Singles Awareness Day

c.f. Singles Awareness Day.

Credit to Emillu for the artwork.

The Literary Equivalent of Throwing a Bottle at the Wall.

     So this was originally going to be some light-hearted piece about how the new Call of Duty came out, and how I hate playing competitive multiplayer and would much prefer something like a cooperative campaign or horde mode, but then I saw that latest Simon Pegg film, The World's End, and got a little depressed for a few minutes. I'm a bit Gary King, see, and I don't want to explain it for fear of spoiling the film for anyone that wants to see it.

     So instead, I'm going to get a little bit introspective, a little gazing of the navel. I'm going to look into the abyss for a bit, and other such pretentious ways of looking at it. See, I've got this problem with socializing.

     Wait, wait, it's not the usual problem. I'm not claiming Asperger's or saying I'm a wallflower with no social skills. Quite the opposite. I've got a ready smile and charm with a smooth voice and a healthy ego (obviously, right?) and a self-deprecating sense of humor. I just really. Really. Really. Hate socializing. I've taken those Meyers-Briggs test multiple times, and come out INTJ 9 times out of 10. I watched House for 7 years before realizing that House wasn't the character I was supposed to be identifying with.

     For my school years I found myself in a situation where I was forced to socialize. And so I did. Despite the goth kid persona, I spoke to pretty much anyone. Talked my way out of being bullied and learned to stare down the ones too slow to follow my evasive logic.

     After high school, I was a complete social animal. I had at least three different scenes that I frequented, and fell in and out of love with a frightening rapidity. Then I went off to university and discovered high-speed internet.

     In retrospect, that might have been one of the things that caused me to leave school, adding up with mental and social exhaustion, a sleeping disorder rearing its ugly, inconvenient head, and being an intellectual at a 100% football school. So I withdrew for a bit.

     Then I moved to Mobile, following a woman and working a shite job, living a very small life. That job didn't last, and I was nearly broke and unemployed and alone, having observed how unstable things had gotten with the woman I'd followed. So I was forced out into the big, scary world again, and threw myself into it. I was a bouncer at a strip club, got ordained in a church, cleansed people's homes and persons of evil spirits, and was social royalty for a while in the larger beach town of Pensacola. Good times, Bianca. I still think of you now and then.

     Then I snapped back again. Didn't leave my apartment for six months for longer than it would take to visit the nice Bahranian gent who ran the corner store a block away in the dead of night. Then my lease was up, and the call of a woman beckoned me to Texas. I went.

     That, though, is a period of my life that you and I, well, we just don't know each other well enough to talk about just quite yet.

     After that ended, though, I was life of the party again. I drank more than I thought possible, dallied with many a lovely woman, and realized just how broken I was when I disappointed one woman in particular that deserved better than I could give her.

     Some health problems coupled with a change in my job (our site shut down, and a few dozen of us got to work from home) contributed to the longest, if not most intense, period of social withdrawal yet. I haven't regularly gone anywhere and done anything since sometime in 2009.

     Anyone worried about me may be relieved to know that I have actually been regularly leaving my apartment here in Albuquerque, where I relocated to six months ago. My health has, more or less, stabilized and while I may not have any friends in the area, I am at least re-training myself in socializing. I don't put my hood up as often, and will often speak to people while I'm out. The only thing is... I'm not sure if I want to. I kind of like the solitude, and I'm having some very real internal conflict about whether I want to rejoin the real world again or not.

But that's enough about me and my problems. Geek culture resumes next week.

Seasonal Depression

Gah. I must be suffering from seasonal depression, even though I don't exactly feel depressed. I'm just exhausted all the time, for no real reason. I have zero energy and no desire to do anything except  sit in front of the TV and vegetate.

Wait, that's not entirely true. I have the desire to write, except I don't have the energy or imagination to write anything other than this half-assed entry. There's something I wanted to do for Pear Harbor Day, which was yesterday, and by the time I get around to it I fear it will be too late for the entry to have any meaning whatsoever (although honestly it wasn't going to have much meaning anyway).

I am so fucking tired of this holiday season and it's only going to get more "in my face" festive in the coming weeks. Please, someone kill me now. Or at least supply me with enough booze that I pass out until after Christmas. A coma sounds delightfully restful.

I know it's Wednesday and I'm supposed to post something wacky, but nothing seems funny to me right now. It's all fake. Everything about this time of year is fake, including the forced sentiment we have to endure in order to avoid being called grinches.

I'm not a grinch, or at least I don't think I am. I don't want to take anyone's Christmas away. I just wish there was some way for you to have yours without foisting rampant commercialism and false cheer on mine. You know that hush you get in a church when the lights go down, right before the candles start lighting up and the congregation sings "Silent Night"? That moment, that pregnant pause, is my ideal Christmas moment, and all I want is to celebrate it.

Unfortunately it's being drowned out by the glitz and schmaltz and lights and carols.

Overcoming Blog Paralysis

Words of wisdom from Jeff Stolarcyk:

Me: My problem lately -- i.e., why I haven't posted anything of substance for a week -- is that I can't think of anything worthwhile to post about. I wonder if I should just go back to my practice of trying to churn out SOMETHING each day, but that means the blog stops being an outlet for creative writing and becomes, well, an online diary. A LiveJournal entry. You know? I don't want to dilute my BIG WRITING THING by having daily bitch and moan sessions. But if I don't make myself write... sometimes nothing comes out for weeks at a time.

Jeff: It seems to me that your issue is differentiating between writing and Writing.Like cooking is only adding food and heat together, writing is jotting down words coherently. Take one kind (based on style, length or content) any more seriously as a creator than any other is limiting and it ends up breeding the sort of "I don't want to write if it's not significant" line of thinking that has led you to this sort of blog paralysis you've been stricken with.

Me: Yes. Well spotted. Now how do I get over it? Other than just jump in and write about crap?

Jeff: Well, that's the ideal outcome. Because even if you think that everything you write is crap, that doesn't mean that your reader thinks it is.

So anyway, to stave off "Blog Paralysis," instead of random blathering I shall do.... another ITEM! post!


ITEM! It's time for me to cull Ye Olde Blogrolle again. My rules are simple: if you don't post new content within a span of one month, out you go. Todays' victims:

• Music of the Spheres
• Notes from the Sonic Stapler
• Selective Continuity

I'm really sorry to see you guys go. If you ever get your acts together and update, let me know and I'll re-add you.

ITEM! Jeff Stolarcyk has once again caved to the Wednesday Night Night Wackiness. Unfortunately, he decides to hate on Jericho. However, he betrays his true colors as a fan of the show by demonstrating he knows not only the names of the characters but the actors portraying them. Also, he admits he listens to Maroon 5.

ITEM! Speaking of Jericho, no, I haven't forgotten about it. I'm still watching and am very positive about the writing, the acting, and the current story arc, but I've decided to hold off on posting about it until more develops because it's all kind of expository right now. The past two episodes have dealt with learning about the Conspiracy, and I get the feeling that Important Stuff will happen Real Soon Now. When that does, I'll do a big post where I try to tie everything together and make sense of it all. That said, I hope you're all being good and watching it every Tuesday night at 10 pm on CBS.

ITEM! Hopefully I'm back on track now, and will try to post something every weekday. It may not be creative genius -- it may in fact be the kind of whiny crap you get from an online diary like LiveJournal -- but dammit, I need to get back into the habit of daily writing. If I stop writing, then I can no longer Write, if that makes sense.

ITEM! If you've been wondering about what has happened to my poor abused L5R players, tomorrow is the day you've been waiting for.


And that's it. Sorry, no amusing bon mot in closing. See you all tomorrow.

I am filled with frustration, anger, jealousy

Frustration: After admitting defeat yesterday, I wasn't in bed more than five minutes before having not one but many ideas on what to write about. Of course, I didn't immediately get up and write because I was tired and already in bed. Now that I'm awake I can't think of any of them. Goddammit.

Anger: By a show of hands, how many people remember even 10% of what they learned in high school chemistry? Biology? I dunno about you guys, but I took an algebra or pre-calc class every year and damned if I can recall more than 3 formulas, total.

How about college? Maybe if you're lucky you remember 20% of what you learned there. I'm not so lucky... with the exception of my Literature courses (which I adored) and one or two VERY notable classes, I don't recall shit about my college experiences.

Yet I can quote to you, verbatim, huge uninterrupted passages from Monty Python, Red Dwarf, and Blackadder.

I don't know which pisses me off more: that I have forgotten all of this potentially useful information, or that I spent so much time and effort in learning things that I've never used, nor ever needed to use, since graduation.

Meanwhile, I still don't know how to change the oil on my car.

Jealousy: How the fuck do some bloggers strike it big and amass huge audiences? I'm about ready to attribute it to random chance, because I've read many of the "big name" blogs and I know -- not think, not feel, but know with an ironclad certainty -- that I write as well, if not better than they do.

And it's not a case of my blog "lacking focus," either; some of them are just random opinion pieces about whatever catches their attention at the moment, and they're still pulling in big numbers.

Maybe I should just go "misanthropic bitch" route and try to offend as many people as possible. I got a huge amount of hits from the recent Canadian brouhaha, and from a quick scan of talk radio it seems like people enjoy being offended, seeing other people be offended, and feeling validated in their prejudices by agreeing with the person doing the offending that the offendees had it coming in the first place and really need to get over themselves.

I'm certain I could do it on a constant basis. I just think it wouldn't be healthy for me -- mentally, socially, emotionally -- to live my life in a constant state of venomous ire. Plus, I am a delicate flower and desperately want people to like me and tell me how great I am, not be angry with me and send nasty or threatening emails my way. I realize that criticism and dislike of my work is part of the literary "package", as it were, but choosing to offend as many people as possible just isn't my thing. I'd much rather keep being who I am -- a quirky, over-literate goth chick with a skewed perspective on life -- but to a much broader audience.

Reading that last paragraph, I think I see the problem: "goth" and "over-literate" simply don't belong in the same sentence as "broader audience." I'm too goth for the mundanes, not goth enough for the lifestylers, and no one ever struck it rich in the popular media being over-literate.

Of course, I'm sure I could increase my viewers by about a thousand percent if I posted nude pictures on my blog, but that's a line I refuse to cross.

Le sigh.

To whom must I whore myself out just to get some decent exposure?