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What it means to be a Palmer.

So, my cousin Jill is pretty awesome. She's the only daughter of my dad's older sister, Judy, and she's an astrophysicist. Or something.

Like, she definitely got her degree in astrophysics. Nowadays, she can be seen doing cool shit like this:






Her video, here, captures what it means to be a Palmer. What others may deem dorky frivolity, we see as endless amusement. We know stuff--lots of stuff, often--but use our intelligence not to show off or pwn the world, but to give ourselves a hearty laugh. Or a gleeful giggle, as Jill illustrated.

We are a goofy bunch, you can be sure. But we keep life interesting.

Sure, we could go off naming some new nebulae or calculating singularities (or writing the next great American novel), but we just wouldn't be proper Palmers if we didn't find some way to make ourselves break out a grin and a laugh over something loosely relevant or wonderfully obscure or fantastically blinky-shiny.


For me, I know I wouldn't have it any other way. Being as flamboyantly dorky as I am has brought me so much enjoyment and I'm sure constitutes much of my personal charm.

It's also tough, though. I can't really speak for others of the Palmer clan, but the untethered ADD has definitely brought its share of trouble & unmanageability.

I'm still mastering to-do lists. I've found that if I don't do any kind of list thing, nothing will get done. I can count on that 9 times out of 10. And even when I do, it doesn't always mean I actually will do what I plan but it's helped me at least see what needs doing. Sort of.

Today I'm trying something new: I'm committing myself to completing at least two goals and also holding myself accountable to my sponsor. That is, report back to him later on. Hopefully this'll keep me more conscious of my day's priorities or at least help me assess why they weren't taken care of if they aren't.

But, see, I'm 24-years-old, and I'm still struggling to grasp such basic skills as prioritizing and follow-through. For all the fun and bemusement I can bring myself (and hopefully others, too), struggles like these get me down. They make it hard for me to see the good I have in me to offer because I feel so thoroughly inferior.

I can't really say, of course, how much Palmer-ness actually contributes to this. Maybe this is some dark Starkey moodiness. Who knows. But it is nice to be reminded what totally & shamelessly dorky stock I hail from, and indelibly so.
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Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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