The Insane Little Lunatic's Lovelorn Life

This memorable piece fell out of some recess, in my recollection, just now. I was surprised to remember it in its entirety as I wrote it, instead of paying attention in class, when I was sixteen years of age. Being that was thirty years ago and that it unfortunately proves as true today as it did, then, should at least garnish me the welcome pity and perhaps sympathy I so covet. Yeats, would find it amusing. At least, I would like to believe that to be true. I leave it to you to decide for yourself.


There should be a celebration
In regard to population
Because, for every man, there are more women

So even, then, if some should horde
And some get less (while others more)
There still should be: for every man a woman

But, somehow there is a mistake!
For every attempt I try to make -
For every man (but me) there is a woman

Sure there may be more fish in the sea
But all I have for bait is me?!
Starkist, wants tuna that tastes good; I, want a woman

Still, I'm hoping that things will change,
That, Cupid's arrow will have better range . . .
If she's got a big enough bullseye, he'll get me that woman!

Code of Conduct

t has taken approximately one week longer than anticipated to publish the "simple" watch movie I programmed and illustrated using Macromedia Flash. The original post explaining my effort is here.

am generally satisfied and came to the crossroad of whether to fiddle and tweak it endlessly until I had exhausted all refinement or actually release something to the public. The latter is a drastic departure for me. As I am generally pleased that the movie is not "clunky" and awkward and simulates the sleek and smooth functioning of the real watch made by Breitling to a fairly high degree I have taken a bold new step for me and published. I hope to continue in this vein from here on so that my writing and other creative efforts will be seen by their intended audiences. I have a tendency to want something to be perfect before allowing others to be involved. The consequence of that has been that essentially nothing I begin ever is completed or allowed to sink or swim on its own merits.

any of my creative and artistic friends suffer from the same malady. We are also often confronted with the reveal by someone else of many ideas which we had and, frankly developed further, but stand by helplessly because they profited from exposure while we merely wrestled with our demons. I am trying to break that cycle. Thus, warts and all, I have made myself vulnerable to criticism by posting my less than perfect work in the right sidebar. I had to remind myself that my desire to create this small work was for the express purpose of sharing it. For once, I have not lost sight of the main objective. All of the stopwatch functions work. The clock shows the date and time of day where I live. In this way, regardless of where you are in the world or no matter the time of day or night of your viewing my posts you will be made a little more intimately involved directly with my life experience. That's really a goal in my writing in the first place. I want to connect more directly with my readers. I consider my desire to make contact with you was more important than making the perfect watch simulation. But, in my communication as well as future program tweaks I will always strive to improve both.

Code Violations

y current audience consists of two people other than myself. That's fine. This is not one of those blogs where you go to get entertained by a broadcast of telling moments from someone's day. Hopefully, at some future date, it will become a little more like that. Should I have any success as an author, I may be able to tell little anecdotes about meetings with publishers or publicists. I secretly desire to travel to certain spots in the world as inspiration for my work. So, those experiences would be enjoyable, I think.

or the present and foreseeable future, however, I will be mostly journaling about my meandering thoughts and maybe I'll glean some insights from my own conclusions. I'm not expecting any amazing revelations but I am leaving the door open to be surprised. I've really been distracted and uninspired this week. I chased after some email conversations, diverted my time and attention with focus on my other blog (an alter-ego rant festival) and jumped into a little exercise in frustration trying to develop a widget for decorating the sidebar column of this blog page. No. You needn't get caught up in looking for it as it hasn't materialized, yet. I am extremely close but I'm working out flaws in several people's reasoning, including my own. Suffice it to say that if I complete the little gizmo, and execute the presentation properly, there'll be no celebration by anyone seeing it. It will most likely be taken for granted. I suppose that will represent success to me because although the idea is simple the development has not been.

will insist it is a valid exercise because programming is another form of writing that takes practice and skill and is not for everyone. To be able to code, in any programming language, is akin to being able to compose a musical score. That's another pursuit of mine but we'll save that for another day. The challenge in writing software is that the success or failure is much more readily on display than in other forms of authoring. There are only a few places where one may cheat or fall back on comfortable crutches in technique or presentation. Even plagiarism does not work easily with software code. It really requires focus, discipline, and a willingness to be found wrong again and again without losing heart and giving up. Syntax is hugely significant. Spelling accepts no mistakes and there is no spell checker in most debugging tools. It is a great exercise for developing concentration, reason, and determination. Sometimes the discovery of the "right way" to bring your imagination to life is a work of art. There's beauty in the math and structure of the code. It's very intimate and very personal and no matter how much you gush over it while explaining enthusiastically to a non-participant it is going to remain a private affair. This may carry over positively into my novels and other forms of literary constructions. I suppose one really must enjoy what they are doing exclusively and finding anyone else to enjoy it is just a happy coincidence.

hat is an odd thought because I always have a unique someone or special group of someones in mind when I am writing. I am writing to please them and writing to them and writing for them. If I feel I am reaching my intended audience I grow enthusiastic and energized to continue. That's a weak motivation. One bad day or an off impression or even a misinterpretation of a person's reaction has the power to deter or detain or detract from my writing. I'm only realizing that at this moment and thinking how many days have gone by without an entry because I let my imagination of someone else's approval or disapproval interfere with my love of writing. I will need to make that realization a law not to be violated and set writing for the sake of writing as a precedent. There are rules to be broken and there are rules to embrace. I think I find fewer rules need to be broken than habits and attitudes, though. There must be an inviolate code that an author subscribes to in order to create and continue to create with purpose. Like any pursuit it is obvious that one can not allow them self to be diverted from their goal by negative and opposing influences. It 's just important to realize that the really negative and disingenuous notions most often are found from within and not from external sources. Ah, the suffering artist.

Why Beca Sue? Because . . .

his blog is anticipated to be a sort of stream-of-consciousness journal of my floundering efforts to write professionally. It will meander and muse on whatever distracts or gives pause to me during the journey. I hope to discover and pass on little bits and pieces of valuable insight and information. To be honest if I only accomplish that personally will be enough. However, I hope to have more to contribute.

ne of the first issues to address is my typing. I had proper instruction as far back as my sophomore year of high school. I even spent nearly two decades in Information Technology so it would be expected that I would demonstrate decent facility. Nothing could be further from the truth. I hunt and peck and the best explanation would have to be that I lack confidence. I simply do not trust my fingers to coordinate the effort and consistently locate the appropriate keys. I am constantly interrupting my thought process to focus on the keyboard. I don’t merely glance but stare at the keys. Even then I miss every other stroke and tend to interject the space bar either at odd syllables or one letter shy of a complete word. This must be a reflection on my need for assurance on the whole or especially as pertaining to composition. Coincident with the typing dexterity issue is the need to read what has been laboriously entered about every three sentences. There is so much redundancy and self-congratulatory nonsense interrupting the process that there is very little allowance made for progress.

have considered three solutions and may end up incorporating them all and find a few extra. The obsolete method to capture thoughts before they were lost to distraction or mechanical limitations was to transcribe them via Dictaphone. The modern alternative is software such as Dragon Speak which inputs and formats the text to the computer as one speaks. I may find this very conducive to performing brain dumps and then going through the output and turning it into something resembling crafted writing. Another necessary adjustment is to practice my typing and get more acclimated and automatic with my usage. There are some brain-to-finger transfers that have become trademark patterns as well as bitingly irritating. One repetitive error is a personal demon and a great source of amusement for my friends. No one knows who the elusive Beca Sue, is, but I can tell you she is often mentioned in nearly everything I type. She originated in my consistent typographical error in trying to enter the word “because.”

Therefore, my third corrective behavior is not to get hung up on corrective behavior at all and to just write. If I focus too much on the mechanics and grammar and my personal idiosyncrasies I will not be free to express my ideas and get them into a tangible form. Once the thoughts are actually recorded I may spend however much time is necessary or that I like to massage and rework and prove them – but, they need to be out of my head first and foremost. It sounds so reasonable and simple. Let’s see . . . A,S,D,F . . J, K, L, semi-colon. I can do this!