Ob. post to prove I'm not dead
I seem unable to post about anything substantial lately. The holidays are turning out to be worse than I thought. All the "holidays are the worst" stuff I hear has never meant much to me, since they weren't really that big a deal to me before, but it's the odd things about Winter Shopping Festival that are weighing me down. All the things I get so excited about because they would make perfect gifts for Sis_r and then have to realize there's no one to give them to, all the shopping trips to Barney's and Kenneth Cole and MaxMara that will never be taken again. Stopping for warm drinks and bread pudding in the bar at Palomino. And it's not WSF per se, it's just the stuff around it, the planning and the buying and I am just. so. sad. No matter how hard I try not to be, I can't stop thinking about it, how little the future means now. Probate is finally over (at least, all over but the shouting) and we are able to dispense the cash gifts my sister left her friends in her will. Their gratitude and sadness are overwhelming because it was my sister who left them the money, yet Dad and I are all they have to direct their grief and thankfulness to... and that's hard. We gave one person a large gift out of our pockets, too, because for some reason my sister scratched her name off the final will, and I think it was because she was directing the money toward people who had physically been there to help at the house. But when D did arrive, sis_r was getting so bad that I think she never got the chance to put D back in, and Dad and I would have gone mad without D's help. So, we wanted her to have the equivalent of what other people got. I know my sister would have done that if she'd been able, and she'd known how invaluable D would become to us. But of course now D's a wreck -- every time we think we might be getting a step ahead, we fall back.
But I've been thinking a lot lately about how vidding is a form of insanity. I think anyone who doesn't vid but knows a lot of vidders would say that vidders are all pretty much crazy (or at least, those of us who really work at it and care about the product a lot). That's a given. But for me it seems like a manifestation of something more obsessive/compulsive, or almost psychotically focused that lately I scare myself. I can't stop churning out vids. And then I get obsessed with finishing them when it's not like there's a deadline or babies are dying or buildings are burning if I don't finish it now.
I saw sockkppuppett say something today that I have been thinking about the past couple of days -- that when she works on a vid, she has to get it out, like right now. And I don't know why I'm like that lately. I've always been very focused on getting vids done, but I haven't usually done gajillions of them in such a short time span, and been so focused to the exclusion of all else that I neglect the stuff I actually do need to do. Like, right now I'm working on my Band of Brothers vid for the Escapade vid show. And the deadline for that will be like at least a month and a half away, and the con isn't till the end of February. So, there's lots of time. But I'm hunched over the computer for hours trying to figure out solutions to my problems (my problems being that I'm a sucky vidder when it comes to envisioning interesting things to do with vids so they don't all look the same) and noodling around with clips and whatnot.
While, of course, I should be finishing the Buffy and Fast and Furious WIPs I have going. Or reading. Or catching up on the Netflix queue. Or a dozen other things. It's silly to keep turning out stuff, especially because it's not like I pick huge fandoms or popular pairings when I do pick huge fandoms, and there's not much of an audience for the vids. It's like the tree falling in the forest -- why I am so obsessed with churning out vids if there's no one around to hear them churn? See, a sane person would recognize that maybe they could, you know, scale back in that case, but noooo. I keep right on churning. I'm sure there must be an entry about this vidding focus to the exclusion of all else in DSM IV.
And I don't want to be one of those people who turn out vids like they're machines, posting one a week and they all somehow seem the same, in the same fandoms, and were made overnight or in an hour and you know that if you go watch it, your eyes will bleed. (This is not to be confused with the Insane Vidding Projects by some of the talented people on my flist.) But surely, after a while of just being all "vidvidvidvidvid" you would come perilously close to this.
And I know why I'm doing it, in the sense that I know it prevents me from thinking about my sister. When I'm vidding, I'm so focused on the squee and the "OMG they're so cute" or "Wow, this is the coolest show ever" that I am not sad, for a little while. I'm not anything (except, usually, frustrated by my own ineptitude), and there's a little bit of relief in that. I used to love gardening because all I'd think about was the weeds and the grass and the flowers, and my mind would empty out. I just wish I could get a grip and slow down. It's not like I'm in a contest or have decalred this my Insane Vidding Project Year, at least intentionally.
But I've been thinking a lot lately about how vidding is a form of insanity. I think anyone who doesn't vid but knows a lot of vidders would say that vidders are all pretty much crazy (or at least, those of us who really work at it and care about the product a lot). That's a given. But for me it seems like a manifestation of something more obsessive/compulsive, or almost psychotically focused that lately I scare myself. I can't stop churning out vids. And then I get obsessed with finishing them when it's not like there's a deadline or babies are dying or buildings are burning if I don't finish it now.
I saw sockkppuppett say something today that I have been thinking about the past couple of days -- that when she works on a vid, she has to get it out, like right now. And I don't know why I'm like that lately. I've always been very focused on getting vids done, but I haven't usually done gajillions of them in such a short time span, and been so focused to the exclusion of all else that I neglect the stuff I actually do need to do. Like, right now I'm working on my Band of Brothers vid for the Escapade vid show. And the deadline for that will be like at least a month and a half away, and the con isn't till the end of February. So, there's lots of time. But I'm hunched over the computer for hours trying to figure out solutions to my problems (my problems being that I'm a sucky vidder when it comes to envisioning interesting things to do with vids so they don't all look the same) and noodling around with clips and whatnot.
While, of course, I should be finishing the Buffy and Fast and Furious WIPs I have going. Or reading. Or catching up on the Netflix queue. Or a dozen other things. It's silly to keep turning out stuff, especially because it's not like I pick huge fandoms or popular pairings when I do pick huge fandoms, and there's not much of an audience for the vids. It's like the tree falling in the forest -- why I am so obsessed with churning out vids if there's no one around to hear them churn? See, a sane person would recognize that maybe they could, you know, scale back in that case, but noooo. I keep right on churning. I'm sure there must be an entry about this vidding focus to the exclusion of all else in DSM IV.
And I don't want to be one of those people who turn out vids like they're machines, posting one a week and they all somehow seem the same, in the same fandoms, and were made overnight or in an hour and you know that if you go watch it, your eyes will bleed. (This is not to be confused with the Insane Vidding Projects by some of the talented people on my flist.) But surely, after a while of just being all "vidvidvidvidvid" you would come perilously close to this.
And I know why I'm doing it, in the sense that I know it prevents me from thinking about my sister. When I'm vidding, I'm so focused on the squee and the "OMG they're so cute" or "Wow, this is the coolest show ever" that I am not sad, for a little while. I'm not anything (except, usually, frustrated by my own ineptitude), and there's a little bit of relief in that. I used to love gardening because all I'd think about was the weeds and the grass and the flowers, and my mind would empty out. I just wish I could get a grip and slow down. It's not like I'm in a contest or have decalred this my Insane Vidding Project Year, at least intentionally.