"There is one thing a hero and a coward have in common. That is fear." - Unknown
There are many times I can say others have scared me, or that I have been in situations where external conditions were frightening. As a runaway teen, those experiences were not infrequent. But in the end, the most terrifying thing I have ever faced is myself.
Cliche, no? But true. The life-long lesson of learning how not to self-sabatoge, how not to hurt myself, and how to make the effort, every day, simply to get up and get moving has been more difficult than I can articulate. There are wonderous things I have learned through this. Survival is not something that concerns me - I know I will always find a way to make it. I will not be on the street. I will not be without food. I will not be alone and without resources. I have utter confidence in that, it is not even a question.
But it is not belief in God or love or strength that I know these things from, it is simply lived experience. It is in those moments I am not afraid because I know who I am. And I am, at my core, someone who has never died, who has faltered and stumbled and come crashing down, breaking all limbs in my spirit, but have continued to limp forward. Life hurts, but the only alternative is suicide. That is not an option.
And so what else is there to do but keep living?
To my occasional surprise, those are the moments when other people are also not afraid, but they sometimes lend that strength to God, to their family, to some other outside source. I want to shake these people and tell them that their ability to keep going is thiers. It is proven by their efforts.
Don't give the credit away. Don't minimize your efforts. You are strong. You will survive. You know this. Keep knowing it.
And yet there are the moments where I fear survival is all I am capable of. Yes, there is strength in coming back from the brink of utter destitution multiple times, but am I able to find a life several miles away from the edge of the cliff, not simply skirting its edges? Yes, the knowledge of where every food bank in any given city I've lived in is useful, but am I able to make enough money to reliably feed myself? I write beautifully, but am I disciplined enough to make it count for something other than scrawls on a dying website?
I do not always know. Maybe survival itself gets in the way. Maslow's Heirachy and all that. I can look at myself and feel compassion for the struggles. But often I look at myself and wonder if I am simply not capable.
I always say nothing happens in a vacuum. All things are brought round to you through others. This is true. But if others are a part of the equation, then so is the self.
If knowing is half the battle.....then what does one do with the other half?????
That is the question that frightens me the most. It is a question in which the answer lies soley in myself. There is no study guide. There are no Spark Notes. Only I can answer it.
And sometimes I fear I will never have the answer at all.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Why I nap
I nap. A lot. Every day that I can. People think I'm monstrously lazy or ill-disciplined.
Then I tell them about my dreams.
Last night, I was in a warehouse. There were guards stationed at every entrance. They had guns. Knives. Some of the knives were a rusty crimson. Blood. Old blood that had dried to a permanent stain on the metal. They were silent, frightening, and would kill us.
Us consisted of myself and about fifteen other girls in this warehouse. Most of them were chained to the walls in discolored cuffs, bruised, bleeding. Blonde hair was matted brown from bloody cuts along the skull. Brown hair was painted black from months of not being allowed to wash it. They were as silent as the guards. Opening their mouths would only get them bashed in the head and tossed outside along with the other corpses stacked up like firewood along the warehouse walls. They were chattel and they knew it.
I was not chained. I was alone in a room that dripped filthy water from a cracked corrugated roof. The concrete floor was bare and sticky with mold. It was cold and I had no shoes. I knew there was a guard outside this room. That scared me. What scared me more was the corpse a young girl in the room. She was lying on a slab of broken concrete in the corner and wrapped in muddy gauze. I could see her hair - at one point, it had been blonde. Now it was gray with dust and decay.
She was dead. She had been dead for some time. Days. Weeks. Maybe years. I don't know. Her name was Hannah and she was special. That's why she was still around.
Hannah had been special to the man who kept us all here. I'm not sure what she was to him. Some kind of talisman, perhaps, or a lover. She had died. And he had put me in a room with her to see if I could be like her.
I kept along the wall. I didn't go near her. I didn't want to know if we were anything alike. I knew eventually it wouldn't matter anyways. The man would come and haul me out of the room and whatever happened after that, I wouldn't be able to stop him.
Dreams are strange like this - they shift from one place to another without explanation, but you know that you have not moved into some other dream. I found myself running through a crowd, desperate, more desperate than anything I had ever felt before. I had somehow managed to escape. I'd fled and there was a park. It was afternoon, sunny, and the park was very busy.
Safety, I thought. Safety in numbers. That's all I could think about. I ran. I ran straight into the crowd and I kept running.
And they were following me. Men dressed in cameo black and brown, holding massive rifles and machine guns, knocking over women and children in the crowd, screeching along sidewalks and shouting into walkie-talkies. The man wanted me back and he had sent his guards to bring me back.
I wasn't worried the guards would kill me. He wanted me back at the warehouse. And whatever he had waiting for me back at the warehouse was going to be far, far worse than death. I kept running. I rounded the corner of a stone fountain in the park and slipped - just for a second - on the wet pavement.
That was all they needed. They grabbed the man who had been in front of me. Once the bystander had been dragged into the fountain, then two guards seized my shoulders and forced me to my knees. They wouldn't shoot me. But I knew I wouldn't be able to get up. So I cringed under hands like stone, waiting.
And this is the part of the dream that really scared me. When I rolled over at 5 AM, whimpering, wanting to cry, not being able to, this is what I had echoing in my ears.
The punishment for my escape wasn't going to be physical. Not for me. The punishment for my escape was to watch and listen to an innocent man's slaughter. I didn't know what was happening at first. The man and the guards struggled in the water, just long enough for a knife to flash out into the sunlight and sink like butter into the man's stomach.
Another knife. Another stab. The fountain turned red. And then the sound of tearing flesh. The wet, ripping sound like paper being shredding except it was this man's entire body being ripped apart by the guard's hands.
And I could hear it. The sound of pieces of a body being forced apart, limb and ligature being twisted off by sheer force....The man screamed. He kept screaming. I could hear him dying, being ripped to shreds, and all around me, were his screams. The screams of his family, being held back by another set of guards. I closed my eyes.
That's when I began screaming. If I screamed loud enough, I wouldn't be able to hear those screaming around me. I wanted to bury the sound of a human being rent to pieces. I wanted to somehow find something else, anything else, to listen to.
I screamed. And it did nothing to drown out the sounds. I heard everything. I kept hearing everything, every slash, every shout, every snap, everything.
Eventually the man stopped screaming. His vocal chords were flung along with pieces of his throat on the stone steps of the fountain. The two guards who had held me down yanked me to my feet. They didn't have to say a word. They didn't even have to restrain me.
I walked with them back to the warehouse. I knew that the cost of my insolence had been this innocent man's life. The guards had not killed him. The captor back at the warehouse, who had given the order, had not killed him.
I'd killed him. My actions, my terror, was what led to his death and his dismemberment. The horror of what his family would be picking out of the stone for weeks was my fault. I had done this. Had I not left, that man would still be alive. I HAD left and he was dead. I knew this.
I don't know who Hannah was or why I was supposed to be like her. All I know is that I went back to that room with the black, cold floor and I sat there, looking at her. Whenever the man came to get me, I would do whatever he said. I wouldn't fight. Maybe Hannah had tried to fight back.
I knew better than to try that ever again.
This is not an unusual dream for me. An unfortunate combination of a troubled history full of childhood abuse and misfiring neurons in my skull pull out these images time and time again. I wake up screaming from nightmares on average of twice a week.
I have tried: medication, meditation, lucid dreaming, writing them down, not writing them down, analyzing them, trying to forget them, sleeping in silence, sleeping with white noise, sleeping with stuffed animals, without stuffed animals, watching kitty videos before bed, countless other tricks....to no avail. Not in 32 years. They come as they will and they will always come as they will.
Sometimes the dreams are sad and beautiful, which I will take over "terrifying and horrifying" any day. Once I dreamed of a world in which powerful sorcerers were stealing memories, and I was in contact with the last woman who knew herself. She knew she'd forget everything that was important to her, so she'd send me pictures of her family, trinkets her children would make her. She needed someone else to know what was important to her, so somewhere out there, someone would know who she was.
The dream ended when I received a letter asking me to stop writing her, for she no longer knew who I was nor why we had been writing. I stared off into a dying sunset, holding the pieces of a woman who didn't even know she existed.
Those dreams are very sad. But they do not wake me up. The dream last night did. The ones with blood always do. And there are always dreams with blood.
I nap during the day. The dreams never come in the sunlight. Why, I don't know. They just don't. So I nap.
It's not like I'm getting good sleep at night.
Then I tell them about my dreams.
Last night, I was in a warehouse. There were guards stationed at every entrance. They had guns. Knives. Some of the knives were a rusty crimson. Blood. Old blood that had dried to a permanent stain on the metal. They were silent, frightening, and would kill us.
Us consisted of myself and about fifteen other girls in this warehouse. Most of them were chained to the walls in discolored cuffs, bruised, bleeding. Blonde hair was matted brown from bloody cuts along the skull. Brown hair was painted black from months of not being allowed to wash it. They were as silent as the guards. Opening their mouths would only get them bashed in the head and tossed outside along with the other corpses stacked up like firewood along the warehouse walls. They were chattel and they knew it.
I was not chained. I was alone in a room that dripped filthy water from a cracked corrugated roof. The concrete floor was bare and sticky with mold. It was cold and I had no shoes. I knew there was a guard outside this room. That scared me. What scared me more was the corpse a young girl in the room. She was lying on a slab of broken concrete in the corner and wrapped in muddy gauze. I could see her hair - at one point, it had been blonde. Now it was gray with dust and decay.
She was dead. She had been dead for some time. Days. Weeks. Maybe years. I don't know. Her name was Hannah and she was special. That's why she was still around.
Hannah had been special to the man who kept us all here. I'm not sure what she was to him. Some kind of talisman, perhaps, or a lover. She had died. And he had put me in a room with her to see if I could be like her.
I kept along the wall. I didn't go near her. I didn't want to know if we were anything alike. I knew eventually it wouldn't matter anyways. The man would come and haul me out of the room and whatever happened after that, I wouldn't be able to stop him.
Dreams are strange like this - they shift from one place to another without explanation, but you know that you have not moved into some other dream. I found myself running through a crowd, desperate, more desperate than anything I had ever felt before. I had somehow managed to escape. I'd fled and there was a park. It was afternoon, sunny, and the park was very busy.
Safety, I thought. Safety in numbers. That's all I could think about. I ran. I ran straight into the crowd and I kept running.
And they were following me. Men dressed in cameo black and brown, holding massive rifles and machine guns, knocking over women and children in the crowd, screeching along sidewalks and shouting into walkie-talkies. The man wanted me back and he had sent his guards to bring me back.
I wasn't worried the guards would kill me. He wanted me back at the warehouse. And whatever he had waiting for me back at the warehouse was going to be far, far worse than death. I kept running. I rounded the corner of a stone fountain in the park and slipped - just for a second - on the wet pavement.
That was all they needed. They grabbed the man who had been in front of me. Once the bystander had been dragged into the fountain, then two guards seized my shoulders and forced me to my knees. They wouldn't shoot me. But I knew I wouldn't be able to get up. So I cringed under hands like stone, waiting.
And this is the part of the dream that really scared me. When I rolled over at 5 AM, whimpering, wanting to cry, not being able to, this is what I had echoing in my ears.
The punishment for my escape wasn't going to be physical. Not for me. The punishment for my escape was to watch and listen to an innocent man's slaughter. I didn't know what was happening at first. The man and the guards struggled in the water, just long enough for a knife to flash out into the sunlight and sink like butter into the man's stomach.
Another knife. Another stab. The fountain turned red. And then the sound of tearing flesh. The wet, ripping sound like paper being shredding except it was this man's entire body being ripped apart by the guard's hands.
And I could hear it. The sound of pieces of a body being forced apart, limb and ligature being twisted off by sheer force....The man screamed. He kept screaming. I could hear him dying, being ripped to shreds, and all around me, were his screams. The screams of his family, being held back by another set of guards. I closed my eyes.
That's when I began screaming. If I screamed loud enough, I wouldn't be able to hear those screaming around me. I wanted to bury the sound of a human being rent to pieces. I wanted to somehow find something else, anything else, to listen to.
I screamed. And it did nothing to drown out the sounds. I heard everything. I kept hearing everything, every slash, every shout, every snap, everything.
Eventually the man stopped screaming. His vocal chords were flung along with pieces of his throat on the stone steps of the fountain. The two guards who had held me down yanked me to my feet. They didn't have to say a word. They didn't even have to restrain me.
I walked with them back to the warehouse. I knew that the cost of my insolence had been this innocent man's life. The guards had not killed him. The captor back at the warehouse, who had given the order, had not killed him.
I'd killed him. My actions, my terror, was what led to his death and his dismemberment. The horror of what his family would be picking out of the stone for weeks was my fault. I had done this. Had I not left, that man would still be alive. I HAD left and he was dead. I knew this.
I don't know who Hannah was or why I was supposed to be like her. All I know is that I went back to that room with the black, cold floor and I sat there, looking at her. Whenever the man came to get me, I would do whatever he said. I wouldn't fight. Maybe Hannah had tried to fight back.
I knew better than to try that ever again.
This is not an unusual dream for me. An unfortunate combination of a troubled history full of childhood abuse and misfiring neurons in my skull pull out these images time and time again. I wake up screaming from nightmares on average of twice a week.
I have tried: medication, meditation, lucid dreaming, writing them down, not writing them down, analyzing them, trying to forget them, sleeping in silence, sleeping with white noise, sleeping with stuffed animals, without stuffed animals, watching kitty videos before bed, countless other tricks....to no avail. Not in 32 years. They come as they will and they will always come as they will.
Sometimes the dreams are sad and beautiful, which I will take over "terrifying and horrifying" any day. Once I dreamed of a world in which powerful sorcerers were stealing memories, and I was in contact with the last woman who knew herself. She knew she'd forget everything that was important to her, so she'd send me pictures of her family, trinkets her children would make her. She needed someone else to know what was important to her, so somewhere out there, someone would know who she was.
The dream ended when I received a letter asking me to stop writing her, for she no longer knew who I was nor why we had been writing. I stared off into a dying sunset, holding the pieces of a woman who didn't even know she existed.
Those dreams are very sad. But they do not wake me up. The dream last night did. The ones with blood always do. And there are always dreams with blood.
I nap during the day. The dreams never come in the sunlight. Why, I don't know. They just don't. So I nap.
It's not like I'm getting good sleep at night.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Warlords and Writer's Block
If I were at home, this would be a day where I'd open the Livejournal window (well, really the Dreamwidth window, which crossposts to Livejournal, because Livejournal is a senile and dying animal with bad coding) and wind up staring at the screen and smoking more than writing. I always open the posting window even if I know I have nothing to say. It is a ritual and it must be maintained, if only in name.
Seriously, I ain't got nothing. (Double negative? Meh. I say DOUBLE AWESOME!) Or if I did want to write, I'd write about how I don't want to write anything. Writing on demand is a special kind of hellacious child to wrangle. It cries and stamps its feet and goes all limp and noodley whenever you try to pick it up to bodily haul it off the playground. It holds its breath and passes out and hits a table on the way down and all you want to do is sell it off to some passing war-lord who might have a use for whiny child-labor.
(This is part of why I don't want children.)
But we're not talking about kids. We're talking about writing. About how sometimes you just can't make it do what you want to, and sometimes you don't care that you can't make it do what you want to, because you don't even KNOW what you want it to do. You just want it to leave you alone. To stop following you into the bathroom pestering you for ice cream and bedtime stories. To stop filling your head with disembodied phrases that might, possibly, make a decent poem if it gave you anything else, to which of course it never does. You just want to put your hands over your ears and go "LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU!" but that doesn't do any good because the voice is inside your head.
Writing is a bad lover. She cooes over you with small gifts of affection before kicking your ass out of bed because the roses you got her were yellow, not red. Writing is reading the best book you've ever read in your WHOLE LIFE only to find out that the last chapter was ripped out by some malicious book-ripping fairy. Writing is watching the coolest, most complex and intriguing movie you've ever seen only to have the last two minutes be the main character's waking up and going "It was a dream!"
And maybe more than anything, writing is coming up with bad metaphors, over and over again, to come up with absolutely nothing. Your frustration doesn't even come off as interesting. It just comes off as run-of-the-mill and indulgent. Writing isn't going to get you laid. It's not going to buy food for you or run a hot bath for you or make your no-good-cheating-husband love you.
It's so goddamn useless in the long run.
And it's still the only thing I've got. So I write. I write and sometimes I hate that I write because I hate that it's the only thing I know how to do when I don't know what else to do. Sometimes I think I would rage-burn everything I've ever written in my entire life, but that'd do no good because hey, this is the internet and everything lives forever here.
So I write. I just fucking write. Not because I'm good at it. Not because I want to. I write because it's what I do.
Warlords have no use for blogs, anyways. Pity.
Seriously, I ain't got nothing. (Double negative? Meh. I say DOUBLE AWESOME!) Or if I did want to write, I'd write about how I don't want to write anything. Writing on demand is a special kind of hellacious child to wrangle. It cries and stamps its feet and goes all limp and noodley whenever you try to pick it up to bodily haul it off the playground. It holds its breath and passes out and hits a table on the way down and all you want to do is sell it off to some passing war-lord who might have a use for whiny child-labor.
(This is part of why I don't want children.)
But we're not talking about kids. We're talking about writing. About how sometimes you just can't make it do what you want to, and sometimes you don't care that you can't make it do what you want to, because you don't even KNOW what you want it to do. You just want it to leave you alone. To stop following you into the bathroom pestering you for ice cream and bedtime stories. To stop filling your head with disembodied phrases that might, possibly, make a decent poem if it gave you anything else, to which of course it never does. You just want to put your hands over your ears and go "LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU!" but that doesn't do any good because the voice is inside your head.
Writing is a bad lover. She cooes over you with small gifts of affection before kicking your ass out of bed because the roses you got her were yellow, not red. Writing is reading the best book you've ever read in your WHOLE LIFE only to find out that the last chapter was ripped out by some malicious book-ripping fairy. Writing is watching the coolest, most complex and intriguing movie you've ever seen only to have the last two minutes be the main character's waking up and going "It was a dream!"
And maybe more than anything, writing is coming up with bad metaphors, over and over again, to come up with absolutely nothing. Your frustration doesn't even come off as interesting. It just comes off as run-of-the-mill and indulgent. Writing isn't going to get you laid. It's not going to buy food for you or run a hot bath for you or make your no-good-cheating-husband love you.
It's so goddamn useless in the long run.
And it's still the only thing I've got. So I write. I write and sometimes I hate that I write because I hate that it's the only thing I know how to do when I don't know what else to do. Sometimes I think I would rage-burn everything I've ever written in my entire life, but that'd do no good because hey, this is the internet and everything lives forever here.
So I write. I just fucking write. Not because I'm good at it. Not because I want to. I write because it's what I do.
Warlords have no use for blogs, anyways. Pity.
Monday, September 23, 2013
No rest for the wicked -
Or for an apartment building when the fire alarm goes off at 12:30 AM.
It's a place full of tricksters and dumbasses who like to smoke in the hallway, so unless there's smoke or funny smells, we all just stay in. Call the fire department of course, in case of actual fire and/or to get them out here quickly to shut it off.
Elsewise, pull out the cat carriers, grimly anticipate wrangling four panicked and screaming cats into the cars two floors down in the parking lot.
And the possibility - or likelihood - of being a total zombie in class today. At least I don't have anything else to do today.
This is the sucky part of community living. For better or worse, we're all stuck with each other's stupidity. And sometimes, that means the shared misery of blaring fire alarms.
It's a place full of tricksters and dumbasses who like to smoke in the hallway, so unless there's smoke or funny smells, we all just stay in. Call the fire department of course, in case of actual fire and/or to get them out here quickly to shut it off.
Elsewise, pull out the cat carriers, grimly anticipate wrangling four panicked and screaming cats into the cars two floors down in the parking lot.
And the possibility - or likelihood - of being a total zombie in class today. At least I don't have anything else to do today.
This is the sucky part of community living. For better or worse, we're all stuck with each other's stupidity. And sometimes, that means the shared misery of blaring fire alarms.
Wizard of Oz is fantasty - but you could argue the second one is more science fiction
Sadly, I am not any further in The Wizard of Oz than I was previously. This week saw a return to reading other long-neglected books that I'd stacked up under my bedside table. One of them was "Mass Effect Revelation", a written prequel series to the game, was my favorite. The books get a lot of flack from others, but I found the pacing engaging, the new characters fresh, and the older ones you know from the games receiving good backstory.
The older I get, the more science fiction I find myself reading. I used to be a straight fantasty/wizards/elves kinda gal. But science fiction holds a lot more promise to me these days as I see our technology matching up with books that were written thirty years ago.
It's sort of like a backwards form of prediction, reading those things and seeing how close those writers were to guessing what we would have NOW. I remember when I was twelve reading the role-playing core book of "Shadowrun", a futuristic, cyberpunk game, and being astounded at the idea of having handheld devices that allowed you to store information, call people, and solve complex problems. (Or Penny's book from Inspector Gadget, for example.) We have all that now. All that and more. I remember at 15 falling madly in love with William Gibson's "Neuromancer" and yearning for the day when we would be able to "jack into" this computer based reality.
And here we are, with all of that, so widespread is the technology that we are teaching our gradeschooler's how to use it. It is awing to me.
Although, to show how far we've not come....why in the hell are most academic centers still using Internet Explorer? It's on par with AOL, Geocities, Hotmail, and Myspace. In other words, it is a creature that has long ago lumbered off to die and we should let it do so. Prodding the ancient, slow, decript, and no longer user-friendly programs to do what they no longer can quite handle seems wasteful and short-sighted.
My father still uses AOL. Then again, he just finally bought a cellphone with a long distance plan. Previously he'd used a cell phone that only made local calls, charged for sending and recieving texts, and charged a higher monthly bill than any other national carrier with far more lenient data plans.
Someday I'll get him to switch to a Gmail account.
We'll have to take it slow from there, though. I think Google Chrome would probably make his head explode.
The older I get, the more science fiction I find myself reading. I used to be a straight fantasty/wizards/elves kinda gal. But science fiction holds a lot more promise to me these days as I see our technology matching up with books that were written thirty years ago.
It's sort of like a backwards form of prediction, reading those things and seeing how close those writers were to guessing what we would have NOW. I remember when I was twelve reading the role-playing core book of "Shadowrun", a futuristic, cyberpunk game, and being astounded at the idea of having handheld devices that allowed you to store information, call people, and solve complex problems. (Or Penny's book from Inspector Gadget, for example.) We have all that now. All that and more. I remember at 15 falling madly in love with William Gibson's "Neuromancer" and yearning for the day when we would be able to "jack into" this computer based reality.
And here we are, with all of that, so widespread is the technology that we are teaching our gradeschooler's how to use it. It is awing to me.
Although, to show how far we've not come....why in the hell are most academic centers still using Internet Explorer? It's on par with AOL, Geocities, Hotmail, and Myspace. In other words, it is a creature that has long ago lumbered off to die and we should let it do so. Prodding the ancient, slow, decript, and no longer user-friendly programs to do what they no longer can quite handle seems wasteful and short-sighted.
My father still uses AOL. Then again, he just finally bought a cellphone with a long distance plan. Previously he'd used a cell phone that only made local calls, charged for sending and recieving texts, and charged a higher monthly bill than any other national carrier with far more lenient data plans.
Someday I'll get him to switch to a Gmail account.
We'll have to take it slow from there, though. I think Google Chrome would probably make his head explode.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
My parking garage
10/15/10
Upon having watched "The Social Network":
It's prompting quite a bit of discussion on the issue of privacy, and it reminds me of conversations I've had with people concerning this journal. ”You mean you write about your most personal thoughts and feelings? On the internet? WhereANYBODY could find and read it?”
Yeah, I say, I do. Because who, exactly, is going to find this particular journal? The community of Livejournal (which is already sympathetic to the culture of journaling), and the random passer-by stumbling onto a cached Google link. That's who is going to find this. Are these people going to ruin my life, invade my privacy, bother my little world with their presence? No.
The internet is a big, big place and the chances of my tiny little blog finding any sort notoriety on a mass level is minuscule. And even the individual people that could, possibly, find this blog and be problematic in my life aren't really a concern, because the size of the internet makes it difficult to find this journal anyways. Do I particularly care if random strangers see this? No. Why should I? The random stranger isn't going to care about what I'm writing here because they are a random stranger. They have no connection to me and I no connection to them.
Say what you want about the human condition, but the core component of human interaction on any personal level requires some kind of investment into what they are saying. The masses of internet users have no such investment in me, and I wouldn't be so arrogant to think they would.
It's a bit like the old “how to hide a stolen car” argument. Does one put a stolen car in a backyard or squirrel it away in some remote place where, thanks to being the only car around in miles, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb? No. You put the damn car in a parking garage where there are hundreds and hundreds of other cars. You put the car in a place where one car won't make a difference, won't stand out, and won't attract any attention.
This journal is my car.
The internet is my parking garage.
Upon having watched "The Social Network":
It's prompting quite a bit of discussion on the issue of privacy, and it reminds me of conversations I've had with people concerning this journal. ”You mean you write about your most personal thoughts and feelings? On the internet? WhereANYBODY could find and read it?”
Yeah, I say, I do. Because who, exactly, is going to find this particular journal? The community of Livejournal (which is already sympathetic to the culture of journaling), and the random passer-by stumbling onto a cached Google link. That's who is going to find this. Are these people going to ruin my life, invade my privacy, bother my little world with their presence? No.
The internet is a big, big place and the chances of my tiny little blog finding any sort notoriety on a mass level is minuscule. And even the individual people that could, possibly, find this blog and be problematic in my life aren't really a concern, because the size of the internet makes it difficult to find this journal anyways. Do I particularly care if random strangers see this? No. Why should I? The random stranger isn't going to care about what I'm writing here because they are a random stranger. They have no connection to me and I no connection to them.
Say what you want about the human condition, but the core component of human interaction on any personal level requires some kind of investment into what they are saying. The masses of internet users have no such investment in me, and I wouldn't be so arrogant to think they would.
It's a bit like the old “how to hide a stolen car” argument. Does one put a stolen car in a backyard or squirrel it away in some remote place where, thanks to being the only car around in miles, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb? No. You put the damn car in a parking garage where there are hundreds and hundreds of other cars. You put the car in a place where one car won't make a difference, won't stand out, and won't attract any attention.
This journal is my car.
The internet is my parking garage.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
This how my brain works
Nudge the cat back in from the porch and laugh at her "how dare a mere mortal touch me!" look. Tell the cat that she is not immortal and will, to my great sadness, one day die and be returned to the Earth.
Wonder out loud if my previous cats, buried several years ago, are completely decomposed or if there would be bones. David suggests googling. I do and it is apparently a fairly common question. Discover that it takes 8 years for human bone buried in loose earth to decompose and only a few years for animal bones to turn to ash.
Read an account of a woman who wants to plant a bush where she buried her cat, but does not want to see her cat partially decomposed. Think to myself that a flower bush would be a great memorial. Remind myself I have a black thumb.
Then think that I have to go dust my fake flowers on my shelf, one of which has a real muskrat skull placed in the middle of it.
Laugh because it's circular.
Wonder out loud if my previous cats, buried several years ago, are completely decomposed or if there would be bones. David suggests googling. I do and it is apparently a fairly common question. Discover that it takes 8 years for human bone buried in loose earth to decompose and only a few years for animal bones to turn to ash.
Read an account of a woman who wants to plant a bush where she buried her cat, but does not want to see her cat partially decomposed. Think to myself that a flower bush would be a great memorial. Remind myself I have a black thumb.
Then think that I have to go dust my fake flowers on my shelf, one of which has a real muskrat skull placed in the middle of it.
Laugh because it's circular.
Friday, September 20, 2013
TRUTH!
How To Know You're A Writer - In Animated Gif Form!
AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2013/06/how-to-know-youre-writer-in-gif-form.html
AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2013/06/how-to-know-youre-writer-in-gif-form.html
This personality test in no way reflects my actual personality
Cruising through my fellow student's entries yesterday, I see the writing prompt was about job interviews. So I'm going to talk about job interviews - in particular the part that always messes me up.
The personality tests.
If I were to fly an airplane, I wouldn't need to prove my ability to fill in answers on a Scantron sheet. But if I want to sell shoes or run a cash register for 8.00 an hour, I have to prove my worthiness with questions such as "Have you ever lied?" and "I used to have a drug problem, but that's all behind me." (Strongly disagree/agree/etc). These things always take at least a half an hour to complete and leave me feeling dirty, as if I need to shower afterwards. Sometimes these tests go even deeper, asking you if you've ever felt lonely due to family issues, or if you've ever had relationship problems that stem from insecurity.
Questions such as "Have you ever lied" trip me up. Ever? Ever ever? Like when I was seven and I lied about breaking my mother's beloved china plate? Or when I was fifteen and lied about sneaking out to see my boyfriend? "I used to have a drug problem, but that's behind me now (strongly agree, etc)". Do you mean do I have a drug problem NOW and it's NOT behind me? (It's actually looking for you to say "strongly DISAGREE, because it means you've never had a drug problem TO put behind you.) I sometimes feel sad and lonely (strongly agree - strongly disagree.) Yes, but who doesn't on occasion when the cat dies, the mother gets cancer, your husband cheats on you, or any number of actual life things? "Have you ever gotten really angry in your life?"
*blink blink*
Filling out the questionnaires honestly gets you passed over for the interview - every time. Attempting to "fake out" the test with straight, angelic answers also fails the interview. The purpose of these tests serve nothing that wouldn't be otherwise sussed out in a face to face interview (and occasionally cross into territory that would be illegal to ask about in an interview.)
It's patently ridiculous and the only thing these tests prove is that you know how to fake it to management. Barbara Einchreich, author of "Nickeled and Dimed" also pointed out that it's part of the whole "We don't want your services, we want to own you, even your mind" problem with entry level work. They certainly don't want to pay you very much, but they want to make sure you understand they are always watching.
It's easy to keep a workforce underfoot and underpaid if you can convince them that you know everything about them and have deemed them unnecessary for anything but minimum wage. After all, it's all there on paper, black and white.
Questions such as "Have you ever lied" trip me up. Ever? Ever ever? Like when I was seven and I lied about breaking my mother's beloved china plate? Or when I was fifteen and lied about sneaking out to see my boyfriend? "I used to have a drug problem, but that's behind me now (strongly agree, etc)". Do you mean do I have a drug problem NOW and it's NOT behind me? (It's actually looking for you to say "strongly DISAGREE, because it means you've never had a drug problem TO put behind you.) I sometimes feel sad and lonely (strongly agree - strongly disagree.) Yes, but who doesn't on occasion when the cat dies, the mother gets cancer, your husband cheats on you, or any number of actual life things? "Have you ever gotten really angry in your life?"
*blink blink*
Filling out the questionnaires honestly gets you passed over for the interview - every time. Attempting to "fake out" the test with straight, angelic answers also fails the interview. The purpose of these tests serve nothing that wouldn't be otherwise sussed out in a face to face interview (and occasionally cross into territory that would be illegal to ask about in an interview.)
It's patently ridiculous and the only thing these tests prove is that you know how to fake it to management. Barbara Einchreich, author of "Nickeled and Dimed" also pointed out that it's part of the whole "We don't want your services, we want to own you, even your mind" problem with entry level work. They certainly don't want to pay you very much, but they want to make sure you understand they are always watching.
It's easy to keep a workforce underfoot and underpaid if you can convince them that you know everything about them and have deemed them unnecessary for anything but minimum wage. After all, it's all there on paper, black and white.
I wonder if the President has to take a personality test. I'll bet he doesn't. It seems that attempting emotional and intellectual extortion is only necessary for keeping your poorly paid workforce in line.
On occasion, I've had to fight the urge to fill those out as trigger-happy as I can. See what it would take to produce a test result that says I am a psychotic, sociopathic axe-murderer who will snap on the first aggravating customer I encounter.
I don't know if the tests check for that, though. They usually just want to know if you consider yourself happy and not ever depressed or down. A shame. Screening for murderers seems a better idea.
At least in this economy.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Why won't this...hair REFUSE TO COOPERATE? (Or people?!)
Facebook. My most conservative political friend.
And this is me.
Getting off FB now.
Brace yourself, lads. Winter is coming.
The house is clean. The cats are fed. And I'm lonely this morning. Normally by this time, I'm in class or the boyfriend's home. Today neither of those things are true. I eat my leftover burger from dinner last night. I chase off the cats who are trying to lick my plate. I step outside for a cigarette and blink in the unrelenting sunlight.
The heat has been unpleasant but with every late sunrise that I witness, my anxiety about the oncoming winter climbs. I joke that being from Arizona, I've just never adjusted to the cold. That is partially true. But the largest part of fear is knowing that when the first 20 degree day hits, I'll die.
Alright, so I won't really *die*, but I'll be as close to death while living as I ever have been. Climbing out of bed is not difficult - it is an effort of Olympian will. Showering, something taken for granted for most of the year, doesn't even register as something I need to do. Eating, too, falls away. I languish under dirty and itchy sheets. I don't leave the house except for school or work for weeks at a time.
I don't breathe during the winter....I just slip underwater and swallow it down.
Lots of people get blue in the winter. This is different. This is not simple depression. This is a complete erasure of a human being. Suicide isn't even a thought during those months, because suicide requires the acknowledgement of having a self to kill.
I have no sense of self in the cold. There is no sense of sadness or disinterest or apathy because you have to be a person to feel those things. It's difficult to explain, but I know when the cold hits, I stop existing. I will not become real again until late March, early April. Nothing is quite real in the winter. Certainly, I am not.
If anything is real during those times, it is the strangely vivid dreaming that visits me in the winter. Maybe it's my mind trying to compensate for the flattening of life. Giving me something to feel connected to. A world in which I'm a part of, if only when I'm asleep.
It was worse before medication, before the magic words "Bi-Polar" were breathed in my direction. Before that, I could not shower. Could not eat. Could not go to work or school or be a lover. Now, while the effort is herculean and the activities done infrequent, I am able to do those things.
I call them "small victories." When I wake up and write in my journal that my goal for the day is to shower and scoop out the litterbox. And in the winter mornings, those tasks sound absolutely immense. Sometimes I only get the litterbox scooped out. Sometimes I wind up going yet *another* day without a shower. But for me, anything, anything at all that speaks of a human being living their life, is a victory. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
By spring, the mood changes. By June, I'm usually half-way around the bend with hypomania. The year turns, as Marya Hornbacher put it in her book "Wasted", psychedelic, and I know I am human again. Summer presents its own problems with mania - which for me, is far more the dangerous state. Depression leaves me with too little will to destroy anything. Mania makes for a wonderful, reckless sort of energy to raze entire buildings. It is those months that require the most work and attention.
But it is those months that I am most grateful for. Because even if I have to be careful, I know that I'm alive enough to HAVE to be careful.
There's really nothing to be done about winter. I am on medication. I attend therapy. I apply CBT behavioral and thinking strategies. I have wonderful people around me who do everything they can to pry me out of the bed. This helps, in as much as I can accomplish my small victories. But it is still terrible to go through.
The high today is the 90's. The first twenty degree day is months away. But the trees are turning crimson and losing their coats of green. Winter is coming. I shouldn't worry about it. It's not as if I don't know what is coming, there is no surprise to be caught by. And there's time yet anyways.
There really is time. But I see it shouldering its way past the sunlight.
It's coming.
The heat has been unpleasant but with every late sunrise that I witness, my anxiety about the oncoming winter climbs. I joke that being from Arizona, I've just never adjusted to the cold. That is partially true. But the largest part of fear is knowing that when the first 20 degree day hits, I'll die.
Alright, so I won't really *die*, but I'll be as close to death while living as I ever have been. Climbing out of bed is not difficult - it is an effort of Olympian will. Showering, something taken for granted for most of the year, doesn't even register as something I need to do. Eating, too, falls away. I languish under dirty and itchy sheets. I don't leave the house except for school or work for weeks at a time.
I don't breathe during the winter....I just slip underwater and swallow it down.
Lots of people get blue in the winter. This is different. This is not simple depression. This is a complete erasure of a human being. Suicide isn't even a thought during those months, because suicide requires the acknowledgement of having a self to kill.
I have no sense of self in the cold. There is no sense of sadness or disinterest or apathy because you have to be a person to feel those things. It's difficult to explain, but I know when the cold hits, I stop existing. I will not become real again until late March, early April. Nothing is quite real in the winter. Certainly, I am not.
If anything is real during those times, it is the strangely vivid dreaming that visits me in the winter. Maybe it's my mind trying to compensate for the flattening of life. Giving me something to feel connected to. A world in which I'm a part of, if only when I'm asleep.
It was worse before medication, before the magic words "Bi-Polar" were breathed in my direction. Before that, I could not shower. Could not eat. Could not go to work or school or be a lover. Now, while the effort is herculean and the activities done infrequent, I am able to do those things.
I call them "small victories." When I wake up and write in my journal that my goal for the day is to shower and scoop out the litterbox. And in the winter mornings, those tasks sound absolutely immense. Sometimes I only get the litterbox scooped out. Sometimes I wind up going yet *another* day without a shower. But for me, anything, anything at all that speaks of a human being living their life, is a victory. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
By spring, the mood changes. By June, I'm usually half-way around the bend with hypomania. The year turns, as Marya Hornbacher put it in her book "Wasted", psychedelic, and I know I am human again. Summer presents its own problems with mania - which for me, is far more the dangerous state. Depression leaves me with too little will to destroy anything. Mania makes for a wonderful, reckless sort of energy to raze entire buildings. It is those months that require the most work and attention.
But it is those months that I am most grateful for. Because even if I have to be careful, I know that I'm alive enough to HAVE to be careful.
There's really nothing to be done about winter. I am on medication. I attend therapy. I apply CBT behavioral and thinking strategies. I have wonderful people around me who do everything they can to pry me out of the bed. This helps, in as much as I can accomplish my small victories. But it is still terrible to go through.
The high today is the 90's. The first twenty degree day is months away. But the trees are turning crimson and losing their coats of green. Winter is coming. I shouldn't worry about it. It's not as if I don't know what is coming, there is no surprise to be caught by. And there's time yet anyways.
There really is time. But I see it shouldering its way past the sunlight.
It's coming.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
It is 9:27 PM. Have I thought of anything else to say? Not really. There is the eternal annoyance that female video game characters come in three flavors: Madonna/Whore/Dude with Tits.
I swear, if I have to hear Yuna's mousy voice stuttering when faced with the big bads even though, technically, SHE HAS THE MOST KICK ASS POWERS IN ThE GAME, I'm gonna punch the screen. What is it with JRPG chicks who are totally and completely infantile both in voice and manner, even if they are the ones actually in possession of the VERY THING THAT WINDS UP SAVING THE GAME??? Argh.
Bayonetta was awesome, don't get me wrong, and the oversexualized, breasts bouncing, kiss-'o-death-Poison-Ivy-femme-fatal character can be played to great effect (especially in the case of Bayonetta or Lollipop Chainsaw, in which the character is an active parody of the femme-fatale trope), but duuuuude - boobs are not magical. They are boobs. I have yet to bring down any world power with a well-shorn shirt and a peek-a-boo bra.
(Maybe I'm just doing it wrong?)
And dude with tits. Classical example, my beloved Femshep. I love her. I adore her. I am so attached to her that I think the Japanese might be onto something when they marry their video game characters. But even I have to acquiesce to the fact that choosing to play as a female in this game does not at all influence the story outside of romantic choices. (Okay, granted, given Bioware's total lack of finishing the game in anything other than a "Uh, what?" fashion, NOTHING really influences the end story, but that's a whole 'nother rant for another time.)
This particular rant has the potential to be the start of a really good deconstruction of chicks in games. Not like there aren't hundreds of them anyways, but it'd be one I wrote, so it'd obviously be cooler. I'll have to come back to this.
Also heard this lyric on the radio: "I ain't never met nobody like you." Is that a triple negative? Quadrupable? Is it enough to completely boomerang the sentence back to its original meaning?
I need to get the boyfriend playing a different game. Argh!
I swear, if I have to hear Yuna's mousy voice stuttering when faced with the big bads even though, technically, SHE HAS THE MOST KICK ASS POWERS IN ThE GAME, I'm gonna punch the screen. What is it with JRPG chicks who are totally and completely infantile both in voice and manner, even if they are the ones actually in possession of the VERY THING THAT WINDS UP SAVING THE GAME??? Argh.
Bayonetta was awesome, don't get me wrong, and the oversexualized, breasts bouncing, kiss-'o-death-Poison-Ivy-femme-fatal character can be played to great effect (especially in the case of Bayonetta or Lollipop Chainsaw, in which the character is an active parody of the femme-fatale trope), but duuuuude - boobs are not magical. They are boobs. I have yet to bring down any world power with a well-shorn shirt and a peek-a-boo bra.
(Maybe I'm just doing it wrong?)
And dude with tits. Classical example, my beloved Femshep. I love her. I adore her. I am so attached to her that I think the Japanese might be onto something when they marry their video game characters. But even I have to acquiesce to the fact that choosing to play as a female in this game does not at all influence the story outside of romantic choices. (Okay, granted, given Bioware's total lack of finishing the game in anything other than a "Uh, what?" fashion, NOTHING really influences the end story, but that's a whole 'nother rant for another time.)
This particular rant has the potential to be the start of a really good deconstruction of chicks in games. Not like there aren't hundreds of them anyways, but it'd be one I wrote, so it'd obviously be cooler. I'll have to come back to this.
Also heard this lyric on the radio: "I ain't never met nobody like you." Is that a triple negative? Quadrupable? Is it enough to completely boomerang the sentence back to its original meaning?
I need to get the boyfriend playing a different game. Argh!
If the dude could just walk like a lady
I really don't have much to say this morning. So at the risk of not getting points for today's entry, I'll just copy and paste part of my LJ entry and a few FB comments. Last night's spat that spilled onto FB wound up with my male friends talking about how since the chick's have powers and whatnot in games that makes them "protagonists" - totes missing the points, dudes. But here's this so far this morning. (I'll probably come up with something later today. But just in case I don't.)
"It started with my disparaging remark about the Final Fantasy series not having a female protagonist. (At least the main series.) My boyfriend replied that since one can switch party members to sometimes move and control a female character that Final Fantasy 12 did, indeed, have one.
I argued that simply because one can play a female (and in the case of FF12, only peripherally) does not mean she's the main character.
He agreed that video games need stronger female characters and more female main characters. He just said that the Final Fantasy series were not one of them.
In the case of FF12, the main conflict that needs resolving is restoring a lost princess to the throne. But stories that hinge on the plight of a woman - as many video games and most of the FF series does - does not a female protagonist make. It simply makes them the conflict in which the male characters solve.
We argued about ensemble casts. We argued about whether or not large parties involve a protagonist at all. We argued about whether or not Luke was the protagonist in Star Wars, for Christ's sake. (He is and I was astounded that anyone would say differently.) We argued and argued and argued until finally both of us, irritated to no end, said "I'm tired of this. Let's talk about something else."
"It started with my disparaging remark about the Final Fantasy series not having a female protagonist. (At least the main series.) My boyfriend replied that since one can switch party members to sometimes move and control a female character that Final Fantasy 12 did, indeed, have one.
I argued that simply because one can play a female (and in the case of FF12, only peripherally) does not mean she's the main character.
He agreed that video games need stronger female characters and more female main characters. He just said that the Final Fantasy series were not one of them.
In the case of FF12, the main conflict that needs resolving is restoring a lost princess to the throne. But stories that hinge on the plight of a woman - as many video games and most of the FF series does - does not a female protagonist make. It simply makes them the conflict in which the male characters solve.
We argued about ensemble casts. We argued about whether or not large parties involve a protagonist at all. We argued about whether or not Luke was the protagonist in Star Wars, for Christ's sake. (He is and I was astounded that anyone would say differently.) We argued and argued and argued until finally both of us, irritated to no end, said "I'm tired of this. Let's talk about something else."
----
Me on FB this morning: In other words, just cuz the chick is tied to the railroad tracks doesn't make her the main character. It makes her the damsel in distress. Princess Peach is NOT the protagonist of Mario Brothers, etc etc etc."
My friend DA on FB:
"An easy way to tell whether a woman is the protagonist or the damsel: if the story works just as well with some other valuable item in place of the woman (a magic sword, possession of a kingdom, a sexy lamp), she's the damsel. Objects are not protagonists."
(More DA:) "Another character can be responsible for the triggering event that leads to the protagonist's change, but that character doesn't become the protagonist simply by acting as the trigger. (In fact, most adventure plots have a trigger-character who emphatically is NOT the protagonist; think of Obi-Wan, or Hagrid telling Harry Potter that Harry is in fact a wizard. Both trigger the quest, but neither are the protagonist.)"
(More DA:) "Another character can be responsible for the triggering event that leads to the protagonist's change, but that character doesn't become the protagonist simply by acting as the trigger. (In fact, most adventure plots have a trigger-character who emphatically is NOT the protagonist; think of Obi-Wan, or Hagrid telling Harry Potter that Harry is in fact a wizard. Both trigger the quest, but neither are the protagonist.)"
-----------
All of my male friends don't get this. All of my female friends do.
Because, you know, vagina.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
I don't care what you say, the Final Fantasy Series is a sausage fest.
How do you know when you live in a house with two writing nerds? When an off-hand comment about wishing to see more female protagonists in video games leads to a heated, four hour argument about what constitutes a protagonist. It's also painfully obvious that you live with nerds when said argument spans several video games, three books, AND the Star Wars series.
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
Silver shoes sounds more magical anyways
Though the memory is dim at the moment (washed away by rain? How cliche can we get concerning the flooded conditions of the road?) I am at the point where Dorothy finds out the truth of the Golden Cap (Cup?) from the monkey beasts. It's odd, that a girl so involved with fantastical things would think such a gilded item would be normal, but she's Dorothy, so it's forgivable.
My favorite part of the book has been any part that diverges from the movie - of which there is plenty that does so. I was initially worried the book would be rote recitation. It is not. Silver shoes, Aunty Em being somewhat of a bitch (I don't much like kids, either, but I'm not about to cover my ears when they laugh), and the curse of the Tinman was wonderfully morbid. The book explains the field of poppies much better than the movie did.
I wonder if herion/opium use was a national epidemic at the time, thus prompting the dangerous field of them? Societal issues usually find their way into popular media and this book (I think?) was quite popular in its time.
Spellcheck is being fussy. That or else it has been overwhelmed by the horrid nature of my spelling and has simply thrown its hands up going "Idk, wtf???"
My favorite part of the book has been any part that diverges from the movie - of which there is plenty that does so. I was initially worried the book would be rote recitation. It is not. Silver shoes, Aunty Em being somewhat of a bitch (I don't much like kids, either, but I'm not about to cover my ears when they laugh), and the curse of the Tinman was wonderfully morbid. The book explains the field of poppies much better than the movie did.
I wonder if herion/opium use was a national epidemic at the time, thus prompting the dangerous field of them? Societal issues usually find their way into popular media and this book (I think?) was quite popular in its time.
Spellcheck is being fussy. That or else it has been overwhelmed by the horrid nature of my spelling and has simply thrown its hands up going "Idk, wtf???"
Monday, September 16, 2013
So a salarian isn't REALLY a frog, but....
What do you get when you have a socially awkward nerd (like me) who already has out of control emotional responses (like me) playing a science fiction video game programmed with nearly unavoidable core character deaths (like Mass Effect 3)???
A Teressa. That's what you get. A sobbing, inconsolable Teressa weeping to her confused boyfriend because a character resembling a bipedal frog just died.
This is why I love stories. It's also why I kinda hate Bioware. (And Joss Wheadon. He Wheadon-esques that kind of crap ALL THE TIME.)
Oi.
A Teressa. That's what you get. A sobbing, inconsolable Teressa weeping to her confused boyfriend because a character resembling a bipedal frog just died.
This is why I love stories. It's also why I kinda hate Bioware. (And Joss Wheadon. He Wheadon-esques that kind of crap ALL THE TIME.)
Oi.
Preach it, yo
Free writing is difficult when you've already written 5 Livejournal entries (and cross-posted another of a friend's) in the last 24 hours. The mind glazes over, words are like wayward children whom you just don't want to watch over. Pudgy fingers and rivers of cliches stick themselves into electrical sockets and sometimes, the shock of what comes out hurts.
But not this morning, as I've ushered the words to sit down in front of the television of my brain. (TV is the greatest babysitter of all, right?)
A friend of mine wrote this KICK ASS entry on why she writes. I really want to emulate it or write something like it. But it just ain't there this morning. I did think about cross posting it here this morning. I just might.
People say that you're not a writer if it hurts or if you have to work at it. False. Totally, completely, totes major false. How in the hell do you think writers get enough practice in order to be writers? They write about the boring, the mundane, and the endlessly repetative until they figure out how to write it in interesting ways. They learn by writing even when they've got nothing to write about. By staring at the screen, at the paper, laying down thought by maddengly slow thought, until something good comes up.
And for me, sometimes nothing good comes out for months. I dislike those times but I know they are nesscary.
Do a U-turn in your writing, says Natalie Goldberg. Mid-sentence, say "What I really want to write about", or "If I could write about anything", or "I DON'T want to write about..." Sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes all I do is write about how my cats threw up on the carpet I just vacuumed and I'm almost out of cigarettes and the boyfriend has the tv on way too loud and how I am utterly, unequivocally, sick of my own voice.
The sky has been gray for two days now. I must be careful. Cold, gray weather is a classic cause of depression. I am no exception. I have a sunlamp, which I inevitably forget until my boyfriend is going out of his mind because I am sleeping 12 hours a day and haven't showered in a week.
Depression sucks. It's also pretty smelly.
Unfortunately, I can't be on anti-depressants. Bi-polars, especially Type 1 (which means, left to my own devices, I tend towards the manic side) have extremely unstable amounts of seretonin in their bloodstreams as it is. Antidepressants boost seretonin levels. Or really they just make the synapses in the brain more spongey so they can soak up more seretonin. But for bi-polars, that's just a recipe for trouble. Occasionally we try antipsychotics, always to disasterous affects. Benzo's are out, too.
So I stay on my mood stabilizer, Lamictal, and just resign myself to spending five months out of the year completely flat in affect and mood.
"Brace yourselves, lads. Winter is coming."
Preach it, brother Stark. Preach it.
But not this morning, as I've ushered the words to sit down in front of the television of my brain. (TV is the greatest babysitter of all, right?)
A friend of mine wrote this KICK ASS entry on why she writes. I really want to emulate it or write something like it. But it just ain't there this morning. I did think about cross posting it here this morning. I just might.
People say that you're not a writer if it hurts or if you have to work at it. False. Totally, completely, totes major false. How in the hell do you think writers get enough practice in order to be writers? They write about the boring, the mundane, and the endlessly repetative until they figure out how to write it in interesting ways. They learn by writing even when they've got nothing to write about. By staring at the screen, at the paper, laying down thought by maddengly slow thought, until something good comes up.
And for me, sometimes nothing good comes out for months. I dislike those times but I know they are nesscary.
Do a U-turn in your writing, says Natalie Goldberg. Mid-sentence, say "What I really want to write about", or "If I could write about anything", or "I DON'T want to write about..." Sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes all I do is write about how my cats threw up on the carpet I just vacuumed and I'm almost out of cigarettes and the boyfriend has the tv on way too loud and how I am utterly, unequivocally, sick of my own voice.
The sky has been gray for two days now. I must be careful. Cold, gray weather is a classic cause of depression. I am no exception. I have a sunlamp, which I inevitably forget until my boyfriend is going out of his mind because I am sleeping 12 hours a day and haven't showered in a week.
Depression sucks. It's also pretty smelly.
Unfortunately, I can't be on anti-depressants. Bi-polars, especially Type 1 (which means, left to my own devices, I tend towards the manic side) have extremely unstable amounts of seretonin in their bloodstreams as it is. Antidepressants boost seretonin levels. Or really they just make the synapses in the brain more spongey so they can soak up more seretonin. But for bi-polars, that's just a recipe for trouble. Occasionally we try antipsychotics, always to disasterous affects. Benzo's are out, too.
So I stay on my mood stabilizer, Lamictal, and just resign myself to spending five months out of the year completely flat in affect and mood.
"Brace yourselves, lads. Winter is coming."
Preach it, brother Stark. Preach it.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
The random thoughts
In no particular order:
*Why is it that whatever I'm looking for is always, inevitably, in the other pocket?
* Everytime I go looking for a specific article of clothing, I cannot find it. This happens despite the fact that yesterday, when I was looking for another shirt, I kept landing on the one I now mysteriously can't find.
* I wish my cats spoke English.
* I don't understand the purpose of aftershave. Doesn't that shit sting? Only a crazy woman would slap alcohol on her freshly shaved legs. Is it some kind of male initiation rite? Test of masculine strength?
* Last night I asked my best friend if the positive qualities I attribute to my sister, who is a drug-addled, abused and abusive mess, was more or less what I wished she was. He said it was likely that.
* I still believe that she is the funniest person I have ever met. No one makes me laugh like she can.
* Why does my microwave place my food at the back of the plate, no matter how long I set it to warm?
* Sometimes my toilet leaks, sometimes it doesn't. I can never figure out what makes the difference.
* There is a young man who lives in these apartments who never wears a shirt. Seriously, I've never seen him in a topped garment. It will be February and he will still be wandering about shirtless.
* I'm continually astounded at the number of Midwesterners who forget their coats in 20 degree weather. My sister and I are from Arizona. We never forget our coats.
* Why do the cats always have to use the litterbox immediately after I clean it?
* I've never experienced the quandary of missing socks after doing laundry. This is because I never have matching socks to begin with.
* No, I don't think it's weird that I disassemble my AC once a month and scrub it down. Do you know how much dander four cats produce? A lot. A whole, whole, allergy-inducing lot.
* I'm not afraid to die. But in my 20's I'd said I would celebrate my gray hairs. Instead I freaked out when I finally did get them. I wonder if coming face to face with my mortality will be the same.
* I need to finish up Mass Effect 3, my favorite video games series. I've hit a point where one of the major characters die and I've been putting off going through that emotionally ripping scene.
* When other people ask me if he has die, I say "Yes. It's a fixed point in time." I should learn how to say that in an English accent so I can sound like Dr. Who.
* Why do the cats always have to throw up in the most trafficked areas of the house? And why does one of my cats always eat back her vomit?
* And finally, why are lists the final fall-back of human writing? Itemized accounts of inane thoughts, however, are comforting. And occasionally, that is all I have to write.
*Why is it that whatever I'm looking for is always, inevitably, in the other pocket?
* Everytime I go looking for a specific article of clothing, I cannot find it. This happens despite the fact that yesterday, when I was looking for another shirt, I kept landing on the one I now mysteriously can't find.
* I wish my cats spoke English.
* I don't understand the purpose of aftershave. Doesn't that shit sting? Only a crazy woman would slap alcohol on her freshly shaved legs. Is it some kind of male initiation rite? Test of masculine strength?
* Last night I asked my best friend if the positive qualities I attribute to my sister, who is a drug-addled, abused and abusive mess, was more or less what I wished she was. He said it was likely that.
* I still believe that she is the funniest person I have ever met. No one makes me laugh like she can.
* Why does my microwave place my food at the back of the plate, no matter how long I set it to warm?
* Sometimes my toilet leaks, sometimes it doesn't. I can never figure out what makes the difference.
* There is a young man who lives in these apartments who never wears a shirt. Seriously, I've never seen him in a topped garment. It will be February and he will still be wandering about shirtless.
* I'm continually astounded at the number of Midwesterners who forget their coats in 20 degree weather. My sister and I are from Arizona. We never forget our coats.
* Why do the cats always have to use the litterbox immediately after I clean it?
* I've never experienced the quandary of missing socks after doing laundry. This is because I never have matching socks to begin with.
* No, I don't think it's weird that I disassemble my AC once a month and scrub it down. Do you know how much dander four cats produce? A lot. A whole, whole, allergy-inducing lot.
* I'm not afraid to die. But in my 20's I'd said I would celebrate my gray hairs. Instead I freaked out when I finally did get them. I wonder if coming face to face with my mortality will be the same.
* I need to finish up Mass Effect 3, my favorite video games series. I've hit a point where one of the major characters die and I've been putting off going through that emotionally ripping scene.
* When other people ask me if he has die, I say "Yes. It's a fixed point in time." I should learn how to say that in an English accent so I can sound like Dr. Who.
* Why do the cats always have to throw up in the most trafficked areas of the house? And why does one of my cats always eat back her vomit?
* And finally, why are lists the final fall-back of human writing? Itemized accounts of inane thoughts, however, are comforting. And occasionally, that is all I have to write.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Fanboys are not always Trekkies
1) What are FANBOYS?
-Fanboys are overly excitable fans of usually niche series (Star Trek comes to mind) with tendency to squee whenever someone of authority concerning the subject.....
Lololol.
FANBOYS - For instance, (can't remember), But, Otherwise, Yet, (can't remember.)
(Sadly, if one were to ask me the plot of any near random science fiction show, that I could totally be Fanboy-ish about.)
2) What are the three steps of the writing process?
1) First one prewrites, a process that includes brainstorming original ideas and then gathering general supporting ideas.
2) Next one simply writes. This is the first attempt at putting those previous ideas in a coherent and cohesive pattern.
3) Finally you have revision, a process in which you edit your work to achieve a smooth flow from point to point, clear up mechanical mistakes, and tighten up loose ends in your presentation.
3) Name and describe each of the different types of paragraphs/essays we have discussed.
1) Process writing is the act of writing about a process. This is normally presented as a "how-to" essay or else outlays specific and factual knowledge about a subject.
2) Narratives tell a story, usually to the end of relating either a human experience or a lesson/moral of some sort.
3) Descriptive writing is exactly as it reads: A piece that describes something. While one generally focuses on the typical five senses, it can also be used to describe the emotions of an event. These essays focus on painting a picture of something specific.
4) Which essay is your favorite and why?
- I enjoy narratives and description writings the most. I like the idea of telling a story (isn't all of life a story?) and having it reach to others and THEIR experiences. A good narrative includes lots of description so the two are entwined. Journal writing is good practice for these two. Not only do you have to rely the events and stories of your life, but you also have to describe why it is significant to you. You have to describe why it is significant to OTHERS. It requires spinning the parts of your life into interesting and attention getting prompts. And thus the story is always changing, always finding new ways to be described, always finding itself with new stories to tell.
(At least until the moment you expire. Dead men tell no tales. *cue ominous music*)
-Fanboys are overly excitable fans of usually niche series (Star Trek comes to mind) with tendency to squee whenever someone of authority concerning the subject.....
Lololol.
FANBOYS - For instance, (can't remember), But, Otherwise, Yet, (can't remember.)
(Sadly, if one were to ask me the plot of any near random science fiction show, that I could totally be Fanboy-ish about.)
2) What are the three steps of the writing process?
1) First one prewrites, a process that includes brainstorming original ideas and then gathering general supporting ideas.
2) Next one simply writes. This is the first attempt at putting those previous ideas in a coherent and cohesive pattern.
3) Finally you have revision, a process in which you edit your work to achieve a smooth flow from point to point, clear up mechanical mistakes, and tighten up loose ends in your presentation.
3) Name and describe each of the different types of paragraphs/essays we have discussed.
1) Process writing is the act of writing about a process. This is normally presented as a "how-to" essay or else outlays specific and factual knowledge about a subject.
2) Narratives tell a story, usually to the end of relating either a human experience or a lesson/moral of some sort.
3) Descriptive writing is exactly as it reads: A piece that describes something. While one generally focuses on the typical five senses, it can also be used to describe the emotions of an event. These essays focus on painting a picture of something specific.
4) Which essay is your favorite and why?
- I enjoy narratives and description writings the most. I like the idea of telling a story (isn't all of life a story?) and having it reach to others and THEIR experiences. A good narrative includes lots of description so the two are entwined. Journal writing is good practice for these two. Not only do you have to rely the events and stories of your life, but you also have to describe why it is significant to you. You have to describe why it is significant to OTHERS. It requires spinning the parts of your life into interesting and attention getting prompts. And thus the story is always changing, always finding new ways to be described, always finding itself with new stories to tell.
(At least until the moment you expire. Dead men tell no tales. *cue ominous music*)
Not a dedication
So concerning a bit in the whole "You want to date a writer" thing......Specifically the bit that says "Writers will write about you: You don't want this. Trust me."
That's true. That's way true. New friends of mine (far and infrequent these days, oh yay hermited life) sometimes ask me to write about them. Or they'll ask if I've written about them.
And the truth of the matter is it's never as flattering as they think. I generally journal-write and I don't hold anything back. So there I put all of my insecurities about them, any idiosyncrasies I find challenging, and often I question the entire damned friendship. Not necessarily because I don't like them, but because it seems I question every human interaction. Endlessly. Obsessively. To a fault. I'm just that freaking insecure. And it's incongruous for them because verbally, I don't express those thoughts. (It's rude. And awkward. And also just really rude.)
I've had lovers ask for poems about them. The same difficulties present themselves. I don't write love poems (okay, so every poem is a love poem in the sense that it describes some kind of push and pull, but rarely is it emotionally pretty) so what comes out is always strange.
It's totally cliche that writing is more of an act of harnessing words rather than controlling them, but it's also a cliche because it's true. Half the time even I'm surprised by what comes out. I've learned to trust this voice because it gives life to things that I A) don't think about or B) don't WANT to think about. But that's not how non-writers see the whole process.
Writing - or at least journal writing, process writing - isn't a soliloquy. It's not a declaration. It's not a dedication. May Sarton once wrote that writing isn't a way out, it's a way IN. And I've found that to be more true than anything else I've heard about writing.
People think of writing - especially when that writing concerns other people - to be the product of something external. A list. A description. A word picture with lots of pretty adjectives. But that's not what writing is. Not always.
Those closest to me have long since stopped asking me to write about them. They know if they really want to, all they have to do is stop by my Livejournal to see what's going on with how I feel about them.
Luckily - for both myself and them - they rarely do. I appreciate that.
That's true. That's way true. New friends of mine (far and infrequent these days, oh yay hermited life) sometimes ask me to write about them. Or they'll ask if I've written about them.
And the truth of the matter is it's never as flattering as they think. I generally journal-write and I don't hold anything back. So there I put all of my insecurities about them, any idiosyncrasies I find challenging, and often I question the entire damned friendship. Not necessarily because I don't like them, but because it seems I question every human interaction. Endlessly. Obsessively. To a fault. I'm just that freaking insecure. And it's incongruous for them because verbally, I don't express those thoughts. (It's rude. And awkward. And also just really rude.)
I've had lovers ask for poems about them. The same difficulties present themselves. I don't write love poems (okay, so every poem is a love poem in the sense that it describes some kind of push and pull, but rarely is it emotionally pretty) so what comes out is always strange.
It's totally cliche that writing is more of an act of harnessing words rather than controlling them, but it's also a cliche because it's true. Half the time even I'm surprised by what comes out. I've learned to trust this voice because it gives life to things that I A) don't think about or B) don't WANT to think about. But that's not how non-writers see the whole process.
Writing - or at least journal writing, process writing - isn't a soliloquy. It's not a declaration. It's not a dedication. May Sarton once wrote that writing isn't a way out, it's a way IN. And I've found that to be more true than anything else I've heard about writing.
People think of writing - especially when that writing concerns other people - to be the product of something external. A list. A description. A word picture with lots of pretty adjectives. But that's not what writing is. Not always.
Those closest to me have long since stopped asking me to write about them. They know if they really want to, all they have to do is stop by my Livejournal to see what's going on with how I feel about them.
Luckily - for both myself and them - they rarely do. I appreciate that.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Double time writing
Keeping up on two journals is a bit of a juggling act. Livejournal is my home and has been for nearly a decade. I carve out an hour - bare minimum - of my morning to write. I have done this for for most of my life. But to keep the subjects separate is a trick. I could copy and paste my morning entry over. And while that's not technically plagiarizing (you can't really plagiarize yourself) it's generally frowned upon to present old work as new.
The only time I've managed to write with any volume in two journals was while I was on Abilify, an antipsychotic medication that kicked my bipolar into a nasty mixed episode. (A state where you combine all of the frenzy of mania with the terrifying world of depression.) I created a word document file on my laptop to save my friends list on Livejournal from being overwhelmed.
I usually write one or two pages in my journal. I wound up with 100 pages of material on my second journal, on top of the roughly 12 pages a day I was putting on Livejournal. Very little of it was substantial or even coherent.
It was a messy situation. It lasted months. And while it wasn't the first time writing had ever frustrated me, it was the first time writing tormented me. It was far more of a compulsion than an act of will. Writing is a sacred art to me and it was maddening to have it feel like an addiction.
After four or five months of being on Abilify, I finally asked my psychiatrist to discontinue the medication. I was having massive side effects. Psychomotor agitation, which is a fancy way of saying "every muscle is going to twitch involuntarily", insomnia that kept me up for 24 hours or more sometimes, a tightening of the jaw that sometimes made it difficult to speak, drooling, and a markedly deteriorated eyesight. While I was immensely grateful to have those side effects go away, returning to coherency in my writing was the thing I was most grateful for.
I haven't had a manic break since late 2011. Not the kind that presents psychosis, at least. Nothing that has needed any stop-gap medication in order to apply the brakes. I am grateful for this. My writing is grateful for this.
And my friends on Livejournal, who were kind enough to wade through the written insanity of that time with me, are also grateful for this.
So maybe keeping up on two journals isn't bad. At least this time you can mostly figure out what I'm trying to say.
The only time I've managed to write with any volume in two journals was while I was on Abilify, an antipsychotic medication that kicked my bipolar into a nasty mixed episode. (A state where you combine all of the frenzy of mania with the terrifying world of depression.) I created a word document file on my laptop to save my friends list on Livejournal from being overwhelmed.
I usually write one or two pages in my journal. I wound up with 100 pages of material on my second journal, on top of the roughly 12 pages a day I was putting on Livejournal. Very little of it was substantial or even coherent.
It was a messy situation. It lasted months. And while it wasn't the first time writing had ever frustrated me, it was the first time writing tormented me. It was far more of a compulsion than an act of will. Writing is a sacred art to me and it was maddening to have it feel like an addiction.
After four or five months of being on Abilify, I finally asked my psychiatrist to discontinue the medication. I was having massive side effects. Psychomotor agitation, which is a fancy way of saying "every muscle is going to twitch involuntarily", insomnia that kept me up for 24 hours or more sometimes, a tightening of the jaw that sometimes made it difficult to speak, drooling, and a markedly deteriorated eyesight. While I was immensely grateful to have those side effects go away, returning to coherency in my writing was the thing I was most grateful for.
I haven't had a manic break since late 2011. Not the kind that presents psychosis, at least. Nothing that has needed any stop-gap medication in order to apply the brakes. I am grateful for this. My writing is grateful for this.
And my friends on Livejournal, who were kind enough to wade through the written insanity of that time with me, are also grateful for this.
So maybe keeping up on two journals isn't bad. At least this time you can mostly figure out what I'm trying to say.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
A dead horse and a pissed off stablemaster
A time when I solved a problem at work all on my own....hmmm......well, there was this one time when the whole building was in flames but I dashed back in saving a woman and her child, a three-legged dog, and a prominent politican.
Ha. As if. No problem at work has ever been so dramatic, nor been so herioc . There are very few problems - work or otherwise - that I have solved all on my own. Life is a group effort. It does not happen in a vacuum. Any small changes to routine or suggestions I've made were always in a communal situation, even if it were only myself and my immediate boss. Nothing - and I truly mean NOTHING - in my life has been a sole and singular event. The housekeeping jobs I've done problem solving for would not have worked had I not a team of other housekeepers. The retail jobs I've done problem solving for would not have worked if I were the only person to show up for a shift.
Even in my personal life, nothing has come out of my own small will. Positive changes have usually been at the behest of therapists. Processing is a group effort. Either I write publicly seeking support or I write personally so my thoughts will be ordered enough to communicate clearly to others.
This isn't to minimize my efforts. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. (Well, you can shove its head INTO the water, but then all you'll have is a dead horse and a really pissed off stable master.) Were it not for me taking up on those suggestions, I would be a mess. A neurotic mess living at barely animal sustained levels. While I'm still living at animal levels, I have enough practice to be less neurotic.
The process is trial and error - and more error than not. But without others to flail about with, there would be no process at all.
I've never solved anything by myself. I don't need to. It's not HEALTHY to. To live in this world, to be healthy and part of a functional society, functional family, and functional set of friends, you have to be willing to work with others. You have to be willing to show up, to listen, to implement what they say. (You also have to be willing to filter out the good suggestions vs the bad ones. But that, too, only comes with practice and listening to others tell you HOW to do just that.)
Unfortunately, this is not the answer that potential employers are looking for when they ask "Describe a time when you solved a problem by yourself." So, to avoid the embarrasement of getting metaphysical about a job that requires no more thought than running a cash register, I usually say "Well, there was this one time when the whole building was in flames..."
(Ha. Still kidding. I tell them some boring story about changing up how we cleaned rooms. It's not a lie. It's just really boring.)
Ha. As if. No problem at work has ever been so dramatic, nor been so herioc . There are very few problems - work or otherwise - that I have solved all on my own. Life is a group effort. It does not happen in a vacuum. Any small changes to routine or suggestions I've made were always in a communal situation, even if it were only myself and my immediate boss. Nothing - and I truly mean NOTHING - in my life has been a sole and singular event. The housekeeping jobs I've done problem solving for would not have worked had I not a team of other housekeepers. The retail jobs I've done problem solving for would not have worked if I were the only person to show up for a shift.
Even in my personal life, nothing has come out of my own small will. Positive changes have usually been at the behest of therapists. Processing is a group effort. Either I write publicly seeking support or I write personally so my thoughts will be ordered enough to communicate clearly to others.
This isn't to minimize my efforts. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. (Well, you can shove its head INTO the water, but then all you'll have is a dead horse and a really pissed off stable master.) Were it not for me taking up on those suggestions, I would be a mess. A neurotic mess living at barely animal sustained levels. While I'm still living at animal levels, I have enough practice to be less neurotic.
The process is trial and error - and more error than not. But without others to flail about with, there would be no process at all.
I've never solved anything by myself. I don't need to. It's not HEALTHY to. To live in this world, to be healthy and part of a functional society, functional family, and functional set of friends, you have to be willing to work with others. You have to be willing to show up, to listen, to implement what they say. (You also have to be willing to filter out the good suggestions vs the bad ones. But that, too, only comes with practice and listening to others tell you HOW to do just that.)
Unfortunately, this is not the answer that potential employers are looking for when they ask "Describe a time when you solved a problem by yourself." So, to avoid the embarrasement of getting metaphysical about a job that requires no more thought than running a cash register, I usually say "Well, there was this one time when the whole building was in flames..."
(Ha. Still kidding. I tell them some boring story about changing up how we cleaned rooms. It's not a lie. It's just really boring.)
Monday, September 9, 2013
Grrrr
I'm not your therapist. I'm not your intervention pal. I'm not the background drop - or god forbid, part of the actual scene - in the play that is attempting to make your sister not be a messy, insecure, unpsychotic 30 year old.
You're asking me to get into the business of a woman whom, at 30 years old, literally pounded her fists and feet in a tantrum. In a tantrum about how we were to be instructed to clean her house. Her house which she has never once lifted a finger in to clean herself. God, I'm so annoyed with the idea that I'm finding it difficult to even describe her lunacy.
So she's 30 years old, has a house but refuses to live in it and just sits all day at Mommy and Daddy's house, doesn't pay bills, doesn't clean, has her parents call every bill company she deals with, won't even get off the couch to fix her own food, and threatens suicide whenever someone says "No" to her and you think the intervention is going to help? Lololol. No. No, no, no, hell no and why the hell do you expect me to get into the middle of this?
See, babe, that's the thing about being crazy. You gotta want help. You can't sit someone down and say "Hey, you're making us all miserable with your inane stupidity, do something about it! And, uh, oh yeah, it's cuz we love you."
(You may love her. I don't. I think she is the most annoying creature I have ever come across. )
I've already been through this twice with her - her stupid tantrums, her screaming at me, her stamping her feet, calling everyone around her names and you know what - fuck it, no. I wouldn't tolerate that behavior from my 7 year nephew. Your sister is THIRTY FREAKING YEARS OLD.
So yeah, here I am, arguing with you on Gchat because you have some cockey-mained idea that just because I've been in therapy she's gonna see the light and be all like "Hm. I am a psychotic bitch. I ought to do something about that." I seriously don't even know what you're trying to do.
Because my own life has taught me that the healthy thing to do with people like that isn't to cajole them. It's to get away from them. Far away. As far away as you can. Leave them in their misery, you are not responsible for their crazy. Not friends. Not family.
ESPECIALLY not family. Jesus, you know this about me. Why in the hell are you asking this of me?
GRRRRRR.
You're asking me to get into the business of a woman whom, at 30 years old, literally pounded her fists and feet in a tantrum. In a tantrum about how we were to be instructed to clean her house. Her house which she has never once lifted a finger in to clean herself. God, I'm so annoyed with the idea that I'm finding it difficult to even describe her lunacy.
So she's 30 years old, has a house but refuses to live in it and just sits all day at Mommy and Daddy's house, doesn't pay bills, doesn't clean, has her parents call every bill company she deals with, won't even get off the couch to fix her own food, and threatens suicide whenever someone says "No" to her and you think the intervention is going to help? Lololol. No. No, no, no, hell no and why the hell do you expect me to get into the middle of this?
See, babe, that's the thing about being crazy. You gotta want help. You can't sit someone down and say "Hey, you're making us all miserable with your inane stupidity, do something about it! And, uh, oh yeah, it's cuz we love you."
(You may love her. I don't. I think she is the most annoying creature I have ever come across. )
I've already been through this twice with her - her stupid tantrums, her screaming at me, her stamping her feet, calling everyone around her names and you know what - fuck it, no. I wouldn't tolerate that behavior from my 7 year nephew. Your sister is THIRTY FREAKING YEARS OLD.
So yeah, here I am, arguing with you on Gchat because you have some cockey-mained idea that just because I've been in therapy she's gonna see the light and be all like "Hm. I am a psychotic bitch. I ought to do something about that." I seriously don't even know what you're trying to do.
Because my own life has taught me that the healthy thing to do with people like that isn't to cajole them. It's to get away from them. Far away. As far away as you can. Leave them in their misery, you are not responsible for their crazy. Not friends. Not family.
ESPECIALLY not family. Jesus, you know this about me. Why in the hell are you asking this of me?
GRRRRRR.
Friday, September 6, 2013
It's bigger on the inside! Except with cats and not the Tardis
The problem with having four cats in a 500 square foot studio is, well, having four cats in a 500 square foot studio. When you take into account the full sized bed, the tv stand, the bookshelves (a house is just not a house without books), the dresser drawers, the bedside tables and the loveseat, there's not a lot of that 500 square foot space left. But somehow, somehow I mange to keep all of that, my boyfriend, and my four cats safely enclosed.
I've never been without cats. As a child, we had several, and in each foster home that followed, there were several more. When I turned 18 and got my own apartment, a cat was among the first things I aquired. (Along with a microwave. Cooking suuuuucks!) There has only been one time in my life without cats - the first year after my divorce. I was barely able to feed and house myself. I thought taking on a cat would be irresponsible. But that year passed and I soon knew it was time to return to caring for something.
Judy was the first to enter this new home. My boyfriend, a man who'd always loved cats but was never allowed to own one at home, picked her out at a shelter. We brought her home, unsure of what to name her at first. But she was a typical cat - snooty, regal, and utterly above us mere mortals. Therefore, Dame Judi Dench, the ever classic British actress, became her namesake.
Soon after there was Piper, one of the cats my ex-husband and I had owned. I'd desperately missed her and he was kind enough to release her to me. She'd been named by niece long ago and responded well to already given name. So Piper it was.
Pip - also named by niece - was next. A cast off of my sister (who has an alarming record of attempting and failing pet ownership), the housing arrangement was supposed to be temporary. But as my sister's own homelessness stretched, I realized this creaky old cat with a broken stub tail (lost long ago in some unknown accident) needed a stable home.
And last month, there came Molly. A stray that was so starved you could see her ribs from several feet away. A meow that was more of a rasp, so dehydrated was she. Unable to turn away from this bag of bones that housed a feline spirit, I slipped her into my truck and brought her home. She was alternately thrilled, terrified, and enraged. The first night I put her on my food scale and was horrified to find she weighed only 3 pounds. (An average healthy adult female should weigh 7-10 pounds.) But over the last month of care, she has put on a full pound and become much calmer. Molly, the name of a dangerous but oddly vulnerable character in a William Gibson novel, was bestowed upon her.
These four cats do not always get along. They fuss, they fight, they occasionally ambush each other by the litterbox. The cat hair, despite my thrice a week vacuuming and addiction to lint rollers, covers everything. It's not unusual to wake up and stumble nearly blind into a pile of cat yak. The older cats, reaching those final stretch of years, occasionally experience incontinence. And it's just not fun to carry up the 80 pounds of cat litter we go through every month. (Second floor apartment - oh yay!)
But I would be bereft without them. Even as tiny as this 500 square foot space is, without them, without having to continually watch where I put my foot lest I step on a tail, this place would seem unbearably immense. I would rattle about, having nothing but my bookshelves and blankets to talk to.
My apartment may only be 500 feet. But my home is so much larger.
I've never been without cats. As a child, we had several, and in each foster home that followed, there were several more. When I turned 18 and got my own apartment, a cat was among the first things I aquired. (Along with a microwave. Cooking suuuuucks!) There has only been one time in my life without cats - the first year after my divorce. I was barely able to feed and house myself. I thought taking on a cat would be irresponsible. But that year passed and I soon knew it was time to return to caring for something.
Judy was the first to enter this new home. My boyfriend, a man who'd always loved cats but was never allowed to own one at home, picked her out at a shelter. We brought her home, unsure of what to name her at first. But she was a typical cat - snooty, regal, and utterly above us mere mortals. Therefore, Dame Judi Dench, the ever classic British actress, became her namesake.
Soon after there was Piper, one of the cats my ex-husband and I had owned. I'd desperately missed her and he was kind enough to release her to me. She'd been named by niece long ago and responded well to already given name. So Piper it was.
Pip - also named by niece - was next. A cast off of my sister (who has an alarming record of attempting and failing pet ownership), the housing arrangement was supposed to be temporary. But as my sister's own homelessness stretched, I realized this creaky old cat with a broken stub tail (lost long ago in some unknown accident) needed a stable home.
And last month, there came Molly. A stray that was so starved you could see her ribs from several feet away. A meow that was more of a rasp, so dehydrated was she. Unable to turn away from this bag of bones that housed a feline spirit, I slipped her into my truck and brought her home. She was alternately thrilled, terrified, and enraged. The first night I put her on my food scale and was horrified to find she weighed only 3 pounds. (An average healthy adult female should weigh 7-10 pounds.) But over the last month of care, she has put on a full pound and become much calmer. Molly, the name of a dangerous but oddly vulnerable character in a William Gibson novel, was bestowed upon her.
These four cats do not always get along. They fuss, they fight, they occasionally ambush each other by the litterbox. The cat hair, despite my thrice a week vacuuming and addiction to lint rollers, covers everything. It's not unusual to wake up and stumble nearly blind into a pile of cat yak. The older cats, reaching those final stretch of years, occasionally experience incontinence. And it's just not fun to carry up the 80 pounds of cat litter we go through every month. (Second floor apartment - oh yay!)
But I would be bereft without them. Even as tiny as this 500 square foot space is, without them, without having to continually watch where I put my foot lest I step on a tail, this place would seem unbearably immense. I would rattle about, having nothing but my bookshelves and blankets to talk to.
My apartment may only be 500 feet. But my home is so much larger.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Free writing prompt - Ordinary
"Be that as it may, ordinary people go about their day."
I can never remember where I heard that. It's possible that I made that up at some point. But nearly every morning, it crosses my mind. Something about living the ordinary through the extraordinary......or else the opposite. I can never remember. In times of great stress, it's a mantra for simply getting through the hours. No matter the internal dialogue, there is an ordinary day to be lived. Dishes to be done. A litterbox to be scooped out. A boyfriend to argue with. And thus it becomes the writer's job to notice the extraordinary through it all. The way sunlight through the window catches the glint on a fork you are washing. The satisfied stretch of a cat who has just used the clean litterbox. (They always look satisfied. And they always use the litterbox right after you clean it. It's like a cat law or something.)
This morning it came in the form of noticing a neighbor's cat. He (or maybe she) stretched out against the sliding glass door, a story down from my balcony. Orange and white fur finger painted his coat down to a wash of white paws. His tail was smooth and trailed along the glass as if he were caressing a lover's cheek. White slats reflecting the morning sun seemed to halo this small creature and I marveled, not for the first time, of the simplicity of a cat's being. Humans would benefit from this, to simply curl around our furniture, stretch, yawn, and notice everything.
On the other hand, my cats also lick their butts. So maybe animals aren't always the best role models.
Still, this cat (as all cats do) caught my attention. In just notcing him I noticed the sunlight, the colors that bounced off the whiteness of his fur and the blinds. The grass outside was a stunning green, the windows across the way sparkled with a sun just beginning to herald the day. My coffee took on a sweeter taste and the leaves of the trees seemed imbued with their own childlike sway.
It was just a cat. But as ordinary as it was, I noticed it. And as ordinary as I am, I go about my day.
I can never remember where I heard that. It's possible that I made that up at some point. But nearly every morning, it crosses my mind. Something about living the ordinary through the extraordinary......or else the opposite. I can never remember. In times of great stress, it's a mantra for simply getting through the hours. No matter the internal dialogue, there is an ordinary day to be lived. Dishes to be done. A litterbox to be scooped out. A boyfriend to argue with. And thus it becomes the writer's job to notice the extraordinary through it all. The way sunlight through the window catches the glint on a fork you are washing. The satisfied stretch of a cat who has just used the clean litterbox. (They always look satisfied. And they always use the litterbox right after you clean it. It's like a cat law or something.)
This morning it came in the form of noticing a neighbor's cat. He (or maybe she) stretched out against the sliding glass door, a story down from my balcony. Orange and white fur finger painted his coat down to a wash of white paws. His tail was smooth and trailed along the glass as if he were caressing a lover's cheek. White slats reflecting the morning sun seemed to halo this small creature and I marveled, not for the first time, of the simplicity of a cat's being. Humans would benefit from this, to simply curl around our furniture, stretch, yawn, and notice everything.
On the other hand, my cats also lick their butts. So maybe animals aren't always the best role models.
Still, this cat (as all cats do) caught my attention. In just notcing him I noticed the sunlight, the colors that bounced off the whiteness of his fur and the blinds. The grass outside was a stunning green, the windows across the way sparkled with a sun just beginning to herald the day. My coffee took on a sweeter taste and the leaves of the trees seemed imbued with their own childlike sway.
It was just a cat. But as ordinary as it was, I noticed it. And as ordinary as I am, I go about my day.
Finding bits of your old life
A few days ago, I'd stumbled upon an old Photobucket account that houses my wedding pictures. (Notation: Beware of Googling thyself.) It's a link that I'd thought long lost so to see it was a bit of a shock.
I am, of course, now divorced. It was an amicable split, even as it was painful. Very few marriages dissolve without there being SOME heartache. My divorce was no different.
It signaled the end of a ten year relationship with a man I'd known since I was 17. I've since said that the failed marriage was entirely my own fault. And it was, for reasons that remain locked in my Livejournal even now. I remember feeling as if I were an anomaly, as if divorce were a midlife cliche and I, at 27, had no business filing for divorce. But what was done was done - a fact that even now I have to remind myself of.
We remain friends, seeing each other once a week or more. It's a testament to his grace and the span of our friendship. For better or for worse, we have been integrally woven into each other for over half of our lives. Thankfully, that did not fall apart simply because our marriage did.
But seeing the pictures gives me pause. I suppose in some small way it always will. Perhaps it always should. I've heard that it takes roughly half the time of the relationship to completely move on.
10 years together. Four and a half years apart.
Almost there.
I am, of course, now divorced. It was an amicable split, even as it was painful. Very few marriages dissolve without there being SOME heartache. My divorce was no different.
It signaled the end of a ten year relationship with a man I'd known since I was 17. I've since said that the failed marriage was entirely my own fault. And it was, for reasons that remain locked in my Livejournal even now. I remember feeling as if I were an anomaly, as if divorce were a midlife cliche and I, at 27, had no business filing for divorce. But what was done was done - a fact that even now I have to remind myself of.
We remain friends, seeing each other once a week or more. It's a testament to his grace and the span of our friendship. For better or for worse, we have been integrally woven into each other for over half of our lives. Thankfully, that did not fall apart simply because our marriage did.
But seeing the pictures gives me pause. I suppose in some small way it always will. Perhaps it always should. I've heard that it takes roughly half the time of the relationship to completely move on.
10 years together. Four and a half years apart.
Almost there.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Good morning
Morning sidles itself next to my coffee cup. I'd say it's early (5:48 AM) but for a morning person, it's an average time. I've always been a morning person. Even as a teenager, that time when one's adolescent nature is traditionally fighting the alarm clock, I found myself rising before the sunlight. Often it seems as if I am the only morning person in the world. I step out for a cigarette and all the lights around me are hushed, save the occasional graveyard shift worker pulling home into the parking lot. My significant other, working graveyard, is either away or else asleep.
It is quiet in these hours. Peaceful. The only time I've ever found reliable enough to order my day. To write. To carve out some empty space from the dreams that circle my sleep.
As someone who struggles with anxiety, my mind is structured differently. There are disconnected, fraying wires, patched together through a battalion of medication that keep the internal dialogue calm enough to dissect. I require a lot of quiet time. Moreso than perhaps the average person. It drives my loved ones mad. Who wants to simply sit in silence while you write endlessly without speaking, without looking up? It is still imperative.
So I try to be kind to them and set the lion's share of quiet time in the mornings, when they are already not present. As I am already naturally awake at these hours, needing no alarm clock other than my own need for nicotine and hushed moments, that time becomes the morning. And so it is morning now.
Good morning.
It is quiet in these hours. Peaceful. The only time I've ever found reliable enough to order my day. To write. To carve out some empty space from the dreams that circle my sleep.
As someone who struggles with anxiety, my mind is structured differently. There are disconnected, fraying wires, patched together through a battalion of medication that keep the internal dialogue calm enough to dissect. I require a lot of quiet time. Moreso than perhaps the average person. It drives my loved ones mad. Who wants to simply sit in silence while you write endlessly without speaking, without looking up? It is still imperative.
So I try to be kind to them and set the lion's share of quiet time in the mornings, when they are already not present. As I am already naturally awake at these hours, needing no alarm clock other than my own need for nicotine and hushed moments, that time becomes the morning. And so it is morning now.
Good morning.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
So you want to date a writer....
Originally written and posted by a grumpy writer who knows the score.
http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/1127991128/offended-by-rank-objectification-of-writers
http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/1127991128/offended-by-rank-objectification-of-writers
There is this thing currently going around tumblr about why dating a writer is good. I think it’s nice that this thing is going around, because I like writers, and lots of us could use more dates. As a writer who has dated people, though — including other writers — I would like to offer some correctives to this list.
The items in bold are the alleged reasons to date a writer. I have replaced the original commentary with my bleak corrective, in lightface.
- Writers will romance you with words. We probably won’t. We write for ourselves or for money and by the time we’re done we’re sick of it. If we have to write you something there’s a good chance it’ll take us two days and we’ll be really snippy and grumpy about the process.
- Writers will write about you. You don’t want this. Trust me.
- Writers will take you to interesting events. No. We will not. We are busy writing. Leave us alone about these “interesting events.” I know one person who dates a terrific writer. He goes out alone. She is busy writing.
- Writers will remind you that money doesn’t matter so much. Yes. We will do this by borrowing money from you. Constantly.
- Writers will acknowledge you and dedicate things to you. A better way to ensure this would be to become an agent. That way you’d actually make money off of talking people through their neuroses.
- Writers will offer you an interesting perspective on things. Yes. Constantly. While you’re trying to watch TV or take a shower. You will have to listen to observations all day long, in addition to being asked to read the observations we wrote about when you were at work and unavailable for bothering. It will be almost as annoying as dating a stand-up comedian, except if you don’t find these observations scintillating we will think you’re dumb, instead of uptight.
- Writers are smart. The moment you realize this is not true, your relationship with a writer will develop a significant problem.
- Writers are really passionate. About writing. Not necessarily about you. Are you writing?
- Writers can think through their feelings. So don’t start an argument unless you’re ready for a very, very lengthy explication of our position, our feelings about your position, and what scenes from our recent fiction the whole thing is reminding us of.
- Writers enjoy their solitude. So get lost, will you?
- Writers are creative. This is why we have such good reasons why you should lend us $300 and/or leave us alone, we’re writing.
- Writers wear their hearts on their sleeves. Serious advice: if you meet a writer who’s actually demonstrative, be careful.
- Writers will teach you cool new words. This is possibly true! We may also expect you to remember them, correct your grammar, and look pained after reading mundane notes you’ve left for us.
- Writers may be able to adjust their schedules for you. Writers may be able to adjust their schedules for writing. Are you writing? Get in line, then.
- Writers can find 1000 ways to tell you why they like you. By the 108th you’ll be pretty sure we’re just making them up for fun.
- Writers communicate in a bunch of different ways. But mostly writing. Hope you don’t like talking on the phone — that shit is rough.
- Writers can work from anywhere. So you might want to pass on that tandem bike rental when you’re on vacation.
- Writers are surrounded by interesting people. Every last one of whom is imaginary.
- Writers are easy to buy gifts for. This is true. Keep it in mind when your birthday rolls around, okay?
- Writers are sexy. No argument. Some people think this about heroin addicts, too.
<snip>
Truth yo, Truth.
Bloggers unite (for talking about deliquent youth, that is)
http://blog.globalyouthjustice.org/
Global Youth Justice Blog - Run by Scott Peterson
A professionally oriented blog, this particular site focuses on news and trends concerning criminal youth issues. New laws, troublesome new criminal activities, and announcements for fundraisings are posted. The postings themselves are merely the news stories themselves and not in any way editorial. The comments, however, are personal comments with various members expressing concerns and support. The easy to differentiate between personal beliefs and actual news is refreshing. I would like to see more of the blog owner's personal beliefs, however. The layout of this - as all of them - are chronological, the top newest to bottom lowest, easy to read postings.
http://blogs.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/juvenile_justice/
The Future Of Children
Another blog that focuses on the collection of news articles, this delves into the psychological aspects of troubled youth. I very much appreciate this, as I believe this is an extremely important aspect to treating criminal youth. The formula of posting both news and then personal comments follows as the previous did.
http://ontd-feminism.livejournal.com/218990.html
Oh No They Didn't! Feminism!
This is a personal journal community (not sponsored by any particular cause other than Livejournal's servers). Multiple users post stories and concerns instead of one person posting regular stories. I particularly chose this because young women, minorities, and especially those of alternative sexuality and gender identities, experience particularly harsh times in the criminal system. This blog brings out those issues, both in explaining what the issues are and in links that provide further research.
Global Youth Justice Blog - Run by Scott Peterson
A professionally oriented blog, this particular site focuses on news and trends concerning criminal youth issues. New laws, troublesome new criminal activities, and announcements for fundraisings are posted. The postings themselves are merely the news stories themselves and not in any way editorial. The comments, however, are personal comments with various members expressing concerns and support. The easy to differentiate between personal beliefs and actual news is refreshing. I would like to see more of the blog owner's personal beliefs, however. The layout of this - as all of them - are chronological, the top newest to bottom lowest, easy to read postings.
http://blogs.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/juvenile_justice/
The Future Of Children
Another blog that focuses on the collection of news articles, this delves into the psychological aspects of troubled youth. I very much appreciate this, as I believe this is an extremely important aspect to treating criminal youth. The formula of posting both news and then personal comments follows as the previous did.
http://ontd-feminism.livejournal.com/218990.html
Oh No They Didn't! Feminism!
This is a personal journal community (not sponsored by any particular cause other than Livejournal's servers). Multiple users post stories and concerns instead of one person posting regular stories. I particularly chose this because young women, minorities, and especially those of alternative sexuality and gender identities, experience particularly harsh times in the criminal system. This blog brings out those issues, both in explaining what the issues are and in links that provide further research.
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