to a doctor and the conversation is going to boil down to this:
I have a long history of depression, Effexor XR works well for my symptoms, I have an old script that I’ve been taking, will you write me a new one?

Just too much grief here.

To top it off I can’t get a reasonable individual insurance plan until the beginning of November. So I’ve got to cough up a hundred or so bucks…

I’ve been ruminating about the interesting experiment I alluded to earlier for a while.

So the experiment was this:
I didn’t make any purchases for a full week, a whole 168 hours.. I started the period by buying some essentials at around 7 AM on September 3, and ended it by buying some more essentials at 8 AM the on September 10.

Why I did the experiment:
Pretty simple, I was just spending too much money, at too fast of a rate and I was having trouble saying no to spending. So I kinda figured saying no all of the time would make it easier to say no selectively..

What I found:
Initially I expected it to be difficult to not purchase anything. I actually found it quite easy, with the only real difficulties being the fact that I ran out of soymilk somewhere near Saturday. I just compensated for that by making myself eggs and toast instead of having cereal.

On the other hand I’m kind of amazed at the continual messages our society builds in to buy stuff. Plus it doesn’t help that at the moment I’m a retail bitch, so I also end up looking at shelves and seeing all the new crap that comes out…

I kind of think shopping is the natural evolutionary replacement for gathering and to some extent for hunting. In many ways it feels good to purchase something new. How many times do you hear people bragging about their latest purchase?

The thing is in the actual hunting and gathering days there were logical limits on how much time you could spend hunting, and even after that once gathering became purchasing there were logical limits based on income and need that enforced economics..

However once you had the rise of the credit card, especially in the late 1990s and current varieties, the economic choices and consequences became blurred you can go after the good feeling of shopping without having to balance the consequences for a long long long time..

My new endeavor has been to keep everything balanced. I still use credit cards (two to be exact) but they get paid off every month. But knowing that I have the credit to go out and buy myself a bunch of top of the line apple gear, or even a pimped out set of furniture is a strong draw that needs to be balanced.

Plastic free I am not, but I’m working on learning how to manage the damn stuff…

This entry was originally posted at Roaming Seattlite. For more information see Uh, the other blog..

So, I had this interview with this really cool company in Bellevue..

Its set up a bit odd so that over the course of 3.5 hours I was supposed to meet and interview with six people…

So the first two went really well in my book. The third was mediocre. The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth cancelled on me.

So I had this fun funky weekend where I got myself into an annoyed depressive funk and pretty much just read and slept the whole time.. I also discovered that if you don’t want to be awake bennadryl in generally safe doses (e.g. what they recommend on the box) is quite a good sleepaid.

So, I’m kinda working on digging myself out of this hole I’ve dug for myself..

Today is not a day to commiserate what happened six years ago.

But one should remember what happened six years ago, and what is happening now.

• September 11, 2007 Names of the Dead
• September 11, 2001 Names of the Dead
• September 8, 2007 Names of the Dead

Errr… Well I had this post half written on the weekend, and I’ve now finally gotten back to looking at it and finishing it… But it was a fun weekend.

I’ve:

1. Been finishing out the end of an interesting experiment that I’ll tell all y’all about later.
2. Provided advice on rollover IRA’s for my sister who has recently moved and switched jobs.
3. Been working on a fun project to recover some old chairs my ex-roommate left me, which as brought on new questions about the enjoyment of creating something.. Strangely enough a thought from Martha Stewart “Doing projects really gives people self-confidence. Nothing is better than taking the pie out of the oven. What it does for you personally, and for your family’s idea of you, is something you can’t buy.” in August 2007’s Wired has been resonating through my head through this project. I’m also going to propose to my roommate that we make the living room an official project space.
4. Just getting started on the dating dance with someone who intrigues me.
5. Caught up with my Denver based friend.. I didn’t realize that I never informed him of the impetus behind my post: Finding somewhere for me…
6. Avoided doing the laundry, although it didn’t get to be this bad

I was going to post a quote from Leave Myself Behind by Bart Yates, but I just discovered that I did so about a year ago.

I moved to Seattle for many reasons. I know some of these are back-explaninations, revising my rationales for decisions long after they’ve been made and executed. (Hey, I’m not talking about going to war or something, just moving across the country on a moment’s notice okay?) One reason that keeps coming back is that I wanted to be able to find someone to let into my head. Its a scary place up there sometimes, and I don’t quite understand everything I think all of the time, but being able to let someone in emotionally and intellectually is something I’ve wanted for, well hell nine or ten years. Its not that I don’t have people that I’m really intimate with emotionally and intellectually, but I also would kind of like another gay guy to share things with. (Or well a straight guy who is comfortable cuddling in bed naked with another guy and kissing him will do as well…)

I think some people may think that in some ways I’m really open with a lot of people, and thats true, but there is really more of me that I want to explore with someone.