Today at work…

I am on-call for my employer and as such respond to emergencies as they occur. Sometime we get a bit punchy in the late afternoons. Here is a summary of an extended email exchange from today.

Msg 1: An actual valid alert
service group xxxxxxxx went offline on system xxxxxxxx

Msg 2: From co-worker 1
This is part of an RFC I am working. Please disregard. Thanks.

Msg 3: From co-worker 2
IS ANYONE WORKING ON THIS!!!!??? Holy Crap!

>Msg 4: From co-worker 1
>When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout!

>>Msg 5: From co-worker 2
>>(co-worker 1) IS TRYING TO DO HAI-KU!!! IS ANYONE WORKING ON THIS???

>>>Msg 6: Now I get involved (not sure what I was doing… 5,5,6??? wtf)
>>>(2 sylable name of co-worker 1) is trying
>>>To do hai-ku now
>>>Without any result

>>>>Msg 7: From co-worker 1
>>>>Us math majors are,
>>>>As far as people know,
>>>>Able to count well.

>>>>Msg 8: From co-worker 2 (5,7,5 only IF you count words)
>>>>Grammar, A thing you need,
>>>>Is sometimes lost when you are tricky.
>>>>This can make me sad…..

>>>>>Msg 9: My reply
>>>>>repaired hai-ku from the original corrupted attempt.
>>>>>(2 sylable name of co-worker 1) has written
>>>>>An example of hai-ku,
>>>>>In its correct form

Msg 10: Co-worker 2
It hurts when I pee,
Maybe I have a disease,
Perhaps I should seek some help.

>Msg 11: Co-worker 2 (a correction to msg 10)
>It hurts when I pee,
>Maybe I have a disease,
>Perhaps I need pills

[silence, crickets chirping]

Msg 12: Co-worker 1 (the misspelling was part of the original)
This game that we play
Wich school kids find so easy
Seems too much for us.

>Msg 13: Me
>When in my spring years
>I was much more creative,
>Now like leaves I fall

>>Msg 16: Co-worker 1
>>I heard from a friend
>>There is surgery to help
>>Get some baboon balls.

>>>Msg 17: Co-worker 2
>>>I feel funny now,
>>>This makes my gaydar scream loud,
>>>Please keep your distance

Msg 14: Co-worker 2 – response to Msg 12
To spell correctly,
Is a thing we should admire,
It requires some skill

>Msg 15: Co-worker 1
>I could give a fuck
>Because “f” seven should help
>And I’m of that age.

Msg 18: Me
Ah the great laughter!
It keeps me awake for now,
But soon I will sleep

Another Life

In another life.

In another life there were lights, and sound, and curtains going up and down.  Actors who were real clowns, and elegant ladies in evening gowns.

In another life there was action and passion, and rage and tears.  Set changes, cues, images and views, costumes with sparkling colorful hues.

In another life I found joy in a little community theater.

So sad to find out it closed 4 years ago:

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1147&dept_id=483411&newsid=13911563&PAG=461&rfi=9

I remember my first show at the Fort Bragg Playhouse.  I got ‘volunteered’ by a Military Doctor to do stage hand work for the Christmas Safety Show in 1987 as part of my learning to de-stress.  After that show I stayed on as a sound tech for the theater.  I was hooked!  I followed the lead sound tech to the Cape Fear Regional Theater and worked beside him for a run of shows:  Steel Magnolias, The Immigrant, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Anything Goes, Social Security, Pumpboys and Dinettes, an original production “Peace, Love & Rock and Roll”, then Big River in ’89.  During that time I also returned to the FBP and worked sound for the production of Shenandoah.  We had Aileen Quinn of Annie (movie version) fame for that one.  She played (If I remember correctly) Jenny.

I had the privilege to work with some of the finest Actors and Actresses and learned to love ‘The roar of the greasepaint, and smell of the crowd’.  Lee Yopp and Bo Thorp but hold fond places in my memory even if I gained my lasting moniker from Lee.  During the Shenandoah rehearsals he would stop at odd moments and shout “somebody get rid of that damned feedback” which eventually got shortened to just ‘feedback’.  I finally put an oscilloscope in-line with the board and showed him the signal was clean.  I think he was wearing a loose fitting hearing aid and the feedback he was hearing was all local to that.  We probably had the cleanest theater sound in the world for that show, but the name stuck for years.  Many people in my current circle have known to call me feedback but this might be the first they knew why!

It truly was another life!

Further Meditations on Love.

I’ve recently been working meditations on Love and how it influences my life.  In order to sort out my own thought on the matter I first decided to settle on what I believe Love is.  Not from a physiological perspective, but the purely subjective experience I ‘feel’ for others.

I read several internet treatises on the subject and numerous magazine articles (none of which agreed with any other), then I stumbled across the early writings of the Greek authors on the subject.  I quickly came to realize that this is how I have viewed Love myself.  Multiple aspects that blend into some conglomerate which become my emotional affect in relating to others in my life.

I will provide the definitions (stolen from Wikipedia) which I have chosen to work from so that we are all on the same page from the beginning.  In no particular order they are:

• Eros – a passionate physical and emotional love based on aesthetic enjoyment; stereotype of romantic love
• Ludus – a love that is played as a game or sport; conquest
• Storge – an affectionate love that slowly develops from friendship, based on similarity
• Pragma – love that is driven by the head, not the heart; undemonstrative
• Mania – highly volatile love; obsession; fueled by low self-esteem
• Agape – selfless altruistic love; spiritual; motherly love

Throughout my life I have experienced most of these in one form or another.  As I began to reflect on them I also realized that memories of each person I have loved, whether they are still part of my life or not, still resonate in my mind with all the feelings attached.

I don’t think I have ever experienced Eros fully, nor do I feel Pragma guides my relationships.  I have experienced Mania (mostly in my younger years), Ludos (While in the Army), and Agape.  But the vast majority of my relationships fall firmly within the Storge experience.  I further realized that within each style I have experienced there has always been more than one person that that particular affection was directed towards.  What does that mean for me that I am capable of loving multiple people in every way simultaneously?  Is that a rare trait?  Is it common in humans?

As I began to consider these thoughts and conducted more research I was introduced to the concept of Polyamory.  Much of the information available deals with this concept purely in the form of multiple (consenting) partner sexual relationships, but to me that is extremely limited thinking.  I wanted to extend or perhaps distil this into the simplest concept.  “We are all capable of loving more than one person at a time.”

While this seems obvious in the extreme since we all know that we love our families, we love our friends, hopefully we love our spouses, we (humanity in this case) get really touchy about the subject of polyamory.  Historically there are plenty of examples of polyamorous attitudes in successful societies.  From biblical stories through ancient Greek and Roman empires to the middle ages, and even as recently as the LDS church practicing Polygyny (They didn’t really practice Polygamy as that would have allowed women to have multiple husbands which was strictly verboten).  Some of the existing Fundamentalist Mormon faiths still endorse this practice.

Why then if we are all capable of Polyamory does our modern society explicitly prevent its open practice when it comes to forming marital bonds.  Is preventing this practice beneficial to society?  Is it a knee jerk reaction to personal discomfort, and if so why?  Could it simply be a dogmatic issue?

There are always more questions and each time I find answers for myself this leads to further enlightenment.  For now I am content to leave these last unanswered as I continue to discover how Polyamoric Storge is influencing my life.