In the Realm of the What Man?

There was this long hiatus of no writing for me. I made excuses and put it out of my mind for a while. I focused on other things.

But my mind kept coming back to it. Writing is something that won't let it be too far outside of my life.

One of the stalling blocks had been a (perceived) problem with the story I got a rough first draft done. But I have since figured out how to solve it.

So now it starts the rewrite phase, where I find all the parts that really fit and make sure they weave together into a good story without major loose threads.

Then there's the polishing. And the polishing. And the polishing.

Did I mention the polishing part?

Then I can start sending it to publishers and agents for rejection.

I'm excited about it (writing and the story both) again. Now if only I could find more time without giving up all my sleep...

Not Exactly Hypermiling, But...

For Fathers' Day I got a ScanGauge trip computer for my car. It tracks gas mileage and other engine-geek variables in more-or-less real time. It also tracks things like average milage per trip, or per day, or per tank. (It'll also read error codes when the Check Engine light comes on, but that's just a bonus...)

The first couple of tanks in my car back in December/January I was getting about 24-25 mpg. Then gas prices climbed more, and I drove a little more conservatively. I gradually slipped past the 30mpg mark. (The EPA lists highway mileage at about 33).

Since getting the scangauge I've been pushing that number higher. I watched the MPG meter during driving, getting a feel for how much difference little things could make. It also took some calibrating. It wasn't reading the fuel flow right at first, and tried to tell me I was getting better than 50mpg. Uh, huh, sure...

But now it's pretty much right on. I've been setting it to track the current trip, giving me the average MPG for the trip. That means I can compare morning and afternoon commutes, for one. Always better in the morning, when traffic flows better.

I've made a game of seeing how high I can get the average morning commute to be by the time I get to the office. The parking garage sucks for that, bringing the average down about a half-percent after a 36-or-so mile commute.

Earlier in the week I hit 37.7 MPG at the end. This morning, however, I parked and turned the car off at 39.0 (Peak was 39.5 before the three stop signs and parking garage at the office). My goal is to break 40, but each progressive gain is harder. Damn law of diminishing returns...

So there's a happy little thing to end the week on. Just never mind the other not-so-happy things.

Carded at Home Depot?

Well, not quite, but kinda.

Over the weekend I stopped in at Home Depot for some spray paint.

Now, normally I don't use the self checkouts. I don't find them any faster, and they never smile. This time, the self checkouts were the ones without lines--so over I went.

You can't buy spray paint at the self checkout. ID is required. You have to be 18 to buy spray paint. Once it was mentioned, I got why...if somewhat reluctantly.

I joked that I did have an ID if she wanted to see it.

"Don't bother," she said, "I believe you."

Memory, Affirmations, and Music

What kind of music do you listen to? Is it uplifting or damaging?

First, let's consider for a moment part of the way memory works. Each individual piece of memory gets written individually, with each piece getting connected to other pieces. Imagine drawing on a soft clay tablet. You experience something, or learn some fact, and you draw a dot in the clay to represent it. If you experience or learn it again you can draw the dot again, writing it deeper into the clay. This is why repetition helps with memorization.

But so far all you have is some fact etched in your (clay) brain. By itself it's meaningless. So your brain makes associations, connecting those dots with lines. (I think Google does more or less the same thing, tracking web sites in part by the links to them.) Those lines turn into a map in your brain. Your memory uses this map to find what you want to remember. The more (and deeper) lines run to a fact or experience, the more likely it is that your memory will be able to find it.

This ties into how scent can be such a powerful trigger. Imagine that as a child a big, scary dog made you fall off your bike. You skinned your knee and bled all over. You ran in tears home, where your mom was making cookies. She cleaned you up and took care of you and made you feel better. Then she gave you a cookie.

So, what did your memory do? Well, the scary dog and the falling got connected to all the other big dog references. You have Big Dog connected with Scary connected with Falling and Ouch. You have Ouch connected with Run Home. You have Run Home connected with Mom Comforting. You have Mom Comforting connected with Cookie. Now, Run Home was probably already connected with Comforting. So now that connection is a little bit stronger. Each connection probably isn't actually new, but they get reinforced. You also have the smell of the cookie, which gets associated to the event, the comforting, and everything else that was going on in that short span. Smelling cookies again can bring the whole memory back... or maybe just brings the same sense of comfort.

So, later on you encounter a big dog. Maybe it isn't even a scary one. But your memory will look at Big Dog, and everything connected to (associated with) it. If there are more Scary connections than, say, Friendly connections, you'll tend react according to Scary (at least to some degree). That, of course, just reinforces the association, even if the dog doesn't do anything to reinforce it. Maybe Little Dog never made that same association, or didn't make it as strongly, so Little Dog doesn't bring the same reaction.

Now, you can follow some of the lines that connect more commonly, and you see a recurring path from Scary or Ouch that ends in Cookie. Comfort food in a nutshell.

So, the more often the association is made, the stronger the link, and the more effect it might eventually have on our behavior or our thinking. That leads us to affirmations. The idea is that repeating some positive statement often enough builds those associations behind the scenes and helps us. Maybe every morning you get up and say out loud, “Big dogs are friendly.” That doesn’t mean that the very next time you see a big dog you run up and hug it. Plenty of things have already connected Big Dog and Scary. But, over time, the number of connections between Big Dog and Friendly start to catch up, and the Scary response weakens and eventually gets out-voted and goes away.

Of course, traumatic events get written more deeply to begin with. So the big dog scared you (+1?). You probably thought at least once "That big dog was scary" (+1?). You got home and told Mom, "A big dog scared me."(+1?). Total +3? (probably multiplied by something for the trauma part). You get the idea. So the spoken affirmation counts for more than just thinking it. Anything spoken is already repeated once, because you thought it first.

Which all explains why I get hungry more often at work than any other time. There's just so many associations connecting to food. "X long until lunch", "I'll just take a break for a snack"...

Now, children's brains start off with pretty clean clay. Their brains are eagerly trying to learn, and they'll make all the connections they can. Children are also perfectly happy to watch the same bit of TV over and over and over and over....

So if the child is around while you're watching TV, what connections are they making? You sit on the couch while the police chase down and shoot at the bad guy. Maybe you never even see the bad guy get shot.

Kid Logic says:
They’re watching this. This must be what they like to see. They wouldn't watch something they didn't like...
They're not paying attention to me. I want them to pay attention to me.
They like to watch people running and yelling and shooting guns.
If I run and yell and shoot guns then I'm doing something they want to watch. Then they'll pay attention to me...

So how does all this tie into music? You hear a song. Maybe you sing along. You have to think the lyrics some to sing them, so there's three levels of reinforcement right there. But that's not all. I think everyone has had the experience of a song that gets stuck in their head. Sometimes just a single sentence, or part of one. Each repetition writes it a little deeper in the clay. More and more connections get drawn, and many of them get redrawn as the lyrics repeat. So what happens if those lyrics reinforce a stereotype? Or what if they reinforce a negative self-image? Those lyrics can be reinforcing all kinds of positive or negative associations. If the song gets connected to "I am fat" or "I am ugly" then that thought gets more and more ingrained and harder to get rid of. The song lyrics don't even have to mention those ideas, just connect to them.

So, what kind of song lyrics are around you, or stuck in your head? What do they say? What associations are they reinforcing? What songs are your children hearing? What are they seeing on TV? What are they aware of you watching on TV? Don't even get me started about what advertising they are being exposed to!

So that's one of the big things I've been mulling over lately. I listen to quite a bit of music on the way to work. I get lyrics stuck in my head very easily. I'm starting to look at the kinds of music I listen to. I might make some changes. It might be something to look at in your life, too.

Car Update and the Things a Five-Year-Old Remembers

A little before 8 last night I finally got my car back. Amy came out and taxied me, which meant she and the kids got to see where I work.

Jareth still forgets sometimes that I don't sell campers anymore. The last time he got to see me at work was back at the dealership. We were getting ready to leave the office to go get my car after their tour and he didn't want to leave until he'd seen the campers...

As for the car, it needed a thermostat, fuses, radiator flush and fill, and two radiator hoses that were past their lifespan.

I've had worse repair bills. There was money left from the insurance funds that bought the car, so there was money set aside for the repair.

It's just repair time for me. Last week the coffee machine at work cracked a valve. For about three weeks now Xerox has been trying to get our copier working right. It's ruining a particular part over and over, so text keeps ending up gray. Then it fades away into unreadable.

Okay, coffee break's over. :-)

Adventures in Commuting, Part... How Many is That, Anyway?

I got most of the way to work before...

Steam from under the hood.

My car is at a Firestone shop about three miles from work. They dropped me at the office. Hopefully it's something minor...?

Why Did The Fox Cross The Road?

This morning, less than a mile into my commute, I watched a red fox cross the street. I like living in a neighborhood with more wildlife, although I can imagine how some neighbors might not be as pleased...

One more thing to drum for at drum circle tonight. It's been a while since we've gotten the chance, and I'm really looking forward to it.

[Damn. Not five minutes after posting I get an email that the drum circle got cancelled.]