Random bits
9 Sep 2002 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firecatSigned up for a lampworking class at Public Glass. It's on my birthday!
I tried to do it last year but it got canceled. Actually, I feel like my whole birthday got canceled last year. I was turning 40, and my birthday consisted of taking OH to the hospital for an elective surgery. But I've done several fun and worthwhile things for myself this year, so I'm making up for it, and the glass class will be another 5th decade present to myself.
Spent 3 hours shoe shopping on the web last night because my brain was fried and I needed a mindless activity. I now have a better understanding of Douglas Adams's concept of the "Shoe event horizon." I enjoyed the flame wars in the Zappo's Doc Martens reviews about whether it's worth it that Doc Martens are difficult (i.e., painful) to break in. Some people seemed to assign a spiritual value to the pain of breaking in their Doc Martens.
Got a smog check for my car. I've had the car four years, and the first two times I had the option of waiving the smog check if I paid the government a little convenience fee. This time I had to actually do it. I didn't have to submit any paperwork -- it's submitted directly from the smog check station to the DMV. And I got my registration over the Internet. Gaah. I have a love/hate relationship with networked databases.
Planned my trip to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
serenejournal's womboink in San Diego for next week. I'm being "leisurely" and taking two days to drive to San Diego. I'm going to be stopping overnight in Oxnard (mainly because it's about halfway, and it's not Solvang and not Santa Barbara, and it has a marina with an inexpensive hotel on it). I'm looking forward to traveling alone again, and meeting/spending time with many wombats, and spending time with my sweetie kyubi, who will also be there, and (not wombat-related) seeing loveandlight for the first time in, geez, something like 8 years.
On Saturday, went with my girlfriend N to the International Gem & Mineral show. Several hundred businesses selling jewelry, beads, and various other things, all stuffed into one building of the San Mateo Expo Center. Completely thronged with people of a wider ethnic variety than I usually see in one place in the Bay Area. Lots of Indian women in beautiful saris and other traditional garb. I love Indian costume and I wish I felt comfortable wearing it without feeling like a cultural vampire. A number of times at the show I tried to buy something and failed because I couldn't get the attention of someone who might be willing to sell it to me. I bought an amber chunk necklace.
Last night attended PolyShy, a support/discussion group for introverted polyfolks. We played a game where each person drew a card and answered the question on it. It was a good way to get shy folks talking; some of us tend to do better with structure built into a conversation. I kind of disagreed with the prevailing opinion at that particular meeting that there was something wrong with being slow to approach people one is interested in romantically and that shyness was equivalent to insufficient trust in other people. I've been realizing over the past while that I'm simply not interested in making fast approaches. I want to see how a person behaves over time, get a sense for them in the context of their social circles, and feel some familiarity with them before I'm willing to invest the energy of asking them to make room in their life for me.
I tried to do it last year but it got canceled. Actually, I feel like my whole birthday got canceled last year. I was turning 40, and my birthday consisted of taking OH to the hospital for an elective surgery. But I've done several fun and worthwhile things for myself this year, so I'm making up for it, and the glass class will be another 5th decade present to myself.
Spent 3 hours shoe shopping on the web last night because my brain was fried and I needed a mindless activity. I now have a better understanding of Douglas Adams's concept of the "Shoe event horizon." I enjoyed the flame wars in the Zappo's Doc Martens reviews about whether it's worth it that Doc Martens are difficult (i.e., painful) to break in. Some people seemed to assign a spiritual value to the pain of breaking in their Doc Martens.
Got a smog check for my car. I've had the car four years, and the first two times I had the option of waiving the smog check if I paid the government a little convenience fee. This time I had to actually do it. I didn't have to submit any paperwork -- it's submitted directly from the smog check station to the DMV. And I got my registration over the Internet. Gaah. I have a love/hate relationship with networked databases.
Planned my trip to
serenejournal's womboink in San Diego for next week. I'm being "leisurely" and taking two days to drive to San Diego. I'm going to be stopping overnight in Oxnard (mainly because it's about halfway, and it's not Solvang and not Santa Barbara, and it has a marina with an inexpensive hotel on it). I'm looking forward to traveling alone again, and meeting/spending time with many wombats, and spending time with my sweetie kyubi, who will also be there, and (not wombat-related) seeing loveandlight for the first time in, geez, something like 8 years.On Saturday, went with my girlfriend N to the International Gem & Mineral show. Several hundred businesses selling jewelry, beads, and various other things, all stuffed into one building of the San Mateo Expo Center. Completely thronged with people of a wider ethnic variety than I usually see in one place in the Bay Area. Lots of Indian women in beautiful saris and other traditional garb. I love Indian costume and I wish I felt comfortable wearing it without feeling like a cultural vampire. A number of times at the show I tried to buy something and failed because I couldn't get the attention of someone who might be willing to sell it to me. I bought an amber chunk necklace.
Last night attended PolyShy, a support/discussion group for introverted polyfolks. We played a game where each person drew a card and answered the question on it. It was a good way to get shy folks talking; some of us tend to do better with structure built into a conversation. I kind of disagreed with the prevailing opinion at that particular meeting that there was something wrong with being slow to approach people one is interested in romantically and that shyness was equivalent to insufficient trust in other people. I've been realizing over the past while that I'm simply not interested in making fast approaches. I want to see how a person behaves over time, get a sense for them in the context of their social circles, and feel some familiarity with them before I'm willing to invest the energy of asking them to make room in their life for me.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 11 Sep 2002 02:15 am (UTC)I kind of disagreed with the prevailing opinion at that particular meeting that there was something wrong with being slow to approach people one is interested in romantically and that shyness was equivalent to insufficient trust in other people.
My thoughts are... why do we all have to behave the same way... if you like to approach slowly then carry on doin' it and to hell with the critics. :-)
no subject
Date: 11 Sep 2002 09:32 am (UTC)I guess a lot of the people at the meeting were unhappy with a dearth of romance in their lives and thought their shyness was partly to blame for that, so wanted to change the shyness. I can understand that, but I also think that it's not something that can easily be approached head-on. It seems, for me at least, more a matter of finding a social venue that matches my social style than a matter of forcing changes in my social style.
Re:
Date: 11 Sep 2002 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 Sep 2002 09:30 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 12 Sep 2002 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Sep 2002 09:22 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 13 Sep 2002 12:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 11 Sep 2002 12:11 pm (UTC)silliness aside, you said: I guess a lot of the people at the meeting were unhappy with a dearth of romance in their lives and thought their shyness was partly to blame for that, so wanted to change the shyness.
i've been able to change the way that i behave without ever succeeding in changing my shyness. i was telling
and when i got there, the first person i talked a lot to was one of the husbands--safer person because i won't run into him online--i know that it is easier for me to talk to strangers that i need not feel that i will ever encounter again than people who i am meeting for the first time but may "see" (in quotes because the encounter may be online) again and again.
in terms of not approaching people quickly when it comes to romance--i think that is a separate behaviour from the shyness for me--shyness is an element, but even after i get over feeling shy around them, i don't exactly ramp up quickly--i think what you said in an entry i can't see from this screen about wanting to get to know someone really well is far more of the reason than shyness. for me, it's much easier to get into something than out of it most of the time--so better to be cautious getting in.
no subject
Date: 12 Sep 2002 09:34 am (UTC)Yes, inducements get me to go to social events.
I agree that slow-to-approach-romantically isn't necessarily a shyness trait. I guess I got the impression that some folks in this group were conflating the two.