Eccentric Flower:199811/journally jottings

thirty eleven thirteen

journally jottings

My long weekend got a little longer involuntary. I was snuffling and wheezing and coughing all through Thanksgiving, and it's not notably better, so here I am at home, catching up on all the journals I didn't read for four days.

I'm sure that some of you have wondered at the odd nature of these postcards. They don't seem to be about anything in particular, do they? All over the map. I noted the other day that I'm not really a diarist - I don't talk about the events of my life enough. Well, here's why: A poor self-image and an easily distracted mind.

I was all prepared to give you the minutiae of Thanksgiving. I was! I even said in the last postcard that I was going to talk about it. But reading journals this morning I noticed so many other things that I just have to comment on, all of which have got to be more interesting to you than the details of my holiday. I mean, really, my life is only interesting to me, right?

I'm just not cut out to be a diarist. Some of what I write here I write for my own sake; some of it I write for the reader's sake; in neither of those categories do I care to recall what I ate for Thanksgiving dinner.

But perhaps I should do so, just to prove a point (what point, I'm not sure, but never mind). Tell you what. I have all day - I'm too full of mucus to write fiction, I don't have the energy to leave the house, and I'm tired of computer games. So after I finish this postcard, and I refill my coffee, I'll compose a wholly different one. Then you can compare and contrast.

Meanwhile ... congratulations on the Whitman winners. I note that the two members of my webring who won Whitman awards are the two who don't read my postcards. The moral is very clear: If you're a diarist, you must stop reading these pages immediately, thereby guaranteeing yourself the award.

No, I'm only kidding. Actually, the Thinking Aloud ring has a heck of a pedigree - only ten sites, but among those ten are two Whitman judges and two Whitman winners. Wow!

Speaking of that "only ten sites" claim - I am looking for a new site. One. A single new journal site to add to the ring, preferably one which sticks to the criteria on the ring's About page. (To wit: The entries should give that "thinking aloud" feel, the site should be updated several times a week, and the site must keep archives of old entries). Here's the problem:

One site in the ring, Sam Marcello's page (Bowing Down To My Addiction), only updates once a week at most, and she is about to go on hiatus. I can't blame her - she's trying to get into college and coping with a bunch of other things at once. I love her words dearly and I am not about to pull her from the ring - but it seems to me that an eleventh site, one which does update several times weekly, is called for. Any suggestions? A male would be nice, as this ring is rather gender-uneven, but it's not a strong criterion.

Reading the sites in the ring, I am struck once again by the common interests, and the fervor of those interests. I figure all I would have to do is produce a theatrical adaptation of any classic SF story, and I would be able to get lively discussion from every single ring member on the subject.

It does make me sometimes feel like the odd non-fan out, especially since I am no longer watching any TV, not even Chris Carter shows, not even my beloved Sammo Hung - I just haven't been in the mood for many weeks. (I did watch the Voyager episode where Kim and Chakotay have to retroactively save the ship from destruction - the only well-constructed episode in a long while.) Apparently Babylon 5 ended. Several journals commented on it. Never saw it, not once. I don't feel left out, exactly - more like it was something I should have been aware of but wasn't, as if I were finding out only today that the president is under impeachment hearings.

I have been having a couple of unrelated email discussions this morning which touch on the faces one presents in one's electronic writings, vs. the real person beneath. Once in a while we see something that uncovers a person there we don't know about, and it surprises us.

There are lots of things about my life I don't mention here. Seeing Al mention Rocky Horror, for example, brought back a whole slew of memories, good and bad, from that turbulent period. Rocky Horror was literally the most important thing in my life for about two years .... I don't think I've ever mentioned any of that here at all.

You don't get a good picture of me from my words. Of course, what I think I'm presenting may be different from what you're actually seeing, but I suspect that if you saw the real personality lurking under these words, you'd find it considerably less likable/interesting.

I should note, though, that Mary Anne, an online friend whom I have seen in the flesh twice now and who says I'm too self-deprecating, would probably disagree. Rhonda, who was an in-the-flesh friend before she became an electronic friend, would have a thing or two to say also.

I am self-deprecating. Some of it is the Southern Belle mentality. Read Marlyn Schwarz's A Southern Belle Primer about how they will never, never accept a compliment. I was taught that humility was the first of all virtues.

I also don't think that I do anything especially well, it's just that most of the world does everything so half-assed that mere competence comes to look a lot like excellence.

But I wasn't writing this postcard to talk about me.

The last thing that came to my mind, reading journals this morning, is that Felix talks about being estranged from a close relative. I was going to write her about this and tell her that it's all right, sometimes you have to do things like that, and it doesn't mean you're an ogre or cold-blooded or anything. But then I realized that I wouldn't come off as especially impartial. When I speak of "my family" I am always referring to my maternal family. I haven't seen my father since before I came to Boston, and I haven't seen any of my father's family since, hmm, probably before I finished high school.

It's always curious to feel regret over the fact that you feel no regret.

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