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 |   My 2nd blog. My spot for sharing my life, music, and writing with my friends. |
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Hello, Hello. Fancy seeing you here. I'll work on making this nice and pretty later. *  I also have a poetry blog, for those who dig poetry:
AND I have a mental health group with a monthly challenge:
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lay my hands on Heaven and the sun and the moon and the stars While the devil wants to fuck me in the back of his car ♡ * I will never make this pretty. |
Artist: Richard Hell and the Voidoids Album: Blank Generation Song: Blank Generation [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics  Sup, ya'll? It's been a few days so I figured it was time to get back to blogging. Not blogging just feels wrong anyway. I'm feeling somewhat more adjusted to my meds now, until I up the dosage, of course.  The only residual effects now are complete agitation and occasional stomachaches. Nothing I can't still work or study with though, so I'm happy about that. I do have to up my dosage in a few days though, so I'm just hoping I don't get sick again.  ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** 30DBC: Pick a color. Now describe a place we visited and various instances of things that are that color. Well, you've all been having a good time on the Magical Ship! I wish I could've been around more in the early stages of it, but I'm glad to be back now. Thanks for still including me while I was out sick, even if Brother Nature  and ElaineElaine  did make me and Norb wrestle as everyone looked on in horror.  ~Minja~  seems to be doing awesome with it, which is impressive since she's on the ship and working all the time right now! This challenge seems to be made for her.Today, I'm going to go with the color orange, because that's my favorite color, of course. The sun is orange, or is it yellow? I'm never quite sure. On that topic, is cheese orange or yellow? It seems to be a great debate. It's obviously orange in my opinion. Not dark orange, but light orange at the very least. Let's go somewhere with an orange sun and orange flowers. I always think of fields of flowers in the middle of the country, under a dark blue sky like when it's about to storm. I think dark blue and orange contrast each other well. It must be something from my childhood that I get nostalgic about because when I think of a natural 'paradise', it's basically just fields of flowers and a summer storm. There were a lot of fields like that where I grew up and I always liked watching storms roll in. I guess our ship is going to stop in the middle of land? Who would've guessed it! WTMR 1. Who was the first person to inspire or encourage you to write? I actually don't remember anyone ever encouraging me to write, to be honest. I know I was encouraged to read as a child and I think that sort of morphed into me writing. My mother read to us a lot when we were kids. I liked the Berenstain Bears books. When I was around 8, I started reading Goosebumps books by R.L. Stine. I think that was my first motivator to actually write fiction. I wrote journals before that, like ever since I could form sentences with a pen, but fiction didn't come around until I started reading that series. It just seemed easy and fun to write. They're silly little horror stories that aren't scary about 95% of the time, but are extremely entertaining and quick to read. I liked the idea of just making up these characters and putting them into any situation I wanted. It's still kind of a cool thought. Just making people up and killing them off or turning them into a killer. A lot of fun to write and it takes very little effort, in my opinion. Not that R.L. Stine isn't a good writer, but it's definitely just for entertainment purposes. I wouldn't consider him a very 'serious' writer in a classic sort of way. WTMR 2. Blogs and journals are as individual as the people who write them. They can be neat blocks of text, or riotous ribbons of colour, quotes and randomness. How would you describe the visual style of your blogging or journalling? When I write in an actual journal, I try to use tons of color. I'm crazy about different colored pens and I can go shop around an office supply store for two hours just testing and picking out pens. I bet a lot of us are like that with stationary and pens. It sort of makes sense as writers, doesn't it? In my blog, I go for a more minimalistic look. I try to make everything clean and clear. I don't want people to have to jump around a long entry trying to find what they're looking for, so I'll usually put the prompt I'm writing about as the header. My entries can get really long at times. If someone wants to just read the 30DBC prompt, I want them to be able to find it right away. As a reader, I know I won't search an entry forever trying to look for what I'm there to read. Then, of course, I have my song of the day. Every day is like a Soundtrackers challenge in here. I usually just pick a song that's stuck in my head or whatever I've been listening to while writing the entry. I know that most people don't play the song while reading the entry, but I like that they have the option if they do want to. Plus, it just adds a little something extra to the entry. WTMR 7. Rant about something that frustrates you. Medication frustrates me! It really does. It's funny because every time I see a 'ranting' prompt, I always seem to have something readily available to rant about. I was told to take a certain amount of medication, but I just couldn't handle it. I was so sick, I couldn't keep up with work and school that way, so I started cutting the dosage in half.Well, after a week, I was supposed to DOUBLE the dosage. Yeah right. But, now I'm almost out of the first smaller dosage (that I've been cutting in half), so I'm going to have start cutting the larger dosage in half, but it's still going to be double what I'm taking right now.I'm not sure why I'm having such an issue with this antidepressant, but my body hates it. I searched it and found like hundreds of reviews and message boards where people are talking about how horrible the side effects of Zoloft are for the first several weeks. Some of them are even having side effects five or six weeks into taking it. The worst part is that anxiety is a big side effect of the medication, which is what I'm taking it for in the first place! So it's like making the problem worse that I had in the first place. I know you just have to stick this sort of thing out because it will balance eventually, but damn, I hate side effects! To hold the T. V. To my lips, the air so packed with cash Then carry it up flights of stairs and drop it in the vacant lot To lose my train of thought and fall into your arms' tracks And watch beneath the eyelids every passing dot |
Artist: Canned Heat Song: On The Road Again [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics Ugh, I don't feel good. Like, not at all good. My stomach hurts, I can't eat, my head hurts, all I want to do is lay in bed... I hate adjusting to SSRIs. It's difficult for me to be patient with them when I know I have other methods of being happy without getting sick, but that's just addiction talking. I know it's not the same thing. Today, I'm just going to lay in bed, watch kids movies and do my homework. I like to mix homework up with kids movies because the juxtaposition relaxes me. The song today reminds me of you, Cinn . ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** 30DBC: On this trip you don’t have to do any cooking, cleaning or other chores. Tell us how you envision these tasks being performed. We obviously have sexy French maids, right? There should be those little suction tubes that they have at the bank and they could connect to each room. We could just send up our food order and then they could make it in the kitchen and send a to-go box back through the tubes into our room. We could have robots to come clean the rooms, or just use those little Roomba things to clean the floors. I sort of doubt we'd be spending much time in our rooms to mess them up anyway. Well, I might spend a lot of time in some of your rooms because they sounded like a lot of fun. But really, most importantly, we need sexy French maids. WTMR 7. If you have 18 minutes and don't mind f-bombs listen to Erika Napoletano's Ted Talk "Rethinking Unpopular" and then tell us what you think of her talk. Her talk can be found on the home page of her website http://erikanapoletano.com/ I love the blanket fort example. "My ass is a rectangle." Oh, that was funny.I thought that was a really great speech and I totally agree with Erika's viewpoint. This is sort of something that I preach all the time, so I won't say I learned anything from it, but she put it much more eloquently that I could. We do sometimes have to make decisions that people don't understand. I think we all attempt to do what makes the people around us happy for some length of time. Some people give that up as a teenager, some once they move out, and others never give it up. I know people in their 30s who still try to appease their parents, saying things like, "But my mother wouldn't like it if I..." I definitely can't relate to that because, in case you can't tell, my fucks to give ran out a long time ago. I stopped trying to get the approval of other people, because it became pretty obvious that wasn't going to happen. Where I do differ though is that I apologize all the time. When I do it though, I apologize for very specific things. I'll even say, "I'm not sorry about X, but I am sorry about Y." My apologies don't mean much of anything to people after I've known them for a while, which I know is bad. I just figure it's easier to apologize than try to defend myself sometimes. My friends will say, "You aren't really sorry. You're just saying that because you think that's what I want you to say." I'd say that's about accurate most of the time. Really, you shouldn't apologize unless you mean it though. You should just be yourself and mesh with the people who accept you for who you are. I won't talk to someone who makes me feel shitty all the time. I'll just write them off eventually. And my dear mother left me When I was quite young When I was quite young She said, "Lord, have mercy On my wicked son." |
Artist: Foghat Album: Fool for the City Song: Slow Ride [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** 30DBC: When you enter your assigned room with attached bathroom on the ship, it’s bare. You may decorate and furnish your room any way you like – just say it or wish it. The only limitation is you only have one port window. Tell us what the room looks like after you finish with it. I think every room should have an accent wall, especially a small room on a ship. Accent walls always make a room look bigger, so I'd paint one of the walls something mellow like light blue or something. I'd definitely have a hot tub in there because if I can just wish it and have it be, I wish that the room was big enough for a hot tub. Next, I would need an awesome sound system for my music, of course. I'd want to have art of some sort on the walls. Probably an Andrew Wyeth painting because I've always loved his work. Maybe Christina's World  or Master Bedroom  . I don't know why, but I've always really loved Wyeth's art. I would for sure put any  of these  on my wall  . Okay, I'm done with that part now, promise. I'd want some candle holders on the wall too because candles smell good and bring good ambiance. Then I'd need my writing area, maybe a desk that folded up into one wall so it wouldn't take up room unless I was using it. I'm a pretty minimalistic dude, I guess. slap some paint on the walls, nail in some art, add a candle and I'm smooooth sailing. I don't even want the hot tub anymore. WTMR 5. Write about a success you had this week. Well, I haven't really accomplished much this week, but today is Day 20 of my Give It 100 challenge. So, once I complete today's poem in, "Invalid Item" , that'll be almost three weeks straight of a poem everyday! That's really good for me as I've already written more poems in the last 20 days than I added to my port here all last year. I think I have like 15 poems in my portfolio and after today, 20 in my poetry blog.  I wrote more than 15 poems in the last year, but I have them in my poetry journal and I'll probably never add any because they're ones that were overanalyzed and sterilized by my writing process, which is just now starting to improve. Not every poem in my poetry blog is great. I'd venture to say that most of them are not great, but it's a learning process and the biggest lesson I'm learning is to just let things go. I don't have to spend two hours trying to make a poem perfect before I'm done with it. Now I can write a poem in twenty minutes a just be finished. There's always time to come back with fresh eyes and improve something. I'm getting over the idea of having someone read one of my more shitty poems and think, "Ah, what a horrible writer!" Because really, practice is the only thing that helps you improve and it's hard to improve without some level of feedback. So, I guess that's my success this week- becoming more comfortable with my poetry and writing a poem every day for 3 weeks! I'm in the mood The rhythm is right Move to the music We can roll all night |
Artist: Steppenwolf Album: The Second Song: Magic Carpet Ride [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics Hi guys. How's it going? I wanna thank you for your kind thoughts and comments yesterday. I was really freaking out, probably in large part because I had only slept a couple hours in the previous days. I can always count on you all to come through for me when I need some advice or just someone to talk to though. I'm a bit spoiled from it probably. I had my doctor's appointment this morning, super early after another bad night of sleep. Right when she saw me she was like, "You look exhausted! Too early for you?" I'm going to start taking Zoloft today. I can't remember if it's one I've been on before or not. I feel like I have been, but she had all of my records from the last two years and said I haven't been on it, at least in that time frame. Before that, I lived in a different state and they don't share systems, so I'm not sure what I was on before that, but I know I was on Wellbutrin at one point before I lived in another state. I have an appointment to go back and see her in a few weeks so we can get an update on how the meds are doing. I have a tendency to stop taking them when they don't work within a couple weeks so I think she wants to make sure that I'm still on them then. I'll probably be less likely to stop taking them if I have an upcoming appointment to discuss the effectiveness. She's the third doctor I've seen within their clinic. I'm probably a noncompliant patient. I kept getting transferred to other doctors there and the one I went to do today is the one who started the practice. It usually takes a few months to get an appointment with her, but I got in within a few weeks, I guess because I was referred by another doctor there. Anyway, I don't know why I'm telling you that. I have to get ready and go to school now. Yay for three-hour long math classes! I just hope I won't fall asleep. Not because it's boring, but because I'm so tired. We have an exam next week so I definitely don't want to miss the review today. I'll keep you guys updated on stuff. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** 30DBC: The prompt for April 1 starts out our magical journey on The Magical Ship. If you could travel anywhere, where would you go? What would you expect to see, eat, smell, hear, and feel? All of this reminded me of Aladdin right away for some reason, so I figured Steppenwolf was a good way to open up the unofficial month.  I think I'm going to try to do a fun adventure song every day to go along with it. Sometimes I have the most somber songs and I've been told by multiple people that I'm being too negative, so it might do me some good! It looks like it's going to be a fun month. Who doesn't love a good blogging adventure? If I could travel anywhere in the world, I would probably go backpacking across Europe. That always seemed like fun to me. I would've done it when I was younger, had I the financial means to do it. I didn't have two nickels to scrape together most of the time, so even just a plane ticket would have been out of the question. This month's image has me wanting to be on a ship though. It would be so cool to be able to go up on deck at night and see the stars. I bet they look pretty from the ocean where there isn't any light pollution. I love the pictures where you can see the milky way clearly. It's weird to me that it exists anywhere, but we just can't see it in the city. Does it really look like this  , ~Minja~ , from the cruise? That probably has super high exposure, but does it at least look like this  ?If so, I want to see that. I love the smell of the ocean and the way you can taste its saltiness in the air. I love the humid breezes. Can you tell that I'm nostalgic about the ocean? I haven't been there in a couple years and being landlocked kinda sucks. NO, Lake Michigan doesn't count. It's just not the same and it's frozen half the year. In fact, I'll take anywhere with a good beach right now. That sounds nice.  WTMR 6. Write about the things you regret the most and why (things you have done or haven't done, and if you don't happen to believe in regrets, why not?) Most of my regrets don't have do with the things I've done but rather the way I've made people feel. I know that we all mistakes, so I try to forgive myself once the other person does, but no one forgets it when you hurt them. Most of the guilt and regrets in my life have to do with scaring, hurting, or otherwise upsetting other people. When you think about it, life really is that way. If I'm thinking about bad things people have done to me, it's more the negative emotional experience than the physical thing they did that upsets me. One thing I do regret is not starting school earlier. I wish I had started college when I was 18 like a lot of people do after high school. At that point though, I had been out of school for a couple years already and my life wasn't stable enough for it. I didn't even think about going to school until last year when I realized that it was something I wanted to do. I mean, I'm only 23, so I definitely don't feel like I'm too old to be in college, if such a thing even exists, but I do wish I had gone earlier. I could have graduated last year instead of just now starting this year. It's not a huge thing that I worry about a lot, but when thinking of life regrets, it does come to mind a bit. I guess I don't really regret the time I spent away from school, but I feel like there were a lot of wasted years in there where I didn't actually do anything. From 16 to 23, that's like 7 years of just doing drugs and working the bare minimum to support myself. Nothing from that time period feels very 'accomplished' but rather just like a hazy fog. I have a lot of good memories of that time, but I'm happy to feel like I'm moving forward a little bit. Well, you don't know what we can find Why don't you come with me little girl On a magic carpet ride |
Artist: Slowdive Album: Souvlaki Song: 40 Days [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics Man, my week is off to a rough start. I hate to complain, but this is my blog, so I'm about to rant for the next ten minutes or so. Feel free to skip down. I'm caught up in another cycle of anxiety and depression. Anyone who has experienced it knows the type I'm talking about. It's the painful kind that feels like it's swallowing you whole. It physically hurts. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I can't work, can't do homework. I can barely even get myself out of bed. It fucking sucks. I think I've slept like two hours since Sunday night. I wanted to skip marriage counseling so bad this morning because I didn't sleep at all last night. I ended up going anyway and now I regret it. Like, half an hour into the session, the therapist stopped us and basically called me out and said that she "doesn't feel like my heart is in it anymore". Fucking seriously? I dragged myself out of my house at like 7:30 this morning on literally no sleep and came here. That just really, really pissed me off and I couldn't let it slide, so it then somehow turned into an argument with the therapist. I bitched her out about it and then she wrote some things down on her notepad and said, "You seem very worked up and angry right now." Is that not like the first thing you learn in "Things you don't say to a pissed off person 101"? I can't stand it when people say completely insensitive or absurd things and then act shocked when you get upset. Like, "Oh, wow. You seem angry!"  I ended up leaving the session like 40 minutes in because I couldn't sit there after that. I was so mad. Ugh. I'm actually still really pissed off about it. How could she say that in front of Kira? I mean, if she really did think that, she should have taken me off to the side after the session and asked, but even then, who fucking cares? Like, what am I paying you for? If my heart "isn't really in it", just still do your fucking job until I stop paying you to do your job. My life is constant arguing, constant bickering, always apologizing. Apologizing for the shit I do, the way I feel, the way I make other people feel. All I do is fight. My life is a negative hole that I can't ever seem to quite climb out of. Once I'm at the rim, I just end up clawing at the dirt and falling back down. I have no one in my real life who I can talk to about this sort of thing. Everyone is sick of me. I've been unwell for so long that it's just 'who I am' to the people around me. They don't want to hear about it anymore. I don't blame them at all. I know it's hard to be around someone like me, but I feel completely alone. Sorry, but this is all irritating. The therapist doesn't seem professional at all to me and I didn't have an issue with her before today, really. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to get medication for my anxiety/depression issues. I stopped taking my last one a few weeks ago because I couldn't concentrate with it, but now I'm in such a bad state that I can't concentrate anyway and I'm anxious/depressed on top of it. It just sucks all around. It's been a bad few days. Sorry for the meltdown. WTMR 3. Why do you blog? Mainly, I blog because I think we have a fun blogging community here at WDC. If it weren't for the interactions with other people, I would probably just stick to writing in a journal because it would have the same effect for me. I like to answer the prompts and see how other people answered. A lot of times, the way I answer doesn't line up with a lot of the other responses, but that's okay. I like the diversity within the group. We have a lot of different age ranges and personality differences, but that's what makes it unique and fun. It also makes me write every day, even when I don't feel like it. There are days where blogging is difficult for me, although admittedly, most are super easy. It isn't something that really challenges me, but that's what I like about it. I'm challenged all day every day with school and work. Being able to hop on here and vent or just talk about some random topics and read other responses is like a break from work to me. It helps to relax me and makes me feel happy most of the time, so I do it. If blogging ever became a chore to me, I would take a break. I think I’ve taken 5 or 6 days off here or there since I started my first blog last year. The problem is, the longer you don’t blog, the easier it becomes not to blog. If you keep doing it every day, it seems weird not to do it, and that’s how I blog so much. BLOG CITY: "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits," said Carl Sandburg. Since April, the poetry month, starts tomorrow, what does poetry mean to you? Poetry is very important to me and gets more important all the time. Since starting my poetry blog, "Invalid Item" , I've been writing a poem everyday. Poetry is something I respect because it's challenging. Some days you make off really with it and others fall sort of flat. Even on those days though, it just feels good to write a poem. It feels good to have that as part of your schedule. Like, writing a poem is tucked somewhere in my daily schedule now, or has been for the last few weeks. I'm definitely overtired and not feeling the inspiration today, but there's still a long time before the end of the day.Poetry is interesting to me because it's fairly easy to write a poem, but very difficult to write a good poem. Now that I'm writing it every day, I'm beginning to tell the difference between a 'good' poem and a not-so-good poem. I'm starting to recognize things, like when people are just talking with a lot of line breaks and calling it a poem, as if structure is more important than content. Or when someone brings something to life with imagery and I feel like I can actually see what they saw in their mind while writing it. I love all the clever, witty things in poetry. I love the twisting of words and meanings. Poetry is awesome. Forty days and I miss you I'm so high that I've lost my mind It's the summer I'm thinking of Forty days and I'm blown away |
Artist: Modest Mouse Album: Strangers to Ourselves Song: Lampshades on Fire [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: What to you is more rewarding...the journey, or the destination? So, this is it. This is the end? I always forget that some months have 31 days so the 30-day challenge cuts off a day before the months ends. I'm one of those reminiscent sort of people, so the destination is extremely rewarding to me. I like being able to look back at the journey with that bittersweet sense of nostalgia. School will be like this, I think. The destination is definitely going to be more rewarding than the grueling days and nights spent writing papers and studying for exams. When I get down about things like that, I try to look forward to the destination to keep my spirits up. Of course, there are things in life where the journey is better than the destination. Road trips are like this. Well, they're like this if you do them right anyway. If you just relax and enjoy the sceneries and don't try to make a specific schedule for each day, the journey of getting to the destination is the real vacation. If you're with someone who is antsy about time, the destination is more rewarding because at least that person will shut up. I guess it depends on the situation. Sometimes the destination is more rewarding and sometimes the journey is more rewarding. WTMR 1. What/Who inspires you and why? My inspirations are numerous. I'm inspired by every person I come into contact with, everyone I meet and talk to inspires me in some way, whether positive or negative. Music is an inspiration, movies, books... My memories are a huge inspiration for me, it's like an endless writing well. I don't ever run out of things to think or talk about because I take my life experiences and apply them to other things. I try to twist them and imagine them for other people's perspectives. Of course, these are all writing inspirations that I'm talking about. If we're talking about life inspirations, to be quite frank, no one inspires me. I don't think I've ever felt like anyone else has influenced me in terms of living my life. There are three things in my world: What I want to do, what other people want me to do, and what I actually end up doing, which is usually a combination of the aforementioned. I don't find inspirational quotes to be inspiring. Most of the time they just feel corny and make me giggle. Surely I'm not the only one? BLOG CITY: Do you believe humans and animals have a spiritual connection that isn’t necessarily dependent on the language? Have you had any incidents of this with the animals in your life? Definitely! I think it's different for people who don't connect to animals. They probably can't understand the validity of human-animal connections on a spiritual level, but I swear they exist. I have a connection to my cats and I understand them just by looking at their faces. I can predict what they're going to do before they do it. I know what they want. Cats have a very specific body language. I can tell when they're about to attack me or when they want to be cuddled. They make the perfect writing buddies. Mine hang out with me while I do homework or work at my desk. Sometimes they get sick of waiting for me to be done, so they come up and try to distract me by putting their paws on the top of my hands. Cats are smart animals and they make perfect companions for people like me who need to sometimes pass out in bed for 12 hours without being bothered. You could never do that with a dog.  Oh, and since it's finished... Give It 100, Day 17: "Invalid Entry" Well, the lampshade's on fire when the lights go out This is what I really call a party now Well, fear makes us really, really run around This one's done so where to now? |
Artist: Placebo Album: Placebo Song: Nancy Boy [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: Pick a random article from the headlines and talk about it. Share your opinions and feelings about it. Encourage a conversation. Ah, it's seriously time for me to do this. I was putting it off because I didn't know what to talk abouat and then I started drinking and now I'm even more fucked as far as getting out a good entyr, but we'll see what we can do. I saw this news story the other day and it doesn't really have anything to do with me or where I live or anything like that, but I thought it would be interesting to see what other people thought abut it. It's a news story from New Orleans about Dominos changing their policy on deliveries after dark in a certain area called the Lower 9th Ward because one of their delivery driver's was killed there after dark while delivering. They won't be allowing deliveries in that area any more after dark, basically, because this worker was killed there.On one side, people think it's just a snap decision that singles out this one community over the one incident instead of focusing on making the job safer in general because these things can happen anywhere. On the other hand, they're trying to protect the drivers in the areas where they know crimes like this have been committed. I'm sort of torn on this one. What do you guys think? It makes sense to me that they would stop delivering in that area if it's a bad neighborhood. I know if I was a delivery driver for them, I would just refuse to deliver there after dark. If they didn't have this rule implemented, I'd probably lose my job over too. Sorry, a delivery boy job isn't worth dying over. No thanks.Still, they should make the job safer overall. I don't really know how they can do that though? I guess they're trying to protect the drivers my not accepting cash after 10PM so that people will know the driver has only been paid with credit cards. I feel like the people who commit these sort of criems wouldn't think about the fact that the driver might not have cash. Plus, there's a chance that the driver would have his wallet on him, probably, and that could have cash in it, which might be enough for people to rob him at gunpoint in a shitty neighborhood at night. I'm trying to think of ways the job could be made safer, but I really cant'. Short of just not delivering at all after dark, I'm not really sure what they could actually do. It's kind of weird to do it by neighborhood because there are crimes committed everywhere so would it just be like, neighborhoods with crimes of this type over this percentage don't get pizza deliveries after dark? I dunno, this is bad weirdness. Ugh, I'm done, but so much red. To fix it or leave, that is the question. I'm officially taking a day offf from following grammar rules and fixing typos and all that. enjoy.  Kind of buzz that lasts for days had some help from insect ways comes across all shy and coy just another nancy boy. Woman man or modern monkey just another happy junkie |
Artist: The Used Album: The Used Song: Taste of Ink [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: What do you think are the three most important elements of a successful blog entry? Well, I know good grammar and clear language aren't a factor because people seem to like my blog okay. It's like my mind moves faster than my fingers can type, so I always fuck up and type the completely wrong word or something.So, let's see... three important elements of a blog. First of all, I think you have to connect with the people who read it. I mean, really, most days these prompts are easy to answer with just a few sentences, but you can't actually connect with people that way, or I don't think you can at least. You have to expand on things in a way that other people can relate to or form an opinion about. Even if they completely disagree, that's something. The worst is when every entry in a blog is just.. boring. Like, the prompts are answered fine, but that's the entirety of the blog. Fine answers to prompts. You've gotta put at least a little bit of heart or emotion into it some days. Obviously there are days when a writer just isn't 'feeling it' so it won't be as in-depth or interesting, but some days it has to be something where the reader is thinking while viewing your entry. Second part is having a clean, nice look to the entries. This might just be a personal opinion one, but I can't read something if the font color is too light or the whole thing looks like a jumbled mess. I don't like when the font is tiny or huge. I guess I prefer a somewhat minimalistic look. I like when things are separated by prompt so I can clearly see what the writer is referring to while answering a question, unless they're all going to tie in together. What else...? Oh, yeah, I hate when there are like 50 images and signatures. Like, when the entry has less sentences than it does signatures. Again, maybe just personal preference, but I don't think most readers will waste time sorting through a chaotic blog to see what the writer is on about.If those are the first two parts, I think the final part is being well-balanced within your entries. We've all talked about this a hundred times. We're neither this, nor that, we're in between. I think that is the key to life in many ways. I haven't quite unlocked the door myself, but I do know the combination to the lock. No one wants to read a blog that is super unbalanced. If I only wrote about drugs, or music, or food, or gardening, or whatever the fuck I was into, I don't think people would stick around long, do you? If every time a prompt came up that allowed for my opinion and I flew off the handle with some crazy unbalanced rant about it, it would probably get old eventually. If a blogger is clearly pushing an agenda (ie. Christians are great/Christians suck), I won't run to read their blog every day. I mean, it's the writer's blog, they can have an opinion about literally anything they want. They can be wildly offensive or overly agreeable if they want to be. The likelihood of them gaining a lot of readers isn't very high if they do it all the time though, in my opinion. I mean, you can have these raging rants, like, every once in a while when something ruffles your feathers. But on an almost daily basis? No way, you've gotta level out. WTMR 1. Share with us a time you lost something irreplaceable. When I moved from my parents house, I lost quite a few things, but they were all replaceable. You know, things like furniture, clothes, books, CDs, etc... It wasn't until the second move, the one a few months after I moved out of their house, that I lost almost everything. That time, I was told to leave on such short notice that I only had time to grab a few sets of clothes, a couple journals and a couple books I was reading at the time. When I came back a few weeks later to get the rest of my stuff, they said they had thrown it all in the dumpster. I lost all of my pre-sixteen poetry and writing. I could just imagine my poetry journals sitting in a landfill somewhere amidst a bunch of garbage. It really bothered me for a long time. Just the thought of that did. I didn't want to think about fruit flies and maggots eating the pages, but I also didn't not want to imagine the pages being eaten by maggots. If they were still out there, that meant that anyone could find and read them. This was back when I was super private with my writing and I didn't let anyone read it, so the thought of a bunch of garbage men or landfill divers going through my writing just didn't feel good. I'm more careful with my stuff now, especially because it kept happening more and more with each move. That wasn't the only 'emergency' move I had. In one of them, I lost my antique record player and record collection that I had been working on for months. I just started acquiring news things within the last year or so. I won't let anyone just throw me out any more, not without my nonreplaceable stuff, like journals and books or records that I really care about. I always told myself that I had my memories of things and that was enough, but I changed my mind about that. I realized that there are certain things, pictures and writing, that I deserve to have as physical keepsakes, so I started keeping them again. BLOG CITY: Which way is better: getting all of our news at a single point or two in the day, or the birth of the 24/7 news cycle, with news being reported all day long? I'm weird about the news. Hearing it once a week is plenty for me. Usually during 30DBC official months, I'll look at the top news stories of the week while looking for a good story for the Sunday news prompt. It's usually just super depressing and I know that if something super major happens, I'll hear about it. We live in a 24/7 news society and I think that has seriously changed the way news is reported. Everything is sensationalized and dramatized because there just isn't important shit to talk about every single day all day. That's why a celebrity getting new shoes or a marriage announcement can be the top news story. No one really cares, everyone knows it isn't news, but they need something to talk about, so they do. Ideally, I think just getting the news twice a day is enough. When I was a kid, my parents would get the newspaper and then watch the news in the evening. That was it. With the introduction of technology in every home, we are constantly being given 'news' updates when we're on the Internet. Most of it is just clickbait with a dramatic title that will catch people's attention. There are benefits to having 24/7 news coverage. Everyone is kept up to date in emergencies, which is good. It doesn't take a day or a week for people to learn about something going on in their area. They have instant access, so they can protect themselves against potential dangers. Still, on a day-to-day basis, I don't think it's healthy to know every single thing about everything that's going on with everyone. As long as you're alive and care I promise I will take you there |
Artist: Album: So Much For The Afterglow Song: White Men In Black Suits [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: Of all the days in the week during the 30-Day Blogging Challenge, 'Funny Friday' seems to take the most abuse. Why is that? What could make it funnier for you? I thought Twofer Tuesday would be the one catching the most shit. Are you sure it's Funny Friday? Honestly, the reason Funny Friday takes so much abuse is because it's by far the hardest day of the week, blogging-wise. I mean, not only do you have to try to gel well with the prompt, but you also have to attempt to make the entry funny. It's sort of difficult to do because we all know sometimes a prompt just doesn't hit you right, so it's an extra effort to write for it anyway. Then on top of that, you have another extra extra effort in trying to make it funny.It's one of those weird things where if someone walked up to the funniest guy at the party and just said, "Say something funny," it would probably be super hard for him to do. I think that's the way Funny Friday is for a lot of bloggers. It's like, most of us can be funny on our own at times, but every time I attempt to be funny on Funny Friday, it just feels like it falls flat to me. I don't know if anyone else feels that way, but I definitely do. I'm always thinking that no one would even crack a smile at whatever it is that I'm writing. Let's just go back for reference and review the Funny Friday prompts for this month: 1. The "How To" article is a staple of popular magazines. We don't always need informative-yet-boring "How To" articles...what we sometimes need is "How NOT To" advice. Try to make us laugh and tell us a good way of not doing something. 2. In honor of Friday The 13th, tell us about a time when something went so horribly wrong that all you could do about it was laugh. 3. There is something in the air that is making everyone in the vicinity laugh uncontrollably. Write an anecdote, a story or a poem about it. Now, on their own, I don't think any of these are outright bad prompts. I actually quite like all of them. It's just the rule where you have to be funny that makes you overthink t. I guess it sort of puts you on the spot, like, you can't just answer the prompt naturally - you have to be a wiseguy about it too. Today's prompt is a prime example though. I mean, it's Funny Friday, I've written this entire response and not once has any part of it made anyone laugh, I can guarantee it! While I feel like I did a good job with answering the prompt, I didn't follow the parameters given with it where I was supposed to be funny. That's why people give Funny Friday shit. You can answer the whole prompt as thoughtfully as possible and still completely fail at the general idea of the day. It doesn't matter if you're not in the mood to feel funny or if you're in a hurry or whatever. Funny Friday stops for no one! Still, I don't really want to get rid of it because it does break up the week with something different. Unless, of course, someone can think of another category that would be more agreeable to do on Fridays. That's my two cents. WTMR 3. Do you think that writing should be a solitary occupation/hobby, or does the idea of working within a group or club appeal to you? What sort of person would make an ideal writing companion for you? I'll be the first to admit that when I came to WDC, I definitely thought of writing as a solitary thing. I had never really written with anyone else, except a cousin when we were super young. We would trade notebooks and each write one page of a horror story and then switch back so the other person could write the next page. That was in childhood though and since I became more serious about my writing, I've viewed it as something I do alone while everyone else is sleeping or in my head during the middle of a long work day, just to escape for a minute. I guess that changed when I met Cinn . I'd say that she's my ideal writing companion. She pushes me to write when I really just don't feel like it. She's always honest about my writing. If something isn't working, she has no problem letting me know, but she isn't negative about it like, "This whole thing is shit!" I don't need someone to tell me that something is good or bad; I need them to tell me why it's good or bad. I need to specifically know what worked in a poem and what didn't. Unless she comes in here and tells me I'm wrong, I'm going to assume this is a mutual thing. I try to give feedback and support where I can, even if I don't know how to fix something, I can at least take the perspective of a reader and point out specific parts that felt weird, which honestly all you need sometimes. Trust comes to mind when I think of a good writing companion. You need to be able to trust the other person when they say that something is or isn't working. I know we all say things like, "You know your writing best!" and we do mean that, but I feel like with a good writing partner, you can let go of the reins a little bit and admit that you don't always know best. I appreciate every bit of feedback that I get from people, on WDC and in real life. But it is different when you truly trust and respect the person who's giving you revisions. Like, if you know that they 'get' you and 'get' your style, it's easier to see that they know what they're talking about and take it a little more seriously. BLOG CITY: How do you determine what you want to share from your life in your blog? I've noticed more and more lately outside of WDC, that more and more blogs are showing their families, their homes. Should we be concerned about how much we put out there? What are the risks? People put way too much out on the internet about themselves, I think. Maybe I'm just a paranoid person, but it sometimes surprises me what people are willing to share publicly with complete strangers. I think I was raised in a paranoid type of household. You should have seen my parents when someone knocked on the door when they weren't expecting guests. I think a lot of very religious households have that, "You mind your business and I'll mind mine" kind of attitude. The two might not be a direct correlation, but from what I saw growing up between my public school friends and private school friends, I would say that's about accurate in my experience. Anyway, one of my older brothers had gone on a date with this girl he met on Facebook through a mutual friend. He brought up her profile for me to see how hot she was and I was in shock by what was on her page. I was like, "Whoa, dude. Is this a public page that any random person can see?" and he was like, yeah, it is. Let me just list off the things that were on her public Facebook page: Her full name - first/middle/last, phone number, where she worked, where she went to college, her college school schedule ( ) was in one of the newsfeed posts, where she went to high school, a picture of her standing outside of her house (with house number clearly visible), about 500 pictures of her young daughter, her daughters full name - first/middle/last, her daughter's preschool (with image of her standing outside of it and the school's name visible in the background), a list of her relation to other people with Facebook pages (mum, dad, sisters, brother, aunts, etc..), and about a million pictures of different places, like a bar she goes to 'every Friday night.. zomg!'I told my brother that it probably wasn't safe for her to have that much information about her and her daughter on a public page that anyone can see. He got legit pissed at me for noticing all of it and told me to stop being 'creepy'. I wasn't trying to be creepy or weird or anything. It's just kind of hard not to notice when someone's entire schedule and life is given out to anyone who happens to stumble onto her Facebook page. Basically, I don't feel comfortable having super public pictures, giving out my exact address, etc... It's not that I'm afraid of anyone here or anything like that, but you never know who is going to see what you put out there. If I get 30 views on an entry and only 2 of the people make themselves known with a comment/like, there are quite a few anons and I don't know who they are or what they're about. If someone I know well wants to see a picture, I'll show them because I do understand the want to know what people look like. Other than that, I'm a pretty private person I guess. As far as possible risks, I just think about some weirdo following everything someone posts and getting obsessed with it. They could know everything about you without you even knowing that they exist. Then you give out your phone number, address, place of work, which college you go to and your schedule. They could legit start stalking you and you'd have no idea. I hope I don't sound 'creepy' for saying that. I would never do that, but I do think it's a serious concern that should be taken more seriously. Plus, I wouldn't want someone to know everything about my daughter, like where she went to school and stuff. I dunno, maybe I'm just paranoid. I've met a lot of bad people in my life. I refuse to be afraid of almost everyone Afraid of all the things they do or the words that they say Let's live the way we want to live and hope they go away |
Artist: The Kooks Album: Inside In/Inside Out Song: Eddie's Gun [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics Ugh, I do not like the way this day is starting out. I've been sleeping like 2 or 3 hours a night all week. On top of that, I'm busy with schoolwork and way way behind at work. Like, I'd have to pull off a miracle to be done with what I'm working on by the deadline. Fuck.. Also, my week became so annoying. I hate when people bypass easy solutions in favor of being stubborn. I mean, I understand if the proposed solution is going to be super difficult or unlikely to work, but when something is foolproof and simple, come the fuck on! I just want to shake them. Ah, well, maybe I'll poem rant about it later or something.30DBC: Florida governor Rick Scott recently banned the use of the term "climate change" in official state business, while renowned scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about it. What do you think? Should scientists stay out of politics, or are politicians doing the public a greater disservice by not acknowledging rapid and severe changes in weather patterns? This sounds totally weird to me. I mean, just the idea of banning terms in general feels a lot like adults closing their eyes, cover their ears and screaming "lalalala I can't hear you!" I definitely don't understand the reasoning behind pretending like climate change doesn't exist. I mean, come on. I'm always cautious when someone takes a topic off the table completely before there has been a real discussion about it. That's a sign to me that they're hiding something. I'm so tired, I can't remember what it was, but recently someone was very clearly trying to hide something from me by suggesting that we 'just forget' about it. I can't remember who it was or what it was about, but I remember telling my brother about it. Usually if someone is completely unwilling to address an issue, it's because they know that something shifty is going on and they don't want you to figure out what it is. It's definitely a greater disservice to ignore this sort of thing. Science always has a place in everything. Anything that can be proven is worth taking a look at. Something you can hold in your hand should not be ignored. It isn't debatable. It isn't a matter of opinion or a personal belief system. It's science! Science is awesome and explains so many different things. Why try to pretend like it doesn't exist? WTMR 5. What do you look for in a book? What makes you choose a particular book to read out of all the many you could choose? I don't have specific guidelines for book reading. I like a bit of everything, so it's easy for me to pick up a book in a new genre or by an author I've never heard of before. I also don't have a ton of quality control, so it's not like I need to know that a book has a high rating on goodreads before I'll give it a look myself. I've read some really awful books, but I've read some great ones too that I've gotten to share with other people because they were neither traditional nor popular. A lot of the books I read are just by word-of-mouth. One of my friends or brothers will tell me about an awesome book they read and then I want to read it too after they describe what the story line. I'd say about 75% of the books I read are found that way. Other times I'll just go to the bookstore and find cool covers that have interesting summaries on the back. The good thing about books is that, even when they're not great masterpieces, they can still be entertaining. I don't really lose much by reading a shitty book. It's like watching a lame movie. Of course it would be better if they were all great, but that's just not always possible. At least then you can be like, "Oh, I read that book, it sucked." BLOG CITY: Surrealism means writer, author combines unrelated images or events in a strange dreamlike way. Have you ever had this experience? I don't know if I've ever had a surreal experience, not sober at least. I have had certain times where things didn't seem to go together well or I had deja vu and that's always weird feeling. I do like surrealism though. I like surrealist artists and that sort of thing. Dreams seem surreal a lot of the time. One minute you're doing one thing and the next minute you're at a job you haven't worked at for 5 years. Then you walk out the front door into an ex-girlfriend's house. Dreams are often super disconnected and I think that makes them sort of surreal. There was one time where I ran into someone from back home in a completely different state across the country. That was definitely surreal because he just didn't seem like he should be there and it was a big city too, so it wasn't like the odds of running into each other would be high anyway. I lived in that city for years and never even ran into anyone I was friends with or worked with. It's weird when that happens because some people do just look a lot alike, so you have that weird pause where it's like, "Well, maybe he just looks a lot like that one kid I went to school with?" But, nope, it was him. It was cool too because we only lived a few blocks from each other in the art district so we got to catch up and hang out again. Things felt different because we had such totally different experiences by that point, but it was still sort of cool/surreal for a minute there. Yes I see the way she looked at me Oh she's got an eye for an awkward guy like me |
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I'm still so confused. How did they get to senior-level finance with so little know-how. I don't get it. 
It's great to see you back around. I'm sorry you've been having life issues. I hope you're doing much better now? You know I have a foul mouth. 
People definitely tend to jump straight to the worst conclusion when any problem arises, which is why you so frequently hear, "My computer is broken!" when there's really a simple fix. 
Just why. It's so gross. We need to get you some personal finance help! This is only tangentially related and not a statement on you, but one of the nonprofits I work with consists of me making budget plans for people who were recently homeless and have just gotten back on their feet. A lot of the people I work with have only been at their job for less than a month or been in an apartment for a week or two. My role is to gather all of their financial information and then consult with them on their bills, disposable income, purchases, and stuff like that. It's shocking to see the financial decisions people make after just being homeless. I'm like, dude, you were just homeless 2 weeks ago. 
I have seen so much of the disasters it has caused with some people. I have in the past been unconsciously roped into financial situations that were most unpleasant and having to make sensible plans to unravel them.