Writing about Writing

This blog was born to give myself a quasi-creative outlet minus the serious analysis and editing required of most things I write. A second, more minor reason for this blog was to allow myself to somehow feel connected, to let other people into the normally intensely private world in which I live and let them see a side of myself unguarded. This has been impossible to maintain.

I said once that blogging requires the presence of three factors: a passion/annoyance/sense-of-the-interesting for a particular subject matter; a desire to express one's thoughts on said subject; and, lastly, a desire to share those thoughts with others. Lately, I've been prone only to the first two out of three, and this does not a blogger make. My need for privacy, while held for a moment at bay (though not really; most of my posts skirted, whether cleverly or clumsily, around the heart of my reality), has returned full-force and I no longer have any desire to extract the senseless and superficial and coat them in some sort of attractive gloss. Why I couldn't make a career out of writing about plaid pants and bus stops, I will never know.

Until I realized this about myself, I was struggling with what I thought was a form of writer's block, and, my God - that is now officially on my list of top five most unpleasant sensations ever encountered in this lifetime. This means that lately I've been thinking about writing more than actually writing, the realization of which gave me an attainable and happy purpose for this blog: an exploration into the whys and hows of the writing process. How did we become writers? How does writing shape the way we process and remember events? What's up with that dreadful writer's block, anyway? With respect to blogging, what is it like to have your social status in flux with every post, and to have complete strangers segue into conversation with a casual, "Heeey... I've been reading your blog."?

So: writing about writing. In my next post, I'll tell you about my first thrill with writing, and the horror I felt when I rediscovered that little piece - resplendent with bad grammar and spelling errors - a year or two later. Stories like these give insight to the buddings and struggles of writerhood that aren't directly evident from the-thing-that-is-written. I hope, if you identify as a writer, that you'll feel free to share stories of your own.

Lastly, I'm still very much an ego-centric human being: I retain full rights to pop in and recount various goings-on in my life, particularly if I'm passionate/annoyed/find-it-ridiculously-interesting. And, of course, if I want to share all that with you.

Tea.

I drink this tea sometimes, Yogi Tea. If you live in Portland, chances are you've had this tea yourself, or at least seen it staring back at you as you hemmed and hawed in the coffee aisle. Each tea bag carries a little message. I like to try to see how that message speaks just to me, how it fits in with my day, my life, my thoughts or problems. Sometimes it's obvious, or too generically insightful to be interesting: "Have faith." "All is light." Sometimes it takes me a minute.

I'm drinking this tea now, but only because I've run out of jasmine. It's fine. The water's already a little cool, but it's fine. My entire apartment smells a bit like fabric softener, and the smell itself is soft, too, like it belongs in liquid. Vaguely floral. Pale blue. Soft, like no one lives here.

Maybe humans are just too talented at seeing the signs. Lately, the past two weeks or so, I've felt gently pushed in a new direction. It's subtle at first, a new book here, a conversation there, and it's all coincidence. But it adds up. Then it's the unmistakable boredom, the comfort of an ego assuaged, and I wonder what I really want. What would make the best use of me. Moments later, a new perspective - wherever the attention is, I'm there. I'm there doubting the clarity of it all.

My daughter: she snores. Not now, just breathing gently through her nose, breaths in and out and in again. It's reassuring. Grounding. She keeps me tied to this path, wherever it is that it goes.

To the Person Who Stole My Garbage Can

I love Lyra. God, I love her. I love the way she wakes up in the middle of the night wanting to go to Starbucks, and the way she doesn't believe me when I tell her they're closed. The way she wants to put on her "daytime clothes" and go see. I love how she's the only person who can talk me into anything, and the stabbing pain I feel when I've upset her and her bottom lip trembles just so. I love the way she's so free, so passionate, so unrestrained. How she knows exactly what she wants. (I loved that about childhood: always knowing what you want, and not caring if it's good for you.) I love her blonde hair, her blue eyes, and how she demands to know why she does not have two mommies like her friend. I love everything about her.

I love my Love, the one who's mine. I love how he, inexplicably, charmingly, is convinced I'm an interesting person. I love how he loves, so wholeheartedly, honestly, fiercely. I love the way he can pierce through the heart of an issue in a second flat. How he radiates intelligence. I love the way he gestures with his hands. I love his conviction and his calm self-assurance. I love his faith. I even love the way he bullies me into attending class, late and wet-haired and grumbling. I love the way he genuinely expects the best from everyone else.

I love my friends, every single one of them. I love Sara, for being simultaneously so self-righteous and yet so endlessly forgiving. I love Chris, for every ounce of patience he has had with me, and his eternal optimism. I love him for the way he adores Lyra as much as I do. I love Mem, for being Mem, and my God, that hair. I love how he can be so intellectually ferocious despite looking for all the world like he just rolled out of bed. I love Tim, for being so reticent, so independent, and how he understands what I mean when I say, "It just so interesting." I love Austin and Noelle, not even for all their charm and wisdom and talent, but for the depth with which they love each other. I love my sister for bringing me to tears with laughter, but also for her endless ability to bring me back down to earth. And I love Kaeti, for her indominable passion, for always opening the doors of the world to me, for letting me be so honest.

I love my mother, too. My mother is the strongest, and most beautiful, person I've ever met. For all of our bitching and affected bitterness, we will always love each other. We both know it. My mother is the only person on the planet allowed to be mean to me, and she would KICK YOUR ASS.

But you know what, person who stole my garbage can? Despite the fact that I cannot begin to comprehend your motives, I probably love even you, just because you too have friends, and a mom, and maybe even kids who move you to tears with that grip they have on your heart. 

Just keep the damn thing.

Dramatic, Sure. But Boring? Yes!

This blog, my alluring mistress of Procrastination, seems incapable these days of drawing me into her bed. How long have we been together? Six months now, and this last month it was clear that we were drifting apart. I thought we had only hit a rough patch, that I was simply busy, that we would reunite in our time and on our own schedule. 

Now, I'm not so sure.

I'm only good at those things I find appealing; I tend to steer clear of all things that look like Work. I do not like Work. Ask my friends. I have, however, become gradually more and more talented at fooling myself over the years, to the point where I can squint really tight and pretend that a great deal of boring activities that I should do are really fun-bells-and-whistles. Then there are a myriad of minor details I must attend to that promise to reward eventually; these I can usually suffer with only a modicum of grumbling. And a few well-timed sighs. 

This blog looks more and more like Work everyday. I think it was a nice creative exercise, once, in the beginning, but now I really have to squeeeeeze that sponge to get any words on the page. At all. I don't know if you've noticed (you may have noticed) that I've been fudging a bit lately, posting some pictures and then something I wrote ages and ages ago and then some more pictures... that wasn't me being cute, that was me being pretty damn lame.

I think we're going to work on it; maybe we'll go to bloggers' counseling and see if we can patch things up. We won't put any pressure on it. We'll take it slow. I'll learn to be more patient and she can buy a new dress, or get out more with her blog friends, or go to the gym or something. Stop being so damn needy.

This is why you never marry the mistress.

Peekture

Wherein I post a photo of some totally random child. 

Photo taken one year ago today.

Aren't I Poetic: Reflections on the Growth of a Writer

I wrote this little synopsis as the frosting for my zombie class cake two years ago; I just stumbled over it in my momentary struggle to locate those Hume essays from spring term. The professor had asked us to reflect on how our writing had grown since taking the class (and reading ever so many papers about poor Zombie Mary, my responses to which I would deign to include if I had had more experience with the topic and had been just that much nicer to their authors).

I am just. so. dramatic.

Reflections on the Growth of a Writer

We all grow in different ways, and I cannot claim to grow symmetrically or at the same rates at all times. Nevertheless, it is difficult at first to perceive how what appears to be stagnation, or even a period of moving backwards, can actually be a moment of profound growth not yet realized on the scape of the conscious.

It was during this class that I realized that I had failed myself as a writer; I had grown so comfortable in the little place that I occupied on the writing spectrum that I had refused to see how I could improve, evolve, or just be a little different. The infatigable attention-seeker that I am, I leaned too readily on the new teacher ready to praise my performances, and ignored the fact that I was a one-trick-pony, pulling out the same old routine for a new set of eyes.

So what inspired me to see myself in an honest new light? It’s hard to say. A part of it is that I grew tired of writing; grew weary of putting down the same words on the same page in the same order. I wasn’t proud of what I was writing anymore. I had lost my edge. In my melodramatic despair, my writing fulfilled its own prophecy in becoming worse, and I felt incapable of salvaging it. Even more painful, though, was watching my peers succeed me: what I had once done so easily and felt so proud of, my talent, was now being performed by others while I watched from the sidelines. Such humbling moments should never be ignored.

What have I learned from this experience? Only that transformation will come as surely as a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis. The samples that I have included in this portfolio are not the product of this transformation; they are not my best work. But these samples bear witness to a process that has only just begun, an awkward growth-spurt of creativity that expresses itself first timidly, tentatively, before it can remerge with confidence.

Such is what I have learned in these few short weeks. While I have not been able to completely shed my competitive edge, I have realized that it is no longer with the other members of the class that I am competing: I am competing against myself, a battle that will leave part of me vanquished, part of me the conqueror. Who I will emerge as, I have no idea.

Princess Ponies Must Be Watched in Style

For Christmas Lyra received a series of squishy tents and tubes that seem to be little more than giant nylon Slinkies. When strung together, these Slinkies take up more square footage than any house I've had the pleasure of living in.

Thursday night Lyra brought one section - a single tube - with her from her father's house. The first two nights she didn't get much more creative than mashing it down, stepping inside and then letting it sproing upright: Lyra in a tube. 

She found this hilarious.

Today, though, it occurred to her that she could stuff the tube with pillows. She tried to cram every pillow from the bed and every pillow from the couch into the thing - twelve pillows in all - which resulted in quite the overflowing pillow situation. But! It also meant that the tube now functions as a chair, from which My Little Ponies cartoons can be comfortably watched, and also as a pirate ship, which as we speak is sailing far, far away to Disneyland.

I miss my imagination being so sustaining. 

The Christians Got 'er! Arrr...

A friend of mine is now a Christian. She wouldn't call it that, but I would, and I don't appreciate that her new-found Christianity entails calling me "juvenile". Luckily such a remark was only inaccurate in context, and provides me with the freedom to rebel vindictively against my categorization with a pre-script jab. 

Wasn't it just yesterday I was having a conversation with myself about the different varieties of Christians? I believe it was yesterday, if yesterday was the day with the very loud, very bad band playing on campus and all the student groups with their tables, trying to peddle their memberships and ideas. One of those moments where you deliberately stare at your feet because if you look up you are guaranteed to make eye contact with someone, and the odds are they're trying to give you something.

I still have one brochure from an extreme, but rather clever, Christian group on campus. Someone had drawn a cartoon about "Pavlov's frog" wherein the possibility of meaning (as in the kind that actually exists) is entertained. Very quickly the frog takes a yewey off the deep end and finds God.

I don't like the idea that God only exists at the end of a U-turn. I understand this concept in the "seeing the error of my ways" sense, and that's fine, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the lack of logical connection between idea A and idea B: present something befuddling and hope the reader accepts "God" as the only possible solution. This despicable literary device is found only in the shallow waters of religious propaganda, where I hope it one day dies. A few things:

1. It's insulting to the reader's intelligence. This is enough in itself, but there's still some more ground to cover. Moving on...

2. Any spiritual view that is the product of fear, coercion, or confusion, has missed the point completely. Religious brochures may draw us in with cute frogs or peaceful pictures of sunsets on the cover, but a steaming pile of rage lies in wait for us on the second page. This hurts my feelings. Also, it makes me want to smack people, which is not a very Christian thing to do (although arguably that's exactly why I need the brochure in the first place).

3. Even if fear, coercion, or confusion is left out of the picture, I'm still a bit unnerved by the idea of convincing others to hold specific spiritual beliefs. This isn't even because I find it annoying - which I do - but because any so-called belief that would result from persuasion is, again, ingenuine. Let's just suspend our own thoughts on the matter for a second and imagine that God is very much a real person, and all that He wants is for you (yes, you!) to love Him dearly. Can you imagine how God would feel if He had to talk you into falling in love with Him? Can you imagine how you would feel if you had to talk someone else into falling in love with you? Intuitively, would any of us say that such a love would be genuine, or worthwhile, or satisfying to the one who is allegedly loved?

Maybe none of that matters; besides the fact that God isn't necessarily walking around in the flesh (at the moment or not; there are far too many bases to cover here), maybe the type of love or how it's acquired is beside the point. Maybe spirituality isn't immune to the "see what happens" methodology: try it out, see if you're better adusted. See if all this works for you. I certainly wouldn't call this a belief, though; it's adopting a series of agreeable principles. 

This brings me back to a conversation I had with my friend D several months ago. I had been trying to find a way to characterize spirituality without calling into play all of those deep-seated emotions that one generally associates with the term. If spirituality really is a series of values, arbitrarily chosen or not, which produce behavior that orients oneself effectively and happily within the world... I can make sense of that. I'll tell you what I cannot do: give you a reason to hold those values that doesn't call upon their effects. I cannot do that. It's circular. Why is this is a problem? It's a problem the moment you step back and ask yourself why you want those events to occur.

I could easily appeal to the many probable reasons we have for why we behave the way we do, all of which, again, speak only to effects. Evolutionary psychology is full of explanations for cooperation. Unfortunately, it's also full of (sometimes contradictory) explanations for why we might refuse to cooperate. Why we might behave, say, murderously. It's a problem, but it isn't a problem, because that's just shuffling off our value judgments onto a convenient if untidy body of evidence. On some level it may not be inaccurate to say, "Awww, honey, I love you because I've been arrested by the same biological processes that spurred my ancestors to reproduce!" Yeah, not the sweetest thing anyone's ever heard but no one can say it's completely off the mark. It just doesn't explain everything.

Same with value judgments: you can cite potential reasons for tendencies, but what about how I feel? The sheer fact that I am aware of a social and biological impact on my behavior renders those same impacts useless as a basis for values (unless you think I'm just impossible to please. Stack that on top of my arbitrary attributes pile). 

One of the problems with values, though, is that you still have to interact with other people while you're making up your mind. There are, fortunately, two solid reasons for a well-thought-out action, and those are:

1. It's good for you, and

2. It's good for other people.

Yes, I have just completely backtracked, because I haven't resolved this internally but I still need to be a halfway decent human being. Neither of these avoids the word "good" or disinvites the question "why?" but they're deliciously hard to disagree with (and that's the other thing: the end tends to be the same, no? At least usually? It's the means that are so damn confounding). 

I suppose then, taking a murky trek back to religious propaganda, that the creators of such have, or should, ask themselves a few questions: Is it better to terrorize and confuse if I get people to turn to God? What are the odds that the few people I do recruit, in their terror and confusion, will spread more terror, and more confusion? Does the image of God that I want to portray condone peace and clarity? If so, why am I not sharing that image? Do I want to convince others of God, or that I'm right? 

Every day I have this dialogue with myself, and every day it resolves: I will never know why I am here. I only know that I am here. What do I want that to look like?

It should look the same, either way. 

Intro to Formal Logic

If Mem does not believe in cell phones, Jen has a hard time finding Mem.

If Jen has a hard time finding one of her favorite people, she is unhappy.

Mem is one of Jen's favorite people.

Mem does not believe in cell phones.

__________________________

:(