New post

It's so new! The newest of all posts.

Hopefully more later.

- J

See, this is exactly what I've been frustrated with.

I miss something for one day and then instantly - no matter if I've been doing it daily for a week or for six months - my consistency falls apart. Thanks a lot, brain. I'm really feeling like we're on the same team, here.
It's lunch time and I'm easting my birthday dinner leftovers. They are yummy. Thank you.

- J

The chronicles of non-blog-eeah

While I did entirely forget about blogging yesterday (which means that I was able to maintain my one-a-day pace for eight whole days), I did legitimately write - the beginning of a MH blog post. Two down now, with two to go.
To balance things out, I am actually blogging from home right now which I never do. Hopefully this will rewire some blocked synapses so that I don't shift gears quite so hard the second I leave work.

A year ago on my birthday I wrote about snakes. This year I can't think of any snake-based content, but content has been pretty thin all around of late. I recently recommended to my friend that he propose to his S/O by hiding a ring in a peanut jar of spring-loaded snakes. He said he would take my suggestion into consideration, but would probably employ a method less likely to lead to hospitalization.

-J

Malcontent

My cube-neighbor was playing a Christian radio station a little bit this afternoon and it really reminded me how underwhelmed and disconnected I feel with practically all Christian music. I don't mean to be a downer, but it really does not uplift me to listen to it. The only way I can explain it is by saying that what I hear on Spirit FM does not in any way sound like the song in my heart.
I have this feeling of bottled emotion and powerful chaotic energy inside me. I want to howl and stomp around a blazing bonfire in the middle of the woods. I want to swing my arms and spin until I fall over, and just lie there screaming gutteral cries. I want to laugh until I cry, and run until I collapse, and sing until my vocal cords won't obey anymore. I don't hear any sound like that on the radio. Not really in church either. Everyone is so well-behaved. If there's children dancing up front it's adorable, but - if we're realistic - only because they "don't know any better". Sure, we say "Oh it's so cute that they're uninhibited", but behind that statement is the implicit social judgment that being inhibited is proper. If a grownup went up and danced, everyone would feel incredibly uncomfortable with the situation. The deacons would probably pull him aside and ask him to stop. We laud behavior in the young that we forbid in the mature. This condradiction is burdonsome to think about, and unhealthy to ignore.
The closest thing I can think of to what I have inside me is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8VizD1xcuk
O, porcupine, by 'Mewithoutyou'.

-J

Writing projects

-'Generous' blog posts [1/4 complete]
-M:tG market analysis for COMC [Due: end of Dec]
-Verse for Hitchhiker's Guide song [Due: Dec 19]

And, of course, this blog.

-J

Content (the other meaning)

I feel pretty good. It's a little cold in the bottom half of the office. That is to say, we've got a heater but it only seems to really benefit the top-most shelves and whatever is above. We've probably got some cozy spiders, I guess.
I'm starting to feel more like an adult for a majority of my time awake. I'm not sure how to describe it except a certain "oldness" which is not yet enough to constitute Old. I think "adult" must be derived from some Sanskrit word meaning "bodily complaints", but it still beats being a kid. I like this grown-uppiness. I love being married. I want to get a tattoo of a box and then another tattoo of a check mark. Done. Got that marriage thing knocked out.

The rest of my life seems like such an abstract concept. I'm not sure I'll belive in it until it gets here.

- J

Content (1)

I'm really struggling with jealousy. When those around me are blessed with opportunity, I am finding it extremely difficult to simply rejoice for or with them fully; some part of me is twisted with covetousness, a greedy imp despising both istelf and the universe which fails to cater to it. I'm glad that God is revealing this in my heart. I know it's good for me, except I can't remember off hand what exactly I'm supposed to do about it. Trust God something something. Being a Christian is not like fixing a computer. I don't even know how to access my 'settings' menu.
There's no reason that reality should fall over itself to make my life easier. As I noted last night, I labor under the burden of Rich-Person Problems*. Oh no, my 12-month pre-paid Xbox LIVE account code which is only useful to me because I posess and Xbox 360, and games for it, and a steady internet connection, and was itself a gift to me from my friend was accidentally entered into the account of my beautiful wife instead of my own, so now I won't get imaginary credit for my imaginary achievements. Which I spend my real time laboring on.
It's a tragedy.
Actually, it is a tragedy, just not in the way it feels like to my impish brain. It is a lot easier to be jealous of other people than to actually DO anything. To sieze what amazing opportunity God has turned over in my life, like a celestial Vanna White flipping tiles in the bonus round. If I were to just focus, I'd realize that R-S-T-L-N-E has gotten me, like, ninety percent of the way there. I just need to choose three consonants and a vowel, and get my brain to work.

-J

* You down with RPP?**
** Yeah, you know me.

Forced Content (4)

It's been a few days of this now, which means the forgetting is starting in earnest. It feels like an active force in opposition to me. Today I didn't remember this blog until my second break. If I had missed it now, I would have never recalled it after heading home. The gears simply shift in a way that is very difficult to counteract. I think differently.
I have a phone call to make, so I need to cut this short, but it's just as well since whenever I sit down to actually do this, all content flees screaming from my head. I enjoyed leading the discussion in our Community Group last night. I'd like to do it again.

- J

Forced Content (3)

Yes! I am boldly continuing, despite having noting to say. Thinking about it, I would rather have a blog where I wrote every day about how I didn't have anything to say than a blog where I only posted twice a month to lament about how I never write anymore. Like, neither of those is frankly ideal, but the goal is twofold here:
1) Consistency. I need to just continue writing. Keep those fingers dancing across the keyboard. Quantity over quality for the sake of building the right muscles in my brain. To make writing a Thing That I Do.
2) Perseverance. There are going to be stretches of time like this where just don't feel like I can produce anything of merit. It may well be absolutely true, but if I don't work through it then I will just stall out. I mean, demonstrably. That's pretty much the recurring story here.

I have this dream where my mind can provide for my family with the things it comes up with for my hands to type out. I've always had this dream, and it has always felt impossibly unrealistic. It's even more far-fetched, though, if I'm not physically writing things; that is an insurmountable prereequisite.

- J