(no subject)
Probably one of the hardest things about writing, lately, oh who am I kidding, my whole life, has been choosing one single thing to write about. I'm like an add magpie when I get a keyboard in front of me. One shiny thing and I might as well be typing with my elbows for all the sense it makes. At the risk of being boring though, I think I'm going to try to change that. While I wouldn't go so far as to call it a resolution, it's a goal I've decided to work on recently.
Why haven't I been writing? A list of excuses by Samantha.
1) Distraction
I have a really sexy girlfriend. And a dog. And a cat. And a sister with enough drama for her own reality show. And a roommate with similar dramatic inclinations.
Who can I pin this one on? Only myself. Sure there are plenty of studies that will probably back up my theory that constant communication and information overload are responsible for the elusive and ever-shortening American attention span, but the truth of the matter is that I just haven't been writing, and instead have been using all that energy to make up excuses and do other things. Like have sex. If I was really all the things I thought I'd be when I was this age (millions of years ago, before I worried about things like rent and heart disease and the 2012 Age Group Nationals) then after a satisfying gymnastic hay roll, I'd immediately pull out my awesome over-loaded with text documents laptop and bang out a couple thousand words, then lace up my shoes and try desperately to remove the rubber from the bottom of them one step at a time.
The idea was, I thought, and I still do a little, to slowly and surely paint the walls of my life the only colors I felt like painting them. Then I would decoupage over with only the things I really wanted to do. And why not? Being queer is a delightful little gift from the universe that allows me to avoid things like children and marriage (well, the last one is mostly because I don't want to get married) (really married, not fake married for money and benefits). Being relatively healthy, which is a different rant entirely, has given me a mostly clear and sunny outlook on life, regardless of where I live.
The fact of the matter is, that with only a little lapse of study, I'm very prepared to do these things with my life. Isn't everyone? I mean, we went to college to learn and be all liberal and shit. We learned new ways to explain the world to ourselves and then we jumped into the world like those happy turtles from Nemo and the EAC. I fully expected to be an olympic athlete english teacher by now. But the world had other plans, and I have had a hell of a time making mine work out.
Some flexibility is in order, with all things, of course, but that brings me to my next point.
2) Laziness.
Some folks can look at me and say, but you are a pretty decent athlete, you work out almost every day and you have a killer work ethic most of the time.
This is true, and I guess by conventional standards, you can call me not lazy. By my own standards, though, I know better. I suspect a lot of people do. There was a time when my bar was set very high and I reached it regularly. What happened? I'm not sure, but I think that setting the bar became my own job and so did making the training plan for the level of that bar and then also paying the rent for the facility in which the training would take place and also for all the food that I would have to eat while training. It was kind of overwhelming, and one false move makes it easy to get caught up and all discombobulated until I found myself 26, unemployed and not really doing anything I love, except my girlfriend.
There are a lot of things that I'm responsible for now, that I wasn't back in the day. But really, it's not that bad. I made the choice not to go into debt by going to a 4 year school, which is working out well, because now I don't have to do uncomfortable things like work at starbucks to make money, just to pay my student loans. I also don't have to stay at shitty jobs I don't like, because I don't have anyone to support but a small animal family, a constantly hungry girlfriend (who actually supports herself and also my dumpster diving, which supports us both) and myself.
The choice to pursue writing or running then, or both, is mine to make. I've lackadaisically chased both, but never with the dedication that would result in bacon being transported to my humble abode (as in, oh baby, third place out of 1200? You won a gift card? Way to bring home that Target bacon!). The only thing stopping me is..
my location, my relationship, my job, my lack of a job, my happiness, my unhappiness, MY LIST OF EXCUSES!
Lazy.
3) Facebook
Let me tell you about how this truncated update style has broken my soul and made me cut all the good and soulful out of my writing. Let me just tell you how hearing about how people's days, food choices, bathroom habits, spotify songs and relationship status has slaughtered all that is good and creative in my heart and left me shivering in front of a status update. Why? Because I can't quit. I'd say that I just need to change my friends, but the only Goddamn reason I got a facebook in the first place was because I move all over the country every three or four years and that's a lot of friends to keep track of. Unfortunately, I'm addicted to those stupid status updates because maybe one in five is pertinent and interesting and it's a good way to catch people whose phones are smart enough to avoid me because they owe me money or an explanation or something.
Bear with me, I'm almost done.
So as far as goals for this year go, mine are relatively few, but lofty.
Write more.
Make Nationals.
Put my big girl panties on and stop making so many excuses.
Make money, maybe, only doing things I like.
Less facebook. More LJ and blogspot. This one's about writing, the other one's about running.
Making an effort to paint the figurative walls of my metaphorical house with only the colors I want, and then to use proverbial decoupage to get all narrowminded and go balls deep in the stuff that I should be doing, instead of the stuff I do instead of the stuff I should be doing. Oh yes. I will probably share this to facebook. Don't hate.
Why haven't I been writing? A list of excuses by Samantha.
1) Distraction
I have a really sexy girlfriend. And a dog. And a cat. And a sister with enough drama for her own reality show. And a roommate with similar dramatic inclinations.
Who can I pin this one on? Only myself. Sure there are plenty of studies that will probably back up my theory that constant communication and information overload are responsible for the elusive and ever-shortening American attention span, but the truth of the matter is that I just haven't been writing, and instead have been using all that energy to make up excuses and do other things. Like have sex. If I was really all the things I thought I'd be when I was this age (millions of years ago, before I worried about things like rent and heart disease and the 2012 Age Group Nationals) then after a satisfying gymnastic hay roll, I'd immediately pull out my awesome over-loaded with text documents laptop and bang out a couple thousand words, then lace up my shoes and try desperately to remove the rubber from the bottom of them one step at a time.
The idea was, I thought, and I still do a little, to slowly and surely paint the walls of my life the only colors I felt like painting them. Then I would decoupage over with only the things I really wanted to do. And why not? Being queer is a delightful little gift from the universe that allows me to avoid things like children and marriage (well, the last one is mostly because I don't want to get married) (really married, not fake married for money and benefits). Being relatively healthy, which is a different rant entirely, has given me a mostly clear and sunny outlook on life, regardless of where I live.
The fact of the matter is, that with only a little lapse of study, I'm very prepared to do these things with my life. Isn't everyone? I mean, we went to college to learn and be all liberal and shit. We learned new ways to explain the world to ourselves and then we jumped into the world like those happy turtles from Nemo and the EAC. I fully expected to be an olympic athlete english teacher by now. But the world had other plans, and I have had a hell of a time making mine work out.
Some flexibility is in order, with all things, of course, but that brings me to my next point.
2) Laziness.
Some folks can look at me and say, but you are a pretty decent athlete, you work out almost every day and you have a killer work ethic most of the time.
This is true, and I guess by conventional standards, you can call me not lazy. By my own standards, though, I know better. I suspect a lot of people do. There was a time when my bar was set very high and I reached it regularly. What happened? I'm not sure, but I think that setting the bar became my own job and so did making the training plan for the level of that bar and then also paying the rent for the facility in which the training would take place and also for all the food that I would have to eat while training. It was kind of overwhelming, and one false move makes it easy to get caught up and all discombobulated until I found myself 26, unemployed and not really doing anything I love, except my girlfriend.
There are a lot of things that I'm responsible for now, that I wasn't back in the day. But really, it's not that bad. I made the choice not to go into debt by going to a 4 year school, which is working out well, because now I don't have to do uncomfortable things like work at starbucks to make money, just to pay my student loans. I also don't have to stay at shitty jobs I don't like, because I don't have anyone to support but a small animal family, a constantly hungry girlfriend (who actually supports herself and also my dumpster diving, which supports us both) and myself.
The choice to pursue writing or running then, or both, is mine to make. I've lackadaisically chased both, but never with the dedication that would result in bacon being transported to my humble abode (as in, oh baby, third place out of 1200? You won a gift card? Way to bring home that Target bacon!). The only thing stopping me is..
my location, my relationship, my job, my lack of a job, my happiness, my unhappiness, MY LIST OF EXCUSES!
Lazy.
3) Facebook
Let me tell you about how this truncated update style has broken my soul and made me cut all the good and soulful out of my writing. Let me just tell you how hearing about how people's days, food choices, bathroom habits, spotify songs and relationship status has slaughtered all that is good and creative in my heart and left me shivering in front of a status update. Why? Because I can't quit. I'd say that I just need to change my friends, but the only Goddamn reason I got a facebook in the first place was because I move all over the country every three or four years and that's a lot of friends to keep track of. Unfortunately, I'm addicted to those stupid status updates because maybe one in five is pertinent and interesting and it's a good way to catch people whose phones are smart enough to avoid me because they owe me money or an explanation or something.
Bear with me, I'm almost done.
So as far as goals for this year go, mine are relatively few, but lofty.
Write more.
Make Nationals.
Put my big girl panties on and stop making so many excuses.
Make money, maybe, only doing things I like.
Less facebook. More LJ and blogspot. This one's about writing, the other one's about running.
Making an effort to paint the figurative walls of my metaphorical house with only the colors I want, and then to use proverbial decoupage to get all narrowminded and go balls deep in the stuff that I should be doing, instead of the stuff I do instead of the stuff I should be doing. Oh yes. I will probably share this to facebook. Don't hate.