According to Google, this is what Jack thinks of me.
As you can guess from the above, it’s an understatement to say that I am an emotional being. I wear emotions all over my sleeve, my face, anywhere I can thrust them out of my brain and into somewhere else.
When I don’t let my emotions out, they gnaw me away from the inside. The same obsessions I share that are just quirky or funny become hideously self-destructive. It’s great to be able to have a laser-like focus on work or other external problems, but when I turn that on myself I can easily burn myself away.
The reason I share all this madness here is because I can get everything out and I can skew it however suits my fancy. I try to find humor in my quirks and my flaws and give everyone else a laugh. I might not be happy, and let’s face it, there’s a lot in my life that I’m not happy with, but it makes me smile to know that I can bring a chuckle to the complete strangers who stumble here.
Still, I worry a lot about what I write here and on Twitter. With statuses like the above one, it can come as no surprise why. I have the “THIS IS ALL PERSONAL” disclaimer, but the internet has a memory that doesn’t care about those things. The internet is a tool, and people use that tool as they see fit, and I fear that my tweets or blog posts written in a flurry of emotion will come back to whack me over the head.
That fear makes it hard to write honestly online. It’s not that I have to lie, I just have to leave out a lot of the story I want to tell. And me, being that person who shows each emotion, gets even more frustrated that I can’t talk about my frustrations openly. Then, I worry because I thrust the anxiety and rage on the same few friends over and over, who listen to the same stories of what is making me boil over. Then, I start to write it all out because I get sick of that cycle and think about posting it here.
But this is where Jack steps in.
Jack is my ideal reader. He’s the one member of the audience I’m writing for. If he “gets” what I’m writing, then I’m happy. He usually only sees bits and pieces of nearly everything posted here, but I need that filter. I don’t entirely trust myself in this space. He keeps my awful typing in line and makes sure I finish what I am writing. Most of all, he tells me what needs to be held back.
This blog post started a week ago, on a night where I was burned out, enraged, and ready to go up in arms. I had been wronged, and I was determined to take steps to escape the reality I made around myself, and step one was going to be post here with the above image. A lot of those feelings still exist, and I do need to take more significant action on them, but I’m able to approach them with more sanity and logic thanks to Jack. (Note: Read this paragraph, and then go back to the one about being honest online. See what I mean?)
At the end of the day, I may be kicked to the curb, pissed on, and ready to go to war, but I’m grateful to have Jack to keep my writing from undermining myself, and to keep pushing me to strive for better with each post. I’m leaving the dark place where this tweet came from and I will start changing the world, my world, into the place I want it to be.
2 months ago
December 23, 2009
I’m like Lady Gaga, in that we both don’t wear practical clothes
Last time I shared a personal secret about how I hate grapes, NO ONE CARED. No comments, no laughter, no awkward stares, no nothing but three other weirdos joining my anti-grapes Facebook group. But, I’m going to post another secret, because if I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that blind rage and fury posted on the internet will carry your career on well past its 15 minutes of fame. Thank you, Sarah Palin.
Anyways, before I go singing the praises of how Sarah Palin has revolutionized Twitter and Facebook from her Twitterberry, I need to get back to my blood-curdling secrets.
Internet, I hate sweaters.
They’re itchy. They make you look like a shapeless marshmallow. Often they are one awful color. If they have multiple colors, they look like a kaleidoscope threw up all over them. Sweaters the only garment of clothing I know of that has a specific genre, the Christmas sweater, that everyone finds tacky or disgusting yet they still wear them anyway. I know if a sweater had the chance it would hug you, and then your skin would crawl off because it would be so itchy.
Of course, Jack thinks I’m insane. Maybe it’s because I screamed in terror when he shoved a grape in my face at breakfast IN A PUBLIC RESTAURANT, or because I was freezing my ass off in the snow sleet freezing rain cold rain we had here the past few days, but he thinks I should wear more sweaters. Keep in mind, that every year, for the past 20 years of his life, Jack has recieved EVERY. SINGLE. SWEATER. that The GAP has made that year for Winter/Christmas.
Jack is invested in what I like to call “The Sweater System.” This system is a global, corporate price fixing, mind-altering measure to make everyone believe that sweaters are hip, fashionable, and stylish. They make you think it’s warm and fuzzy and will get you laid. Let me tell you, if wearing a dead animal’s hair mixed with a poly-cotton blend is cool, I don’t want to be right.
I know it may not be the most practical, but I think my current system of layering a number of t-shirts and buttons ups under a stylish jacket is superior than to be covered in the shaved hair a poor sheep. It lets me keep some semblance of a body shape. It makes me more like a parfait, or an ogre. It screams, “I live in the south, and I don’t need to keep myself warm because the sun does that for me.”
So, until I have to move north, or the horrible blizzard hurricanes of The Day After Tomorrow come, I will be here, not wearing sweaters, enjoying my life free from the tyranny of long sleeves and thick, warm cloth.
2 months ago
December 22, 2009
Sour Grapes
So internet, let’s share a secret.
I hate grapes.
I despise the things. They are slimy disgusting little orbs of pus and madness. I imagine eating them is like having to pick a gorilla’s nose and then eat the wet boogers you scooped out. Grapes are that huge and horrifying.
The only good things to come out of grapes occurs when people smash them vigorously. These are, of course, wine and jelly.
Don’t get me started on raisins.
(Actually, raisins are so horrible they deserve a post of their own where I describe the game Find the Dead, Wingless and Legless Flies in Your Box of Raisins. But that’s an entirely different post).
So, I’ve been hiding my intense hatred of grapes for a while now, mostly because people would think I am irrational, which would be a completely new thought for them to have. They already think I’m a crazy, nocturnal nerd and are mostly my friends because they need that one person to pity. Do you need a new pity friend? Because now you can have that kid who hates grapes!
So, I decided to share my hatred of grapes with Jack, mostly because he’s a kind of picky eater and I thought he would totally agree with me that we all can have one food to irrationally hate. So, I thought about this for several days. Should I tell him? Should I just let it boil inside of me? Maybe I should start a Facebook group, so people all over the internet can hate on grapes passive aggressively?
No, I decided to be a man about it and tell him. In one of those quiet moments at dinner this past weekend, I took hold of the conversation and it went like this:
Jay: Can I tell you something?
Jack: Sure, you can tell me anything.
Jay: I really hate grapes.
Jack: *laughs* You’re weird. Anyways, did you see… BLAH BLAH BLAH!
And this was the moment when I knew I’d have to kill Jack one day.
Not only did he ignore my blind fury about a small seedless fruit that grows like a tumor, he completely dismissed it. He couldn’t understand how grapes are a menace to my quality of life. He couldn’t understand how important it was to share how much I loathe the very existence of grapes. He reduced me to a ranting, crazy mess on the internet.
I’ll be lurking around the Facebook Group if anyone needs me.
4 months ago
November 3, 2009
Jack and I braved our way through the “AMAIZING” Corn Maze at Green Acres Farm in cary this weekend.
You can see Jack’s reaction as we reached the first dead end. I promise we made it out alive.
RSS
Archive
Mobile