Today the lovely Gail Carriger wrote a post about homosexuality in her alt-Victorian-history fantasy novels. My favorite line:
I guess what I am trying to say is the following. There are queer characters in my books because there are queer people in my life, always have been, so it would not be my universe without them. They are as fallible, flawed, and as changeable as any other characters.
Amen.
It’s done.
It’s gone.
Now I just have to stay logged out for 14 days to make it permanent.
Bye Facebook!
Thoughts:
I noticed, as I was going through my list of friends, that with maybe 3 exceptions I already had the info I needed. Yeah, maybe I had someone’s phone number but not their email, or vice versa, but I could contact them if necessary. And for the 3, there are friends of friends. I could have made do.
And I forgot, during my off-the-cuff rant the other day, one of my pet peeves about Facebook: how obnoxious “the relationship status” is. Not all relationships can be defined by their little boxes. And on a more selfish level, it’s really fucking annoying when your friends are fighting and are in and out of a “relationship” five times a day—because dear God, in the midst of all the drama we must keep Facebook accurate.
Quitting Facebook, like the actual technical process, is really quite easy. The only reason it took me a couple of hours was that I had a computer die about a year ago and take all my pictures with it because I still hadn’t learned to back everything up. So I spent a couple of hours saving some pictures that I needed, and then I hit delete.
And now we wait.
Okay.
I hate Facebook. Like really, I’m over it.
I was one of the first wave—I joined freshman year of college, Fall 2004, when it was only open to select colleges. Not even all colleges. Select colleges. When people were still waiting with bated breath to see if their college would be next.
At first I didn’t understand it.
Then I loved it.
Then they allowed pictures—not just profile pictures, but other pictures, that other people could tag of you. That was the first step towards loss of control of your own profile. Everyone was outraged of course, then they adapted. It led to the highly-irritating habit of people taking 500 pictures of, like, every single night out or trip to the mall or whatever. But people adapted. You could block your pictures from view if you wanted. (I do.)
So then they started allowing high school students. And everyone thought the end had come. Complaints were loud and angry, but Facebook held firm. I still don’t know how they policed it (you had to be recommended by another high school student? or something?) but ok, fine, we got used to it.
Then they let EVERYONE in.
I mean, there were other steps too. I don’t remember the order. Various facelifts. The newsfeed. (Oh my god, the newsfeed. Remember that crisis?) Various privacy issues. Ads. The Tragedie of Scrabulous. Applications/Boxes/Whatever They Are. I don’t even remember all of the “updates.” I tried to ignore as many as I could, keeping my profile pretty plain.
But it was when they let everyone in that they started to lose me. If I want to have a platform where everyone on the internet can find me, I can just keep a blog.
Oh hey.
I still like the original idea of Facebook. I like the idea of an online college-student-communication-tool-thingy. An interactive online yearbook, like it started out. That was useful, when I was in college. But this—this behemoth? No. Dislike. Basically, everything Facebook has done since (& including) the photos has only annoyed me more and more and more. And oh my heck I am very strongly not in favor of the internet-wide “like” thing that just happened. And then today I couldn’t get to my profile without “linking” or some shit.
I’m just… over it.
At some point in the past year, I realized the newsfeed was the only part of Facebook I actually used and enjoyed, so I joined Twitter. So now the past few months I’ve realized that the only reason I’ve stuck around Facebook so long is that it is literally the only way I communicate with some particular people.
But between Twitter and this blog, people can get in touch with me if they want to. I have multiple email addresses. I could start using my real name here, so I show up in Google. Hell, I could write letters to people. (I know, what?)
Basically, this is all to say that I’m pretty sure I’m going to be shutting down my account over the next few days. So long, Facebook, and thanks for all the fish.
I don’t know where it came from. But there it is.
Enjoy.
That last post was kind of downbeat, so I’ll post everyone’s favorite Spanglish butt-shaking gummi bear to lighten the mood. Feel free to play it while reading that last post, but I don’t think they go together very well.
Writing always makes me think better, so I’m going to write this problem through and see if it helps. If this exercise is even slightly coherent when I’m done, I’ll post it.
I don’t know about other writers, but I go through a writing crisis every couple of months. What am I doing why am I doing this I hate writing writing hates me ahhhh die muse die. Or some such. That’s where I’ve been for the past week or so. I’ve been avoid my online writers’ group, I’ve been avoiding the novel from hell, I’ve been more-or-less avoiding people, I’ve been drinking too much—let’s face it, I’ve been wallowing.
I’m still unhappy about my writing life, but I’ve switched over from “depths-of-despair” mode to “let’s-fix-this-shit” mode. So. Trying to fix this shit. Here we go.
I feel stuck. I’ve been working on this novel for 2 years. I really do love it, the topic and the characters and words. It would feel like such failure to trunk it. I trunked the last novel, the YA fantasy that I’d poured 5 years of my life into. And that felt pretty bad. But this one was supposed to be better, I’d grown as a writer and a person, but the days and months just keep stretching on and I looked up one day and it was a year later and then it was two.
I’ve tried writing a few other things during that time, either also or instead. But this is the novel I want to be working on. This is the one I want to finish. Everything else just seems to drag me even farther from my goal.
So here are my thoughts.
1. I’m overthinking it. This novel has been swimming in my head for 2 years now, there’s just too much to handle. More than that, I’m trying to make it too perfect. It’s like, I’ve invested so much time and effort it really should come out like perfect. (my perfectionist-first-draft problems are a story for another time) So maybe if I could—somehow, possibly, perchance—just turn of the Evil Internal Editor (EIE) and just sit and write it out. Maybe even taking a few days off work and write straight through like 4 or 5 days. (when I go hardcore writer and just write non-stop I can be really productive.)
But do I want to do that?
2. I should write something else. Either for good, or as a break. But if I never finish anything, what’s the point? Can I even call myself a writer? But maybe I could try writing a short story? Something? Anything else?
3. Maybe I should just take a break entirely. Not write at all. I’ve kind of been wanting to go in a more critiquing direction with this blog, this would give me some time to catch up on reading so I’d be able to do that. And if I just decide not to write I wouldn’t feel pressured and guilty and maybe I could get my head in gear.
4. Maybe I’m more of a literary observer than a literary participant?
I find that thought depressing.
5. Gah.
So I don’t know what I’m doing. That didn’t actually help much. I mean, it was nice to write my thinking down. I think I understand where I am (or am not) slightly better now. But still no idea where I’m going.
Supposedly people like the novel of doom and want me to finish it. Maybe I just should.
Gah.
Okay, well, that’s not entirely coherent but someone might find the inner musings of a struggling writer interesting, so I’ll clean out some cursing and post anyway. There we go.
Also wtf allergies of doom. *sneeze wheeze*
You may remember in a previous post I mentioned Sxip Shirey and my favorite of his songs, lamenting the quality of the video. Well, yesterday he put out a much better video of the song. Hooray!
Someone got to this blog by searching for “caterpillar fuck.”
First of all, what?
Second of all, I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually used the word “caterpillar.”
HMMMMM
I am now icing my thumb with a beer. This is a good decision, right?
It might be time to change themes. I’m getting bored again.
Grace has a short attention span.
UPDATE: I kind of like this one. I’m having issues with the widgets, and I can’t figure out how to get rid of that overly-perky greeting up in the top-right (Hey there! See you around!—I can be perky on my own time, thanks) but so far I’m liking it. OPINIONS? I am easily swayed by peer pressure.
So I can’t type very well since I smashed my thumb into my dresser last night. (It was awesome. I was trying to move around my room in the dark, failed, tripped, and did that awesome windmill thing with my arms, which led to my hand smacking superhard into the solid wood dresser. It was pretty much slapstick.) It’s the thumb I use for the space key, and it’s hard to switch—so many years of habit. So mostly I’m just typing at half my usual rate, which is ridiculously obnoxious.
And that was more than you wanted to know about my thumb.
CURRENTLY I am watching Perry Mason. Oh the memories. When I was a child, I watched this show more religiously than any other, including all my cartoons combined. Oh Paul Drake. Oh Della Street. Oh Perry Mason. Love love love. My first cat was named Perry Mason. True Story.
NICHE UPDATE. Basically, people make this shit up as they go along, and nobody in America speaks the same English. NEESH got the most votes, with NEITHER in second place. Best answer came from milesbelli: Nietzsche. Research in action, folks!
Hm. It appears my thumb has a red spot on it. This doesn’t strike me as a good sign.
Perry Mason quote of the day: ”Objection! This is improper cross-examination. It is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial!” — D.A. Hamilton Burger
end transmission
