digitalphiltrum

one full month into winter in baltimore, maryland and still no sign of snow. however, (one full month in), this weekend we had our first tastes of the cold weather. last year around this time i would have had the heat in the apartment up to 85 and would be prancing around in shorts and a tank top (yes, i prance). but thats because heat was paid for by the apartment complex. since i moved in with my brother in november, heat — not so much free anymore — so no more shorts and a tank top in january. but i suppose since i was out in a tank top and shorts just 2 weekends ago and it was actually warm enough for me to be doing so, i shouldnt complain.

global warming? what global warming? i dont see any global warming…do you?

i read an article today about a group of parents who are suing the online social networking site myspace. they are suing the site because their teenage daughters used it to meet adult men who they say then sexually abused them. i read this and my initial reaction was….wow, this is why online dating is just a bad idea. (note that i have met my last 3 ex’s via the internet). but then i thought about it and it occured to me…why is it myspace’s fault that your teenage daughters are lying about their age online, meeting strange men they dont know and probably lying to you about where they are going and who they are with? its sorta like when people sue mcdonalds for making them fat. what the hell?

ok, yes, these kids are minors and we have a responsibility to protect them, i understand this, but myspace is a website, its not a parent. it cant teach your child whats right, wrong or ridiculously dumb. they have security features set up to protect minors. if youre under 17, your profile cant be viewed by people you dont know, you cant join if youre under a certain age, etc. myspace cant help it if your kid is a rotten bastard.

now, that said, i do of course see the real evils of myspace. over-usage of myspace and aim concurrently can directly lead to you never making “real” friends ever again and never actually seeing or speaking to the real friends you already have. it also leads to blindness, deafness, impotence and republican voting. all very bad nasty things you need to watch out for. myspace does have some benefits though. its a great way of making people think you are better looking, more intelligent, richer and generally way cooler than you really are. in real life, you might be 5’2″, 350lbs, have a giant mole on your nose and speak with a lisp as well as bronx accent and work at the pizza joint down on the corner. but with a little help from some great camera angles, those nifty photoshop skills you acquired in college, and a well engineered myspace profile? your name is kitty, youre 5’8″, blonde and tan and you model for extra spending money when you arent traveling the world on your trust-fund. its brilliant really. im all for anything that allows me to legally and ethically misrepresent myself. especially if i can be a few inches taller.

im not going to include a link to my own personal myspace on here but its not hard to find if youre terribly interested in it. just do a search for kitty in baltimore…

updated the blogroll today. i realized that the visible blogroll on my website and the blogroll i actually read were dramatically different. so i did a little housecleaning, straightened up a bit, and added some new touches as well. i recommend giving each and every one of these blogs a look-see. enjoy.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning ——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

january is a time of momentum. people move forward, renew past committments, make resolutions, declare that they will do better this year, and mostly just reassure themselves that, as time moves on, so do they. inevitably savings accounts will get opened, gym memberships purchased, and long put off plans for the future will be revisited. the best of intentions are exercised for at least the first 3, maybe even 4 or 5, weeks of the new year. despite the fact that it falls in the dead of winter, january is a time of movement and action.

me? i hesitate.

i struggle a lot. i often find metaphor for my life within my writing. this blog for example, i struggle with it. i leave it untouched for weeks at a time, sometimes starting an entry and saving it, only to delete it later after declaring it unfit for sharing, undeserving of even the slightest consideration of publication. it might have been 2000 full words, or it could have been nothing more than a sentence – it doesnt matter – its not good enough.
i started this blog, like most things in my life, with the best of intentions, fully intending to follow through with it, but…over time i lost track of it, and the more time that passes, the more i forget what i started it for in the first place. this was the unfortunate fate of my college writing career as well. i was a writing major, with the best of intentions, i wanted to be an editor maybe, or a freelance writer, an artist! – because i still believed in truth and beauty and the falsity that i was impervious to the reality that was awaiting me on the other side of my own idealism. i reassured myself that it was the right thing to do, to pursue whole-heartedly the thing i wanted. and i did. and at the end of the first year, it was great. by the end of the second, the effort i was putting into my classes, especially the writing, was less than my all. and by the end of that fourth year, i had forgotten why i had even started. i just wanted to be done, i wanted out. i no longer believed in truth or beauty or anything like that. i believed in unemployment and 40k in student debt. what i did was no longer writing, it was no longer showing others the world through my eyes, it was trudging and whimpering and a little bit of sarcastic sniping. and so is the story of my life. the best of intentions, but somewhere in the middle things get foggy and i realize i have perhaps not thought something through all the way.

sometimes i feel angry about this. sometimes i feel overwhelmed and sad. sometimes i feel sorry for myself. i am not above admitting that i do in fact commit the awful sin of occasionally wallowing in self-pity. most times though, im ok with it. this is who i am. i follow my heart. it might not lead me where i thought i wanted to go, but it has never failed me in any way. i have passionately pursued the things i wanted in life, without worrying about the consequences of those pursuits. has it led me down paths i didnt expect? of course. has it led me astray? well, yes, sometimes. has it gotten me in trouble? hell yes. would i do any of it differently? not a chance.

january for me is not a time of momentum. i watch the world speed up around me, race to beat out the others, race to beat out the self-loathing, race to win…something, anything…and i get dizzy. i feel alien in my own world. i stop and watch everyone and realize that i can never compete. not really against the others, but against myself. no matter what i achieve it will never be good enough, i will constantly be setting higher goals for myself. maybe thats the american dream. maybe its human nature. whatever it is, it makes me uneasy. it scares me. it reminds me of past mistakes i have made. i do not regret the paths i have chosen, only wish i had slowed down long enough to enjoy the journey.

so…i hesitate, rethink, recalibrate and resume normally. i will get there. eventually.

everyone does.