That was one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Tag: Writing
Rockin’ Girl Bloggers
Brooke has, for some unknown reason, named me a Rockin’ Girl Blogger.
As I draw close to my 3000th post and wonder what exactly it is I’m doing here, it makes me feel good that someone out there has a use for it all.
The thing to do here, as I understand it, is to pay it forward and name five Rocking Girl Bloggers of my own. Brooke also didn’t do any repeats, meaning I shouldn’t use her or anyone on her list.
So, with those guidelines in place, here are five girl bloggers I think are awesome.
V, of Violent Acres: I am consistently impressed and intrigued by this woman. She has no problem telling it exactly how it is, and her essays are often a much-needed jolt of common sense in this crazy “how can I be a victim today?” world. There are things she’s said that I disagree with, and there are times that I wonder if she’s really okay or not, but ultimately I find her posts refreshing and enlightening, sometimes touching and sometimes funny. She’s brutally honest about some things that you need to be anonymous to be brutally honest about, and I can respect that. And she’s smart, and she’s taking care of herself instead of expecting someone else to do it. That last is one of the hardest things in life; despite my own independent spirit, I struggle with it daily.
Merujo, of Church of the Big Sky: One of the funniest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting online, and certainly one of the best writers, Merujo inspires me with her fierce refusal to let life trample all over her. It knocks her down, repeatedly, especially lately, but what does she do? She gets right back up, usually with a snarky comment or two. But I was her fan before her current predicament–I like her style, I like her outlook on life, I like that she is so nonchalant about all the amazing things she does. Confident but never proud, Merujo is a model that any woman would be wise to aspire to.
Marie Mutsuki Mockett: Marie is a professional writer who blogs at her own space and on Japundit, which is where we met. I love her because she thinks like me, like an anthropologist. She’s aware that there are often numerous reasons for why things are the way they are, and she’s interested in exploring them all. Her specific interest in Japan, due to being part Japanese and growing up visiting Japan frequently, makes her writing extremely relevant to me, but anyone can write about Japan. Writing about it thoughtfully and objectively while adding personal perceptions and emotions is why I keep going back to Marie’s blog. She takes in as many resources as she can, she evaluates the facts fairly, but she also explores what it all means, both to who she is and to society. It’s that sort of critical analysis paired with emotional insight that draws me to a writer.
Sunshine, of Days of My Life: A teenager living in Mosul, Iraq, Sunshine has to fight to enjoy the things most of us in the US take for granted. She can’t go into her bedroom now because it has large windows that face the street. When school starts again, she will be in danger of terrorist attacks–or friendly fire from coalition soldiers!–en route to her classroom building. She can’t go anywhere or do anything and is essentially a prisoner in her own home, studying as best she can, reading ravenously, making handicrafts, and taking care of her younger siblings. But this is a girl who knows that if she gives in to her fear and depression, then she has already lost. This is a girl who steps out into her war-torn world with a smile on her face. Read this post for an example of what Sunshine lives through and how she has decided to live through it. If Sunshine is Iraq’s future, then despite the helplessness and despair I feel with every news story about the war, I can still have hope. She’s not just the pillar of support for her family…she’s supporting her entire country, her entire world.
Mama, of Emotions: Where Sunshine tries to keep positive on her blog, her mother offers full-on, visceral reactions–which is probably why she doesn’t post very often. There are no punches pulled at Emotions. This is a young mother who is hurting. Her country is a mess, her children can’t go to school without being in danger of being shot or blown up, she sometimes can’t get to her place of work as a dentist, and when she can she doesn’t have the proper equipment. She has so little control over her situation. This is a true victim; this is a person who can’t simply pull herself up by the bootstraps. And she tells us so. Look at what’s happening, she says. Feel my pain. Something needs to be done. Her message is the message that people need to hear–without spin, without remorse. Because despite it all, she is determined to live. And she deserves to live free of fear.
This Rockin’ Girl Blogger thing is everywhere. Just tracing back through my nomination at Brooke’s blog to her nomination and the nomination of the person who nominated her, I’ve found fifty gazillion girl blogs. I’m having trouble determining where it all started, but regardless, it seems like a really good way to expand your reading material, if you should have a need for that. *eyes her ever-expanding sidebar*
Reasons Earth 2 was brilliant
1) The utter disdain in Devon Adair’s voice as she reproaches the interrupting O’Neill, “I’m putting my son to bed, Commander!”
2) They never do tell you who it was Bess thought about. Because that wasn’t what was important. Here was a show where when there was trouble in a marriage, it didn’t automatically end. Here was a show that dealt with choice and consequence. Here was a show with people with real feelings and real emotions who made real mistakes and then had to live with them–and who chose to fight instead of taking the easy road.
3) Terry O’Quinn.
4) Tim Curry.
5) Devon and Danziger. Especially the scene where they’re tied up and Devon has to grab the canteen with her mouth.
6) Real children, and real parents. These aren’t adorable, model children. These aren’t scenery. These are kids with real personalities and motivations, who don’t always know what’s right, and who react extraordinarily realistically to being stranded on a planet with none of the luxuries they were used to. These are kids whose actions often drive the plot. These kids are characters!
7) Alonzo grinning when Danziger asks how old he is, and responding, “A hell of a lot older than you, kid.”
8) Deadly viruses that come not from the new hostile environment, but from something that happened years ago and light years away.
9) The Grendlers. They could have just been boring, stupid, and ugly. But they’re complex, motivated, friendly with a twist–their love for the taste of human blood. And then there’s that episode where their “humanity” is incontrovertibly shown…
10) Danziger’s apology to True. I cannot describe how attractive a good father is.
11) The amazing shot framing. I am constantly impressed by how plot elements will stay framed in the background, even when the action is in the foreground, or how receding action will remain framed by something related in the foreground. And then there are scenes that are just pretty.
12) The concept of a planet’s life forms having direct symbiosis with it. Sure, it’s an obvious environmentalist statement…but it’s also rife with story possibilities. Especially when you throw in the human factor.
13) How a story that seems fairly simple continues to become more and more complex, yet retains the themes that make everything still seem simple.
14) Fantastic props and costumes and set pieces. And who knew New Mexico was that beautiful? (I’ve never been there–sorry New Mexico!)
15) Morgan Martin, one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever seen. He’s not a hero in many ways, and yet in other ways he is. Most of all he’s real. He’s real and he makes all kinds of mistakes. But he’s not comic relief–or if he is, that’s not all he is. He’s a main character. (Side note: the actor who plays him is named Gegenhuber…was the writer of Kyou Kara Maou a fan?)
16) Exploring what it means to be genetically designed for something and to have other, seemingly baser motivations. Exploring various ways of dealing with criminals–exile, mind wipe–that aren’t really possible currently, but are just as rife with ethical dilemmas as the procedures we have now. Exploring so many science and social possibilities, all within the framework of real people stuck together on a mission gone sour.
17) Discovering things we take for granted about planetary life for the first time: wind, rain, snow.
18) The VR. I know, it seems to randomly appear after Julia uses it to contact Reilly…but it’s just so cool!
19) Reilly: You must tell me where you are so we can come and collect the child. Who knows? When you do, maybe the Council will name an entire continent after your family.
Julia: Yeah. Maybe they’ll call it Hell.
I am absolutely riveted.
Don’t look now, MM, but you’ve got competition in the evil cliffhanger department.
Collaborative fiction
You know that collaborative writing website I wanted to make? Well, I should have known that if I waited long enough, someone else would do it.
Ficlets isn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it covers many of the bases. People can not only continue a story or write a prequel to a story, but they can also comment on individual story pieces. Ficlets also does me one better: there can be numerous prequels and sequels to any story anywhere. Multiple “canons”. If you don’t like one sequel, you can write another. And the navigation is really simple–once you’ve grokked it you can follow a story thread easily either way.
If you’re wanting to write a story with a select group of friends, this probably isn’t the solution for you. But if you want to get feedback and inspiration on your writing, Ficlets looks like a great place to play.
Why can’t people write?
I’m not talking about injecting voice into prose; I’m talking about spelling things correctly, using correct verb tenses, and having enough of a vocabulary to not misuse common words. These are professionals, people with important jobs, community residents who want to get their voices out there. These are PIOs for nationally-affiliated organizations.
Has it always been this way? Have I just been shielded from it by not working in large organizations or seeing dozens of horrendous news releases every week?
Japanophiles like to make fun of Engrish, and to haughtily suggest that in this 21st century, Japanese companies could surely hire a native speaker to write their copy.
But I wonder if a native speaker would truly be any better.
To the MAX!
Oh my god, Brian Clevinger (you know, 8-Bit Theater, Nuklear Age) posted the most hi-larious rant on the recent comic. (Scroll to the bottom of that page.)
Loonatics, man! ‘Cause they’re CRAZY. They make regular x-treme look, like, y’know, something so not x-treme you can’t think of a word for it. You can’t talk about them without excessive use of BOLD ITACLIC CAPS, MAN, TO THE MAX!
I find the philosophy behind being a television or Hollywood executive fascinating. Apparently these are people utterly devoid of taste or culture. They are completely without a sense of what is good. It’s like how sociopaths are incapable of feeling empathy. They can maim and kill and torture people because they are hardwired not to understand that it’s bad to do that. You can’t fix these people, they are broken from the factory and need to be destroyed after studying how fucked up they are so we can identify and destroy them better in the future.
That’s what these executives are like, only instead of lacking empathy — which they may very well also lack — they lack a sense of what good is. The rest of humanity has it. Sure, we might disagree about specifics, but there are certain instances where crap is crap and no one can deny it. I’m not saying Catwoman was one such movie, but it was.
Go read the rest, seriously. It’s a hoot.
I’ve officially retired from the AMRN.
After four and a half years, I’ve decided to quit playing, GMing, and administrating for the Anime-Manga Roleplaying Network. I’ve tendered my resignation, as it were, and given the AMRN my permission to use my character concepts in non-profit ways. (I retained the rights for my own future publishing. We’ll see if that ever happens.)
I was pretty much coerced into playing by Sean and Shade, but I did grow to enjoy it. Eventually I became a Q-GM, then an A-GM, and then a Head GM. I even created and ran a game based on Sailor Moon, but it was during that experience that I really started to dislike the play-by-post format. Over the latter half of my AMRN career, I’ve come to realize that I prefer writing stories to playing and arbitrating games. My goal in quitting the AMRN is to allow myself the freedom to expand into different writing projects.
I believe that writing on the AMRN helped me with technique and with characterization. I will always remember what I learned there, but it’s time to move on.
There is a new project that has been congealing in my mind since around 2002 (or before), and I hope to get started on it sometime soon. For now, I plan to be horribly vague and mysterious about it.
Goodbye, AMRN. It’s been fun.
The trouble with autobiography
I’m on lunch, and I wanted to make a quick note.
Encapsulating a life is a difficult task, especially when it’s your own, simply because you know when you’re leaving something out. My huge autobiographical profile seems comprehensive and complete, but every time I think about it I think of something else I could have added. I wrote it all in one sitting, and so of course whatever I’d been thinking about at that time affected what I put down. There are other things I didn’t mention at all, or could have emphasized more, but didn’t.
I suppose that in some ways I consider this entire journal to be my autobiography. This is the record of my thoughts and adventures and stories from my past, written in my own words. To that end, I have decided to open a separate page on pixelscribbles for diary entries from the past. I’ll be posting, word for word, things I wrote as a child. I’ll post here, too, to inform readers that a new diary entry is up and to maybe discuss it a little. I think this will be a fun, unique experience.
I’ll let you know when I get started…
Life on Mars
This has fueled silly, half-baked science fiction tangents all afternoon. Among the questionable things I’ve said:
- “See, humans used to live on Mars, until we destroyed the environment there and had to move to a new planet, Earth. It’s so obvious! This is why humans are (apparently) the only intelligent life on this world. Earth is at an earlier stage than Mars. Don’t you see? When we came here we lost our old technology due to being unable to refine metal with the equipment we had, and now our extraterrestrial life lives on only in myths and legends that have become severely warped over time!”
- “Hey, I could write a novel about my crazy speculations in (1)!”
Don’t worry, though…I don’t have it in me to write a novel. At least not yet :P
I can’t…
I can’t divorce myself from the need to succeed. I can’t sit down and write a book just for me.
Despair transmuted
Here I am at 6:30 am after staying up all night–as usual, with something of a nap to tide me over–trembling with euphoria, chest swelled, eyes smarting with unshed tears, because I actually worked hard at writing something.
I have had a pretty shitty night up until this point. The reason I went to take a nap was because I wanted to cry. Bawl, in truth. I was unable to do that; my sobs felt forced and pathetic as I lay wrapped in the covers, face buried in my pillow. But I did at least cry, and then fell off into restless, desperate sleep.
I am unsatisfied with my life and I am unsatisfied with the way I spend my days. I do not feel as if there is any purpose to anything I do. I want more, I want to stop feeling desperate. I want to be more than useful; I want to be thrilling, inspiring, necessary, adored. I want to Do Things that make people Sit Up and Take Notice. I believe I have fallen into despair because I can’t envision these things ever actually happening. I’m lost, jobless, a housewife who hates keeping house. I’m no good to anyone else and I’m no good to myself.
But I wrote something. Something I am outrageously proud of, something I revised until it flowed off my tongue with a rhythm that plows a clear path. I read it aloud, several times, and tweaked it far more than that. I worked on it, and it’s finished, and I can say that I am reasonably happy with it.
It’s only a post. But holy shit do I feel good about it.
I must have needed that.
"The Plan"; plus, what is friendship?
There are two problems in my life that I think about often. The first is that I overeat. The second is that I don’t write enough. Not anything serious, anyway–the AMRN isn’t going to bring me revenue anytime soon. As I was in the shower just now, thinking about these problems, an idea occurred to me that is uniquely suited to my particular situation.
I have decided that from now on, whenever I eat anything, I will post to this blog. I will include in my post what I ate, and I will also write some anecdote or train of thought. I figure this is as brilliant a solution as I have ever come up with. I imagine that most days I will be too embarrassed to admit eating four scoops of ice cream and a Klondike bar and two hotdogs…knowing that I will have to post what I’m eating for all the world to see will be a great deterrent. Plus, since I’m weak and will probably end up eating regularly–and three times a day at least anyway–this ensures that I will post more frequently to my blog, which will help me get the creative juices flowing. God, what a horrible, cliched metaphor. If I wrote more often, maybe I wouldn’t keep using them :>
So, that’s the plan. We’ll see how it holds up!
///
Today, I got up at around 2 pm. So far I have consumed:
- One glass of sugarless raspberry juice (from a mix)
- One bowl (probably a cup and a half) of Crunch Berries cereal with probably a cup and a half of whole milk
Not too bad a start for the day, but we’ll see how things go. With the way I snack, I may be posting here a zillion times a day…
///
And now, for the required writing.
I was thinking in the shower about the phrase “squeaky clean”. I learned that being squeaky clean is actually bad from a water tester who went over to J and R’s old house while I was visiting them. He claimed that if you or your dishes or whatever else squeaked after being cleaned, then the soap wasn’t all gone, and that the water therefore needed treatment. This was interesting to hear, but as I’ve never had the experience of not getting all the soap off, it wasn’t vitally necessary to my life.
What did interest me at the time, and still does to this day, was the fact that J invited me over knowing that a guy was coming to do a sales pitch. This seems extraordinarily odd to me. When J invited me over she said something like “We have a guy coming over to talk about our water, but it shouldn’t take long,” or something to that effect. I shrugged and went over there, thinking it wasn’t a big deal. But during the presentation I really felt like I didn’t belong; it was something more for the household, not me. It made me wonder why J would even think to have someone over during that time…I can’t imagine inviting someone over to watch me talk with the insurance agent, for example.
But J has always been a little strange. I don’t know if she still is, because she lives in Boston and she and I have only communicated through email a handful of times in the last two years or so. But back when we were younger and hanging out together, things were really bizarre…only I was so insecure with my own personality that I didn’t recognize her behavior as odd.
It started the day she asked me to be her best friend. Before that time I simply considered her a good friend; she and K were best friends and had been for years. But apparently she and K had had a falling out, and now J was looking for a replacement. I was ecstatic to be chosen and said yes, thus beginning a friendship that has seen more ups and downs than an elevator. Or something.
One time J came over to my house for a swimming party and immediately asked if she could shave her legs, since she hadn’t done so at home. We let her, but my mother still mentions that and how weird it was. I told J about it some years later and she said she had never done it.
Another time we were having some guys install a new sliding glass door on our deck, and J immediately began talking to them and buddying up with them instead of doing what she was there to do, which was hang out with me. This made me feel weird for two reasons. First, I felt that I was being ignored. Second, I had this impression that you aren’t supposed to engage workers in conversation while they’re on the job. They weren’t there as guests…they were there to install a door. We didn’t know them; there was no reason to form a friendship. I wonder sometimes if this impression is classist or rude, but really, if you’re paying someone by the hour, it’s against your best interest to waste their work time with chatter. I believe J later denied having done this as well.
Then there was the time we took J to the Bluegrass Fair. This was something fun that we did every year as kids; it was a way for us to get out of the house and enjoy something special. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but Mom made sure to see to it that our lives were enriched in as many ways as she could. This was simply one of the fun things she did with us. I was old enough to realize that going to the fair was a special family experience, and I was excited to share that experience with my “best friend”. But once we were inside, J wanted to ride a big roller coaster-type thing that spun in a big circle, and I was too afraid to go on it. She went alone, and befriended the girl she ended up sitting next to. When the two of them got off the ride, J told me that she and the girl were going to go ride some more rides together. So in essence, she dumped me, the person who had brought her, in favor of someone who was more fun.
I guess in some ways I am a stick in the mud, but I don’t know…if you truly consider someone your best friend, do you treat them like that?
Weird stuff like that continued through high school. After we graduated, I went to the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and J went to the University of Louisville. There, she met R, an electrical engineering masters candidate from Pakistan. The two of them were married in January of 1997, mere months after they met.
J did not tell me she was getting married nor ask me to come to her wedding. She explained later that she was afraid all her friends would try to talk her out of it, so she didn’t tell anyone but her immediate family. I told her I understood, but I really didn’t. A true friend would be supportive…and if she really believed she was doing the right thing, no one should be able to just talk her out of it, anyway. This perturbed me, but I tried to get my head around it.
After my first year at UAH, I dropped out. Mechanical engineering was simply not for me. I piddled about at a sucky job for awhile, and then I got cancer. While I was in the hospital, J and R drove down from Louisville to visit me.
I had met R previously. Chris, my boyfriend at the time, and I had gone back to Kentucky during one of the school breaks, and one day we drove up to Louisville to see J and R. I had decided that while R was awkward in some ways, I liked him. J really liked Chris–the guy was into drama and performed loudly in the middle of the park, much to her delight. I, on the other hand, was horribly embarrassed. I wasn’t impressed by his acting and I wanted him to stop making a scene. This should have been a clue to me, I think…but oh well.
In any case, their visit to me in the hospital was short, but much appreciated. It was a wonderful thing for them to do. It was the middle of the school year, after all, and they had to work hard. R was about to get his masters, and J was still working on her degree as well. This is a good memory that I have of J.
After I got well, I enrolled at the University of Kentucky. R had his degree and had gotten a job in Harrodsburg; they bought a house in Nicholasville and J enrolled at UK too. I thought this was great because we were finally close to each other again. I spent a lot of time at their place, studying or watching Indian movies with them or eating dinner or whatever.
J always seemed to make friends with people easily. Looking back on it, though, I’m not sure that “friends” is the proper word. I’m not sure what is though. Her next door neighbor at the house in Nicholasville was a young lesbian who had a troublesome home life. She came over and hung out with us a fair amount, and she and J got along great, but I just felt weird around her. Part of it, I’m sure, was my own fledgling feelings of same-sex attraction…I had actually been attracted to J herself since our sophomore year of high school. But I don’t think that was all. I think the girl just struck me as off, as someone I did not want to be around. My mom has that sort of intuition too, and it has served her well, so I don’t try to ignore those feelings. The main point of all this is that J had no problems befriending practically anyone; she would go into their houses immediately, invite them over to mingle with other friends, and basically let people into her life indiscriminately. Sometimes she would complain to me about people she was friends with who were doing mean things or things she didn’t approve of. This caused me to wonder why exactly she remained friends with them.
At around this time, my relationship with Sean was developing. Sean was–and still is–a very opinionated man, and he sees no reason for people to waste their time on those who are hurtful or uninteresting or anything else that precludes a good time. He actually told me that J was no good for me, that she was using me as an emotional crutch and that I meant nothing to her. I refused to believe him, but the core of his philosophy began to take a deep root in me. Why, after all, should a person feel they have to befriend everyone? You can love everyone in the world without having to put up with their shit every day. I think this branching of opinions was what heralded the beginning of the end of my friendship with J.
One day while she was rushing down the hallway in her home, J brushed up against the corner of her hallway wall and fell, twisting her foot and then sitting on it. This broke her leg down near the ankle and she was bedridden for a week or two, then on crutches. She did her classes correspondence then, I believe, and was essentially unable to go around and enjoy herself. During that time, I only visited her once. While I was there, her mother was also there, and something happened that made me feel really weird. J was whining about how much pain she was in and how horrible her situation was, and she told her mother something like “Well, I wish someone would clean that bathroom.” That wasn’t exactly what she said, but whatever it was, it was an obvious guilt trip. “I’m bedridden and I can’t do anything…why won’t people help me?”
Her mother went and immediately started cleaning. I was thoroughly disgusted by the entire affair. Yes, people can do nice things for people who are sick or injured…but being sick or injured doesn’t give a person the right to make demands like that. I thought back to how I was in the hospital: I tried not to make my visitors feel unwelcome or like they had to do anything for me. It wasn’t their fault I had cancer, and it was good of them to visit at all. I felt that treating them with respect was only polite. Because of the obvious clash in our outlooks on how sick or injured people are to comport themselves, I never went back.
Weeks, maybe months later, J and I got into an argument. I could check my AIM logs to see what it was about–yes, it occurred on AIM; isn’t that ridiculous?–but I don’t really want to. Suffice it to say that she brought up the bit about my not visiting her more than once when her leg was broken. I told her how disagreeable she was being and why that made me not want to come, and she said that that shouldn’t matter, that a true friend would have come anyway, and that she, after all, had visited me all the way from Louisville when I was in the hospital. I replied that a broken leg was hardly the same thing as cancer…to which she spat at me that I was always bringing that up and making myself out to be a victim, and that I had no right to do so.
Our conversation ended with J telling me she hoped I rotted in hell because I was a horrible sinner and a horrible person, and then she told me that it was probably good that this happened because she and R were moving to Boston the following week. She was moving, and she hadn’t even said a word of it to me until that very minute.
I haven’t seen her since, and as I mentioned above, we have only emailed one another a few times. Once she wrote to me to say she hoped I had given up my sinful ways, and that she was sorry for wishing those horrible things on me. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond, so I wrote back to congratulate her on her new baby, M, who I had learned of through J’s sister L. J replied with questions about my own life, questions that I didn’t want to answer because I had not given up my “sinful ways”, the things she had listed in the first email, and I didn’t want to be lectured about it.
I didn’t answer her message for an entire year.
Then one day I noticed it still sitting in my Inbox, where I leave messages that I’ve yet to reply to, and I decided what the hell. I told her how I was engaged to Sean and how we would be married after I graduated, and I told her how AJ and Faye and Ben and my parents were doing, and I talked about some mutual friends of ours. She wrote back later and was friendly, so I wrote back in a friendly way too. Our correspondence has not been deep or meaningful, but at least it has been…amicable.
Since then J has had another baby. She and R are still living in Boston, as far as I know. J stated in her last message that she has carpal tunnel syndrome, so she can’t write any more letters. I have no idea if this is true or not. Maybe she just wanted to escape the distant familiarity of our exchange. I can’t blame her if that’s the case.
I wish we really had been best friends, but I don’t think we ever were. It’s a relationship I look back on with a great deal of regret. I wish I could think of something I could have done differently, but in the end I believe that we simply weren’t suited to have that level of a relationship. If we’d realized it sooner, we might have saved ourselves years of feelings of betrayal. But I guess people get comfortable and don’t want to change the status quo, even if they’re unhappy with it.
I hope J has a happy life, and that she finds herself a true friend.
Originally posted on GP4. Woo…
I was stoked. I was in the zone. I was ready. My mind was working overtime, I was geared up, I was totally going to crank out some serious postage to lay on all yer asses.
Then my mom says, “Change the business website.”
I figure, oh, that’ll take me an hour or so, no biggie.
It took all freaking morning.
By the time I was done, I wanted to hurl my computer out the window. I puttered around online a little, ate something for the first time today, listened to Cowboy Bebop Blue three times over, chatted with Foreman and Reaper, and got absolutely nothing done.
So I decided I needed a break. I went to go watch Friends. It was funny! Yes! Maybe I felt good enough to post! Sat down again, but the TV was still on, so I watched a little of that Adam Sandler movie with the kid. It started to depress me, because the kid was so miserable and alone, and it sort of reminded me of those five minutes I caught of Law & Order, where the seven year old is telling how he killed his baby sister, in graphic detail.
So after that I was pretty depressed, not to mention disturbed. Cut off the movie, put in the Attack of the Clones soundtrack. Just sat and listened to it for awhile. Love theme good! Went out to ask my mom when she was going to make smoothies (I’d wanted one all day) and she and Dad were discussing (make that arguing about) a new business venture. I agreed with Mom, and tried to convince Dad, didn’t work. Gave up, came back here, complained to Shade about it.
Finally got a smoothie a few minutes ago…and it’s good. Listened to the love theme again. Now I’m just sort of staring at my monitor thinking “I am supposed to have a post up by now.”
But! It’s almost bedtime, and I want to be nice and energetic tomorrow because I’m driving an hour and a half into Louisville to look at wedding dresses. This could take hours, and I want it to be fun…
And I’ve been thinking about writing, about how I really need to work on certain aspects, and how I really don’t feel like it. I’m so…lethargic. I could probably just go to bed right now. I’m still not really sure where my day went, other than the web design thing…
So anyway…
I’m not sure when the GP4 GenDis became my blog, but basically this is why there are no posts. I feel like a heel, but I have no inspiration. I know what I need to get done, and now it’s just a matter of churning it out.
My head hurts.
Time to ramble
This is my last week of school. Finals week is next week, but I have no finals, only papers. I should be able to get everything done fairly easily. What’s on my mind right now is the short story revision due tomorrow; I haven’t quite started on that yet ;> I had a group presentation today, and that seemed to go pretty well. Other than that, I don’t have anything pressing until next week. I think.
I do need to do some observations of a non-academic teaching English as a second language class…I’m not sure how I’m going to get that done. I went last week with Katie from TESL class, and that sort of went badly. She got really offended about the way the group proctors kept making derogatory jokes. They invoked stereotypes and things like that to get the foreign students to open up. I personally didn’t really see a problem with it; humor is usually the best way to break the ice in a situation. I thought it could have been pretty fun, but Katie was so adamant that it was stupid and degrading that I would have felt like a traitor to stay longer. Well, that, and they were going to a bar, and I’m not really a bar person.
So much of what we believe is based on perception. Katie believed that the students were offended by the proctors’ remarks, whereas I thought they either found them amusing, or didn’t quite understand yet. I definitely felt that an introduction to humor and slang was appropriate and useful for the students…they probably learn quite a bit about conversation from that group. I will have to talk a little about the experience tomorrow–we only stayed for about half an hour, so I hope I’m able to speak authoritatively on the subject somehow. I do think I’ll have at least a few things to say.
My short story, which doesn’t really have a title right now, is pretty good. I actually like it quite a bit, but it does need tweaking. I think I’ll hold off and put the “final version” (or at least, the final class version) on the website. People don’t really need to see the drafts. I may as well take “Mikey” down completely…I’m thoroughly disgusted with that story. It’s a load of crap :>
I seem to write the best stuff about Japan. At least lately. I suppose that’s what’s been on my mind, both subconsciously and consciously. I didn’t do a whole lot of writing about the experience while I was there, or even when I first got back. Things seem to come out better after a little time has gone by. The bad thing about that is that I can forget things…and my notes aren’t all that great :( I do know one thing, though: I love Japan and I want to live there someday.
I sometimes wish I had accomplished more in college. There are people who have done independent research projects, been active in clubs or Greek life, been activists, received scholarships and fellowships, and other things like that. Me, I just plug away at classes, then go home and do my own thing. There is a distinct lack of community there. Part of it is because I don’t live on campus, but even the year I did live on campus, back in Huntsville, I wasn’t extremely active. I was in one club, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, mainly because I liked the people in the club and had fun hanging out with them. I helped organize stuff, and I even became the Treasurer for the club, but I wasn’t intensely active like other people. I had my own hobbies, and there were times where I would just withdraw into myself.
I’ve always been like that, I suppose. I’m not necessarily a loner, because I love talking to people…but I do like having my own time, too. I don’t mind going to restaurants and movies by myself. I would prefer to have some people to go to the ballet and opera with, but right now everybody’s so broke that I can’t go anyway. Sometimes I feel like I distance myself from people who are near me, developing close bonds only to people online. I guess the online people will always (in general) be around, but the people I know in person won’t. I’ll be moving to Georgia next year, and it seems useless to get attached.
But that is pretty cynical and depressing, too.
And it’s not like I don’t have friends here. I’ve actually gotten pretty close to a woman in my TESL and Semantics classes, Mary. She has a husband named Phillip, two daughters (Lisa and Rebecca) and a son named Don. The girls are out of the house, but Don is 13 and still in school. Mary, Phillip and Don moved to Lexington from Nashville; Mary’s a natural musician and writer. She’s fantastic, really. I went to her house today and had lunch (a taco salad without the shell); it was really good. She also hosted a party last week, which was a blast. I knew most of the people there, and I skunked them at pool :D
So I can’t really say that I’m totally out of the social arena. But there is a feeling of detachment. Often I’m more comfortable on my computer than I am in a group of people.
My most comfortable place, hands down, is with Sean. Whether it be online together, on the phone together, or in person, there is no place I’d rather be. I don’t know, it is just so strange to me sometimes, to have my heart swell up and fill my chest, and this silly smile come on my face. It’s like a definite knowledge, something that no one can take away. He is the man I love. I’m going to marry him and live with him and grow old with him. And this certainty doesn’t make me feel trapped…it’s exciting. Together, we can do anything.
And really, he is the most fantastic man I have ever met. Our relationship is amazing to me sometimes. We are so comfortable with each other that we tease each other mercilessly, but we also comprehend each other on such a deep level that we know when to stop. We support each other, but we respect each other. We know each other. And damned if I’ll ever find someone as uniquely intelligent and intuitive as him. I can tell him everything, even silly things, and he’ll only love me more. I just can’t believe it sometimes. I can’t believe what I’ve found. I, to be cliché, must be the luckiest girl in the world.
I hope everyone feels this way when they find true love :)