My Life Has Charge Again
I haven't actually significantly updated this thing in a long time, have I? I'm sure all of your lives have been just a little emptier because of that. I apologize.
Since my charger punked out and I had to wait a few days for the replacement to get here, I've been doing something I always say I'm going to do more of, but always get sidetracked. No, not play video games (though the N64 is officially back in my life and I'm trying desperately to not allow Mario Golf to once again destroy my free time). Reading. I've been reading.
I finished The Bell Jar a while ago, and with all the studying I did in the Women and Gender Studies department at OU I probably should have read it a decade ago. It was fascinating and self-reflective and at times a little boring. But for the most part, I think, there is probably a reason I didn't read it until now. I couldn't relate until now.
I just finished a book by Pamela Ribon called Why Girls are Weird, that I'm sure I've told most of you about too many times. That's only because it was so creepily close to my life it's not even funny. I finally saw what my friends meant when they said my writing was creepy because it included things they'd never told me or that they assumed I'd forgotten. Or, what happened in the stories sometimes happened in real life, causing more than a few dropped jaws and laughing fits. The sheer magnitude of inside jokes I share with Kristen and Lauren would blow all of your minds. It's probably why a lot of Indefinite Possibilities makes no sense to anyone outside of my life that may read it. For the most part I attempted to make that story an "OICWYDT" story.
I digest.
Why Girls are Weird is...well, weird because this person doesn't even know me from a hole in the wall. Quite a few times as I read it I had the urge to write her (ironic, because if I had been able to access me e-mail I may never have made it through the book), and say "How did you KNOW the mere sight of a guitar in a boy's apartment would make me pray he wouldn't play it?" or "Okay lady, how is it possible you can pin down that particular moment when you realize that your ex-boyfriend is completely unappealing and it's the easiest thing in the world to look away from without any pining whatsoever? And another thing, how do you know how attached to animals I can get, even more so than people?! Get out of my head!"
Or the other things: "I'm begging you, tell me how you can precisely capture that hidden, deeply buried part of me that is my greatest fear, and make it explode inside my chest and leave me sobbing and unable to read, or sleep, or breathe, or think of anything else but clamping my cabbage patch doll in my arms like an infant and praying that I would be the first to go?"
It was the worst therapy in the world, but it made me feel some companionship with the author. That was the whole point of the book. This woman wrote stories on a website and random people found it in random ways. Then they contacted her saying "I know exactly what you mean!" or "How did you know what to do, I've been trying to figure that out for years?" not knowing that she hadn't figured it out either, she was just trying out a theory. But these people saw something they wanted or needed to hear in her writing, and hoped that she would be willing to help them out too. She was a librarian, not anyone with a medical degree or advanced knowledge of any sort. She was just a person who was struggling to get through life, too.
I am just a person who is struggling to get through life, too.
She talked about having an entire IM conversation with someone using only song titles. I smiled. That's something I would do. It might be annoying to the other person, but I like to think I have people in my life who would join right in. Come together. Get back. Think for yourself. If only. This Time Around.
Mmmbop.
Okay I'm done. :)
But amidst all that reading I did make a promise to myself. Through everything that's been happening in the last few months, including work which is writing but not necessarily everything about which I want to write, I haven't been writing. In searching so hard for my dreams, I let the reminder of why they are my dreams fall through. That I love writing. So I'm going to write more. On here, or on my computer, in the slow moments at work. Wherever. But as you can see it's the way I know how to express myself. And I need that communication now more than ever.
Since my charger punked out and I had to wait a few days for the replacement to get here, I've been doing something I always say I'm going to do more of, but always get sidetracked. No, not play video games (though the N64 is officially back in my life and I'm trying desperately to not allow Mario Golf to once again destroy my free time). Reading. I've been reading.
I finished The Bell Jar a while ago, and with all the studying I did in the Women and Gender Studies department at OU I probably should have read it a decade ago. It was fascinating and self-reflective and at times a little boring. But for the most part, I think, there is probably a reason I didn't read it until now. I couldn't relate until now.
I just finished a book by Pamela Ribon called Why Girls are Weird, that I'm sure I've told most of you about too many times. That's only because it was so creepily close to my life it's not even funny. I finally saw what my friends meant when they said my writing was creepy because it included things they'd never told me or that they assumed I'd forgotten. Or, what happened in the stories sometimes happened in real life, causing more than a few dropped jaws and laughing fits. The sheer magnitude of inside jokes I share with Kristen and Lauren would blow all of your minds. It's probably why a lot of Indefinite Possibilities makes no sense to anyone outside of my life that may read it. For the most part I attempted to make that story an "OICWYDT" story.
I digest.
Why Girls are Weird is...well, weird because this person doesn't even know me from a hole in the wall. Quite a few times as I read it I had the urge to write her (ironic, because if I had been able to access me e-mail I may never have made it through the book), and say "How did you KNOW the mere sight of a guitar in a boy's apartment would make me pray he wouldn't play it?" or "Okay lady, how is it possible you can pin down that particular moment when you realize that your ex-boyfriend is completely unappealing and it's the easiest thing in the world to look away from without any pining whatsoever? And another thing, how do you know how attached to animals I can get, even more so than people?! Get out of my head!"
Or the other things: "I'm begging you, tell me how you can precisely capture that hidden, deeply buried part of me that is my greatest fear, and make it explode inside my chest and leave me sobbing and unable to read, or sleep, or breathe, or think of anything else but clamping my cabbage patch doll in my arms like an infant and praying that I would be the first to go?"
It was the worst therapy in the world, but it made me feel some companionship with the author. That was the whole point of the book. This woman wrote stories on a website and random people found it in random ways. Then they contacted her saying "I know exactly what you mean!" or "How did you know what to do, I've been trying to figure that out for years?" not knowing that she hadn't figured it out either, she was just trying out a theory. But these people saw something they wanted or needed to hear in her writing, and hoped that she would be willing to help them out too. She was a librarian, not anyone with a medical degree or advanced knowledge of any sort. She was just a person who was struggling to get through life, too.
I am just a person who is struggling to get through life, too.
She talked about having an entire IM conversation with someone using only song titles. I smiled. That's something I would do. It might be annoying to the other person, but I like to think I have people in my life who would join right in. Come together. Get back. Think for yourself. If only. This Time Around.
Mmmbop.
Okay I'm done. :)
But amidst all that reading I did make a promise to myself. Through everything that's been happening in the last few months, including work which is writing but not necessarily everything about which I want to write, I haven't been writing. In searching so hard for my dreams, I let the reminder of why they are my dreams fall through. That I love writing. So I'm going to write more. On here, or on my computer, in the slow moments at work. Wherever. But as you can see it's the way I know how to express myself. And I need that communication now more than ever.