It Just Might Be a Happy New Year

I have just gone through my list of 52 goals for 2014. I might have been a little over ambitious. I suppose I had every right to be. 2014 was my return to The World. The End of Exile. I had grand plans, and like most grand plans, they didn't come to pass. Well, most didn't. I did read a-freakin'-lot of books, and I am quite proud of that.

Lengthy lists aside, what I really needed was for last year to be better than the years before it, and it was. That, however, was a pretty low bar, and that is why I am ready for 2015 to be even better. I'm ready for things to be more than "not bad". It is nice to look back over the last year, and not see any (personal) Horrible Things, Tragic Mistakes or Terrible Let Downs, but its disconcerting not to see too many Wonderful Surprises, Glorious Victories or Unforgettable Escapades. Actually, all I see is a lot of Unnecessary Capitalization. No downs, no ups. The year just was. I accept that.

I also know that it doesn't have to be that way.  There's a lot I don't have control over, but there is plenty I do. I know this year end/beginning fervor never lasts, but that doesn't change or cancel out the fact that I do want things to be different, and that I think I can do it.

Besides, its not like I'm buying a gym membership.

While it is relieving that I don't have lines of bad things in my ledger, that, in itself is pretty boring. Bad things are still experiences. They are still stories, and tests, and whatever other metaphor you can think of. They are still the stuff lives are made out of. A rough year at least gives one the hard earned trophy of having survived it. I didn't survive this year, I just happened to wander to the end of it.

(I want to make is abundantly clear that I am speaking strictly about my own life here, and about hardship on a personal level. I know that a lot of people, on every scale, had a hard, horrible year. I would assume that all of those people who are suffering are not glad things happened that way, for the sake of the experience. Nor, am I romanticizing struggles, tragedy, loss or hardship.  I know that in many, many ways I am very lucky and privileged to have had a boring year.)

My year wasn't totally wasted, I suppose. I got a new job I love, I hurt myself rather severely. (Those two events were completely unrelated to each other, by the way.) I won NaNoWriMo.  Out of context, those are certainly experiences. But I know there could have been - should have been - more.

May 2015 be a year of things. Of experiences. Of victories and failures. Of tragedy and celebration.

I did make a new list of goals. It's shorter than last year's, perhaps a little more practical. And even though one of them is to post to this site more often (weekly, even), its entirely possible that the next entry I make here will be in about one year from now. I hope I have things, good, bad and otherwise, to reflect upon.

Adventures in Human Interaction, Vol 1 of ???: Amanda Fucking Palmer

Last Sunday I went to the Tattered Cover bookstore to meet Amanda Palmer. I had never seen Amanda Palmer live, and I had never seen any artist I cared so much about in such an intimate setting. We got there earlier than planned, and that was almost too late, as the basement was already filling up with an incredibly broad swath of the population, all waiting for Amanda.

When she came out, she was short and beautiful and wearing pajamas and she was real. I've noticed that Amanda can look so different in various photos. "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?" Amanda looks quite different from "Dresden Dolls" Amanda, who looks unlike "Theater is Evil" Amanda. And I noticed that today, at some angles she'd look like one version of herself, and at another angle, a different one. And sometimes, she didn't look like any version I knew. She just looked like... herself. That's when it hit me. This was a person. A person who gets up, gets dressed, and has a life; and part of that life is creating the art that means so much to me. That art didn't come from on-high, from some mythical, unknowable place. It came from this woman, who decided to visit my town, to play songs for us, and tell us her stories.

It was not unlike what Amanda herself talked about, that she when writing her own book she came to the realization that every book she had ever read had been created by a real, live person. It was the same thing for me. This woman standing not ten feet from me wrote the songs that got me through the hardest times in my life. But, it wasn't a song that helped me, it was this person. She pulled out her ukulele, THAT UKULELE RIGHT THERE, and created those songs, and gifted them to us. And now she's here, playing them again, right here, for all of us.

The simplest facts are sometimes the hardest to accept. And these "discoveries" of mine are even more ironic because Amanda Palmer is one of the most open and deeply connected performers out there. She shares so much of her life with her fans. That's one of the reasons her fans are so rabidly dedicated to her, because of that personal connection. But although I've been one of those rabid fans, I've always shied away from that connection. Sure, I'd watch it through the filter of the Internet, see it happening live, but I always felt it was Not For Me. No one else ever made me feel that way, it was something I decided on my own. I was like "that guy" at the party, standing awkwardly alone, and if someone would ever ask, Wouldn't you have more fun talking to people? I'd say, No, no I was having fun just watching. And I guess I was. But maybe it didn't have to be that way.

And yet, when I got in the signing line, and (a little too quickly for my sweaty-palmed liking) was ushered forward to kneel before the majesty of Amanda Fucking Palmer in a blanket fort, all of my discoveries and epiphanies melted away and I was star-struck and dumb at the feet of The Author and The Rock Star and The Artist. It was all a blur. I don't know what I said, if I said anything. Photographic evidence shows me looking like I was about to awkwardly propose marriage or something. But she signed my book, smiled at me, and I walked away.

Oh well.

I don't regret any of it. Yes, I was terrified. Yes, I was certain everyone, including AFP, had seen me and thought, "What a weirdo." But then I realized that there were 500 people in line, and that despite her gift of intimacy with her fans, I was just one of a massive, strange, and wonderful horde that descended on her that day. And then I remembered that it wasn't some inhuman machine of a An Author or Rock Star down there. It was a woman, an endlessly kind and loving woman, inviting 500 strangers into her blanket fort, and taking the chance that some of us might short circuit and hyperventilate.

Six hours later, she was still there, staying for every single person that came to see her. This is because she is an amazing human being. Its statistically probable that at least a few other people also got stage fright, and behaved like Troy Barnes meeting LeVar Burton. That comforts me.

Seeing Amanda Palmer hit me at just the right time, when I need to feel like an artist more than ever. Reading her amazing book, The Art of Asking, helps me nurse that feeling. So, check out her book, support an artist and be nice to each other, okay?

PS: I also bought a ridiculous pair of sunglasses I will be wearing every day from now on.

I cannot count it as coincidence that the years I was the most lost are the years I wasn't reading.

In Which I Defy Neil Gaiman

I don't know what this is going to be about. But I do know that it is intended to be a blog post. Whether it actually ends up there is open for debate. With myself. (Here's the debate: "Yes it will!" "No, it won't!" The end.)

I have actual topics I'd like to write about. But they require thought. And effort. And doing. Whereas this, THIS, is just a stream of consciousness blog. But that's cool right? Like, let me just show you what's going on in my life, because that's SO important.

Hm. Why do I want a blog, if I am so fundamentally convinced that anything I write in it is piffle? Or codswallop, even? Why do I want to write blogs when I am sure no one would want to read them? Is it simple self doubt? Or do I have legitimate concerns about the medium? Does it even really matter? Because whatever I post is going to basically vanish into the ether of the internet.  Its true that everything on the internet never really goes away, but it also doesn't really go anywhere specific either. Its like slipping one handwritten page into one random library book. Its there. And totally save from ever being discovered. Except by robots. Wow, I got a lot more mileage out of that metaphor than I planned.

I remember reading somewhere that aspiring bloggers should avoid "meta" posts. Posts about posting. Blogs about blogging. No, "sorry I haven't updated this in a while," or, "Here's what I'm going to write about."  But I've also heard that the only way to learn anything, to practice anything, is to DO the thing. And if I mess around here in my text editor and write some half-assed thing that I know will never go anywhere, I won't save it, and it just disappears.  Maybe that is helpful, maybe that is practice.  But it doesn't feel like that.

In that video I linked to above, Neil Gaiman says that one very freeing thing about writing is that no one will ever see your first draft. You are totally free to write anything, to fail and suck and crash and burn, and I think that has a lot of merit. But, I also think that if no one is going to see it, why do it? Did it even happen? Maybe he feels this way because he knows, from experience, that first drafts written in secret become subsequent drafts written for the public. Well, I rarely get that far, so I don't have that assurance. I need to create a habit of writing ANYTHING. Literally anything. Just words. That are in some sort of order.  Trying to write words that tell a story is actually too advanced for me at this point. I'm not even joking. I need to start at the beginning. Before the beginning, even.   Words. Sentences. Fingers moving over keys. Training my hand to hold a pen.  I'm not (that) embarrassed by this. Marathon runners once didn't know how to tie their shoes.  This is me tying my shoes.  Or trying.

(FUN FACT: I am 31, and I don't tie my shoes like a normal human.  I had so much trouble learning that "normal" way of tying shoes, that some random adult in my life (a teacher, probably?) showed me the 'two bunny ear way'. I was able to handle that, and tie my shoes that way to this day. I can do it the "real" way, but I really do have to think about it.)

Anyway, I know that if I babbled along in this text editor for a while, and just filed it away, or threw it away, it wouldn't feel real.  It wouldn't feel like I did anything. There would be no stakes, and little reason for me to try again tomorrow. Neil Gaiman's advice is, perhaps, for when the stakes feel too high. But right now, for me at least, they feel too low.  Posting this to a blog that no one even knows exists isn't that much of a step up from burying it on my hard drive (or recycle bin) but its just enough to make me feel like I did something. And that I should do something again.

Review: Maplecroft

Cherie Priest's Maplecroft does a fine job of adding depth and narrative to the world of Lovecraftian horror. The characters are well developed and interesting, if not always likable. You are not reading this kind of story, however, for likable characters. These stories take seemingly normal people to the brink of madness, and then give them a nudge. Maplecroft is no different, slowly fracturing not only the characters themselves, but their relationships as well. The journey is deeper and a little more complex than Lovecraft's stories, but let's not kid ourselves, it doesn't take a lot to have a stronger plot than Lovecraft, much of the time. The allure of Lovecraft has always been the atmosphere, the world creation, and the descriptions of indescribable horror. Thankfully, the way the horror, the Weird (as well as an actual plot) are handled here proves that Priest is a worthy addition to world of Eldritch fiction. There are plenty of subtle and not-so-subtle call outs to Lovecraft's writings in Maplecroft, little in-jokes and references next to looming plot devices and famous settings. In fact, if you have not read and enjoyed Lovecraft's stories, then this book is not likely to capture your attention. It depends so much on the shared language of Lovecraft's style, tropes, and creations, that there's really no reason to read this if you aren't already involved with the Cthulhu franchise. Unanswered questions of plot and character don't really need to be answered if you are familiar with Lovecraft's mythos. This is clearly the start of a series, and it seems some things are left open to facilitate more books. I hope that Priest resists the urge to explain everything as the inevitable series unfolds. There were hints of that already, as actual science started to creep into this story as a way of explaining the unexplainable. Please keep your midichlorians to yourself, Ms. Priest.

Will this be the book to convert Lovecraft skeptics, or bring the uninitiated into the fold? Honestly, probably not. And there's really not enough "alternative history" provided by the Lizzie Borden angle to draw people in that way. But if you're a fan of stories about unimaginable horrors from the deep, Maplecroft is an intriguing, engaging and wonderfully creepy book.

(Also, while I am a huge fan of Lovecraft's creation, it is deeply disturbing what a bigot he was. So it gave me no small pleasure to have a well written, queer relationship at the heart of the book - as much as a romance has any place in Lovecraftian stories.)

So.Things are going well. How are things with you?

This is when I will write the great American novel.  Right now. This is where suddenly everything will unlock and all of the half-hearted and -assed efforts I have previously committed to paper will become worth it, and beautiful, as mile markers on this journey to Real Writing.

This will certainly not be another throw away writing "exercise", the thing I do when I want to write more than anything and instead write nothing. This will not be another night that I question why I wanted to write at all, and remember the Bukowski poem saying that if it doesn't come shooting out of me, not to do it.

This will not be another night when I think, if I didn't have the Idea of writing to give my life meaning, if I was perhaps honest with myself, and let go of this thing I say I want to do and yet never do, then what do I have? What will I be? Will I just be that guy? With a job? Who wanders around, thinking he matters, and yet instead offers nothing?

I will not then realize that I am already that guy. I will not realize that I offer nothing. That saying I want to create is not the same as creating, and it is not the same as doing a thing, leaving a thing to be found. Thinking it is not enough, is never enough. And so many people get so much farther without even thinking. Because they do. And, because they Do.

This is not the time that I look deep into myself and find nothing.

This is not the night when I realize I have never,really worked for anything, and that I hate the idea that I ever should have to. And also hate that I never learned how to work, or was never forced to learn, or expected to work.  And hate the world for not being enough of a challenge that demanded my best effort. And realize that the world is in fact that challenging and that my world could be so much better if, indeed I had worked. That this life is cold and empty precisely because I have never worked for anything, or achieved anything that brings meaning and peace.

And I will not recall the things people have praised me for, that were actually shit and drivel and how could they not see it? I will not question the people that surround me remind me of victories that were really the lowest common denominator. I will not fear that I am just as stupid as them.

And I will not weigh the equally awful alternatives that either I am too lazy to do anything great or I am actually incapable of doing great things.

I will not softly sigh and resign myself to a life of bitterness and judgement of people who are happy and who are accomplished.  I will not hate them for finding the secret that there is no secret, that you just do it. I will not lament all the opportunities I missed that are so obvious now. I will not secretly hate my idols for being worthy of idolization.

I will not fear that I have lived more empty years already than the number of potentially better years I have ahead of me.  I will not imagine dying before I do anything.  I will not feel the pain of imaging how it will feel when it really is too late, when I am really out of time to do things, to create. I will not wonder if my future-self will hate this present-self more than this present-self hates this present-self.

I will not do any of those things. Tonight will be different.

Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

I read a book!

Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan.

Let's get this out of the way. I love John Green. I love everything he touches.  So, while I can identify some weaknesses of this book, I don't care. Sins forgiven!

That's not to say this a bad book. Far from it. I enjoyed the heck out of it, and not just the John Green parts, either. I've never read anything by David Levithan, but after this book, I will. (Ha. See what I did there?)

The book follows two very different teenagers named Will Grayson. Having each author separately write each Will in first person in alternating chapters was a great idea. I thought it was a unique way to tell two different stories in two different styles. It's clear the stories are connected and play off each other, but the inter-connectivity is subtle and didn't feel forced... for the most part.

Both Wills were interesting, well-rounded characters. John Green's Will, straight Will, felt very much like Green's other male protagonists. For some, like me, this is a good thing, for others it is a problem.  Sorry!

I don't know David Levithan's work, but his Will made me want to read more by him.  Levithan's Will starts out so realistically and authentically an asshole teenager that its quite an accomplishment to make me care so much about him and his journey. This Will struggles with his sexuality and depression in such an honest way. I haven't read many books with characters like this Will.

The lynch pin that holds the two Will Graysons' world together is Tiny Cooper, and while some may find him to unbelievable and over-the-top, rest assured that I have met Tiny Coopers. They are just as unbelievable in real life. However, without giving much away, while I understood Tiny's role in both Wills' lives, the ending didn't quite work for me. I don't think it ruined the book, but it didn't help it either.  I guess I just expected more, especially on Levithan's Will's side.

I found much to relate to in this book, from both of the story lines.  I've said before that John Green's books aren't FOR teenagers as much as they are ABOUT teenagers.  This book threw me back into my own high school years, and made me think a lot about the relationships and drama in my adolescent life. That being said, I don't know if I would have got nearly as much out of this book if I read is as a teenager. (This is a critique on me, not of the book.) I don't know if I would care about characters and situations that were so much like the daily life I was living. I didn't read YA when I was a YA, and I haven't read any outside of John Green, so how this - or any - YA book works with its intended demographic, I can't say.

Some other readers have questioned how realistic high schools are that are so tolerant of homosexuality.  I can't speak to how high schools are now, but it sure is nice to think that they could be this tolerant. Its not perfect for the characters in the book, its not a tolerant utopia. But for these characters, homosexuality is just another one of the things that must be navigated in high school.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson was pretty much what I expected, a funny, touching, quick read that made me recall my own teenage years. If you are John Green fan, this book will not disappoint. If you are not a John Green fan, I don't think this will change your mind. Your loss.

I hope this book will cross pollinate and help fans of one author discover the other. That's how it worked for
me.

tl;dr: If you like John Green, you've probably already read this book.

What You've Been Waiting For

For a long time - almost five years - I didn't do things, with people. There were many reasons for this, and not all of them were my idea, but that is a post for another day. Lately, I have begun doing some of the things again, with the people.  Its... odd. And a challenge. And pretty good. I think.

When I find myself in the company of like minded people, people who are into the same sorts of things I am, I get excited. Well, at least most of me does. But there is a little part that gets a little angry. Like, hey, this was my thing. I don't want to share it with you. You won't love it the way I do. It is what makes me feel unique and now you are taking it away.

I think this is where hipsters come from.

It's like with Doctor Who. I love Doctor Who, and while I can't say I have been a fan for decades, it became a very large part of my life when everyone around me had never heard of it. I liked Doctor Who before it was cool. (Ugh. I can't believe I said those words.) And now? Its a thing! A popular thing, even. And I like being a part of that. Except when I don't. Except when it feels a little less special because it can't be just mine anymore.

Things like Doctor Who are what nurtured me when I was pushed out of (or left) the company of other people. And so it is fitting that these things should help me reconnect and bond.  For so long I hoped I could be around people who speak in the same cultural dialect I do, and now that I just might be around said people, part of me wants to wrap my arms around my precious and scamper back to my cave. Its not a very big part, but it is there.

It is easy to read a post, or watch a video about something I love, and have it stoke the fires. Even though these posts or articles are created by real live people, its easy to believe its all just for me.  Sharing what is important to me with other people is important, unfamiliar and potentially terrifying.  And we are only talking about Doctor Who, and Cthulhu. What about real things? Things that matter?

What am I talking about? Nothing matters more than Cthulhu.


***


Hmm. Well. Okay. I guess that's how we are going to start things out.  Happy 2014. I'm assuming we'll see more of things like this.

I'm sorry.

Post Zero

It's quite an interesting situation, really. I feel like a fool writing a post I know no one will read.  And yet, how will readers ever come, unless I have posted something to be read?  This is an investment.  Pledging words on the understanding eventually someone will come around and check them out.  It's like when a store is open for three weeks and THEN has its Grand Opening.

Of course, there comes a point when writing for an audience of no one is just sad. This is not the first time I have had these concerns.

But maybe this time will be different. It has to be different eventually. Doesn't it?

Well, doesn't it?

...

Oh dear.