Hmm. If I Do Say So Myself, I Make Good Coffee (At Least I'm Satisfied With That)

There's not a lot of things I do that I'm satisfied with, but making coffee is one of them (maybe the only one - I don't know.  My brain still isn't working enough to think that far beyond the immediate task at hand, which is getting that first cup of coffee down so I can immediately follow it with a second one).

Writing is one of those few things that I think I can do fairly well when I apply myself.   I apply myself when I'm writing for someone else.  Why not apply myself (or at least apply myself more often than I do) when I'm writing online in my spare time, and writing for myself?    I suppose the answer to that is that if I "applied myself" it wouldn't be spare-time writing.  It would yet more "applying-myself" writing.  A person can't be applying herself all day long and then applying herself in what she views as "spare time", and then not get burned out (especially when that person tends to have 20-hour days).  Then again, a person can't be dissatisfied with the fact that she's not applying herself (and dissatisfied for a good percentage of those 20-hour days) without getting burned out at some point either.

It's really not "me" to write this kind of crap.  There's a good chance I'll come back and delete a lot of what's on this page when my mood has passed.  That's a big thing I do - writing stuff and then get decide to go back and get rid of it all.  I've had my times when I put any blogs I have on (essentially) "private". 

I hate the Internet, and I hate public stuff.  Maybe one reason I thought to start this blog was to be able to have a place where I can really feel free to write about all the things about the Internet that I hate.  The Internet serves a great purpose in a lot of ways, so I don't hate it in all ways.  In fact, there have been times when I find something very nice about some things that can go on on the Internet.  It's just that the Internet is, in so many ways, a giant pile of "crap".

It's not even the "crap" that bothers me about it so much.  Most of us are used to crap on TV and crap on the radio, or crap in the stores (etc. etc.)   What irks me most about it (and what has gotten really, really, tiring) is the number of people on the Internet who are trying to make not "an honest buck", but a dishonest one.  If there's one thing that's more disgusting than a capable, skilled, crook (or borderline crook), it's an incompetent, slime-ball, of a "borderline crook" who hopes to make money (maybe even does make money) by "writing", even though the person is clearly incapable of writing.  What's with that??  Is there any other profession in the world where people who can't do something at all expect to earn money doing it??

Moving on from this particular subject.  It irks me too much, and I could go on forever about it.  Chances are I'll return it to soon enough; which, of course, will mean that I write yet something else that's far from any best effort of my own - and the cycle of dissatisfaction will continued.

Today is January 25

As I mentioned previously, this day is an anniversary in my life.  As I also mentioned previously, I'll write more about it one day.  Right now, I'm in the process of waiting for my morning coffee.  I hear the "churgling" now.  The only reason I mention coffee, I guess, is because it's in the title of this blog - but also because I do have my "thing" for coffee.  It colder today than yesterday (that "freak over-fifty" day), but it's not expected to be a bad day.  A little above average temperature for this late in January.

Weather talk and talk about coffee - obviously the talk (writing, actually) of someone who isn't fit for anything until she gets that coffee.  Also, obviously, I'm really not the blogging type.  These days I'm not the "writing-much-of-anything-type", and yet the urge to write is always there (whether or not there's the urge or the inspiration to say anything).  I'm big for writing a lot of nothing (at least when it comes to the skimmed-time writing I do online).  Why write so much "nothing"?  Because I don't want to write about "something" - any number of things.  One day maybe I'll sort out all the "don't-want-to-write-about's" in writing.

For now, I need my coffee. 

It's January 25, and the date will be screaming at me all day long.

An Amazing Day Sure Brightens Up A Dreary Winter Mood

I don't necessarily think I have any more of a problem with sun deprivation than the average person does. Living where I live (New England) does mean, however, that most people suffer a certain amount of it; simply because Winter days are long.  We're on the way out of the darkest days now, and we've had a great Winter as far as temperature and lack of snow has gone.  I've been amazed at how free of the "Winter drearies" I've been this year, so a lot of it has to do with not having much cold (so far) this Winter.

In any case (and in spite of the fact that I've been completely without my usual Winter-associated blahs), I've got enough going on in my life that it's not like I'm without my stress and sources of (shall I say) "not being too thrilled with a lot of things".  Over the last week, Winter did seem arrive as far as the cold goes (temperatures around zero or eleven - with lots of wind and some now, although not much).  As it happens, also over the last week I've had some kind of "ear infection thing" or sinus problems (or something), so I haven't felt all that great.

So, last night, in the middle of all that Winter drearies and general misery and rotten mood; I started this blog because I felt as if I needed just to say what I want to say (and I still do).  With today's amazing 50-plus degrees, lots of sun, and the fact that I was able to get out and socialize over a cup of coffee at an outdoor table; it turns out that I'm in an absolutely amazingly good mood, and I don't feel like writing at all.  Also, there's a chance I may get the rare opportunity to see the Northern lights this time around, so I'm thinking I might like to go out and see what I can see.

In other words, only hours after I started this blog (but months and months after I've been feeling like starting one like this),  I don't have much to say right now and don't even want to "serious-up" my evening by writing.

There's certainly something to be said for taking a day off and just going out and enjoying a taste of a Spring (April - not May, however).  I love fresh air, but fresh air is only fresh when it's over 40 degrees (once in awhile, maybe over 30).  When it's 11 degrees outside and horrendously windy, that's not "fresh air".  It's just plain Winter-miserable.

So, having returned from day of outdoor coffee and conversation, and having made myself a new half-pot upon coming home; I think I'll have my coffee as I wait out the time to see if there are any Northern lights to be seen.  (Somehow, based on where I live, I think the chances aren't great, no matter what the local meteorologists suggest - and they aren't all that encouraging anyway.)

Contrary to my own history of faithfully watching State-of-the-Union Addresses, I have no intentions of watching that either.  I'm off-duty, resting, and all about Winter-Spring days and sunshine for now.

Tomorrow is another day (as they say).  Today will (at least over the short term) be enough to help make tomorrow just that much lighter as well.

January 25 - An Anniversary That I Need To Write About One Day

Because I've been aware that January 25 is approaching, I feel the need to at least acknowledge.  It's an anniversary for me, and it's a twenty-year one this year.  It's not a good anniversary, and it's not one that's a matter of one rotten day.  It was the beginning of the ushering in of some things that have hurt my children - for NO GOOD REASON WHATSOEVER (other than incompetence, indifference, completely disregard of the laws and rights, and any number of other things).  In any case, it's a big anniversary this year; and it's bothering me more this year than ever.

I can't write about it right now, but I do need to at least acknowledge it.

A couple/few weeks ago I was watching a television show.  I'm not even sure what drama it was, but the story was about a child who had been stolen from a Chinese couple and eventually placed for adoption in the US.  It was fiction, of course.   Also, it was a very different story than my own.  Even so, the judge on the show made a remark that really struck me, mostly because in twenty years I've never had anyone in my personal life say this kind of thing in my presence.

What the TV judge (a woman) said was something about how if anyone had ever stolen or hurt her child, she'd hunt them down for the rest of her life.  It was the first time in twenty years I got the feeling that I'm not the only one in the world who refuses to let what happened twenty years ago (and what would change my life and my children's lives in ways that were completely unnecessary and unjust) "just go".  Back when it happened I told more than one person that "the meter was running".  That meter is still running.  What I deal with these days is that I know if I try to tell anyone the situation, I'll look like some lunatic who had some bad thing go on and won't let it go.   The key to whether someone thinks something should be "let go" can be whether it was something for which nobody was at fault (and intended to do).  This is different.  This is a case of justice that didn't happen.  Even though I know a lot of people might wonder if I'm just telling my side of the story, and my version of things (if/when I tell it at all), the fact is this a matter of an outrageous injustice that continues to go on to this day.

I'll write more some other time (maybe).

An Introductory First Post

For a long time now, and even though online writing has afforded me a certain amount of flexibility, I haven't really just written what I feel like writing.  I've written for the reader and written what I think would fit reasonably well on a writing site.  I've written for money, and I've written with the idea of trying to help (sometimes defend) someone.  I've written for all kinds of reasons other than just writing what I feel like writing, regardless of whether it's useful or whether it even has any redeeming value.

It hasn't helped that I came to online writing with a build-up of ideas about which I wanted to write (but have never really written what I wanted to say; and have, instead, written around them with the idea that that was close enough.  Neither has it helped that I've been writing on the Internet for years and building up a whole different set of things I'd like to say about just that, alone.  Not long ago, someone said I seemed to have an "undercurrent" to things I say online, and I wasn't surprised because I've felt that undercurrent with so many of the things I've written over the years - and things I've never thought amount to either my best writing or my best efforts.  Trying (and often managing) to bridge some gap between writing for enjoyment and writing to earn from my writing has amounted to my doing a mediocre job of both (sometimes, I guess, a "good enough" or even "pretty good" job of both).  Still, I've never really managed to come up with either my best writing or my best attempt to just say what I feel like saying.

Blog after blog, site after site, I always keep trying to balance all the elements that I should be there if something is to earn worthiness of being posted online.  Over recent months, I've had my times when I just sit and stare at the screen, knowing there's something I need to write (a lot of things, actually), but being too burned out with dissatisfaction to be able to come up with even yet another mediocre piece of writing.  I have a lot of blogs in various stages of development, and I've had a clear plan for each and every one of the.  None of those plans has ever included just saying what I feel like saying for no particular reason, with or without redeeming value to anyone.

It's not even that I particularly have anything all that Earth-shattering to say.  It's mostly a matter of keeping things that don't matter to anyone else to myself.  In any case, more and more, I've found myself wanting to become "an Internet recluse", stop worrying about what I'm supposed to be writing on one site or another, and just do my own, personal, thing.  In a way, I've very much done what I needed to do with my online writing (and writing in general), and I've used my spare time to do it (which, I suppose, is what has led to a certain degree of "Internet burnout").  I've still got my plans for my online writing (which I do in time I skim from "real work"), and for writing in general.  It's just that I think the way I went from zero to where I am now was pretty much a road to burnout.  If I'm going to pick up the journey again, I need to have a place online where I can get away from other people's sites and aims, get away from all the noise and the same old "Internet talk", and have a place that's just for me.  I've tried many times before, and each time I slip back into worrying about :"redeeming value".   I'm sick of redeeming value and soaking in talk about earning money and getting traffic.  I'm sick of being polite and trying not be negative on other people's sites.  I'm sick of not ever fitting in with the Internet marketing types and yet never fitting in the with creative-writing/don't-care-about-earning money types; and I'm sick of identifying with both of those types, but never really completely identifying with either.

As I write this, I realize I've written some version of it more than once before; and I ask myself why it is I can't seem to just forget "what everyone does" and "what Google likes" and "what someone might think offers him something interesting to read", and I realize I just never get to the true heart of the matter.  That's that "undercurrent" I mentioned.   For years I've been "laying foundations" for what I plan to do with both my online and offline writing, in its varying degrees of "seriousness".  I guess now I'm sensing that before I can further build on those foundations, I need to add some plain, old, personal and useless thoughts (maybe to add some color, maybe just to act as a connection between the foundations and what will be built on them).

I realize that I've always kind of thought that nobody is really interested in anyone's personal thoughts unless those thoughts have at least that little bit of usefulness and/or redeeming value for a reader.  I came to Internet writing with the idea of trying to get away from writing according to someone else's rules, guidelines, and deadlines; and instead of truly just expressing myself, I've instead try to kind of/sort of stick to the guidelines/rules that writing-site people and the Internet culture, itself, requires or suggests "if anyone wants to make any money" or "if someone wants any traffic".

It's not my plan to stop other writing online.  I just figured that maybe the reason I have that undercurrent; and maybe the reason I have those times when I sit and stare at the screen, unable/unwilling to write just to express myself; is that as long as I keep not expressing myself, and instead now even use up my spare time not doing what I want to do; I'm getting more and more weighed down with all that stuff that's never really just been said.

So, useful or not; "redeeming value" or not, this blog is the place I've built for me to get away from the proverbial "hustle and bustle" of the Internet (as well as as get away from a lot of the sleaze, deceit, stealing, and whatever else there is that's I've grown so tired of - and just be kind of an Internet-recluse and write whatever the hell I I need to express.   I just need a place where I'm not worried about wasting any reader's time.  It's always very much been my instinct to write for the reader.  I'm finally coming around to realizing that sometimes a writer needs to just write for himself.