As of Late

I need to write a post. I just do.
Not that anything incredible has happened in my life, but some fun things, definitely.
And there are bits and pieces of things that I have up there in my head just itching at me, begging for me to release them on the page. So here we go:

Remember when I posted on July 5th about my Fall semester plans?
http://several-secrets-of-steven.blogspot.com/2010/07/i-think-i-may.html

Well, it was fun to review that. I am rooming with my friend Tyler. That's been fun.

I didn't switch complexes, since my contract here at Somerset had one semester to go still.

I'm not managing a talent event, since the one I wanted to manage was canceled.

I am going to audition for "Ma A'Capella" on Tuesday! Can I tell you how thrilled I am? I love singing fun stuff like this, and now's my chance.

It's funny how we can plan things out all we want, and then reality steps in and adjusts our plans for us. That's part of the thrill of life.

Now for something serendipitous. I hesitate to tell it, and I'll tell you why after I tell you. I won an iPod Touch. I won it in a drawing at the plasma center. Anyone who donated 8 times in September was entered into a drawing, and I won.
How sweet is that? Well, it's very sweet ...for me. I soon realized that only my closest friends wanted to hear the good news. Everyone else seemed irked that I was bragging to them that I had won something cool and reminding them that they never win things.

I normally don't. Nobody normally does. But I like to think that donating plasma ups my chances. This month the promotion is a 32" flat-screen TV. I'll donate 8 times. I'll be entered to win. I won't win. I just won't, you watch. But I'll be very happy for the person who does! Is that only because I know what it's like to win? I don't think so.

Switching gears. I don't know exactly what I want to be this Halloween. I hate the fact that I have to define what I am. I would like to just dress up as something scary without putting a name to it.

But I understand why we have to do that. People want to organize their perceptions into categories. If you have some label like "zombie" or "witch" or "mummy", people know what to do with it. They can go to the file directory in their brain under the "costumes" label and look it up, and find it there and they know all about that thing, and they add you to their little file and feel all happy and comfortable and then they smile about their mental organizational skills. HOWEVER, if you don't fit their perceptual schema, if they don't have a label to put to your costume, or if it's too vague or unfamiliar, like "ghoul" or "spook", they aren't comfortable because they've got some file dangling without a place to put it. They can't wrap their mind around the idea without a category and so they have a hard time perceiving what they think you are. Maybe I should just dress scary and call my costume "something scary". Surely they've got a file for that.

I have a fear that this next segment will be taken the wrong way. So, I have a request: PLEASE don't take this the wrong way. Just listen.

I am not really a phone person. I HATE trying to converse with people on the phone. I really, really, really do hate it. It's not that I hate keeping in touch, or chatting, or all the great things that can be done in a phone conversation. I love those things. I'm not some miser, some old hermit that shuns human interaction and tries to shut out the outside world. I just don't care much for that medium of communication.

Now, don't take it the wrong way. I don't want anybody to think, "Oh, I shouldn't call him because he hates that." Please, still call, and call often. I love hearing from you. But here's the thing: don't expect me to lead the conversation. If I've got things to say, I'll say them. If I don't, I won't. Don't take that to mean that I'm in a bad mood, or don't want to talk. It means that I hear your voice in a little machine and it's not really you in person and I don't carry on a conversation well with a little machine that is saying your words. Some people have a real art of phone-chat and I just don't.

I've found that I tend to be more business-like on the phone. Let's say whatever it is we need to say so that we can get this over with and get back to the real life that's in front of our eyes.

Also, I think I feel more comfortable expressing myself in person or on the page. That's probably the main reason why I don't prefer the phone. So now you know how I feel about that.

Switching gears again: Know what I did the other night? I was really feeling the fall mood, so I stayed up late reading scary stories online with a mulled-cider scented candle burning next to me on my desk. Then I watched some of the Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow on YouTube. And then I found a version of the same story made for TV in the 80s starring Jeff Goldblum as Icabod Crane. Genius casting for that role, not-so-genius on any other aspect of the production. But it was worth a look, just to see Jeff Goldblum in that role. Then I looked up the actual story of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow on the Online Literature Network (which I have an admitted-addiction to) and read until I couldn't hold my eyes open any longer.

That's all. That's all, until I think of something better to write. And I will. I promise.