Venix Flytrap's Anticlimax » introspection http://venixflytrap.net a play-in-words Sat, 30 Jul 2011 05:33:16 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Fundal Blooms http://venixflytrap.net/2010/08/28/fundal-blooms/ http://venixflytrap.net/2010/08/28/fundal-blooms/#comments Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:50:22 +0000 venix http://venixflytrap.net/?p=400 One thing I’ve liked about pregnancy is the way it’s taught me to see myself as a Whole Body, rather than an Identity-and-Meat. This is something I thought I already got, but I didn’t realize how far afield of it I really was.

An Identity forms a concept first, and seeks to mold the Meat to that concept, or at least to hold Meat up to the standards of that concept. An Identity can’t be content with the Meat’s reactions and adaptations to its conditions unless the two are in perfect alignment — which can never happen, as Identity and Meat, as separate entities, constantly shift and change at different rates.

A Whole Body is subject to and (most importantly) accepting of the forces within it that are responding to the forces outside of it. A Whole Body realizes the purposes it’s fulfilling and their context in the grander scheme, and forms a concept of itself on those parameters — not the other way around.

That may not sound all too positive — who wants to feel like they’re being led around by the whims of genetics and biochemistry? But it’s not as simple as that.

In fact, I find it rather liberating. Some things are going to happen with your body no matter how you may think your Identity matches or doesn’t match up to it. Pregnancy just puts a huge, bright spotlight on this reality whilst it knocks you on your ass and flips your brain inside out.

In the past, and like countless others in this culture, my self-talk has often been critical of perceived substandard Meaty qualities. These days, I am apt to look at myself in the mirror and perhaps giggle at some of the changes I’ve undergone (yes, even the varicose veins) while realizing that I am physically becoming a reflection of a lovely purpose.

Well. On to the real topic of this blog post.

My Fundus

According to the midwife I saw at St Luke’s before I got my Rhogam shot at the beginning of the week and the homebirth midwife I saw toward the end of this week, my belly is indeed on the smaller side (33 inches or so)… AND my fundus is growing underneath my ribs.

Yes! It certainly is! I don’t know that I’ve ever had more upright, brigadier-general-like posture in my entire life.

The baby made a bruise under my ribs a couple of weeks ago. This seems not to have healed entirely, but instead has continued to be abused by the encroachment of the fundus and the roving kicks of a growing boy.

Sleep for the past 2 weeks has been extremely difficult, as I need to maintain that elongation in my torso to keep my fundus from choking its own blood supply and going numb like a big squashed muscle would reasonably be expected to do.

So between the bruise and the pins-and-needles, AND the night-time itching, AND the fact that I can’t sleep on one side for longer than an hour… it looks like the next few weeks of pregnancy are going to make all these previous months look like swimming the backstroke.

I am very much looking forward to going into labor.

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]]> http://venixflytrap.net/2010/08/28/fundal-blooms/feed/ 0 Accountability FTW: an open letter to FourSquare http://venixflytrap.net/2009/03/16/accountability-ftw-an-open-letter-to-foursquare/ http://venixflytrap.net/2009/03/16/accountability-ftw-an-open-letter-to-foursquare/#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:45:48 +0000 venix http://venixflytrap.net/2009/03/16/accountability-ftw-an-open-letter-to-foursquare/ What makes a game a game?

The world — and by “world” I of course mean “everybody who’s at SXSW right now” — is all a-twitter about FourSquare, a website aiming to turn your social life into an adventure game complete with experience points and trophies (they call ‘em badges), and the self-proclaimed sequel to the ill-fated Dodgeball.  While I am definitely #notatsxsw, the flood of SXSW tweets about #foursquare got me more than a little curious.

So I signed up, and of course my four bigshot social media maven friends (who are NOT #notatsxsw) were already on there.  I poke around a bit, getting a feel for what would be the “action” of this game.  The site is brand spanking new, so while the mechanics are largely in place, the content is not. 

It takes me 2 minutes to realize you could rack up a ton of points just clicking “sure I done that” on lots of random tasks.  My immediate reaction: this is a web-based button-masher.  So of course, since my brash editorial brain craves a global audience, I took it right to Twitter:

nthmost: #foursquare isn’t a fun game because there’s no accountability. It’s a web-based button-masher. iPhone app doubly so.
about a day ago
MyFriendTim: #foursquare maybe scoring is not so revolutionary. # of friends on FB or followers here is already real world score
about a day ago
nthmost: @MyFriendTim true, but that’s the #twitter game. #foursquare should be better at being the game it’s trying to be. :)
about a day ago
MyFriendTim: hmm don’t have #foursquare but I got the idea that it effectively scored stupid acts not that it stupidly scored effective acts
about a day ago
nthmost: @MyFriendTim I just signed up an hour ago to check out #foursquare . I already have 5 pts b/c I found stuff I could click “yeah me too” on.
about a day ago
MyFriendTim: re #foursquare ugh. Stupid scores for stupid acts
about a day ago
nthmost: People make a lot of tasks like “go to We Be Sushi on Valencia and get the Early Bird Special”. Uh, yup. check. done it. #foursquare
about a day ago
nthmost: But okay, maybe it’s yet another form of lifestreaming, similar to how the stuff you click “favorite” in YouTube can show in your FriendFeed
about a day ago
nthmost: But in that case #foursquare != game. If they don’t want to be a game, that’s cool too. Someone else could make the game I’m wanting here.
about a day ago
nthmost: @MyFriendTim Tasks don’t have to be stupid. They’re player-created / controlled. Which of course means >95% stupid. #foursquare
about a day ago
MyFriendTim: I’ll check it out but I am with you. I don’t want amplifiers of current status games but want more interesting markers #foursquare
about a day ago
nthmost: #foursquare Tasks could be interesting in aggregate. Could help suggest what to do in strange cities, help ppl find others who do cool stuff
about a day ago

As it happened, @foursquare was tracking mentions of #foursquare, and caught me in the act of my loudmouth editorializing.  [will clean up all Twitter copy-pasting later]

@nthmost Sorry you hate foursquare (and fun. & puppies). I hope we can still be friends. :) JK – we got tons of stuff to fix. Bear w/ us!  4:56 PM Mar 14th from web

@foursquare I kid because I love. I just submitted a nice fat suggestion for you. (I do hate fun though. >:-|  5:02 PM Mar 14th from TweetDeck in reply to foursquare

@foursquare I actually just spent a lot of time looking at your site hoping to see a list of “what’s coming”… didn’t find it  5:04 PM Mar 14th from TweetDeck

@nthmost. Ha. We love you too. And no list of what’s “coming soon” because we ran out of time (I was fixing bugs at airport!). Soon tho!  5:10 PM Mar 14th from web

 

I honestly do love what they’re setting out to do.  I just think it could be a much better game, if a game is what they want to be, by incorporating some really basic principles of what makes any game fun and addictive.  Of course I briefly considered “well I’ll just make my OWN douchebag game!”, but that lasted all of 10 seconds as I realized I had no interest in starting a website defined as successful by having ever-increasing overhead and no income.

Hence, I headed over to the FourSquare suggestion box and wrote the following, complete with lovingly hand-crafted HTML for best readability (this is straight copy-paste):

More Fun with a Little Accountability

Accountability may not sound like Fun, but a little goes a long way in making a game more fun and addictive. How about sparking creativity by letting players optionally create simple tests to “prove” the task was done?

Examples:

  • amount of the bill at the restaurant after ordering a specific meal
  • color of the person’s hair that the player was supposed to meet
  • name of the guy who owns that little hole-in-the-wall cafe
  • second word in the last paragraph on page 31 of the King’s Quest III manual

In other words, tiny bits of data that would be really easy to get if you’re there doing it, and either impossible to get otherwise, or just a silly pain in the butt to remember to look up on the web just to get the points.

Format could be similar to a captcha. Task-creators should have the option of showing to the player that there will be a validation required, otherwise people might later click “I’ve done this” and find they’re missing the data they need, possibly being unable to get it again.

Certain badges could be comprised only of tasks that require proof. Since proofs would be totally optional, a feature like this would add a layer to the game rather than change the way the whole game works.

–Naomi Most, March 14, 2009

Tangential thoughts: This experience has caused me to evaluate my “voice” on Twitter and around the net.  I’m happy with all of the above interactions. “People love a loose cannon”, as a family member once quipped at me over 12 years ago.  But I have some thinking to do as to how best to capitalize upon this persona’s comfort with having strong, somewhat abrasive opinions.

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]]> http://venixflytrap.net/2009/03/16/accountability-ftw-an-open-letter-to-foursquare/feed/ 2 Burning My Candle at Both Ends http://venixflytrap.net/2009/03/02/burning-my-candle-at-both-ends/ http://venixflytrap.net/2009/03/02/burning-my-candle-at-both-ends/#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:45:38 +0000 venix http://venixflytrap.net/2009/03/02/burning-my-candle-at-both-ends/ “Have you not gone to sleep yet?  young lady?”

I sit at my computer gently tapping away at some project or another, my third cup of black tea by my side, the increasing light gradually revealing my nightly crime: that yet again I have forgotten to go to bed.

Those who’ve known me a long time would no doubt recognize the scene as belonging to the early dot-com era when I lived with my grandmom, worked a programming job by day, did freelance websites (and a lot of Starcraft) by night.

Yet the author of the above statement was my housemate, just this moment, coming up to take his shower.  His tone was facetious, of course.

My grandmother would have said something very similar, though much more concernedly.  One morning, awake and floating down the stairs at 6am as she always did, utterly perplexed at finding me still at the computer where she left me, she recited me these two lines of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

“I burn my candle at both ends,
it may not last the night…”

I felt chastised.  But I never felt I could explain what it was that kept me up all night.

I also never knew the other two lines of the poem, strangely enough, until a few years later:

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends–

It gives a lovely light!

Ah hah, I have my answer for my grandmother, sadly too late (she is dead).

The light of the world isn’t enough for me; I need to create my own.  Whether it burns me away just doesn’t matter, not right now.  I’m striving for something brighter — sleep be damned.

 

Insomniac phase 1: 1998 : web 1.0

Insomniac phase 2: 2009 : web 2.0

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]]> http://venixflytrap.net/2009/03/02/burning-my-candle-at-both-ends/feed/ 2 Drummers Anonymous? http://venixflytrap.net/2009/02/07/drummers-anonymous/ http://venixflytrap.net/2009/02/07/drummers-anonymous/#comments Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:38:57 +0000 venix http://venixflytrap.net/2009/02/07/drummers-anonymous/ Hello, I’m Naomi, and I’m a drum addict.

It started innocently enough, a few whacks on a snare when I was really young.  Joined a punk band and played bass with a drummer, boy he sure drummed.  But I didn’t see the harm in it.  He left his drums in my basement and I… experimented.  But it wasn’t a problem.

Years later, I had lots of opportunities to try drumming, sometimes for whole songs at a time.  Nothing tricky or fancy, just holding down a pattern while the usual drummer was singing.  Maybe that was the seed, I don’t know.  It didn’t seem like a problem.

Fast forward to last year.  I got this game, maybe you’ve heard of it… Rock Band.  It came with this mini set of plastic and aluminum drums, four pads and an imitation kick pedal.  I didn’t think much of it at first, preferring the plastic guitar which I was already pretty good at.

But the more it sat there, the more the temptation grew, until one day, I sat down and played the drums again.

I didn’t get obsessed right away — it took months to develop the habit.  Eventually I got hooked.

Hitting things in rhythm, the physical exertion, the feeling of one’s whole body being involved in the music… exquisite.  I couldn’t get enough.

My housemates had heard quite enough though.  It’s lucky that I had a big trip coming up, 2+ weeks away in Australia and Japan (which turned into 9 weeks), because it let them forget about how freaking noisy my little drum habit was.

When I was in Japan I met a few drummers who did other kinds of drums — taiko, kodo, stuff like that.  It’s great stuff but kinda hard to find.  Basically it just stoked the fire for me, thinking about the beats I’d hammer out when I got home.

And when I got home, a certain couple, “making up for lost time”, who will remain nameless but you know who you are, sent me a fantastic electronic drum kit with very realistic action from the pads and cymbals, but which is even more freaking noisy than the little Rock Band drums.

These days all I think about is when I can get another fix.  It’s so loud, I know it hurts the people around me… but I can’t stop.  I try to just do it when nobody’s home, so no one will notice or care… but with 3 housemates and only one with a day job, it’s just about impossible.  People come home in the middle of my “rocking out” and I just know they’re thinking what a junky I am and wishing I would just stop.

It rips my heart apart.  I want to drum, create music, be a part of the music in a way I’ve never fully engaged in before.  I’m getting really freaking good at it now, and I have the equipment to match.  But I can’t play… not here at home.

So the gig is up.  I’m a drum addict, everybody knows it, and everybody’s pretty annoyed with it.  I’m depressed and I need help.

(Ok, I’m not actually depressed.  But I am a little frustrated that I’ve gotten myself hooked on a fundamentally noisy hobby.  Headphones don’t help when you’re essentially whacking tupperware with wooden sticks.  Hrm….)

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]]> http://venixflytrap.net/2009/02/07/drummers-anonymous/feed/ 0 corner-sitting and other in-betweens http://venixflytrap.net/2009/01/16/corner-sitting-and-other-in-betweens/ http://venixflytrap.net/2009/01/16/corner-sitting-and-other-in-betweens/#comments Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:32:20 +0000 venix http://venixflytrap.net/2009/01/16/corner-sitting-and-other-in-betweens/ And now for something completely introspective.  I was sitting on the subway with my backpack on, the rear protrusion crammed into the corner made by the forward-facing subway seat and the train wall, when I realized that no one else sits this way.

When seated in a cafe, as I am right now, I most enjoy chairs next to the wall.  I make a corner out of the seat back and the wall, and sit with my legs at a 45-degree angle facing out of the seating arrangement.  I could be sitting there for 30 seconds or 2 hours, same posture.  In fact, I’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half, with a bit of a half-twist in my torso to square my arms with the keyboard.

So, I suppose I’m weird, and I wonder what the compulsion / habit is all about.  Normal people take off their bags, and tuck in their chairs.  Normal people that accompany me worry that I’m not comfortable and encourage me to take off my bag and/or tuck in my chair.  But the truth is, I’m already at my most comfortable in that in-between state.

Could be part of a subconscious refusal to commit to the situation of being either fully seated or ready to go.  After all, you have to turn your whole body an extra 45 degrees to sit square into the seat, and then pull the chair in.  And when you’ve done that, you can’t just stand up; you have to scoot the chair back about a foot (often requiring you to look around to make sure you’re not about to bump into someone or something), and then turn out.  What a hassle.

It’s part of why I enjoy wearing side-bags and belt-pouches as opposed to carrying handbags.  Handbags have to be stashed somewhere while you’re sitting, and then remembered upon leaving.  It’s an extra step between being settled in and being able to leave, a step I don’t care to take.

Am I seeking efficiency or just trying to be ready for anything?  Hm.

There’s also the simple self-effacement explanation, i.e.  "leave me alone, I’m reading my sci-fi novel." I almost always chose the back corner seat in class, so that I could read books rather than be bored out of my mind.  Perhaps corner-sitting has simply become my Way.

This "London Fog" tea latte at Starbucks isn’t too bad.  It’s a strong-brewed Tazo Earl grey in (soy) milk with some sweetener added.  Way too sweet, of course.

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