April 19, 2008
Dear Clusterflock,
What have you been denying yourselves, and why?
(Excellent question posed by The Morning News, who request your 75- to 150-word response by Wednesday, 4/23. Last month they asked, What was the last great thing you downloaded?)
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48 Responses to “Dear Clusterflock,”
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I don’t deny myself much in the way of food or stuff you can buy, though I totally should, but I do tend to withhold less tangible treats. Today, for instance, I haven’t gone outside to enjoy the beautiful day because I’m supposed to be cleaning my apartment.
Am I cleaning my apartment? Not so’s you’d notice. It still looks like the inside of a Salvation Army truck in here.
An iPhone. First I thought it was too profligate. Now, I’m waiting for the 3G version.
An excellent question, you bet. And blistering hard to answer honestly in public.
NCProsecutor: Oh, yeah, that, too.
And fancy phones in general—some time I think I must be the only person left in New York who doesn’t have a cameraphone with web access. But I just don’t want to have to pay that kind of monthly fee.
As for the last great thing I downloaded, I think it’s probably this.
Sheila, I think of what I don’t deny myself as the more difficult to be honest about. It’s embarrassing to admit, for example, that on Wednesday I ate both a chocolate eclair and a panna cotta with chocolate sauce.
Whew, India! I think we’ve finally zeroed in on the point at which you and I are 180 degrees apart! The things I deny myself these days are (at least potentially) hurtful to other people. I never used to let that stand in my way. Now I think about it at least a little.
That last comment of mine is irritatingly obscure even to me, but I’m just going to trust y’all to fill in the blanks.
Hmm. Is the difference more accurately described as “180 degrees” or (pulling words from elsewhere) “More than a decade”?
How about “fifteen years” — more or less?
So I’ve got more self-denial to look forward to. Great.
No! A good deal hinges on how much mayhem you’ve left in your wake up to now.
I realize it may come to the same thing.
Or: how much mayhem you’re vain enough to believe you’ve left in your wake. As a certain older-but-oughta-be-wiser Flocker believes of herself.
“An excellent question, you bet. And blistering hard to answer honestly in public.”
boy, you said it.
And now that I’ve said it, I’m heading into town before dusk to buy me some snuff and bullets and shoot me some more scenes from an imaginary vampire film. See y’all later.
can’t wait.
For the past 7-8 years, I have been denying myself a healthy life. I eat too much, I drink too much, I sit too much, and I am sad too much. The reasons for this are varied and complex; I am fully aware that I am allowing the difficulties of my life to dictate my general well-being. Knowing this and doing something about it are two very different things.
Another intangible I have denied myself for as long as I can remember is optimism. I refuse to believe—or, at least, to predict out loud—that anything will ever go well or not suck. So as not to be disappointed or made to look naive.
This rules out the possibility of pleasant anticipation of just about anything. It also rules out the enjoyment of anything that actually does turn out positively, since it could go bad at any moment, or the thing I thought I wanted could turn out to have been a bad idea. And, not surprisingly, it often keeps me from bothering to want worthwhile things in the first place.
I am in the process of figuring out something that has been with me a long time. Consequently it is shaping my understanding of who I am and the choices I have made. Not surprisingly, this is terrifying. I guess the question then becomes, what have I denied myself that I don’t know about. Or is that simply a construction based on fear, or blind guessing, or longing.
what have I denied myself that I don’t know about?
Deron, this is such a good question because it has the whole subject in it of how we lack hindsight to guide us so often. If we grow (as we should, since not doing so doesn’t even leave good questions), then we will sometimes find the good we were aiming for only after we have missed it. But this is why I have long thought that the process of looking is the main power we have to be happy–along with the knowledge that in the best of all cases there will be things we don’t get to see and do, possibilities we can’t realize. All that is good will not wait for us to know it. But there are full moments of knowledge that can’t be taken away, and there is the possibility of gratitude in the face of loss that honors the ephemeral nature of life–and opens a way to share that amazement and admiration. I would say you are way ahead of most people I know in this ability. And Clusterflock is the pantheon of those who most inspire in me the sense that I am very lucky to be alive at this time.
“and there is the possibility of gratitude in the face of loss that honors the ephemeral nature of life”
A lot of things… student loan repayment starts in Nov.
Most specifically, a bottle of Stolichnaya
Dave, now I feel bad for you. I’m tempted to buy you a bottle of Stoli myself.
The weather’s been nice here and except for a short ride yesterday to pick up the car at the shop, I’ve been denying myself a long bike ride. I’ve got all the excuses lined up: too cold, too windy, didn’t eat right, tired, hungry, I need to mow…
[...] asked what people were denying themselves. Dave said Stoli. Michael felt bad. I thought we should do something about [...]
I’m denying myself Europe because of money.
Y’all are a lot more philosophical than I am.
I just deny.
No I don’t.
An iphone, for one. I have been saving it as a reward for finally finding a job that pays a living wage and doesn’t require a 60+ hour work week.
There are a host of other things, many of which are simply just not good for me to have/use/do despite my feverish desire to do so.
Oh and the last great thing I downloaded was Dash, a Windows Quicksilver clone.
Um, y’all, there’s only one thing I’ve been denying myself, a 5-series BMW. (Deron? ;o)
Rick, you know I want you to get the Maserati.
I announced to Daryl a couple of weeks ago that my next car will be a Maserati Quattroporte. I only yesterday learned that the modest one I want costs about $110,000. So maybe that won’t be my next car.
But it should be.
perhaps if we all pitched in.
and yes, I want one too. the one I linked to. the black one. yes.
I can see I’d better put in my clusterflock make-a-wish request fast, before all funds available dry up.
We could buy a communal Maserati. Rick could have it for a while, Deron for a while, I for a while. That would make it almost affordable. Of course, each of us would have to ride the bus 2/3 of the year, but that would be okay.
Communal Maserati is the name of my side-project band.
May I be your drummer?
how are you on the bongos?
Ah, dear Cindy, I’d still have my ‘95 Escort I would drive the rest of the year. My license plate frame will read. “My other car is a Maserati.”
Cindy (and Deron): I no longer own bongos, but I do still have a set of congas. Bring them down to the farm next year?
Rick: get the 5 series.
I don’t regret my decision to get a (used) Porsche 911.
India: I haven’t gone outside to enjoy the beautiful day because I’m supposed to be cleaning my apartment.
Cindy:
I am fully aware that I am allowing the difficulties of my life to dictate my general well-being
I do both these things. I also deny myself the chance to explore my full creative potential.
Oh, and good skin care.
I’ve never played bongos, but since my former boyfriend looked like Matthew McConaughey, I was probably born for them. As long as Sheila is on the congas.
I still haven’t left my apartment building since Friday (office is closed today for Passover), but you’ll never believe what I just found—
A Coffee Table!!! Right there in the middle of the living room!
And to think, all this time I’ve been assuming that that pile of stuff that was on and around it was some kind of aboriginal burial mound.
You just never know.
Oh, India! The best part of that find, I would imagine, is the knowledge that there is even less to clean up than you’d originally thought, the pile having been boosted in size by an actual, functional object. Congratulations!
Well, not exactly. Following further excavation I determined that this is the hollow sort of coffee table that has a lot of stuff inside. So the burial mound theory may still hold.
The stuff inside does not appear to include candy, but maybe I’m just not banging on it hard enough.
Whack it with a bat, India!
Poke it with a stick!
Solitude and a freedom from the “technologically connected global village”.