GeeCee's Not-Entirely-Original Miscellany

I've dyed my hair purple, I'm planning on getting some new ink as soon as finances allow and maybe getting my long-lost nostril piercing redone. I went for a drive Sunday afternoon out to the far side of the Shenandoah Valley, and the temptation to just keep going over the mountains and towards the Pacific was very, very strong. A few weeks ago I did something completely out of character for me in recent years, and it was good and it was fun and it frankly surprised the hell out of me for a whole host of reasons.

At least once a year, usually in the spring or summer, I get this overwhelming feeling that I need to do something different and shake my life up a little bit. Generally I keep any actions based on that feeling limited to doing something small, like picking a hair color from the Crayola box, because honestly I'm not terribly comfortable with large-scale change. I like stability, I like knowing what to expect most days. Sometimes though "the usual" bores me and I just want to step outside that comfort zone a bit, or perhaps even a lot. I think about going out and meeting random new people. I think about getting more visible ink. I think about taking a month off and driving across the country with a copy of Roadside America and no particular plan other than stopping at random cheesy roadside attractions. I think about signing up for the Mongol Rally. I think about quitting my job (although I have too much debt to be able to do that anytime soon). I think about picking up and moving to Boulder, or to Paris. I've thought in the past that maybe I should break up with everyone and be single for a while. (To those of you I'm dating, don't worry; this wasn't at all recent.) Am I going to do any of that? Probably not, other than maybe meet new people and get a wrist piece. I think even if I did pick up and move across the country or across the Atlantic, I'd still get restless in the spring.

I have a real problem with guilt. By that I mean that I take on rather too much of it, even for things that aren't particularly my fault. Example: a mistake was made a few weeks ago, and all documentation leads to the conclusion that the mistake wasn't mine (and the other party said at the time the mistake was pointed out that the fault might've been on their end). Since I have in fact made that particular mistake in the past though, I promptly went on to stress about the fact that I might've screwed up and felt pretty damn bad about it for several hours. Even though I knew that I'd not messed up in this case, I still took on a disproportionate amount of feeling bad about it (by which I mean "any"). That's just wrong. Why on earth should I feel bad about something that I didn't even do?

And when I do actually screw up? I can't seem to let it go. Heck, I still have flashes of ooginess about things that happened a decade or more ago. I will beat myself up for mistakes I make far longer and harder than the wronged party is ever likely to, and there is little anyone else can say that will make me feel quite as bad as I can manage all on my own. I have literally worried myself sick with feelings of guilt over screw-ups. Sense of proportion? Yeah, I've heard of those. It's not that I feel I must be perfect, it's that I really hate feeling like I've disappointed someone or made them angry. Conflict-avoidant much? Oh, HELL yeah.

I wish I could get a handle on this behavior. Yes, I should feel (at least a little) bad about things that are my fault, but then I should attempt to fix the situation and let it go. I need to also learn not to accept responsibility and feel guilt for things that aren't my fault. That's pretty self-centered right there, because I'm making everything All About Me when it most decidedly is not. Perspective: I should work on getting some.

(No, I don't normally talk here explicitly about how my brain works. Y'all are just lucky today, I guess.)

This pretty well sums up Friday afternoon and this morning:

So despite following the published advice on how to configure Apache to let you use a directory outside of the normal hierarchy, and despite applying your hard-earned Unix skills, Fedora is yanking the rug out from under you when your back is turned, and then arranging to have Apache blame you.

Sheesh.

Fair warning: today I'm extremely low on sleep (I got maybe four hours thanks to another lovely bout of insomnia) and cranky. Even better, sleep dep tends to cause my anxiety to kick in, so I'm both pissy and paranoid. Best combination EVAR. I'm going to try to keep my LJ tab closed most of the day; I ought to be able to do this without resorting to making it disappear by editing my hosts file, I do have some willpower. Right? I'll try to catch up with some comments owed this evening at some point.

[Edit: Oh right. New Lisa Gerrard. That'll help with the calm, but hopefully not enough that I end up with QWERTY-face and drool on my keyboard.]

Today is Prickle-Prickle, day 65 in the season of Bureaucracy, 3271.

The great thing about the supplement adjusting yesterday was that it led to a state of definite hyperactivity and an unusually productive morning. It actually felt pretty good. The not-so-great thing is that even though I felt it had worn off, the effects stuck around until well after I got home from the DCD show last night. Which would be fine, except that around 2:30 I decided to go to bed and try to finish up the chapter I was reading in "Atonement" and having set my mind to doing something, I kept on doing it. Until at least 3:30. When I had to get up for work this morning, on a damp and overcast day (which makes me not want to get out of bed at the best of times, much less when I've had 5 hours of sleep).

Note to self: don't do that again.

I didn't think I'd have wanted earplugs for a Dead Can Dance show, but I really regretted not having them. Lisa's voice several times managed to make my ears buzz painfully. You know that rattling noise you get from the speakers when you've got your stereo turned up too loud? Yeah, that. Freaky feeling to feel that inside your ear, it is. As nminusone said though, if I had to sacrifice some of my hearing, this was a good cause. Strathmore is an absolutely gorgeous venue and the crowd was both respectful and very appreciative of the music (no loud cellphone conversations or wandering up and down the aisles that I noticed, and flash photography seemed to be kept to a minimum). We had, IMO, pretty damn good seats, close to dead center in the orchestra section towards the back. Good sound and line of sight. I didn't feel like standing in the extremely long line to get a voucher for a recording of the show, but hopped online once we got home and put in an order. I don't have the specific DC set list yet, but apparently all the North American shows at least have had the same songs, so here's the ( Boston set list, for reference )

Did I mention the eye candy? Dear god, there were some fabulous people there last night, in particular the stunning girl in a jaw-droppingly beautiful silver and black sari and the girl with long burgundy dreads. I've got my holiday wish list already made up. ;) It was great to get to meet kmusser and get to see tommx again, it had been far too long. (Longer even than I thought, apparently.) Yay for being social!