Been Awhile

I haven't really had anything to talk about lately. Work is still the same except I'm moving to a new unit in June, so that'll be exciting. It's one the busier units so hopefully I'll have more tasks and won't go crazy with the slow pace. I really hate that.

I've begun writing children's stories. They aren't being published yet or anything but I have two stories written so far for varying reading levels. They're about our awesome dog, Eddie, and her fun happy dog times. I just need to find an illustrator but I've read that if your story isn't already illustrated and a publisher likes, then they'll work with you to find someone. Since most major publishers don't accept unsolicited manuscripts or ideas, I have to find an agent first. So... I guess that's my next step. Otherwise it comes down to finding an illustrator and the funds to self-publish with the hopes that it gets someones attention.

Writing for a living always seems like such a fantastic concept, and then you start researching publishing and the like, and it starts to seem like a terrible, rejection-laden concept. We'll see how the cookie crumbles, I suppose.

I've also inexplicably decided to let people read my stuff, with the intention of getting feedback. That's right. I'm asking people to please read my work that I put my heart and soul into, and then to tell me what they think. Because I am a masochist.

I gave someone a hard copy of an incomplete short I've been working on for some months now. The moment I realized it was out of my possession, I started to freak out. It doesn't matter how good you think your work is. The second you let someone read it, even if they aren't reading it while you're there, you start to doubt everything you've written.

It's a super fun awful time.

When I was 11 I wrote this poem (have I told you this story before?). I really liked it, I thought it was neat. I had never written a poem before, not in earnest and of my own accord. It wasn't for school or anything. I just thought these words and I wrote them down, and when I was finished I realized my intention the entire time was to create something beautiful and moving. It got left out on the coffee at home one day and my dad read it. He asked who wrote it and I said that I had. He said it was phenomenal. He used that word. Phenomenal.

Nobody had ever referred to anything I had ever done so positively before.

That same year I wrote a letter to a teacher who had retired from the school I was at. I told her about the poem. I told her, at 12, that I thought I found my calling. I was going to be a writer. I was going to write things that made people use words like 'phenomenal.' And they would be talking about me. She never responded to the letter.

A few months later I had successfully written another poem. I was proud of it. I let my dad read it. He was unimpressed. I reminded him that he thought the last one was so great. He was still unimpressed.

A few years later I had written a very short story. I was always writing. This story in particular I felt no real connection to, so when a friend asked if he could use it for an English assignment that he didn't really want to do, I had no problems saying yes. He got an A on the assignment. Nobody knew I had written it.

I was still letting some people read my work around this time. Just two very close friends. I thought about letting others read it, but then I remembered my conversation with dad, remembered the last time someone liked my work but didn't know I had written it. I wondered if they had, if they still would've liked it. I wondered if my dad was impressed with the poem because it was impressive, or if he was impressed with the poem because he didn't think his daughter was capable of something impressive. I didn't know if there was a difference. I still don't.

I wouldn't get any real feedback from my friends. They would say my stories were good, but they were never specific about what was good. It started to feel futile. I wasn't asking if I was any good. I was asking how I could be better. Having a grasp of the English language and a vague understanding of human nature doesn't make you the next great American novelist. (Does it?) I always needed (and still do) to be challenged. Hearing, 'this is really good' isn't a challenge. It's nice, it's reassuring. But it doesn't help me be better.

Eventually, I stopped letting people read. I kept hoping someone would ask and I would feel, I would know, this is the person who will help me. This is the person who will make me really look at my work, they will help me become confident in it and myself. This is the person that will challenge me.

That person never asked.

So I asked myself.

I sat down to write one day, with no intention of actually writing (as one does) and I immediately started a story and I didn't stop writing until I had finished it. I re-read it. And I re-read it. And I re-read it so many times. I liked it. More than that, I knew other people would like it. I set it aside and I went back to my older stories. The ones I set aside because I would always get to a point where I was forcing the story and it never felt natural. I took a long hard look at my work and I decided that I liked it. Most of it. I decided that other people would like it to. And then I decided that I could do better. So I've been doing better.

I don't need people to tell me my work is phenomenal. It's nice, it's reassuring. Of course it is. I need to tell myself my work is phenomenal. I'll never believe it when someone else says it anyway. I have to get there on my own.

I don't know what this all means right now. It's mixed up in my head still. It's mixed up in this post. I don't even know if it makes sense. I know I'm confident in my work for the first time since I was 11. I know I'll never write something and let someone else take credit for it again. I won't abandon my work like that. I pour so much of myself into my words, to just hand it over to someone and let them put their name on it sounds absolutely nuts to me at 25. I know I'm tired of seeking other's approval.

I'm a good writer. Sometimes, I'm awful. Sometimes, I'm phenomenal.

I said it.

Dialogue

Question I didn't think I would ask at work: So, regarding patrons, what's our policy on napping?

Answer I got that made me really glad I asked: Who the hell is- where's the damn guard?

Sometimes I'm Racist

Discovered how racist I am while at work today. While tagging books a slim, bright red book with yellowing pages fell off the truck and into my lap. I looked down, surprised, and the book spoke to me. It said, 'this year you write your novel.' Curious, I looked more closely and discovered the author. A one Walter Mosley. I thought, 'who is this Walter Mosley, and what makes him qualified to tell me how to write a novel?' So I researched him, and just by typing in his name to my library's catalogue I was already discovering new insights into my psyche.

I assumed he was white.

Based entirely on the title of the book, and his name. That is how my head works.

When I'm reading, I always assume all the characters are white. Unless I know otherwise from the beginning I assume every author I'm reading is white.

Does this happen to other people?

One of his books is called Cinnamon Kiss, another Bad Boy Brawly Brown, and I saw those titles come up first and I immediately thought to myself, 'oh that can't be right, his name must be similar to a black author and the system just threw them both together.'

So not only did I assume that Walter Mosley was white, I also assumed these titles were specifically black titles, somehow aimed at the black reading populace.

What happens in life that results in a white person automatically assuming everyone else of even moderate success is white as well? Do people of other races assume characters in books are the same race as them or have we tarnished their spirit to the point where they also assume everyone is white?

Race equality is still an ongoing struggle.

Even writing this I'm not sure if I'm being racist or not. I probably could have referred to Mosley as African-American. That could have been a start, I suppose, but doesn't that still keep our races separate? By saying that, am I still only showing how naive about race I still am? Can I, as a white female, really comment on how difficult it must be for others?

I feel like- I know that I need real answers and solutions to these questions and problems, but I don't know where to begin, or how. It feels like something is off in my brain, something that makes me think the race I come from and claim as my own is somehow superior to any other. That doesn't seem healthy to me. That sounds like a mental disorder. Like an imbalance of chemicals.

I want to have a proper balance of chemicals. I want to assume that a writer is a writer, a person is a person. I want to assume that we're all the same underneath. I don't know how to make my brain do that.

Untitled Post

For World Book Night yesterday, mom and I put books on people's cars like the religious rubbish I always find on mine. My literature was about a different god though. That was exciting for me. Passing along the good word about books. I'm about that. It was also Fahrenheit 451, which is not my favorite Ray Bradbury book but obviously I love it because he's an amazing writer and his work never fails to make me fall desperately in love with the human race all over again despite its many, many failings. (Kinda like watching Doctor Who.)


Overheard a woman at work saying a lovely sentence: my cousin was married to Juicy.

That's it.

I wrote that shit down the minute she finished saying it. What a friggin' sentence, man. 'My cousin was married to Juicy.' I have so many questions.


A woman I basically grew up with comes into the one branch frequently and when she looks me, there is not even the slightest flash of recognition in her face. She knew me through the end of grade school and all through high school, the period of your life where you do a great deal of changing physically. She knew me before I had glasses, knew me when I got them, before I had braces, when I got those, when I got those taken off; she knew me while I was gradually getting taller because I'm short so naturally I didn't have a sudden growth spurt. I spent countless days and nights at her house with my best friend and she looks me in the eye and there isn't even a glimmer. I don't register to her at all. She's seen my name tag, that also means nothing. She knew my mother and her family and I wonder if she would recognize any of them anymore, or if they've been obliterated like me. It's stunning. Other than that, she doesn't show any other signs of memory loss or deterioration. She drives herself to the library, she reads constantly, her hearing was always a little bad when I knew her and it doesn't seem to have gotten any worse really, she knows off the top of her head that May 15 is a Wednesday this year (when her books are due back). So at a glance, it seems like the only thing she's forgetting is me. Which I guess, having not spoken to her in almost another decade, isn't too much to complain about. It just makes me curious about the brain and its workings.

Love and Marriage and Work and the English Language

When I've been up for a while and Jeremy is still asleep, I'll pass the bedroom and see him taking up the entire bed and think, 'man that guy's amazing, I'm glad we're best friends... how do we both fit on that thing?' (cause he's kinda tall, I don't know if I've expressed that before). Then I'll go in and kiss his forehead or whatever. Except I always give him a heads up like, 'Husband I love you,' or 'Jeremy I'm going to kiss you,' or my personal favorite, 'hey don't punch me in the throat,' cause of that one time I attempted to kiss him while he was sleeping and he tried to punch me in the throat. Cause he thought I was a zombie.

This is what I married, guys.

I chose him.

He was like, 'you wanna do this thing?'

And I was like, 'pssh, hell yeah!'

Yesterday at work I wrote angry missives to each patron I had. Well, almost each patron. I would finish our interaction, and write a few lines on some scrap paper about how much they were damaging the human race. Then I would tear that shit up and pretend it never happened. It made the day a little better.

Also of note, I went to the wrong library yesterday by accident. (Obviously, because who would do that on purpose?) When I showed up at the right library the guard was like, 'this one is ----' and I was like 'oh no kidding asshole? I thought it was ----.' (Dashes because while yes, it's pretty clear where I work, I don't think I've been specific about names... Have I?) I really hate it when people think they're being clever by pointing out the mistakes you are already aware of. When it happens to me I always have to rifle through my extensive memory and check if it's a thing I do and this is the universe telling me not to be such a douche. I do it. To be fair though, I only do it if I know the other person won't be aggravated by it. To be more fair, I don't mind it sometimes, but first thing in the morning when I'm clearly running late because I can't read a schedule, apparently, and I'm worried that not even a full week after an excellent evaluation my coming into work late because I'm an idiot will make my supervisors reconsider their position... that is not a good time to think you're clever, random security guard.

Light note: a patron owed money and when she asked how much I told her three fifty. She replied, tree fiddy? And I stifled a laugh. (Guys I just learned that I've been spelling 'stifled' wrong, for years. Blogger just angry red lined it when I put two F's in it. How did I not know this? It's literally been years.)

I Got Angry Suddenly

I watched a movie in the dark last night while the Husband was at a karate class. I was thoroughly enjoying the film and the comfort of the dark on a humid night and then Husband called to let me know he was on his way home. When he asked what I was doing and I told 'watching Sunset Boulevard in the dark' he said, 'mhrm, weird.' Then I thought about it, and is it actually weird? I don't know what's weird anymore. I can't see where the line is. So I just keep doing my thing and learn what's weird when people are like, 'Storm, that's weird, stop doing that.' Except I rarely quit because I generally enjoy what I'm doing. Like watching movies in the dark.

I'm still learning social cues. How sad is that? At 25 I still don't have a full grasp of 'time and place for everything.' I got an inkling of it when I read Where The Wild Things Are, but then on later reflection I discovered I was probably misunderstanding the point of that story. (Everyone has a mental disorder? Sometimes people are bipolar? I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.)

Some cues I've stumbled across recently:

• When people ask if you've lost weight, they don't really care if you have or not, they want you to ask if they have.
• When people how you've been or what you've been up to, they don't care they just want you to ask what they've been up to. You could have pulled a child from a burning building or scaled Kilimanjaro, they aren't interested. In fact, to tell them about that would be in bad taste because you'll only make them feel like they're underachievers.
• If you've done anything charitable or good, tell everyone. Just throw it in their faces so they feel like shit because what the fuck have they done lately? Oh you rearranged the living room? That must look real nice. Yes I always thought that end table would look lovely by that window. You must be so proud. (This conflicts with the previous knowledge I've presented regarding social situations. That's actually a recurring theme in humans.)
• Do you think :insert name of person, animal, special interest, etc. here: is the best thing ever? You're probably right. Go ahead and tell everyone that what they think is best is wrong and then tell them it's because your best thing is the best because you said so and if they ever thought their best thing was best then they were stupid. Cause your thing is best.
• Humans have no grasp of the concept of 'opinion' and like to make everyone else feel terrible for disagreeing with them. They also really love to 'disown' people, or stop beings friends with them for not having same interests, or not knowing the same things they know. You've never heard of this movie? We can't be friends anymore. You don't know this song? I can't be seen with you. You don't know who this person is? Were you raised by wolves? (This is an especially interesting quality in the race. It seems that they feel if their friends would only listen to a particular song, or read a certain book, show an interest in anything that a person has an interest in then they would immediately love it the, exact, same, way that that person does. This is ludicrous. Nobody loves anything exactly the same way. Nobody feels the exact same way as anybody else. That's part of makes humans so diverse. Maybe they will like it, maybe they won't. Admittedly, at least give it a try, is a nice concept. Regardless though, sharing interest in something so trivial shouldn't determine whether you can be friends with a person or not. I'll allow an exception for things that have sincerely changed your life for the better. And if a person constantly makes fun of the thing you're into, instead of being an adult about it and accepting that if nothing else at least it makes you happy.)
• Everything is a double standard. Everything.

I've gleaned more, but this turned into something angry unintentionally so I'm going to go deal with that anger through the therapy of written word. I stole that line from The Following, which by the way I am still not a big fan of. I wish Joe Carroll had been portrayed by the dude playing Roderick. That guy was charming and enigmatic and I buy people following him blindly. James Purefoy... make better decisions.

Weight Issues. What's New?

Got out my summer clothes to make myself feel shitty cause I like the abuse. Not really, but it's hard not to think that's why I did it. I knew full well none of those clothes would fit me cause despite my best efforts I've managed to tack on approximately 10-15 pounds since last summer. I guess I was just hoping they would fit a little better than they ended up fitting even if they were still too small. A few pairs of shorts weren't  completely god awful, and one bikini still fits well, but everything else? I definitely need to lose about 10 pounds before summer. That or buy a whole new summer wardrobe.

I keep getting asked if I've lost weight, which is nice since I'm trying to (cause I hate my body, like every other woman alive), but I haven't so when I say no they disagree with me. Like I would lie about it. How do I benefit from that? I don't understand this concept. Sometimes I just wear more flattering clothing. I try to dress for my body, but it's that weird shape, where it doesn't fit into hourglass or pear but it's somewhere in the middle. Whatever. I have a pretty nice ass so if nothing else, ya know. That.

I would rely on my intelligence and humor, like I've done all my life, but I find more and more that people are intimidated by it, or flustered by it, or in the case of my humor, don't always get it. That's frustrating for me. A friend recently told me she was nervous to talk to me when we originally met because I seemed so smart and she didn't want to sound stupid. She's over that now obviously, cause we're friends, but I hope when she said she was over it she meant being nervous to talk to anyone that seemed smarter than her. Guys, smart people want friends too. Not a lot of them, cause we aren't very social people. But some. Some friends. Who are also smart. I have those friends. We talk about you when you're not around. (JK... but seriously.)