Oh blogging, I suck at you

For anyone who has stumbled onto this blog, tried to figure out what its about, couldn’t, and left; you would’ve figured I’m a newbie at this “blog” thing.  Truth is I started my first blog in 2001.  Since then, I’ve tried work blogs, personal blogs, and pop culture blogs.  The longest running was my lj, 9 years and 639 posts.  At its high point it may have had 15 whole readers, but I shuttered it at the end of last year as my last remaining lj buddy dropped off. 

I never managed to hit that right balance of impersonal/personal, or to focus in on a subject other than myself; which is problematic when you are shy. 

I started using email and newsgroups in 96/97, and made my first (crappy geocities) website in 2000.   When I started blogging, google was not the skynet it is now.  Internet was still the domain of nerds, and everything was pretty anonymous.  I felt safe sharing my blog with close friends.  It was a heady, naive time!  I rarely stuck with a platform though.  I’d try one username or blog platform for a few months, then ditch it and build something else.  That was the first problem I had in maintaining readers.  More importantly though, I got cold feet at being public in 2003.  In retrospect that was a wise instinct because google’s search machine became ubersearch.  You may not remember, but pre 2005-ish, search engines were only good at finding official, popular websites.  They sucked at finding dinky DIY personal sites.  They also didn’t have the capabilities of combing through the entire internet to find a name or phrase.  Nor was there much archiving of old material like there is now. After that point; privacy was over.   

In the late 2000’s, the big thing all over my corner of the internet was oversharey twenty-somethings.  I was in that demographic and going through the same things so I followed a few of these writers.  I was writing similar things at the time (just, not for an audience).  Around 2008, there was a brutal backlash and some of my favourite writers disappeared.  Afterwards, the trend among young female bloggers went more in the direction of cupcakes and interior decorating, and for good reason.  I’m glad I missed that blip in internet history.  I’m glad my 20-something angst stayed private.  Mostly, private.  Luckily all my oversharey moments happened before search engines got awesome.  

Before teh internets, I wrote in my journal regularly since the age of 10.  In my teens, I worshipped Sassy and made zines with my best friend.  By the time I was 22, I had a job as an Associate Editor for a local community paper.   And then I quit.

Writing was something I absolutely loved to do and just when I had a leg in the door - I took an abrupt left turn.   

As the years go by, my writing has not had a chance to develop.  I don’t have a distinct voice, and I have problems with grammar and run-on sentences.  My lj, sadly, was the last place I regularly wrote.  I started this blog to have an outlet, but I am not happy with this outlet.  I cringe at the publicness of it.  But when I try to write on subjects other than myself, I can only maintain interest in a topic briefly and superficially. 

I want to write, and I want readers – but I don’t know what I want to write or where.  Journaling is and will always be an incredibly important form of writing for me, but I don’t want to journal on the internet.  

Alcohol, part 2

I read Joan Didion’s Slouching towards Bethlehem when I was ending my 29th year.  I had just moved to the West coast, and in her writings on California I found a parallel to my disoriented emotions. 

Last year Blue Nights was published, and I first heard about the death of her daughter.   At the age of 39.  I instantly thought of the author of Drinking, A Love Story, whose life was also cut short by lung cancer at the age of 42.  Recently, I found an interesting article from a blog called “Guinevere gets sober” that Quintana Roo’s death was likely the result of alcoholism. 

I have a morbid fascination with the stages of alcoholism.  The beginning stage lasts from 10-15 years.  The middle stage, 2-5.  The final stage lasts until you die.  For a woman in her 30s, the middle stage maybe anywhere in between her teens to her mid thirties, and the middle stage could be from her mid to late thirties.  And that is how a young woman can go so rapidly from the beginning of her life to the end.  Both Caroline Knapp and Quintana Roo were married not long before their deaths. 

There are two new writers that have caught my eye recently.  They both write for xojane and they’re both really young (late twenties or thirty, tops) and they write about their addiction a lot.  One is totally sober, I believe, and the other one has reduced her use. 

I don’t know why I am reading and writing about addiction.  Honestly, I didn’t think about it much until I read Knapp’s book last spring.  I suppose its struggle writing, which I can relate to.  I experienced a deep sadness and confusion when leaving my twenties.  I had, and have always had, a lot of trouble with day to day functioning as a normal adult which I have a lot in common with addicts.  You can get away with it in your twenties; but in your thirties its kind of embarrassing.  I also get overwhelmed easily, which is something I sense addicts struggle with too.  Their books, essays, and blog posts brim over with raw emotion; much like my posts brim over with cliches.  I write after a 10 hour workday, and don’t have the wherewithal to edit out my cliches, or find the accent grave symbol.  Je faux indeed.

Whitney

I was not a Whitney fan; except maybe when I was 9-10.  It was 1987, I was in grade 5, and my class was having a party.  I think it may have been a christmas party.  I made a point to dress up, in colored jeans and a matching sweatshirt, and those flat pointy shoes that were popular back then.  I remember dancing to “How will I know” and “I wanna dance with somebody”.  Those tunes are pretty much etched into my brain as the soundtrack of my pre-pre-teens.  That joyful, technicolor, optimistic & naive 80s of my childhood.  By the time her next album came out; Whitney seemed kind of old, poppy and uncool to my 13 year old ears.  And she had that mom haircut.  I never understood her hair.  I much preferred her big, fuzzy, 80s hair. 

But when I heard that she died I youtubed her 80’s videos.  Holy crap, was she beautiful.  How did she go from that to broken junkie?  Everyone blames Bobby Brown, but by 1993, she was already glassy eyed, weird and lying.  She got old fast.  I watched a few minutes of his reality show on tv, and again… he seemed kinda normal, and she seemed sketched out.   It seemed possible that he was trying to make his marriage work, and in denial about what a mess his wife was.   We will never know, but the popular narrative that her addiction was her husband’s fault does not seem credible.  From all accounts, it seems that the last 15 years of her life were wasted through addiction.

Alcohol, part 1

Last spring, I read a memoir that deeply resonated with me, “Drinking, A love Story.”  What? No, I’m not an alcoholic, never have been.  Well, there was that period between 19 and 22… aka College… where I *loved* drinking.  But by the time I was 22, my body wasn’t feeling right.  In the fall I moved to another city and left my drinking friends behind.  I did make new friends and drank a lot between ages 23-24,  but it then rapidly tapered off and I rarely get drunk or even tipsy now.  If I get even a little drunk I will get a hangover, and that is a huge deterrent.  I am the queen of nursing one or two drinks for hours. 

It was the one book I read that reflected on that weird, miserable transition period from late twenties to early thirties.  I guess, from young adult to adult woman.  For a lot of woman in my generation ( judging from facebook), it was a  traditional transition.  There was a spike in marriages and engagements, houses bought, and within a couple years, babies.  But for me, as a single woman, it was a very weird and difficult time.  I couldn’t find my footing.  My career, the thing that I spent most of my twenties working on, was in a weird place.  My finances were still crap.  I was living in a bachelor apartment in a shitty building.  I had a lot of  unfinished business from my twenties; phases I’d avoided going through now foisted themselves on me.  I had to confront some trauma.  And I was worried about the lack of forward momentum in my life.  It seemed like I would always be living in the tiny bachelor, paying off student loans, holding on to my mediocre job, while my friend circle shrank.  There is a passage in the book about the author in her early 30’s.  She is at work, the same work since her twenties, washing her face in the bathroom, and she sees the broken capillaries around her nose – the alcoholism manifesting itself physically.  She is at the point where she is just starting to admit there is a problem, and her ability to be a high-functioning alcoholic is falling apart.  It struck me how quick it goes; from a few bad decisions in your twenties to full out degradation in your early thirties. 

Reducing the stranglehold of fear & stress

I had a good vacation.  Towards the end, it started to resemble summer vacation of childhood; lazy days of playing on the beach, lunch, and rest.  We were surrounded by people who had made the best of life.  Strong; toned bodies from yoga, surfing, sports; eating delicious healthy food, and socializing, every day.  Then I got back to work and felt panicky.  The contract is coming to an end.  There is not enough work so there will be layoffs. They want us to work harder.  I felt this panic – I cannot do this, I cannot work 50 hours a week, plus my 1.5 hour daily commute, and function as a normal adult.  I cannot do my best at work, I cannot do my best in life, when I am at work or on my way to it 60 hours a week.  And the last revelation.  While my job sounds glamorous and artistic, the day to day duties are dull.  I would not mind if it were only 40 hours a week.  But when it starts to creep over the limit, and take over your dinner time – you get frustrated.

As I started to panic about the end of the contract – I stopped.  The fear of the end of the contract is the cruel stick.  You freak out, you work harder, you either put in more hours or don’t say no when they ask for more hours, so that you will not be the one they axe.  Then you get tired and your performance at work starts to slip; and so you worry even more.  And the cycle continues. 

I want to break out of this cycle of fear and stress.  I think my best course of action is to do the best job I can do for at least 9 hours a day.  To be disciplined.  To work less hours than they want me to.  To live well below my means so that more money goes to savings.  So that when they confront me as to why I’m working less than 50 hours a week, I can say “because I do a better job when I am not burnt out.”  To sleep more, and cook more, and do everything else less.  And lastly; to start a fund for retraining.  There must be something better than this. 

7 classes in 6 days, and now I rest

Crazy!! I am the laziest person in the world and I managed to go to 7 classes in 6 days.  I am trying to get in shape for an upcoming trip… in a week HAHAHAH.  I’ve always been a crammer, but unfortunately cramming doesn’t work with exercise like it does for academic subjects.

I’m taking my usual classes, plus I added a couple yoga classes and tried out this ballet conditioning place.   I decided to check out a yin yoga class, and holy was it weird.  I think the place I went to is very into the spiritual aspects of yoga.  It was the slowest class ever, 6 poses in an hour and a half, and I found some of it very uncomfortable and not in a good way.  I also felt like I didn’t fit in.  The ballet conditioning class was also weird – all weights, and no ballet.  At points I felt like there was danger to my knees and back, which I did not like.  However it occurred to me, that maybe part of the reason I haven’t progressed as quickly as others is my lack of abdominal strength, and other body parts.   I was taking classes with beginner girls who were proficient at pilates, yoga, etc., and they made exponential progress.  So, perhaps I need to add some body conditioning regimen to my week, I’m just not sure what I feel comfortable doing, and what I can fit into my schedule.  Maybe I have to make up my own and just be disciplined enough to do it.  The three areas that are really slowing me down are my weak abs, tight hamstrings, and weak turnout.  I am not a person who cares about extension or 180 degree turnout, but in order to dance with some degree of grace, improvement in these areas is much needed. 

Oh yeah, doofus moment.  Putting my eggs in the dance basket for now BECAUSE, I am still in really good shape despite my old age.  No pain anywhere, still feel pretty pliable.  But I am turning 35 next year, so this is obviously not a forever thing.  I want to take advantage of my health while I got it.    My other interests, photography, film, writing, can be done by an old crone. 

A lil bloggity resolution

In 2011 I discovered adult ballet blogs.   It was great to find a bunch of individuals sharing an inappropriate giddy enthusiasm for a bastardly difficult dance whose artists end their careers at the ages we’re starting. My favourite, hands down, is Adult Beginner.  Through the dance bloggy awards I just discovered another good one, Born Again Dancer, who shares more of the angst I feel about dancing. 

So, I am kind of inspired by these adult dance bloggers.  I am in a slightly different situation as I don’t pick things up as quickly.  I’ve been slogging away at classes for almost five years now and haven’t made amazing progress.  But, I am thinking.  I’d like to give a little more to ballet this year.  I usually only take one class per week because it is so hard and after class I am spent.  For awhile I tried to take two, but I was taking classes at a place I’ll call the Adult Ballet Barn and I just hated it.  They packed the classes full of students, and taught them as if they were children.  Technique was not learnt, and many of the adult ballet students promoted themselves to the next level despite the lack of technique.  It was a gong show.  Finally I just quit.  But I haven’t found a studio that offers such a flexible schedule.  Anyways, my goal this year will be to take two classes a week.  Aaaand possibly a yoga class for conditioning.  Maybe that’s too ambitious! 

I have made a little more progress in some ways this year because I’m not as mean to myself.  Being less judgmental & perfectionist.  Which in turn, has made me a better dancer (who woulda thunkit).