Define Edgy

Have you read about this new heat-ray non-lethal weapon being developed? If not, check it out. I'd also recommend checking out your local newspapers today (that's where I learned about it). The advancement of technology fascinates me, especially the way we figure out to incorporate it—as a tool, as a weapon, as a toy, etc. I mean, this one's starting out militarized—it uses millimeter waves to give the skin the sensation that if you stay in the beam, you'll burst into flames and thus gets you to move (it's a crowd displacement system). But how much real energy does a blast expend? Could something like this be used (in safer levels, of course) to warm lots of people at once (if whole cities lost heat in the winter in some emergency situation) or could it be used to warm an area of the moon or Mars or other object in space that might face away from the sun and be too cold for astronauts to venture on EVA until we blast that area with something like this? I just wonder.

In an unrelated topic, here's something else that I've been wondering: Where does one draw the line between honesty and tact? As I sit here, continuously stretching and shifting in a poorly constructed office chair in a vain attempt to stave off years of chiropractic treatment, it strikes me as odd the number of things about which I don't post.

A number of people who read this blog know me. Some, quite well. And thus the blanket of anonymity which once encased my online persona has been pulled back a bit; it's creeped up and now my feet are hanging out. Okay, that metaphor was so much better when it lived only in my head. Trust me, the visual made all the sense in the world.

And I don't want to sit here and rant about people—that's not it. But, and I've noticed this in many of my blogging friends who I know offline as well, there are just some things we don't blog about. We all have those things. Some of us never talk about our relationships online. Some of us avoid food, family, work, fears, politics, clowns... Yes, the examples are eclectic and, in part, silly to just show that it seems that when bloggers know each other offline, it can hinder the blog. Keeps some of us from posting as often as we'd like because sometime what you want to post may not be what others want to read. See!? Even this is convoluted because I'm not... Argh!

If you could see me right now, you'd have seen me clench my fist in quiet frustration (as I'm at work and yelling an expletive at myself would be seen as poor form).

And then, you know, perhaps it's best that I don't blog about the little things that may get to me—perhaps it's good that I deal with things on my own, be it stress from work, or my family, or my friends, or my search for a car, or wherever. Writing it down in a vent doesn't mean the problem's solved anyway. And as a good buddy of mine recently told me, he's not going to use his blog to bitch anymore. I'm gonna try to remember that.

You know, I don't even like this post. And usually, I'd delete it at this point—but today I'll go ahead and publish. Deleting is just censoring or admitting a mistake... and I don't want to apply either of those to my blog or my life. When I post things like this, people (my offline friends who read this) sometimes ask me if everything's cool and they seem to get a little paranoid about which one of them might have got me waxing about tact versus honesty. Trust me, it wasn't any one person. (And suddenly, I can hear Miss Scarlett from the movie "CLUE" and her great line: "Great! We'll all go to the chair."—random, yes, if you're not me).

I just look at the definitions of those two works and laugh at the irony. Honesty: Truthfulness; sincerity. Tact: Acute sensitivity to what is proper and appropriate in dealing with others, including the ability to speak or act without offending.

But we don't like honesty. We all say we do. We want it in our lives. But usually when people are honest, they're preceived poorly. I've known lots of "honest" people that weren't well-liked. So we're nice. Tact is a euphemism for "little white lie" isn't it? Omitting things to spare a feeling. Man, I sound caustic today don't I? It's the lack of sleep this week. I'm not actually in a bad mood. Tired? Yes. Frustrated with some recent events? Perhaps. Nothing major and nothing that won't right itself or be easily sorted.

There's a lot of good days ahead. Hanging with best friends. Being with the woman I love. Napping with a cat on my chest. And yet, in spite of the good stuff, today I feel edgy. Nervously irritable; impatient and anxious. That pretty much sums it up.

I need to write. And not a post. I need to work on dialogue and character development—pen one of the myriad of plays or shows jumping about my synapses. I need to write. Or maybe eat something. Probably both. Gonna go do that now. I'll let you know how it goes.

Here's to softening the edges.