Wednesday, September 28, 2011

What happens.

A friend said something to me today that I ended up spending more time thinking about than I had intended to, which is rarely a good thing. She said. " I wonder if we can just be happy with what we DO have instead of focusing on what we don't have?"

Can we?  I mean, it makes sense and it's what all those happy, uplifting, nothing can ever get me down, people always say to do. It's part of the Law of the Universe, and The Secret. I think a version of it is probably even written in the Bible. Somewhere. But is it really possible?

What if that one thing that is missing is what ends up defining you. And you don't want it to. What if it's starting to change you. Starting to turn you into someone that you don't even like. At what point do you have the right to decide that it's simply not good enough for you?  That was a stupid question. Of course, you have that right at any point, but at what point should you decide?  I'm guessing probably at the "breaking point."

For me, that point, is hard to distinguish. I go and go and go, even when I say I can't anymore. I deal or pretend to deal. I work and I drink and I do what I can not to focus on what eats away at me.  I reach a "point" and I then blow. Once the explosion has subsided I then...go and go and go...and so on. The breaking point for me might not even exist, if in reality I've already been broken. And if that's the case it would explain so much.

Perhaps when Ennis Del Mar said... "If you can't fix it Jack, you gotta stand it...", Jack shouldn't have stood it. Maybe things would have turned out differently. But, then again, who knows.

I do believe I have now answered my friend's question, though. The answer is No. No, we can not.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm not... solid. I'm hollow. There's nothing behind my eyes. I'm a negative of a person. It's as if I never - -I never thought anything. I never wrote anything. I never felt anything. "  -Sylvia Plath


Hope, who is feeling a tad Plathy and broken today, but knows tomorrow she will most likely be able to stand it.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

The Information Age...

We're here. We have landed. Smack dab in the middle of a Brave New World. Anything we want to know we can find out in an instant, with the click of a mouse, the type of a button, or the tap of a screen. We are flooded with facts, details, photos, and videos. Not only can we find out anything we want to know, but anything we want to get is only a few clicks away as well. New living room furniture, that antique out of print book, prescription medication, and hot young asian chicks. Doesn't matter what it is. We want it? We've got it. It's absolutely fabulous in an "Idiocracy" sort of way. Has it made us lazy, selfish, less patient, and more reckless?  Sure it has. No doubt about it. But...it's the Information Age and there's no turning back now.

So... information is one thing. We could debate the benefits and downfalls until we're blue in the face and really it won't matter. There are benefits and downfalls to everything. But communication is another thing. We have also entered into the age of Instant Commincation. We have facebook, were we can keep all of our friends (and the other people we don't really know) up to date on our every action, meal and shit of the day. We have instant messaging were we can chat live with those we know and those we don't. We have Ipods, and Ipads, and laptops, oh my. We have smart phones and text messaging for instant communication and information on those rare occasions when we are away from our Ipods, and Ipads, and laptops. We've got it all, baby. We really do. And while we know what the informaton age has done for us, both positively and negatively...what has the commincation age done?  Has it improved our communication?  Has it increased our communication?  Sure, we can do things instantly now. Instanty. In. An. Instant. But we don't, do we?  Remember the old days...way back before all of this fabulous technology?  We had basically three ways of communicating. Letter writing, telephone (yeah....that's what we used to call it.) and face to face. Back then if you asked someone a question when you were standing directly in front them they couldn't take hours, days, even weeks to answer your question. That would have been...umm...what's the word I'm looking for?  Ah...yes. That would have been rude. But, now...with all of our means of communicating, we are almost refusing to comminicate. We're lazy. We think...I can respond anytime and then we don't. Or we're selfish and noncommittal...we think...I'm not going to respond until I find out if there's something better to do. I'd like to say I still know a handful of people that will make plans and stick to them. I can't though. I know exactly two. Having the ability to do everything instantly has turned us into proscrastinators. We can put if off. Why? Because we can do it instantly... whenever we get off our lazy asses and decide to do it.

Communicating. We are overloaded with ways to do it and we will continue to do it less and less.  As a society it almost seems like we've become that child who gets everything, all the time, whenever they want. We've become spoiled and we appreciate nothing. I hate to think our relationship with other human beings has taken a back seat to our relationship with technology. I hate to think it. But I do. How often have you been out in a public place, sitting at a table with several people and everyone is on their phone. No one talks. No one makes eye contact. I've been on the recieving end of this and I'm also guilty of it. Why not?  I'm part of this New and Exciting age too. Without internet access I can actually start to feel myself dying. Seriously. I can.

So what's the solution?  There is no solution. The world changes and people change with it. Some changes are inevitable, but some remain individual. We can choose how we handle ourselves in regards to other people. I know everything is too damn easy now and as a rule we humans tend to get bored when things are too easy...but really...if we all make an effort (a really small, microscopic effort) maybe, just maybe we can try not to be such technological douchebags.

OCM...who leaves you with this quote as we move forward into our  Brave New World..."And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!"  Joe Bowers, Idiocracy

Friday, September 2, 2011

Chapter two...

And here we go again. The dreaded first post. I'm not sure what it is about the blank white page that I always find so intimidating. It honestly doesn't take too much effort to start filling it up, even without really saying much of anything. Kind of like what I'm doing now. See?  Already I've eliminated several lines of the scary white and filled it with... whatever color and font I chose. I forget what it is now.

So basically this blog is a continuation, of sorts, of my old blog One Crazy Mutha.  That blog started in 2005 and ended rather abruptly in 2007 when my husband (second) decided he didn't want to be married anymore. I'm not sure why I abandoned it. I just did. I've attempted to start over a few times since, but somehow none of the pieces would fit. I've missed blogging. I've missed writing. I've missed having a place to dump all my shit. The pretty shit and the not so pretty shit. I miss the freedom of saying what I want, when I want, in any way that I want. I hate feeling censored, which almost always tends to happen when people  start to pay attention to what you say. So...this is a read at your own risk type of thing.  My priority is to try to get back to where I was four years ago, when I would dump my truth onto these pages in truck loads and not give a second thought as to who was doing the reading or the judging. 

A lot has changed for me during my blogging haitus. I've gotten divorced, moved back to my home town, got a job, quit a job, had hundreds of anxiety attacks, fell in love, got my heart broken, fell back in love, and lost my mind. I've made mistakes. Some by accident. Some on purpose. I've managed to keep my son alive and relatively happy and heathy to the ripe old age of seven. I have a new found love of spicy food and flavored beers. My hair has fallen out, my muscles have entered a state of "forever tense", and I've struggled financially. I'm in the process of filing bankrupty...and by "in the process" I mean I still have to call a lawyer and make an appointment. I'm trying to do whatever I can with my doll business to keep it afloat because, for me, getting a "real" job is a slow death. Just thinking about it right now made it a little hard to breath. I'm currently living with the love of my life as we're both busy making mistakes and adjustments and loving each other. It's been fun and passionate, and sometimes messy and painful.

And...this is the road I'm on.  Where it will lead to doesn't matter nearly as much as the ride to get there. So that's pretty much what I hope this blog becomes. Excerpts and snapshots of a journey to God knows where. Chapter two...

OCM, who feels the weight being lifted.