Blogging and Fight Club?

I love Chuck Palahniuk. There's something about the way he writes and what he writes about that speaks to me, reveals the truth about things unexpectedly. Bret Easton Ellis does the same thing in a similar, yet distinctly different, way. Both authors are among my favorites and I own everything they've written. When I first read Fight Club, I thought it so brilliant that I started highlighting passages. I recently bought his newest book, Stranger Than Fiction*, which is book of short stories. The book's been out for a while and received a lot of praise, but I haven't had time for pleasure reading until now.

In the introduction, Palahniuk explains how he writes and researches for his books--- and other things...I love how the intro begins--enough to quote it. I really hope it's not illegal to do so... A big part of the intro is focused on the cycle of time spent alone and then with others that writers go through. I think what he writes is very true, and applicable to all sorts of people or all sorts of writing. As I read, and reread, I think about how what he is saying applies to my life and then-- to blogging. Read this: (emphasis is mine)

If you haven't already noticed, all my books are about a lonely person looking for some way to connect with other people.
In a way, that is the opposite of the American Dream: to get so rich you can rise above the rabble, all those people on the freeway or, worse, the bus. No, the dream is a big house, off alone somewhere. A penthouse, like Howard Hughes. Or a mountaintop castle, like William Randolph Hearst. Some lovely isolated nest where you can invite only the rabble you like. An environment you can control, free from conflict and pain. Where you rule.
Whether it's a ranch in Montana or basement apartment with ten thousand DVDs and high-speed internet access, it never fails. We get there, and we're alone. And we're lonely.
After we're miserable enough--like the narrator in his Fight Club condo, or the narrator isolated by her own beautiful face in Invisible Monsters--we destroy our lovely nest and force ourselves back into the larger world. In so many ways, that's also how you write a novel. You plan and research. You spend time alone, building this lovely world where you control, control, control everything. You let the telephone ring. The emails pile up. You stay in your story world until you destroy it. Then you come back to be with other people.
If your story sells well enough, you get to go on book tour. Do interviews. Really be with people. A lot of people. People, until you're sick of people. Until you crave the idea of escaping, getting away to a . . .
To another lovely story world.
And so it goes. Alone. Together. Alone. Together.
Chances are, if you're reading this, you know this cycle. Reading a book is not a group activity. Not like going to a movie or a concert. This is the lonely end of the spectrum.
[. . . .]

My pet theory about Fight Club's success is that the story presented a structure for people to be together. People want to see new ways for connecting. Look at books like How to Make an American Quilt and The
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and The Joy Luck Club.
These are all books that present a structure--making a quilt or playing
mah-jongg-- that allows people to be together and share their stories. All these
books are short stories bound together by a shared activity. [. . .]
. . . In so many ways, these places--support groups, twelve-step recovery groups, demolition derbies-- they've come to serve the role that organized religion used to. We used to go to church to reveal the worst aspects of ourselves, our sins. To tell our stories. To be recognized. To be forgiven. And to be redeemed, accepted back into our community. This ritual was our way to stay connected to people, and to resolve our anxiety before it could take us so far from humanity that we would be lost.

In a way though too, is what he's talking about so different than what we do as bloggers?
When I started this blog, I was seeing a shrink. After a while, I quit going. I feel like I get a release from blogging that replaces my need to see a psychologist. While that may not be true for everyone (and while I may still need a shrink and not know it, lol) do we not get a release from this 'ritual' of blogging, of telling our stories. Are we not also trying to find a way to 'stay connected' and to 'resolve our anxiety before it could take us so far from humanity that we would be lost'? I know I do. Blogging is a way for me to connect with people while at the same time have that mountaintop castle, alone and in control.

Palahniuk goes on:

We live our lives according to stories. About being Irish or being black.
About working hard or shooting heroin. Being male or femail. And we spend our
lives looking for evidence-- facts and proof-- that support our story. As a
writer, you just recognize that part of human nature. Each time you create a
character, you look at the world as that character, looking for the details that
make that reality the one true reality.
Like a lawyer arguing a case in a courtroom, you become an advocate who wants the reader to accept the truth of your character's worldview. You want to give the reader a break from their own life. From their own life story.
This is how I create a character. I tend to give each character an education and skill set that limits how they see the world. A house cleaner sees the world as an endless series of stains to remove. A fashion model sees the world as a series of rivals for public attention. A failed medical student sees nothing but the moles and twitches that might be the early signs of terminal illness. . .

It seems to me that this is almost painfully true. We do live our lives according to stories, stories that we tell on our blogs. For Palahniuk, it's about creating a character....For bloggers, or some of them, that character is ourselves. This makes me wonder about my own world view, and how it's apparent in my blogging... What about yours? I do find that I get a break when reading others' blogs, and the authors of those blogs are like characters in a book. When reading other people's blogs, we get a glimpse of what it's like to live in another person's reality-- a peak at their world view.

Palahniuk ends his intro, and I this post, with this:

In this way, even the lonely act of writing becomes an excuse to be around
people. In turn, the people fuel the story telling.
Alone. Together. Fact. Fiction. It's a cycle.
Comedy. Tragedy. Light. Dark. They define each other.
It works, but only if you don't get stuck too long in any one place.

*copyright 2004 Chuck Palahniuk Stranger Than Fiction. Anchor Books

Bathtime Kitty

So my cat's new favorite thing to do is mess with shit in the bathroom, especially while I am in the shower or bath. I've found evidence that she's been going in the bathtub for a while now...About 2 weeks ago, she starting sitting on her litter box or the sink and singing/meowing while I shower. She's very careful not to get wet. I think she is just curious and wants to get in the tub when I get out. It's awfully cute.

But in the past few days she has learned a new trick.

As I shower, now she decided it is great fun to take the biggest, smelliest shit possible. My bathroom is small and I can't escape it. If I weren't already in the shower, I would leave the bathroom or do something about it. But once in the shower, I feel like I should just do my business and get out....I think she does this just to get the bathtub all to herself... Sneaky cat she is.

Bathtime Kitty

Men get angry at stupid, pointless shit.

Grrrr! Why is my neighbor such an ass?!?!! I really don't understand. He's been a good friend mostly, except in the last month or so.

Today around 4 he calls me. My friend keeps his car parked in our lot because he lives in a place that doesn't have a parking lot. Technically, his car should be parked in my spot-- spot number 2. But the lot isn't entirely full and so nobody pays much attention to parking in the correct spot.
But today my neighbor calls and is pissed that my friend's car is parked in his space. I told him in the future I'll pay more attention and ask my friend to do the same. I then asked why it was such a big deal, kinda laughingly. I told him it seemed kinda ridiculous to me.

Then he yelled at me, saying he didn't want to see that car in his spot again. I told him I'd get it out of his spot right away, then, and hung up on him. I moved the car and now I am angry. Grrr. What the fuck?! When I went to move the car, it made me even more pissed that there NO OTHER CARS in the entire lot. Can anybody tell me why on earth he would chose this to get pissed about?

A month ago he showed up at my place with his friend at 3 am after going to the bars. He drank an entire bottle of wine that I was saving and specifically told him not to drink all of. Then he swiped my bowl without my knowledge. He refuses to pay me back for the wine, or admit responsibility. He left my bowl in his friend's car, who didn't know it was in there. His friend then gave it away to someone else! Thankfully, his friend got it back, but my neighbor has yet to return it to me. Ack.

I always say, Never Fuck With A Scorpio. Let's hope he gets his shit together and apologizes soon because it won't be fun to be on my bad side while being my neighbor.

eye meme

my green eyes

I've always loved having green eyes. And, frankly, I think they are my best feature. Wouldn't you agree?

This is why I decided to participate in this eye meme I've been seeing everywhere lately. I don't think I've done a meme before. . .

I don't really understand the whole 'meme' thing. Somebody starts one, and others just then do it themselves? Does one need to ask permission? Who starts these things anyway--is there some sort of meme moderator or something? What about the ones that 'tag' other people-- can you do it without having been tagged first? With any meme, do you need to link to the place where you saw it? [there were just too many people with the eye meme...] Does 'Friday Spies' just involve taking a meme you saw from somewhere else and blogging it-- or does entail something more? What about that '100 things' meme-- it seems like that is one that lots of folk just have, kinda like a blogroll or a profile.....I've been meaning to do that one....

I'm just an idiot about some things. Meme's are one of them. :-)

Flashback

I've been trying to find a way of expressing my awe of the power of human interaction and the existence of meaningful coincidence, my renewed faith in some sort of fate or found in coincidence. I'm having trouble doing so without using cliche after cliche. . . So I guess I'll just tell y'all my story.

I spent the majority of yesterday coloring... with my markers. Also catching up on blogs and playing with stickers... Essentially I am lately just reveling in the fact that I don't have to do anything in particular, and so I am doing whatever-the-fuck I feel like doing. Sometime after midnight I heard my neighbor outside and I thought he was yelling for me. I went outside to investigate (and tell him to get off his ass and knock on my door if he wants my attention) and found him talking to 3 kids I didn't know. It turned out it was one of them yelling and not at me...

One of them was a pretty blonde girl named Brooke--she was with two of her guy friends, Jared and Carl. It was pretty clear from first impressions that they were pretty young- and it wasn't long before we learned that they would graduated high school in about a week and were visiting Jared's brother for the evening. The brother, Jeff, lives at a nearby apartment complex and they had ventured out in search of smokes only to find the nearby convenience store closed.

My neighbor's pizza arrived and he retired for the evening. I was happy to sell them a pack of smokes (I always have a carton) and invited them up to my place. They were nice kids, very polite and I didn't think twice about bringing strangers into my apartment. . . Only now that I am writing about this do I realize that's not a very smart thing to do. Only now do I realize that I then proceeded to give alcohol to minors and that is not something I ordinarily condone... But-- when I was 17, I would frequently go to Athens, Ohio with friends to visit somebody's older sibling, and do things that my father would not have approved of and that could have gotten us all arrested. They had already been drinking at the brother's place, but they weren't drunk or anything.

I ended up spending the entire night just talking with Jared for the most part. Brooke left not long after they arrived- she was tired and hungry and apparently wanted to seize the opportunity to seduce (unsuccessfully) the brother while her friends were not there. LOL. Carl was very open about his Christianity from the start- it seemed like maybe he was mentioning it so frequently more to affirm himself than inform us. He wasn't offensive or in-your-face about it or anything and I think he was just being friendly.

This Jared boy and I were fast friends. If I were 17 or 18, I would be completely head-over-heels for this one. He had really beautiful blue eyes...But more than that, he just seemed to think about life in the same way that I do. ---or the way I did when I was 17. We three sat on my floor and smoked wayyyyy too many cigarettes and talked about everything. College, Europe, Drugs, Social Security, Love, Sex, Relationships, the Insanity of Teenage Girls, Family, Football, Airport Security, Abortion, Fate, Southern Republicans, Gossip, Bob Dylan, Dave Matthews Concerts, et cetera.

Often I find myself feeling old... or maybe, dare I say it, wise, when I am with people who aren't that much younger than I am. But at the same time I feel very young and maybe even younger than my companions. I've felt this way even around my peers for many years, but as I get older this feeling is stronger and more frequent, especially around those who aren't as 'old' as I am. I feel the need to teach, almost-- to let them know how it is because I've done it/seen it/been there/ know all about it, and for some reason I think my 'expertise' will be immensely useful to them. I realize when I'm doing that that I do that a lot and it's probably really annoying. Of course it's an absurd thing for me to do. I am really not that much older than they are at all. I am certainly not an expert on anything, let alone on how best to live your life when you are graduating from High School. Half the time, especially lately, I feel just as scared and little and confused as I did when I was 16.

In reality, we all are currently in similarly frightening and exciting transitional periods of our lives. These kids, I think, are a bit more stable than I was. When I graduated from high school I wasn't planning on attending college quite yet. I told the only school I applied to that I wouldn't be attending for a year. I was going to move to Montana with my boyfriend and work on dental floss farm. (Montana=true; Floss farm=joking Zappa reference) But Alex & I broke up 3 days after graduation and I got a job at a nursing home to make some summer cash. I didn't have any idea what I was going to do in the fall, and I wasn't worried about it. My father (god bless him!) just held his breath and prayed that something would snap me back into reality. He never pressured me or lectured me, and I was completely happy being oblivious to the reality of my future.

Right now my life is not remarkably different than it was in the summer of 2000. Thank god I finally got rid of that boyfriend, it took me two more years after that....but still. Seriously though-- I find myself now not a student, not knowing really what I'm going to do to support myself and better my future, and I'm strangely calm and not worried about it. I know now, and I knew then, that everything would be just perfect. I had a whopper of a panic attack while learning how to brush the teeth of those who are no longer able. I got up in the middle of training and ran like hell down the halls of home, out the front doors, and didn't stop until I was three blocks away at a pay phone.

Reality hit me all at once, sitting there realizing that if I didn't do something I would be brushing old people's teeth and working with unhappy women twice my age & half my education in Newark, Ohio, alone, for who-knows-how-long while all my friends moved away to school and my father grew accustomed to his disappointment. It was the first week of August. I called my father (collect-- I hadn't grabbed my purse when I left) and, without explaining why I was out of breath, asked him to call OU and tell them I didn't want to defer anymore. Three weeks later I moved into Washington Hall on East Green and decided to take Latin 101 because I knew it would be easy after 4 years in high school. That panicked decision was probably the smartest one I've made in 22 years, and doubtless one of the most important.

While I sat last night with these two boys, I recognized so much of myself in them. That blind naivete, self-righteous freedom and courage, excitement, idealistic world-view, and fear that can't be hidden no matter how hard you try---I saw in them, and from them as I listened I could feel all those things as I did 5 years ago. Saint Augustine when discussing memory said something about human emotions being remarkable ---in that when one remembers an emotion they once experienced, they know what it was to feel that way yet do not experience that emotion again. Thus one can remember the pain of losing a loved one, but the memory is not anywhere near as horrible as the real emotion was and we are aware of that. While I think Augustine is right most of the time, not for me in this case. It wasn't so much that I remembered feeling that way as it was that I was almost reliving it in some way. It was fresh and real to me- like I could smell it or something.

Because of that, from these two 18 year old boys from Snellville I found myself learning some things about growing up & life that I, in my infinite 22 year old wisdom, really needed to learn.

All I need now is a job and a massive panic attack and then I'll have figured out the meaning of life.... :-)

Both of them will be coming here in the fall. I don't know if I'll ever see them again, but I kind of think I will.

West Wing Week!

I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful thing--- All West Wing-All the time-for a whole week! Yippeee! [I'm such a nerd.] What a great idea! It doesn't matter that I've seen every episode at least twice. And it couldn't have come at a better time. I don't have shit to do this week but watch the West Wing. :-)

I often think that my love of the West Wing has to do with my hatred of the current, real administration and of George W. himself. I think maybe I love the show so much because I wish Jed Bartlett was really the president--and I'm happy living in a fantasy world in which he is. I do know that I love and am in love with Rob Lowe as Sam Seaborn. I wish he was really a representative in California (or whatever Sam is doing--I know he lost that election) and that he wanted to marry me. **Not Rob Lowe as Rob Lowe--because he is a little creepy--but Rob Lowe as Sam Seaborn.

The only things I did have to do, I did today: return library books & go to the dentist. The dentist was shitty today--2 hours and my antisthesia wore off, and they found more work they have to do. Ick! My teeth hurt and I feel like my face was raped or violated in some way. But at least that's over with. I think this is the first time in my life that I actually returned a library book or books on time. I'm proud of myself for that. Ha!

I feel like I shouldn't have posted that thing about wanting to jump Josh in my last post. At the same time, I feel like I shouldn't have to censor myself. I think most of all that my problem is that I'm afraid that I sounded ridiculous to y'all...And I'm sure I did. eh--in the end, I'm glad I didn't sleep with him. That's that. I think my feelings for Boy are stronger, and I think he feels the same-- and no, I didn't sit him down for a chat about it. Last week I went to that party at his place and met his roommates and other friends...Then the night after that, he took me out with his good buddies to see this band. I do well as the lone female in groups of men--and I think he was proud of me [if that makes any sense.] I could tell that I 'passed' with his friends. And I could tell that he was glad to have me there as his 'girl' -if you will- in the way he paid attention to me and touched me. Oooh..Now I'm feeling like a silly girl. Ha. That night I stayed at his place for the first time. For some strange reason, I got kind of nervous. . .

Brian- if you are reading this- call Rob and get my number or just stop by or something. We need to chill. Soon. :-)

Now--- back to the West Wing!

{oops! I forgot to change some names here...I've edited appropriately...}

Laughing mechanics...

Well...It's been quite an interesting 24 hours. . .

The boy who I was involved with a few months ago, the one with the girlfriend, stopped by last night. He's leaving for the summer and I won't see him until August--so he wanted to say goodbye...He also wanted something else, if you know what I mean... But I managed to stave off his seductions and stay good. Even if Boy doesn't want to be my 'boyfriend,' I don't think it's cool to be sleeping with him and someone else at the same time...

But that's not even the half of it.

My new phone arrived today. So I had to go to the Verizon place and have them switch over my numbers and activate my phone. I decided that while I did that, I would go to Old Navy and return some shit I bought a few weeks ago. I ran those errands and found myself having trouble getting out of the Old Navy parking lot.

Let's back up. First- I do not have a driver's license or a car. My friend Andy parks his car at my place and in return lets me drive his car when I need to. I don't drive it very often, but today I really needed to get my phone working again.

Okay--so I decided just to turn right and find a place to turn around where there is a stoplight. I needed to turn left out of the parking lot and it just wasn't happening. So I turned right and found myself in a right turn only lane, so I turned right and discovered that it was an entrance to the highway. ACK! Andy was low on gas and I didn't know where I was.

The stupid person in front of me didn't know how to merge onto a highway, obviously, because she stopped at the end of the merging lane. I had to then stop quite abruptly to avoid hitting her. I think it must have been that sudden stop that popped the tire.

I heard the car making a lot of noise, and figured it was because the car needed gas. I pulled off at the first exit and made it to a gas station. I only had $4 but I figured even one gallon would help. It was a full service station, too and had a garage where they were fixing other cars. Thank the lord! As I was pumping the gas, one of the mechanics came up and asked me if I knew that I was driving on a flat. I could hear all the other mechanics laughing at me. HA! I deserved it. I had no idea the tire was flat and would have driven off.

The guys were really nice and put the spare on for me, and gave me directions for getting home. I had no idea where I was or where this gas station was or how to get back. Their directions were great and I got home fine. Unfortunately, I can't get a hold of the man who owns the car....

Quite the adventure. I need a nap! Boy is having a party tonight so I figure I'll sleep for a while and then get ready to go. . . I'm going to try to avoid talking to Boy about 'our relationship'...bc I really want to...I really wanted to sleep with Josh last night...but I didn't...ahh...Perhaps I should just not worry about it and shut up... I think I will... night-night...

Man. I am 22 years old and I need to be either studying for my final tomorrow or finishing my other paper....

What is it that I really want to be doing?

Coloring. with markers.

I'm completely serious...

Does drawing a map of Dante's Purgatory with Sharpies count as studying? (that's what I'll be doing for at least a few more minutes.... )

The More Extravagant the Disaster...

You guys are awesome. Thank you so much for your much-needed support. I did eventually stop crying, and I've been very busy trying to write brilliant final papers. (one of which is due tomorrow, and I must get back to editing...)

In November, I posted a blog on Myspace that I think is perfectly relevant right now. After I'd worked through the initial shock of receiving the letter, I realized (yet again) that everything would be okay. I'm trying to view this whole experience as something with a lesson I needed to learn. . . and now I'm trying to learn it. When my paper is done, I'll put up a real entry...For now, I think it's really interesting to look back on how I was thinking at the end of last semester.
Here it is:

So I have an article summary that I really should be writing right now...along with preparing a presentation of that summary in class tomorrow...Somehow "The Relation of the Apology of Socrates to Gorgias' Defense of Palamedes and Plato's Critique of Gorgianic Rhetoric" isn't sparking my fancy right now....In reality, it's a cool topic, as far as obscure articles concerning Greek rhetoric go... I just don't feel like it; it's been a rough week and wasting time on myspace is just too tempting....

I feel like I must subconciously want to fail out of this program, because I keep fucking up and not getting things done.... At the same time, as I attempt to articulate this thought, I realize that it relates perfectly to that stupid article, as it focuses on the Socratic ideal. Translated into Latin, the Socratic ideal is this: 'nemo suo sponte peccat' or--loosely translated-- no one fails of their own volition, that is, no one chooses to do anything that they really don't want to do...or, no one fucks up without somehow preferring to do so, because, if you set out to fuck up, then in actuality you are fulfilling your goal and then it's not fucking up....]

Then, I realize that I'm thinking too hard and that I need not analyze myself in such ways. Doing so will only lead to redundant introspection and this is entirely unnecessary and not productive.

Each day I grow more certain that I am losing my mind, anyway...My friend recently shared a poem with me, by Claire Bateman--a poet I'd never heard of---a favorite passage from it is as follows:

Maybe I'm here
to dispel the illusion
that life proceeds smoothly
as long as one pays attention;

for the clumsy person,
the closer, the more minute,
the more exacting the concentration,
the more extravagant the disaster.

This is the reality of my life. I think I must be in the midst of an extravagant disaster....At least, for now, I don't really mind so much if this is accurate; I can go with the flow... If I were really worried about failing, I would do something about it...Right? I mean, no one does anything without really wanting to.....