Interesting music notation still blows my mind. It's fascinating how things (somewhat arbitrarily, habit, etc. make it more or less likely to go mainstream?

There's a boingboing article titled "student challenges prof, wins right to post source code he wrote for course," and the comments on that thread - from both sides - make me sad. (And yet I read it all the way through.) Not sad in any articulate way. Just... pained at how much... Argh. Does not have words. Not something I should worry about fixing - not yet, anyways. I'll make my peace at walking away and moving on.

Via Liz: Appfrica is just a cool idea.

Party at pika tonight with the Labyrinth theme. It's pretty cool - I got to see (and touch and ask questions about!) nice DJ equipment for the first time (my housemates are awesome), but mostly kept to the side during the party itself. I've never been much for parties; dim lighting blurring lips to read, loud bass effectively washing out my hearing range, new people who I don't have speech data for to build my Markov model, and who are sometimes inebriated so I can't tell if it's their BAC or my inability to process sound that renders things incoherent... maybe this sounds like I'm making excuses as to why I don't "do" parties (also, spasmodically being hypersensitive about physical contact doesn't help), or wishing I could somehow party hearty, but... no, I don't think it's that. I'm just describing. Stepping back and thinking about what I see.

I've been discovering a lot about scars - physical ones, metaphorical, emotional, intellectual, all sorts - and how there are these weird little pieces of twisted tissue that make me less... well, just less than what I should be. Stops me from being Mel. Hard to describe. They're things like having a stone-set ribcage and wiry, taut forearms that leave me amazed when I begin learning what inhaling means, but also things like adopting shadows of a cringing puppy please-don't-kick-me mannerism peppered with disclaimers, just in case, even when I do something I think is good, or overpreparing in case I'm not taken seriously so that I can still get through it with good cheer left over.

They're all reactions from experiences I've had in the past, things I've grown up with, things I assume so naturally that I probably still don't even realize at least half of them. Life isn't that way anymore - at least not some parts of it. It's changed, and I've got to trust myself to change as well. I think to some extent one thing that will help me do that is stories - I've been talking and thinking a lot about stories lately - and telling my story to myself as a way of making it make sense to me. And I keep reminding myself that this is productive, to invest in your own ability to do better things in the future. It's just... less direct, right now.

I like bumping up against my own glass ceiling. For some value of like. It gashes you like hell when you finally plunge through. But you go higher.

I wonder why introspection seems to happen during weird early morning hours.