Bryarly

The Great Gatsby

2013-05-22T13:33:00.000-04:00

I have never liked The Great Gatsby. It felt too pretentious to me, too wound up in its own bitterness, to really cling to my soul in the way I expect of a great book.

Though many of the reviews of the new film version have been negative, I have to say that I think this version has been more instrumental than any of the others - and, indeed, more instrumental than the book for me - in illustrating the point of The Great Gatsby. You could argue that there is more than one point. You would, of course, be right.

But for the purposes of today's blog post, the point of The Great Gatsby is the emptiness that comes hand in hand with ambitious pursuits. Daisy and Tom are, as Fitzgerald puts it, vastly careless people, and while Gatsby has more passion fueling him than do they (at least, on a surface level) I argue that he, too, is lacking of depth.

I think that Gatsby went after the money and Daisy and all the rest as a representation of fulfilment. Daisy became less a person than a symbol of the self Gatsby had slowly begun to lose, whether through simply loving her, as is suggested by the film, or through his many shady acquisitions. Though Fitzgerald himself seems mainly to be pulling apart the consumerism of the times generally, I think Gatsby is one of the most cautionary symbols I've ever seen in literature.

There he is, surrounded by all the desirable people in the world, in a mansion, with money and attention and glory coming out his ears, and yet he feels empty. Daisy's meant to fill this emptiness, but she's an idea, a treasure - not a solid, human thing.

I wondered why Daisy represented so much to Gatsby, and I think it's because she was the only thing that ever called his passion or his love. Everything else he'd ever done, every other goal he'd set, had been based on logic or possessive desire. He doesn't even care for his parents. Loving Daisy, whether genuinely or no, must have been the brightest thing that ever happened to him. So, as per his character, he sets out to try and lure and possess her as he has done everything else.

Before seeing the film, I'd never really related to Gatsby. I thought his obsession was foolish, and insane, and a bit creepy. I thought Daisy was vapid and not worthy of his focus, and I thought Nick and Jordan were sort of jerks. Tom...well, we won't get into Tom.

Gatsby has such powerful ambition, such burning, smoldering desire to be the best that ever was, that he can't let it go. He can't drop it, even as it pulls him further and further away from other people - including Daisy. Especially Daisy. It is his fervent desire to possess her as he's possessed everything else he ever wanted that finally turns her away. And I can't help but think how terribly, terribly lonely Gatsby is. Giving up a dream is like cutting out your soul, yet cleaving to the dream often tears relationships apart.

I had never found Gatsby sympathetic before. I find him so now.

What do you think?

Music
Almost Like Being in Love - Nat King Cole
La Vie en Rose - Louis Armstrong
Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words) - Frank Sinatra and Count Basie
Fever - Michael Bublé
I Didn't Know What Time It Was - Anita O'Day

Adjusting Problems

2013-05-21T00:38:00.000-04:00

I missed a meeting with my employer this morning.

Did I set an alarm? I did. Did I fail to notice that the alert I'd set wouldn't repeat? Yes. Yes, I also failed to notice that. I always set at least 2 alarms so I can have a few minutes to lie in bed and unscramble my brain - unfortunately, missing the second alarm this morning meant that I just fell back asleep. Damn.

On the upside, what this does is teach me something about the way I work. I know it's corny as hell to go, "I learned from that! Yay!" but in this case I've got to think it's true.

This isn't the first time that I've missed something early in the morning (thankfully, never more than once for the same people. It's too mortifying). It is, however, the first time I've thought, Gee, maybe I shouldn't schedule things for the morning. Before today, I'd just assumed that I would have to get better at waking up early - and I have tried, believe me.

Since becoming an early bird doesn't seem to be something that's really developing, I'm going to opt instead for changing important things to the afternoon. I don't want to develop a reputation for missing things, but I also don't have 100% certainty that I'll be able to successfully wake up early. Rather than battle both problems at once, I'll eliminate the first.

It's always a weird moment when you realize that you can improve your life by changing your reactions to things rather than fighting against them. It doesn't seem intuitive, somehow. We've grown up with this idea that the only way to live comfortably is to change our environment to suit us. Even if it wasn't said explicitly, the evidence is all around us. For starters, I'm willing to bet that you have at least one set of clothes.

My first inclination is to think, "Well, we have to change some things," but I have to question it. Rather than flattening forests so we can build buildings and farmland, could we work with the natural flora somehow? My fellow humans are so creative I have to think we can.

Other things are on a much smaller scale - like my waking problem, for instance. When problems keep cropping up in your life, rather than going, "I wish I was different," whether it's in relation to your emotional or physical self, try to think of how you can work around it. I am bad at waking up early, so I'm going to try and make sure that only unimportant things are scheduled for the morning.

What are some of your problems? How do you think you can solve them? There are enough people commenting here that I think other people might be able to give you another perspective or suggestion - it would be awesome to have a good discussion here!

Music
My Body - Young the Giant
Where Is My Love - Cat Power
1985 - Bowling for Soup

Questionnaire

2013-05-18T02:40:00.002-04:00

Good morning. Why do I say morning? Because it's 2am where I am. Why am I awake at 2am, you ask? Because the video that was meant to go up Friday afternoon took a colossally unexpected amount of time, and I am currently waiting for it to export so I can upload it. I've lost track of how many times Premiere Pro has crashed.

WHEE.

In the interest of giving you guys a l'il content, I'm going to do a survey. It serves the dual purpose of not taxing my overwrought brain very hard.

1. Sexual Orientation
- Straight, but I'm probably a 1 or 2 on the Kinsey scale.

2. What I'm really bad at.
- Portal. First-person perspective games always make me nauseous.

3. My Best First Date
- Though it wasn't technically a date, my first serious boyfriend and I spent 28 straight hours talking to each other the first time we hung out together.

4. A description of my self-esteem.
- Bangarang.

5. My favorite book.
- These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner or The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

6. What I did yesterday.
- I woke up, I filmed, and I edited.

7. Biggest turn-offs.
- Mouth sounds, body odor, leaning over me while talking, using smiley faces when correcting others, and using terms of endearment with strangers.

8. My favorite animal.
- I'm not sure I have one. At the moment let's say octopus.

9. My favorite songs right now.
- I Have Stopped Thinking About You by Tango Apple Tango.

10. How my last kiss went down.
- Well.

11. What I find attractive in the preferred sex.
- Intelligence, a sense of humor, nice eyes, an adventurous personality.

12. All of the pets I've ever had.
- Dolly (dog), ChuChu (dog), Rascal (dog), Tilly (dog), a few fish, Candle being the most important, and a parakeet.

13. Favorite flavor of ice cream.
- Chocolate chip cookie dough or mint chocolate chip.

14. The one place I want to be right now.
- Some sort of island getaway.

15. Where I have lived before.
- Georgia, South Carolina, Wales, England.

16. Most embarrassing moment.
- On Senior Day in high school I wore a mini-skirt that was meant to be super attractive...but when I fell down the stairs and it flew up to my waist, it became more mortifying than anything else.

17. Two of my insecurities.
- My height and whether I'm "good enough" to achieve in the areas I want to.

18. What I would do if I won the lottery.
- Go to graduate school, help my family members get where they wanted to go, buy a nice guitar and some real estate in major cities.

19. What I love most about myself.
- My determination and creativity.

20. What bands I've seen live.
- All-American Rejects, the Artichokes, Regina Spektor, Ben Folds Five.

21. How many kids I want in the future.
- Zero.

22. My idea of a perfect date.
- Something exciting and fun - preferably ending with ice cream.

23. Where I would like to live.
- Paris.

24. My biggest worry currently.
- Paying for graduate school.

25. What my last text message says.
- No problem!

There you go, kiddos - a little insight into my brain at twenty to 3am. I want to be asleep, but I'm not. I have already cleaned my room and gotten (mostly) ready for bed, so hopefully I'll be able to get there soon! (That being said, my computer just died again, so WHO KNOWS). Hope you're all better rested than I am : )

The Dark Side of Heroes

2013-05-15T10:28:00.000-04:00

I just started reading the book, "Lies My Teacher Told Me," by James W. Loewen. It's sort of a history exposé, telling first the stories you've heard about various historical figures (Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller, and Christopher Columbus in the first 2 chapters alone) and then the truth - or, at the very least, a more varied and colorful background than the one you've probably gotten from a history class.

Personally, I've always found history fascinating. It's been one of my favorite subjects since elementary school - I love learning how things work, and history is an incredible story of the way the world has come to be what it is. When you really start getting into it you begin to see patterns, until the symptoms of a failing civilization are as obvious those of a cold and you're like, "Yup, Rome's defo gonna fall in like 100 years, tops." And then it does. Which is really cool. What I've always found shocking is that people don't seem to learn the lessons of history. Maybe it's because, as Loewen says, most students find history boring and don't really engage. But when I see revolution after revolution occurring over thousands of years because the rich got too rich and the poor got too poor, I look at the increased stratification of today's society and think, "If something doesn't change, we're going to have some serious trouble on our hands."

Much as I'd love to drone on and on about social change, I a) am frightened of crazy social justice bloggers and b) have something else to talk about.

One of the topics Loewen returns to again and again in the first chapter (remember, this is a book I'm in the process of reading) is heroification. He points out that both Wilson and Keller have incredibly colourful backgrounds that are, to a large extent, covered up by most history classroom textbooks. For a start, Wilson was racist (very) and Keller was socialist (very). As both of those things are frowned upon by society - to varying extents and justification, depending on which and where - books seem to wipe the pair clean of these traits. The idea is, I guess, to make it easy for kids to look up to them, as well as to speak respectfully of the dead.

Loewen points out that this tendency turns real people with real problems into one-dimensional objects that are often so goody-goody or evil as to be boring. People like things to be easy, to have categories, and to go, "This is this and that is that," and then leave it. But life is so very, very grey that doing so really takes a lot of the beauty and complexity away from it. Stripping heroes of their flaws and bad guys of their virtues makes for a flat, uninteresting world with no more depth of thought than a cup of milk.

Personally, I respect people more when I know their good and bad points. It takes them from a character to a living, breathing person - someone I can relate to one way or another. To use the favorite extreme example, Adolf Hitler. His best-known deeds are evil, and heinous, and condemning. I will never go against that. But he was also an artist, and a vegetarian. He liked Donald Duck. He was charismatic, compassionate, and compelling - and, as we've seen, not to a good end.

I'm not saying that a love of Disney or a decision not to eat meat made Hitler a good person. Obviously. But it does make him more interesting, and for me, at least, prompts the question of why he felt the way he did about Jews as well as other minorities, why he went to the lengths he did, why he ended up where he was. If he's straight-up evil, then who cares? He's just evil. That's that. But if he's a person, ah - how much more there could be behind the infamous moustache/combover combo. What influences were there to make him go the way he did? Could those factors cause something similar to happen to someone in the future? What can we learn from him to avoid repeating his actions?

There is a blog on Tumblr devoted to ripping apart people's heroes. As far as I know, they've done it to John Green and Laci Green as well as countless others. My first instinct is to dislike them heartily for taking such vindictive joy in it as they do. My more reasoned thought is that, yes, we should know our idols' darker sides. Yet, still with that, I don't think of it as a reason to destroy your affection or admiration for that person. They seem to think that if anyone has ever done anything wrong/offensive/harmful that they are beyond help, and should be condemned in their entirety for a handful of actions or words, even if their viewpoints have changed.

I disagree.

There has never been a perfect person. Ever. He or she has never existed, does not exist, and never will exist. We humans are inherently flawed - it's our greatest, yet most terrible trait. If I hold out for a perfect individual to admire, I will be waiting until the end of time. Since that's the case, I prefer to go for two things: characteristics and personal growth.

I admire Dorothy Parker for her wit and her defiance of the patriarchy - but she was an alcoholic. Hedy Lamar was an actress and mathematician whose inventions helped make the Internet possible - but she shoplifted and indiscriminately sued her multiple ex-husbands. When I think of great filmmakers, I think of Alfred Hitchcock - but he was horrible to his actors, sexist, and occasionally a stalker. As an example of personal growth, Gandhi beat his wife before he became more enlightened and embarked on his campaign of non-violence.

Allowing your admiration of someone to wane because their humanity is revealed is simply immature thinking. Instead of turning away in hurt and disgust, or even worse, joining in the vilification, use what you've learned to broaden your understanding of the person. Forcing people into GOOD or EVIL categories is childish and inaccurate, instinctual as it may be. You can accept that everyone has good and bad in them and use it to understand the world better, to see more clearly, or you can categorically refuse it and watch as every hero you've built of half-truths and dreams crumbles under the harsh light of reality.

Who are your heroes? Is there any fault you couldn't forgive of one? What characteristics do you look for in someone you admire?

Music
Now You're Gone - Basshunter
You Raise Me Up - Josh Groban
All of You - Billie Holiday
Colorblind - Counting Crows
Wheels - Cake
Heartless - Kanye West
This Magic Moment - Ben E. King
20th Century Towers - Death Cab for Cutie
Say It Ain't So - Weezer

The Oblivion Veil

2013-05-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

I am really oblivious a lot of the time.

My lack of awareness is something I've always been aware of, illogical as that is. It's not really a problem most of the time - at least, I don't think it is - but a recent instance made me wonder if I might be underestimating its detriment to my well-being.

This is going to sound weird.

In a fit of determination to not be achingly lonely where I am, I decided to look up old friends on Facebook and see if they'd be game to meet up and be friends again. I am not a subtle bunny.

One of the girls I want to talk to, Sandy, was nowhere to be found. Determined to find and befriend her, I opened up my old yearbook to double check her last name. I found it, searched it, and again failed. But in the process of looking for Sandy, I got distracted by the signatures covering the front and back covers of my yearbook.

This particular yearbook, the only one from high school that I could find, was from 2005-2006, my sophomore year. That year isn't particularly memorable for me. I'd just switched schools and felt awkward, unpopular, and uncomfortable. Because I'd transferred, I wasn't allowed to be on any sports teams for a year, which, after 3 steady years of sports, felt extremely strange. Also I had braces.

If pressed to pull them up, some of my memories of sophomore year include a fairly tragic biology class, outrageously boring lunch hours, and a play in which I was cast (yet again) as the young ingenue. So, yeah, not the best of years. I didn't think I was pretty, or smart, or liked. None of it. I wasn't in despair or anything, but I do remember feeling sort of bored and lonely and out of place. If you asked me what I remembered of the people who'd signed my yearbook, I would've said that not many people did and that I had to get teachers to sign it to fill up the empty spaces.

What I found in this book was not that at all.

Sure, there were a couple of stupid HAGS signature, or KATS for the daring, but most of them were ridiculously nice. Stuff like, "You're so talented!" or "You're such a great student!" I don't say this to brag, but to illustrate how different my perception of reality was versus what people actually thought. At least four people left their phone numbers, but I never called them, because I figured they were just being nice.

I'm startled, and touched, and half-saddened and half-smiling at the memories of my younger self. She seems like the naive little sister I never had (my sister is very worldly.) I want to take my younger self into my arms and say, "Shh. It's okay, dude. You really are nice. You really are smart. You really are good at the things you want to be good at. It's okay! And you know what? People really do like you! So chill out and enjoy it. It really is okay."

I'm struck by the similarity between my 14/15 year old self and my current 22-year old self. As you know, I've been worrying lately about where I'm going and what I'm good at and whether I should just focus already. Whether I'm good enough, or hard-working enough, or whether people like me enough. I started wondering, "If I was out of it when I was 15, am I out of it now, too? Has this oblivion veil of mine kept me from the truth once again?"

While I can't 100% believe that it has, I'm hopeful that now, as then, I'm just being insecure and turning too far inward when I should be turned outward to meet the people who want to meet me.

Who were you when you were younger? Are there any similarities between then and now?

I'm thinking of making a video on this topic. What do you guys think?

Music
Slide - The Goo Goo Dolls
Shake It - Metro Station
I Wonder Why - Dion and the Belmonts
Homeward Bound - Simon & Garfunkel
I Wish - The Secret Handshake
We Looked Like Giants - Death Cab for Cutie

Fixing A Hole

2013-05-10T18:23:00.001-04:00

Some days are harder than others. This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, but when these bad days crop up, what are we meant to do with them? Do we roll over, play dead, hope they'll go away if we just keep our eyes closed long enough? Or do we have ourselves a struggle of which Sisyphus himself would be proud?

Today was such a day for me, and I'm not sure I comported myself with the heroism I'd prefer. I woke up still feeling kind of ill from the sick day I had yesterday, with a pile of work in front of me...and with a headache to boot. It was not the kind of day that inspires euphoria - or even contentedness. It was the sort of day that led me to later tweet, "I feel old."

What I mean is that my soul is tired. There are so many things I've wanted to do with my life that I haven't achieved, and so many goals yet to reach that seem unreachable. Everywhere I turn there's someone younger doing what I do better. I want to be one of those people, one of the inspiring sorts who impress people without ever having to meet them. I want to be the best - much as I have railed against it before.

When this feeling hits you, it's hard to see the point of doing anything. I've missed that, you think, I can never do that now. Who would want me? I'm 22, and I already feel like I've missed my golden window of opportunity. It seems like everyone is younger, or smarter, or more talented, or prettier, or harder-working. I know that's got to be inaccurate, logically speaking, but it's a fear that I can't shake.

In the interest of improving my mental space, I bought myself some stickers. A lot of stickers, actually - and I'm hoping that by combining them with a calendar I'll be able to attach incentives to what I do beyond just doing the thing. Maybe a string of sparkly hearts will be more inspiring than vague memories of working a lot towards a goal and not having it yet. I'm impatient, I'll admit it. But I'm also motivated by little pieces of sticky plastic, and if I can use the one to counteract the effects of the other, I will.

Sometimes when I'm feeling down on myself in this way, I look over my CV and go, OK, I'm not there yet, but I've done a pretty decent amount for where I am. If I can keep these sad, rainy days from putting out my fire completely, I still hope and believe that I'll get where I want to go. Most of the time, the feeling of failure (or impending doom) stays off in its cage. But on days like today, when it's out and prowling around and ready to throw me to the floor and squash me, I need a little something to protect myself.

I've found that motivation that comes from within is the best kind. Friends and family are great, but they can't always convince you of things you need to know. Their compliments don't always feel genuine, and their belief isn't much use unless it helps bolster yours - and when yours is nonexistent, they sort of flop onto you limply. When I'm feeling washed up, I try to find ways to encourage myself that don't rely on anyone else's opinion. If it's something I can recognize as a truth, it's a lot harder to shake than someone else's view.

What do you do to encourage yourself? What gets you down, and how do you overcome it?

Music
Flowers - Regina Spektor
The Bluebells of Scotland - The Corries
Would You Like to Learn to Dance? - Steve Goodman
April Come She Will - Simon & Garfunkel

What's In A Friend?

2013-05-08T22:58:00.000-04:00

For some reason - and I'm not sure why - I've never been the best at keeping friends for a long time. It's not an intentional thing, really. It's a combination of that tendency to look at new things more than cherish things I already have, and the simple fact that I've moved around a fair amount.

I skipped a grade in elementary school.
I went to two different middle schools.
And two different high schools.
I studied abroad in college.
After college I spent 5 months in Atlanta, then 5 months in another country, and am now back in Atlanta.

A few of my friends are pretty low-maintenance and are entirely satisfied with a few hangout sessions every year or so, or a few messages every few months. Enough to know I'm alive, enough to know that I'm thinking about them. These friends are great for me - as long as I remember to keep up this fairly low-key maintenance, I know that our friendship can pick right back up where it left off when we come back in touch with each other. One such friend is a guy named Brian whom I first met when I was 14. We're not tight friends, but we've known each other a long time.

If I'm honest, the friends I've had for the longest, consistently, are friends that started out as light friends and grew deeper over time. Some of my college friends are this way. We knew of each other's existence, or we hung out when other people invited both of us to the same parties, but for the most part we weren't that close. My friend Andrew was that way until my Junior year, when we lived next door to each other and struck up a friendship based on puppies and working out. I know count Andrew among my closest friends.

One of the greatest joys I've garnered from online friendships is the fact that they are built and sustained entirely at a distance. It doesn't matter where I go, or for how long - time distances excluded - we are definitely, without a doubt, friends.

And, sure, long distance friendship has its drawbacks. There's no way to comfort said friends from a distance when something terrible happens. For example, my friend Kassie (who also makes videos that you should definitely watch HERE) lives in Boston, and after the bombings she spent a lot of time comforting friends who were in the attack or who had been directly affected by it. As far away as I am, I struggled with what I could do for her. I may have long arms, but they can't go all the way from Atlanta to Boston.

Different people have different ideas about what friendship means. Unfortunately, mine is pretty darn wobbly. So wobbly, in fact, I'm not sure it's helpful. In a nutshell...I think friendship is whatever you need it to be. Some people just need someone else around who will physically be there when they don't want to be alone. Others want a deep personal connection, someone to bounce feelings off of, someone who will cuddle them when they're sad and act as part therapist, part sibling, and part teddy bear. Still others want party partners.

If I had to give you a hard-line strict definition, I'd say that friendship is the love, support and friendship you'd want from the best possible 1950s-style family from people who have no obligation to you at all. Family members are related to you; evolution makes them want to take care of you. Boyfriends/girlfriends are influenced by their brain chemicals. But friendship? Friendship is chosen.

How would you guys define friendship? Who are the best friends you've ever had?

Music
Ventura Highway - America
Good Girls Go Bad - Cobra Starship
Novacane - Frank Ocean

Self-Support System

2013-05-06T10:24:00.002-04:00

Do you have a characteristic that you simultaneously think is awesome and...potentially a bit of a problem?

For me, it's my independence.

If there's one thing I hate, it's someone or something trying to infringe on my freedom. I don't mean freedom in the rah-rah-go-America type way, I mean it in the old school free-will kind of way. It doesn't matter if it's my appearance, my interests or my aspirations - if someone tries to cramp any of them, I can feel the blood in my bones start to boil.

A few people have messaged me and asked how I can "by myself." I've never been able to answer the question - I've tried to be someone other than who I am a few times, and to me it's nigh impossible. It's like wearing someone else's skin; the mere thought is repugnant. There are times where I think it would be less difficult to be someone else. Someone who doesn't want to dye their hair, or pierce their ears any place but the lobes. Someone who studied something the more conservative people I know would recognize as something worthwhile - accounting, maybe. Someone who would never dream of making videos anywhere, let alone the internet.

Still, I am who I am. The idea of changing to suit other people when I like me and like what I do and where I want to go just seems silly. No one will be present my entire life but me, and if I can only please one person, it might as well be myself.

I know that for some people, turning me away from my goals is their method of trying to protect me or make life easier for me. I'm not pursuing the "regular" path, and it scares them. I understand that. That being said, it scares me more to do anything else - and, seeing as it's my life, surely assuaging my own fears is more important than soothing theirs.

On Tumblr I re-blogged an image of a woman saying something like, "Other people's problems with me are not my problems, they're their problems." It's a bit harsh, if you think about it, but I think it's true. I very rarely (if ever) try to antagonize anyone, but trying to squish myself into everyone else's mold so they feel more comfortable is never going to work. There are people in my life who do like and accept me as I am and support me doing what I want to do. I'm incredibly lucky to have them and feel grateful for them on a daily basis. Then there are the others.

Can you see the dilemma?

This independent streak of mine - I say streak, it's more like a broad swath - keeps me determined to be my own person and go my own way. I love it for that. However, it can be hard on my relationships with people who can't (or won't) accept or support me for who I am. They'd sleep easier if I were someone else, and I'd sleep easier knowing we liked each other. But, since I care more about liking myself than them liking me, and I care more about my goals than their goals for me, these people and I often clash. It's uncomfortable, but it's unavoidable.

Frankly, I don't know why other people insist on trying to change others unless the person in question is harming them or the people they care about, or themselves. And if you aren't dead sure they're harming themselves - like, if they pull a Steve Martin and live in their car for a few years - then you still have no right to change them.

Do you have any characteristics like this? How do you get along with people? Who supports you?

Music
Stranger Passing By - Michael Chapman
Like A Sad Song - John Denver
Ev'ry Time (When We Are Gone) - The Ludlows
Blowin' in the Wind - Peter, Paul and Mary
Dream A Little Dream of Me - Mama Cass Elliot
Time of No Reply - Nick Drake

Break These Emotions Down

2013-05-03T12:00:00.000-04:00

Wednesday was all about the way infinite choice may or may not result in weaker emotions and, as a consequence, emotional ties. Today is all about letting go of emotions.

I KNOW. I'M AN ENIGMA.

Though I may not have the strongest ties of anyone I know, or the highest passions, I do have my moments of intense emotional reactions. Some strong emotions are nice to hold onto - the most notable is, I argue, that feeling of infatuation you get when you're first in love. It's like floating on a cloud; you feel you could jump off a roof and fly. Gravity hasn't a hold on you, sadness can't touch you, and if you have any quibble at all it's that your cheeks hurt from smiling so hard. That feeling is awesome. It rocks. It's the best natural high I've ever experienced, and if it were possible I'd live in it constantly.

There are other feelings that I'm not quite so desirous of maintaining, however. Leaving aside the obvious- heartbreak - two feelings that I don't think I could constantly handle are 1) perfect happiness and 2) anger.

When I say perfect happiness, I mean happiness so bright it hurts. The first time I remember feeling this, I'd gotten an email at 1 'o clock in the morning telling me that I'd been awarded the scholarship I needed to study abroad. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to go and, as a consequence, wouldn't have been able to graduate. I'd worked on it for months, and I was so happy to get it I cried. I called everyone I could think of who might be awake, I jumped around my room, and I could feel my skin blistering at the shining joy within me. It was a great feeling, don't get me wrong. But sustainable? Containable? Not so much.

Anger might be a little easier to understand. This might surprise you (or not, I don't know) but I have a horrible temper. Like, really bad. I've only struck someone out of temper once (I was 9 and she stole my kickball), but my anger meter goes from 0-100 in less than a second, and I spent most of my childhood and early adolescence learning how to control it so I'd stop coming across as such a bristly, know-it-all jerk. It's not gone, it's not fixed, but now, instead of immediately lashing out, I hold it in and go do something else until I feel better. When I was 16, I just walked in circles at a track near my house until I felt more able to deal with other people. Anger is hard, hard HARD to let go of. It feels powerful in a way that nothing else does; you feel like, if you just learned the trick of it, you could actually point a finger at whatever had offended you and watch it blaze to ashes in the force of your anger. It's heady, but it is not useful, and it's not something you want to feel for an extended period of time.

When you're a passionate person, or even just when you're struck with a strong emotion from nowhere, it can be hard to know how to handle it. One of the best things to do is to remember that it will pass. Feelings crash against your soul like waves on a shore; they may knock you over and tear you up a bit, but they'll always fall back eventually. (Of course, there are some behind them, but let's not worry about that now.)

If you can do something constructive about the feeling, do that. Any emotion can be put into art - pick an art form and go to town. You don't have to be a writer, or a painter, or a songwriter or anything else, and you don't have to show it to anyone. You can tear up pictures of your ex and glue them to a shoebox and then set the shoebox on fire. Art. Why not?

If you can't do anything constructive about your feelings, then to a certain extent you can get rid of them by talking to people about it. If you're sad, you can tell your friends why and get their opinions and comfort. Most people will only put up with this for so long, so try to catch cues to leave them alone if you can. If you're angry with someone for something they've done and can't change, however, talking to them won't help. They'll get angry and you'll wind yourself up because the thing that upset you isn't getting fixed - but it can't be fixed, because it's in the past, and they can't fix it beyond apologizing. Belaboring the point only makes both of you more resentful.

It may seem hypocritical of me to mourn the loss of strong feelings and then turn around and tell you to get rid of yours, but I hope you can see the difference. It's all about what you want. If you want stronger emotions, what can you do to create them? If you don't want them, how can you relieve yourself?

What emotions do you feel most strongly? What do you do to get rid of them?

Music

Je Veux Te Voire - Yelle

Viva la Vida - Coldplay

Photobooth - Death Cab for Cutie

All These Things That I've Done - The Killers

Lost in Choice

2013-05-01T20:08:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, my friend Jonathan told me that people in my generation are always on about the next thing, like "Oh, I'm bored now," and are superficial and impatient. Since I don't think I'm that way, I mainly brushed it off. Then, while I was driving home from work yesterday, I heard an ad on NPR asking people to donate so the station can continue. Now, don't get me wrong, I really like NPR and WABE Atlanta, but my first thought wasn't, "Gee, I guess they're in trouble," or "Oh man, I should definitely donate!" it was, "Huh. I can probably find a new radio station."

That thought was unexpected, and, along with Jonathan's note (which had been bouncing around my skull), it made me recognize something I never had before.

We have too many things.

It could just be me, but I find that I don't get very attached to friends, or places, or objects, or media I enjoy, or even relationships. Sure, I'm sad when things don't work out and my amount of the particular thing I like decreases or disappears entirely, but I never lose track of knowing that I could find something new. My options are limitless. Lost a friend? Well, there are 7 billion+ people in the world. I can find a new one. Moving? I was fine here, I'll probably be fine there. No more Community? There are other shows.

For the most part, I don't find this a problem. It keeps me from being disappointed on a regular basis as the world around me changes, but it does make me wonder if it keeps me from reaching the kind of depth of passion that seems to spring, unbidden, from literature or music in previous decades. I would never have come up with this line from Cyrano de Bergerac:

"Your name is like a golden bell

Hung in my heart; and when I think of you,

I tremble, and the bell swings and rings -"

I love the line, and a certain part of me yearns for that emotion...but I don't know that I've felt it myself. Love, sure (at least, I think so) but a swinging golden heart? It could be that I lack the poetry of soul required, but I rather think that it's more a strength of feeling.

Maybe it's that our world - at least, in the US and other developed countries - is too safe. There's little chance of your favorite people, things, or places being swept away by sudden catastrophe, so I think we as a culture fail to appreciate them regularly. That lack of gratitude translates to a shallowness of emotion that I find somewhat (of course somewhat) depressing.

Of course, in my life, I've been picked up and clung to by strong emotions. I've felt as though I was physically stabbed by heartbreak, I've cried from happiness, and I've grown nauseous with fear. This only happens suddenly, though, typically as a result of a shock. Anything longterm is much duller, and I have to wonder - would it be sharper if I knew there wasn't anything to replace what I've lost?

Family members are irreplaceable by the simple truth of their genetic similarity. Having lost 3/4 grandparents, I can safely say that at no point was I comforted by the thought, "Well, I can just grow a new grandma." It's impossible. Once your family's gone, that's kind of it. But with a friend - and I promise I'm not being callous, I know how much it sucks to lose a friend - you can pretty much always find a new one. If your favorite author dies - and I was thoroughly depressed when Diana Wynne Jones passed away - you can reread their books, and/or...you can find a new favorite author.

If there were fewer choices, fewer distractions, would we cling harder to the things that thrill our hearts? I wonder sometimes if people would have fewer questions about relationships if they could only choose between 3 people, and didn't like 2 of them. Would that security breed passion? Without completely abandoning my current life, I don't know how I can find out.

What do you think? What creates your strongest emotions? Do our options ruin our choices?

Music

Across the Wide Missouri - The Kingston Trio

As You Turn to Go - Stephin Merritt

Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel

My Opening Farewell - Jackson Browne

Hush-A-Bye - Peter, Paul and Mary

Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels) - Jim Croce

She's Always A Woman - Billy Joel

May Challenge

2013-04-29T21:00:00.000-04:00

(To those of you who are reading my blog for the first time, hello! For you old hands, welcome back, you sexy things, you.)

In case you haven't seen the video, I've just started a crazy thing on YouTube. My friend Scott, himself a brilliant video maker with nerves steely enough to jump - literally - across rooftops in Cambridge, has challenged me to make a video three times a week every week for the month of May. Not one to turn down a challenge, I agreed.

I'm insane.

Well - that was my first thought.

What I'm thinking now that I've actually thought about it at length - you know, sat down and puzzled it out with a pen and paper - is that a challenge would be good for me. When I was younger, I was constantly pushing myself to work harder, whether it was a school thing or a just-for-fun thing. That slacked off a bit in college for various reasons, and since graduation my path has been so wobbly that (frankly) just getting up and moving is a bit of a challenge on some days. I've been doing my best not to let it get me down too much, and at the beginning of this month tried to get myself in the habit of doing 3 blog posts and 2 comics a week. That's been going pretty well, and it's given me something to work towards. Not to mention be proud of. I'm hoping that this video focus will give me the same satisfaction.

I've known a lot of people who shy away from challenges. Some are just plain lazy, and some seem frightened of the amount of work they might be taking on. I don't think that I'm necessarily harder-working or braver than these people...but I might say I'm more reckless. When there's something I want to do, I sort of just go for it and cross my fingers that it turns out well. This attitude has served me well in the past (if not consistently). I remain reasonably confident that allowing it to continue to lead me will make my life better.

Challenges are more fun than just standard activities to me. They fire me up and bring out my better qualities. At least, I've always thought so. Like anything else, it can reach a point where it's no longer beneficial, but for the most part I'm in favor. Challenges never fail to hold your attention, nor do they disappoint you by stealing your satisfaction for a job well done at their end - as some easier tasks do.

Aside from the regular blog/comic scheduling, I haven't done a challenge like this before. Creative challenges have different rules from others - if I can't think of a video to make, I'm sort of sunk. There are days where you just push through, of course, and, as they seem to make someone stronger, I'm all for them.

It sounds weird, but, as I said in my video, I view creativity as a muscle. I'm hoping that consistently working it will improve my content in the long run, even if it takes a dip initially as I'm getting used to things (I would prefer, of course, for no dip to happen at all.)

How do you guys feel about challenges? Yea? Nay? What's your favorite kind - physical, mental, or creative?

Music
Doctor My Eyes - Jackson Browne
Angel in the Night - Basshunter
Now You're Gone - Basshunter

The Friend Crush

2013-04-26T23:39:00.001-04:00

One of the weirdest things that's come out of the Internet - or, no, let's say amplified by it - is a weird longing not unlike a crush in its intensity, but it's entirely (or mostly, anyway) platonic. It is the FRIEND CRUSH.

The FRIEND CRUSH occurs when you find someone you think is cool - often online - but that you don't actually know. It might begin with enjoying their content, then escalate as you consume more of it, and culminate in a fit of despair that you'll never, ever, ever be friends, or turn into an unhealthy and disturbing number of messages to them through any and all forms of online communication. Of course, there's a chance that you'd take a calmer route. Maybe you stop at, "They're cool, we should talk," and you send them a message on Tumblr or something. As a self-confessed FRIEND CRUSH'er myself, I do have to say that I've never really gone past the calm stage.

Now, that being said, that doesn't mean that my desire to be friends with the person stops. No, it doesn't erupt into a column of unbridled, fiery affection, but it does kind of hang around, and every now and again I watch one of the object of my interest's videos, or hear their music, or hear them mentioned, and go, "Oh, yeah, I wanna be friends with that person."

For me, the awkward comes in with my tendency to make friends with dudes. The vast majority of my friends are guys - it's been like that since high school. They're good friends, and I love hanging out with them, but unfortunately my familiarity with ma bros means that I more often get my FRIEND CRUSH on a guy than a girl. And you can imagine (I'm sure) what kind of trouble that can cause. If you're dating someone, it comes across as having a wandering eye. If you're not dating someone, it just comes across as a bit creepy. Either way, not the best way to work. Not really an A-Game. And, of course, explaining that means you've thought too much about it and oh god now you're being one of the weird ones who obsess over them but you genuinely don't and you didn't mean it and craponastickwaffle.

There is no way to not be creepy when messaging someone with the express purpose of becoming friends with them. Sorry, kids, there's just not. You can tone down the creepiness with the right phrasing, but at the end of the day you're still a stranger hoping for a close personal relationship with another stranger, hoping that one day the two of you will watch stupid movies and eat pizza and maybe go on random roadtrips at 2 in the morning. That is a whole fantasy that you have, going in, and the other person was just checking their damn email. Even if you coat it in cool and chill it for an hour, it's still gonna be weird. Sorry, dude. Believe me, I feel your pain.

The FRIEND CRUSH of comes in a variety of flavors which can be combined to any extent.

The Genuine: You really, sincerely, just wanna be friends with this person. They seem cool, you're pretty cool yourself, they like what you like, and you honest-to-god just want to hang out with them.

The Almost-A-Crush: You really, sincerely wanna be friends with this person...unless they want to be more than friends with you. In which case, you know, you're totally down.

The Artist Crush: Whether they're a filmmaker, musician, artist, writer, whatever, they do the thing that you do and they do it so well you just wanna make sweet, sweet content with them all night long.

The Actually-A-Crush: Yeah, you'd take friendship. But what you want involves significantly less clothing.

The Hero: If they'd just condescend to be friends with you you'd walk on air. They would fight your bullies, and stand up to your parents, and probably help you with work! And you would worship them all the time; you'd be the best friend ever. Whatever they wanted, you'd help with. In exchange for just being around them.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of advice for those of you suffering from a friend crush. I myself currently have at least one Genuine, and definitely one Artist crush in my back pocket at this very moment. If I knew how to be friends with all the people I want to be friends with, I'd have way more people to hang out with than I currently do (read: three. Three people. They're awesome). To be frank, I've never known how to make friends with the people I wanted to be friends with. Not only am I incredibly bad at pretending to be anything other than what I am in order to gain other people's approval, but I am also extremely bad at prioritizing social things instead of, you know, making things.

Who's your friend crush? Did I miss a category?

Music
Strong As An Oak - Watsky
Fourth of July (Feat. Radicalface) - Astronautilus
Revenge of the Number - Portishead
Save Me - Jem
2 Wicky - Hooverphonic
Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz
Color Lines - Watsky

A MOVIE SURVEY

2013-04-24T14:00:00.000-04:00

Your favorite movie: Harold and Maude

The last movie you watched : Men in Black II

Your favorite action/adventure movie(s) : Pirates of the Caribbean, Oceans 11, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, La Femme Nikita

Your favorite horror movie : The Shining.

Your favorite drama movie : Atonement and Citizen Kane.

Your favorite comedy movie: Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Blazing Saddles, A Fish Named Wanda, I Served the King of England, Some Like It Hot

A movie that makes you happy: Spirited Away, Harold and Maude.

A movie that makes you sad: Atonement, The Notebook, Séraphine

A movie that you know practically the whole script of: Beauty and the Beast.

Your favorite director: Joe Wright, Peter Jackson, Hiyao Miyazaki, Jean-Luc Godard, Cédric Klapisch, Edgar Wright, John Cleese.

Your favorite movie from your childhood: Ferngully, Beauty and the Beast.

Your favorite animated movie: Spirited Away or Beauty and the Beast.

A movie that you used to hate but now love: Those emotions are a bit strong, but let's go with Austin Powers.

Your favorite quote from any movie: "You despise me, don't you? If I gave you any thought, I probably would." -Casablanca

The first movie you saw in theaters: Aladdin, maybe? I don't remember.

The last movie you saw in theaters: Skyfall, I think.

The best movie you saw during the last year: A Fish Called Wanda

A movie that disappointed you the most: Paranorman

Your favorite actor(s): Johnny Depp, James McAvoy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Robin Williams, Gérard Depardieux

Your favorite actress(es): Audrey Tautou, Yolande Moreau, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson

The most overrated movie: 300

The most underrated movie: World's Greatest Dad. I was sobbing in the theatre.

Your favorite character from any movie: Wolverine

Favorite documentary: Sans Toit Ni Loi

A movie that no one would expect you to love: I've no idea what people's expectations are.

A movie that is a guilty pleasure: Romi and Michele's High School Reunion

Favorite classic movie: Some Like It Hot, Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, anything Charlie Chaplin.

Movie with the best soundtrack: Atonement.

A movie that changed your opinion about something: Saving Private Ryan made the army seem less about macho man stuff and more about the realities of war and soldier's personalities and belief in their actions - not to mention the misgivings the public doesn't see.

Your least favorite movie: I really didn't like Superbad.

Body

2013-04-24T00:53:00.002-04:00

One
hand on
the faucet
Washing the
clouds from
my hair
The
hair from
my eyes
Tracing your
woulda been
palms
on the
sides
of
my
thighs
.

Copyright Bryarly Bishop 2013. All rights reserved.

Growing Out of Books

2013-04-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

I'm getting old.

I was re-reading Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone the other day, and as I read the scene where the teachers decorate the Great Hall I was thinking, "Jeez, that is a lot of work. Do none of them go home to their families? I hope the kids appreciate what they're doing here." Then, later, when McGonagall was talking to Harry about...something...it occurred to me that she doesn't just teach one year - she teaches seven years' worth of information to students of all different ages. "This woman deserves a goddamn medal," I thought.

And then I realized.

I am siding with the teachers.

I am reading Harry Potter.

And I am identifying with the teachers.

It was in that moment that I realized that I am now old, and probably an adult, and just...Christ. JESUS. HOLY CRAP.

Maybe there will be another time in my life where my age hits my that hard - maybe I'll be doing taxes and it will occur to me that this isn't something a child would be doing. Or maybe I'll be taking my sisters' kids out for lunch and it will occur to me that my younger sister has children. (She doesn't right now, but one day she probably will.) Somehow, those scenarios don't seem as dramatic to me. Not because they aren't huge deals, but because there's no comparison for them. I can't go, "Ah, yes, when I was filing my income tax in 1999 I thought thus-and-so," because I wasn't DOING that in 1999. I won't be able to look at my sister's kids and think, "Gee, this is way different from being an aunt in 2002," because I WAS NOT AN AUNT in 2012.

But reading the Harry Potter books? That's something I did when I was a kid, and a teenager, and now. Not to be all hipster on you guys or anything, but I read the 2nd book for my 9th birthday - three months after the book was published. I was all up on the Harry Potter train before it even existed. And with that, I remember how I felt when I read them. When I was in elementary and middle school, I remember wishing that I, too, could have a place where I actually belonged and had friends. (I was not popular. I was sort of a leper.) When I was in high school, I remember rolling my eyes at Harry being so damn angry all the time. But when I re-read them in college, I was like, "Hell yeah he's angry! I'd be angry, too!" And now that I'm reading them post-college, I just find myself thinking about the teachers, wondering what their perspective would be, and whether any of them wanted to be teachers or if it just sort of happened.

Knowing what I know now about the UK also takes a bit of magic away from the Harry Potter books. Everything I pictured I now have to picture differently, not least of which the characters - for which I will never forgive the films' casting director. Besides which, the UK is no longer a fictional place where cool things happen all the time. It is now just a place - sure, cool sometimes, but mainly a bit rainy and covered in tea and people who seem to share a national past-time which is, I'm pretty sure, out-awkwarding each other. (Sorry, guys. You know I adore you.)

These books were so close to my heart growing up that it's a bit like having a friend you met when you were 8 and they were 10, but suddenly you're the same age, and then you're older, and then you're much older. Though I still love the story, I now feel distant from Harry Potter in a way I never did before. (Re-reading the books has also cemented my feeling that I'm a Gryffindor, but that's a story for another day.)

As I've mentioned several times now, I don't feel ready to be an adult. I also don't, generally, feel like I am one. But when you read a book about children and teenagers and find yourself feeling closer emotionally to the 30+ year olds, you've got to recognize that maybe something has happened to you.

I love books and always have. They are, as a quote I can't remember correctly says, "A friend you can carry in your pocket." How do you guys feel about books? About growing up? Have you had anything similar happen to you?

Music
Catch the Wind - Donovan
What A Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
Homeward Bound - Simon & Garfunkel
Early in the Mornin' - Kingston Trio
A Tale of Your Life - Friends (John Ferdinando and Peter Howell)

Pass the Pillow

2013-04-19T11:00:00.000-04:00

You may as well know that one of the things I'm worst at is comforting people. It may be that I've inherited my mother's average empathy, or it could be a lingering sense of "I want you to like me and therefore don't know what to say or do to continue that," or it could be something else entirely. Whatever the case, I am a failure at making others feel better - not to mention myself.

A few of my friends live in Boston, and I have another friend who lives in Texas. These people I care about have brushed with tragedy, and I don't know how to help them. I've never been in a situation like theirs. Everywhere I've ever lived has been pretty darn safe, and as a consequence I don't know how it feels to hear sirens and gun shots screaming past my windows.

Saying things like, "It's going to get better," feel trite. How do I know things will get better? Maybe they won't. Maybe this is just the US of A's taste of the violence that impacts people all across the world on a day to day basis. Maybe this is just the beginning. I hope to god it's not, but I can't say that it is. When my arms can't reach them to hold them, when I can't take up a shield and guard them, when even my words are ineffectual, what can I do?

Then, too, different people react in different ways to misfortune. Some people don't want to be touched, not even spoken to. They want to wrestle their demons in the dark entirely alone. Other people want to talk, and talk, and talk, using the words like a lancet to try and rid themselves of the bile their situation injected into them. Still others just want to cry, to be held, and to smother themselves in food or their loved ones' embraces. I'm lucky in that most of my friends and family rarely experience such sadness. But when they do, I don't know which comforting method they prefer - and it's not exactly the time to ask.

I find that I tend to be a mix. First, I like to spend time alone. I don't want to be held, don't want to discuss it beyond the bare bones, and am likely to walk or run until the ache in my bones outweighs the ache in my chest. Then the talking comes in, trying to skim the sadness off the top. That's followed by material goods, piled on and on until I can almost forget that beneath the ice cream, pillows and Studio Ghibli films, there is a heart bleeding. Then more talking, and then silence. I never want to be touched. When my grandmother died, I listened to "Hurt" by Johnny Cash on repeat for hours (she really liked Johnny Cash), took a bath, and didn't talk about her death to anyone beyond the bare essentials for years.

Some people are brilliant at recognizing others' needs and adjusting their comforting tactics accordingly. My friend Kassie is such a one - she is so very good at it that I feel ashamed to go to her with my troubles, knowing she will praise or scold me as is appropriate. When horrors affect her, though, I never know what to do. I feel like the bumbling husband in an old sitcom.

What do you guys do to comfort people? How do you deal with grief?

Music
The Pride Parade - Don McLean
To Try for the Sun - Donovan
Nobody Knows - The Brothers Four
April Come She Will - Simon & Garfunkel

Where's Your Contentment

2013-04-18T00:28:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I sit down and think to myself, "What am I even doing with my life?" Here I sit, in my parents' house, so far jobless - not for lack of applying, mind - wondering what on Earth I'm supposed to be doing. The apathy lounges around my knees and I find it hard to do anything but scroll through Tumblr mindlessly, or sit and fail to think up interesting Tweets. When I realize those things are pretty darn pointless, the apathy purrs with contentment.

Then there are times where I look at my life and go, "You know, I'm doing OK." Yeah, I live with my parents and yeah, I'm unemployed and yes, I spend more time than I should looking at silly gifs online, but there are things to be proud of. I express my creativity online on the regular - sometimes through videos, sometimes blog posts, sometimes comics, sometimes songs. And people seem to like most of it pretty well so far! I'm working as a production assistant on Saturday, and even if it gets really annoying at times, my family cares enough about me to ask what I'm doing and try desperately to help.

As a born idealist, I find it easy to fall into the trap of wailing at imperfection. Though I consider myself to be pretty cheerful generally, if I were living in my dream house in the best place in the world with my favorite person eating the best food and working the best job on the best day ever I would still probably go, "Damn, I should've done that one thing." That kind of thinking (while I do think it can be motivational) is pretty damn irritating. It gets in the way of where you are by forcing you to think about where you want to be. And sometimes? Where you are just isn't that bad.

Idealism, indecisiveness, and impatience combine to make me someone always eager to look at the next thing while the first thing is still in front of me. You can spin it however you want, but I sometimes worry that that mindset will lead me to live my life straining so hard for the future that I miss the present and end up with a head full of half-experienced memories. The fear of going nowhere keeps me from indulging in the present, but the worry of half measures still lingers.

My mom asked me the other day who I was trying to impress and why I do the things I do. I didn't have an answer then, and I don't have one now. I like things to be perfect, and whether I want to or no I spend a lot of my time trying to make them as close to perfection as they can be. And yet, I wouldn't say I'm a perfectionist. Why? Because much as I may long for 100% satisfaction, I'm content to let things roll off my mental assembly line at 80%. "That's pretty good," I think. "I can live with that." That lack of perfection obsession could just be another product of the desire to see THE NEXT THING.

It may also be why I don't get particularly into fandoms. Sometimes I want one, just so I can have the people who go with it. Their feelings are so intense, their imaginations so vivid. I've never been that emotionally invested in anything unrelated to a relationship. Not even Harry Potter - and you saw my ill-fated post about Hufflepuff. And yeah, some of that desire is loneliness talking. Hey, I did say I was bummed out about living with my parents - having a dearth of friends nearby is a big chunk of that sadness.

The quotes that say your happiness is your choice, or that you can only determine your feelings, not your surroundings, have always irritated me. Who has that kind of super control over their emotions? Certainly no one I've ever met. Spock, maybe. But even he bends to his feelings sometimes. Still, whenever I hear apathy creeping up on me, whenever I get depressed, irritable, and finally unfeeling, I sit down and remind myself of what I've done and of what I plan to do. Ambitious as I am, even I have to admit it's not half bad.

No brilliant questions spring to mind, so I'm going to let you come up with your own responses to this with the time honored: what do you think?

Music
Make the Money - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Kenji - Fort Minor
Swagless - Spose
This Is Our Science - Astronautilus
Rise - Flobots
The Fall of Mr. Fifths - Why?
No Roof - Honey Rivers
My Oh My - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Candle Comments

2013-04-16T23:55:00.001-04:00

My friend Michael recently sent me this video by YouTuber Vihart (absolutely brilliant; you should watch her.)

"Vihart's Guide to Comments"

She does a great job with this video. For starters, she is logical, unruffled, and completely unapologetic. She's also very silly, which - if you, like me, have a bad habit of thinking some of the things she posits as potentially negative thought patterns - keeps you from feeling bad about yourself. If you haven't watched the video above, you're going to have a hard time relating to this blog post, so I suggest you take a few minutes and watch it. It'll be a pleasure, I promise.

Done? Good.

All creators want to share their work with someone - the size of the audience is determined by the person, but there's always some kind of audience. Allowing someone else to see something you've made for the very first time is terrifying. This artistic thing your soul has birthed isn't just some thing you want an opinion on, it's a little slice of you cut out and set on a platter. If your audience doesn't like it, as a consequence they don't like you. How true that sliver is, and how much you care about the audience, determines how deeply their opinion affects you.

Most of the comments Vihart discussed are easy for me, personally, to brush off. Comments on my appearance or demeanor are typically repetitive, stupid things I've heard before, or they're simply inaccurate. If it's not true, it's hard to care about it. Yet she also makes a case to ignore the comments from people that appear to be thoughtful, or to have a genuine opinion clinging to them. Stuff like that, "You should do X instead of Y," is harder to ignore. Of course you want your work to be perfect. Who doesn't? But, as Vihart points out, it is impossible to please everyone - not to mention exhausting and pretty stupid.

The creeper comments aren't hard to ignore in terms of a response or an emotional reaction, but their existence does, as Vihart's stick figure illustrates, prompt an, "eeeeee," of disgust and nervousness. These are few and far between for me, luckily, but I still get comments telling me what I should and shouldn't do, or praising me to the skies for something silly, or condemning me completely for doing something like spelling a word wrong or cutting my hair. These commenters, so invested, so very, very inappropriate, make you want to spray them with pepper spray and run.

Vihart's conclusion, which I agree with, states that you have no more power over me than the power I give you, and I have no more power over you than the power you give me. I'm with her about 90% of the way; I think that our emotions are not entirely within our control. I am not Spock, nor am I a computer, and if something is creeping me out or hurting my feelings, it's just the way it is. I can, however, change what I do as a response. Her solution is almost always the best one - just read right on past the offending comment to the next one. Or, as one of my new favorite Twitter accounts reminds me on a daily basis, "Don't read the comments."

Music

Cause=Time - Broken Social Scene

Forrest Gump - Frank Ocean

My Baby Said Yes - Bing Crosby

Colorblind - Counting Crows

Where Do We Come From?

2013-04-13T00:03:00.000-04:00

I just finished watching Overboard with my mom, a film with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, and before you go on about silly romantic movies and the various problems associated with taking advantage of a woman with a mental illness, may I just say that it is one of my favorite movies. Not necessarily of all time, but whenever it's on TV, you can bet I'll be on the couch watching it.

Beyond the obvious plus side of the comedy and their oddly easygoing (at least by the end) romance, I think what I like best about it is the message embodied by Joanna/Annie and delivered by her butler. He says something like, "Most people are tied to the status of their birth, but you have been given the rare opportunity to see life from another perspective for a short time. What you do with that knowledge is entirely up to you."

It makes me wonder what life is like from another's perspective, and whether there's really a way to try it without jumping all over the social ladder yourself. For example, if I really wanted to know how the fictional family in Overboard lived, would I need to spend time as a housewife to a carpenter getting by on what appears to be a rather small salary? Or could I, like Hawn and Russell, just act it out? If I wanted to know what it was like to be ridiculously wealthy, would I need to do it? Or could I just watch reality shows about the "good life?"

Our personalities are so dependent upon our upbringing that I have to wonder whether or not I would be someone else entirely if I'd been raised in different circumstances. Beyond simple economic status, what would I be like if I couldn't sing? If I had a hard time reading? If I was unable to do sports? If I was blind, or deaf? It's interesting to wonder how much of who we are is 'nature,' and how much is 'nurture.'

The cynical part of me thinks it's much more nurture than nature, but the more reasonable part firmly believes it's a mix. People may change their actions, status, and/or beliefs over time, but I tend to think that that's their way of coping with their environments. What remains is their initial reaction, or their thought process - and that, I propose, is a result of their genetic makeup. At least in part.

What do you think? Is personality more a result of your genes, or your surroundings? Who would you be if you weren't raised to be you?

Music
Fluorescent Adolescent - Arctic Monkeys
Nothing Better (Styrofoam Remix) - The Postal Service

Inspiration Void

2013-04-10T17:05:00.002-04:00

Good morning chickadees. Or afternoon. Or evening.

I'm not really big on the whole "time" thing.

I'll be honest. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about here. I've made a little mental promise to myself that I'm going to upload *something* to this blog every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but now that it's the first week of that, day two, I find myself startlingly void of things to say.

Now, usually, when I don't have anything to say, I take the Thumper code and stretch it and say nothing. In situations like this, there are a few methods I turn to for inspiration. Most of them are things I've been employing for years, but a handful are new. Ish.

1) Go for a walk outside.
- This one I use primarily for untangling my thoughts when I'm feeling unhappy about something. Walking it out gives me time to stew while also getting tired, and I often find that whatever I was chewing over becomes secondary to my fatigue and, therefore, I feel better. Sore, but better.

2) Drink and play techno music.
- Don't worry, this is one of the new-ish ones. I started doing this in uni when I couldn't finish papers. Excessive drinking is not at all the goal of this, it's mainly to take a swig of something whilst playing Basshunter really, really loudly, enabling you to bully yourself into actually doing work. 9/10 what comes out of this isn't Shakespeare, it's Meyers, but when you just need to have something done it does the trick.

3) Toodle around the Internet
- After a few minutes of looking around real news sites, or fake news sites (there's not a huge difference, don't worry) or Tumblr or whatever else floats your boat, you'll usually hit upon something that makes you think of something else, which makes you think of something else, which is essentially writing without the whole writing part.

4) Sleeping
- Oddly, this is my main form of inspiration. For some reason my mind is most active, most creative, and most ready to come up with hilarious things when I am right about to fall asleep. It's really inconvenient, honestly. Every time I have a good idea I have to rouse myself and write it down, which wakes me up, which means I take even longer to fall asleep than I normally do.

5) Talk about it.
- As you can see, sometimes talking about not knowing what to talk about is the first step towards actually saying something.

What do you guys think of a normal schedule? Yea? Nay? No way? Where do you go for inspiration?

Support System

2013-04-08T16:31:00.002-04:00

It has come to my attention that people are not always given the support they need. Shocking, isn't it? You'd think that any one person would have at least one other person in their life upon whom they could rely, be it in an emotional, financial, or physical sense. Yet, seemingly, that isn't the case for everyone. I venture to suggest that it isn't the case for quite a lot of people.

Even places that purport themselves to be places of support, comfort, and assistance are not always reliable. A church I passed on the road two days ago had on its marquee, "If you have a pain, don't be one." I was surprised. This advice kind of says, "If something's wrong, shut up and don't bother us," which is pretty much the opposite of what I always thought churches were for. Of course, I could be wrong. It's happened before.

The painful part comes in when you try to figure out what people do when their support system is less a system and more a microchip composed entirely of their very own selves. Do they try and build one up out of friendships they have lying around? Do they repair broken familial ties - or shut themselves down to become something acceptable to said family members? Do they turn to journals, faceless Internet friends or self-help books?

Or do they dig deep into themselves and find their support in the bedrock of their own natures?

Most people, I imagine, are not made of the stuff required to do the last one. It's rather like cutting off a leg and eating it rather than hunting up something else. It hurts, it's hard, and it's irreparable, but if you don't do it you might just die. It has the added bonus of making you think, even once in a better situation, "I don't really need these resources. They're nice, they make things easier, but if I had to I could just cut my leg off again." This, in turn, makes any new relationships shakier than they might otherwise be. There's desire, sure, but there's not much need.

Where do you turn to for support? Do you have what you need?

The Dark

2013-04-06T02:39:00.000-04:00

Trigger Warning, Probably.

It's very late at night, and I should not be awake. This is fairly standard.

The reason I'm up on this particular evening is simple. I had too many feelings to sleep - or maybe too few. I'm not talking about Tumblr's screaming force of FEELS, I'm talking about real, genuine, break you in half and burn you down kind of feelings. The kind that sit on your skin's surface like dry ice, hovering there until the force of your freezing hurts.

It's not a new thing, this feeling-induced insomnia. For years, I just spent most of my hours from 10pm to 3am doing anything but going to bed. Waiting for me beneath the sheets was a dangerously still place where my mind, without fail, whirled itself into a dark miasma. These days, I try to tire myself out before the sun sets. Exercise, work, writing - whatever will tap my mind to the point it has nothing left to brew.

I didn't do the job well enough today, and I found myself sympathizing with people who turn to substances to blur their consciousnesses completely out. Not much of a substance abuser, I thought longingly of something - anything- that would flush the blurry ache coating the inside of my skull out long enough for me to fall asleep. Long enough to give me a break before I try again tomorrow. Lucky for me (or unluckily, I suppose, since I'm still awake) I have a rule about that sort of thing.

The thought kept me company long enough for me to wonder whether people who abuse substances do it because they can't stand the way they feel without them. If it's a choice between a drink and hours of contemplating the thickening barrier between yourself and your emotions, hell, who wouldn't prefer a drink? Examining yourself is supposed to be like looking into a mirror. This is like looking into a murky pool that ripples every time you blink. You know it should be clear, you know you should see something, understand something, but you can't, and that ripple's getting bigger and bigger, the pond darkening more by the minute, until you're left with all the rushing despair of feelings left to grow like bacteria on a juicy petri dish, and all the frustration of knowing you can never, ever see or understand them. That you must not. That something, some expectation, must keep you ignorant of your own heart or you would never sit in polite society again.

You tell me there's something that can hide the pain of a hidden ache? Yeah. I'll have a glass of that.

Music
Cardboard Castles - Watsky
Ain't No Rest for the Wicked - Cage the Elephant
Old School - B. Reith
I'm Awesome - Spose
Come On Closer - Jem
Two Years Before the Mast - Astronautilus
The Fear - Lily Allen
Handlebars - Flobots
Headphones - Watsky
Die in Amsterdam - D-Sisive
When I'm Small - Phantogram
Smoke & Mirrors - RJD2
Lazy Daze in California - Language Arts Crew
Porcelain - Helen Jane Long
Time Passage - Peter Jennison

A Rock and A Hard Place

2013-04-03T14:43:00.000-04:00

In my life, I've somehow hit a point where most of the people I associate with are very calm, even-tempered people. Most of the time, this is great. I know I can count on them, and they're good to go to with problems, because they don't get ruffled or concerned or blocked by silly things like emotions. These people are rocks. They don't get budged by 'silly' things, nor are they likely to flake on you when you need them. And hey, that's awesome. Everyone needs a rock.

That being said, I find myself often longing for stronger reactions - or at least positive reactions rather than logic walls - when I talk to these people. If I won the lottery, what I'd want to hear is something along the lines of, "Congratulations!!! That's AMAZING!! You're so lucky; that's awesome!" I suspect that what I'd actually hear would be something more along the lines of, "That's great, but you're probably going to have to pay a lot of taxes." Great, thanks. Brilliant. Kill that buzz right off.

Some of my friends can always be relied upon for enthusiasm and support, and whenever I talk to them about something I'm excited about and get that excitement back, my heart swells with gratitude. I consider myself fairly practical when necessary, but in that first flush of happiness I prefer to ride the wave of emotion and revelling in the joy of the moment rather than immediately pulling out the work tools. I'm not sure how to characterize myself in the same way as I would a rock. Maybe I'm a surfboard person. Or seaweed.

Rock people like to know where everything is at all times so they can hold onto it and keep it from doing anything unexpected. They're good at taxes, keep things tidy, and never stay up too late or go too crazy at parties. They live their lives in such a way that nothing bad will ever happen. I like them sometimes, but other times I find them unbelievably frustrating. Like when something good happens to me, or when I'm beginning a new project or starting a new dream. When you're in a rough spot, they're super helpful, but when regular life or even happiness start floating along, they just bring you down.

What kind of person are you? How would you characterize the people you associate with? Was seaweed the right word to choose?

Music

What I Got - Sublime

Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen

Time to Say Goodbye - Katherine Jenkins

Mr. Brightside - The Killers

9 Crimes - Damien Rice

Empathy Wanted

2013-04-01T15:00:00.000-04:00

Maybe it's because I spend a lot of my time online, where people are still in the process of growing up, but I tend to think that people are often very involved in themselves. Sometimes it's (poorly) disguised in self-deprecation, or in social justice blogging, or in quick jumps to comments, but however it's presented, it's there. I can freely admit that I'm just as self-absorbed as everyone else. Hell, you're reading my blog, aren't you? Here's the proof.

That tendency to think of oneself as the center of the world is understandable. Unless you experience some kind of mental illness or you have bitchin' mind meld powers the rest of us don't get, you're the only one inside your own head. Your thoughts are your own, your views are your own, and the pre-meditation that guides your words and actions can feel like a script you direct. If you're a good manipulator, it can feel like your personal director guides everyone else, too.

The downfall of egotistical thinking, beyond the obvious, is that you utterly fail to empathize. Having only been around for 22 years, I can't say whether or not things were better in the past. I wasn't there. What I can say is that, in my lifetime, I've had the impression of people utterly failing to put themselves in others' shoes. It's hard to do all the time, I get that, but it's not so hard that you can never achieve it. I freely admit that I'm not the best sympathizer in the world. If it doesn't make sense to me, it's hard for me to get on that person's side.

In recent years I've tried harder to live feel outside myself and relate to other people better. Whether it's the product of our own self-interest overpowering our humanity or something else entirely, failing to sympathize with others breeds a whole host of problems. Kindness, to me, depends upon caring about someone else. Caring about someone else requires relating to them. Relating to them requires at least a smidgin of empathy. With kindness consistently shouted over by hatred, it seems to me that we need to give it a fighting chance.

For myself, I find that I often feel guilty over small instances for days, months, or even years. The person I hurt probably doesn't know that I still regret what I said or did, but I do. Knowing that, I try to assume that people who hurt me will, sometime in the future, remember and feel bad about it. That imagined apology helps me feel better in the present and forgive them sooner.

If you find yourself saying, "I can't find sympathy for ------," then take a few minutes and see if you can, in fact, relate to them on some level. Give people the benefit of the doubt, or, failing that, see them as complex, full-thinking individuals just like yourself. You don't have to like them or agree with them or support them. Nobody likes everybody. Just give them the same humanity you give yourself on a daily basis.

How do you empathize with people? What do you think we can do to fix this?

Fancy Pants

2013-03-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

I've written before about my frustrations with fashion - and it's true, I have a lot of troubles with the fashion industry. Partly because of their models, partly because of their fashions, but partly - and this is a big part, I'm ashamed to say - because I find it difficult to find clothes that I genuinely like. I don't mean like and then put away, I mean like-and-want-to-wear-every-day like.

Part of this is because I find it hard to find clothes that fit me. Clothes that look more fun are usually in stores for teenagers, and their sizes are all kinds of weird for me. Women's stores, however, tend to be a bit, well...dull. At least the ones I've entered. To get any kind of interesting thing going, you have to layer and accessorise and just lose your head entirely, and I'm on much too tight of a budget for that to be useful.

On another level, I find it hard to find clothes because I find that my fashion tastes are wildly varying. On the one hand, I like sweet, innocent clothes with a classic cut. On the other hand, a certain hungry part of me would really like to wear sharp angles and leather (fake, of course.) Part of me likes hippie clothes, part likes boy clothes, part likes super dressy things, and part likes bright colors. I went to style fruits this evening to play around with outfit ideas (since I can't afford to go out and do it in the real world and find it difficult if I can't keep everything on the same page) and here are some of the things I came up with.

Bryarly being wild and crazy. The shirt reminds me of Beetlejuice, the rings are hard rock, the necklace is bad ass, the shoes are obnoxiously bowed and the skirt is bright red and looks long enough to keep me comfortable.

I like to think of this as farm chic. I feel uncomfortable wearing heels, because of the whole 5'10" thing, but these are very cute and, I think, match very well!

This is more of the sweet and classic look. I quite like that, even for this, the bracelet has spikes on it in addition to the rose.

So there you have it! When given free time, frustration, and a vague desire to be pretty, here's what I come up with. Each outfit would be very expensive - I think something like £200 apiece (ouch), but since I'm not buying them, who cares about mixing it up? Not ME, that's who!

What do you guys like to wear? How do you shop?

When did this become a style blog?

Music

Shoes - Chris Volpe

Lady of Catrine - Marmalade

All God's Angels - Kate Rusby

Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles

Cloudy - Simon & Garfunkel

Song for Three Months Gone - Prelude