State of the Silas: 2013-14

It's been an eventful year. I became a father, I became a published author, and I discovered just how badly my brain had been screwing me over for about a decade. Anxiety disorders are really tricky to talk about; you're dealing with something that most people have no real referent for.

That said, there are some notable improvements in my mental stability resulting from being properly medicated for anxiety. I've lost my irrational fears of heights and of spiders. I've also, with the help of my therapist, been able to finally move past the panic reaction I used to have when someone touched my neck. That dates back to my schooldays, and the incident which prompted a rapid exit from one school: on the train home, one of the other pupils began strangling me. Naturally, such an event leaves an impression, but I've made good progress in getting away from the panic. I can lie down with my daughter crawling all over me, have her put an arm across my neck and her full weight on that arm, and I no longer panic.

Speaking of my daughter, she's now more than a year old and insists on walking as much as she can. She picks up something, be it a burp cloth, a tennis ball, or the Mog stuffed toy her grandmother sent as a first birthday present, and toddles around carrying it. Her current favourite toys are Mog, her stacking rings, and as of this Sunday, an empty tissue box. Her growth is frankly astounding; at her last checkup, she was over 22lb, or a bit more than four times her birth weight. She's also above average for height, and for head size, although that's now a little more normal; she had been high on the curve for head size compared to her other stats, she's now at roughly the same point for each.

Matters authorial are feeling wonderful. My short story for the anthology is now locked in; I have approved the final page proofs. I have also started a longer project; I've been plugging away on a fantasy novel for the last four days or so, at a nice sustainable pace. I know exactly what I'm stealing from in terms of influences, but it's still feeling fresh to me. I'm taking feel rather than content. As the setting I'm writing in richens, I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

Unfortunately, all these projects rather take away from my blog-writing time. I don't mean to neglect it, it just happens because there are other things I want to write more, or because I'm busy taking a little girl out to the park for some time watching the ducks and saying hello to friendly dogs.

The insidious cycle

As you probably know, I'm one of those people who suffers from chronic pain. I have arthritis, I'm currently dealing with a knee injury, and it all adds up. This limits what I can do, both from a physical capability perspective (sitting cross-legged on the floor is not within my capabilities, unless you're going to pay for the necessary painkillers and a hefty guy to haul my carcass back upright) and from an available resources perspective; I simply don't have enough spoons. Do read that piece, if you haven't already, and then come back.

It's the lack of spoons that leads to the insidious cycle in the title. It's common for me to have enough spoons to cook a good dinner, but run out of spoons (having been sure to reserve enough to go to bed) before I can finish dealing with the mess generated by it. So now I have dirty pots and pans sitting in the kitchen, waiting for me to deal with them. This is somewhat daunting mentally, and of course requires spoons. So now, the next dinner is a higher spoon project than the one I did last time, because I have to clean things up before I can start it. And then I run out of spoons before getting ANY of it cleared up. The vicious cycle means that even though I might have enough spoons to cook, I don't have enough spoons to make dinner, because of the prerequisite tasks. Life is unfair like that, and this disproportionately affects sufferers from chronic conditions.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that chronic pain and depression are linked. They have very similar effects on life activities, albeit by somewhat different mechanisms, and having dealt with them both at one time or another, I honestly don't know which sucks less. Both take (potentially) mind-altering drugs to treat, and that makes people wary of treating them. I worry about addiction and tolerance every single time I need to take a painkiller, and frequently argue myself out of taking painkillers even if the pain is too intense to stand.

You don't need it.

One thing I'm constantly astonished by in the US is the prevalence of what I can only call monster trucks. Pickup trucks in general are far more commonly seen over here than in the UK, no doubt because over here they're available with far more plush interiors and lower registration fees than cars, not to mention laxer controls on emissions and consequently less strangled engines, but a truly amazing number of owners seem to have decided that now they have their pickup truck, they must of course modify it; which they achieve by altering the suspension and wheel sizing such that the truck now rides with the floorpan at roughly shoulder height to an average person. This lifting is generally described as being a benefit to off-road performance, which makes it all the more remarkable in its popularity; the vast majority of the moster trucks I see on a day-to-day basis are in near mint condition, with perfect, undented sheet metal, suspension components blazingly orange, and paintwork so carefully shined one could use it as a shaving mirror, although the acres of chrome brightwork would be somewhat preferable. I will admit to having seen a few trucks which had been lifted and had been offroad. I could identify them by the fact that they appeared to be held together by dried mud, rust, and maybe the odd wodge of chewing gum, and if they'd ever been painted, the ripples in what sheet metal remained were ample evidence that it had all flaked off long, long ago. There's no real middle ground when it cones to lifted trucks.

I suppose that this fad, much like the fad for putting two foot diameter mirror-finish wheels with tyres of approximately the aspect ratio of a rubber band (a cost of roughly a grand per corner) onto clapped-out rustbuckets worth maybe $200 on a good day, and whose handling may once have enabled them to negotiate the corners needed to parallel park, or the fad for replacing reasonably functional suspension with hydraulics with all the compliance of a housebrick (but which can cause the car to jump in place), will forever remain a mystery to me.

It would seem that I've become one of those people who doesn't understand the youth of today. I like my car because its seats don't hurt my back. I drive at reasonable speeds. I park carefully, unlike the inspirer of this post, who this morning parked their monster truck in four spaces at once. There were multiple cars circling the parking area looking for spots...

Has it really been 25 years?

Twenty-five years. I suppose it must be, but January 28th 1986 is one of very few days I know exactly what television I watched. Well, not exactly; I don't remember whether Newsround was still John Craven's Newsround or not, but I do remember the lead story.

NASA had lost a Space Shuttle. The first Shuttle loss, and perhaps the one which cut the deepest. I can still clearly see the graceful, curving exhaust plume, the ragged ball of smoke, and the two trails of smoke climbing from it, and I remember knowing that this was Bad. It was a significant event; it could be credited with having made me a geek. It certainly made me interested in spaceflight.

Seven men and women died aboard Challenger. We should not forget Dick Scobee, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Christa McAuliffe, and Gregory Jarvis.

The bathtub curve

Anyone in engineering or technical professions will be familiar with this concept. In brief, it states that the likelihood of failure for a given thingummy will be high when it is new, will see a fairly rapid drop as it's sorted out (because, after all, you cannot test for everything, and the real world has a habit of finding things you didn't test for), and then will stay pretty low until the end of its life. Basically, your stuff will fail when it's brand spanking new, or will fail when it's "old" (and we must bear in mind that for many things, "old" is defined as "one day after the expiration of the manufacturer's warranty"), but in between that, is highly likely to work right without bothering you. If it survives the initial period, it's good to go for a long time.

This applies to humans as well. There are many ways to become broken in childhood, and many diseases and infirmities to which the elderly are prey, but in between, provided one makes reasonable efforts, the first world is a remarkably non-fatal place. I was reminded of this by realising that I'm actually considered a very good risk in health insurance terms; I'm "too young" for such things as prostate trouble, while being old enough to know better than to do things like jumping off buildings, and as long as I keep my weight reasonable (which I have been doing; I did gain a chunk after moving, but have now lost it again and so far am keeping it off, although I could stand to lose more) I'm quite alright regarding many potential issues. My teeth are in maintenance mode; with my paucity of fillings, there's little to go wrong as long as I clean them daily, which I do (in fact, I can't sleep these days without the hint of mint...). My eye exams happen every two years; in between, my vision doesn't change significantly (although at my level of myopia, a quarter dioptre is insignificant; must ask, next time, for a list of places which offer laser surgery).

Sadly, these salad days will inevitably come to an end, and the time will come when I can no longer maintain rude health by means of telling my doctor to eff off. Until that happens, though, I have my health, and intend to enjoy it.

Growing up

Not something I ever intended to do, but lately I've had great fun playing a board game in which one manipulates the stock market, and today the LA and I were spring-cleaning. Yes, really.

We've decided our 5-foot dresser (for UK family: low chest of drawers, not what you'd call a dresser) really, honestly, had to go. It's been broken since LA, it's been a pig to move the last two times we've moved, and it's far too heavy for what it does. It's likely to meet the business end of a sledgehammer, once we can procure an assisstant to move the blasted thing out of the house. I've also been reorganising my game room, which now has much more space (despite almost no changes; not sure what happened there) and we're going to be reorganising the garage as well.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about all of this maturity, but I think I can live with having a house in which we can find things. We've already found some things which have been lost since... well, since before I arrived in one case, and that's been a while now!

Looking back

This has been the first decade I've been an adult (legally, at any rate) all the way through. It's seen a fair bit of change in me, too.

At the start of 2000, I was in university, failing a chemistry degree. I changed to a geology degree, but eventually failed at that too, and dropped out in 2004. Along the way, I discovered computers and the internet, became a computer gamer (I even bought games at release), and didn't really make much progress figuring out who I really was. Once I was on my own, I did get a job, I started a long-distance relationship over the internet, and I lost interest in the latest and greatest games. For one thing, I couldn't afford to keep up with the power curve.

Between trouble staying in work (jobs on short-term contracts are less than ideal) and difficulty resisting the temptation to spend money, I spent a couple of years stuck in limbo, from 2005 to 2007. Eventually, I got myself out of debt and could allow myself to come over to the US. This was originally going to be a brief visit, but after advice from an immigration attorney, the LA and I tied the knot on February 29th 2008 at the LAX courthouse. We started the paperwork to get me a green card, and also started planning a reception. That took place in August 2008, and the paperwork was done a month later. Since then, I've become a volunteer for a theatre group in Berkeley, I've learned to drive, I've become the half-owner of an aging Volvo, I've switched my gaming interests from computers to tabletop (on the grounds that even if the table was bought in the 70s to eat dinner from, it doesn't need an upgrade to play the latest and greatest game of 2009), and I've not had a haircut in five years.

I'm happy with where I am right now. I know myself a lot better than I did ten years or even five years ago, and I've a lot more friends now than I did then. Naturally, there are areas I'd like to improve on, but the general picture is good.

Here's to a successful 2010 for everyone!

It's the little things.

Small details that make the difference.

In general, food shopping here is very similar to in the UK. However, some things differ. For instance, vegetables. I cannot find runner beans here. It's as if they don't exist. On the other hand, celeriac is easy to find, if only I had a really good use for it.

Sausages; I can't find sausages such as I grew up with. Nor can I find back bacon.

Lamb is very rarely found, although I'm not concerned about that since I dislike lamb.

Cheese is much restricted in its selection.

And on another note entirely, we have a new contender in the "classiest clothing" award: an oversized sleeveless t-shirt advertising a bail bond service. Stay classy, sir!

Sociability

The LA and I go out and knit with a group of friends every Wednesday, and they really are friends. We all talk, knit, tease each other, drop one-liners, and generally terrorise the customers at the Borders where the meetings occur. This is all well and good, but there is a dark side.

The dark side is where the LA and I get dinner on those nights. We go to the Jack in the Box which is on the way to Borders. The staff there were coming to know us and expect us, but now they've had a new thing installed: a touch-screen, automated order-taking kiosk. For the British folks, think of the ticket machines at a railway station. For the US, think of a touchscreen voting machine, except this one actually has been secured and leaves an auditable paper trail. Funny how one's burger is so much more important than one's leader.

Anyway, this machine is a good thing (it gives you a running total, it has the entire menu in it, and it allows you to special-order without the difficulty of getting the right information over to the employee or looking up the product build online ahead of time), but I can't help missing somewhat the interaction with the staff. Sure, it's more efficient, but now their involvement is limited to handing us the cups and, later on, the food. Another little chance to connect is gone.

Everything old is new again

For many years, almost the past two decades in fact, pain has been a constant part of who I am, and I do mean constant. I would go to sleep in pain, wake up in pain, and with me all my waking hours, there was pain. Even when this started, I strongly desired not to go through life on constant medication, so I just sucked it up and dealt with it. My shoulders hurt? Very well then, my shoulders hurt. It's what shoulders do.

As a result of this, I suspect my pain threshold to be rather higher than most people's; I've become so used to working through pain that I no longer really notice it.

This morning, when I woke up, nothing hurt.

Think about that. For the first time in almost twenty years, nothing hurt.

Of course, once I got up and started moving, all the little aches returned, but for a while, I got to experience life without pain.

I still don't think it's worth medication, but that's just my opinion.

On protests, gunpowder, and celebration

Today is the 5th of November. To almost everyone in the UK, that means it's Guy Fawkes's Day, the anniversary of the State Opening of Parliament in 1605, which Guy Fawkes, despite his best efforts, did not blow up. That was largely a religious act of terrorism; at the time, Catholics were under huge legal pressure in the UK, James (the new King) had made some vague comments that he might ease things a little, but anti-Catholic sentiment was still strong. A group of young, foolish Catholics formed this plot to remove the King and Parliament, and bring in a Catholic puppet ruler. It largely failed, and this failure was celebrated the next year. By now, though, nobody's sure whether the sentiment is "Hurrah, they failed!" or "Hurrah, they tried!", but the fireworks tend to start in late October and not let up until around February.

Meanwhile, in the USA, the big night for fireworks is the 4th of July. I have to admit to not understanding this; first, it's in Summer. A key point to note about Summer is that it stays light until late. Moreover, in recent years, Benjamin Franklin's worst idea has been used; thanks to clock-keeping, you need to give people even less sleep before the next day's work to get darkness. Frankly, July 4th does not make sense as a time for fireworks.

In both cases, though, the impetus is a rebellion. The major difference is that the US rebellion succeeded.

And tonight, if I can find somewhere reasonably close to Pleasant Hill which will be dark and have an eastward view, I shall be watching silent fireworks, provided by nature. The Taurids are coming, and this year they're promised to be spectacular. And tonight, they're not even having to fight the moon much.

On the completion of another solar orbit

So, now I'm 28. What real difference does that make?

None at all, in practical terms. I'm still me, just as much as I ever was. However, taking stock of the year just past is a good idea anyway, so let's have at it.

This time last year, I was employed. Via an agency, true, but I was employed, I was earning decent money, and I was getting on with building up my finances so I could head over here.

This time last year, I was unmarried. I had been engaged over two years already, but the thought of marriage was still a "we'll do that when we can" prospect.

This time last year, I was devoid of animal companionship.

Now, I have a wife, two cats, and no job. I think I got the better end of the tradeoffs.

I'd have liked to be able to spend my birthday out taking pictures, but the antics of the cats are a good substitute.

On honorifics

This morning, I had a sudden moment. The LA and I had been at the Credit Union, opening our new joint account, and then she had to do something that needed notary stuff. Once we were done, the notary person there thanked us... as Mrs Humphreys and Mr Humphreys.

I've never been Mr Humphreys before. At school, I was "Silas", apart from the time at private school, for which I was "Humphreys". At University, I was pretty much exclusively "Silas". Since then, I've been "Mr Silas Humphreys". "Mr Humphreys" has always been my father. This is the convention; my father is the most senior Humphreys male, so he's "Mr Humphreys". It sits slightly wrongly with me to be addressed as "Mr Humphreys", but I think technically I am paterfamilias over here. What distance is sufficient to break one's ties?

On Edge, again.

At the moment, my stress levels are running close to sustainable maximum. In fact, it's possible they're *past* sustainable maximum, since pretty much any significant input is causing my brain to start clipping, with unpredictable results (and since it seems my brain is transistor rather than valve, it clips hard rather than soft, and sounds ugly).

In just over a week, things should be less stressed, but right now, I'm not much use. Anything I haven't had a while to anticipate is going to result in me falling apart...

On transportation

I'm looking for a job, but as always, the sticking point is getting there.

We've been thinking of bicycles.

I don't understand modern bicycles. There are so many options, so much choice, that I just freeze up. Perfectionism is good when you're working; really bad when you're shopping, and not good when you're looking for work.

And my brain is still not fully working after yesterday's head asplosion.

On another planet

I suffer migraines. Generally, I can predict them, I know what triggers them, and I can hold the symptoms at bay by sheer effort of will; self-trained biofeedback can work, although it's tiring. However, it's simpler to just let them burn themselves out; that way, they're pretty much over in a day, as opposed to leaving me suboptimal for several. Every medication for migraines I've tried has had side effects worse than just dosing up on powerful painkillers to reduce it to merely excruciating, lying back and watching the pretty lights and listening to the strange sounds (yes, I get full aura - even more so since I'm somewhat synaesthetic), so that's what I tend to do.

A while ago, I noticed that colas tended to be a trigger. Then I had a bottle of Gatorade... which triggered me. Turned out it had phosphoric acid in it... so now, that substance is banned from my diet. It's rust remover anyway.

Now, today, I tried a flavour of Gatorade I hadn't had before, and that has triggered me. It didn't have phosphoric acid in it.

I need to get health insurance so I can consult a doctor over this. It's getting silly.

On enthusiasm

It's fairly common knowledge that I'm pretty much a neophobe. New things generally fail to thrill me, and I'm not the type to rave about them. What this means is that I usually fail to notice good new things until some years later. This includes things like TV shows; the movie Serenity came out before I even met the LA, and yet I'm only just getting around to watching Firefly. Quite enjoying it, but several years later than everyone else. This tends to mean that I have a Crap Filter for TV.

This doesn't work quite so well on the internet. At the moment, it seems, the Big Thing is this Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the title of which is discouraging me for a start. Then there's the fact that it's by Joss Whedon; I know this guy's work from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alien Resurrection, and Firefly. In my opinion, that makes him 1 for three; Buffy was popular, but I never understood why, I prefer not to acknowledge the existence of any Alien movies after Aliens, but Firefly's good (and the music is excellent). I admit to not having watched Dr H, but really, it's by someone who for me misses more than he hits, and it's getting a huge amount of buzz.

This brings me to my point: my neophobia, when combined with my ingrained misanthropy, leads to large amounts of enthusiasm for something generally resulting in my moving from "unbothered" to "actively hostile". That's what prompted this post, in fact; the sheer amounts of (let's be brutally honest here) fanboyish pant-wetting over Dr H have caused me to move from "Hmmm, might be worth a look, especially as it's free" to "No.", and I doubt I'm the only person who reacts this way. The fact that Dr H is being taken down tonight (as if that's going to work) so people can buy it (?) is not exactly making me want to see it, either. In a way, I'm kind of hoping it turns out to be successful, but I've been turned off by the fans, and even if it turns out it's perfectly suited to my tastes, I'm not going to see it until it's too late for my viewership to determine success.

Anyway. Long, pointless rant. Enjoy Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog if you like it, but I'm not going to bother. Ask me about it in five years' time, if it's still remembered. After all, culturally, I'm about that far behind. I like it back here, it's comfortable and unthreatening.

On personal development

As some of you know, I work Faire. This is sort of about that.

There are several ways I could be described, personality-wise. I'm shy. I'm a perfectionist. I'm quiet. I generally don't like the spotlight. However, these aren't necessarily good things. When I went for working Faire, I deliberately went for a role that is completely against type. I don't usually deal well with talking to people I don't know; that's what this was all about. I like to consider my words and actions; this role forced me to just do it, and not stop to consider beyond "is this going to really freak the target out?". This role was very much Not Me, and yet I loved it. I was forcing myself outside of my comfort zone, insisting that I do things I really am not happy doing, and making myself see that it really did work out that way. This really helped force me out of the shell I inevitably build around myself. Working this role for almost the entire run of Faire (I worked my arse off, and only missed a couple weekends; those were basically because those weekends, my arse had fallen off) really pushed my limits, physically, mentally and emotionally, and it was a great time. As I said at the time: I wouldn't have let a job kick my arse that hard for $50 an hour, and yet there I was doing it for cookies.

One of the questions asked after the end of the run was "What was your favourite moment from this year's run?". Many people have answered, naming many great, fun things that happened.

Me?

I answered thus: "Every single one I was out there."

I really do feel that working Faire, just this one year, has helped improve me. I was pretty much subjecting my personality to Clarke's Second Law, and that is something that really does help me.

What do you do that you feel improves you?