Check in October 4th
It's starting to get cold and the annual (common) cold is also going around at school. This Monday I started getting sick, right when a school club I'm in has a fund raiser event coming up this weekend. I got some herbal tea (from a local tea shop that sells herbs and loose leaf teas of all kinds) to help me get over my cold. One of the teas is surprisingly good, has lemon peal in it and ginger (I believe.) (One of the teas is root based and usually root based wellness tea taste gross, but this one wasn't that bad.) I'm drinking Star Bucks at the moment - the addiction that won't quit. I keep trying to curve my mocha intake, because it's expensive and not all that good for me, but it's a hard habit to kick.
Keeping the house warm is a battle between two extremes. It's doesn't seem like the usual case where one has a house with a basement, it feels more like we have a basement with an attic. That is, the ground floor is always chilly and the basements turns into an oven. I'm upstairs sitting in my futon chair, trying to stay warm under blankets most of the time.
My current room setup is unusual and I'm writing this on a TV screen. I had one of these semi-panicky clearout-cleanout episodes where I got rid of my last desk setup with a half-baked idea about how I wanted the room to look and it resulted in my computer monitor on the floor and it is awkward to use for most computing tasks. This has discouraged me from using forums, news sites/read online, online journals, even email and gaming (somewhat.)
My organization skills are elementary and have always been. I end up getting rid of stuff instead of figuring out a good way to save things. Today I threw out a big chunk of old notes, papers and notebooks. Some of which had stories in them. I always have mixed feelings about doing that. I have different "modes." I have a mode that wants to be a Taoist or Buddhist and wants to give away all my earthly possessions and live freely in the wilderness and have no attachment to achievements and ego. The other mode is more practical (in a matter of speaking, as far as my generation can even process the idea of practical) and more in-tune with the typical American dream.
I'm afraid that when the other mode takes hold my last mode will have destroyed the progress of the other. That does sound strange and fragmented, but I despair. Then I change my mode: try something different for a while. I'm not writing fiction at all anymore. I'm re-evaluating why I've written and the condition of the current book market. I haven't changed, my time has gone elsewhere, as it usually does when I take a break. I've used writing as a medium. I can't remember if I've said I'm a storyteller as opposed to a writer here. I use to assume that if one writes it makes them a writer, but now I'm understanding it from a different perspective. What's actually in question is a sense of identity. I write, but I do not feel I am a writer currently. Somehow I've recognized this better with art. I like doing art, but I'm not an artist.
Anyway, I went through the notebooks to make sure that I wasn't throwing away something I'd want to keep. I could hardly understand my own writing, but what I could understand of it seemed metallic. It was like reading what a computer would conjure for a creative story. ... is this how I write all the time? It seemed like words were being punched into place. I wish someone had told me: "You write like a robot."
Perhaps my perception of writing has changed some, since I haven't been reading fiction either. I know I mentioned this before, but I've developed this sudden affinity for non-fiction. I'm tickled by the idea that non-fiction is not necessarily not fictional. There's a lens, an area of research, history and thoughts to be had, all of which cannot be true. History is complex, context is complex. There's no way to write about reality and not subtract from it and skew it. It seems memoir and autobiography are particularly good (or bad) about skewing. One man writes about his experience in the wilderness, as a man against and with nature, somehow omitting the fact that his wife was frequently with him during this time. Man, Wilderness... and Wife. (Lol) He could not write a book about his lone, wilderness experience with his wife in it. That is not Man.
I'm in a class where we're reading books that purposely challenge our perspective. We're reading a book about bombing and, having read some history about the Pacific wars during the time of WWII, I knew the history was not the simplistic water-down version I'd been fed through high school. Yet a few chapters in a book have added so much to my understanding of the war. History is like a puzzle and all the pieces are probably there if you ever want to put the puzzle together. I had little bits and pieces of history before, now I have little chunks and an outline of the puzzle. It'll never be complete. We sometimes know so little of the truth that we don't really know the truth.
In the notebook I threw away, I found a picture drawn in pencil and conte (I mentioned it here before... I'm pretty sure. I really need to merge all my LJ activity so I don't get confused.) I recalled doing the picture spontaneously. It's a portrait of one of the characters I've had for a long time. I enjoy the picture, so I ripped it out and kept it. I also happen to find the first picture of this character in a notebook I can't throw away, because it's filled with drawings and algebra. Most of the pictures are crap and most of the math I don't understand anymore, but I can't get rid of it.
Well, I think I more or less wrote what I set out to. Probably more than necessary, but it'll count as record if nothing else.
Keeping the house warm is a battle between two extremes. It's doesn't seem like the usual case where one has a house with a basement, it feels more like we have a basement with an attic. That is, the ground floor is always chilly and the basements turns into an oven. I'm upstairs sitting in my futon chair, trying to stay warm under blankets most of the time.
My current room setup is unusual and I'm writing this on a TV screen. I had one of these semi-panicky clearout-cleanout episodes where I got rid of my last desk setup with a half-baked idea about how I wanted the room to look and it resulted in my computer monitor on the floor and it is awkward to use for most computing tasks. This has discouraged me from using forums, news sites/read online, online journals, even email and gaming (somewhat.)
My organization skills are elementary and have always been. I end up getting rid of stuff instead of figuring out a good way to save things. Today I threw out a big chunk of old notes, papers and notebooks. Some of which had stories in them. I always have mixed feelings about doing that. I have different "modes." I have a mode that wants to be a Taoist or Buddhist and wants to give away all my earthly possessions and live freely in the wilderness and have no attachment to achievements and ego. The other mode is more practical (in a matter of speaking, as far as my generation can even process the idea of practical) and more in-tune with the typical American dream.
I'm afraid that when the other mode takes hold my last mode will have destroyed the progress of the other. That does sound strange and fragmented, but I despair. Then I change my mode: try something different for a while. I'm not writing fiction at all anymore. I'm re-evaluating why I've written and the condition of the current book market. I haven't changed, my time has gone elsewhere, as it usually does when I take a break. I've used writing as a medium. I can't remember if I've said I'm a storyteller as opposed to a writer here. I use to assume that if one writes it makes them a writer, but now I'm understanding it from a different perspective. What's actually in question is a sense of identity. I write, but I do not feel I am a writer currently. Somehow I've recognized this better with art. I like doing art, but I'm not an artist.
Anyway, I went through the notebooks to make sure that I wasn't throwing away something I'd want to keep. I could hardly understand my own writing, but what I could understand of it seemed metallic. It was like reading what a computer would conjure for a creative story. ... is this how I write all the time? It seemed like words were being punched into place. I wish someone had told me: "You write like a robot."
Perhaps my perception of writing has changed some, since I haven't been reading fiction either. I know I mentioned this before, but I've developed this sudden affinity for non-fiction. I'm tickled by the idea that non-fiction is not necessarily not fictional. There's a lens, an area of research, history and thoughts to be had, all of which cannot be true. History is complex, context is complex. There's no way to write about reality and not subtract from it and skew it. It seems memoir and autobiography are particularly good (or bad) about skewing. One man writes about his experience in the wilderness, as a man against and with nature, somehow omitting the fact that his wife was frequently with him during this time. Man, Wilderness... and Wife. (Lol) He could not write a book about his lone, wilderness experience with his wife in it. That is not Man.
I'm in a class where we're reading books that purposely challenge our perspective. We're reading a book about bombing and, having read some history about the Pacific wars during the time of WWII, I knew the history was not the simplistic water-down version I'd been fed through high school. Yet a few chapters in a book have added so much to my understanding of the war. History is like a puzzle and all the pieces are probably there if you ever want to put the puzzle together. I had little bits and pieces of history before, now I have little chunks and an outline of the puzzle. It'll never be complete. We sometimes know so little of the truth that we don't really know the truth.
In the notebook I threw away, I found a picture drawn in pencil and conte (I mentioned it here before... I'm pretty sure. I really need to merge all my LJ activity so I don't get confused.) I recalled doing the picture spontaneously. It's a portrait of one of the characters I've had for a long time. I enjoy the picture, so I ripped it out and kept it. I also happen to find the first picture of this character in a notebook I can't throw away, because it's filled with drawings and algebra. Most of the pictures are crap and most of the math I don't understand anymore, but I can't get rid of it.
Well, I think I more or less wrote what I set out to. Probably more than necessary, but it'll count as record if nothing else.