You Can't Go Home Row Again

If you've been following my written exploits and conquests for any length of time that approaches or even precedes the 2008 mark, you're aware I have an obsession with keyboards. It's not so much one of fascination so much as utter frustration and an insatiable urge to overcome various obstacles such as availability. I once described in great detail the process of using the virtual keyboard of a Playstation Portable (PSP), which is probably best described as a cross of T9 Predictive Text and the original arcade version of Missile Command that used a bowling ball instead of a cue ball to move its cursor. I also expressed an early love of Twitter, which is still my absolute favorite social media platform, warts and all. I love its immediacy and conciseness (for better or for worse), and I especially loved the fact that this whole operation existed before smartphones took off, and what few "smart" devices existed had itty-bitty physical keyboards that even hardcore console gamers found exhausting.

Sony Mylo (short for My Life Online) 2006-2010

I have to explain another strand of the slightly sinister origins of this obsession. When I was a kid, I marveled at watching people type, and all without looking at the keys. It was like a superpower to me. How could people possibly remember all those buttons? By the time I took a proper typing class in middle school, I ended up taking to it pretty quickly. I wasn't especially fast (that came later) 
Glossing over a few key details of what came next (because I'm very ashamed of this display of my more spiteful and condescending side), now that I was more adept at mastering the home row and even special keys of the typical typing interface, I became exceedingly frustrated when I'd watch people struggle to put together simple sentences. I even once had a job in a computer lab while at college, and nearly stormed out on my first day as I watched in agony as our department head (who insisted on being an IT expert) entered some of my personal information by HUNTING AND PECKING... SLOWLY... AND STILL NEEDING TO HIT BACKSPACE MORE THAN ANY OTHER KEY! GAH! 

via GIPHY

I said nothing since part of me thought it was some sort of empathy test, given this particular computer lab was reserved for disabled students who often have mobile or cognitive differences. Regardless and for lack of a better term, something in me broke. The Moonwatcher in my mind got sick of huddling in the dark wondering where the sun went at night and decided to take a tapir's thigh bone to the situation. I resolved to find the smallest, most uncooperative keyboard I could find, and find out how fast I could type on it, so nobody else would have any excuse. 

Speaking of supremely insensitive arrogance, here’s a fun fact for you about the late Harlan Ellison. He never wrote on a computer for the entirety of his career. In his later years, he practically hoarded manual typewriters (specifically Olympias), to the point of having a fridge full of ink ribbons. He said he taught himself how to type, and it does show. He hunts and pecks with his two pointers, insisting that putting literal foot-pounds of force behind his keystrokes was what gave his writing its edge. Given his body of work, who am I to call bullshit on his methodology? 

None of this in any way should excuse legitimately bad keyboard designs, and they are out there en masse. If I push a key and nothing happens, that's a bad keyboard design. It's why I've always hated laptop keyboards, often referred to as "chiclets" due to the shape the keys have to be in order to maximize space. You'll certainly find no shortage of blog entries and YouTube videos from computer enthusiasts ranking and ranting about their least favorite keyboards, especially those who were fresh on the scene of the "bedroom coder" era of microcomputers. Here's a few frequent entries:

By Bill Bertram - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5

By Daniel Ryde, Skövde, CC BY-SA 3.0, 

By Tocchet22, CC BY-SA 4.0

By Evan-Amos - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

You'd think with this back catalog that it wouldn't be anywhere near as easy to find similarly awful keyboards in this day and age, but sadly this is not the case. To be fair, computers like the ZX-Spectrum and Odyssey 2 never intended people to write on their keyboards. Their target demographic was novice programmers, who typically only have to write a few command phrases and maybe a full sentence here or there. Trying to use home row or touch type wasn't simply difficult, but almost counterproductive. That's what frustrates me about laptop keyboards as they are fundamentally meant for portable productivity. 

All this leads me to the last few weeks, during which time I've found myself using one of the most unlikely keyboards I'd ever consider and not only getting used to it, but legitimately questioning my whole approach to typing. 

Tactile feedback? Sounds like violent criticism.

My 10.5-inch iPad Pro isn't exactly the right size for full and proper touch-typing like the 12.9-inch version might allow, but in addition to the light touch technique I'll get into in a moment, there's the Swiftkey method, which a friend of mine likened to dancing (which is still one of the most beautiful descriptions I've heard for something as mundane as typing). 

This isn't available in the default keyboard of an iPad or iPhone, and which Android devices pack it in involves a fair bit of guesswork and even hearsay. Fortunately, Swiftkey is available across all platforms. The gimmick is to run your finger (or a stylus) from key to key, creating a kind of constellation the software decrypts into full words. It's a simple enough idea, and fans of Palm Pilots likely recognized it as the next logical step of graffiti. 

If this is starting to sound like comparing apples to oranges, it may well be. A synergistic mix of not-quite-hunt-and-peck (as you can’t rest your fingers on the keys which are already too close together for that) and finger skating hieroglyphic star charts seems like a convoluted solution to a simple problem, though I’d invite you take a pen and paper, put them next to your keyboard, and count the number of “pieces” in each kit. 
It’s rather like that ageless phenomenon of previous generations resenting the current ones for how much easier daily life can be in certain areas. I’ve never used a fully manual typewriter, only an electric. It would rattle my desk with each keystroke to the point where a full paragraph would send something on my upper shelf tumbling below and startling me. It was a beast, but I loved it. I don’t think I could go back to it anymore (paper is precious), and with a manual I’d probably complain about it hurting my hands and fingers. Even the keyboard on my Apple IIsi offered a serviceable typing experience. Since then, with the exception of the keyboard for the Sega Dreamcast classic Typing of the Dead (doubled my typing speed in 2 weeks), it’s been a succession of awful keyboards. The worst keyboard was the one built into an old HP Chromebook I set up in my kitchen. It already had an external monitor because the screen was horrendous, so plugging in a keyboard was a no-brainer. That’s when I found the Logitech G413 Carbon on sale at Target. 

Although part of Logitech’s G series of gamer-focused peripherals, the Carbon is by far the most understated of the bunch. On the whole, the only thing that gives it away as a keyboard targeted at PC gamers besides the red-and-black color scheme is its price tag, which is notably lower than its mechani-kin but eclipses your average office space offerings. Chances are, unless you’re a gamer or require a particular set of ergonomics or at most are a serious typing enthusiast, I’m going to speculate the most money you’ve ever spent on a computer keyboard was around 20USD. Against that, the Carbon’s 60-80ish appears more than a little exorbitant. Bear in mind that because these use mechanical switches instead of rubbery sheets of bubble wrap and are targeted at gamers, even this entry-level model is built like a tank. It’s an investment that pays for itself faster than you think. 

I tried for one of those USB-Lightning adapters meant for connecting digital cameras or external hard drives, but for the life of me I could not get it to work with the Carbon. I was all set to resign myself to using a different Logitech keyboard, one I’d been using for some years with my Xperia smartphone. It was a laptop-styled keyboard, but it was convenient, especially its case which folded out into a stand for a tablet. So, I stuck with it. It served me well for many years, but time hasn’t been kind to it. It’s actually warped slightly now, so the “n” and the adjacent keys (including the space bar) work intermittently. It doesn’t help the Carbon basically spoiled me and now I need to find a bluetooth mechanical keyboard that is mechanical but isn’t a Kickstarter which isn’t going to be ready right away if at all (backed out of one a few months ago and learned everyone’s still waiting), isn’t stupidly expensive, but... 

Oh, hello. 

A Long Overdue State of the Scroll

I think I'm experiencing a touch of the writer's block when it comes to my Blogger page. I've written plenty elsewhere, be it WordPress or Quora or even DeviantART and Instagram. Here, though, I have about a dozen or so drafts that I get very far in and then... well, it just sits there. I have my reasons for leaving various drafts in the bin, but I can't deny the possibility it simply boils down to a lack of motivation. It's got nothing to do with engagement or Search Engine Optimizations or whatever metrics people judge their online presence by. As a wise-ass man once said,

"I'm no leader. 

I do what I have to do. 

Sometimes, people come with me."

Gratitude is something I think about a lot, and let the record show I have no shortage of it. If you’ve been with me from the start, whether you’re new, or if even if you briefly visited but moved on to other things, please know I appreciate you. Though it’s only text and images on a screen, but you’re in more or less full control of what content you allow into your private headspace, the sanctity of your mind. So, my being part of that if only in a very cursory fashion is a legitimate honor.

I keep wrestling with the idea of posting my art here as I once did. Ultimately, I don’t think I’ll bother, not even with my Inktober posts. My overall goal is to get back to the once-monthly-at-minimum model, more akin to a magazine than anything more immediate and reactionary. I’ve mentioned my WordPress page, which I once regarded as a kind of aftershow, using entries here as jumping-off points for tangents. It’s changed from that and is now a wholly separate entity except for the name. There’s still some common DNA such as an emphasis on skepticism and critical thinking, but applies it to broader socio-political topics. Here, we generally like to have fun. I may get angry or passionate about something here, but with very few exceptions, it’s all in good fun.

I am fundamentally a humanist. Believe it or not, my occasional expression of cynicism, pessimism, or anything that could be regarded as misanthropic or anti-social (in the proper clinical sense, not in the “It sounds like introverted, therefore it must also mean the same thing” sense too many people make and need to stop), my reasoning and motivation behind it is that I want people to do better. I know people can do better, and we don’t need acts of terrorism, hurricanes, floods, and pandemics to drive us towards it. You’re not always going to get it right. You’re going to screw up. We all do, we all have, and we all will. What separates us is what we do afterwards.

I’ve messed up. I failed to keep up with my own schedule. It’s probably not even the first time I’ve done so for this site. So, what am I going to do? I’m going to keep going. I’m going to keep posting here. Thank you all for sticking with me.

Goodnight, and good luck.

Countdown To Inktober 2018

I've officially become that guy, that guy who uses spreadsheets for almost everything imaginable. I tried setting this up as a checklist in Evernote, but it wasn't particularly convenient. 

It's currently the 20th of September, which makes it exactly ten days until the start of this years Inktober. This will be my third outing, I'm very excited for it, and maybe I'll get some of you to join in if you haven't already by talking about it here. 
For those who arrived late, Inktober was started back in 2009 by an illustrator named Jake Parker. It's grown significantly in that time, and while there are many takes on it, but the original goes something like this: the official Inktober site publishes a list of 31 single-word drawing prompts, a slew of adjectives, nouns, and verbs. You've then got 31 days to bring each individual prompt to life through the traditional medium of ink. That's the barest of the bare bones about it, and as I said, there's no one approach as all artists are of varying technical skills, comfort zones, and work ethics. 
Obviously, the important thing is to have fun, but of equal importance is to challenge yourself, push your skills, get out of your comfort zones, and try a new work ethic. Artists have a reputation for being rather persnickety and temperamental, working in a kind of ad hoc sort of flow. While I'm firmly of the opinion that creativity is not like a faucet or light switch that can simply be flipped on or off, I don't buy into the pretentious rhetoric that it's so elusive and nebulous that forcing it in even the most passive way would vaporize it on the spot. I think that's selling yourself short. Too many people see it like the Golden Goose; finding out what makes the fowl tick will stop its ticker dead, on account of being dissected. In reality, it's more like a muscle. You can injure it, of course, and there's certainly limits to what it can do, but you won't know it until you try, but it's best to take it slow, stretch it a bit, and pace yourself. 

I like to follow the official prompt list because it's the most well-known and it creates a nice common ground to see what everyone else is doing and how everyone approaches the same challenge, often in wildly different ways. 

For this year, the challenge I've set for myself is that I'm actually doing 2 prompt lists, the official and a new one I found on Instagram through a stationery company called MosseryCo. They're the pink column of the spreadsheet, with Jake Parker's being the gray. These lists are published in the early days of September to give participants some prep time, and I'm taking full advantage of it. I mean, I've got double the workload this year, so it's for the best. Yeah, this means quantity over quality (or at least some repetition), but like NaNoWriMo (in November) it's more about the process than the results. It's about getting rid of old and bad habits while trying to get used to new and good ones. 

In terms of medium, I'm probably playing faster and looser than ever. My first year was fairly strict, I made proper, traditional ink drawings in my sketchbooks, and the only digital work involved was some color correction and lighting adjustments in post. My second year I tried a hybrid approach of using an Iskn Slate tablet to "record" my traditional drawings and then digitally paint over them. What both of these years had in common was that there was more than one occasion I made an exception to my own rules. This year, I had an idea that if there was ever a day when I couldn't come up with anything, I would look to the corresponding day on the other list and combine the two. As I've been going through the pre-planning stage, though, I haven't felt much desire to do that. While there are some common/recurring themes between the lists, they are ultimately separate entities that will be resulting in at least 62 full-fledged drawings. As for bringing those drawings to life, I'm keeping that open depending on what's best suited to the idea, but the majority of drawings will be made using Paper by 53. It's hardly the most robust drawing app. In fact, the fine folks at 53 will insist up, down, left, and right that Paper is not a drawing app, but a notetaking app geared towards more visual thinkers. It's meant for making flowcharts and Venn diagrams rather than full, proper illustrations. Of course, that never stops anyone from using it as a drawing app, hence their own hashtag #madewithpaper, but it's overall not the strength of the app. It's got limitations and even, dare I say it, some shortcomings, but that's what I love about it. 

However you decide to participate in Inktober, I'd like you to keep something in mind. To crib a phrase from Stan Lee, every year is someone's first. If this is your first, I bid you welcome, hope you meet a lot of interesting people, and overall hope you have a lot of fun. 

No True Inker (An Inktober Meditation)

2017's Inktober is closing in on its first week and despite a few technical annoyances, it's gone far smoother than anticipated. Like last year, I've been posting the finished results (and the rough sketch made on the Iskn Slate) to my Instagram, where they're immediately shared to my Facebook and Twitter. They're also being mirrored on a special Pinterest board (sans sketches) and sometimes an alternate or discarded version of a piece will be posted to DeviantART. At the end of the month, I may also post them all to my Artstation, possibly Behance as well. 

Exactly one year ago to this day, I wrote about how Inktober was as valid as any other holiday (possibly more so). I wholeheartedly stand by that and even found a few people saying the same on their own journals and social sites. Unfortunately, with this newfound solidarity comes an inevitable gaggle of snobs and purists out to ruin it for everyone, if only passive-aggressively. If anyone's ever given you a hard time about something you DIDN'T do for a holiday, you have an idea of where this is going. 

It's a mild grievance, and though it could have turned into a full argument, I decided to back off and carry on, bearing no ill will against the other person and continuing to follow their work. Besides, they have an unfortunate pairing of personality traits where they've got a very dry sense of humor but are more than a tad inept on the delivery front, so it may well entirely be a misunderstanding. I only bring it up because while that person may have had their tongue firmly-yet-obscurely in cheek, there does seem to be a bit of a fervor over whether or not participants are having a "TEH-RUE!" Inktober experience.

The teal-furred buck of the situation is, unless someone is simply posting duckface selfies with the Inktober hashtags or something equally unrelated plugging up search results (read: trolling), I'm not going to get all flustered about it, and you shouldn't either. If you're pumping out 31 drawings in 31 days from the 1st of October through the 31st, you are doing Inktober. Everything else is merely how much of a challenge you want to make it for yourself. 

This year, it seems for whatever reason there's been some thundering from atop Olympus in the form of a social media post* from Jake Parker admonishing people who don't toe the line on the "TOWOOO!" spirit of Inktober. Brad Colbow has a video showing this post and his reaction more or less mirrors mine. 

With all due respect to Mr. Parker, he may have started Inktober, but apart from due credit as coiner of the term and a snappy logo design, he doesn't own it. It exists with or without him. There's no application process and despite a few would-be pedants insisting otherwise, the original rules are fairly vague and open, with very few stipulations that could be seen as dictatorial. As for the author of that "bad habits" post, I have to ask: What if you're already a traditional artist and therefore don't technically have those bad habits this event is, according to you, meant to cure? Is the "TREW!" Inktober experience exclusively digital artists trading their screens and styluses for pen and paper? Even with the "full experience" statement at the end, this likely isn't meant to be any sort of heavy-handed decree, but it does put up a wall where one is not welcome. Is Danica Sills, for example, not doing it right because she uses watercolors and follows a different prompt list than others? If you watch her videos, and you should because they're awesome, she is not shy about sharing her various stumbles and hurdles brought on by the project and the changes in her focus and habits it brings up. Going back to Brad Colbow, the part he was gearing up for most about Inktober was the schedule, the daily deadline, something he typically doesn't have to deal with to that degree in his line of work. Why are the "digital artists who overuse Ctrl+z" the only people for whom Inktober has meaning? 

That's the key matter to bear in mind if you're going to pursue this: what does it mean to you? 

For me, I view it in much the same way as NaNoWriMo. The next great work of modern literature is not going to be born of someone hammering out a 50,000 word manuscript in 30 days. Prove me wrong, please, but we need to be realistic about this. What's the point, then, some would ask? I say to the same two words to those people for that event as I do for this current one: WORK ETHIC. Sticking to a set schedule with structured deadlines, along with the accountability of sharing your work in public, is going to work wonders for you. 

If you need a little more guidance than that, here's a free caveat: get out of your comfort zone. If you're typically a digital artist, why not try ink and paper? If you're typically a traditional artist, maybe now's a good time to dive in to digital and see what, if anything, you've been missing? If you're only a mere margin-doodler, why not take on a big project to see how far your creativity goes? If you've never livestreamed yourself drawing via Twitch or Picarto before, why not give your fans something to tune in to? 

Here's one more pearl of wisdom if you're feeling a little anxious about it thus far. As much as I don't agree with the "Boot Camp For Spoiled Digital Artists Only" sentiment, I will give it its due credit. Being able to infinitely undo your work can have a negative effect on your productivity, especially if you're already a total perfectionist. That said, even if you're doing Inktober digitally, you can't hit Ctrl+z forever. Hell, even if you're working traditionally, ink is cheap and paper is cheaper. If you've got 5 drawings done, and you're struggling with number 6, you've got 25 more ahead of you. That's not meant to intimidate you, that should give you relief. On the off-chance it doesn't, here's another number: 3.26%. That's 1 drawing out of 31 as a percentage. That is peanuts. 

A wise man once said, "We all have 10,000 bad drawings in us. The sooner we get them out the better."

Speaking of being better, this has been a tough week for me on a personal level. I won't bother going into details because it's pretty first-world stuff on the whole and, in light of the recent tragedy on the Las Vegas strip, there's other goings-on in the world that deserve your attention, sympathy, and action more. Still, it's been a progressively crummy week with the first signs of "bad to worse" hitting home early yesterday. As of right now, apart from my morning coffee to keep me from falling asleep at my desk, I haven't eaten since yesterday morning. Obviously, this is not a good thing to do and I need to fix that as soon as possible. I still feel it's worth noting that my old go-to treatment for depression started working again. Yesterday, all I wanted to do was go home and try not to think about how much better a place the world might be if I wasn't in it. 

I drew this instead: 

and then I decided to give myself a buffer and made this one:

When I was done, I felt better. It was a legitimate escape from what I didn't want to think about, and I didn't go back to it when I was done. Yeah, the drawings suck, but that was never the point. It may be silly to say, "Inktober kept me going." but making art makes me happy. There came a time when it wasn't enough, so I tried something else. That worked for a time, mostly still does, and now this is helping all over again. It may not be the case for you, but it can be such for others. Once upon a time, I would have hated the very idea of something like Inktober, because it would turn my ersatz therapy into a detestable tedium, and that's the last thing I would have wanted. My process was too precious to me to muck it up with deadlines or themes or other sorts of rules. I was treating creativity like a fragile blossom, and what I've learned since then is that while you can't force creativity, you cannot be afraid to push yourself a bit. You don't actually know how far your comfort zone reaches until you try to go outside of it. 

If you've been hesitant and want to try it, it's not too late. Sure, you've got a little catching up to do, but no one's going to give you grief for, say, 25 drawings in 25 days, or 15 drawings in 15 days.... 

*Edit 7th October: when this entry first went live, I was unaware the post in question was from Jake Parker; I was under the impression it was a comment on a post of his and the various screencaps didn't show a username, so I assumed it was someone else, with other similar comments from Parker adding to the drama. While this doesn't change anything I've said, it is worth noting because, at the risk of calling Jake Parker an elitist snob or even a full-fledged hypocritical liar or something along those lines, this is what his website looks like:

Conflict of Interest, much?

There's also a number of items in the art supplies list specifically for the task of undoing mistakes... in traditional media. Again, this isn't trying to hate on the man; I'm willing to chalk this up to a poor choice of words. If I were more paranoid, I'd say he was getting some pressure from one of his sponsors because their traditional art supplies weren't selling as well as they maybe would have wanted. The point is there's a difference between encouraging people to challenge themselves, get out of their comfort zones, and drawing a line in the sand. 

Special thanks to YouTuber Baylee Jae for the clarification. 

My Second Job

This has been a rather hectic week, very draining. I mentioned on Wednesday on my DeviantART account that I sort of had my weekend early. I've been making uploads there nearly everyday, whereas typically I sketch and plan during the week, leaving "showtime" for the weekend. It generally works out as I sometimes have a habit of staying up too late when I work on art; not so fun for workdays, but fits in fine with my weekends. This week, however, I've been a bit antsy and fidgety. I'll get very irrational and jittery, wanting to work on stuff, only for the feeling to peter out and die as soon as I start. I'll tell myself I have to do something, and then do eight other things to avoid it. That may sound like plain ol' procrastination, my mind essentially taking the easy way out to get a sense of accomplishment, except that what I've been doing to put other things off have been more engaging, take more time, and probably give me a much greater sense of satisfaction. Looking at it now, though, while I certainly felt like I was pouring myself into the work, it doesn't quite show through sometimes:

That last one just began as an idea for making the center of an Artist Trading Card square by having lineographs in the borders. I had no idea what the content would be, so I just went with it, and I think they frankly look terrible. I fell back on old habits like trying to pass off obscurity as talent. It feels like I might as well have posted pages from my notebook with an Instagram filter slapped over it. I tried to push myself forward, thinking that if I make a lot of stuff I can make up for the lack of quality with quantity. Really, it was acknowledging spreading myself thin. In my defense, I do have an upcoming painting project that will involve making 50 similar pieces, so I am legitimately trying to make myself produce as much as possible for reasons other than a self-defeating defense mechanism. I wish I could apply that excuse universally, though.

Most of what I've been putting off are things I have to write. It wouldn't be any big deal except that they're essentially replies to people, all somewhat related, and rather taxing. They don't get particularly personal or anything, but they are nonetheless revealing and honest.

It involves two journal entries on DeviantART about Anita Sarkeesian's video project Tropes vs. Women. Why two? Well, one is the actual criticism I have for her work (Short version: subject matter's fine, my issues are elsewhere), while the other is a sort of full disclosure. Basically, I'm going to map out where I stand on the spectrum of feminist ideals with a short list of random thoughts about women and my relations with them. It's been a bit tough to write because while I've been outlining it in my head the entire week, it all breaks down when I sit down to write it out, even if it's to jot down the thought I just had. I've never really had that problem before, and it worries me.
Writing has always bugged me a little because I'm the kind of guy who sweats every word. When I draw or paint, there's only so much "undo" I can do, and I'm generally stuck with whatever I make. Most of the time, fortunately, I like it a little better than what I first envisioned. With writing, though, I've got infinite levels of Undo, with no real loss besides time. Doesn't sound like a big deal, though as I mentioned, I promised these two journal entries, I'm not going back on it, and I've got something similar to do that's for someone.
Oogle wrote a journal entry on her Tumblr that I've been trying to reply to since she first posted it. I'm not going to tell you which one. At first, I was going to relbog it and add what I wanted to say to it. As I gathered notes for it, though, I started to have doubts about doing that. On the other hand, while it's essentially a reply to her, it's written as an open letter to the people she mentions in the original Tumblr entry. If that makes absolutely no sense at all, that's part of the problem.

This is how my mind works most of the time.
I feel like it's starting to wear on me, but if I back out or drop it, I'll feel worse.

Good night, and good luck.

Sophomoric Semaphore

I just don't understand people, sometimes.
Normally, this doesn't bother me, but when it's someone I used to be able to read like a book, it makes me wonder what changed. When you're in a relationship with someone that you care deeply for, you get to a point where the slightest twitch at the corner of the mouth speaks volumes not in the slightest bit cacophonous or overbearing, but instead perfectly coherent. Maybe it's just familiarity and observation, but what does it say when that breaks down or, in my case, completely disappears? My only real guesses are it's either some kind of defense mechanism, or that you maybe weren't really reading them all that well in the first place and you've only just now worked it out. What's worse is that even when they're just speaking to you as they normally would, you wonder how you ever understood anything they said at all.
This particular person whose actions (and, most importantly, words) have led me to write this (after a few very stiff drinks... but that's another matter) has an almost schizophrenic approach to daily life, without actually having the condition. She doesn't communicate very well, and always has a ready excuse. To her credit, the last incident of note was because she had a cat in her lap that she'd just rescued from some negligent owners en route to the pound. Even still, her thoughts were elsewhere:

She: Busy? Have you ate?
Me: Yes, I just got back from eating. What's up?
She: Oh. 

These were text messages, and after sending that "Oh." the next line got its own text message barely thirty seconds later while I debated whether or not to answer or just wait for her to give me more information regarding whether or not I was busy:

She: Cause I'm hungry and mom's not stopping. 

Seven minutes later, again as I try to debate answering her. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Why is this suddenly my responsibility? Was it selfish of me to eat while she was out spending the day with her mom and sister (which I only learned of when I got home from work that day). Why am I supposed to pick up the slack for that? If that's not the case, then why am I being told this?

She: what do you get me from Hardee's? 

Then, while I'm typing the reply, working out that she convinced her mom to stop for food:

She: [my sister] and I are gonna stop there. 

Here's what gets me: she's in the same car with her mom and sister. If I wasn't trying to maintain what little patience I have left for her (things have not been going well for a few months, but I've tried to make the best of things), my reply would have been along the lines of, "No kidding." but with more colorful language. The issue is essentially one of either not getting enough information or getting so much that it's impossible to get a word in edgewise and move the situation forwards. I have to drag essentials out of her only to get multiple and fragmented messages about the logistics of satisfying impulses while carpooling. This brings us to today, as I'm driving home from work, having stopped briefly to gas up my car:

She: You have any cash? I need stuff from the store
Me: Like what?
She: Gallon of tea, [my sister's] coming over tomorrow, apricot scrub... something for dinner. 

So I get an appointment in the middle of a grocery list. Logically, I think this holds relevance, but the place it's wedged into immediately trumps that logic. Thus, I ask:

Me: So, should what I pick up for dinner be for tonight or for when [she] comes over tomorrow?
She: Tonight. 

Then why bring it up, least of all in the middle of a list of things to get? Whether or not she comes over has no bearing on what I do when I get home from work. Maybe there's a little bit of time spent on catching up with what's been happening with the family or some useless piece of trivia that turns out to be wrong

Short story: I have a blue light bulb on our porch because I like the color and it stands out, she tells me it's to signify a gay residence, I do research and find at least six "meanings" to blue outdoor lights, NONE of which have anything to do with the gay community apart from transvestites in Amsterdam. 

I just don't get how someone's mind can work this way when writing out a message. In casual speech, sure, it's easy to insert some random piece of information, but when writing a list...? Like I said, there are always excuses when I get messages like this, most of them having to do with being in the middle of an online multiplayer game and talking to at least one other person via Skype. Others often just have to do with not giving a damn about being understood, which wouldn't even be so bad if she didn't spew bile and rage when asked for clarification. Yes, it can be annoying to repeat one's self, but getting mad at someone else for not being able to understand you when you're barely trying to be coherent is like being mad at yourself for having your hands over your eyes and thus not being able to see in front of you.

All I want is some damn forethought.
All I want is some effort to at least give something a once-over before hitting "send."
All I want is a single, complete thought presented in one singular message.
All I want is the understanding that I'm not able to read minds.
All I want is to not to be treated like an interruption by the very person making the request of me.
All I want is to not have to answer 8 ultimately inconsequential questions before someone gets to the point and asks what they really want to know.
All I want is to not have to end an otherwise-constant string of second-guesses with, "BECAUSE I'M A STUPID F----ING MORON!" in order to make someone drop the issue of how I can make so many "mistakes" in responding to their own words.

Apparently the moon and Belgium are more readily available as a bundle than any one of these simple wishes.

I give up. I give the Hell up. I'm through being a remedial English teacher to a native speaker who throws a temper tantrum at 3 in the morning because their "grammar check" plug-in won't work with their browser. That statement is equally metaphorical and literal.

Good night, and good luck.

Junk Mail Filler

I don't know very much about biorhythms or ever took much stock in them to begin with, but somehow fall is always a rather hectic time for me. I remember one day, just after I'd graduated college, my dad said to me, "This is probably going to feel very weird for you, huh?" When I asked him what he meant, he observed, "This will be the first August since you were maybe five years old that you won't be getting ready for school." Maybe that has something to do with it, along with the changing of the seasons (Seasonal Affective Disorder), the onset of the holidays (including my birthday, my father & mother's birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's) and all their incumbent stress.
The point is that I realized how long it had been since I made an entry here and in my frustration I'm trying to find a rational explanation for it. Years ago, all the way back on the now-defunct Yahoo!360, the first weblog I ever had, I made something of a promise that if I was going to have an online journal and build up any sort of audience or circle of friends, I should try and aim for at least one entry a month, my thinking being that my journal was like any other regular periodical, namely a magazine as I never really focused on anything topical so as to address an issue with urgency.
Another reason is that a few weeks ago I hurt my back really bad. The short version of the story is that I slept wrong. The slightly less short version of the story is that I slept wrong and my computer chair wasn't helping. In fact, said computer chair is in a dumpster and couldn't have gone that way sooner. As such, I didn't have a way to sit at my computer for long periods of time, thus making even the shortest journal entries a bit tedious. I managed to work around some of the issues this presented by hooking up my keyboard to my Playstation and using its internal browser to handle most of my networking, especially on DeviantART. I also got a new phone with a decent data plan and a fairly robust browser. The trouble with both of those is that the Playstation's text entry mode has a character limit (much like the PSP), and the phone's touchscreen keyboard is a little hard to work with.
Luckily, I've managed to inherit an old computer chair from my roommate which is just bearable enough to let me bash out a few entries here and there, particularly on my DeviantART page. That's why I'm going to be relatively brief here and just present a series of videos I'd posted to YouTube over the past few months about some junk mail I'd received... repeatedly.

The first time:


The second time:


The third time:

A Fabricated Encounter (from Facebook)

The Facebook status message that started this:
PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THESE INSTRUCTIONS: I would like my Facebook friends to comment on this status, sharing how you met me. But I want you to LIE. That's right, just make it up. After you comment, copy this to your status, so I can do the same. I bet HALF of you won't read the instructions.

to which I replied:
I was sabotaging a cruise ship with the intention of stranding the passengers to die a slow and painful death of starvation as a sacrifice to the ancient god Dagan. I was setting the detonator in the boiler room when you walked in on me, mistaking the room for the sauna. I thought you were going to try and stop me, but while I was explaining my evil plan (as all bombastic villains do) before silencing you, it turned out we actually worshiped the same evil deity and you'd even poisoned the entire food supply and were simply sticking around for a celebratory sauna. So, we fired up the jet skis and left that band of wayward travelers to their doom.

and in return:
The obelisk stood dusty in the dunes as I brush at them... frustrated at my situation. "Oh Lord DAGAN. Why must I unearth this damned monument?!" I yelled to nothing in particular. "Because he wishes it so," a voice from behind me called out startling me causing me to drop my brush. I looked back and spotted you setting down your backpack and breaking out a brush of your own. "The name's Matthew Joseph of the Great Dark Deepness, yourself?" I picked up my brush and returned to the delicate dusting of what looks like Dagan sitting atop a massive throne with men and women weeping at his feet and replied without looking at you, "Desiree of the Deep Weeping." The conversation went from Dagan to darker topics as the sun sank behind the larger dunes of the endless desert. The chittering of the hellflies dying on our buzz zapper makes us laugh as we continue our dark duty in the light of our new friendship.

This is seriously my new favorite thing right now. Thanks, Desi :)

Work Ethic Quick Notes

I don't know how long I spent writing Ladyhorse.

My re-write of The Sacrifice was done in a sitting, a rather arduous one. The original 1999 (98?) version was written in a single session as well, and I remember it coming to me very easily.

The story I'm writing now, which is not part of NaNoWriMo since it's only a short, began around November 1st, maybe earlier, with a deadline of Thanksgiving (so it's earlier than NaNoWriMo), and that's turning out to be one of the most difficult things I've ever written. I'm quite literally not happy with any of it. I think the problem is that while I stand behind the idea itself, the story requires too much simile and metaphor to work at conveying its imagery, and that can get a little too flowery for me.

The closest thing to a novel I've written was a five-act play written around 1998. It took me 2 years to write, longer if you count the 50-plus scraps that were eventually consolidated into the work, making for its 75-plus main characters. I'm never posting it or showing it to anybody. I'd rather tell the story of how I got the idea to consolidate the stories, because it is kind of hilarious (and I can say that because it wasn't my idea):

These stories were all set in relatively the same universe, and I had envisioned a kind of crossover culminating in a singular ending (I'll just say one word about it: Dallas), but only thought of that ending, nothing about the interaction of the separate characters. One day, I was in the school library, writing a story of a soldier becoming a doctor. A friend (of sorts) walked by and asked what I was doing. I told him I was writing. He asked, "Fiction?"
"Yeah," I replied, "And it's going about as well as the other stuff I've written." He looked interested, and said as much, with the prospect of being able to offer me advice since he'd written much himself. I told him that the problem with how I write is that I always have an idea of a beginning, and I more or less know how I want the story to end, but it's making the connection between the start and stop that gets to me. Believing he knew where I was going, he nodded and finished my sentence:
"Because you always want to introduce new characters, new situations."
I shook my head, "No, it's not so much that...." I stopped that sentence dead in its tracks after realizing that his complaint made for really good advice. I asked, "What did you just say?" like one of those Mel Brooks moments where you first dismiss or even laugh at an idea, but the moment you speak your dissent is the same moment you realize it's complete genius:
"Maybe we should send the dummies into battle."
"Ha!" One one-thousand, "Hmm...."

The best advice I ever got about writing came from my Western Civilization professor during my freshman year at UNM. He said that the first sentence of your essay (or anything you're writing, for that matter) should sound like it has absolutely nothing to do with what the paper is about. It's kind of hard to elaborate on what exactly that means or entails, but here's the best example I can think of, the opening sentence to John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids:

When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.

The novel, for those of you who don't know, is about ambulatory, carnivorous plants with venomous tongues that have a ten-foot reach and target the eyes, yet those are not the worst thing going on in the world when the story starts.