It's NaNoWriMo again!

National Novel Writing Month is almost here again! In less than a week, thousands, perhaps even millions, of people across the world will be tapping furiously at their keyboards for a solid month, struggling to reach that golden mark of 50,000 words. For everyone who has been putting off writing that great novel because there just isn't enough time in the day, NaNoWriMo takes away the excuses. If so many other people are doing it, so can you! I've participated twice in the past. I actually finished a 52,000 word novel in 2007, and I participated but only made it to 30,000 words in 2008, mostly because I'm lazy. I was also writing my Master's thesis at the time, but that's just an excuse! Just like with all things in life, if you really want to do something, you do it. You don't complain about how much else you have to do.

This year, I fully intend to participate, and to win! I think the real joy and success of the project comes from the communality of it. Novel writing is a generally lonely business, full of self-doubt and misery, asking myself why I'm pretending to be a writer when everyone else is out having fun or being productive. NaNo is the time everyone else is engaged in the same struggle, and with that comes strength and a sense of real purpose. The website lets you keep track of what your friends are writing and how they're doing. There are also forums to let you talk to both local and other writers about your trials and your triumphs. Really, the overall feeling is that we're all in it together, and that, for one month, whether you're writing about sweeping tragedy or ninjas, all that matters if that you keep going. Everything is positive, encouraging, and optimistic. We can do this! We can write a novel in a month!

Now I just have to buckle down and do it.

If you're like to do it, please do! ^_^ And we can be friends on the site and share encouragement and all that stuff!

Future Love

Warning. I'm not very politically correct. I apologize to everyone who is offended. If you're not offended, I'm not apologizing. I won't be giving you any links to what I mean because, really, I don't want to do that to you. If you're really curious, a simple keyword search will bring you all the horror your fragile sanity can stand.

The Internet, namely YouTube (which is about a third of the Internet anyway, the other two thirds being Facebook and porn, and maybe a little 4chan), keeps trying to make me watch videos of fat peoples' stomachs. And fat people poking their stomachs. And stroking their stomachs. I must admit I first clicked one of these links because I was baffled about what could be in such a video (not to mention baffled by why the Internet thought that I would be interested by it). The videos themselves are pretty tame, as far as I can tell: fat people sitting around playing with their bellies. It's the kind of thing children do when they're bored. And let's be honest, we all enjoy a bit of belly button lint picking every now and then.

But it's the comments that disturb me. Just for you, dear Internet, I'm going to delve into one of these videos to give you a sample:

"I wanna rub her belly and stick my finger in her belly button."
"So beautiful, darling you should try to make it to the point of almost exploding. But be careful~"
"Please pull your pants down just a little bit so we can see you underwear. Thanks"

And each of those comments had people clicking the thumbs up button to recommend it. I would think the other button was the one that meant "Creeeeeeepy!"

Now, I'm all for a realistic body image, but doesn't encourage people to eat excessively fly in the face of everything we know about good health and diet? I'll be the first to give a bony model the sammich she so desperately needs, but this is people encouraging obese people to be even more obese.

There are plenty of bizarre fetishes out there that don't involve hurting anyone. I really only know about these because I watch Attack of the Show's "Around The Net." Things like balloons and giving people piggyback rides. I don't understand how this is in any way sexy, but at least nobody is getting hurt. But encouraging people to become obese? That's just about as sick as those people who want to be amputees.

What this all comes down to, though, is that I have a theory. I believe this is an evolutionary coping mechanism. As obesity becomes increasingly common, our brains start to change the way we see beauty to compensate. What would happen to fat Western society if we still held on to our old notions of athletic being beautiful? Imagine that poor minority of women who still fit that image who would increasingly bear the burden of continuing the species. Meanwhile, the rest of women have nothing to do but sit around, eat pizza, and watch Oprah. It only makes sense that, in order to preserve the species, somebody has to "hit that." And, in order to steel those brave souls to the unenviable but necessary task ahead, Mother Nature puts new thoughts into their heads. Thoughts like "your belly looks hot with it all bloated keep it up never stop of course take breaks but its sexy"

Yes, Internet, I went out of my way to find the creepiest comment on there. I hope your appreciation will make up for the mental scars.

I used to think that future babes would look like Raquel Welch. Or maybe Molly Millions. Oh, my poor, poor illusions.

PS I tracked down the source of YouTube's tragic mistake. In Rammstein's "Keine Lust" video, they dress up like fat people. I guess for YouTube it was either an unnatural attraction to fat people or else just burly middle-aged East Germans....

And, of course, by watching the videos necessary to gather the comments for this post, I have only confirmed YouTube's opinion of my deviance, so I can look forward to many more of these videos in the weeks to come.

Rasputin

Sometimes I take a little thrill out of knowing that a man like Rasputin lived in what might still be considered living memory. It's a wide, weird world out there. Perhaps the strangest thing in it ist he human mind and the worlds that mind creates. There are men who, despite the vast systems of power in the world, can control the world with purely the power of their intellect and personality. In that, perhaps, is the greatest magic of humanity. WE MAKE THE WORLD.

An in a world with all that (alleged) poisoning, shooting, freezing, and drowning, there's this:

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/10/all_hail_klenginem.php

Klingon Eminem. Thanks, Lord Admiral. Thanks for BLOWING MY MIND! The dude really has to speak up, though. KLINGONS DON'T HAVE MULTIPLE VOLUMES! It sounds like he's whispering because his mom has her bridge club over and she doesn't want to hear Klingon coming through the vents again.

Strange Thought

It just occurred to me that I can't remember the last time someone tried to convince me to change my mind about something. It seems that people are just too eager to live and let live. Have we gotten to the point that we just don't care how other people see the world? Are we so diluted and soft that we don't care enough to separate right from wrong, to see that some choices are better than others?

Now, I'll admit that I don't know what to associate this trend with. Rather than just picking one out of a hat, as I would normally do, and rant against it, I thought I'd let you write your own rant! So, dear reader, what has caused us to stop trying to better our friends and fellow humans?

1) Hippies. The influence of dirty, unwashed liberalism in modern America has made all conservative values moot.
2) Anthropology. Cultural relativism has infected society in general.
3) Television. We see too much of everything, so it all seems familiar.
4) Urban life. The breakdown in traditional small-town connections and values leaves us without a basis for culture.
5) Space aliens. Divide and conquer!
6. Commies. Because they can't stand our red-blooded American ways!
7) The internet. Everything now has a forum and a support group, so it all seems normal.
8) Secularity. People no longer turn to religion for a grounding basis.
9) 4chan.
10) Loki. He's behind everything, isn't he?

Open Letter to Facebook

Dear Facebook,

We used to have so much fun together. You were a place to post funny or interesting links. I could share my pictures or look at other peoples' pictures. It was good times. Do you remember those times, Facebook?

Because then everyone started using games. Really crappy games. And you kept telling me about it. You kept telling me ALL about it. Then eventually you let me tell you to shut up about it, and it was good.

But then the status thing started getting worse. People started enjoying talking about themselves, and the 'like' button just fed their ego. The results? Chaos. Madness. Now I have friends who tell me half a dozen times a day that they're washing their car. Or going to the mall. Or watching TV.

Facebook, I feel dirty. I feel like I know way too much about the lives of people I don't know. I feel like I need help. I need a restraining order. I need the world to give itself a little more privacy.

Because if I really wanted to know, I could always, you know, ask.

Your friend,
bluefish

Truth in Writing

The students in English 1010 are working on their personal essays, which means personal essays are also constantly on my mind. I just had a conversation today in which I confessed that I believe that, in general, people are cruel, selfish, and petty. I wish it wasn't the case, but I have an unfortunate (and undoubtedly prideful) view that the average person is mediocre, and mediocrity breeds pettiness. People do not aspire to be great, to transcend this mortal coil, to create beauty and wisdom and fantastic thought, they....

But then something catches me off guard. It's a thought I hadn't expected, although I've heard it before. The thought is this: of all the essays I read, I can't help but feel for every single writer. I feel a connection, some slight touch, like the spark of electricity jumping between two wires. Even for the briefest moment, we touch, like strangers in a crowd who brush together and then feel our eyes meet. And for everyone, even for the kids who only want to write about how cool that game was, or for the ones who have to be there and can't be bothered to treat me like a person, I can't help but feel a little sympathy. A little compassion.

Writing is beautiful in that. More than any other medium, it transmits pure thought. It places me into the mind, the experience of the writer. Rather than capturing the objective truth, it captures one person's truth, one particular person's imperfect memory rather than a completely factual recollection of the past. And in that imperfect memory are housed all the fears, all the hopes of a real person. If a person misrepresents a situation, leaves out the things they fear or mourn, their own actions they wish they could forget, that is beautiful, because I can feel even in the absence that shame, that guilt, that grief. If the writer admits it, embraces it, presents it to me like a gift upon a cushion, it is beautiful, because, no matter what it is, it is so wrapped up in heartbreak and truth that I can't help but pity them. Even the ones who don't see how thoughtless, absurd, or even cruel they were implicitly admit their childishness, their lack of understanding, and I can't blame that, because they don't know what they did.

If we could all write and all read, all come to understand our own thoughts and the thoughts of all others, to live not in their shoes but in their minds and memories for the space of even a few brief pages, how could we ever have war? How could we allow poverty, misery, suffering?

(And then there are those who walk in and say, "I hate writing. It's so pointless." Bastards.)

American Writer

We need a reality TV show about writing, to make writing edgy and cool. It should be a reality-based contest to try to find the best writer among a gang of colorful characters. There could be the rebel who never wants to accept criticism (I'll use to be verbs if I want to, that's just my style!), the lovable one who can never get it quite right (oh, I thought haiku was 7-5-7!), and the misfit who struggles to fit in with everyone else (no one appreciates my sonnets about death!). Just imagine the hilarity when people from the street cue up to come write for the celebrity judges, who tear apart their cliche-riddled personal essays! The tears when we're getting close to the finish but one of the characters is still trying to wrap up the climax of a short story! The thrill of listening to the final product each week and calling in for our favorite piece!

I'd be happy to help produce the show, TV people. Just drop me a line.

The Kings Cross Bogan rolls 20s

I played in the worldwide D&D Day game today. Near the end of the game, I decided to stop trying to play a character and just go a bit crazy. The first thing I did was, when I used an ability called Sword Dance or something, I said that my character shined her (yes, I got stuck playing the girl) sunrod into a globe of glass while she danced with her sword, all Saturday Night Fever. Later, I quoted the Kings Cross Bogan by saying, "I will call on my fully sick boys!" and I rolled a 17 to hit with my daily attack. Next, I used an ability called Booming Blade, and went "chk-chk BOOM" as I used it, and rolled a 20. Critical hit on the chk-chk BOOM? Very appropriate.

Sometims, I blog about nothing at all.