Deflated: The Pitfall of Being Excited
I really should know better than to think something good might happen without me busting my ass. Why would that happen? If I want something I have to bust my ass for it. I always seem to forget that when it seems like something good might happen though. I want to hope for the best and it always gets me when reality sets in.
I thought I was going to be able to buy a car, get a new computer. I was so wrong. I did get a new phone, some new clothes, and a few comfort items, but I’m still without the major items that I want/need.
What I really thought I was getting was a reprieve from years of struggling just to make ends meet. I’ve had a job for about 2 years now and I’m still struggling just to get out of these holes. I know that’s not all that long, but it feels like forever. I just wanted one bright spot where I could say that things finally turned around.
It’s rough seeing people around me in their mid to late 20s that have their shit together, doing whatever they like. Dating; living on their own; getting married; having kids; buying cars, houses, toys, whatever. I’m living with my mother, struggling to pay my bills and doing it all on my own. I don’t get to live rent free with my parents like so man others do. I haven’t had a car in 6 years. That has meant foregoing a lot of things because I can’t fucking get there.
I’ve been stuck here for a long time. It’s easy to overlook how much a car means until you have to rely on others to help get you around. I can’t go shopping unless my mom is home and lets me take her car. I can’t go out with my friends unless someone is willing to pick me up. I can’t go out and drive around just because I want to. I can’t just run up to this or that on a whim. I have to plan everything if I want to go out because I need to know how I will get there and how I will get home because I can’t just drive on a moment’s notice. It is very isolating, which is rough. Yes, I am a solitary creature by nature but it isn’t easy being forced into it because I can’t get anywhere. I can’t go to people and people choose not to call me when they do stuff because they know I can’t get there and they don’t want to pick me up (which is fine, it’s their choice and I’m not going to be upset with them for not wanting to pick me up, I wouldn’t want to either).
I’m doing a bit of boo-hooing, but, really, I’m still a bit further ahead than I was 3 months ago. It just sucks thinking I’ll be able to actually get somewhere and then have it taken from me. I’ll get there eventually by working my ass off, it just would’ve been nice to skip 2+ more years of struggle.
It just fucking sucks being poor.
Questioning Language: Does the Evolution of Our Language Reveal Our National Intelligence?
I’ve been thinking about language. Language is a living and changing thing. It changes slowly, but it does change. Based upon how the majority of speakers of a language use words some fall into disuse, change meaning, change spelling, or any number of other things. Gay is not used to mean happy anymore. Nobody says gadzooks (Chrome doesn’t even recognize it as a real word). Encyclopedia lost its æ. ‘You and me’ is now accepted in place of ‘you and I’. Words change. Language evolves, but not always for the better.
The thing I have been thinking of most is words changing spelling. Specifically, does this change happen because people can’t spell words? Will ‘your’ one day be an acceptable form of ‘you are’? Are contractions now just accepted as whole words rather than a mash up of two other words? WTF has entered the lexicon as a word (of sorts) that expresses an emotion or reaction far more than actual expression of ‘what the fuck’. What is our language becoming? Will we recognize it when we are old?
The grammar nazis are losing. Intelligence is dying. Unless we actually choose to turn away from it and celebrate intelligence, grammar, and proper use of words, our language and our society is fucked. Newspeak for all! I wonder how George Orwell would feel knowing that we are moving ever closer to his satirized language. I think he would be disappointed, I know I am.
Catching Up: An Interstitial Blog
I know that I’ve been very sporadic in posting here lately, and I apologize. I’ve had a lot going on in my personal and professional life. As open as I am on here, I do still occasionally need some time to step away and deal with shit in my head before I can put it to words and deal with it here. I’m sorry that I have been quiet. I know not many people read this, but I do feel a sense of connection to those that do.
One of the bigger things is that I did find work, and quite quickly. My last day was on a Friday and by Tuesday I had found a job. That was awesome, but… it was just part time. Working only 16 hours a week has been fucking with my head. To make matters worse, it was on Fridays and Saturdays, making it more difficult to go out with friends. The good news is, my boss is awesome and is working to get me more hours. I hope to be up to full time by mid-February. Again, it will be over the weekends thus making hanging out and socializing difficult, but work is work and I have to be able to pay bills before I can afford to go out with friends.
I’ve also had to deal with the fallout of ending a friendship. I talked about it before (here), but this past month and a half since it happened hasn’t been easy. I’ve had some good friends to talk it out with though while I get my mind straight. It was, unfortunately, for the best though. It isn’t easy to stop talking with someone you have talked to for hours a day nearly every day for 6 months, but sometimes it is the only way it can go. There are times that I still want to talk with her, but it is healthier not to. I cared for her, but I was just a friend and I cannot put myself through that any longer. I am learning to end things sooner rather than later, now. No longer will I burn for months or years, hoping her feelings will change. They don’t. Not ever, but that is another blog post entirely (which I am working on, in a broader manner).
It hasn’t all been struggle though. I ended up getting a Christmas bonus from my old job which I spent almost entirely on items for my artistic endeavors. The biggest of these was a camera, so that I could take better pictures of my stuff. The camera on my phone wasn’t cutting it any longer. I also ended up buying myself some more paint and about $100 worth of DIY vinyl toys from Kidrobot. I have spent a lot of my time making art lately. I’ve done some digital work, I’ve already finished 3 of the vinyl toys that I bought (which I will eventually post and put up for sale), and I’ve been working on paper again. It has been good, getting back into art so much. I want so badly to find a way to make a career out of creating art. I’m not entirely certain how to do this, but I figure I’ll keep making art until i figure it out.
For the most part, this time away has been me trying to find my center. I have been writing some, but I haven’t made many full-fledged posts that I want to share yet. I have some concepts and ideas started that I will flesh out more when things are a bit more stable for me, but I am not quite there yet. While I realize that this blog has always been about me posting rather haphazardly and chaotically through the storm that is my emotional life, I find that I am wanting to do more than just that now. This will be my 78th post here in about 6 months. That’s a pretty furious pace considering what I have been writing about and how long each post is. I have talked about it before, but I want to try and post more substantial and thought out things now. I’ve gone over the chaos of my first 25 years, now I want to focus on ordering it all and actually discussing things I am passionate about. That’s not to say I won’t go nuts from time to time and just stream my emotions onto the page – I am far too emotional for that – but it does mean that I will take more care with what I post.
To that end, I have been working on a couple new things for my online presence. Previously, I had created a Facebook page dedicated to selling and showcasing art that I wish to/have already sell/sold, but I have also now created a page dedicated to my art, called, simply, forgotn. I have been posting my art there lately and will be adding more of my past works to it as well while I continue to chronicle my artistic endeavors. Alongside that, I have also created a second blog that will be dedicated to my art. At this time though, it exists only in name as I have yet to add content to it. This will be coming soon though, and I will promote it here when I add it. There’s also an etsy page in the works and a website that I have been designing in my head for a while now, though the website is still quite a ways off.
A Week of Drawings, Day 7: Clarity/Chaos
Decided to play with patterns and effects today. Didn’t need the tablet for much, but this exercise of drawing one picture a day has been about exploring creativity more than anything else. I bought the tablet to urge that along, but the tablet is not always necessary. There are still things I will do better with the mouse and random effects/tools.
Now that I have come to the final day of this exercise, I’m going to shift focus on this blog, again. Thus far it has been everything I have needed. It has been my sanity and my catharsis. It has allowed me to start opening up about everything in my life and to explore myself further. However, I have done all of this at a furious pace. While I know that this blog is completely self-indulgent and that readership is tertiary or lower, I am aware that there are people that read this and such a hard pace can make that difficult. So, I want to adjust it and focus myself.
I want to try and start focusing more on the quality of the content now. I’ve got more than enough fodder here for people to read for quite some time while I work on figuring out the next step. Given that, I would like to try and start taking my time with posts and actually craft them rather than let them spew forth from me. I know I have strong writing abilities, I just need to try and focus them now. I have poured forth much of my soul in these first 55+ posts, but now I need to bring my intelligence and thought to it. It is time for me to start focusing all that has swirled around inside of me as I wrote the previous posts and form it all into discussions of these things rather than ramblings diatribes to myself. As I have stated before, there is much that I wish to do with blogging and the internet in general. This change is a move toward doing more of it.
I am trying to decide if I want to go with a cadence of weekly or every 2-3 days. Figuring this out may mean a short lull in posting, but I will try to avoid that. I may shoot to have a big topic once weekly with art, music, or other things on a secondary schedule. I believe that I will also set up a Facebook page for my art so that I can post it there when it is finished and then highlight certain pieces here.
I also need to decide if this change necessitates a new blog dedicated to this scheduled and more polished style. I think it would look cleaner, but I am unsure of whether I want to do that or not. If I did, it would mean setting it up as a more professional blog while leaving this one for my personal stuff that I have been doing.
And, with that semi-coherent mess, I will post this and sleep. I will see you all on the other side of it all.
Inspiration: DIY and the Punk Ethos
I watched American Hardcore last night. It is a documentary about the rise and downfall of the Hardcore Punk scene across America. It was very inspiring. Watching Ian MacKaye talk about pulling apart the sleeve for a 7″ so they could figure out how to make them themselves and then gluing together 1000+ of them for their first singles was incredible. Seeing everyone talk about their role in the scene and the passion they still hold was inspiring.
They didn’t do it for fame or for money, they did it because they wanted to make music and that was the only way they could.
After watching it though, I have to wonder to myself: What music from today would get this kind of documentary 20 years after it died? I can’t really think of any. Yes, we have a few bands that will probably stand the test of time, but I don’t see anymore Black Flags, SSDs, Minor Threats, or Bad Brains. I’m not holed up in the past either; I am always out there searching for new bands. I see greatness out there, but I do not see any bands that are starting a scene they way these guys did. It’s a shame. We could use that nowadays.
Part of why this is inspiring to me is that even though I bitch about my personal life and certain things I am lacking, I am trying to apply the DIY ethos to my life. I am attempting to create a business out of nothing. If I want to get paid to make art, I have to be the one to put my stuff out there. Nobody is going to just magically hand me money for it. If I want this to amount to anything, I am going to have to get out there and do it. I have been trying to do this. I have drawn at least one piece everyday since I got my tablet. I have even managed to find my own personal style, though I will also find more as I play with the tablet.
Though I have mostly used my blog to expel my demons, it is also a place for me to put my art out there and eventually promote it. All that I am doing now is the precursor. My blog is a stepping stone. It is a toe in the water of running my own website. I spent about 3 hours last night researching websites and figuring out what I need to do to get one up and running. I learned HTML coding many years ago, I have a basic knowledge of CSS, and I have been designing images that I would love to use as backgrounds for years. I look forward to putting all of this into a website someday soon. Probably far sooner than I even realize just yet.
forgotn 