LET ME KNOW

I have a problem. 

Although the chains that seem to close in upon my creativity recently are real, I realized over the past few days that this isn't the whole difficulty.  I've overcome stuff like this before.  Or, maybe not quite like this... this is my first run at being an adult, where the stakes for my choices are so high.  But nevertheless, I could still write if I wanted to.  I could prioritize better.  I actually think I need to write more than I do now to preserve my sanity.

The other half of the problem - and the half that seems to weigh more - is the problem of audience.  I like to be read by people who will engage with what I write... who are walking through life alongside me and who may have insights into my thoughts and experiences.  Several of you have been this to me, and I don't mean to sound like I don't appreciate it.

Right now, by posting this entry, I am sending it into the inboxes of whoever is subscribed to me (minus four of you) in the "xanga subscription digest" email.  I don't know how many of you even read the digest things anymore.  Many of you have all but shut down your xangas - so does that mean that you are still silently watching what I post on my xanga, or not?

The greatest "xanga-fear" I have is that people will worry about me.  Or try to censor me.  Or tell me I sound "forlorn" (when I, apparently, have no reason to be so). 

So, my solution to my "xanga-fear" of audience is this:

I am thinking of starting a different xanga. 

Please let me know by commenting on this post if you would like to know about my new xanga.  I don't want to leave anyone behind.

Cheers!

-Christina

This white unswaying place

I'm sorry not to have written you sooner.
   We are peculiar forms, like someone's old papers rifled quickly through
But not read before the burning.
   How to speak of the icy cave-like place I lately feel,
Its white reluctance dividing me from all things I desire and see.
   I think it must often be the case
That one holds within oneself a guardedness, expectant, steeply quarried,
   The way mistakes grow magnified inside the mind, spiked and sharply    gleaming.

How skilled, how dominant, this white unswaying place.
   And I wonder how, bred from our churning, it constructs itself so strongly
Like the crush of light I sometimes at the noonhour hear.


Laurie Sheck

(this is actually copied from jstplnkt3's xanga... so if you're reading this, thanks.)

Wanting

I want so badly to write right now, but I can't.  Not only because I'm at work, and I'm only on lunch for a few more minutes.  Because I can barely think... barely sort out my life.... much less write.  Writing is only the front you can put up of having some sort of conclusion, some sort of interpretation of what's going on around you.... and when you're so tired that even the simplest things stop making sense, what can you say?  The best way to hide from appearing ridiculous is to be silent.

To write AS PROCESS of thinking, en route to conclusions... I need to find courage (and time/energy) to do that again.  I can't live any other way.

Does YOUR college education make you "snarky and unemployable"? 

(... as asked by a random Facebook group I found tonight)

"Snarky" is an absolutely spectacular word.  It may even by snazzy enough to become my new word... along with my new favorite, "Yo!"

Snarky, according to the Urban Dictionary:

"1.  Short tempered or irritable.

2.  A witty mannerism, personality, or behavior that is a combination of sarcasm and cynicism. Usually accepted as a complimentary term. Snark is sometimes mistaken for a snotty or arrogant attitude.

3.  Adjective - Any language that contains quips or comments containing sarcastic or satirical witticisms intended as blunt irony. Usually delivered in a manner that is somewhat abrupt and out of context and intended to stun and amuse. Origin: Snark="snide remark."

4.  Critical in a curmudgeonly sort of way.

  The adjective snarky is first recorded in 1906. It is from dialectal British snark, meaning 'to nag, find fault with', which is probably the same word as snark, snork, meaning 'to snort, snore'. (The likely connection is the derisive snorting sound of someone who is always finding fault.) Most dictionaries label snarky as "Chiefly British Slang." But for the last five or more years, it has become increasingly common in American publications, maybe ones infiltrated by British or Canadian writers and journalists."

Loving me is the process of naming me.  Of giving some part of me a real existence - and then reflecting back to me what you see.  What you see may be different than how I perceive myself.  The mirror you hold up may be a jolting reminder of the faults which I try so hard to bury and to hide from my own consciousness... may show me my ridiculousness and my littleness... may be what I wish you (of all people) weren't seeing.  But I am, nevertheless, glad you see.  Glad you see enough worth in me to reflect me back onto myself, despite my faults, and give me a name which I will value because you have seen just as real a part of me as that which I constantly sport as my imagined identity.