(no subject)
I'm feeling unhappy.
My stomach hurts, my hair is all bed-heady and I'm not happy with any of the combing variations I tried on it, and I think I'm--feel like I'm? Sometimes I don't know the difference--a failure. In general. And at every specific task I look at.
I keep trying to think about the fact that Jackie and Heath are dead, but I can't hold the thoughts in my head for more than a few seconds without my mind quickly flitting elsewhere. I feel sad for a few minutes and then I start obsessively organizing something. Sigh. This is what I mean when I talk about the years and years I went through life not feeling anything. My avoidance patterns are so extremely well-developed that even knowing they're there, I still fall into them without thinking, most of the time.
*
The past week has actually been pretty fun, despite my gloominess right now. deardotti and I are thinking of starting a band called Twincest, with me on African drums (sometimes bass? maybe singing? maybe butchering a drum set?) and her on bass guitar (and guitar? and drums?). We've practiced for a total of about three seconds. I think we're going to be fantastic. I definitely still like bass guitar. I've also done a few more drumming meditations, in combination with vocals ("om"s and vocal scales, and, ahaha, a few verses of "When the Day Met the Night" because that song will not get out of my head), and they've all felt really amazing. The more I learn about playing my djembe, the more I love it.
*
I'm eating blueberries. They are tiny, and tart, and some are almost crunchy.
*
I'm trying to find Cobra Starship tickets for Slim's on craigslist. Because when I first visited the ticket site, I wasn't sure if I was a big enough fan to go see them live, but now, um, yeah. SIGN ME UP FOR THE STARSHIP. Hopefully I don't get ripped off by some person selling used gum wrappers cleverly disguised as tickets. How will I know? It's been years and years since I've been to Slim's. Meep!
*
Hmmm, well, now I'm feeling not so unhappy. Almost cheerful? Why did I put a question mark at the end of that sentence? Surely I can gauge my own emotional state. (And the Firefox dictionary needs to stop pretending that "gauge" isn't a word. Also that "Firefox" isn't a word, OH, IRONY.) Then again, I constantly question my own judgments of my emotions. "Am I just feeling happy because this person did this thing that feeds into my already existing dysfunction around control? Is this genuine happiness? Do I know what genuine happiness feels like?" I am exhausted by all my own over-analysis, sometimes.
*
I have trouble even looking at pictures of Heath right now. The thought of uploading a memorial icon--which I've seen other people doing, and in some cases, feels very appropriate to me--I, just. I feel a little ill thinking about it. Or thinking about seeing the Dark Knight. I don't know if I can.
I had to walk away from some celebrity news show the other night because it was showing snippets of his interviews and--in my opinion--taking them totally out of context and I just so fucking angry at it that I couldn't sit there any more. ARGH. I thought it was just such blatant disrespect, trying to twist his words to fit a story. Mentally, I always know that programs like that and tabloids exploit celebrity news to get higher ratings, blah blah blah, but seeing it done to someone whose death I'm not even sure I'm able to yet believe, I felt so indignant.
The day it happened--ugh, okay, say what I mean: the day that Heath died--I thought about death a lot. About how as a celebrity, as Ennis del Mar, as a character in RPF, he seemed so untouchable. Celebrities to me are kind of like... people that are real (and in my first draft of that sentence I wrote "things," which I find rather telling), but also hyper-real. Almost like they're above reality. They exist, but not in the same place I do (I find it funny that I think that, because even reading and writing RPF doesn't fully disabuse me of this often unconscious notion), and not in the same way I do. And until now now celebrities that I'd felt some sort of investment/connection with had died, so my reaction was/is really mixed.
I definitely had a lot of "I don't have the right to mourn him this much." I didn't know him, we never talked, I never met him, we had no interaction. I wasn't even that huge a fan of his, and had only seen a few of his movies other than Brokeback. But I also realize that we didn't need to have interaction for him to have moved me, for his work to have affected me, for him to mean something to me beyond the role he played on-screen.
I also thought about--with the intense sadness I felt upon the news of Heath's death--how I would react to someone close to me dying. I haven't experienced a lot of death. My great-grandmother died when I was younger, and my grandmother on my father's side not long after, but my great-grandmother was 83 and not someone I knew very well. My grandmother lived in Germany and I didn't even get to attend her funeral. Both these deaths, while they hit me, were somewhat removed from me. I still cried and cried and cried at my great-grandmother's funeral, and I think part of that has to do with the fact that I saw her body. I saw her death as a reality because there was no other way to see it.
But if my mom died? My dad? One of my friends? deardotti and I were talking about it, and I really don't know how the hell I would handle it if she died.
Seeing death, I have a lot of questions. What's really important in my life? How can I connect more with people while I'm here? How can I live in every moment, knowing that at any I or someone close to me could die? I'm not sure how to exist that way, because when I imagine it, the fear would be paralyzing. I would want to hold tight to everyone I know and love and like and have ever had an interaction with, really, and not let go. I think about Jackie and the beautiful Christmas card she sent me and how I'll never be able to properly thank her for that, to tell her how she touched me with her kind words, how much that gesture meant to me. I had so few interactions with Jackie, but all of them were full of hugs and kind words and such a sweet maternal love that even with the briefness of our friendship, I still feel like she was a beautiful, shining point in my life.
I guess maybe I want to be that for other people whenever I can. I don't know. I know I definitely have a very deep-seated and intense fear of wasting my life, and maybe that's why I go bury myself in projects when I'm faced with death: get something done. Do something productive. Create something, put something in order, make some kind of mark to prove my existence, to leave behind something worthwhile. I love results I can look at, that I can see, like those are tangible evidence that I've done something good.
Also, I wanted to thank tinheart, meadowlion, whitelily59 and lolitaray, for being there and being concerned, especially because I can forget that silence can be worrying when I'm on the other side of the equation. Man, my feelings even just for the span of this entry are all over the place. I'm sure some of it has to do with being hormonal (hi, first day of bleeding! you're always the most interesting), but, yeah. Emotional topics in general, too.
*
Time to go back to plotting the Ultimate BNDM (murklins, I bow to your genius!) Archive of Ultimate Authority. Because while in the Heroes fandom the only thing for me to really stay awake up at night over is the fact that heroes_slash doesn't have a real tagging system, bandom AS AN ENTIRE ENTITY is essentially disorganized and non-centralized. Hours of pure entertainment, right there!
My stomach hurts, my hair is all bed-heady and I'm not happy with any of the combing variations I tried on it, and I think I'm--feel like I'm? Sometimes I don't know the difference--a failure. In general. And at every specific task I look at.
I keep trying to think about the fact that Jackie and Heath are dead, but I can't hold the thoughts in my head for more than a few seconds without my mind quickly flitting elsewhere. I feel sad for a few minutes and then I start obsessively organizing something. Sigh. This is what I mean when I talk about the years and years I went through life not feeling anything. My avoidance patterns are so extremely well-developed that even knowing they're there, I still fall into them without thinking, most of the time.
*
The past week has actually been pretty fun, despite my gloominess right now. deardotti and I are thinking of starting a band called Twincest, with me on African drums (sometimes bass? maybe singing? maybe butchering a drum set?) and her on bass guitar (and guitar? and drums?). We've practiced for a total of about three seconds. I think we're going to be fantastic. I definitely still like bass guitar. I've also done a few more drumming meditations, in combination with vocals ("om"s and vocal scales, and, ahaha, a few verses of "When the Day Met the Night" because that song will not get out of my head), and they've all felt really amazing. The more I learn about playing my djembe, the more I love it.
*
I'm eating blueberries. They are tiny, and tart, and some are almost crunchy.
*
I'm trying to find Cobra Starship tickets for Slim's on craigslist. Because when I first visited the ticket site, I wasn't sure if I was a big enough fan to go see them live, but now, um, yeah. SIGN ME UP FOR THE STARSHIP. Hopefully I don't get ripped off by some person selling used gum wrappers cleverly disguised as tickets. How will I know? It's been years and years since I've been to Slim's. Meep!
*
Hmmm, well, now I'm feeling not so unhappy. Almost cheerful? Why did I put a question mark at the end of that sentence? Surely I can gauge my own emotional state. (And the Firefox dictionary needs to stop pretending that "gauge" isn't a word. Also that "Firefox" isn't a word, OH, IRONY.) Then again, I constantly question my own judgments of my emotions. "Am I just feeling happy because this person did this thing that feeds into my already existing dysfunction around control? Is this genuine happiness? Do I know what genuine happiness feels like?" I am exhausted by all my own over-analysis, sometimes.
*
I have trouble even looking at pictures of Heath right now. The thought of uploading a memorial icon--which I've seen other people doing, and in some cases, feels very appropriate to me--I, just. I feel a little ill thinking about it. Or thinking about seeing the Dark Knight. I don't know if I can.
I had to walk away from some celebrity news show the other night because it was showing snippets of his interviews and--in my opinion--taking them totally out of context and I just so fucking angry at it that I couldn't sit there any more. ARGH. I thought it was just such blatant disrespect, trying to twist his words to fit a story. Mentally, I always know that programs like that and tabloids exploit celebrity news to get higher ratings, blah blah blah, but seeing it done to someone whose death I'm not even sure I'm able to yet believe, I felt so indignant.
The day it happened--ugh, okay, say what I mean: the day that Heath died--I thought about death a lot. About how as a celebrity, as Ennis del Mar, as a character in RPF, he seemed so untouchable. Celebrities to me are kind of like... people that are real (and in my first draft of that sentence I wrote "things," which I find rather telling), but also hyper-real. Almost like they're above reality. They exist, but not in the same place I do (I find it funny that I think that, because even reading and writing RPF doesn't fully disabuse me of this often unconscious notion), and not in the same way I do. And until now now celebrities that I'd felt some sort of investment/connection with had died, so my reaction was/is really mixed.
I definitely had a lot of "I don't have the right to mourn him this much." I didn't know him, we never talked, I never met him, we had no interaction. I wasn't even that huge a fan of his, and had only seen a few of his movies other than Brokeback. But I also realize that we didn't need to have interaction for him to have moved me, for his work to have affected me, for him to mean something to me beyond the role he played on-screen.
I also thought about--with the intense sadness I felt upon the news of Heath's death--how I would react to someone close to me dying. I haven't experienced a lot of death. My great-grandmother died when I was younger, and my grandmother on my father's side not long after, but my great-grandmother was 83 and not someone I knew very well. My grandmother lived in Germany and I didn't even get to attend her funeral. Both these deaths, while they hit me, were somewhat removed from me. I still cried and cried and cried at my great-grandmother's funeral, and I think part of that has to do with the fact that I saw her body. I saw her death as a reality because there was no other way to see it.
But if my mom died? My dad? One of my friends? deardotti and I were talking about it, and I really don't know how the hell I would handle it if she died.
Seeing death, I have a lot of questions. What's really important in my life? How can I connect more with people while I'm here? How can I live in every moment, knowing that at any I or someone close to me could die? I'm not sure how to exist that way, because when I imagine it, the fear would be paralyzing. I would want to hold tight to everyone I know and love and like and have ever had an interaction with, really, and not let go. I think about Jackie and the beautiful Christmas card she sent me and how I'll never be able to properly thank her for that, to tell her how she touched me with her kind words, how much that gesture meant to me. I had so few interactions with Jackie, but all of them were full of hugs and kind words and such a sweet maternal love that even with the briefness of our friendship, I still feel like she was a beautiful, shining point in my life.
I guess maybe I want to be that for other people whenever I can. I don't know. I know I definitely have a very deep-seated and intense fear of wasting my life, and maybe that's why I go bury myself in projects when I'm faced with death: get something done. Do something productive. Create something, put something in order, make some kind of mark to prove my existence, to leave behind something worthwhile. I love results I can look at, that I can see, like those are tangible evidence that I've done something good.
Also, I wanted to thank tinheart, meadowlion, whitelily59 and lolitaray, for being there and being concerned, especially because I can forget that silence can be worrying when I'm on the other side of the equation. Man, my feelings even just for the span of this entry are all over the place. I'm sure some of it has to do with being hormonal (hi, first day of bleeding! you're always the most interesting), but, yeah. Emotional topics in general, too.
*
Time to go back to plotting the Ultimate BNDM (murklins, I bow to your genius!) Archive of Ultimate Authority. Because while in the Heroes fandom the only thing for me to really stay awake up at night over is the fact that heroes_slash doesn't have a real tagging system, bandom AS AN ENTIRE ENTITY is essentially disorganized and non-centralized. Hours of pure entertainment, right there!