I've figured out what the big difference is between how I am now, and how I was when I was a teenager.

I heard today, from various sources, actually, that today is the last day in about a millennium that we'll have a day where all the digits in all the numerical values of the date are odd.

For more "fun" stuff to do with dates and numbers, check out http://x42.com/datelab/. Link courtesy Webmonkey, and used without permission. Of course, that's because I'm sure they used it without permission, too, and I just don't really care.

When I was a teenager, I'd have thought this was too cool. We (the informal geek circle) would have been tying up the HP minicomputer at school sifting through dates looking for other cool patterns. We'd be writing routines to figure out what holidays fall on what days, and check to see what's special about those dates. We'd have come in to the school the next day, before early morning classes, to rip the output off the line printer, or if there was none yet, to check the terminal we left the job running on to see how far it had to go, yet.

Now? I could really care less.

Sometimes I look at myself, and I think that I don't have a sense of exploration or curiosity like I used to have. I don't pursue things with a passion anymore, I only pursue them when I have to. Sometimes I feel like that fire inside has been extinguished.

Then, at other times, I think that maybe I just don't pursue things that are effectively "pointless," but that just illustrates my lack of exploration, maybe a failure of creativity, and a lost sense of playfulness.

Sometimes I just think that I would be best completely and irrevocably turned off, not trying to accomplish anything, trying to have anything, not trying to be with anyone. People who have low expectations of themselves, and low (or even no) expectations from those around them, tend to be more content in my experience.

Speaking of people being around me, things seem to have gotten out of hand, somewhat, with Gurugrrl again, which ended with me asking her, "we're not going to make it, are we?" and then leaving when she wasn't around to hear me ask that, and returning to a deluge of angry responses, including being told that if I feel this way, maybe it's best we didn't contact each other anymore.

I have this feeling that she means it.

Oddly enough, I started reading the journal of an author who contacted me after perusing mine briefly. After I finished reading her journal archives I ICQ'd her back and told her I was slow, but I read, and I quite enjoyed her journal.

Interestingly, something she talked about therein, and we discussed on ICQ, reminded me a lot of Gurugrrl. The journaller talks about how she doesn't like to have to explain herself to people sometimes, even her husband, and doesn't like to share what's going on with her all the time, that if she needs help, she'll come to you, but until then, she would like people to back off and give her space.

I always thought it was something personal, even though Gurugrrl had said it wasn't... I still felt that way. And why things had gotten out of hand last night was because, as usual, got upset because she was hurting, and so I pressed her, I wanted to help, I needed to know what was going on and be there for her.

And in that, I pushed her right out the door.

Of course, as with Poet's soon-to-be ex-husband, maybe I've realized too late what I needed to be. It just seems so obvious, when it comes from a third party. And maybe that's why I started to read online journals to begin with.

restlessmind