Gordon

Heroes

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be Heroes, just for one day

David Bowie – Heroes

I don’t think I’ve ever really looked at one person and identified them as a hero.

But I know many many people who are more heroic than they seem to realise.

Which is more heroic, to be the first man on the moon or the first woman in space?

To save a child from a burning building, or be able to get out of the house for the first time in a week?

To stand up in the face of ridicule and abuse, or to lavish praise on the pampered few who hold the spotlight of the media? Or to be considered pampered and hate every second of it.

Everyone is a hero in one way or another.

The scale does not go from 1 to 10.

I’d rather know 100 people who don’t think they are heroic, than 1 person who thinks they are.

April 13, 2015

I guess it was fear of the unknown and being in such an alien, yet oddly familiar, environment. I soon learned the schedules the building ran too, when the generators would kick in, the ticking of the heating system as the pipes warmed in the morning, the slow electronic clicks late at night as systems started to shut down, the gentle squeak of the security guards shoes as he did his rounds.

How I got here is no big surprise. Well, perhaps the location might be to some but the more I get used to it, the more I wonder why more people don’t do it. But then, how would I know if they had?

The situation I find myself in is entirely of my own making, my betting habits getting more and more out of control, debts piling up, bailiffs kicking in doors and next thing you know you are out on the street with only a few clothes to your name.

I still don’t know how I ended up in IKEA the day it all came crashing down. They arrived in the morning, kicked the door in, woke me and told me to get out. I hastily grabbed what I could, a few clothes, a toothbrush and little more, and was marched out the door.

I wandered around in a haze, the reality of my situation slowly unfolding around me. I guess I thought that day would never arrive, that I would somehow manage to survive but I was a fool. It was a misty day and I remember thinking it matched my mood, everything partially hidden and slightly surreal.

Then the large blue and yellow letters loomed out of the low clouds and without really thinking about I headed inside. I think even then I knew what I was planning to do, but I convinced myself I’d stay for a short while to get warm again before moving on.

But as soon as I stepped inside and wandered into a mocked up bedroom area I realised I had an opportunity.

And so here it is I lie, in a hidden bedroom, under a warm duvet, whilst the air conditioning system quietly whooshes and the lights flicker and buzz into life, the alarm clock of my morning.

I know I have an hour to hide now as the first staff start to trickle into the building, so I get up and make my way through the building as quickly as possible, negotiate the warehouse, a wonderful maze of hiding places, and climb to the top of a stack, to my little home.

I don’t sleep here as it’s too cold in the winter, but it’s here I’m accumulating my life once more. A seat cushion from here, a table from there, some blankets and even a little pot plant to keep me company (he’s called Mr. Quiet as he doesn’t say much).

I’m near the staff area which means I can pilfer some personal items, it feels bad but what else can I do? It’s also handily placed near the security centre, it’s amazing how many of the cameras don’t actually work, so hardly a surprise to them when another goes offline; a simple twist and pull on a cable and I have carte blanche to wander an area unimpeded.

The other day I started to wonder if I could just stay here, after all I’ve survived 4 months undetected and I can come and go as I please. I do need a few more disguises though, my biggest fear is being recognised, hats and glasses will only get me so far.

I’m also considering pushing things a bit further, I’m pretty sure I could snag a spare uniform and, who knows, maybe I could fake my way into a job? Just turn up one day and feign innocence? Pretty sure they’d find me out.

For now I’m happy. As long as I watch my time I can drift in and out of any area I want, with free run of the kitchens and all the living rooms and bedrooms a man could ever need.

One thing is for sure though, when I get back on my feet and get my own place, IKEA is the last place I’ll go for furniture.

Idea from 642 Things to Write About

April 9, 2015

Looking after yourself

Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month, the PMM bloggers will write about their views on one of them. Links to all posts can be found at www.polymeansmany.com.

Despite having written many posts for Poly Means Many, and many more that are introspective, the topic for this month has lead me to revisit some uncomfortable conversations and realisations that I’ve had over the past few years. Truth be told it’s been good and is probably something I should do a little more often.

When you first start out on the poly journey all the articles and books suggest that you take some time to check in with yourself, to assess what you want and above all to be honest with yourself.

It’s a lot harder than it sounds but it is the bedrock on which a lot of the other structures that a poly relationship needs is built.

Honesty, like understanding, begins at home, with yourself. In order to be honest with another person, you must first be honest with yourself, and part of that means recognizing and acknowledging the reality of who you are and the reality of your situation.
From More Than Two

For me I had to revisit the root causes of my depression and my tendency to presume unspoken expectations; it meant I had to be honest with myself that I like to be the person that helps, the person who ‘fixes’ things; it meant I had to realise that I need to keep time for me, rather than overcommitting to ‘make other people happy’.

There is a wealth of conversations, realisations, dark moments and tears behind a lot of that, and some of it still bubbles up from time to time and catches me off guard. The difference now is that both my partners are aware of this and I know that I can (and should) talk to them about how I’m feeling.

It wasn’t always the way but, as I’ve been told many times, I need to look after myself so I can look after the ones I love. So whether I’m just alright, doing ok, or feeling good, I am honest about my mood and what I think might be causing it. It’s only fair to my partners, and it’s important for me to acknowledge as well.

Being poly isn’t easy, you need to account for the emotions, energy levels, schedule and desires of others, it’s a constant balancing act which is made all the easier by being honest. Only then are you being true to yourself and only then can you avoid the negatives that can creep in, the build up of small pockets of stress that can lead to blowouts and confrontations.

For me the key to looking after myself is to be honest and to realise that I am allowed to call out for help, or to reschedule a night, or change plans, as long as it’s being done for the right reasons.

April 6, 2015

Happily Imperfect

Never settle. Always push for more. Strive to be better.

Why is it that the older I get the more these clichéd phrases seem to resonate? When did my life become the subject of motivational posters?

Perhaps I’m realising that life is actually quite simple, and that no matter how I try to bend things into weird and wonderful shapes, how many layers of my own issues I pile on top of each day, life will keep on keeping on.

Maybe it’s because I’m more accepting these days, I more relaxed about some of the things that used to get me down or stress me out. Maybe it’s because I have a better understanding of what failure means, that failing is not a bad thing but not trying or not caring enough to try is where the demons lie.

Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much
Or berate yourself either
Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s

Baz Luhrmann – Everybody’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen)

I changed the name of this blog a while ago and the current name seems to fit me more and more. It is an acceptance, a statement of contentment, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve settled for how I am.

A few weekends ago (I’ve been ill and only getting back to this draft now) I realised that there is still a lot I can be better at, I think I summed it up well enough in my reply to a tweet from @pennyred.

I know I have a lot still to learn about many things but increasingly there is a tumbling mess of words at the forefront of my mind that I know are all linked in some way but that I haven’t quite sorted out in my head yet; Privilege, Misogyny, Discrimination, Feminism, Labels, Sexuality, Appropriation, Mis-gendering… the list goes on.

There are many more words, emotions, morals, and sensibilities in this space that all seem to smush together into one big amorphous blob. They are all accompanied by a varying (and thankfully increasing) level of knowledge, a desire to be accommodating and understanding when needed, to be more active and vocal when required, and to large shut up and pay attention to the many people who are smarter than me.

Even then if I do manage to pull all those ideas and thoughts together within my mind, I’m not even sure I should be putting my ill-informed, if well-meaning, ramblings out into the noise. Who needs another man spouting his opinions anyway, we’ve got plenty of those already.

So for now I will continue my journey of learning more, leaning back and looking for opportunities to help. I will not be passive, I will be engaged, I will be respectful. I will learn.

I will get it wrong, but failing is ok, and that is why I consider myself Happily Imperfect. I am happy that I am still on the journey of improving myself, that I still want to challenge things I see and hear, and that I still want to ask ‘Why?’ more often than accept the way things are.

April 2, 2015

Not my blog

When I first started writing short articles I had no real plan. At the time I was inspired by reading the things that others were publishing, it was early 1999 and personal websites were slowly on the rise.

Reading those words, with the slow realisation that I could do it too, seemed like a new and exciting thing. There weren’t that many people doing it at that time (I’d guess at a number in the thousands) so there was a sense of being at the beginning of something, pioneering, blazing the way.

That may sound a little hyperbolic but remember that the internet, the world wide web, was still very much a shiny new thing full of possibilities and no-one really knew what it would become. Some would argue we still don’t. Others would then point out that that is exactly the point. Then someone else will jump in with a photo of a kitten. I digress.

Looking at the first few things I published I can see that they were more articles than diary entries. Sure, they aren’t particularly well written but they were my words, available on the internet for others to read. It was scary and exciting.

At the time my entire website was in hand coded HTML (using Allaire/Macromedia Homesite) and within the first few months of self-publishing I soon found myself looking for ways to make it easier to do, I had to find a way that would let me concentrate on the writing rather than the construction and maintenance of all the surrounding paraphernalia that a website demands.

Ahhh hand-coded menus and permalinks, how I do not miss thee.

Then along came a publishing tool called Blogger, and everything changed, but that story has been told.

Since then I guess it’s safe to say I’ve mostly continued in a similar vein. I’ve used a publishing platform (currently WordPress), tinkered with it at times, but more and more I’ve gone back to my roots and pushed to find ways that let me focus more about the words than the website.

Matt Gemmell recently wrote in a piece that sparked this one (ht: IanD):

Whatever your blog is, and the term is so fluid as to be unhelpful at best and trivialising at worst, it’s something. The first thing you ought to do is give yourself the respect you deserve. Publishing your words online can be a daunting, exposing, soul-baring experience – I know. I’m still haunted by self-doubt before sharing certain pieces with the world. But I do believe that those pieces have value.

Which neatly encapsulates my view of this website and why I have it. From time to time I’ve struggled with the self-doubt he mentions, and over the last 15 years I’ve watched other people find a niche and become very successful publishing their own content but that’s never really been what I wanted to do. I tried it for a while on another blog but once my focus changed it was hard to maintain.

This website remains as it began, a place for me to publish things I write and that have value to me, right now I don’t really have the desire for it to be anything more than that.

And, for the record, I’ve never really liked the word ‘blog’ anyway.

March 26, 2015

Todoist: One Year On

I last wrote about Todoist almost exactly a year ago and it’s telling that I’m still using it today.

How I use Projects

My usage has evolved a little, mostly through the use of sub-projects. In ToDoist a project is really just a bucket, but because you can have sub-projects you can quickly build a hierarchy if you need one or, like me, just group all your Work and Personal stuff into two big buckets.

There are pros and cons to this approach, the pros surface when you start to use filters, the cons when you want to do a weekly review.

Using filters

The main advantage is how Todoist filters work. Because I have all my Work related projects set as sub-projects, when I create a filter based on the parent (Work) Todoist returns all the sub-tasks in all of the sub-projects. That means I can use filters to give a level of focus when I need it.

(Some of) my Todoist Projects and filters

The first few filters shown above were very easy to create and because they will pull in all tasks in any sub-projects, very simple:

p:Work & (today | tomorrow | over due)
p:Work & 5 days
A list of filter syntax is provided but it’s worth checking the Support forums for some that are mentioned in this list.

Weekly Review

Todoist does allow you to see your completed tasks, it’s just not very obvious. To get there you need to click on your Karma rating and then view your completed tasks. Here you can apply some limited filters and if you want to get a few graphs drawn for you as well.

I’ve used this to help generate invoices for clients as it’s a quick way to get all the completed tasks in the past week or two for a given project.

Unfortunately my project structure becomes an issue when I want to review all of my Work projects in one go as, for reasons I’m not aware, Todoist handles sub-projects as separate entities rather than returning them all when you select the parent.

It’d be great if this functionality was expanded to be available in a similar way to the filters to allow for easier control, but it’s not a major blocker for me.

Annoyances

As with every app there are gaps that I hope will be filled one day, nothing that stops me using (and loving) Todoist but annoyances nonetheless:

Default sorting options – my biggest annoyance is not being able to apply (and save) a default sort to a project or filter. Given that Todoist is so good a being ‘personalisable’ elsewhere, this seems like an odd omission.
No Safari extension – specifically a good hook into GMail on Safari.
Notes – You can add a note to a task (and that can be text, or an attachment or voice recording) but I must have a task created before I can do that. It would be good if this was streamlined into the task creation process itself.
Completed Items – moving this to the same data model as the filters would be a huge boon and make those weekly reviews and reports a lot easier to generate.

Author: Gordon