hard reboot on life
So as part of this thing I'm doing where I try to get my life under some kind of control, I went and deleted all THIRTY SEVEN HUNDRED and change e-mails sitting in my inbox.
That's not like a joke, like when I say "There's thirty seven hundred mostly empty bottles of salad dressing in this refrigerator, OMG." That's a real number. Some of them I had read, some of them were comment notifications for things I'd already responded to. Many of them were things I hadn't read or answered, but you know, it was just at the point where I knew I wasn't going to, because facing that kind of backlog and going through it to separate out things that I need to respond to from things that I can let go from things that I should've responded to at the time but the moment has now passed -- that was just terrifying and depressing, and I knew I wasn't going to do it.
I know I suck at this stuff, Dear Readers, and I wish I were better at it. Like I said, I'm trying to organize my life a little differently and hopefully *be* better at it. Sometimes it's laziness or my desire to move onto the next shiny thing in my head. Sometimes it's the weird brand of social anxiety that I have where I actually get a little freaked out by comments and feedback and e-mail, because it's nice to know that people are listening, but then holy fucking God, people are listening and I periodically find that really intimidating and then I can't go near the whole thing until it wears off. Whatever the reason, it's obnoxious behavior, and I'm trying to cut down on it. Having a clean slate, I think, will help some.
So if you're one of the people who have been disappointed or insulted because you tried to contact me and I didn't respond, I apologize to you. My ability to deal with other human beings kind of runs in cycles, and I'm really sorry you got caught on a downward slope. Hopefully some of the stuff I'm trying to do differently now will result in some improvement to my ability to control those cycles.
That's not like a joke, like when I say "There's thirty seven hundred mostly empty bottles of salad dressing in this refrigerator, OMG." That's a real number. Some of them I had read, some of them were comment notifications for things I'd already responded to. Many of them were things I hadn't read or answered, but you know, it was just at the point where I knew I wasn't going to, because facing that kind of backlog and going through it to separate out things that I need to respond to from things that I can let go from things that I should've responded to at the time but the moment has now passed -- that was just terrifying and depressing, and I knew I wasn't going to do it.
I know I suck at this stuff, Dear Readers, and I wish I were better at it. Like I said, I'm trying to organize my life a little differently and hopefully *be* better at it. Sometimes it's laziness or my desire to move onto the next shiny thing in my head. Sometimes it's the weird brand of social anxiety that I have where I actually get a little freaked out by comments and feedback and e-mail, because it's nice to know that people are listening, but then holy fucking God, people are listening and I periodically find that really intimidating and then I can't go near the whole thing until it wears off. Whatever the reason, it's obnoxious behavior, and I'm trying to cut down on it. Having a clean slate, I think, will help some.
So if you're one of the people who have been disappointed or insulted because you tried to contact me and I didn't respond, I apologize to you. My ability to deal with other human beings kind of runs in cycles, and I'm really sorry you got caught on a downward slope. Hopefully some of the stuff I'm trying to do differently now will result in some improvement to my ability to control those cycles.