Entries by tag: blather
Hello! It's been a while. I gave up on "revamping" my old website and started a WordPress instead. And I've decided to make that my main blog for now. Forget all the Tumblrs, Bloggers, Livejournals, etc. Find me at http://alymcf.wordpress.com/
After 10/22/13 I won't have a paid LJ account. It's an acknowledgement that I don't use it much anymore. I'm planning on revamping my main website (which is currently stuck in 1995), and you can also find me on Facebook (PM me if you want to be friends) and Ravelry. I expect I'll still post here occasionally and look at my friends page sometimes. We shall see!
It's funny really. I found LJ a few years ago via Tumblr. Now it seems a lot of people have left LJ in favor of Tumblr. I don't get it, because it is darn near impossible to have a proper discussion on Tumblr. But I keep forgetting that kids don't really know how to use computers, even though they spend so much of their time on them.
Have a wonderful autumn!
It's funny really. I found LJ a few years ago via Tumblr. Now it seems a lot of people have left LJ in favor of Tumblr. I don't get it, because it is darn near impossible to have a proper discussion on Tumblr. But I keep forgetting that kids don't really know how to use computers, even though they spend so much of their time on them.
Have a wonderful autumn!
- Current Music:Tori Amos - Programmable Soda | Powered by Last.fm
I haven't posted in a while, and I just shut down my Facebook role play account (over 1500 "friends" and no time for 'em), so somehow my thoughts turned to this long neglected journal. I've been blogging on my regular blog occasionally, and using Facebook, but haven't been very active on Tumblr or Twitter or Plurk or any of that.
So what have I been doing? Trying to forge more community and friendships in real life. Toward that end I've been active in volunteering, taking a gigong/taichi class and helped start up a new knitting group locally. What I'm finding is that I really enjoy hanging out with the 60+ crowd. They aren't internet addicts! It's so nice to see someone face to face and talk to them without them having to stop every few minutes to check their phone.
Still, my virtual door is still open to anyone who's reading this who wants to keep in touch. Sometimes email is easier, so let me know if you want to correspond that way. Cheers!
So what have I been doing? Trying to forge more community and friendships in real life. Toward that end I've been active in volunteering, taking a gigong/taichi class and helped start up a new knitting group locally. What I'm finding is that I really enjoy hanging out with the 60+ crowd. They aren't internet addicts! It's so nice to see someone face to face and talk to them without them having to stop every few minutes to check their phone.
Still, my virtual door is still open to anyone who's reading this who wants to keep in touch. Sometimes email is easier, so let me know if you want to correspond that way. Cheers!
This was supposed to be a 100 Things meme but I found it on my desktop and realized I'd better stop with the 28 things I could think of easily or I'd never get it posted. So here it goes:
( Read more...Collapse )
( Read more...Collapse )
First let me just say that I have no idea how I'm going to get through this day. I'm coming down with this nasty virus that's been going around. I am supposed to go to acupuncture, volunteer in my child's classroom for a couple of hours, and finish getting the house ready for my mom who is coming to visit for a week starting tonight. On the bright side I've just about finished the second draft of an original short story.
I promised you anecdotes and here they are.
A few months ago I bought some new socks and put them through the wash. Only one sock made it out of the dryer; the other was missing. So I put the one sock up in my bowl of Socks Waiting For Their Mates. So then yesterday I put on this pair of sweatpants, and when I pushed my leg through, there was my missing sock! It must have been stuck to the inside of a pants leg for months.
Then this morning I was looking out the back window into the yard, where we have some slices of moldy bread on the grass for the birds. This grey cat shows up and sniffs at the bread. Then the cat picked it up and started tossing it around and playing with it! I tried to take a video but dropped my phone in the process.
Speaking of phones, I'm expecting an iPhone 5 to come my way on Friday.
I promised you anecdotes and here they are.
A few months ago I bought some new socks and put them through the wash. Only one sock made it out of the dryer; the other was missing. So I put the one sock up in my bowl of Socks Waiting For Their Mates. So then yesterday I put on this pair of sweatpants, and when I pushed my leg through, there was my missing sock! It must have been stuck to the inside of a pants leg for months.
Then this morning I was looking out the back window into the yard, where we have some slices of moldy bread on the grass for the birds. This grey cat shows up and sniffs at the bread. Then the cat picked it up and started tossing it around and playing with it! I tried to take a video but dropped my phone in the process.
Speaking of phones, I'm expecting an iPhone 5 to come my way on Friday.
- Current Mood:
tired
It's been a while! I have to apologize if I haven't been responsive to your posts. See for months I was watching an extremely busy LJ comm that was filling up 95% of the bandwidth on my Friends page. Often I was so overwhelmed by it that I just didn't even go to LJ. So now that I've stopped watching that comm, I can visit my Friends page again, at least in theory.
Today I had to login to FFnet to moderate some comments (I didn't even know people could put comments on fics, or that I could moderate them, is this new?) and found a message someone sent me from last October! Gah, it reminded me that I have not written fiction in quite a while, since Heir to Rainsworth. I tell you, ever since a certain Pandora Hearts character died last year, the manga has become so darn serious, somehow, that I can't seem to rev up my usual level of crackery. That and I have been doing way too much volunteer work IRL to have much time for writing of any kind.
Although I recently was given a gift from the heavens…a few hours to myself to do absolutely nothing. And in that space of time a revelation came to me that should enable me to finally move forward on my second original fic novel. I had thought it finished, but was not getting the glowing satisfaction from reviewers that I wanted. Now I know everyone says "write for yourself" but I have higher ambitions than that. This thing is going to sparkle and sing when I get done with it. People will read it and seek a higher level of life satisfaction because of it! Ok, maybe not, but hey, I like to make up stuff, that's why I'm a fiction writer.
I recently read all twenty volumes of Angel Sanctuary and it was pretty great, but I don't feel like writing about it much. I'm currently rereading 07-Ghost and it is even better than I remembered. . I'm also reading a lot of Buddhist thought, John O'Donohue books, and listening to Joseph Campbell talks. All very good for this twisted, sad soul of mine.
- Current Music:the sound of the keyboard
I just got Pandora Hearts volume 10 and hope to post a bit about it this week. If it contains scans it will be Friends Only.
I'm listening to the new Sigur Rós album...good background music, よ。
And...I'm trying not to freak out over the fact that someone is coming to steam clean our carpet tomorrow. I was in my kid's room an hour ago pulling stickers and tape off the carpet, tossing away band aid wrappers, dead insects and bits of trash. This house is a disaster; 90% of it is not my doing, yet somehow I get the majority of the blame for the fact that my home doesn't look like something you'd see in a magazine. As a housewife, should I spend most of my life scrubbing every crevice and corner? Forget it. I should just a job and then pay someone else to clean this dump. Rant over.
In three hours it is Merlot o'clock. :D Until then, time for some green tea and chocolate.
P.S. I wonder why LJ doesn't connect to Last.fm anymore?
I'm listening to the new Sigur Rós album...good background music, よ。
And...I'm trying not to freak out over the fact that someone is coming to steam clean our carpet tomorrow. I was in my kid's room an hour ago pulling stickers and tape off the carpet, tossing away band aid wrappers, dead insects and bits of trash. This house is a disaster; 90% of it is not my doing, yet somehow I get the majority of the blame for the fact that my home doesn't look like something you'd see in a magazine. As a housewife, should I spend most of my life scrubbing every crevice and corner? Forget it. I should just a job and then pay someone else to clean this dump. Rant over.
In three hours it is Merlot o'clock. :D Until then, time for some green tea and chocolate.
P.S. I wonder why LJ doesn't connect to Last.fm anymore?
- Current Mood:
WTF is all this sh*t?
Last week I had reason to take out a diary of mine from 1987, from when I was a freshman in college. Back then I was doing all these cool things, and I dragged out the diary because I'm helping a curatorial intern compile info for a future museum show. (Let's side step the fact that one day I may look back and be forced to admit that the only thing I ever did that was museum worthy happened when I was only 18 and it was all downhill from there.) What amazed me was to read my complaints from 1987...they are almost identical to my complaints today! Even at 18, I was fretting about how I have to be the proactive one in keeping friendships going, and worrying that I will never achieve anything noteworthy in my life. I was bitching about this when I was in the middle of an incredible, busy, full life, that involved getting paid to read my poetry to people, appearing on the cover of a local magazine, having a newspaper article detailing one of my gallery shows and another about a performance art piece, and having a skate punk band play at my 19th birthday party. Wow, if I thought things sucked then, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into when I slid into the anonymity of middle age, where it seems like everyone I know is either sick, nursing an aging parent, working their souls into the ground or flailing their way through parenthood.
What I've learned in recent weeks is that path to misery is lined with egotism. The more I think about myself and what other people are doing to me -- or not doing for me -- the more unhappy I become. The solution, I suspect, is in service to others, while expecting nothing in return. Expectations exist to be shattered, so if I reduce or eliminate expectation then I can just live in the moment and enjoy what comes or doesn't come. I'm trying to be optimistic that this will work for me, but what would life be if it wasn't a struggle?
What I've learned in recent weeks is that path to misery is lined with egotism. The more I think about myself and what other people are doing to me -- or not doing for me -- the more unhappy I become. The solution, I suspect, is in service to others, while expecting nothing in return. Expectations exist to be shattered, so if I reduce or eliminate expectation then I can just live in the moment and enjoy what comes or doesn't come. I'm trying to be optimistic that this will work for me, but what would life be if it wasn't a struggle?
Many a day I come walking up to an intersection where I have to wait to cross. I look on one side of the street and think, "Maybe I'll go to that coffee shop." Then I look on the other side of the street, and think, "No, maybe I'll go to that coffee shop." I can't decide, so I let the Walk light decide for me; whichever light allows me to walk first will beckon me to one coffee shop or the other.
This is how I would like to structure the rest of my life. Making decisions based on the paths that open up to me first. It's a little like the thrill of infinite possibility, but it is everyday and forever. I can be much calmer and content living this way.
- Current Music:Texas Faggott - Kainalo-peukalokaukalo-sporty feta | Powered by Last.fm
Just got volume 8 of Pandora Hearts and this week I plan to share some tidbits from it, but I will friends lock them for security/paranoia purposes, so friend me if you want to see!
Beyond that, I have been busy. Mostly been busy being in pain, and dealing with the snow that hit Seattle last week and then quickly turned to slush. I am still selling GFantasy, and wondering why no one has taken me up on my offer to Make You Free Stuff. And I have a new humor blog and am writing about being gluten-free. So there you go.
Beyond that, I have been busy. Mostly been busy being in pain, and dealing with the snow that hit Seattle last week and then quickly turned to slush. I am still selling GFantasy, and wondering why no one has taken me up on my offer to Make You Free Stuff. And I have a new humor blog and am writing about being gluten-free. So there you go.
- Current Music:A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Symphony Pathetique | Powered by Last.fm
I've been updating one of my other blogs, and just started a humor blog. Feel free to follow along.
I've caught up on Soul Eater and D. Gray-man (what? favorite characters dying? No, I don't believe it).
I've caught up on Soul Eater and D. Gray-man (what? favorite characters dying? No, I don't believe it).
If I open my personal journal to see what I’ve been scribbling about most over the last couple of years, it is my apparent inability to Achieve Anything. I internalized a lot of “no you can’t do that” when I was growing up, and now I seem to think I can’t do anything, and you know what they say: your focus determines your reality. I have psyched myself out of trying hard to achieve any of my goals in recent years, and manage to forget all the things I have actually done. And I’ve done a lot. Trouble is the One Big Thing keeps eluding me, and that is to publish a book.
( A few paragraphs that you may or may not find helpful and interesting.Collapse )
Anyway, I think the universe is telling me to wait on publishing. The whole field is changing drastically. Maybe in twenty years there will be a way to inject a book into your vagus nerve and have it do the polka in your corpus callosum. Stalling on this while I reach my eventual peak as a writer could be a good thing. And if not, there will be a lot of unpublished manuscripts for someone else to play with when I die.
( A few paragraphs that you may or may not find helpful and interesting.Collapse )
Anyway, I think the universe is telling me to wait on publishing. The whole field is changing drastically. Maybe in twenty years there will be a way to inject a book into your vagus nerve and have it do the polka in your corpus callosum. Stalling on this while I reach my eventual peak as a writer could be a good thing. And if not, there will be a lot of unpublished manuscripts for someone else to play with when I die.
I finally hit 10,000 words on NaNoWriMo this month! I've decided I'm going to try to write at least 10,000 words a month of something. It might be this third novel I'm plugging away on, or this non fiction book idea I have, or short stories. Something. If I have a reasonable goal, I can achieve it.
I dream of a world full of people who, like me, have little or no appreciation for TV, movies, plays, violent video games, soda pop, and sugary foods. I would love to be surrounded by people who, like me, know how to cook. We would cook for each other the most wonderful, wonderful meals. We’d share candlelit baths and hot tub sessions and talk about our feelings and ideas.
I want to live in a world where people spend more time looking at each other than at various screens. Where hands enjoy skin to skin contact and people can fall asleep with each other instead of their laptops and iPhones. I’m as addicted to the Internet as anyone else around here, but on cool autumn nights when the days are short, I swear I was born in the wrong century.
I want to live in a world where people spend more time looking at each other than at various screens. Where hands enjoy skin to skin contact and people can fall asleep with each other instead of their laptops and iPhones. I’m as addicted to the Internet as anyone else around here, but on cool autumn nights when the days are short, I swear I was born in the wrong century.
- Current Mood:
life's not bad actually
A few months ago I was driving around Seattle and kept making wrong turns, one after the other. I wasn’t in a hurry to get where I was going, so the wrong turns did not cause me to panic at all. Even when I took an exit too soon and ended up nearly driving across a bridge into Bellevue, I was not stressed about it. In fact, it was exciting. I kept thinking there must be a reason I was making so many mistakes. In my wayward travels, I felt sure I was going to encounter a friend hitchhiking on the side of the road, read a bumper sticker that would change my life, or stumble upon the yarn/coffee/tea/book store of my dreams.
( Existential crisis for your edification and amusement...Collapse )To end on a more positive note, I will share some advice I learned from a tree. It told me to put down roots, branch out in many areas, to reach for the sky and never forget that age makes you stronger, and that the rain is as vital as the sun.
( Existential crisis for your edification and amusement...Collapse )To end on a more positive note, I will share some advice I learned from a tree. It told me to put down roots, branch out in many areas, to reach for the sky and never forget that age makes you stronger, and that the rain is as vital as the sun.
- Current Music:Ólafur Arnalds - Tomorrow's Song | Powered by Last.fm
I like taking pictures, but I don’t want to be a photographer.
I enjoy cooking, but I don’t want to be a chef.
I like being a mom, but I don’t want motherhood to define who I am.
I like graphic design, but don’t want to do it for a living ever again.
I like knitting and designing my own things, but I don’t want take the trouble to write up patterns for distribution.
I like making music, but I don’t want to stick with just one style.
I want to write, but I am loath to be pigeonholed.
I enjoy cooking, but I don’t want to be a chef.
I like being a mom, but I don’t want motherhood to define who I am.
I like graphic design, but don’t want to do it for a living ever again.
I like knitting and designing my own things, but I don’t want take the trouble to write up patterns for distribution.
I like making music, but I don’t want to stick with just one style.
I want to write, but I am loath to be pigeonholed.
A cup of black tea made me happy. Will a second cup of black tea make me even happier?
Have you ever thought about the intentions of plants with addictive properties? They are cunning, those addictive plants. Cameliia sinensis (tea), coffee, sugarcane, even wheat and corn can be addictive. I believe plants evolve addictive properties (as well as yumminess) in order to inspire humans to help them propagate their own species. You see, the yummier the plant, the more likely a human will save its seeds and plant more of it. Humans will propagate the species en masse, take care of it, water it, and so forth, because humans enjoy consuming its seeds, berries, roots, leaves, whatever. So the plant gets a bit of free help and all it has to do is be its usual yummerific self.
- Current Music:Florence + The Machine - Strangeness and Charm | Powered by Last.fm
My Plurk is here. In case you also haz a Plurk, you can friend me or fan me or whatever it is you do over there. It is all new to me, and kind of like Twitter, but yet not at all like Twitter. It's yet another online thing I should probably not be playing with, but can't resist.
- Current Mood:
dorky
I read somewhere recently that the neural pathways you create at 13 years old will tend to stay with you for the long haul. In other words, what you spent a lot of time on at 13 will tend to shape your brain and perception of the world for possibly the rest of your life.
At 13, I was in 8th grade. What a horrible year that was. It was 1981-82. Ronald Reagan was in office and I just knew something wasn't right with that man (I would have voted for the Independent candidate). I spent the first half of my school year in one of those so-called "gifted" schools and the second half in regular public school. When I returned to public school it was clear that the status quo was still in effect: I was a freak and an outcast along with most of my friends. I spent much of middle school and high school wondering what the popular people saw in each other, and wondering why they liked such horrible music. I also tried to fathom why people like me were doomed to exist in the shadows. (Of course, then came Burning Man, where I could feel more or less at home with all the other people who don't fit in).
( Now imagine we all live in a tribe together...Collapse )
At 13, I was in 8th grade. What a horrible year that was. It was 1981-82. Ronald Reagan was in office and I just knew something wasn't right with that man (I would have voted for the Independent candidate). I spent the first half of my school year in one of those so-called "gifted" schools and the second half in regular public school. When I returned to public school it was clear that the status quo was still in effect: I was a freak and an outcast along with most of my friends. I spent much of middle school and high school wondering what the popular people saw in each other, and wondering why they liked such horrible music. I also tried to fathom why people like me were doomed to exist in the shadows. (Of course, then came Burning Man, where I could feel more or less at home with all the other people who don't fit in).
( Now imagine we all live in a tribe together...Collapse )
- Current Mood:
hand hurts
- Current Music:Natural Snow Buildings - Darkness They Call Him | Powered by Last.fm
I have this sense that if I try too hard physically, I will get hurt. This is born out by experience: if I do too much weight lifting, walking, anything, I tend to get injured easily.
Similarly, I have a notion that if I try hard to achieve some goal (like publishing my work), I may get hurt (like people will ignore it, or hate it).
All the same, I keep fighting for what I know I need to do. I'm here to make my mark on the world in some way. I get hurt, but I get up and keep fighting. I will be fit and shape, dammit. I will infect others with my creative stamp.
I look at the world and I see the same pattern: People keep living their lives and trying to go on, even knowing that tomorrow, the world economy could tank, there could be a catastrophic natural disaster, or their favorite people could die.
Even knowing that they might not always been appreciated for who they are, people keep being themselves. More (benevolent) power to us all!
Similarly, I have a notion that if I try hard to achieve some goal (like publishing my work), I may get hurt (like people will ignore it, or hate it).
All the same, I keep fighting for what I know I need to do. I'm here to make my mark on the world in some way. I get hurt, but I get up and keep fighting. I will be fit and shape, dammit. I will infect others with my creative stamp.
I look at the world and I see the same pattern: People keep living their lives and trying to go on, even knowing that tomorrow, the world economy could tank, there could be a catastrophic natural disaster, or their favorite people could die.
Even knowing that they might not always been appreciated for who they are, people keep being themselves. More (benevolent) power to us all!
Comments
Ps: the full Karneval anime pv is out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5D-YezQ9us
I will add it to my "plan to read" list :D.
If all goes well I will send you the short story in a week or two. Hopefully I still have your email address!
"I've just about finished the second draft of an original short story."
Yay! I want…
What a interesting dream! :D
"Anyhow, any dream that features Echo saving the world has got to be a good one. :)"
Of course <3.