Month: February 2017

Who Am I?

Posted on by Nolan Slover (Note Worthy)

(A/N: this blog entry came after a day of spending time with friends, and listening to Dr. Wolf videos trying to get something to spark my creativity.)

Today I’m sitting back and… wondering.  I watched another NASCAR race today as I have been doing on Sundays, heard some frustrating news about one of my friends I thought I was going to see this upcoming weekend and fell back into the well of silence.

I do not handle idled time well.  I have concepts in my head, things I want to do… and when I go to do them I lose all inspiration.  I know what I should do–push on forward and do it for me and not care if anybody else gets anything out of it.

Four years ago I met friends who–through reasons barring understanding–still stick around with me.  I was able to execute a story and have fun with it–even when the rules didn’t make any sense or I didn’t know what to do… the true point was that we were doing something.

After so long, the story dried up.  The lightning was out of the bottle and I was as Scootaloo became in Flight To The Finish–bashing my head against the wall over and over trying to get back to that moment, trying to recapture that moment of serendipity where it all came together.

There are things I consider myself competent to try.  However, I run quickly into the barriers of entry.  This is a familiar concept for business people or IBOs who are trying to break into the market.

The barrier to entry into me becoming a reviewer is twofold: right now, the market is flooded.  Second, I don’t own video editing/composing software.

I’m working on writing a couple of books/short stories.  There are three projects I’m working on right now, one of which is on the back burner and may stay there as I’ve reviewed the piece as it is and find the writing style so hideously inconsistent that would displace even the most attentive reader.

I’ve tried to become an artist.  I purchased a tablet from a friend of mine and used it–only to discover that the transition between traditional media, which I am half-competent at, and digital was like jumping across an ocean with your hands tied behind your back, blindfolded and aimed the wrong way.

So… what am I good at?  Well, I’m half-decent at social media.  I’ve been involved with two conventions helping with their mascots and having a great time doing it… most of the time.  Tonight I found myself unable to answer a set-up post from another member of the social media team.  I still haven’t answered it yet.

I’m a good organizer.  I help to administrate the local meet-up on a monthly basis, handle membership requests for the Facebook group, and serve as de facto leader while at the meets–a role yesterday I tried to downplay and be more social… only to spend so much time quiet and wanting to have someone serve as a counselor… someone to talk to and get my emotions out.

And I couldn’t find it.  I wanted to reach out to someone, grab them by the lapels and scream in their face ”HELP ME!”  But… it never formed.  And I didn’t.  I just… stayed quiet and kept to myself.

I’m a decent conversationalist.  Most of that comes from being an attentive listener.  One of the things I’ve learned from a wonderful book I’ve skimmed, How to Win Friends & Influence People.  (There’s a PDF available as well.)

I just learned some of the better features of Tumblr tonight. Yay knowledge!  I learned how to paste in the videos that are in the above post.

From time index 11:45 in the video directly above this paragraph until 19:55 is where I’ve been.  For four years.

Am I in that self-induced cocoon?  Where I just push people away that try to help, have surface relationships that go nowhere and leave me unfulfilled?  Have my accomplishments snatched away from me because of someone being unwilling to stand up for me and take my side?

I turn 41 this year.  A little over 2 months away.

I’m tired of being stuck.

So… who am I?

Life Update

Posted on by Nolan Slover (Note Worthy)

ask-keyframe:

Oh great, one of these posts again. But I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t important.

I honestly did not know how to go about this, outside of my blunt updates on twitter.  But, here goes.

As my previous posts recalled, my father was put into a nursing facility in the later part of 2016, for multiple reasons. He was a fall risk, he could not walk on his own accord, and generally could not be trusted alone to do the actions he needed to do.  This nursing home was garbage, and did not help my dad in the slightest.  And, in the first week of January, I found out he was going to be put into hospice care, and after my moms fighting with the nursing facility, home hospice care.  Lets fast forward. 

On Saturday, I found out my dad got put into the hospital in a critical condition, due to him refusing to wear his CPAP. Now CPAP stands for 

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, which provides a steady stream of air to the recipient through the form of a mask. Now, some people wear these for mild purposes, like to neutralize snoring and habits like that. My father, however, has a myriad of breathing problems, including emphysema. So, he needs this machine to put enough oxygen into his system to function. For his brain and heart to actually be in working condition.  But my father has gotten to a point where he refuses to wear this mask, too stubborn, even though it is literally his life line.  After being admitted, and returned home, I was given news that…I wish that I could erase from my mind.  My father was put under DNR. Do Not Resuscitate, which basically means, if he stops breathing, if he shuts down…he’s gone. 

My fathers health has declined rapidly the last few months, as I learned.  He doesn’t have the strength to dress himself, to even get up to relieve himself.  He mumbles and fights at things that aren’t even there, or at the people he cares about.  I thought, we thought, he could make it til the end of 2017…that doesn’t seem like a possibility anymore.  I want to hope, I do, but with him in this state, is it good to hope for an elongation of the pain he is going through, to keep me from feeling an inevitable pain that I will have to face at some point? 

I talked to him on Super Bowl Sunday. My mother and him were having a little “party”. My dad loves the Super Bowl.  He said to me “I can’t wait to see you.”  That. That was the first time he expressed excitement in my planned visit in April.  Most of the time, he got annoyed I pushed it back from the first date in March.  He says it every time I talk to him now. I don’t know if he knows or not how finite time is. 

To put it…these next few days, or weeks, hell, maybe month or two…they will not be easy for me.  They will be filled with paranoia and fear, simultaneously waiting and dreading that phone call.  The days recently have felt slower, I feel each minute passing by.  I’m trying the best I can to keep a smile on my face and a happy tone in my voice.  That’s what my dad would want, to be strong in the face of something that would break you.  It’s hard.  It’s really fucking hard. But hey, I’ve been strong before in hard times, right? 

Please, I ask this.  Even if you are not religious or anything…pray for my dad. Pray for peace and comfort for him.  Send him love and care.  I know praying sounds cheesy, but it’s the symbol I know of showing someone is in your thoughts.  I know he, nor my mom are perfect, but please, push aside those opinions right now, and view them as two people who are hurting.  

Thank you all, much love.

Chrissy.

Line In The Sand

Posted on by Nolan Slover (Note Worthy)

I may end up deleting this as it’s late and right now I’m being probably more emotional than is beneficial for me to type up something like this, but it really is something I need to say rather than be kept pent up inside.

I still haven’t had, at least in my opinion and to the best of my knowledge, a strong and consistent friendship in my life.

What do I mean by “strong and consistent”?  Well, one that I can tangibly say grows in depth.  We talk relatively frequently (at least once a week, even if it’s just for a few minutes), learn about each other, and if logistically feasible, see one another once a month or once a quarter (three-month period).

And I will be the first to say that 95% of the failing on part in fulfilling those requirements lies with myself.  I’m hesitant to start conversations, the whole “Oh, they’ll talk to me first” line having now worn thin from its previously very flimsy state, using work or “I don’t have anything to talk about” as go-to internal excuses why I don’t reach out.  When I see a group of people together already doing something, I am quick to steer clear and give them their room and not interfere with anything they might be up to, even if the scenario implies no such exclusiveness.  This is partially due to some social faux paus that I committed less than a year ago with aforementioned friends.

In over a week’s time, I’m going to be leaving from work and driving a fair distance to spend the weekend with said friends to celebrate one of their birthdays.  And tonight I found myself sitting and wondering about the depth of our friendship.  Not questioning the friendship itself, but its depth.

I discovered that… it really wasn’t very deep.  The friend I’m speaking of is a good guy; we attended BronyCon last year together and had a decent amount of fun.  After that, though… we drifted apart again.  I… don’t really know why.  It just sort of happened.  We both got back to our day-to-day.  We had incremental contact but it wasn’t very long, usually.   We would try and do the things we had done in days past; once I got a new job with different hours, it limited the amount of time I could spend talking to this person and interacting with them.  Contact became intermittent; we’ve been chatting more in the last couple of days, which was encouraging.

I could sit here and point fingers. be upset with the person.  But I find those fingers coming back to me partially;  once communication broke down, we stopped really talking about what the other was doing and from there becoming unable to coordinate activities–and when you’re not doing something with somebody that you don’t talk to that often, it’s very easy to forget and focus on the people you are spending more time with.

I can’t really undo the time spent.  That’s the past, it’s over and there’s only one thing I can do about it: make a different future.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, I could cry and sit here and wallow in self-pity about a variety of things, but it’ll only continue to leave me isolated and on the outside looking in at people working or playing together and wondering when it was going to be my turn to be asked to join the fun.

Going into the future, I really want to start developing more deep friendships.  It’s great to have casual friends that you get together with once in a while and don’t know as well as others, but I feel for a person to be complete they really need a deep friendship in their lives.

Anyway, it’s late and I have work in the morning.