Friday, August 16, 2002
Friday Nights as an Adult
Wrists hurting. Sentences may be short. *sigh*
It's 11 p.m. and I'm on my way to bed. It's not even the -good- kind of being on the way to bed. It's the "I rode Maddie (the bike) for more than ten miles and now I'm falling-over exhausted since some of it was uphill...." on my way to bed. Ben already collapsed.
I can remember, way back in ancient history, when I was still in high school, how excited I was for Friday nights. I'd go out, and utterly without permission, stay out all night and give my parents heart attacks, but loved every minute of it then. And I'd never get tired. It'd be getting light outside (an indication that I should probably be getting home or something), and I'd be convinced that I'd never sleep again.
Of course, I slept like a rock when my head hit the pillow, but that's beside the point. Now I'm falling over and it's only 11 p.m..
Ah, the glory of Youth In Retrospect(tm).
My day's been spent Out. Not doing anything Out, mind you, until the big bike ride with Ben (which wasn't intended as an alliteration but came out that way regardless). Just running around trying not to be so PMS'y and depressed. (The two are utterly related, of course, and I'll be SO glad when this week is over and I'm no longer weepy and tired and hungry all the time.) Needed more Fabriano cards for the personal soul deck, stood in line at Daniel Smith. Needed some grommets, stood in line at Impress. Needed to get back into the city from Southcenter, and waited in a traffic line the size of my hometown since there was a Mariner's game this evening and because it's against the Yanks, EVERYONE wanted to go. And they were ALL on the road at the same time as me. It's just a good argument for public transportation and/or bikes, dammit.
I feel like there's a lot to say, but none of it's coming. Maybe later.
----e
certified old fogie
Posted by beth @ 10:54 PM PST [Link]
Thursday, August 15, 2002
bookstore materialism
So I'm standing in Elliott Bay after breaking my own promise not to buy anything over at Barnes and Noble (for what it's worth, it's for IQ, not for me. Got "The Lives of the Saints" and "Arts of Mexico", both really cheap, so it's not SO bad...). I'm wandering through my haunts: the writing section, the fiction section, the buddhist section, the places they put journaling and creativity books, the social sciences stuff that I'm not allowed to read since it makes me crazy...
And I realize that I just want to read everything. I want to pick up and caress all of these beautifully-covered books and lose myself in them and add new knowledge where there's only a vague awareness. I want to open my eyes and relax.
But then I realize that I don't have time. And what I really want is the time to read these things, not to actually do it. I want to collect the books as a kind of badge that I -could- learn what's inside, not take the time to do it.
It made me kind of sad, really.
After paying for the copies today, I was pretty much flying for the rest of the day. One thing down, six hundred copies of the zine to collate and another couple issues to write and then I can take some much-needed time off. I read enough at B&N that I think I can at least have a good start on the next issue, and I can't wait to make some retablos and shrines and milagro jewelry.
The sadness is kind of holding on, though, thanks to this weird feeling I get sometimes that I want too much. Acceptance, mostly, which I shouldn't since the source is outside myself and one can't count on other people for jack sh*t these days (even people you love). I get criticized and I wonder if I'm hypersensitive or if I should change something. Most of the time, I solve the problem by just getting depressed.
So I'm being vague, and not meaning to. Someday, I'll tell stories again.
-----e
Posted by beth @ 10:04 PM PST [Link]
sleep? We don't need no stinking sleep...
Somehow, I woke up this morning with a swollen, painful lower eyelid. If it's any indication of how the day's going to be from here on out, I think I may just go back to bed.
That said, I was thinking this morning about content. Not for the website or the journal or anything, but just in general. I write an incredible amount every day. Between email (which I'd like to think is remotely entertaining) and the two zines and the two logs and other various writing that isn't for a project, per se....I'm a prolific little thing.
Back in January, when I did nothing else, I did more than eleven THOUSAND words a day toward the book. In that vein, if I did that nanowrimo thing this year, I'd have it done in five days. And I'd have a manuscript. I may just do it. It'd be first draft, but at least it wouldn't be in my head.
Add to it that I need to get cracking on some classes and tutorials, since I'm teaching in Wisconsin in June and Paris sometime next year...and it gets a little more urgent. Nervous me.
Look for an archive of this, here on the site and redesigned, shortly. And the redesigned IN(ner) QUESTION pages, with updated weblogs, better navigation, and some interactivity, as well.
-----e
who really just needs to be outside today.
Posted by beth @ 08:58 AM PST [Link]
redoing the old
So I found the index page, decided I hated it, and now that I have photoshop back, made a new one. It' s not quite done yet, but it's better than that other one, where the logo took up three fourths of the screen if you're on a low-res monitor. Jeez.
Actually, it's kind of my side project/testing ground for the big project: I'm redoing the IQ site to be more update-friendly and scalable, since it's going to be just one cog in a well-oiled machine before long. Just have to buckle down and try and sit still during this unseasonable Seattle heat, when it's hard to concentrate on breathing, much less on doing anything reasonably productive.
I've been feeling the pull lately for history. Whether that's to learn from it and go forward, or just to recognize the patterns to look for new ways of dealing with them, I don't know. One of the two. But I'm planning on doing -something-.
For now, though, that something is bed.
-----e
Posted by beth @ 02:50 AM PST [Link]
