I know I have been awfully quiet as of late. I'm not even sure if anyone reads anymore. I never lost my desire to write, I just find it hard to let it all spew out when this site is so publicly known (not famous per se but known to friends and family in real life). Plus, as I get older and take on more normal grown up responsibilities, I find it so hard to carve out some time to write.
Read MoreI have a problem. I’m a perfectionist. I’m fickle. I’m impatient. I’m determined. I’m easily overwhelmed. I have a brain that seems to move faster than I can speak. I’m lazy. Lazy enough not to follow through with writing down all of the seemingly amazing things (amazing to me, at least) that my brain throws at me. Lazy enough to start new hobbies and never finish them because they aren’t perfect. Lazy enough to think of five million great things to blog about during the day but never put them into fruition because I’m too lazy to form them into a coherent and relevant entry and too much of a perfectionist to just post them in a random stream of consciousness.
Can you tell I’m trying something new?
I’ve been trying to get myself back into a rhythm of writing here. Or somewhere. And I’m not sure of the best way to do it. I’m still not sure if this is the right way. But you gotta start somewhere.
I’m not even sure if there’s a point to this entry except to work through some ideas.
This site has been around for nine years this summer. That’s a lot of time. A lot of thoughts. A lot of words. Most of the old entries have been pulled from the public eye but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t available in the Internet archive.
(I didn’t pull them so they couldn’t be read – I just needed a fresh slate everytime I deleted them. Kind of like a fresh notebook beckoning you to fill it up. That first blank page holds so many promises.)
There’s something to be said about longevity, especially on the Internet. Sites are fleeting and it’s rare that I find people who have stuck around as long as me. Most of the group I used to follow back when I was twenty and in college is gone now and have been replaced by a different group. Different people, different thoughts, different backgrounds – but ultimately, we are all the same because we have made the same decision to share our personal lives with the Internet.
Ultimately, the problem with longevity is the exposure. I’ve been at the same place, the same little corner of the web, for nine years. Nine years ago, having a website wasn’t common. Sure, anyone could have one but it wasn’t mainstream. The term and idea of a “blog” was just becoming “trendy” (hence why I hopped on that bandwagon!) and I found it a nice cathartic release for working through the daily issues that I experienced and finding those who were in similar situations and sharing similar circumstances. And I could do it quietly because no one in my personal life would think to search for a website or would bother to “google” it when I made an off-the-cuff remark about my online journal.
I chose to share my life in a public forum so I find it almost hypocritical at times to complain about the lack of privacy. And it’s not neccessarily privacy I’m looking for on the Internet because that would be a silly concept. I guess it’s more that I long for the freedom of days past. Of when no one I knew in my personal life read my site or even knew it existed. Friends, family, coworkers – none of them really knew about my site. So I could kind of write what I pleased in a public forum with a bit of anonymity. I could bitch about work, I could complain about my crazy family, I could lament about my relationship and I could do it all to people I had never met before and not worry about insulting them or whether they were going to run and tell the person I was talking about. They were unbiased, they offered advice freely, they cared. This was before the Internet got mean.
But meanness was never even an issue for me. I am thankful that as the Internet and blogging community evolved I stayed unpopular enough to avoid the crazies. I read some of the stuff the more prominent bloggers deal with and I am thankful everyday that my reach never extended too far beyond my little corner.
The issue was the exposure, as I said above. Now I find myself not even wanting to write because everything that is bothering me, everything that makes me a real person, everything that I want to share, that I want to put into words just so I can get it out and make it go away already! clams up inside of me because I don’t want it to be read by anyone but people I don’t know.
It sounds crazy, I know. It’s the Internet, I know.
Just don’t write things you wouldn’t say in person. That’s easier said than done. There’s a lot I can’t say in person. There’s a lot of things I try to deal with in my daily life that I can’t say to people because of stupid repercussions. Because they’ll be mad or hurt or upset or just throw a fit about it.
Okay, well write them in a personal journal, offline, privately. Doable, but part of the reason I like to write online is the feedback I do get from online friends. Those that don’t judge and if they do, who cares because they’re online and I don’t have to see or hang out with them everyday. I try to talk to certain people about other aspects of my life but there’s such polarizing opinions that it’s difficult to even have a listening ear, someone who doesn’t have their own opinion into things. This person thinks that person is unreasonable and that I should just tell them to ‘F-off!’. This other person think everyone else, including the last person, is wrong. There’s few people in real life who just sit and listen objectively and help me work through decisions based on what they think is best for me and not what they feel personally about the situation and the people involved in it.
It’s difficult, to say the least. I’ve even considered therapy but I’m afraid that’s one step closer to being crazy.
Plus, I can’t really afford the deductible and I’ve got enough physically wrong with me at this point that I think adding mental issues would just be the icing on the cake.
I’ve considered private entries on WordPress here but haven’t really found a private system that still will allow me to promote to the users I want. I would like something that notifies followes when an entry is posted so those who are registered can know to go log in. I would ideally like something posted to my RSS feed that says a new private entry is available, go log in. But I don’t think that’s possible, especially considering the whole concept of RSS promotes the idea of publically available information.
I’ve used other sites, like Livejournal, to blog only my most private stuff and that works in a pinch but I hate managing two sites and the private groups over there.
Lastly, I’ve considered closing Kallure and moving somewhere else. But then I would have to start all over again. I want it to be publically available and I want most of my longtime followers to still be able to follow me but at the same time, I don’t want to share my new location with my personal life.
I’m lost now. I just don’t know how to mesh everything. I don’t know how to use these tools effectively anymore.
It is the reason I don’t write much anymore. I know what I want to talk about. There’s a slew of thoughts running through my head on a daily basis of what I can write about. I just don’t know how. I don’t know the best way to write for the masses, for the public and the personal.
I don’t know how to make everyone happy.
Maybe my problem is the fact that I’m trying to do exactly that.
Maybe that’s why I have so many problems in the first place.
How do I teach myself to embrace the idea that I can’t make everyone happy, online or off?
(I hate feeling as if I have hurt people’s feelings. I hate the idea that someone is angry at me. I hate knowing that my words or thoughts or opinions have somehow affected the happiness or mood of others.)
I don’t know how to change that. And in the process, I don’t know how to make myself happy.
Maybe I do need to see that therapist.
So, today is the last day of March and after this post is published, I will have successfully blogged every day of an entire month. This marks the first time I have done that ever in the entire nine or so years that I have been blogging. This also means I have accomplished another one of my goals on my 101 Things list.
The question now is whether I will continue this trend and my answer is most likely no.
This does not mean I’m going to stop blogging. As a matter of fact, I feel like this has at least given me the motivation to write more here and to be more active with regards to some of my other web endeavors. But the biggest thing I’ve learned during this entire month is that forcing the writing isn’t really beneficial.
I know I said earlier that posting every day wasn’t a big deal – that if I failed, I failed. And that remained true pretty much through out the whole month. The world wasn’t going to end if I just stopped. But as I crossed over the halfway point and got closer and closer to accomplishing my goal, I wanted to finish. I didn’t want to quit. I wanted to at least accomplish what I had set out do.
The problem was, March wasn’t that of an exciting month. I was very busy with the monotony of my daily life, as usual and that, in my opinion, lead to some rather uninteresting posts. Sure, now I pretty much have a record of what I did every single day in March – what I watched, what I ate, how shitty or awesome work was that day. Where I went, when I went places besides work. But that’s pretty much it. There were no profound thoughts or interesting anecdotes coming out onto the blog because I didn’t really have any.
So there was quantity, just not quality, in my opinion.
I think my problem sometimes is that my brain moves fifty-million miles a minute. I’m internally multi-tasking twenty-four hours a day. In the morning, I’m thinking about what I have to do that afternoon. In the afternoon, I’m thinking about the evening and what’s awaiting me at home. If a thought, an idea, a musing sneaks it’s way in there, I never take the time to stop and write it down and expand on it. And by the time I’ve sat down to write, it’s gone.
This entire month has made me realize that’s what I need to do: take some time each day to develop my thoughts better.
I also think I need to lock the security down a bit tighter, or at least utilize the security available to me. I absolutely miss being able to post about whatever I want and what is bothering me without offending someone or reprecussions from some off-color rant that I might have made when I’m angry or upset or bothered. There is also sometimes when I want to rant about my job but knowing the history of some of the more popular bloggers, I know better than doing THAT in a public forum, aside from the fact that there is some anonymity and sensitivity I still want to retain with regards to my job and what I do there.
People have asked me numerous times why I do this – why I put my thoughts and opinions out there in a public forum and truth be told, there’s a lot of reasons. I love the feedback, the community, the record-keeping in general. Writing about things (and talking, but there is very few people in my life who will listen to me talk for as long as I can talk) has always been catharthic for me. Truthfully, the audience here has never been large and it probably has waned over the past few years as I got busier and busier and had less free time to devote to this place, but I’ve continued on because it is sort of a sanctuary, a place to escape. Sure, it’s public, pieces of it at least and I don’t mind that because perhaps there is a day where I really need advice or a sympathetic ear, and that’s usually the day someone comes out of the woodwork. Or perhaps there is someone out there who is feeling similarly to me or going through the same thing and just need to identify with someone. And even if they don’t say, generally I can feel ok to just know it’s out there and available for someone to stumble upon if they need it.
That, and I’ll pretty much tell anything to anyone once I get to know you. No shame – that’s all me!
So basically, to sum it all up, it’s been a long and rather quiet month but there were some good times. And because I was able to awesomely complete a goal I sort of set for myself, I now have it all down on a record. And at some point each day, I’m going to try to take some quiet time and collect some of my thoughts so I don’t bore you guys, and myself, with mundaneity when I actually do sit down to write something. I mean, I’m not going to be publishing best sellers here but I can be interesting, dammit!
And if not, this site will just be here, waiting for my kids or my grandkids to stumble upon in the future, kind of like finding the old, dusty leather-bound journals in the attic with the slanted shaky handwriting, only this will all categorized and searchable and graphically appealing in 11pt Arial font.
And they’ll know exactly what movies I watched and food I ate for the entire month of March in 2009.
This, my friends, is the stuff they write stories and make documentaries about!
Since I haven’t actually been blogging much these past few months (*cough* years), I thought maybe a meme or two might help fill some space. Maybe you’ll learn something and maybe not but at least I’ll feel a little better about at least writing something.
So here we go (as seen at slackermama.com).
A is for age: I turned 27 this year. That was kind of hard. Because at 27, you are on the downward slope to thirty. You are on the back side of the twenties. At some point, I think I’m supposed to become a grownup.
B is for burger of choice: If I have to choose a fast food, it’s the BK Lounge. They have the best quality burgers, hands down. There’s also a good BBQ joint around here called Melvin’s that serves pretty awesome burgers. But I’d take Steve’s home cooked Bubba Burgers over those any day! 
C is for the car I drive: A 2004 Hyundai Elantra GT in Tidal Wave (i.e. bright blue). It’ll be paid off next June, which will be a big accomplishment for me. The Elantra wasn’t my first car not was it my first car with a payment. But it’s the car I’ve had the longest and it’s seen me through a lot of miles and milestones. And it’s been reliable (*knock on wood*) and a great deal with all the upgrades and features that I got.
D is for your dog’s name: Sammy. The shelter gave it to him and it just seemed fitting. It kind of worked because Steve wanted to name whatever dog we got Sampson. So we just tell everybody Sammy is short for that. Thank god I didn’t get to name him – it would’ve been something fruity probably. I once named a dog Legend in high school. And I would’ve name his sister Lyric if I could. See?
E is for essential item you use every day: The Blackberry, hands down. Since my work and personal email are set up on it, I’m kind of tethered to it. Plus, I live off text messaging (it’s how Steve and I communicate during the day and my preferred way of communicating all together) and having the Internet, GPS/maps and my to-do list on it kind of makes it precious.
F is for favorite TV show at the moment: I’m kind of disappointed with my regulars these days. The only one giving me sheer unstoppable entertainment is Real Housewives of Atlanta. Oh lord, I could go on and on about those gold diggers! I seriously can’t get enough.
G is for favorite game: I would’ve said Halo 3 a few weeks ago but after the upgrade, the gameplay just became total bullshit (I don’t know what happened but we were just getting our asses handed to us – it’s not fun to play when you ALWAYS lose by, like, a lot!). So Steve and I have been playing Gears of War 2 and it’s pretty dope. I’ve been playing a lot of the games over at Sporcle lately. And I’ll always be true to my Guiter Hero and Oblivion – I just haven’t had time to play them.
H is for home state: North Carolina. I’m a Tarheel through and through. Just didn’t stay due to the parents divorce and have never gone back because, well, there’s not much to offer there in central NC (at least, not much that we are interested in).
I is for instruments you play: Do the Rock Band instruments count? ‘Cause I play a mean drum solo. I used to play the violin. Years ago. I can play the keyboard if the keys light up.
J is for favorite juice: Grape. I love it! I just don’t drink it as often. Coming in a close second are apple and orange.
K is for whose bum you’d like to kick: I’m a lover, not a fighter, but if pushed I’m sure I’d have a list somewhere.
L is for last restaurant at which you ate: Alex’s, a local diner. We stopped there after my little brother’s football game one night. The food, which is normally mediocre, was actually pretty delicious. And we were in and out for under $20.
M is for your favorite Muppet: I never had a favorite really. I always liked Gonzo. And Kermit. Totally hated Miss Piggy.
N is for number of piercings: Four, two in each ear. I’d have more but I’m terrified of needles so I could never bring myself to do any of them.
O is for overnight hospital stays: I think only one, when I had my appendix out. And I don’t even remember if I stayed over night then.
P is for people you were with today: Just Steve and the dog. We are poor and trying to get things done so we didn’t go anywhere.
Q is for what you do with your quiet time: Read books or blogs, surf the net, work on my crafty projects. Sometimes I don’t get a lot of quiet time because we don’t actively make time to spend away from each other.
R is for biggest regret: I don’t really have any regrets because all of my actions have put me in the fairly happy spot I am today. Maybe not going to grad school right out of undergrad because then I could’ve had many more quality choices than what I have now.
S is for status: Winding down for the night. Watching some of the Fox animation (damn, I’ve fifteen minutes late for the Iron Chef showdown!). Steve’s already in bed (weird) so I’m just having some quiet time (huh, interesting!)
T is for time you woke up today: Not exact, but probably around 9am. My clock was unplugged and I didn’t look at Steve’s right away.
U is for what you consider unique about yourself: Dunno, honestly. Because I really think the qualities that I might consider unique are actually shared with other people. Maybe not people close to me but somewhere in the world.
V is for vegetable you love: Broccoli or corn. Usually with a touch of salt and a spray of the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter (Weight Watchers habit). Those really are the only vegetables I eat.
W is for worst habit: I’m lazy with life overall, I think. When I set my mind to something, I usually get it or get it done. But when it comes to just generally maintaining and following through over a long period of time, I’m awful at it (examples: this blog, housework, my career, relationships).
X is for x-rays you’ve had: Aside from dental – ankle (many, many ankle x-rays), chest (just this past week actually and once before) and back, wrist and I’ve had an MRI as well.
Y is for yummy food you ate today: Steve’s burgers from the grill. That was dinner! And pretty much the only thing I ate today.
Z is for zodiac: Taurus. And you can tell (stubborn!).
I think part of my problem is I don’t make time to write. And then, when I finally do, I don’t know how to make the mundane sound interesting. Or how to make a month or two’s worth of information readable without it being a laundry list of this and that.
I always say, “I’m going to do it this month. I’m going to write about something, anything, every day”. Then I spend all day at work on the computer and little tasks at home get in the way and before I know it, the day is over and I can’t even remember half of the little things that sparked even the short thought of, “Maybe I could write about this”.
Sometimes, briefly, I thought about giving up this site but then my stubbornness kicks in. I’ve had this blog for eight years. At this site. And yes, interest has probably waned both on my part and my readers part but at the same time, I don’t like to think of life without it. Partly because I’m resistant to change and partly because this at least is my outlet, even if I only use it sporadically.
So I don’t think I’m going anywhere anytime soon. I just need to give myself a swift kick in the pants to actually START being interesting again.
(Maybe that’s my problem – I’ve done grown up and bought a house and got a real job and just don’t FEEL interesting anymore! Somebody, validate me, please! LOL)
September and October have been rough though I couldn’t specifically tell you why. I feel like these weeks just blew by and thinking back, there are very few moments from them that stand out enough. I’m still working seventy hour weeks or so and have actually been really, really busy during my time at the office. I think that’s part of it all. Work kicks my ass lately and despite the fact that I never wanted to be that person, sometimes, it’s the only thing I’m thinking about, even when I’m not there. Because I want to do a good job. Because I need to be awesome, at everything I do! (All joking aside, I’m kind of serious – I want to rock at my job because it makes me feel like I’m not wasting my life away in a career I hate.)
Early in October, I got this brilliant idea to have a Halloween “gathering”. By deeming it a “gathering”, I figured I could get away with inviting people to my house, feeding them some candy, having them bring their own booze and letting them hang out and play my XBox. Well, I got kind of carried away and now that “gathering” has turned into a “party” of almost twenty-five confirmed guests. And since I seem to think I’m Superwoman or Martha Stewart (or just plain awesome!), I’ve already sailed away on that ship called Overboard and am a little bit knee-deep in a lot of work that I only hope will produce a fabulous celebration.
I made custom spooky wine bottle labels, ya’ll!
It’s a lot of work and I really don’t mind because I was going to put out that kind of effort to decorate our front yard (we like to be that scary house on the block) but the pain is in the details and my perfectionist person just has to learn to let some of the stuff go. Like putting caution tape over the doors in the hallway? Great idea – can’t find my caution tape – DO NOT NEED to go running back to Wal-Mart to get some more. (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to Wal-Mart this month!)
Regardless, I’m sure it will go over well and since it’s in like two days, I can at least start to feel excited about it, instead of stressed about the fact that nothing’s done (trust me, there’s still a lot to do, but I have a LIST! A list always save the day!).
And yes, my floors were finally fixed which is why I’m ok with having the party. Three months later, the living room is back to normal. Now I just have to pay the guys and get MORE money from the insurance money (something about depreciation costs – God, being a grownup homeowner sucks! I would so get my mom to call for me if she could). They also finally fixed the couch, after two service calls. It still doesn’t feel right to me but I don’t think it ever will unless they replace it completely, which they seem adament about NOT doing. So for now, we’ll just delegate that one to company use only (though, come to think of it, it would make sense to use it every day since neither one of us ever sit in the middle – hmmmm, I guess I do get bright ideas when I finally sit down to write!).
I was finally able to get Sammy’s haircut (hey, you talk about your children, I talk about my dog – just put me in the doggyblogger category). I figured it was probably time when he jumped up and ended up scratching my face with his claws. I could have also gauged it around the fact that he was scooting in circles around the rug in my living room but he does that all the time, especially when company comes over, so perhaps not (“Hey Mom, Sammy learned a new trick!”). Poor thing had to go through the stress of the haircut then the very next day had to deal with the workers sawing and hammering the new floors. I’m sure he needed a Valium or something because Steve said he was so nervous he threw up like five times the day the workers were there. I swear, only we would get the dog that is terrified of loud noises but will bite the shit out of you if you look at him wrong!
The big accomplishment with Sammy though has been that I was able to teach him “Paw!” and “Roll Over!” in the past month. Those were the last two he needed to learn and they were difficult because both required him to do something he didn’t want to do, i.e. submit to us and let us touch his paws. But a good bribe, persistence and praise will make them do anything! Granted, when he gives paw now, even without a treat, he kind of claws at our hands like he’s trying to pull them close to get a treat, but hey, before he growled whenever we even held our hand out. So it’s a step in the right direction!
We really need to take him out of the backyard more. A few weeks ago, we took him to dog park and he seemed to enjoy it. He’s definitely intimidated by dogs bigger than him and I don’t think he understands the “play” signals that the little dogs give off, particularly the ones with high energy. He’s definitely a loner and would prefer to just wander in and out of groups and sniff the grass.
I’ll tell you, we love him to death, but sometimes we just shake our heads and wish we had gotten a normal, overly-friendly goofy dog that we can do almost anything with.
We’ve tossed around the idea of getting another one. To be honest, if we had the room and unlimited funds, I’d adopt every animal I could. I would love to have a few cats and wouldn’t mind taking one of them on because they’re much easier than dogs. Losing Scamper this month was especially hard on me but Steve is really allergic to them and it’s definitely not fair to bring an animal into the house that’s going to make him miserable.
Even Sammy gets to be too much for him sometimes!
So we’re still grooving along! Tonight, my parents are coming over to carve pumpkins and tomorrow we have Tyler’s football game then Friday is the party. So I hope to be back this weekend with some pictures to share because you better believe I’m documenting all this hard party work with photos so I can remember how awesome I really am!
How do you take a picture of humble? Because I should probably do that to!
Have a Happy Halloween everyone and if you’re in the area, feel free to stop by! What’s one more person, right?
