This is like the game hipster or homeless where you spot a person and then have to guess whether he’s a hipster or he’s homeless. Only, it’s less cleverly called grad student or homeless.
Let me first say that I’ve generally been rocking my crazy schedule. 4, 5, 6 hours of sleep, I not only survive, but thrive on them all. It’s like my body knows there’s no other option. But, I have my limits, of course, and one thing I can’t seem to manage on a regular basis is looking like a presentable human being.
I’ve never dressed fashionably, but now it’s a miracle if I show up anywhere not looking like I just rolled out of bed. If it’s the morning, then I did just roll out of bed. I rarely get up more than a half hour before I have to be somewhere. But, that’s nothing new. It’s the joy and curse of living 2 minutes away from anywhere you need to be.
It’s just that I’ve kind of stopped wearing outfits, so whatever shirt I happen to be wearing when I wakeup is likely to be the shirt I continue wearing. Then I put on a pair of jeans. I wear knee socks, because it’s cold in the morning and I want to be Punky Brewster. Converse. And one of two hoodies, though I own a gazillion more. My hair is usually in some kind of a messy bun.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter if I look like a mess, because this is just what I’m wearing to class or my second job. I’ll change later. What I fail to realize is that these things take up a good portion of my day and after spending half a day looking like a mess, I’m not going to waste any of my short lunch break trying to rectify the situation, so I make the few adjustments necessary before heading into the library. I pull a Mr. Rodgers and trade in my Converse for some flats, my t-shirt for a slightly nicer shirt, and my hoodie for the same black cardigan I wear all the time. Despite the upgrades, I still feel like a mess.
I guess that at 26, I’m tired of looking like a walking Gap ad, but I continue to do it out of convenience. Each week, I make it my mini goal to stop looking like a homeless girl who used to buy all of her clothes at Old Navy. I’d really like to burn my collection of hoodies (or, you know, give them away to someone who can use them), but then I would probably go cold.
It doesn’t seem that hard. I even try to plan out what to wear so I don’t have to think about it, but something about dressing half decent takes a lot of energy. But, I do want to start dressing a little more maturely. It’s nice that dress codes are lax around here, but I’m working among the people who will later write me recommendations or hire me, and I think it’s time I start dressing more professionally. I even have the clothes necessary to do so. It’s just that they’re never within arms length when I’m running out the door in the morning.
I never say the words, “I had a bad day.” I just feel like in comparison to others, none of my days are bad, and I know it’s okay for me complain even though I live a charmed life, but it just never feels right, because even when I’m struggling I’m simultaneously happy about a lot of other things. But, yesterday was a bad day and it pushed me to a breaking point.
Tuesday we found out that after battling cancer for more than a decade, a student here in the grad program died. I didn’t know this student particularly well, but she was beloved by everyone here. I met her a couple years ago and she gave me some advice and encouragement that was meaningful coming from a woman who was so passionate about theology and also, well, a woman in a program dominated by men. We were just acquaintances, yet she went above and beyond to reach out to me and tell me the things I needed to hear. She was not the kind of person that everyone looks back at with rose-colored glasses; everyone knew how amazing she was while she was here with us.
I knew that she was sick. I saw her in November and she didn’t look well. So, it wasn’t a shock to get the news and though I found it sad, I was okay.
But, as part of my responsibilities at my second job, I had to write something to share the news with others and offer our condolences. I was initially stressed about it, because it’s hard to write things like that, but I was still okay.
I started not being okay yesterday afternoon when it came time to start working on it and I had to email her close friends to ask for more information and look up information online. Everything that turned up proved she was not just amazingly nice, but also a very talented writer and just full of life. I started crying at my desk at the library. Thankfully most of my coworkers had gone home, but I still tried to be stealth about it, wiping the tears before they could roll down my face. I cried off and on for the rest of my 8-hour shift. No one said anything to me, but I’m sure they noticed my red and watery eyes.
I felt so completely overwhelmed and sad that I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I had to keep working, checking books in and out, and at the same time write something to represent what she meant to everyone here. I was so relieved when I finally got off work, but on my way home, I really started crying. The kind of crying I haven’t done in years. The kind of crying that breaks hearts. I couldn’t say what exactly it was and maybe I was crying for many things that had finally caught up with me. I’m no stranger to tears, but in my life as an adult who lives alone and a thousand miles away from the people who have the power to illicit my tears, I don’t cry near as often as I used to. I don’t even remember the last time.
By morning, I was feeling better, but I still had no idea what to write, so I asked for help, and then the two of us went and asked for more help, and then more. And though I didn’t admit how much this whole thing had gotten to me, because adults seem too good at dealing with death and I am apparently not an adult, facing it with other people made me feel so much better. It wasn’t all on my shoulders. Of course, it never really was, but it felt that way.
Now that it’s done, I can think about other things. I feel silly for reacting so strongly to the death of someone I wasn’t particularly close to, especially when there are so many people here who knew her much better. And, really, what’s my bad day compared to someone who spent so many years fighting cancer and then had her life cut so drastically short. I don’t know. But, I can hardly remember a day where I felt so broken.
I have a headache from crying so much yesterday and I couldn’t help but cry while writing this, but I’m nearly back to my normal self. I just feel a little more hollow than usual. I also feel inspired by a wonderful person who lived a wonderful life, and it’s not that I’m consciously searching for a bright side to all of this, but how can you read about someone so full of life and learn nothing of it? I worked so much today getting the piece put together and out to everyone that I have tomorrow off, and that’s a really good thing, because I know that part of what pushed me over the edge was having no time to myself to reflect. Sometimes it’s nice to be a human being with feelings.
A couple weeks ago, I started listening to The Beatles. Every time I listen to the Beatles, I get “Paperback Writer” stuck in my head for weeks. This time was no different. After a couple days, I started thinking about what The Beatles have to say about love–not just that it’s all you need. It would make a great post, but I can’t articulate it thoroughly. I guess it strikes me as simple, but not unreal. Potentially heart breaking, something that shapes you, but not something you’ll never recover from.
For whatever deeper meaning they might have, the songs also make sense literally. And I like that, because I prefer simple language and clear meaning over what sounds good and says nothing. I am all about ambiguous feelings, but there’s something to be said about lines like, “I want to hold your hand,” “when I’m home, everything seems to be right,” “help me if you can, I’m feeling down. And I do appreciate you being ’round,” “love you every day girl, always on my mind; one thing I can say girl, love you all the time; hold me, love me,” and “if she’s gone, I can’t go on.” Not to suggest the Beatles only ever said one thing about love–just that listening to their music gives me that transcendent feeling that makes me look at love differently.
As big of a place in my heart as there is for happy music, I tend to gravitate toward the depressing. Maybe that’s why between the Eddie Veder Cover and The Beatles version, I’ve listened to “You’ve Got To Hid Your Love Away” more than a hundred times. Maybe I don’t buy that love is all you need, but I tend to side with the theme that seems to underlie all of these songs: love is the most important thing. Definitely the most interesting and exciting as well.
The weird thing about The Beatles is that I grew up listening to them, so some songs I like because they remind me of a time in my life. But, I have never been obsessed with The Beatles like I have been obsessed with other favorite bands. They’re just there. That really stable person in your life you sometimes forget how much you love until you’re reminded. It annoys me when people say The Beatles are overrated.1 I guess it’s easy to say, because they were so huge, but it seems to me what people are saying is that they weren’t substantial. And they were, whether you like their music or not.2
A couple weekends ago, I started watching The Beatles Anthology, a documentary film that was put together in the nineties. Lucky me, the library owns the whole thing (there are six parts). The opening shots, a picture of each of the guys when they started quickly followed by a picture (I’m guessing) around the time they stopped playing together, suddenly made me feel nostalgic for a time I was never a part of. I guess the same way The Graduate makes me nostalgic for the 60s and The Big Chill for the 80s.3
Watching the documentary has basically been about correcting weird assumptions I have about The Beatles. Like that Ringo wasn’t very talented; he was actually in a more popular group first and he had a really cool beard. I always think that John was killed earlier than he was. I’ve never heard George Harrison, who for no reason at all has always been my favorite Beatles, talk so much. Somehow, and this is embarrassing, I thought George played bass and Paul played lead guitar; it was the other way around, of course, and apparently I’ve never looked too closely at them performing. I was also surprised at just how awesome their hair was in their earliest years; Robert Pattinson has nothing on The Beatles.
If you have one (or many), please do me the favor of naming your favorite Beatles songs, so that I can check them out if I haven’t already.
It annoys me when anyone says anyone is overrated. [↩]
I will never understand people who can’t see beyond their own personal taste. [↩]
Actually, the 60s as well, since that’s what it’s in reaction to. [↩]
I was sitting in class on Wednesday morning feeling stupid and unprepared. I was nervous about my presentation. I was wishing that more women studied philosophy, so that I wasn’t outnumbered by at least 5:1 in every class. I was cursing myself for not being 100% more confident and kick ass. And, I was resenting grad school for humbling me the way it does.
It’s not just the work of school that overwhelms me. It’s the expectations I have and can’t meet. It’s the need to be something special (because it’s so important to produce orginal work; because unless you’re unique, you’ll never get one of the few jobs available in your field). It’s coming face to face with ideas so complex that I cannot understand not matter how long I stare at the words on the page. It’s working through ideas that I can’t accept unless I change beliefs so deeply ingrained that I’m scared to unearth them.
To me, it’s all so deeply personal. It’s never comfortable to be pressed right up against the limits of what you’re capable of, forced to recognize that there are things you cannot do no matter how hard you try. This privileged American was taught that she could do anything if she just put her mind to it. But, it’s true that if you stay there long enough, pushing up against your limits, the wall moves, so that what once seemed imposible is now within reach. Being pushed is, of course, a good thing and it’s shaped me into this person who is smarter and more thoughtful and creative than I ever imagined for myself.
It’s just that it’s exhausting and I get tired of feeling like my very idea of myself is always on the line–always at risk. There are a lot of things I could do that would be easier–that wouldn’t cause me stress. But, I am scared of that life. Talking to one of my professors senior year of college, I was uncharacterisically open in admitting that I was going to grad school in part because I was scared of not being in school. I wasn’t scared of working; I have always worked. I was scared of a life where I’m not challenged and school is where I’m challenged. I don’t trust myself to seek out that kind of life on my own–to not fall into complacency.
So, I resent grad school for making me feel stupid and unspecial and looked down upon when I so desperately want to feel brilliant, unique, admired. Maybe I would quit if I wasn’t scared of quitting or if I didn’t often experience the kind of reversal I did on Wednesday morning when I finally did say my part and it wasn’t brilliant, but it added to the discussion and led us somewhere new and I felt a rush and I was engaged in thought that I find important. And then I got to leave that classroom with the kind of relief that only comes when you make it through something that wasn’t easy.
I debate with myself about whether this is really the life I want. There will come a point several years in the future when I am no longer a student. But, I will still be in school. I will still be pushed. My subject will still challenge me to my core. I hope only that my stress is tinged with anticipation and not dread. It seems that doubt will always be a part of anything worth doing, but so should satisfaction. There are a lot of people who hate to exercise, but enjoy the feeling of having done it. I’m not one of those people. Though I can find a million excuses not to get started, once I’m running, I enjoy it. That’s how I feel about school too. I’m not just here for the diploma waiting for me at the end (I have a couple of those already). I’m here because I like school. I like even the thrill of running head first into my limits and not giving up.
I was not going to write a post about the Olympics, because there are some things that I love, but to which I have no commentary to add, and the Olympics is one of those things.
I thought maybe I wouldn’t get too involved this year. Though I love both, I prefer the Summer Olympics, because swimming is my favorite Olympic sport (I have no idea why). I finally have cable this year, but I’m so rarely at home that I won’t be able to see much. I didn’t even watch the opening ceremony (though I feel like I did, since it was covered thoroughly on twitter).
But, then, I started watching last night and there was just no holding back my love. Apolo Ohno was, of course, amazing. I remember the Apolo craziness that started in Salt Lake City and was particularly feverish in Washington, because he is from the Seattle area. Speaking of which, it’s oddly frustrating to me that the Olympics are finally so close to where I’m from and I’m not there. I’m pretty sure this is the first time in the years I’ve been alive that the Olympics have been held in a city I’ve actually visited.
I am capable of getting into nearly any Olympic sport, especially individual events. Last night it was mogul skiing that got to me. How kick ass were those women? I was amazed at their skill and athletic ability. The sport itself, like so many others, seems a little ridiculous when you step back. I mean, ski through these moguls, stop a couple times to do tricks in the air, and try to do it all as fast as possible. Okay, sure.
The only troubling thing is that the Olympics stress me out like crazy. I’m stupidly sensitive and watching other people stress makes me stress. There’s something so crazy about knowing you’re watching the biggest moment in someone’s life. You just want the best for them. Maybe that’s why I love the Olympics so much.
I’m as patriotic as anyone, but when I watch the Olympics, I root for all kinds of people. Well, anyone whose story NBC features, so often I’m rooting for Americans, but not exclusively. Here in the US, we are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as the center of the universe. And maybe the weird thing about rarely being the underdog is that winning or losing an event doesn’t seem like such a big deal. There will be others. This year I am particularly rooting for the Canadians, of course. It’s special when the Olympics are in your country.
I know not everyone loves the Olympics, though the enjoyment I get out of even Curling makes me not understand why. I like watching people do the things they love really well. While it sometimes makes me curse my parents for not forcing me into speed skating (um, hello, I could have trained with Apolo!), it mostly motivates me to do the things I love to do really well.
I have plans to attend the London Games in 2012, which gives me two and a half years to get out of debt and save a bunch of money. Isn’t London the most expensive city in the world? I should start looking for sponsorship.
I recently reread a book of essays by Joyce Carol Oates called The Faith of a Writer. I first read it four years ago after picking it out of the bargain bin at a bookstore. All I could remember about it from that first reading is that JCO went to school in a one room school house.
I love to read what writers have to say about writing and about their lives as writers. I am instantly turned off by writers who can’t articulate what it is they spend their lives doing. Yet, when they do open up, it’s often disappointing. At least to a girl who has a bad habit of putting people on pedestals. It’s not just that writers are often unstable and addicted, a stereotype that I think is becoming less true with every new generation, but even the most articulate and present among them can’t say the magic words to make writing easy. 1 It doesn’t matter how much you know, there will always be anxiety as you stare at the screen or put your pen to paper and never a guarantee that anything worthwhile will come out.
Worse than the missing magic words are the broad statements that ring false. Uncritical leaps from the personal to the universal about the only way to write and the role of The Writer in society. Disparaging remarks about the reading public.
More than any broad philosophy I can pick up and run with, I pick up small pieces of insight, often the few encouraging words offered, and I add them to what I already know about writing, what I feel to be true.
So, here are a few quotes from Joyce Carol Oates, a writer I admire at least as much as any other. As many qualifications as she makes to every statement about how prolific she is, the number of books and articles with her name and the name of her pseudonyms speak for themselves. On top of which, she is a professor, which endears me to her even more, because while I dream of being a novelist, what I’m working toward is being a professor. I want both.
“Write your heart out. Never be ashamed of your subject, and of your passion for your subject . . . Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.”
I must admit that sometimes I get caught up in wanting to write what is clever and unique and artful and worthy of admiration. I will go through what I’ve written and strip out everything cheesy and cliche until all that’s left is boring and emotionless. What interests me about fiction is feelings and relationship dynamics. And as much as I am impressed by Catch-22, I also love Boy Crazy Stacey.
“Your struggle with your buried self, or selves, yields your art; these emotions are the fuel that drives your writing and makes possible hours, days, weeks, months, and years of what will appear to others, at a distance, as “work.” Without these ill-understood drives you might be a superficially happy person, and a more involved citizen of your community, but it isn’t likely that you will ever produce anything of substance.”
As much as it suits me, I’m not certain that all writers must be tortured and introspective, so I don’t know that this is the only way to produce anything of substance, but I think it is my way of producing substantial writing. Who you are has everything to do with what you write. You don’t have to pretend to be happy. You can be real and work out yourself in writing.
“Write for your own time, if not for your own generation exclusively. You can’t write for “posterity”–it doesn’t exist. You can’t write for a departed world. You may be addressing, unconsciously, an audience that doesn’t exist; you may be trying to please someone who won’t be pleased, and who isn’t worth pleasing.”
We like to critique art for not standing up to the test of time, but if you take on the impossible task of trying to be everything to everyone in every time, you’re likely to write something very bland that’s not meaningful to anyone in any time. If you want depth, then you have to write what you know. What’s interesting about JCO is the specifically American, 20th century problems she addresses.
“The novel is the affliction for which only the novel is the cure.”
If it’s in your head, you have to write it. Writing a novel is so hard, but you have to do it anyway.
“For what we can make of our own experiences, including even our ambivalent feelings about ourselves, is as legitimate a subject as any for fiction.”
You only have to look closely at the lives of a few famous writers to realize you don’t have to have yourself figured out in order to write about life. Thank goodness writing about perfect people is not the thing to do.
“I have to tell is the writer’s first thought; the second is how do I tell it? From our reading, we discover how various the solutions to these problems are; how stamped with an individual’s personality.”
The how do I tell it I find so hard. The scenes play in my head, the emotions are there too, but it just never goes down that smoothly. And, also, maybe I can stop worrying about all of my characters seeming so autobiographical. I can’t stand outside myself.
“Writers often have a very blurred conception of how their work is perceived by others, and what their work actually is.”
At the risk of sounding braggy and insecure, I’ll say that I have been praised for my writing for a long time and I have never understood why anyone likes it. To me, it is tight, but otherwise nothing special. I know that my style is simple and I like clear writing, but I usually cannot predict how people will react to my writing, my fiction least of all. More like, my fiction notatall.
“The more we are hurt, the more we seek solace in the imagination. Ironically, conversely, the more imaginative work we create in solitude, and publish, the more likely we are to be hurt by critical and public reaction to it; and so, again, we retreat into the imagination–assuring that more hurt will ensue.”
This depresses me and comforts me at the same time. When I get burned, I tend to retreat, but it fuels my imagination and motivates me to write. It’s easier to write with big feelings.
I’m talking most about fiction, which is what I find most difficult. [↩]
I have mentioned several times that I don’t read anymore. Which is strange, because I used to read constantly, obsessively. Of course, blah blah, I read all the time, because that’s the life of a grad student in the humanities, but reading for fun is different. I don’t lay down on my bed and read until I’m lost in another word. I sit at a desk with a pen in my hand and force myself to concentrate on every sentence, because if I don’t, I will reach the last page and then realize I have no idea what I just read.
I fell in love with reading when I was in middle school and we grew apart in my later years of college when I was working two jobs and trying to finish two majors. We haven’t been close since, despite several attempts on my part to reconnect.
The biggest problem was that I just fell out of the habit of reading. But, there are other reasons. I’m much busier than I used to be, but I also have a lot of other distractions. The internet chief among them. I’m always so annoyed to hear people complain about how we’re all instant-gratification junkies with no patience these days, but it’s true I have a much harder time sitting still than I used to. It’s embarrassing how much of my limited free time I waste by checking my email and twitter and youtube and every other time suck.
When I remove the distractions and sit down to read, I find my mind instantly flooded with everything. Things I need to do, things that are stressing me out, things I’ve been avoiding. And that’s another reason I don’t read anymore. I don’t want to think about all that stuff.
In recent months, I’ve tried to stop avoiding things. My schedule has become more structured, so that I don’t have to constantly feel like I should be doing something else. And, I’ve started reading again. I enjoy the quiet–not haunted by it. I have that old feeling I used to get when I read. I didn’t know I’d been missing it.
So far, I’ve mostly been reading non-fiction. Books of essays. But, I’ve begun to pile up all kinds of things to read. Working in a library makes that pretty easy. I don’t know that the habit will stick again. Reading competes for time with all of my other interests, but it’s funny how you find the time to do the things you want to do. And I want to read.
Lately I’ve been thinking about what it is I love so much about blogging. People get into it for all different reason and I don’t begrudge anyone their motivation. I think it’s silly to pretend anyone does anything for only one reason, especially one admirable reason. I love to write, yeah, but I also love the attention of having people read what I write. Blogging is so much like everything else where it’s just too much damn work to keep up if you don’t really love it. The blogosphere is a self-selecting group already, but then the people who don’t really want to be here are quickly weeded out. No wonder what’s left is so full of awesome.
What has kept me engaged for nearly two years now? The people is the easy answer and possibly the most accurate, but I think I’ve covered that thoroughly. There are other reasons and they all conspire to keep me up too late writing and distracted from the things that should probably fall higher on my priority list.
I am one of those people who will say that I hate to be the center of attention. That’s mostly true except when it’s completely false. There’s obviously this big part of me that wants to be known. Sometimes I feel like an exhibitionist, not just daring myself to see how honest I can be, but feeling unable to stop myself. I’ve also always said that I would hate to ever be famous. I couldn’t ever stand to talk about myself that much and I would just prefer to live my quiet little life. Except, please, I love to talk about myself. And when you open up, it turns out you get a lot back. Blogging gives me a safe place to expose myself one piece at a time, an opportunity to test the waters and and then cannon ball in.
People accuse bloggers of being self-important, because to write about your life seems to suggest it’s worth writing about and, they’ll say, “No one cares!“ The people who say things like that are usually the kind of people who are too busy criticizing others to ever manage to do anything for themselves. I know a lot of these people, and they place a higher value on being cool (cool is not quite the right word) than doing anything that might be worth criticizing. It does take a certain level of self-importance to blog, but it takes a certain level of self-importance to do anything but lay down and die. And, even then, how dare you call all that attention to yourself dying in such a dramatic fashion, making people buy black clothes and attend your funeral. I hope that living in a giant universe that is so many kajillion years old gives us enough perspective not to hurt other people or disregard their interests, but blogging gives me a place to take myself seriously, so that I can live more thoughtfully.
Blogging has also given me a place to take my interests seriously. Writing has been my thing for a long time and the people who know me best know how much I love to write, but I never defined myself so clearly as a writer until I started blogging. Now, it’s built right into the title of my blog and it finds its way into every About Me. Blogging has made me think differently about writing. It’s made it seem easier–less daunting–and like something I want to be serious about. Not just as that hobby on the side. Not a novel I spend my whole life writing and never finish. But, something I do every day. Novels I finish and maybe publish. Possibly a career. Maybe even art. Definitely a way of life.
Blogging has the dual effect of giving me a place to talk about what makes me distinct and allowing people to respond in a way that makes me feel less alone. I felt this most strongly when I first blogged about anxiety and later when I blogged about my debt. I like to pretend I’m never surprised by anything, but I was surprised at how good it felt to hear from other people that they understood and they had stories of their own.
Perhaps the most liberating thing about blogging is that my blog can be anything I want it to be. One of the reasons I started blogging in the first place was that I wanted a place to write informally. And while, honestly, the longer you blog and the more people start reading, the less free you feel, even that pressure has pushed me to places I never would have guessed I’d find so comfortable.
The effect blogging can have on a life is profound.
Listen, I’m feeling a little crazy. Maybe it’s a contact high from watching too much Weeds. Or, maybe if I really thought about it, I’d realize this feeling has almost become normal for me. It’s just that it doesn’t match the idea of myself I have in my head. The person I was for a really long time.
I’m not really crazy. It’s just that I used to be very sharp. Very on top of things. And I haven’t changed so fundamentally, but I have too much going now to remember every detail or to notice every little thing in the first place. Maybe the person I used to be was the crazy one. She knew every pair of shoes that everyone she encountered on a regular basis wore. She would obsessively check people’s license plates to be sure their tabs were updated. She saw everything and spent hours breaking it all apart. She too often knew what you were going to say before you said it.
Now I see people and can’t remember if I saw them a couple weeks ago or it’s been a year. People say things to me and I misunderstand them. I don’t have a clear read on what anyone in my life thinks of me. Time passes so quickly that it scares me. Sometimes I feel like there’s caffeine running through my veins when I downed my last cup of coffee 12 hours earlier. And I know it’s only a matter of time before I become one of those bloggers WHO’S ALWAYS WRITING IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE SMALL LETTERS JUST AREN’T BIG ENOUGH FOR EVERYTHING I’M FEELING!!!
It’s different this time. My mind isn’t racing. But, it’s full. Engaged in every direction. This is the exciting part about feeling crazy. I feel like I can take on the world. Well, maybe if I had a little more free time. There are just so many possibilities and I want to read everything and watch everything and write everything. And, yes, I am a little frustrated because ICH HABE KEINE FREIZEIT with two jobs on top of PhD studies, and I don’t know if that German is right, because I haven’t taken German in years, which reminds me that I need to study for my German language exam this Summer and French too.
So, I love my new job and I love my new classes and miracle of all miracles, I have somehow convinced my body that 6 hours of sleep is enough to get through 15 hour days. I am trying to be the more engaged student I want to be. I’m reading for fun. I’m watching all of my favorite shows over again on DVD. I’m thinking again about the novel I started for NaNoWriMo. And, I don’t know, I’m happy. Not perfect. I look like a hot mess and I’ve had a few down nights and irritating afternoons. But, I’m optimistic.
For the first time since I started blogging, I really don’t have enough time to write and once you get out of the habit, writing becomes more difficult. Blogging, especially, because the way I feel about writing blogs has so much to do with the way I feel about the blogging community and when I feel distant from it, I feel distant from my words as well. I’ve always intended on becoming one of those bloggers who blogs a couple times a week instead of every day, but what no one told me is that writing every day is easier.
So, I’m here. If maybe a little scattered. But, life isn’t running me over.
I have never asked you for anything but your undying love and support. Today, though, I need a favor for a blog friend of mine. Despite how big it may sometimes seem, the blogosphere is actually pretty small, so I’m sure most of you know Pham. He’s made it his personal mission to support me in everything and boost my confidence on the regular, so please help me repay him. Also, he already owes me a Blue Moon when we meet at VidCon in July, and I think maybe I can get another one out of him if this goes well.
Pham (John) and his friend Karen have applied to the Ford Fiesta Movement. If you’re not a YouTuber, then you might not know what that is. Basically, if accepted, they would get a Ford Fiesta to use for a year, while they go on a series of missions that will all be captured on video for our enjoyment. The videos that came out of the movement last year were amazing, and based on Pham’s vlogs, we can expect the same from him.
Here’s how you can help. 1) Watch this video (more than once, if you’re so inclined), 2) Click through to comment on the video and rate it 5 stars, 3) Take it to twitter and tell @fordfiesta that you want John and Karen as Fiesta agents. Or, you know just retweet my tweet. John and Karen need to get the attention of the Ford Fiesta Movement and show them they have a wide audience; watching the video and getting the word out is how you can support them.
If you don’t already follow Pham all over the internet, check out his blog, his vlogs, his 20sb profile, and his twitter. He’s also a nerdfighter, so you know he’ll never forget to be awesome. Check out Karen’s blog as well.
