the NPC who tells you the bridges are open

I don't think now is a good time for a recap of the year (I'd come up with nothing, the mood I'm in) or to go into resolutions (CHANGE EVERYTHING, and that's not going to work). But isabelthespy's new year's motto resonated. Passivity is corrosive to the soul.* Yes. If I could redo this year, I'd face, head-on, the hard things, the problems, the points where my options were conflict and hiding. This year, I hid. Next year, I will probably hide also, habits and pain-avoidance are not things that change fast. But I will try not to, I won't let it be the cowardly default.

I celebrated the new year by throwing on clothes at 11.50 and rushing into town! Something in me demanded people, lights, sounds. I found them, was alone but not lonely and carried my camera like a friend. Fireworks, church bells, a parade of Hare Krishnas bearing a speaker and excited New Year celebrators dancing after them, passing the crowds outside the Front/Back Lounge and observing the handful of women there, phoning my mother from the middle of Dame Street and cheerfully offering "happy new year!" with the parade chanting beside me. Balm to the soul.

* (For her and me and Caroline Knapp (quote's originator), I will add. If anyone takes this as some kind of attack on passivity or on them I will eat them and all of their descendants.)

This year, I'm going to prefer the answer that works over the answer that's right.

(It's late, and I'm fighting brainweasels, and I feel like apologising for the cryptic-looking one-liner. It makes sense to me as a direction for the new year.)

(I'm stressed and I feel like apologising.)

This is a very me comment:

<phoenix> hm, that reminds me. either i hit someone in the balls the other night or they were very convincing at acting like i did
<phoenix> i thought it was the latter at the time. i'm not so sure now. aww. i'd rather my first punch to the nuts be to someone who deserved it :(

Make of that what you will.

Onto a topic that harms few balls: I've signed up to getyourwordsout with a year's goal of 150k. While small relative to what some of the other members are going for, it would be a major achievement for me. I think it's within reach, too.

I know a couple of you are members or have been. How do you find the comm? Does it motivate you?

Edit: oh, hey! There's a comm of that sort on DW, inkingitout! Should I sign up for both of them? Can I count my writing towards both?

Swiftly turning my flat back into a reputable habitation isn't going to happen unless I hit a mood of cleaning frenzy, not something I can summon at need. What I have been able to do, though, is store some thing each time I'm up from under the laptop, or wipe a surface clean when I'm in the kitchen or bathroom. I already see the clean spots.

So it is with DW/LJ, maybe? I'm not going to jump back in and suddenly start posting wonderful heartfelt essays and beautiful photographs, though I'd like to convince myself to believe otherwise. Fuck that, here's a small wipe of a post to get the table clean so I can say things again another time.

syna said the quietness of LJ these days gives her freedom. I get that. That's how DW felt for me right at the start, and tumblr, briefly, way back when I had a fling with it. I need something like that. A quieter DW or an LJ with the bunch of cool people I know from DW. The second isn't going to happen, but I might try reading fewer journals on DW so I feel closer to those of you I particularly like and admire. A little meta and a dark hint of readlist cuts always makes people grow closer, har har.

A few things:

- Maple syrup is magic and better than normal sugar. It's in my tea and my coffee and I need some pancakes now.
- I've felt down lately. Turning off my feelings made things worse. I think I'm on the up again now. I am tired of being silent for those spells.
- I have so many photos from the holiday. SO many. I'm thinking of posting one a day until I get through the good ones. That involves organisation. Projects, why must you insist on requiring organisation?
- I have thoughts on what makes me effective/ineffective as a worker; small things for a *really* big difference. I'm going to post about that, partly for my own reference, partly because I'm curious how other people's good working conditions differ.
- Photobooth photos are fun. Should I post a few of those?

Oh yeah, and the whole reason I started this post: would you like a Christmas card? I say Christmas because that's what I have and what I celebrate, but they're the secular glittery kind (again, like me). Want one? Give me your address! I'm screening comments to this post - comment here or email me at my journal address - phoenix at dreamwidth.org and phoenixdreaming at LJ should both work.

(There's a tiny tiny chance I'll put in something else, but that will require planning and efficiency, two things I"m a tad inadequate at.)

I'm a pattern-seeker. I react slowly, collecting multiple experiences of situations or a person's behavior before I try to judge or assert my own view of it.

Where this really falls down: when I try to understand myself relative to the world based on very limited data. Trying to generalize "how friendship is for me" based on just my friendship with Dar, or just my friendship with one of the ponies (my IRC people). Not enough data. Flawed, highly skewed results that have me feeling contradictory, over-complicated, when the problem is that I'm trying to over-simplify.

There are a few things that stymie me about a major task like organising a large batch of photos. First, there's the task itself. It's something complicated and it's going to take a big portion of time to manage. Big portions of time generally have other interesting things vying to use them and somehow just don't get set aside for photo-managing. Then there are the tools for the task - should I stick with Picasa, should I get some other photo manager? Should I tag and bag and photoslop the crap out of them all? This part of the task is quite fun with all its downloading and its blog post reading and its information-gathering, but, again, nothing much is getting done.

So, time is passing, no photos are organised. I don't want to post here because I've promised to post photos, and-- well, if you're still reading, you might guess this is one long apology for not posting photos. It is, kinda! Though since I like to at least pretend I write here for myself, I'm also working out the things I trip over in a task like this. Mostly, trying to do everything at once: wanting to do the task For Once And For All And For Perfect with a big blast of energy.

Maybe the project I *am* working on diligently and daily will teach me a few new habits. I'm doing Nanowrimo for the first time (under the username phoenixdreaming, no surprise to that). I can't believe it, but I'm writing fiction for the first time in years. I've long had this block on writing - why should I write when I could be reading other people's already-written novels, isn't that more interesting? I finally have an answer for that: only my novel has dragon churches! (Essentially, in this world there are stone dragons. They went to sleep for a long time, long enough for humans to get the idea that carving the stone dragons into /churches/ was a good idea. It was okay until they woke up.)

The probability that I will ever show anyone what I'm working on is low, low, low, and certainly won't happen during November. I was talking to a coworker about this, and exclaimed that people wanting to read my shite is the most frightening part of Nano. Eek, no. I'm writing shit. You can see it if or when flowers grow in it. For now it is confined to the compost heap/text editor.

BUT. WORDS. I know I've never written more than a couple of thousand words on a single story. Now I have almost 7000, written in a few days. It feels like I've grown a new part of my brain.

I bought a set of tarot cards last week (for creative purposes and self-discovery - though I'm not disregarding the mystic side, just I needed other things to persuade myself to spend money). In a targetless anxious rage earlier, I pulled a card asking "why am I feeling this way?" ( And got the Eight of Swords. Warning, spider shown in one corner, also not quite worksafe. )

Which certainly represents the feeling quite perfectly, and quite possibly the reason too. It depends on your interpretation. Mine is that my predicament is mostly of my own making and escapable if I can see clearly, though it's not all in my head - those swords are sharp, and the broken and fading friendships troubling me are likely real. It amuses me that the card shows a web - *the* Web is a complicated thing for me, necessary but, because of how I think of my place in it, not as nourishing as I want it to be.

The 8 of Swords keeps popping into my head as I try to write this entry, reminding me of the ways in which what I think are outside limits are limits I made. It's a good thing to set certain limits, obviously, but I have a strict soul - avoiding repressing myself, that's a hard road for me. I don't want to take up too much space and need to be reminded of my place, but it's continuing unsustainable to wait for permission to exist.

Things that are true: I have energy and ideas (ideas! I have ideas! I'm not empty!). I am feeling a little hostile and sad and bored and tempestuous.

I am too well-behaved for tantrums - I threw my hairbrush at the wall earlier, then pulled that tarot card. I laughed at its dramatised accuracy, because when you're in a twisting rage recognition has a way of illuminating how silly you are. Then, still mad and determined to get something out of my swords, I went for a walk with my camera, bare-armed to fight the cold breeze, and photographed bridges and a mud-perched heron.

The pauses between entries grow. I think, "maybe I'll write about this", then let the idea go. I think, "this feeling is one that matters", then turn my attention from it. I figure something out, and it ghosts back into uncertainty. 

I'm not sure what I'm doing here. Back in my heaviest days of LJing, I used to talk about "why I journal" every few months. The idea was often on my mind, more often than I discussed it, and I unfurled it when my idea of "journal" thinned too much to be useful. Now it's still on my mind, and maybe more important to me as I stretch between DW and LJ, but with my entries such rare beasts it'd make every entry an explanation. 

(There's a thing I see many of us do - writing an entry, explaining why we don't do a thing, talking ourselves into doing it. The inverse, too.) 

I started out journalling online because I wanted to make friends, and to make friends online you have to be visible in some way, and writing about my life seemed like the most appealing method of visibility. Besides, I wanted to be a writer, so I wrote. I figured out things about myself. I figured out that I was a fairly okay person, as people go, even if it's been years and I still wonder every day how to be a better person (better doing, better being) before it's too late. (I know from the diary that the only "too late" is "never".) 

I had friends. I've let my connections to a lot of them fade over the past year. I've been wrestling with thoughts about who I want to be and how to get there, and how to be okay with who I am without losing the drive to improve as a person in the world (I'm talking mentally, emotionally, and in terms of interpersonal and creative skills). I've abstracted myself into safety. I've thought harder than ever about friendships while increasingly distrusting the actual experience of friendship. 

Friendship. If there's one step forward I can make towards being able to trust in friendship, it's to feel less like I'm full of words and thoughts I need to express, such that the idea of someone leaning on me for emotional support springs my defences (you get no more of me, I need all of me!). Cause, see, I have this idea that I'm not to need while other people are needing. Some people deal with this by becoming eternal caretakers to the point of martyrdom. I deal with it by closing myself up so no one has claims on my energy. It works, to a point, but it's not right for me - yes, I'm scared of people and I'm scared of enraged by the chance of being absorbed by them or and afraid of submerging my feelings and experiences in service of someone else. 

If you can plot a coherent course through this entry, I hazard you're a better reader than I am. All my post are pretty real "I am working things out as I write" journal entries, this one as much as any. I started thinking "I need to figure out why I'm having so much trouble writing", floating ideas about the different cultures of my LJ friends page and DW read list (and yes, specifically mine: though I suppose you could say DW has something of a single culture so far, LJ certainly does not) (what friends post really makes a difference in terms of what I feel comfortable writing; the more variety people bring, the more I understand that what works for me works and is acceptable). 

I also, when starting, had the idea that I'd work through my isshoos and decide to update much more regularly. Uh, if that happens, it happens; I certainly haven't convinced myself. But before I tangented on the theme of friendship, I mentioned the built up words making me feel a little bit desperate, a little like I'd sink any new friend (loathsomely over-needy) and unable to melt to the friends of long standing. Obviously I need to start using the journal for that flood of words. Siphon some off, be less overwhelmed with the need to talk about ultimately trivial matters that are important to me right now and recently - things like the slow meander towards imagination, things like self-love and self-like and self-care. 

Also, self, needy isn't that bad a thing to be. Better to ask for water than dry up with thirst. 

I read a whole lot, I 'star' many articles in Google Reader, I intend to gather those articles and post about them. No time like the months-after-I-intended-to-start-doing-that, then!

why

This is Why You Share - appropriately, starting off with a fine infographic and study on the purpose of sharing information/links/media online.

design

Tattly - designy temporary tattoos. Design Sponge is normally about home design, but Grace Bonney has posted some unusual tattoo-related articles lately. I sincerely love these watercolour tattoos by Amanda Wachob.

Wonderful 1800s maps and visualisations. Click and be fascinated. butdoesitfloat is a very well-curated art blog.

Manjari Sharma's Darshan project is a grand work of... I think photographic religious iconography would be the word. "My project Darshan aims to photographically recreate 9 classical images of gods and goddesses pivotal to mythological stories in Hinduism."

internet social justice meta

At Tiger Beatdown, s.e. smith writes about the purpose of social justice discussions online, with some good questions to ask oneself. Actually, pretty good goals for any online endeavours, journalling included:

What are your goals, in engaging with online spaces, whether you consider yourself an activist or not? What are our goals, in creating these spaces, in engaging with them? What are we working towards? Do we have a rubric to use to assess whether we’re achieving those goals? How do we know when we’ve reached them?

Some thoughts on a similar note, regarding effectiveness of social justice discussions. This is an excerpt from a much larger discussion that has worthwhile counterpoints to the post I'm linking. Tumblr discussions can be amazing, yet are difficult to link and challenging to browse in a way that creates overall coherence. I do like that there's never one queen/king moderator in these discussions, like in blog comments - Tumblr's built to facilitate the LJ/DW swarm-style discussions that have evolved here but aren't directly supported by the software we're using.

At base I think the only way I can accept myself is as a point in a continuous wave of change: who I am now is fine as long as who I am next is better. It hasn't even occurred to me to question this or doubt that others feel the same. Not till now.