Mes Souhaites

Last night was solstice and I went over to Molly's house for some dinner and what proved to be a really interesting story time and candle lighting ceremony.

Afterward we were all lying about chatting and the subject of the most poisonous gastropod came up, as it is apt to do. A different Molly who is a marine biologist told the disturbing story of someone at her university who had been stung a conidae. The poison is extremely virulent and rendered the fellow completely paralyzed. As he lie there on the beach with people all around him assisting his breathing, he was unable to move for several hours. Unable to make any sound at all to tell them to close his eyes as he stared at the sun until it burned out his retinas. What a horrible horrible thing to have to experience.

From there the subject drifted to other drugs and I mentioned that I have an interview for a web administrator position with the Marijuana Policy Project when I get back. I mentioned that really being committed to the work I am doing is something I enjoy and though I certainly think this is a valid issue, I wasn't really passionate about it. Also, I know from working on the missile defense system what it feels like to have a job that some people disapprove of and I wasn't sure I wanted another.

It was then that the original Molly told the story of a friend of her father's who grew marijuana in his house for himself and his friends. At one point he took a homeless man in and fed him and housed him for a while. It turns out that this homeless man was wanted by the police and when they caught him he turned in his benefactor as a part of the plea bargain. The guy got seven years. Coincidentally, during his time in prison he developed a neurological disorder that both causes him to shake and occasionally quite a bit of pain. That he can't smoke at a time that it would likely help make him more comfortable is another bit of unfortunate irony.

Both the responses of my friends and this story helped me feels a little bit better about the job. More than likely my dad is going to be his usually disapproving self and accuse me of being a pot head. If that be the case, fuck'im. As I've been emailing back and forth in the last couple days setting up travel plans I've been having long forgotten feelings of guilt and failure at not measuring up to what my parents wanted me to be. I don't hope to make those go away, but at the least I'll not let them drive me.

I think I've blown a fuse in my brain. Something about 22 hours staring at a computer screen trying to master the evil empire while eating animal crackers was a bit too much. (I ate five 150g bags of animal crackers sitting here. That's over a pound and a half of little fishes and camels. (Mauritanian animal crackers have no bears or lions.))

I've been sitting here wandering over good time wasting sites. I went back to my okcupid account. There is a base personality test that they use for broad categorization and I decided to retake that since my last assessment was "Boy Next Door" which I felt was generally fitting, but not completely apt. I wanted to see if things would come out different if I took it again.

The test assesses along four axes:

I like the layout of the test and the various axes. So far as overall personality, I think something like the enneagram is a more complete metric. For something that is more easily grasped though and specifically aimed at dating, I like this one.

So, I went from being the Boy Next Door (RGLD) to being that Last Man on Earth (RBSD).

I think I like this one less in description, but I can definitely feel the shift away from love and emotionality in myself as of late. It has just been too long. I'm tired of being lonely and sad. I figure I ought to just get in the game and try and hook up a bit. The rest will just have to wait for that incogitable time when I meet a good woman. ☺

The loss of my innocence is depressing to contemplate. I'm gonna go drink and play pool…

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I did have fun updating my adjectives. It pandered to my enjoyment of things hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian. I went from perspicacious, loquacious and irreverent to mercurial, ebullient and blithe.