Idiosyncrasies.

I have a lot of idiosyncrasies. Like too many. Too man that make it look like I have OCD when really, I promise that I don't. I can function without these habits just fine, it's just that...I like them. They soothe my otherwise coiled up mind and so I like sticking by them.

But they also drive me crazy!

I mean, why do I have a drawer filled with empty high-end makeup boxes? To brag? Why would I do that when I still have the actual makeup which, frankly, is a lot more impressive. I honestly don't know, and yet I can't bring myself to throw them away. MAC boxes, you will be with me till my dying day.

But the particular idiosyncrasy that spurred this post is one that I have had for nearly four years. I can pinpoint the day on which this one began. (That day being September 12, 2011) And, in our quickly progressing society, it is quite the inhibitor. This odd habit of mine, is that I don't buy music digitally. I mean, I buy the occasional single, but usually I hold out to buy the whole album. Even if just for one or two songs. And it's always the physical album. Always.

 My craziness.

 Moar craziness. These ones are just musicals!

Yes, I just used my laptop to take those pictures because I was too lazy to even use my phone.

Ehem.

Anyway, I can pinpoint the date because that date is the day that I bought the RENT album on iTunes. BUT it was the RENT 'selections' album, so it wasn't the whole show! I felt jipped. I had just wasted $10. So I bought the whole physical album and loved having it as something that I could hold and touch and be the real thing instead of the shit that iTunes had left me with.

Hence the beginnings of the crazy.

So ever since, I've gone with the physical album. This ended up being nice when my first car only took CDs. No tape converter or aux chord for me and my poor iPod. (Yes, I still use an iPod. I really am in the stone age, kiddies.) But now my second car only has a tape player! So my CDs aren't even being used after I rip them onto my computer!

Yet I continue the madness. I just ordered another CD today and minutes before writing this, I sat on iTunes, looking at these songs that I wanted to buy (yes I still use iTunes and not Spotify. I like owning my stuff! I don't like cloud playlists or whatever. Sorry.) waffling over whether I should buy them or buy the whole album, since it was a few songs by the same artist over 3 albums.

And, well, I'm still waffling. Even as I write this post.

I'm finding that a lot of these posts are me telling myself to stop my unhealthy behavior. So that's what I should be doing now. So...sigh. I'm going to buy one of these songs. Maybe. Let me research every song in the album first.

Ugh, I don't know if I can do it. I really like this guy's voice! (It's Darius Rucker, alright? And the CD I already bought was my millionth Rascal Flatts. They're my favorite band, okay?!)

I'm going to work on it, guys. Not every single I like will constitute an album buy, okay? I already have a couple regrets regarding that. (Luke Bryan, Kill the Lights, anyone? Home Alone Tonight is so good it was almost worth it but...I should have just bought the single.)

May we live to fight ourselves another day. But fight the good fight, okay? Don't hurt yourself.

Compliment yourself.

We're taught not to brag. To only draw attention to our good traits through subtly. We're not supposed to compliment ourselves, no. That's for others to do.

Well, screw that.

Maybe the reason why so many people (boys, girls, young, old. All.) have self-confidence issues (aside from the obvious barrage of unrealistic, unfair media images) is because of something else that society is telling us to do. Be quiet. Don't talk about the things that you have going for you because it will only make someone else feel bad.

I guess that's two lessons we need to overturn. First, always be happy for the good things in others' lives. Always. Even if it's something you don't have. But the point of this post is the second: don't be quiet.

Tell yourself out loud that you're a good friend. That you have nice eyes. That you nailed that damn math test. And don't be afraid to tell others. I mean, be polite. Still don't brag. But don't hide either. Don't bury your good traits the same way we try to bury our bad traits so that all we have left on the surface is utter mediocrity.

I was planning on having this be a long, rambling post like every other one that I write, but I think this is all that needs to be said. Allow yourself healthy pride for the things that you truly like about yourself. Don't make it a facade. Don't tell yourself that you love everything, because that's just not true. Focus on the great and let those things shine.

And before you know it, you'll be shining too.

Reading MORE Fanfiction? Gawsh...

I have made a discovery. A life changing discovery. I started reading fanfiction when I was 12 (I'm now 20 and old. No time to be embarrassed by this anymore.) and it really cut down on how many actual books that I read. And now that I'm trying to read more books and plays, I'm not reading fanfiction!

Now, this would be fine. There's no reason that I should be aspiring to read more fanfiction. Except that months ago I started reading a behemoth of a fanfiction (350K. Lord save me.) Consequently, it's been taking me forever to read.

Fortunately, I have found a solution! A text-reading website. I've been using http://ttsreader.com/. It's free. Of course, the voice is not reading with understanding, so the words are choppy and often mispronounced (since this fanfiction is Pokemon...there's a lot of fake words.) But it doesn't inhibit my understanding. And it's easy to have in the background like a podcast or an audiobook. It essentially is the poor man's audiobook.

So screw what everyone says about millennials not reading enough! This is still reading, it's just reading in a different way. There's nothing wrong with it if you like it and it works for your lifestyle. It works well for mine--great to do while doing my makeup or folding laundry or even exercising--and it's less time that I'm staring at a screen. I see that as a win.

Look, don't bash fanfiction until you try it. Most are garbage, but there's some real gems out there. If you want to read a good novel about fanfiction, read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. It's amazing.

Games. Summer.

Always make one of your upcoming goals a fun one. Don't bog yourself down with only having a mountain of work and tasks and seemingly achievable goals. Spice it up with things that motivate you, things that excite you, and things that are just plain fun.

So while I'm reading and working and dancing and writing and working out this summer, I have one more additional goal. Play video games. Because it's a part of me that seems small and isolated--save for Pokemon, which has taken over my whole life--and I want to know a little more. I don't want to be a closet nerd or a wannabe nerd. I want to be an honest to goodness casual gamer who has played more than two games in her life.

Right now I'm catching up on my Pokemon games. But I also want to dip my toes into Kingdom Hearts and Legend of Zelda and maybe Shadow the Hedgehog (though I've heard it's not great). These are fandoms that seems so fun and the people that I know in them are so enthusiastic and I want to be a part of that.

What I'm saying is: take time to explore. Take time to explore happiness. Explore hobbies. Life is serious, yes, but I'm going to alleviate that with one of my favorite quotes ever, that always makes me feel better when I'm feeling guilty for having fun:

“The time you enjoy wasting is not time wasted.”

–Bertrand Russell

 
Let that be true. Give yourself a break. Play games, color in a coloring book, have a private dance party on your bed. Just let yourself live.

Writing Lesson.

Writing moral of the day, children:

If something is painfully difficult to write, if every word coming out is a slow trod through feet of mud, then you're not writing the right thing.

I just spent a few hours (a little time today, a few hours yesterday) trying to write a short story. A dumb little fanfiction for my alphabet challenge because I started it over 2 years ago and I would like it to be finished. It doesn't bode well for me to have unfinished works. And I'm only halfway done with it. Ugh.

It started well enough. I had a particular idea that I really wanted to try--a unique story-telling idea from a short play called "Sure Thing" by David Ives. Brilliant, absolutely read it--and so I finally decided to tackle it yesterday. I captured the first few moments and continued along my merry way and it just got worse and worse the more I wrote. The things that were supposed to be funny moments weren't funny and then they grew to be genuinely upsetting. Like, one of my two characters starting going on a feminist rant about people essentially verbally abusing her because she was a girl.

Yeah, not funny.

So I went in a different direction. And another direction. Scrapped about half of it and started again. Tried writing it in a streamlined format to be expanded later. Tried changing the style. Nothing worked. It was a disaster each and every attempt.

Note: this did not go well for me yesterday. This story got me so down, combining with the loneliness that came from reading about a happy fictional couple, to leave me literally lying despondent in my bed at 2am. I haven't even stayed up until 2am in over a month.

This should have been the sign to give it up. Rather, I finally managed to calm myself down, promising to set it aside and try again tomorrow (today) with a fresh start. And I tried for a bit. And then scrapped the whole thing. It just wasn't right. The words all felt wrong, and I knew that the problem was that my characters were out of character. And the biggest rule of fanfiction is to keep your characters accurate. The whole point of this story was to elongate an exchange that, in truth, my main character would have blurted out the second he arrived.

I'm not saying that a story needs to write itself. There can be challenges, you can have writer's block. But if you're forcing it out, grinding it like a stubborn piece of garlic through a too-small garlic press, than you need to take a step back. Writing shouldn't make you miserable. If it does, set it aside or scrap it, because it isn't right. And you shouldn't be afraid to throw away a whole scene or whole story if it isn't right for you.

I'm going to try again today, but with a different premise. Fingers crossed, ya'll.

Ready to try again.