unsympathetic.net

A Guest Post by Josh

For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Lisa’s BIFF (Best Internet Friend Forever). You’re probably wondering why I’m writing on Lisa’s blog. It’s simple: I took it over for the day and I’m bringing you a special, awesome, birthday post.

Lisa and I have known each other since the dawn of time. We discovered fire together. You are welcome by the way. We also invented the wheel, but at the time, we didn’t call it “wheel” we simply called it “weirdly shaped, smooth rock that is useful”. We also invented sliced bread. You are welcome for that also.

So maybe we haven’t really been friends since the dawn of time, but it’s close. We met 30 internet years ago in the old K2 forums. If you take anything from the previous sentence it should be this; we are internet geeks. At first, we didn’t talk much outside the forums. We’d read each other’s blogs, take over forum threads together, make each other laugh with our witty, sarcastic humor. It wasn’t until I broke up with an ex girlfriend and I moved back to New York that we really started talking. Funny thing, not once did I think about getting in her pants. So weird, I know. But I think that we both realized once we started talking that we were meant to be best friends forever.

Lisa was a first for me. Not that I haven’t ever had internet friends before, but I’ve never been able to open up to anyone like I’ve been able to with Lisa. Lisa was one of the first people ever to know that I am Transgender. Everything that happens to me, she’s one of the first people I tell. She is always around to listen to me whine, complain, gush, and cry. This is why she’s a first for me. I’ve never been able to open up to people like this before and if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be able to do it with other people.

Living without Lisa is no long an option. On some level, we’re soul mates, meant to travel the depths of the Internet together. Find a cool link? Share it with Lisa. Break up with a girlfriend? Call Lisa saying ZOMG! If I ever need advice, usually about girls, I turn to Lisa. She might not always know the answer to my girl related questions, but at least I know I’m not the only one completely confused by girls. It helps that, you know, she’s a girl. If I ever feel like an asshole, which is often, she makes me feel like less of an asshole.

Lisa says she is unsympathetic, however, I’ve never seen that side of her. She’s one of my biggest supporters, one of the biggest influences, and a constant force of inspiration to me. She’s the optimistic one in our friendship, and at this point in my life, I desperately need optimism.

Aside from all the serious stuff, she’s one of the only people I can talk about robots with. Or the fact that I really, really, want a giant heart-shaped bed with leopard print sheets. Preferably one that vibrates. We share a love for Chuck Palahniuk, but if she hated him I would still love her. We understand each other’s geekiness and awkwardness.

Over the years, Lisa has done so much for me. If it weren’t for her I wouldn’t have had the balls to ask out a girl, or tell internet crush girl that I like her. I also think that back in February, when I found out about my heart, if Lisa hadn’t been there, I would have simply given up. In return, I wanted to do something for her. I made up a list of things that Lisa needs to do this year, and hopefully, if she follows my advice, she will have the best year ever. Let me just point out that I absolutely love lists and if I didn’t love Lisa, I wouldn’t make her one of her own.

The Lisa List

1. I’ve given a lot of thought about this list. I always have trouble thinking of what to put as number one, however, with this list there was no question what would go here. So, number one on the list: Get Laid.
2. Number two was also easy to come up with. I’m going out to California sometime within the next couple of months to see Lisa. She has a Wii. She has Guitar Hero. Number two is get better at Guitar Hero. I don’t want to show up, on your home turf no less, and kick your ass. Love you Lisa.
3. This one is important. Get laid again. Of course, I’m only looking out for you here.
4. Finally write that post about me that I’ve been waiting a few months for. In it you should say that a) I am awesome, b) that I like long walks on the beach preferably during sunset and along the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic (because it smells), and c) that internet crush girl should either let me call her or she should call me. Not only would this boost my already huge ego, but if it works then I could stop bugging you about internet crush girl and you would have more time to work on the rest of the list.
5. This is probably the hardest one to do but it’ll also make the biggest difference. Number five is to stop over-thinking, over-analyzing, and just have fun. I suffer from this also, but sometimes you just need to let things happen.

Lisa, I wish you the happiest birthday ever. I know you’ve already had a good one since you had a kick ass party on Friday, you got your new bed, and you’re getting an iPhone. But aside from that, I really hope that you have a great year because after all the shit I put you through, you deserve it.

Happy Birthday Lisa.

We’re big fans of the random rules at our place. Nothing better than making up a rule and then forcing yourself to follow it.

One of the many rules that must be followed for no better reason than because we said so is the necessity of purchasing at least one movie from the $5 bin at Wal-Mart.

It has become painfully obvious to ME and me that our movie collections leave much to be desired. Mine contains mostly animated Disney films, while she is a connoisseur of the horror genre—and she’d like it to be known for the record that really, it’s the thriller horrors she likes; there is no need for unnecessary gross violence (we’re looking at you Saws 1–3).

This means that when we feel like a movie outside of these genres, our collections are woefully inadequate. It’s been a long time since I actively added to my movie collection. Previously, if I ever felt the need to buy a movie, I didn’t because I knew my ex had probably purchased it months ago. I stopped adding to my collection because I could just borrow from him.

Since the breakup, I have been slowly adding movies I love to my collection. The qualification for purchase is I must have seen the movie before, and like it enough that I didn’t attempt to change the channel on a second watch-through.

The $5 bin is perfect for this, as it is filled with movies that I have seen before. Granted, they are not often the cream of the movie crop. After all, the bins are filled with Panic Room and Crimson Tide.

But good movies can be found, if you dig deep enough into the bin. So far, I’ve come away with Ultra Violet, Bewitched, and X-Men 2. Eventually I’ll get around to picking up all of the Adam Sandler flicks that have made it into the bin, and Matrix: Reloaded and Revolutions.

Also, pretty much any film that contains Keanu Reeves. I don’t know why, but I somehow love everything he’s in—and yes, I realize this is as bad as saying I love everything Pauly Shore has done. But I can’t help it. I’m a huge Keanu Reeves fan. I’m still holding out hopes that and Ted’s Bogus Journey will be unearthed in the bin during excavations.

Wal-Mart trips are few and far between around here. It requires a car and the freeway and bad radio stations, and drivers that don’t understand traffic rules when not on a normal street. Also, we rarely have reason to pop over to the far side of town.

But when we do make it all the way over there, there is no excuses for not spending ten minutes digging through the movie bin to find a movie we haven’t seen in a while—or watched last weekend on cable—and bring home for our very own.

It’s not a trip to Wal-Mart if you don’t come home with a movie or two to add to the collection.

I have been off the ball. I’ve been tagged, no less than three times, for the seven-things meme, or something similar. Ally tagged me for eight and Josh tagged me for a seven-things meme last week, and Mek tagged me before the hard drive crash for a ten-things meme that I was working on and didn’t have the heart to go back to.

So, I will attempt ten things that I haven’t shared with people on the blog. Which, as the years roll on become increasingly harder.

1. My favorite holiday is not Christmas, but the Fourth of July. And not because I’m patriotic, but because I love fireworks. If I could get fireworks on my birthday, then my birthday would be my favorite holiday. As it is, my birthday gets second spot.
2. I poke people if I’m bored and want to talk to them but don’t have anything in particular to say. Poke on Facebook, poke over IM, poke over text message. I’ll even poke if they’re sitting next to me on the couch and we’re not doing anything.
3. My secret dream is to live in a library. We’re working slowly on it. The walls in the living room are nearly covered in shelves. But there is still room for more.
4. Each of my friends has a specific genre of Harlequin Presents they love to read. Mine is the British Billionaire. I am such a sucker for that accent. And that cold distance they are so good at. No wonder I find myself attracted to coldly distant guys these days.
5. Matthew McFaden has totally taken Colin Firth’s roll in my heart. As Colin Firth ages, he gets more “father” rolls to girls who are my age, which makes him harder to see as a heartthrob. My other British heartthrob? Jonas Armstrong (Robin on the BBC’s Robin). Hawt. That’s all I can say.
6. I love my dog because she reminds me of me. She’s so depressingly emo, and gives looks that seem to say “piss me off and I’ll just lay here in your way giving you dirty looks. Don’t think I won’t.”
7. I can’t buy an item if at any time I have the thought “I could totally make that.” Granted, I probably won’t make it, but if I think I can, I can no longer buy it. That’s why I can never buy the awesome bags I want at Etsy. Sigh.
8. When I can’t sleep late at night, I compose monologues in my head to people I need to talk to but for some reason can’t. Often directed toward You or whoever I most recently had issues with. These monologues never make it out of my head or into a conversation, but they make me feel better and help me fall asleep.
9. I don’t have a TV in my room. I could have one, I did have one, but when I moved, I decided against it. I nearly never watched it in my room when it was there, and I can watch stuff on my laptop now, so I left that TV at my parents when I moved to Chico.
10. If I could pick the way I’d die, I’d choose death by black hole. For starters, I’d get to go into space, and secondly, I’ve just always wanted to see it. I dunno. Makes me weird. However, if that new atom-smasher is more powerful than they think and makes a black hole on Earth, turns out I may get my wish after all.

So, there’s ten things you probably didn’t know about me. And most likely never wanted to know to begin with. And this isn’t the only time I’ve done this meme:

• Meme: Eight Random Facts
• Video Meme: Five Things
• Well, There’s a Song on the Radio that Says… (Five reasons why you blog)
• Five Things that (maybe) You Don’t Know About Me.

I’ve tagged everyone at least once before, so I’m not tagging anyone at all. But if I could tag anyone I want? I’d pick Jane Austen, Chuck Palahniuk, my dog, and You. It’s been awhile since I’ve got a secret out of him.

Being home for the summer leaves me a lot of time for thinking, and for starting random projects.

One thing that is often on my mind is this website here. I worry about it falling stagnate, that I’m not really creating the awesome that it could be. Poor Josh bears the brunt of it, as I’m often emailing him with ideas, bombarding him in im’s with random webpages that illustrate what I am dreaming of.

Last week I came up with a fantastic idea for my links page: instead of the prerequisite blog roll page with links to all of my online friends and being afraid that I’d missed someone, what if it was a link page to all of the different profile pages of me online. Pretty much, links to where else you could potentially find me in the internets.

However, it is never as easy as that. I opened up Numbers, and made a pretty basic spreadsheet, with the site, the profile address, my login name and password. I came up with fifteen sites off the top of my head. But I knew there were more. This is web 2.0, after all. Every site you visit seems to want you to sign up and be social these days.

And so I thought, to the gmail archive! I had archived every single email I had ever received since I opened the account, and thus would have the emails for every web service I had signed up for since March of 2006.

However, never content with the easy way of doing things, I added more work. I realized that I had stopped labeling my emails when I had gotten my macbook and started using desktop mail again. Instead, everything just got shoved into the archive and forgotten about. It was a mess. And to make matters worse, none of the labels made any sense. So I thought, if I was going to go through the emails anyways to find my web profiles, I might as well label and weed as I went.

I started with 5742 emails in my archive. And deleted all except three labels and started again. It took me about five days, doing it for as long as I could stand each day. I ended up with 1974 emails and 18 labels. And I switched from POP to IMAP—which is definitely taking some getting used to—so that I could label emails as I remove them from my in box.

So, in going through these emails, how many web services am I signed up for? 45. Forty-five sites that, if I was a good little web drone, would check into every day.

The oddest thing, though, are the repeats. Not multiple sign-ups for the same site, but the sign-ups for similar services that do the same thing. Del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia. YouTube and Viddler. LibraryThing and GoodReads. Myspace and Facebook and Virb and Ziki.

I am apparently not monogamous with my online apps, and can come up with justifications for why each one is necessary. Or, for some, that I wanted to be sure to get my username before someone else, just in case a service hit big and all of my friends began to use it.

I was overwhelmed when I was done creating the list. It’s so long that I have to scroll it all. So varied that I had to add a column to mark what the service is used for. Looking at the list makes me wonder why I thought I needed all of these services to live my life, when I check only a handful of them daily.

Part of me wants to go and delete the accounts that I don’t use. But then I look at the list, and think, will I never use that again? And the answer is rarely yes. I did remove some forums from the list, because they’ve either moved systems and I’m no longer there (so long K2 Forums, it was nice while it lasted), or they were support forums for something that I no longer need support for (good bye Podpress Forums).

You might think that if I’m writing about it that the link page is done. But you’d be wrong, as nothing has happened on that front. Josh and I are still trying to work out how to display all of the links on the link page without it being a gigantic information overload. That might take another five days of thinking about the problem randomly throughout the day as I create other random projects to fill my time with.

I’m open to any suggestions, as the design part of my mind apparently went on vacation while I’m on vacation, and I can’t being to picture anything other than the blank white page that is already there.

The semester has been over for almost two and a half weeks.

This means, of course, that I am running out of ways to entertain myself. Right now, I read about a book a day, take the dog out multiple times, and am spring cleaning to my heart’s content.

So far, I’ve cleaned out my dresser and my closet, and under my bed. I’ve got three boxes/bags to take to a thrift store, and another box of books for the Sigma Tau book sale we’re putting together for next semester.

The only thing left to clean in my room is the chest of drawers that hold all my crafting supplies.

In one of my more inspired purchases when I moved out last year, I picked up an Aneboda 3-drawer chest (the larger one) from Ikea to hold all of my yarn and stuff, since I wasn’t feeling the wire shelves I had before.

I have a love/hate relationship with this chest. I love how big it is. I love how it fits perfectly where I put it, I love that the drawer fronts are opaque but you can still sorta see what’s inside. I love that all of my yarn and fabric and other random craft things fit inside. I hate that I can’t remove the drawers, and hate that the bottom is solid—if only because I had a knitting pattern floating around the top of the drawer, and it slipped back and to the bottom, and took me forever to get back out.

I will probably tackle this chest sometime in the next week. It’s the only thing I have left to clean, and is a random mess. I keep shoving things in it, and not pulling things out. I am hoarding yarn I’m never going to use, and need to actually organize better what I have in there. I would love to be able to put my green sewing box¹ in there, along with the purple Caboodles² box that hold all of my circular knitting needles.

I’m also feeling crafty, which means I’ll probably start sewing things up when I clean out the chest. I need a case for my sunglasses, a case for my laptop, maybe another skirt, and a tote bag to take to the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings.

I don’t know what I’ll do when the chest is cleaned up. My book pile is steadily dwindling—only 15 left, which is the smallest it’s ever been—and I walked out of the bookstore last night without buying anything. I guess it means I’m not really in a reading mood.

1. It seems to be a rule somewhere that everyone’s grandma had a green sewing box to hand down. All of my friends who sew have a green box filled with old notions and threads that their grandma lovingly collected.[back]
2. I’ve had this box forever, and keep repurposing it for stuff. Originally used to hold my makeup in middle school, and then hair ornaments, and now knitting notions. And who knew Caboodles was still in business, making boxes?[back]

Last week, while I was visiting my parent’s on my “vacation,” I had plenty of time to do nothing. Which in my world translates to reading.

In some strange turn of events, not only did I only only pack three books to take home with me—E saw the pile of books before they made it into the bag, and it was much larger then—I didn’t even finish them all.

Granted, I did read Chuck Palahniuk’s Snuff, a book that I could not pack because I did not own it, but I still had the last third of Austen’s Emma to read when ME showed up to begin our trek back up to Chico.

Which means that I finished Palahniuk’s Invisible Monsters, which I’ve already talked about, in conjunction with Snuff, but also Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Quite an odd selection of reading for a week, to be sure. Tossing in a treaties on how principalities are acquired and kept, and how to keep from losing them, doesn’t seem to combine well with a pre-victorian novel about the life of English gentility, or a modern American transgressional novel about the search for self.

However, reading The Prince has me prepared for ruling principality, whether one is handed to me, or I take one by force.

It also has me wanting to read more about the renaissance, and the Medici family. Anna recommended The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall by Christopher Hibbert, and luckily enough both libraries in town have a copy so that I’m not tempted to buy it (I am a starving college student this summer, after all).

I’ll probably pick it up this afternoon, seeing as how I have to return a few books to the campus library for Mrs. Jesus. I can’t say that I’ll read it right away, but I’m definitely looking forward to it. It’s been awhile since I read a non-fiction book that wasn’t assigned to me.

My book pile is steadily dwindling. There is a good chance that I’ll finally read through all the books in my room that have been waiting for months—or years— to be read. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all of that shelf space that will be free.

I heart Chuck Palahniuk. Not as much as my sister, true, but still more than the average author.

This last Wednesday, my sister and I trekked out to San Francisco to see Chuck at a book signing. His new novel Snuff was released the week before, and we were waiting impatiently all week for the signing so that we could read the book.

To prepare myself, the first book I read after finals was Invisible Monsters, his third fiction novel and the only one I hadn’t read yet. This book was my reward; it had been sitting patiently on my bookshelf unread for over a month. When I wanted to pull down a book and read, I’d look at it and contemplate studying instead. Not that I studied—no, instead I just pulled down a romance novel from the crap collection¹, and felt bad about reading such a bad book when there was other stuff to be done.

Back to Wednesday: K and I spent about two hours at the Warf—turns out we’re tired of being touristy in San Francisco—and then headed up to the Haights to pick up our copy of the books before the signing.

I then proceeded to read Snuff for the next two hours straight, and finished it about ten minutes before Chuck signed it for Josh. My sister had her copy of Snuff signed as a birthday present to a friend, and three of her other Chuck books signed for her.

I didn’t know what to expect for the reading. I usually only go to poetry readings; the only book reading I have been to was with multiple authors, and boring as hell.

First Chuck was interviewed by Rick Kleffel of The Agony Column—they recorded the talk and it is supposedly supposed to be up on the site. I can’t find it to save my life. However, there are a few videos taken by the bookstore editor up on his Youtube page (pretty much if it’s got Chuck’s name in it, it happened at the signing).

After the interview, instead of reading a section of the novel, Chuck went with a short story that he had written especially for the tour, called “Loser,” about a guy rushing Zeta Delt, and the pledge trip to be in the studio audience for The Price is Right.

Afterwards was audience Q+A, where I really wanted to ask him how he felt about becoming his own genre—query letters go out to agents and editors all the time with the phrase “in the style of Chuck Palahniuk”—when he had found it so hard to be published in the beginning, when the editors loved his stuff but didn’t know who the audience would be. But I didn’t get picked. Oh well.

There were also a few contests, mainly whoever blew up a blow-up doll the fastest received a copy of a recently published chapbook of Chuck’s short stories. At least, I think its Chuck’s… If not, I never caught the name of who’s it is. They did this a couple of times, so four people won books.

K got a blow-up doll and an autograph hound, both signed by Chuck, both important objects in Snuff. She was very excited.

Chuck is awesome to see in person, really funny, and really nice when signing a huge pile of books, even when the line snakes out the door.

And now I can’t wait for the movie of Choke to come out in the Fall. Based on K’s favorite book, it won an award at the Sundance Film Festival in January. I’m also waiting for my favorite book, Survivor, to finally be made into a movie. It was optioned before 9/11, but was shelved because the frame story involves the hijacking of an airplane.

1. This is the collection of romances that ME was tossing because they are crap. I have them because I like to read crap so as to better recognize it. We do not believe that the romance genre is crap. Far from it.[back]

I don’t know what to blog about.

Walking to my last final Friday morning with Mrs. Jesus and ME, we were discussing the things that we couldn’t wait to do now that we had all this free time, no classes to study for or things that had to get done. I don’t remember what they said—I was still cramming for our final and thus not listening to remember—but mine was blogging. I couldn’t wait to get back to blogging.

This semester has been very stressful for me. The problem with my stress, though, is that I don’t really notice it until it’s gone. Friday morning, standing in the shower and knowing I only had a paragraph and a half to finish my last paper and I was done with my portfolio, done with my Rhetoric class, and it was like I was washing away an accumulation of grime that I hadn’t even noticed. I felt cleaner coming out of that shower than I have this whole year—and it’s not like I don’t shower every day.

When I’m stressed, though, I lose interest in everything I do for fun. Blogging seems like a luxury I couldn’t afford, knitting a vague memory of something I used to enjoy. I haven’t read the books I wanted to because I felt guilty for reading something not assigned, so I read crap books that made me feel bad about reading them.

The end of the semester is like the light at the end of the tunnel. I suddenly want to start new knitting projects, read books that have been on the pile for months, have brilliant ideas for stories, and finally, reconnect with my blog.

Unfortunately, I don’t know what to blog about. Josh wrote a fantastic post the other day about who he wanted to be, what he wanted to do. He sent me a rough draft of the post for editing, and seeing his final, I am blown away. So much better than his first go round.

What made the difference? His personality showed through. He didn’t just tell me something, he gave me a story to illustrate his point. A personal story. Which makes sense, since Josh and I are personal bloggers.

It’s hard being a personal blogger some times. I mean, sure, it seems like it would be easy because you can write about whatever you want to. But at the same time, it’s hard, because it’s personal. This blog is all about me. It’s a reflection of what I think and believe and experience. And sometimes, blogging becomes hard because it seems like nothing good enough is going on to blog about.

After all, how many times can I write about breaking up with a long-term boyfriend (apparently not at all, because I’m not ready to rip that scab off), about being single and dating again, about finals and grades and classes and school?

Each time I sit down to blog, I want it to be something new. I want the act of writing to bring me a new truth, and for the audience, the act of reading to open them up to something they never thought about.

Lately, it feels like I’m regurgitating the same things over again. I haven’t hit onto anything profound—for me, at the very least—in a very long time. There have been very few moments in the last few months that I have thought, as Mrs. Jesus would say, “now that’s blogworthy.”

So this summer, I’m going to rethink what makes something blogworthy, come up with a blog-buster, plumb the depths of my life to find a truth that has been lurking around in the dark corners of my mind. And hopefully, pull out some entertaining writing to boot.

So, I don’t know what to blog about. But I’ve got all summer to find my groove again.

P.S.: If you’re looking for a blog editor, for either copy or content, I’m your girl. Going rate is $10 an hour, and a post this length would take me about 15 minutes for content, less for strict copy. For inquiries: lisa (at) unsympathetic (dot) net.

This is the most stressful time of the semester. No, it’s not finals. I never stress about those. No, this is “dead week” when the professors are supposed to not test us. So, of course it’s the busiest week of the semester because everything is due.

Since I will have to write more than 10,000 words in new papers alone, never mind the ones that still need to be rewritten (oh, like the one that’s so bad it got no grade at all), there will be most likely no blogging.

But to tide you all over, I wrote a very bad poem about “dead week.” Just in case you were wondering what it is I have to do—and I admit, my list is pretty light. E’s been working non-stop for the last three weeks with no let up, and Ame hasn’t seen her boyfriend for more than 2–3 hours a week in awhile. As English majors, we’ve got it pretty easy. And no group projects, thank heaven.

So, I’m turning my radio up, tuning the world out, and going to give myself finger-cramps before the week is out.

Poem after the jump. I didn’t want to torture you with my bad poetry unneccessarily.

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