The Itis

So lately I've been trying to eat better, for a big number of reasons. And I've been doing a good job of it too. Lots of vegetables and grains and crap.

Today I forgot a lunch though. So instead of my usual good-ish for me lunch I decided to wander out into the wide world of lunches to pick up something from a place that would preprepare it and toss it out their pull-up window.

Options presented itself to me: Burger King, McDs, Subway, Runza (nonmidwesterners are missing out on that one) and Arbys. Because it was the first friday of Lent and I listened to people talk about the wonders of the local fish fry (I love fish but if your typical means of eating it are to fry it your stomach is secretly plotting your death) I decided to go ahead and go to Arbys and get a roast beef sandwich. Which I did. And which I ate.

Bad, bad idea. I got myself a mondo case of the Itis. If you don't know what the Itis is, this might help. Needless to say, the rest of my workday was spent in a place between pain and sleep as my body reacted to the sudden influx of undoubtedly bad stuff going into me. This was not fun, or pleasant, or anything else. Trust me, it's bad.

The moral of this story: if you're going to start eating better, you'll find you eventually have to eat better or risk your body's wrath. I suppose that's a silver lining, if you look at it right.

PS: This article has been time-maged back to Friday because I went to bed after I had wrote the first line.

The music, my ears, they bleed!

I have some pretty pwn headphones that were given to me by someone I barely know because she was the nicest person I've met in ... oh ... three years? And they're hella loud. Like when my ipod is at full volume I can feel vibration from bass response ... in my brain.

It's not good for me. Which is why I'm listening to The Stranglers at full volume while I think about haiku. Punk, poetry, and pain. Perfectly paired. (that's an alliteration score, yo!)

So I read through all of Morgetron's blog today, because I was hella bored. No offense to her, but her blog is like a media nightmare that threatens to make my poor overburdened Deborah (my laptop) want to have a quiet anyeurism and give up the machine ghost for good. Since I can't afford to order a new technocompanion, I refused her entreaties to sign the DNR. She can have a tube or two coming out of her. She's honestly used to it.

I'm thinking that my blog needs a bit more whimsy. Unfortunately, I'm not the most whimsical person. I really am not. I'm overly serious. I was a serious child. People were playing [childhood game 6] while I was mediating conflicts between other children. Now I just think deep thoughts about aggressive haiku (they exist, ask me to show you my limited collection of real terrors if you're very very hard to offend).

So whimsy isn't for me. It's like [cliche about something that is only funny in that trite overused smirk kind of way]. But I want something else. Because let's face it, folks, I'm not exactly running the most exciting show on earth over here. I want content, something meaningful, but ... I dunno. I want to write silly stuff too. Where's the difference? How do I draw that line?

Why do I have to make serious business out of not being serious?

This is why I am the way I am.

I'll think of something amusing tomorrow. Promise. I added Technorati thingamajigger to my bloggityblagbar (not alliterative, just awesome) on the right of there. ======>

Just so ... y'know, if you use technorati.

The editing bar continues to climb due to the efforts of my inner sense of "GET YOUR ASS TO WORK" and the indespensible efforts of Kristen (who I would link to if I thought (a) she had something to link to and (b) she wouldn't kill me for doing so).

I could actually have maybe possibly perhaps y'never know been done on my deadline despite my three week break but I have something in the pipes that will keep me busy for a good week. Like ... all my free time is gone. It's a neat opportunity, though, mostly because I'm a sucker for free stuff and I like to talk and there's the smidgen of a chance that I'll stumble into some more exposure and we all know that I <3 exposure (if the rock star motif and trying to be a published author and blog writer and whatnot weren't clues). More on that when I find out some more information and am for sure on it and all.

Tomorrow is Friday, and I could not be more thrilled. Also, apparently my blog comes up if you search for various permutations of Princess Peach/Bowser porn in google. Due, no doubt, to my previous post about T3H S3XX0RZ IN MAH M4R1()!1.

This won't help, will it?

Out with a punk haiku!

I rebel only
because I want your hatred
(secret irony)

Oh, my sweet Punk, how irrelevant you've become! Don't you know that hatred is so 80s/90s and we've moved on to 'I hate me and hate me too but plz secretly love me kthxbai'. It's called emo. Look it up. Google it!

Editing Mode: ENGAGED!

So, I'm in full-speed editing mode again. I took three weeks off to do ... well, nothing. I needed it. I'm done with that, though. I have an obligation to my work to get it done, so that's what I'm going to be focusing on now. I'm not sure I'll hit my March 1 deadline for getting the second draft done, but I shouldn't be too far over it, at this rate.

Expect blog posts to come slow and infrequently.

I will be updating the nifty progress bar my blog is now adorned with on the right, at the top. It'll have editing totals updated daily, as the amount edited grows and the total word count (hopefully) drops. I doubt anyone cares enough to check up on my daily progress, but if you do I will be entering it. It's mostly for my own satisfaction.

More whenever I feel inspired to provide it.

On a more personal note.

I don't normally write about specifically personal matters in this blog. Yes, they are things that are important to me, but ... it's more of a content thing. Mining my thoughts for coherent things to presnt to the concept of a 'reader'. The problem is, I don't have much in the way of readers. So why hold myself back? Who do I have to live up to?

Normally something like this would go into a long email that I would send off to the person I most trust with the information. But ... not this time. Mostly because she already knows everything I would say here. Might even be said that she knows it better and truer than I do. But she was always smarter than me in a lot of things.

I'm not writing for her. I'm writing for me. And this is what this blog is about. Me. And this post especially. The topic is me, and me relating to me, and all sorts of other egocentric things.

It's been coming to my attention for the past few months, more and more, that I'm not who I want to be. There's a disconnect between what I'm doing and what I'm capable of. Not just in a "the path is long and I'm looking too much towards the future" because I do that a lot too and I know what that looks like.

This is different. This is seeing the parts of myself that just ... aren't working. The things that will hurt me. Actively hurt me. There are so many things I want to be and so many things I want to do, and I've limited myself for so long because of a long list of issues.

I'd like to think that I could end that disconnect. I'd like to think that I could have that potential I know is within me. There's a fire there that can be harnessed and grown and tapped into to make everything burn brightly. Right now it takes so much effort to get it to burn. But at least it still burns.

If I have my way, in two years I'll be out of Nebraska for good. That's out there for everyone to see now. I don't have a clue where I'm going yet, but I'm not going to let that be a deterrent. I can't let that be a deterrent. This place isn't me anymore. And what I could find here isn't the life I want for myself. Not bad memories, but ... something similar to that. A bad future.

I'm going to change my life. I do this mostly because I'm pretty sure I can. If I can't, I've been wrong about everything I've ever believed in and I need to seriously reevaluate what I'm doing with my life. If I can do it, I'm right and I'll be gone and free and onto bigger and better things. Sure that I know what the hell I'm talking about for once. I play at being sure a lot, but I'm not very sure most of the time.

I have to be sure of something. I have to know something is under my power, at least a little. My life is the only thing that I own irrefutably. I can determine how I spend my time. I can determine how effective I am. I determine the quality of life I have. So I might as well be sure of this.

It's hard to see the potential in the present moment. I know that. I know a lot of people don't see it. And even my sight is limited. But I think I see it better than most. I'm just unsure if I have the willpower to turn conception into reality. I'd like to think that I can order life to my whim, but does it really work that way? In the end it's up to me to find out the answer for myself.

I'm a writer. Writer's write. They also have to edit and get published if they want to be a working writer. I want to be a working writer. So I don't know why I sometimes don't feel like writing. It doesn't make any sense. But I do it anyway. I want to stop that.

I used to think that I could only have one dream. I had a dream, and then I was willing to give it up for another dream, and then that fell apart in my hands and I picked back up the old dream. I don't think it has to be that way. I can have both dreams. I can have more than those, even, should I choose to have them.

The problem with living a life in service to a goal or purpose is that you have to take risks and be willing to sacrifice. I like to talk about being rich and famous, but I'm fairly certain it will never happen. I am going to be a poor, misunderstood type of writer. Mostly because I'm completely ignorant of what makes a popular book popular but most popular books make me want to burn them when I read them. Not condusive to making fans.

There is a long list of things I'd love to see and do. I'd also like to make a difference in the world. I'm not sure yet if I can have both. Not fully. One is always going to have to be lacking. Hell, maybe both of them will have to be lacking. But if I had to ask myself to pick between the following three choices:

1. Love every moment of my life but make no difference.
2. Make an incredible difference but be disappointed in my life.
3. Make a moderate difference and be more or less okay with life.

I think I'd have to choose somewhere between 2 and 3. I pick three, I'm settling for the middle ground of normalcy where I juggle priorities. I pick 2 I become a miserable, cantankerous bastard for the rest of my life as I continue to succeed and remain convinced that it's not good enough.

Oh wait. I do that already.

I really hope I have the ability I think I might have, and that other people see in me. But I'm tired of playing guessing games. I want to achieve. I want to excel. Most of all, I want to be sure. I want to be free and open and sure. Sure enough to be unsure.

That would be very great indeed.