Monday, June 30, 2008

Word Off

I'm going to obsess less about continuity and structure in my blog, oh yeah; and grammar;;;* because otherwise all my attempts to ritualize/routine-ify my writing will predominantly consist of me having a conversation with myself and Microsoft Word. And ever since I figured out how to turn the paper clip, that conversation has become far less annoying but pretty isolated. It's not really fun for either me or Word, who doesn't talk much but occasionally makes colored squiggle lines under things. I've never really kept a journal to myself, perhaps because my life isn't really that interesting.

Maybe that's not the best way to put that. I find my life plenty interesting. I don't think I've been bored in years, other than waiting room type situations, but I've become much better about keeping a book with me lately and paying attention to my surroundings when I don't. I generally have something to keep me entertained. To me, sitting at the doctor's office and reading a good article in Time has helped keep the boredom at bay even in situations where the all-entertaining Internet isn't around. This is the plight of the second America that John Edwards talks so much about: people who don't have iPhones.

So, yeah, I make do while standing in line at the store by watching the person in front of me standing around zoning out and failing to swipe their credit card at the appropriate time (immediately after presenting appropriate club card, because you have nothing else to do while making small talk. Stop just standing there. I want to go home and eat my five-layer dip). It's fun for me, but not the kind of thing I want to come home and write about to myself. I'm sure all the banal details would be of great interest to me if I looked back on them in a couple decades, although after recently finding about two years of IM conversations I logged, I have some understanding of the incredible cringe response that befalls the thought of finding a massive part of an old self intact. But regardless of the benefit of the future, I don't get much out of cataloging the banal details of my life to myself.

I am not forced to give myself too many spoiler alerts when writing to myself. It's all out there. Or in here, or whatever. I feel the same way when I try to record my non-sexual dreams that don't involve anything worth telling a friend. Yes, if I don't write them down I will forget them almost immediately, and I'm sure recording a lot of dreams would have many benefits (My usual scraps of dream memory make me think there's at least a few locations that don't exist in the world that have occurred in a few different dreams. Also, I think I'm have recurring dreams where I sleep with Jessicas Alba and Simpson. Actually only the first thing is true, but I felt like I owed you something juicy for the non-compelling dream fact.) The only time I think I've even written in diary format, I was in second grade. This diary consisted of two half-ironic one-page entries with the salutation "Dear Legal Pad Jr." which contained violent references to my brother and concerned my parents.

But I digress (which is also appearing like it might become a less creative but more appropriate name for this blog at the moment.) Actually, while I'm digressing, here's an amazing quote from Scrubs, which works so well rerunning all the time now.

"My mom had a uterus. I lived in it."
-J.D., in response to Elliot's glowing uterus, in an imagined cut-away.

I would never have the motivation to provide myself a funny quote that I already knew while writing to myself. And Word wouldn't be amused, and would passively aggressively noted something as a fragment, and with equal condescendion would tell me to "consider revising". bring my discursive ranting to you, the Internet. Because, Internet, you know I have a deep-seeded need for attention from you, and I think we've both known my Facebook profile wasn't going to do the job in the long term. So, Internet, despite the fact that you now have dramatic prairie dogs and the Colbert Report in HD, everybody knows you're still an insatiable beast who will fit my loosely-organized ramblings along with your Chocolate Rain. You've gotten around and improved since I was an angry 8th grader, Internet, but you still have way too much time on your hands. Look at how much you still go running back to Myspace. If you have to fall back on that hideous, unkempt thing just because everyone else is doing it, then I'm not going to sit in Word most of the time and try to save my best for you. I may not get you the "random play" you appear to be after, but at least I don't play "Milkshake" randomly when you're at work and your speakers are for some reason at full volume.

And may this please, Internet, be the last time I write about the degree to which I write on you for awhile, because I'm sick of coming back to do that. I don't need to explain myself to you. You've watched the laughing baby 53 million times.

BUT
I
DIGRESS

*The triple semi-colon is actually taught to all English majors** who complete the British literature series and associated prerequisites, and strictly restricted for use in professor-student e-mails about thesis statements. Proper use is only known to students through three example sentences, and improper use is punished by death by Norton anthology.

**I am only an English minor, but know all of Colin Jones's passwords*** and am not afraid to use them.

***His Gmail password is cl3veland:)5teamer, which I found to be disturbing but impressively hacker-secure if Colin Jone's didn't write down his passwords on the back of his and Brian's glamour photos.