Thanksgiving

I am, as we've established a thousand times before, a great big nerd. But let it not be said that I don't give thanks where thanks are due.

To my very favorite Japanese boyband--thank you. Thank you for being so utterly ridiculous that I make weird sputtering-car noises all alone in my room. Thank you for molesting each other on national TV. Thank you for cross-dressing (and dressing as Bruce Lee) on national TV. Thank you for deciding who your leader was via rock-paper-scissors (on national TV). Thank you for thinking afros in "your" colors were appropriate concert wear. Thank you for stretching the bounds of "appropriate concert wear" to the point where if you all came on stage dressed as giraffes nobody would be surprised. Thank you for crying about how much you love each other on national TV. Thank you for sliding, shirtless, across an open-air stage in the rain. Thank you for having enough dedicated fans that all of these incidents are posted multiple times on YouTube. Thank you for grabbing your own crotches, each others' crotches, and having your crotches grabbed by a scarily enthusiastic old woman ON NATIONAL TELEVISION. Thank you for trying to kiss the ceiling while bedecked in flowing red and gold-sequined outfits. Even if you failed miserably, the attempt will always be remembered. And televised. And cross-posted on YouTube, Veoh, and Dailymotion.

To a few individuals: Thank you for whipping out a harmonica in front of a giant stadium filled with fans and PLAYING A HARMONICA SOLO. Thank you for walking on the ceiling of an equally giant venue. Thank you for walking on that ceiling wearing a sparkly green, purple, white, and gold outfit. Thank you for getting up at 3AM so you could film yourself waking up your bandmates at crap o' clock in the morning by jumping on them, playing (your own) bad music, and shaking stuffed toys in their faces. Thank you for cutting nipple holes in a bandmate's t-shirt. Thank you for failing at couches. Thank you for being evil--seriously, determinedly, evil--to your bandmates, and then telling stories about it. Thank you for really earnest rap. Thank you for the doot-doot-doot dance and magical pants stars. Thank you (four out of five) for consistently grabbing your leader's ass any time you perform your debut single. Thank you for doing a spaz dance behind your bandmates, assuming incorrectly that the camera would not see you--or even better, knowing it would record the dance and then doing it anyways.Thank you for loving each other more than you love your fans and letting us share a little of that with you for 10 whole years.

Thank you, in short, for BREAKING MY BRAIN.

Also, happy birthday! Your oldest member turns 29 today! I hope you did something really embarassing on TV to commemorate this.

On being friendly (and paranoia)

Naz, the all-powerful word meter, may not make another appearance for a while. This is why I can't do NaNo. I have no depth of plot that can carry me for more than a few thousand words. Quite unfortunate, this. I'm expecting to not have to write any novels in Fiction Writing next semester, but maybe that will help a bit. It doesn't help that I'm totally burned out. What, may I ask, does one do when one is at the end of one's rope (other than give in to the excessive use of the word 'one')?

Also I have this idea that people are a little in love with being miserable. I have proof, even, but this is not something I really want to talk about right now. I just had to bring it up (WTF, I know, but bear with me or use the back-button).

In fact, I'm not entirely sure what it is I want to talk about, I just kind of need to talk. Mind-vomit time! Yay!

So in various talks and discussions today it came up that I'm a paranoid psycho with serious trust issues and hey, who can blame me? You get that way when your friends start waging war on each other.....in elementary school. Now, I'm past the point where I even really care about what happens to the group. It's a little mercenary, but I think we are all entitled to our selfishness. You're kind of fucked if you don't want yourself to be happy ever. We may not always think we deserve it, but deep down, we should all WANT it. And the way I see the world, happiness means sometimes you have to kind of expect that people hate you.

Which, now that I think about it, is really twisted logic. But consider it like this: if you expect that they hate you, then it's a pleasant surprise when they're friendly. You might not make tons of friends that way, but you'll know that the ones you have were willing to work to get to know the real you; they won't see superficial friendliness only to discover that they don't like who you are.

I'm not advocating that you should maintain this attitude in every situation; in short-term friendships I'm all for being friendly and out-going. I had a great time at Stanford because I let people take me at a very cheery face value, and so there was no need for me to be paranoid. They weren't going to be upset by the inner me because they NEVER SAW IT. And they'd never have to, because I was only going to be living with them for three weeks. I can keep up the friendliness (if not the optimism) for three weeks. I just can't do it forever.

Did any of that make sense?

On my old school

I just found out that a guy we used to torture in elementary school is now Grade A for attractive.

And so my immediate response, after "WTF when did he get so hot?" is "OH SHIT! KARMA EXISTS AND I'M SO FUCKED FOR THE NEXT *counts* 90 BILLION YEARS!"

I kid you not, we were awful to this kid, mostly because he'd never stand up for himself. And so like the heartless little girls all little girls are at heart (try making sense of that), we abused this guy to no end.

And now he's really good looking. Fuck. I will be beating myself up over this for a while; it seems like this week has been all about the old school memories. Some of which are positive, some of which are negative, and some of which are just....weird.

LISTEN TO MY MEMORIES BECAUSE I'M PRACTICALLY AN OLD WOMAN NOW SO I'M ENTITLED TO SHARE.

We used to make these things called Soap Cows, and throw them at the bathroom mirrors. They were pretty much layers of soap and wet paper towels, and they made these vaguely onion-shaped missiles of white ooze.

Once, our school librarian walked into the bathroom and said to us, "I've got your number", and we totally misinterpreted it as the only possible threat a school librarian (who knew our library numbers) could make.

Another time, in that SAME BATHROOM, someone told me this story about a hunter sneaking closer and closer to a lion in order to pluck one of his whiskers; it was a ridiculously complex metaphor for her sneaking into the boys' bathroom and grabbing a paper towel. Which I thought was pretty much the coolest thing ever.

In the roundabout school driveway, we filmed Do flailing about on the ground like a fish for a video mockumentary proving that humans evolved not from monkeys, but from fish. For this same video, I dressed as an Egyptian with a colored-paper headband and did a weird dance in front of our social studies room; we also drew a "fish fossil" on a rock in Sharpie and found it a year later when we came back to the dirt hill where we'd been filming to finish our video.

We spent weeks trying to make arrowheads based on the directions of a man who spelled the name of our neighboring state as "Origon".

I made and painted and labeled California with a boy who revealed after he moved to Korea that at the time, he'd had a crush on me.

I listened to my Social Studies teacher explain to one member of our class what a boner was (after listing several other names for it) because she hadn't understood why we were all laughing at the island of Bonaire.

The principal of our school wandered into that same class and gave us a lecture on the "Veekings". While someone was having a epic hiccup attack.

Oh yes, and our entire grade once (or twice) hummed along to the Eyewitness theme music, which is still officially the best opening music to an educational show, ever.

And now you guys know why I grew up the way I did.

It's all my school's fault!

A tiny paper towel in my ear

Before I explain the title, here's another blast from the past-style post!

From 9/10/09:

On my laptop (finally!)

Thank God they finally reimaged the little stinker, who I am now rechristening--more on that in a second. But anyways, the way this laptop's keyboard is set, it's a lot easier on my wrists than the Mac's wireless one. Also, I am glad I no longer have to bum off the desktop or my mom's laptop. I CAN CHECK MY EMAIL WITH REGULARITY AGAIN.

Anyways, I've decided to rename my laptop, because I have been converted to the cult of crazy people who name their electronics. For example, I've named my cell Kirby, because it's ancient and indestructible (sadly, it is not pink). I will probably name my laptop Dexter, because it looks normal on the outside. On the inside, however, IT EATS SOULS.

Seriously.

But it's nice to have it back anyways. I form strange attachments to things like my computer, contact lenses, and old papers demonstrating how talented I was in kindergarten.

--------------------------------------------------

I take this post as an example of my relationship with technology. I love it, but it better be really, REALLY sturdy, or there will be problems. I do things like drop my phone (twice today! Onto concrete!), drop my iPod, drop my laptop, and otherwise generally abuse my technological devices with absolutely no intent of doing so.

I have dropped my iPod in the mad dash from one car to another, in the rain, onto asphalt. And because it's a Mini, and doesn't take any of this iPod Nano super-thin shit, it was still playing music when I picked it up. I have dropped my cell phone more times than I can count, and the worst that has happened is that the back has popped off and the battery's come out. As soon as I put everything back together again, voila! This has come in handy many times, and I approve wholeheartedly of any technology that is capable of such a feat.

Now, to change the subject completely, let me explain the paper towel. My ear had a small cut; I accidentally picked the scab off and it began to bleed again. So in order to prevent awkward ear-bloodstains, I put a little paper towel ball there to keep everything neat and tidy! And now I'm just too lazy to walk over to my trashcan, remove it, and throw it away. So it's going to stay in my ear until it's time for bed.

I'm really cool, obviously.

Also, on the subject of other people's blog posts. I know I've been really bad about commenting, and that's mostly because I'm not entirely sure what to say. It seems as though almost anything I would be inclined to say is not something that the poster will want to hear--and this is not meant to be directed to the most recent posters; rather, it is a sad truth that applies to every single soul-baring post that has been made in the past three years. I'm worried about offending people--I'm worried that sympathy will come across as insincere and advice will come across as condescending. I don't know what to say, so I just don't say anything at all. Thumper's Rule, you know.

At the same time, I wonder if my brain simply works differently: when I post (if ever I've posted) on a topic that is of great emotional value to me, especially if it's negative, I feel like I'm grasping for any sympathy at all; perhaps that's simply what I personally want, and my issues are blown out of proportion to achieve that goal. The recent posts are upsetting to me, but on a fundamental level I don't think I can understand them, simply because I've never been in the same position. My real self-percieved failings I tend to keep quiet; the ones I post about aren't necessarily the ones that dominate when I think about the reasons for any insecurity I have.

I guess what I'm trying to say is two things: one, I'm honored that people would choose to be so honest on their blogs, and two, my commenting-deficiency is entirely my own fault.

Wow, I'm really bad at expressing myself concisely when I'm not talking about mundane things like paper towels and iPods on concrete. Colleges are going to love that.

On writing (again) and NaNo

2705 / 50000

Huh, I guess it's actually kind of a good thing I have my little progress bar. I feel almost obligated to write more now, so I wound up working through a stuck point today.

Not that I'm anywhere close to NaNo pace, of course. Still, I'll get there eventually....maybe.

I realized today that perhaps my expectations for myself as a writer are a little high--not only in terms of the quality of my writing, but also in terms of my physical ability to sit down and write for long periods of time. I know that many of the writers who I idolize wrote terribly, trashy stuff when they were younger--I've seen it, and it's no better and no worse than anything I wrote a year or two ago (I'd like to think I've gotten a little more sensible, if not strictly better, since then). Moreover, I also know that now, at a time when they're producing work that I love, they're in their late 20s at the YOUNGEST--and that's a polite estimate. That gives me an entire decade to improve, so long as I stick with it.

Really, I know all young writers want to be the next Anton Chekhov or Christopher Paolini--or at least, be popular like them. I frankly would rather die than publish something like Eragon. But it's simply not realistic! So I will instead just suffer it out as a less-than-competent author for the next ten years, after which point I will have hopefully figured out a thing or two about good writing. And how to finish a longer story. That would be nice too.

And then maybe I'll try NaNo for real. It would certainly be an adventure, but I feel like finishing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days is kind of like climbing Mount Everest. It's going to be the most miserable experience of your life until you get to the top, at which point you can pretty much fling your arms out and proclaim, "I'VE WON!" And do a little victory dance of supreme awesomeness.

My new....rectangle

2027 / 50000

This is my new progress bar.

It tells me exactly how far away I am from my goal of writing a novel (50,000 words).

It is probably going to depress the shit out of me, but I plan on updating it regularly (whenever I actually write).

Its name is Naz, the All-Powerful Rectangle of Doom.

I fear it already.

On love

Because I feel like posting on hate would be a trend-following act, and also I'm having a good week.

So. What I love. I know I've posted lists like this before, so I'm going to try and go broader.

My family! I love my family, even when I hate them for being stupid. I know this actually applies to maybe one other person (if that), but I honestly would not mind going to the UW and staying near them.

Puzzles. I not-so-secretly love puzzles. What sort of puzzles fluctuates, but still.

Sunshine. I love sunshine; love the heat and the dry and the basking in the sun that's required by such weather.

Music. That one should be self-explanatory. People who don't have music that they love are missing out.

History. Not sure why I love it, but world history is pretty much my favorite subject ever.

B-movies. Which you should have already known.

The Triduum: the ones who will go with me to see GI Joe and Zombieland and Doomsday. And Transformers 2, no matter how unwillingly. So much love that it fills my heart with crazy.

Obviously, there are things missing from the list. But I'm tired and have to go to class. So there.

On writing woes

Well, I've turned in my first application. It was kind of exhilarating.

But now I'm beating my head against an entirely different sort of beast.

That would be my novel-in-progress. The idea has refused to die, it's gone through two rewrites, and it's never been finished in any form. Oh yes, and I have NO BETA.

Which is killing me. I like feedback, and I like having someone read my work and say "Oh, by the way, this is unclear--what were you going for?" Not only is it useful, but it kind of keeps me going. On that note, a quick apology for my own failure to beta properly. I definitely died before the last 8 pages of the work I was reading. Sorry--send it again from where I stopped giving you edits and give me a boot!

Anyways, the other problem I have is this dragon. It's kind of a pivotal character, even though it doesn't make much of an appearance, and I am still kind of set on the idea of it being a dragon. The only other thing that would sort of work would be a semi-divine figure akin to the Oracle at Delphi, and that doesn't REALLY work because I need the character to be not only very apathetic but also kind of a threat should that apathy ever stop.

Which means I'd have to go beyond semi-divine figure into the whole god thing, and I really don't want to go there, because that will create problems with later plot points involving deities.

Anyways, for right now I'm going to leave it, and I'll have to see where it goes. I'm also trying to write in third-person present, which is....aggravating. But also feels necessary, because writing in third-past was not working out at all.

So, writing woes. And also, I have eaten approximately three times my own weight in chocolates today, I kid you not, and I'M STILL HUNGRY.