Sunday, 08 May 2011

  • Minor Quibble

    Hey Xanga, and hey anyone who still will look when this boy cries wolf,

    I was reorganizing my browser tabs and things and, I don't know if it's just me or something, Xanga doesn't seem to have one of those mini icons that just about every other site on the web has.  Will anyone with more computer jargon tell me what I'm trying to name here?  It's like a desktop icon, only smaller, I guess, the size of a tray icon.  I suppose I could have just gone with tray icon, couldn't I have?  Are those called "tray" icons though?  The tiny little icons in the bottom right next to the clock?

    Anyway, so I get to my homepage tab setup thing, and I decide that I want its organization to reflect the relative importance of, or frequency with which I visit these, my so named homepages.  Like homeboys, I got more than one, but not many more.  Eight.  I have eight homepages; it's all they'll let me have, but it's useful enough since I use the favorites tab like a universal internet bookmark slash browsing history.  Anyway, so I get it all tidied and just the way I want it, but suddenly there is this glaring omission that the low degree of OCD inside of me won't overlook (or, for the rhyme junkies and Beatles fans out there, "let it be"):

    Every other page in the homepage tab has it's attendant diminutive icon, but Xanga does not.  Can anyone tell me why this is, that a community of creatives (and probably not a few OCD sufferers) has managed never to bring this to light, make a contest of things, I dunno, just demand that someone with the access take five minutes, cram a Xanga logo into the appropriate dimensions or formatting or whatever it would take and just, like, apply it?

    I'm no computer genius, so I can't really judge how simple or complex the task really might be, but I'm sure I've noticed this for years now.  And, if no one else wants to, and I'm really the first anal retentive to point it out or complain about it, I'd gladly take the task on myself.

    _____

     

    Also: 

    I believe I am actually, really, in the most plain sense of it, falling in love.  It's truly bizarre how life waits till you've more or less given up on seeking a thing out before it will just magically pop back out into the space right in front of you, or in my case, just a short drive north and west of you.

    Also, also:

    I've finally read a self-help book that was worth reading: Your Erroneous Zones by a Dr. Wayne Dyer.  Yeah, lame, punny title and all, but it was seriously worth my time and further thinking.  I'm slowly going to get everyone I know and love to read this book.  Dunno how old it is or how well it compares with the prevailing psychological thinking today, but I know some part of it really reached parts of me that needed reaching.  Ugh, a self-help book though.  A good one?  Yeah.

Wednesday, 26 January 2011

  • Strange changes

    So, now that I've been running around and telling the few people in my life that it's over, I may as well say it here too:  The anxiety and depression are both very clearly, very much a part of the past.  It's like waiting around all this time were actually a plan dictated by a professional.  Everything that was wrong in my head has evaporated, and my perspective is back to a somewhat neutral balance.  When I look back on the times I was either really depressed or noticably manic, it's almost frightening how skewed things were from reality.  The depression tells you that everything is ultimately doomed, thus meaningless, and therefore any effort at change is futile and deluded.  The mania, just as convincingly, paints every imaginable thing as patently possible; everything is good, and so every idea is a good idea.  Either way, go too far with things and unpleasantness is unavoidable.  For the rest of my life, every time I feel inspired, a small voice in the back of my head will be muttering that it could be mania.  And for the other part of the rest of my life, I'll have to be somewhat consciously on guard against allowing myself to wallow in negative thinking.  But it's managable and it's going to be fine.  My circumstances haven't changed to match yet, but they're about to.  Life will be continuing shortly.

    For this last depression, every rare time I stepped out of the house to meet with a friend or do some random thing in the world, I carried around my trusty little point-and-shoot digital camera.  It was always there, cozy in its little case, snug in a corner of my backpack, but it acted more as a talisman than a camera.  And I kept my guitar close by my bed here, but it was also always in its case.  I can be sure the darkness has receded whenever these things come out and resume their intended functions.

    I had a meal last week with a good friend.  The experience was a revelation.  It wasn't anything fancy, but it was so well executed and served, down to the wine and dessert, that I was flooded with appreciation and gratitude the entire time.  It didn't give me back these wasted years and it didn't erase any hard memories, but it was such a great meal that it seriously would have made things easier if somehow, someone had been able to convince me that it was eventually coming.  Yeah, it was really that good.  And the other little enjoyable moments in life with family and friends and books, they've seemed more pronounced and more frequent.  The future as a concept seems kinder and also worth preparing for.

    I'm going to be doing any future writing on a blogspot account from here on out.  I don't know how many people even read me here anymore, and the place just feels like I'm some old guy hanging out at the mall, like haunting the food court and lurking in the arcade.  Do they even have arcades anymore?  So, to save a bunch of people getting some impersonal mass-mailing, if you want to read what I write on blogspot, just message me here on xanga. 

    But this isn't exactly goodbye, at least, not yet.  I'll still be checking in to read a few people I still want to read.  Maybe I'll be dropping comments here and there.  And it's not like there's some rule that says I can only post at one place at a time.  But it'll probably be mostly over there.  I don't even know that I'll be writing that regularly over there either.  We'll see.

Friday, 24 September 2010

Tuesday, 02 March 2010

  • The world is trolling itself mercilessly

    be merry  

    "Life is absurd
    But you are free
    So be merry"

    When I stumbled upon this photo in the vast expanse of the internet, I was immediately dumbstruck.  I felt, as I imagine schizophrenics must often feel, that they were meant to address me directly.  Fortunately I am not a schizophrenic, but I cannot shake the impression that this message was meant for me, even if I am still capable of recognizing that they were clearly intended to be read by as many people as might happen to see and comprehend them. 

    [many more sentences should intervene here]

    Seeing as I am currently able to string some words together, the condition (having been struck dumb) must be correcting itself.  But there are so many more thoughts, all jostling against one another at the moment, dying for lack of expression.  I suppose I am not up to the task just yet. 

Friday, 25 December 2009

  • The view in the mirror

    Don't let it go away
    This feeling has got to stay
    Don't let it go away
    This feeling has got to stay
    And I can't believe I've had this chance now
    Don't let it go away

    Just as I was pulling into the driveway tonight, this familiar old song started playing on the radio.  Although I'm somewhat sure the lyrics are more about having found a new love, the chorus seemed to be speaking directly to me.  So, I parked the car, released my seatbelt, killed the lights and engine, and sat back to hear the rest of it out.

    At this point, I'm pretty sure the depression is gone.  I keep having these moments that feel like I'm breathing again after having held my breath for the last two years.  It's a relief to put it mildly.  I used to get glimpses of the feeling every now and then, sometimes after having gone without sleep for a day, but I'd eventually go to bed and wake to find it had vanished. 

    I was getting ready to pack it up and head inside when the next song came on:  "Fade into you."  Before the lyrics even began, I had cracked the window a few inches and lit up a cigarette.  This time, I couldn't quite put my finger on the reason why I wanted to keep listening, but I settled back into my seat anyway.  I could feel the cold air pouring in and down onto my lap as the residual warmth from the drive home wafted out with the smoke.  The rearview and driver's side mirrors reflected different views of the Christmas lights my father had strung up here.  The light was enough to faintly illuminate the areas near them; oddly looping, overpopulated constellations floating in near darkness.

    And the chance I've now had that I can't believe I've been given is the chance to feel like I'm breathing again, the chance to experience and appreciate life like I used to. 

    The opening riff to "Blister in the sun" finally got me up out of my seat.  Don't get me wrong, it's every bit an old favorite as the other two songs.  It was the rhythm of it.  It got into my legs and feet, and in my mind, as I found myself walking towards the house, I was hearing it play as the background music to the closing credits on this night.

    Wherever you are, however things might be going, don't forget to stop and take a breath every now and then.  Merry Christmas!

  • Visit yloperil's Xanga Site
    • Name: geekyfalsetto
    • Gender: Male
    • Member Since: 3/11/2003
    • Lifetime

some more words:

"No matter how tired the body gets, one must never allow the exhaustion to enter one's thoughts."--H. Murakami [Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World] ____________________________ "But the means are unimportant if only the real needs of the soul--which has for so long been repeatedly stunted and anesthetized--come to light."--H. Hesse [Demian] ____________________________ "What can anyone do in such circumstances? Accept it, and go on. Please always remember, the secret of survival is to embrace change, and to adapt...You see, you cannot draw lines and compartments, and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair...Yes...In the end, it's all a question of balance."--R. Mistry [A Fine Balance] ____________________________ "It is a good thing to experience everything oneself, he thought. As a child I learned that pleasures of the world and riches were not good. I have known it for a long time, but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach. It is a good thing that I know this."--H. Hesse [Siddhartha] ____________________________ "'You are not strict with him, you do not punish him, you do not command him--because you know that gentleness is stronger than severity, that water is stronger than rock, that love is stronger than force. Very good, I praise you.'"--H. Hesse [Siddhartha] ____________________________ "'The strength I'm looking for isn't the kind where you win or lose. I'm not after a wall that'll repel power coming from outside. What I want is the kind of strength to be able to absorb that outside power, to stand up to it. The strength to quietly endure things - unfairness, misfortune, sadness, mistakes, misunderstandings.'"--H. Murakami [Kafka on the Shore]

some of mine:

  • Still alive, but kicking? Not so much lately, no.

i dare you! no, i double dare you! no, no! i triple-dog-dare you! ohhh...