(no subject)

[oyceter]

Yay, cychi is here!!!!

Also, I got to go karaoke last night! My group from work went out, and I think half the people had never been before so I was a little worried that it would be awkward and self-conscious. I adore karaoke, but the people make a real difference in how fun the experience is.

By that, I totally don't mean how well anyone sings, because that's very much not the point. It's more... if everyone is there and feeling bad and awkward and pressured, then the entire thing feels like pulling teeth (ew! complete with cracking noises and no anesthetic!), and the people who are singing feel like they are hogging the microphone, and everything is just sort of iffy.

Or if there is mockery, that almost always kills the mood. Jokes are good, laughing is good, but it's the sense that people are laughing at you instead of with you that ruins it for me.

I've also been karaoke-ing with people who were really great singers, but it was not fun at all because then all the people who weren't great singers (of which there are a greater percentage!) felt left out and embarrassed. I feel like going out to have fun should not feel like a competition.

And then there are times like last night! My group was very fun! Even if they had been the worst singers ever (which they weren't), it would have been fun, because there was silliness and dancing and random tamborines and air guitars and an Elvis impersonation and much sitting around and laughing and having a good time. And while there were jokes and laughter, it felt supportive, if that makes any sense at all? I don't quite know how to define it. But there are some times when I go out with a group of people, and it feels like they look down on the things they joke about, so that if you do something that is laughed at, you feel mocked and stupid.

Last night, if someone did something that was laughed at, the laughter felt friendly and encouraging, so the person up there was having fun, the people down below who weren't singing were having fun. So hopefully no one felt embarrassed. All in all, it was an extremely good time.

Although afterward, my teeth hurt like mad because apparently jaw muscles and wisdom teeth are closely related. Ah, Vicodin is my friend.

But yes, I fear sometimes I am like the ostrich with head in the sand because I very much dislike negativity. Which is not to say that I am against critique or ripping apart books I dislike, but there's got to be some sense of love somewhere, or... why do it? Or something. I think I have hung out with too many people who mock and are sarcastic in a way that makes me feel like I can't do certain things or say certain things for fear of being mocked. This is why I like my group at work so much! Everyone feels ok being just sort of silly, and I can talk about things like self-hypnotizing chickens or geeky things or other things that may normally be mocked, but are just taken in the spirit of good fun here.

It is hard to say, because I can be mean and nasty with the best of them and yell about politics and things. And I totally bitch and vent. But then, if one is only going to bitch and vent and is determined to sit around and make things worse for everyone, I don't quite get the point, I suppose. This is probably because I am a hopeless optimist and figure that things can always change for the better. And not just that things can change for the better, but that I can change things for the better if I try. Well, not the world, unfortunately, but hopefully my own little corner of the world. Hopefully this is different from attempting to be so optimistic that one turns a blind eye to bad things.

And now, I get even more unbearably sappy because I am going to quote song lyrics (yes, I know, hee!). But I heard the song by the Animators at a Vienna Teng concert:

her eyes are too wide for a city girl
but she was downtown born and raised
don't even try to surprise her
but she can be easily amazed
she's seen enough, she oughta be jaded
but she still feels all that she can
and she's clever enough to be all complicated
but she's easy enough to understand

And I like that, and would like to be like that, I suppose. The lovely thing is that before, I thought that the only way to be cool was to be sarcastic and mocking and ironic and detached from everything. That's how it felt in school and through college. I think when I was a kid, I never wanted to grow up because I thought that growing up meant that one had to be cool like that. And the nifty thing is that I have discovered being grown-up means that I can be dorky and easily distracted and easily amused, and that it is perfectly acceptable.

*is sappy*

(this is when I feel so happy and bursting full of goodwill that I am afraid I may be hypomanic? not that i know if i am bipolar, but.. just in case)

And I got a lovely massage from Cy last night! He is all jujitsu trained and everything. It was quite nifty, especially because he'd be like, "Oh, you have a knot there, don't you?" and I'd have to sort of stop and think and realize, oh yes, that part hurt a little more than the other parts. I don't usually notice that.

It is very interesting learning to talk to my body and figure it out, to see how everything is interconnected so that a wrist pain creates tension up the arm and the neck and ends up with a headache.

But yes, it was quite fascinating. Also, masseuse person in my house! Whoo!