In the course of said recent musings, however, I realized something interesting about the way I view people, which I have tentatively termed “friendship tiers”. It’s… not really a very accurate term.

Essentially, what happens is that I will talk to people to get to know them, and when whatever part of me that runs these things decides I know them well enough, they get filed into a tier. This tier level describes how much I value that person’s existence.

Yes, I do mean existence. Not their opinion, not their company, not their happiness. It describes how much continued interest I have in that person’s very existence in the world.

The bottom “level” of this tier system is not really a level so much as a pool below the shelves. This is where the bulk of my “social contacts” reside, and is what I term “acquaintances”. My acquaintances are people who I have spoken with on at least one occasion and who I have not forgotten about. They float around in the big jumbled pool, waiting for me to learn new bits of data about them and add it to their… profile, I suppose.

The vast majority of real-life acquaintances don’t even have data for “name”, or hardly even “face”. They’re identified by connections to tiered people and the chances of my recognizing them if I crossed paths with them are extremely slim. This commonly occurs with people who remember me quite clearly, which is a bit awkward for me.

Online acquaintances generally have a screenname and a connection to one or more tiered people, at minimum.

Once an acquaintance has been floating around in that pool long enough to collect a thorough enough quantity of data, they get moved up to a tier.

It isn’t a progressive tier – you don’t start at the bottom and move your way up. Once I put you on a tier, you are there pretty much forever unless 1) we stop talking for a few years and you drop back into the pool, or 2) I learn something about you that totally alters/breaks my previous analysis of your character.

So then, the tiers. I think it will be easier for me to describe from the top down.

The very top tier has room for one person, and is, to use a fairly cliche but relatively accurate term, the “love of my life”. The single person whose existence I value over everyone else’s, including my own. Fairly self-explanatory.

Second is what I suppose is most analogous to “close friend” tier. The reason the friendship thing is a bad way to describe it is that friendship is two-way, while my tier system is completely uninfluenced by how other people view me. This tier is people who I value very highly but who don’t supersede myself. These are the people for whom I will go well out of my way. I highly respect these people, consider their opinions and thoughts of great value, and am easily upset by seeing them upset. I am prone to feeling defensive of these people against others, and I put a large amount of thought into phrasing disagreement with them (if I even bring up said disagreement at all). Being disregarded or brushed off by these people is highly upsetting.

The third tier is the “friend” tier. This tier is not as important as the above tier. The interests of third-tier people will always lose to the interests of second-tier if in conflict with them. I respect these people and value their opinions as points of consideration, but give said opinions no extra weight beyond their intrinsic interest or what validity I find in them after analysis. I will easily voice a disagreement with these people in an attempt to, in my mind, improve their understanding of a subject. I dislike conflict with these people and will get very upset by it, but simply being brushed off or disregarded is a point of irritation instead of crushing. I’ll voluntarily aid third-tier people if I feel they need it, but I won’t go particularly out of my way to do so.

The fourth and I think last tier is the “friendly acquaintance” tier. Despite the title, this is very different from the pool of acquaintances. I consider these people to be interesting individuals and worth continuing conversations with, but I give no particular weight to their views or opinions. I’m extremely prone to pointing out disagreements with these people for the same reason as the third tier, but I’m less likely to pursue the point if they don’t seem to be “getting it” or are not engaged in the discussion. A fourth tier’s lack of interest or disregard for my views is merely exasperating, and conflict is irritating more than upsetting. I will only attempt to aid these people if requested.

It’s actually really stressful. I think the worst part is watching it happen and knowing that if I tried to mediate or anything, I would just make it bucketloads worse. Because I am the queen of putting my foot in my mouth and saying things in exactly the right phrasing to be miss-taken the exact worst way. And then other related things (involving this RP I’m in having accidentally ran ahead of one player timeline-wise) that I keep wanting to be helpful about, and I just have to keep reminding myself “No, the two in charge are much more experienced at this sort of thing than I am, let them handle it! Don’t butt in!”

Which leads me to the conclusion that I am a meddler! Meddlesome meddler of meddling. I see problems and want to be helpful and useful so I poke my nose in to try and fix things. Unfortunately, a lot of the time I seem to just make things worse. So I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut but it’s so very difficult and just sitting back and watching all these things is stressful. And I can’t take stress very well. But there’s nothing I can do about it! Arrrgh!

It’s like when a friend is upset about something and you can’t cheer them up, except like ten times worse. Because not only is said friend upset, but said friend continues to be upset by a thing while you watch and can’t do anything to eliminate the upsetting effects of said thing. And you know the conflict is probably upsetting more of your friends and it’s like when one person gets the chicken pox and you know everyone else is going to get it too now because it’s contagious and they probably already have it except you can’t tell because it doesn’t break out in spots right away.

And with that inauspicious introduction began one of the greatest experiences of my life. I was hooked almost from the very beginning. I laughed at Edward’s exaggerated antics. I cried over their mother. I cried over Nina. I laughed at Roy’s snark. I was devastated when Hughes died. I talked about it incessantly to anyone who knew of it. I dreamt about it. I daydreamed about it.

I started watching the raws as soon as they were released about when they infiltrated the Fifth Laboratory because, even though I hardly understand Japanese, I couldn’t wait the extra three days for the fansubber to release theirs to see what happens next.

The first series ended, amazing yet unsatisfying. I agonized over that ending, over how little it resolved and how it broke the most crucial aspect – the Elric brothers being together. The movie came out, somewhat disappointingly.

I slowly started to read the manga, but about this time my life was getting really busy and I had much less time and money. Time moved on, and I stopped discussing Fullmetal Alchemist with people. It wasn’t a current enough topic.

Then a new series was announced – not a sequel, but a retelling. A retelling that remained faithful to the manga, the whole way through. With the same animators, the same voice actors, everything. I was ecstatic. But there was a… hitch, I suppose. I was going to watch it with my boyfriend, which meant that my normal practice of stalking the release and watching it the moment it came out was out. (On the bright side, there are such things as decent speedsubbers nowadays.)

The first eleven or twelve episodes were familiar territory. The desert, Trisha, Nina, Hughes, the armors… And then it started splitting off into the manga story – the real story. Ling Yao and his ninjas show up. We see more of the homunculi, of Marcoh, of Scar. Of Father. The plot thickens, as they say.

And as the episodes rolled into the fifties, the stakes and the tension and the plotting rose. I fretted, and speculated, and waited impatiently for what happens next.

And then, finally, yesterday I saw the last two episodes. And with that… the story is over. It is a perfect ending. There are no strands left dangling, no orphaned segments, no wondering “but WHY” or “but THEN what do they do”. The story is closed.

It was interesting, last night. I was sort of in a daze afterwards, until about two-thirds of the way home when all of the emotions started bubbling back up. I believe it was what has been referred to as “a whirlpool of emotions”. I keep thinking about it, replaying those scenes over and over, letting it really sink in that it’s actually over.

I feel as though re-reading it or re-watching it won’t have the same impact, now, because I know what happens. I’m glad I know what happens, of course. But I don’t want it to be over.

It is over, though. Seven years after that first October evening, it’s over. And it remains one of the greatest stories – experiences – I have ever seen. If I could call anything a perfect story… this would have to be it.

Stupid fricking internet.

My first knee-jerk reaction (and that of any of you who happen to be chronic procrastinators, I bet) was, of course, “That’s what YOU think! It’s not that simple!” And I dismissed the topic from my mind.

Later, however – earlier today, in fact – I was writing. Working on my novel. Shocking, I know. I happen to be home for an entire three-day weekend with no one else around and I have previously set the end of June as the deadline for me finishing this manuscript, so at about 4:30pm I finally sat down and started writing.

After two hours of that with a longish break in the middle, I’d written 1,500 words. That’s about one and a half standard single-spaced size-12-font pages, for the curious. And I felt really embarrassed.

Why? Because it means if I sat down and wrote for an hour – just one hour – every single day, I would have finished this book a long time ago. A year ago. And the other one I’m working on, too. They would both be done.

So, why aren’t they done? Because I procrastinate. Because instead of spending the few hours of free, unoccupied time I have at home every night writing, I chat online. Because instead of spending one of those few free hours of unoccupied time I have at home every night writing, I chat online.

What’s keeping me from writing, then? I say that writing is important, that it’s what I want to do, that I want to be a published author and maybe even someday make a living from writing. Why don’t I do it, then? What is the drive for my procrastination? Fear of failure? Distaste for the task? Am I intimidated by the size of the project?

The answer, I realized, is none of those. In fact, the answer is there is no reason. I’ve gotten any actual reasons out of the way long ago. All that’s left is just… the habit. I have made a habit of procrastinating, and it is long overdue to be broken.

So that’s what I’m going to do. And it is going to be hard. But I can do it. And I will do it.

Because if I don’t, I’ll never be a writer.

P.S. Anyone who feels inclined to make a snarky remark about how I was writing this blog post instead of writing, I’ll have you know I was writing it while my bread dough was rising. None of that, now!

Which begs the question: what do I want in an e-book reader?

Full-color e-ink

Why full-color?
I would want to be able to read any books; comic books, novels, cookbooks, whatever. Some of those (especially comic books) need full color. And I do mean need

Why e-ink?
Reading back-lit text sucks. It just does. It’s harder on your eyes, it’s less aesthetically pleasing, it changes the texture and feeling and colors of the text and the art. If it doesn’t have the same look as a printed page, then I don’t want it. Otherwise I might as well just read from my computer.

No Internet Connectivity

But why?!
If I am reading a book, then I am not browsing the internet. I do not need an internet connection to read a book. Having an internet connection leads to things like Amazon pulling books from your library, the potential for the company who made your reader to monitor your reading habits, easily slipping in verification-based DRM like iTunes, blah blah blah.

How would you get books for it, then?
How do you buy music? Unless you buy all your music from iTunes, in which case never mind, you won’t get it. Which leads to…

A USB connection port

Why?
So I can move books onto it from my computer. Because I would buy the books on my computer. Because my computer is what I use for doing things online. Not an e-book reader.

Isn’t that inconvenient?
Not any more inconvenient than buying printed books. Less, in fact, as I don’t have to a) go out to a store, or b) wait for a shipment to arrive. Find, pay, download, bam. You’ve got a new book! It’s like buying music online. Moving books onto your e-book reader should be like moving music onto your mp3 player.

Support for all relatively common e-book formats

I guess that’s pretty self-explanatory.

Random Book!

…Huh?
This is more a something-I-would-like-to-see than a make-or-break-the-sale. A little button thing that you can push and that will grab a random book in your library and bring it up. For those days when you want to read something but aren’t sure what.

And there you have it. If you find an e-book reader that has all of these things, do let me know.

Anyway. The one that had not sold, it was listed as a 50cc scooter with some photos and came with the case thing on the back and a helmet. I looked at it and was like hey, a Vino Classic, score. So I asked some questions via email, set up a time/place to come check it out, went and drove it a bit. It wasn’t (and isn’t) nearly as nice as the C3, to a kind of surprising level. But oh well. It went fast enough and, most importantly, worked. And I got it for $900. Retail value of a Vino Classic brand new is more like $1900 and this has hardly been used.

So I go there today again to pick up the case and the owner’s manual and everything goes fine. In fact, the restaurant that they work at (own?) looks really nice. I might go there some time.

Back out in the parking lot, I start attaching the rear case in a sort of half-baked I-have-no-idea-how-this-goes-on manner because I forgot I had the owner’s manual. So I have the under-seat trunk thing open to have stuff in. As I’m leaning over the open trunk, I see on the inside wall a sticker. And on the sticker there is the following:

Model Name: ZN50QT

The world pauses, and I feel my entire being cringing in embarrassment as I suddenly realize that I never actually saw the word ‘Vino’ on the scooter. And I didn’t even notice that I didn’t see it. I should have.

Just in case I am being silly and it’s just Yamaha farming out to Chinese manufacturers, I check the body of the scooter. Nope. No ‘Vino’. It’s some unknown Chinese manufacturer. There was much internal cringing going on.

Fortunately I did a modicum of research just now and the model scooter I have does not seem to be one of the incredibly cheap varieties, with a retail price somewhere around $1500 to $1700. So I didn’t really overpay.

I just didn’t get what I thought I was getting.

What I thought, with no good reason to think.

Yeah, I feel pretty dumb right now.

This apparently is weird. Because I’m a Roman Catholic. …Huh?

Okay, yes. I can see that it’s highly unusual for a Catholic, or probably a Christian at all, to celebrate Hanukkah in any sort of way. But let’s be honest here; if any Christian was going to be lighting a menorah for Hanukkah, I’d put my bets on a Roman Catholic. Traditionalist religion and all that.

“But Hanukkah is a Jewish tradition,” you say. And this, this is the part I don’t get.

Judaism is the mother of Christianity. The Jews were, are, and always will be, the chosen people of God. Even if they don’t accept Jesus as the prophesied Messiah, they’re still a special people. Jesus was a Jew. Christian religion and practices are all inextricably rooted in Judaism. The entire Old Testament is Jewish. We hear a reading from the Old Testament every Sunday. And the Jewish holidays, they’re in memory or celebration of things that God did for his people. Just like the current Christian ones. And it’s the same God, isn’t it?

“Yes, but you’re not Jewish!” Well… Not by religion, no. But I am by blood. My mother was Jewish, and Jewish blood passes through the mother. I was not raised as a Jew, per se, but I grew up with some degree of Jewish heritage and tradition. That’s a part of who I am, and it’s a part of my religion, and I would like to hold on to it. I don’t want to throw away a whole part of my history and the centuries-old history and tradition that is such a fundamental part of making me who and what I am now.

So I am going to take my mother’s unused menorah, and I am going to start celebrating Hanukkah again. Including the Hebrew prayers. And while unusual, I don’t think this is weird at all.

Anyway, so he was there to paint the window frames. You may or may not recall that he painted the windows last year. Early autumn, I believe. Yes. He is painting them yet again.

I may be wrong here, but I’m pretty sure the main purpose of painting woodwork in the first place is so that you don’t have to constantly maintain it. Yes, you should reapply the paint periodically. But once a year?! Come on! This is ridiculous! It hasn’t even been a whole year!

And of course in order to paint the windows, probably with the same shitty glossy paint that he used before and which makes the windows stick tightly shut if you leave them closed for a few weeks, he has to go into my apartment. Ugh. I cannot wait until I live in a place that is not owned by someone else so I don’t have to worry about having random strange people tromping around inside my house messing around with my stuff.

And to top it off, I had left my apartment, realized I forgot my wallet, ran back inside, grabbed it, and ran back out – and he stops me to tell me he will need to go inside.

Seriously, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?! Was it really so vitally necessary for you to gain my permission to enter into an apartment that you already spoke to me about and have the keys for, and to ask me if there was anyone else in the basement (even though I only live in half the basement; I have no idea what’s going on in the other half!) when I am very obviously running late?

Seriously. If you see someone run to their home, and then run back out, and continue running, you would think it obvious that they are late and you would, if you had any sort of decency, not stop them.

As it happened, he did, and I missed the first bus so I had to walk to the stop near the transit station – walk, because all the running had started giving me a mild asthma attack and I didn’t have an inhaler with me because I brought my messenger-type bag instead of my purse today and forgot to move it. And I couldn’t wait it off because I was running late. And then I saw the 7 (the bus I absolutely needed to catch) at the stop when I was still a couple hundred meters away at the top of the hill, and I ran some more but there was no way I could catch it.

I was lucky enough for the 2a to come by a little after, which I caught, rode to the transit center, and just made the 7. Thankfully.

But seriously. WHY DO YOU NEED TO PAINT THE WINDOWS SO FRICKING OFTEN?!?!?!

The above content is in no way a ply for sympathy and requires no socially-obligated declarations of such.

The fact of the matter is, racism, sexism, and all of those other related “bad things” are a misuse of stereotyping. Using a negative and/or harmful stereotype as a general rule. We know this (even if not in so many words), and we know it’s bad. People crusade against racism and sexism all the time, pointing out how this assumption about that group is wrong and harmful, that we should look at an individual’s strengths and blah blah etc.

Those sorts of assumptions about specific groups are almost universally decried. But what about when, instead of a specific group, this sort of negativity or hatred is directed at all of humanity?

It happens. It happens all the time, every day, and no one bats an eyelash. What if I said “people suck”? You’ve probably said or thought that at some point in your life. I doubt you’d even pay the statement much attention at all. Now imagine if instead, I simply narrowed my negativity a bit and said “black people suck”? You would be outraged, wouldn’t you? Because that’s racist, and racism is bad.

And it is. I certainly don’t argue that. But why then is it perfectly acceptable to apply the statement to everyone on the entire planet?

It’s not.

Every now and then someone will tease me for my optimistic “faith in humanity”, how I believe the best of anyone until individually proven otherwise. Naïveté, you might think. Racism, sexism, etc. are still widespread and in some cases the norm. There are so many “bad” people in the world. Isn’t it safe to assume that most people are like that?

No. Why should it be? Hating humanity is no different from hating women, or hating blacks or Chinese or homosexuals. Hating humanity just covers more people. Shouldn’t that, if anything, make it worse?

Think of that the next time you want to say “people suck”.