Work is boring, I’m on vacation next week, and I’m sick, so I’ve spent the day reading other people’s Twitter and journal archives. (Oh, who am I kidding.. I never do work if I can help it. Today is particularly bad, though. It took me 30 minutes to gather the mental strength to send an email.)
I’ve often been tempted to post journal-y stuff here, with two problems:
1) People with different access levels to my life will see things that I perhaps do not want them to see. There are some topics that my dad for example is probably happy not knowing, not to mention strangers. Also, people might then ASK me about said information, and I am paradoxically driven to both write things and to loathe perceived invasions of my privacy. It’s impractical, but what can I say.
2) People will know I am writing about them. While I understand that I’m just using this space as a way to practice writing and work through issues, they may not see publication of their character in such a forgivable light. In fact, I can think of a couple of times that I’ve received very cross emails from people I know that start, “So I was reading your blog…”. I look forward to one day when I finally finish my book (note: this will never happen) and then sit back and see who recognizes themselves. “Oh, that character that looks like you and has a name like yours and is a callous wench? Homage! You’re welcome!”
Not to mention all my journally entries — and there are many of them, lying dormant in the drafts folder — are “woe is me” to the extreme. Does everyone realize that I am likely freaking out? What kind of person do I really want to be? Is that a dumb question to be asking yourself in your 30s? Am I overthinking this? Is this all there is to life? What if I’m like Neo in The Matrix only remarkably lamer, never realizing my true latent super power of making people happy or folding precision origami cranes or something? Why must the marketing blond in the next cube make that HORRIBLE CRUNCHING NOISE EVERY DAY AT 10AM AND OH GOD LIFE IS SO CRUEL.
I also watched Wanted this week, which was a mistake, granted, and the ending confused me. I think it was rather aggressively saying that we all need to take control of our humdrum drone lives and enact elaborate plans to kill our enemies using giant guns and impossible slow motion car acrobatics. (Hello, I do not even DRIVE.) It reminded me of when I first saw Fight Club and I while I appreciated the sentiments in that film I also thought, “Running around blowing stuff up and causing anarchy and being fabulous is all very nice, but if I destroy my IKEA bookshelves where will I keep my back issues of Spy?” Answer that one, Palahniuk.
Upon reflection, “adult life crisis” movies only seem to come in two flavors: you either shoot people and blow shit up, or you die à la American Beauty. It is something of an unpleasant choice. There needs to be some artistic middle ground wherein a person in their 30s realizes that life is kind of bleh, so maybe they dye their hair and meet a boy and make some friends and try to be a little more self-confident and have a few hundred drinks and muddle through.
Hmm. BRB, writing unpublished draft. Or blowing something up. Either way, I’ll be sure to avoid chronicling the results here in full emo glory.
