#365Gratitude Day 44: Um, how about a story..

A few months back I stumbled across a really neat website/game for people who enjoy storytelling.  It's called Storium.  I joined immediately.  It's not free, but it's pretty cheap.  So far I'm in two beginner stories, a sci-fi adventure where I'm playing a friendly android who's trying to make his way in the world, and a fantasy one where I'm a young, naive magician trying to help out a small village I've stumbled across that's dealing with a plague.

It's really fun.  After I get good at it, I'm going to start some stories of my own.  I'd love to see you there, too.

#365Gratitude Day 43: New job

I wrote that earlier this week I had a really good job interview.

It was really good.

I got the job.

#365Gratitude Day 42: Dirty Ink in more than 50 shades

"Oh no," I can just hear you saying.  "Mako, you're not weighing in on the 50 shades thing, are you?"

Sorta.

My gratitude today is for sex-positive, well drawn, adult webcomics.  I love them.  I'm a fan of a few of them in particular.  

Before I tell you about any of them though, a small warning.

Any of the links you click beyond this point might have nudity, and are most likely NSFW.  Granted, it's drawn, cartoon nudity, but that's on you, ok?

Ok, now that we've got that out of the way...

First off, I love the comic Oglaf, which is this sort of smutty, not-quite-a-story series about ridiculous and often sexy goings-on in a medieval fantasy world.  There are recurring characters, talking sperm (seriously), and one particular strip had maybe the funniest and most spot-on skewering of submissive entitlement I've ever seen.  

Then there's Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques.  It's not smutty per se, but it deals with adult, mature things.  Characters have real relationships, real problems, too.  There's alcoholism, co-dependency, social awkwardness, yet also wonderful stuff like sex-positivity, realistic transgender characters, and anthropomorphic butt-obsessed miniature robots (yes, seriously).

It's fantastic.  You come to love these characters, and want to know about their lives.  They're very, very real.

Lastly, there's Erika Moen & Matthew Nolan's Oh Joy, Sex Toy, which is a webcomic about sex-ed and sex toy reviews.  It's great.  That link leads to their comic about how 50 Shades of Grey is basically the "Big Mac" of kink.

Which I agree with, utterly.  I haven't read the book myself.  I do plan to see the movie.  Several people I know, including my wife and our girl Kate, adore the book.  They find it hot.  

Listen, it's totally okay if you don't.  It's also totally okay if you think it's tripe.  I'm not going to go off on a rant here, and won't spin this in a negative way, either.  After all, this is a blog mostly about what I'm grateful for.  I'm not a fan of negativity.  I do my very best not to be negative in my life, to be for things as opposed to against them.  I think spending energy on anger, and a contrarian position are a waste of time.  "This shouldn't be that way" or "This thing is bad" aren't action.  They're complaints.

To put it in food metaphor terms, if you go to a restaurant and they have something you really dislike on the menu, don't order it.  If you saw other people ordering it, and went over to their table to tell them you don't like it, they'd look at you like you're a lunatic.

Now that's not to say that things which you're against in the world you shouldn't work to change.  But I think that there's a positive, good way to inculcate change.  That's by doing positive things.  Instead of bellyaching about how things shouldn't be, we always have the option to actually make changes in the world to how we'd like it to be.  The people who draw all these comics do just that.  I do that with my own writing, work on the podcast, advocacy, and such.

I'm grateful for people who make positive changes in the world.  I'm grateful I can be one of them.  I'm grateful anyone can be one of them.

#365Gratitude Day 41: A good interview

I had a really great job interview yesterday.  It was the second interview I've had recently, and while I was nervous beforehand, it wasn't the heart-pounding-like-a-Keith-Moon-drum-solo experience that my first interview was.

It went really well.  The interviewer was really nice, and we clicked right away.  He was impressed with my experience, and we had a long, good talk about technology in general, my experience in particular, and some of the various technical things I've done.  Then, he ran me through some programming problems, and had me work the code out on a whiteboard with him.

I left there feeling really damn good about the experience, and the company, too.

I don't know what it means yet, but around 10:30pm last night I got an email from a company VP looking to follow up with me today.  

I'm trying very hard to not have any expectations about this - and failing miserably.  We'll see!

#365Gratitude Day 40: Now dot is mindfulness

Sometimes I find examples of the power of mindfulness in the strangest places, activities, or challenges. 

Just today I found it in a game on my phone. The game is called Two Dots.  

The basic premise of the game is that you draw lines connecting dots of the same color. If you connect 4 in a box, you remove all dots of that color from the board.  

It's a great, sometimes maddening game.  I'll get stuck on a board for days. If you use up your five lives, they recharge every 20 minutes. 

There are power ups, which aren't free, and which are not guaranteed to even help you.  

There's this one board, #153, that had eluded me for about two weeks now.  

But after 14 days of solid frustration, I had an epiphany. I realized that each board has some one (or more) special technique, move, issue, or concern and if you calm your mind and just   pay attention you can pick up what it is, and leverage it to your use. 

For those of you still struggling with that very same board, I'll give you a hint. Think of the shape of the letter "P", and use it when making boxes with empty dots.  

Anyhow, it totally punched me in the brain this morning how micro moments like this are endlessly repeated in one's larger macro life. When I stop obsessing over how things should be, were, or might be, and pay attention to how they are , I gain special insight into playing the game/living my life well. 

Game on!