007: How to Hide

Sometimes, all I want is for someone to pat me on the back and say "It's not as bad as you think."

Of course, you can't know how bad I think it is, but I know intellectually that it's not as bad as that. Lately I can't shake a lot of bad feelings and have wondered if many I should go with the trends and start on the happy pills. A few years ago, my aunt mused to me that she was reluctant, because she believed they may hamper creativity. I don't even remember whether she ended up doing it.

Phil and I had an exchange on Twitter about this blog. For a long time now I've been trying to figure out how it still fits into my life. The one valuable aspect of it is that it remains, in a sense, detached and free... my other little ways of expressing myself on the internet are all dependent on some kind of network, interaction, and that permits a certain kind of discourse. I write, on Twitter or Tumblr or wherever, knowing who is going to read it, and aware of the image I was constructing of myself, and who was receiving it, and what they might have to say in response.

I had a moment this weekend where I posted a photo of myself on Tumblr for the first time, and the ladies of Tumblr (and if you're reading, hey, congrats! I almost certainly did not tell you about this) reacted... favorably, I guess, to the way I looked. Which is new. And then I had to spend time figuring out how I wanted to be seen reacting. It is a writing project of its own kind, much like this one, and they both have their places.

For 7 years, though, I've been here, completely shedding off my self-conscious image-producing and being whatever my fingers make me. I can look back at myself in the last 7 years and feel confident that whatever I was writing about myself at the time, I was being as honest as I could, for better or worse, without much regard as to who might be reading or what they might think. I think a lot of my issues lately have stemmed from the fact that I've fallen far from the habit of writing in this blog, and lacking the release it has offered really takes its toll. There have been so many moments I wish I were still in SWP-mode to record, in the past 4 months, and yet there's little time or worth in explaining them. If I continue to write here more regularly, they will have to remain obscure... my lost winter.

I have a lot to be mad about in my little world. Creative frustration. Professional misery. Romantic dismantling. Future panic. After I wrote my last post, I began to read a book for my summer class (well, one of them,) and was enjoying it... thinking of the way the sentences fit together to form meanings in my mind (thank you, Ferdinand de Saussure,) and somehow, for whatever reason, feeling better about my ability to write and to create meanings for others. I felt better. For the time being, I feel okay enough to write.

And hey, here I am.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

006: Go further

I don't know if this blog still occupies a place in my life. I never thought it wouldn't but I tweet and post so much elsewhere it's hard to even justify trying to sit down and relate through this blog, because it's already out there, and yet... it's no substitute.

I used to be able to put things in order. "This happened, then this happened, and this is how I feel about it." It's hard to tell anymore, not just because of how long I go between posts. Everything is tangled up. I don't know what to do about myself.

I'm not into anything anymore. I can't seem to enjoy my writing. I'm not pleased with how dependent I've gotten on the people I know on the internet. Even my music blog bums me out now. I play way too much Minesweeper. Nothing feels good, and I worry about my future because nothing seems like a viable option anymore. Everything pisses me off or depresses me lately. I feel like I am going to snap, and I would probably enjoy it because it would be a way to get things off my chest. I don't even know what's on my chest, it's just some invisible burden.

I want to crumble down into nothingness.

Do I just keep doing what I've been doing and try to get better?

Last month, Gus left the store. We were all worried, and a little after that, Karen was fired, so now things are really gonna change. They already have. I'm not into talking about myself anymore/right now. I don't know what to say. Offend in every way?

More later, but maybe not. This isn't anything. It isn't even pain. It's just frustration, it's just a bummer, and I'm sorry if you read it.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott