The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Prompt me!

"Invalid Entry" 

To get this going proper, let me just say that I do enjoy Kay's blog, that I have read her faithfully this round as well as last, that she has made me laugh more than once, mostly because she doesn't take herself too seriously and because the girl admits that she is confused on occasion. I don't usually comment, though, but then I don't comment a lot, anyway. I tend to comment on the journals of those I know a little better, believing that we've established something of a rapport which makes my comment welcome, or at least, understandable.

Obviously, I go for the art in a blog/journal. I can tolerate a whole lot of 'woe is me' in my favourite journals because the writer has a way of making it sound original. I am interested in their pain as much as I am in their successes, but I obviously hope for the latter more. I look for common threads, language I find interesting or words that I'd want to hear coming at me over a cup of coffee or thick, foamy hot chocolate. I look for blood, sex and temporary insanity. I am comfortable with questions which are asked in the spirit of wanting an answer and people who seem to want to learn from others. I like raw, naked admission and truth. I am often surprised at how much people are willing to share, but then, I'm always shocked at myself for being so open. I suppose that in many ways, it's the only situation in which I am unabashedly myself, because I am anonymous for the most part. My face is one you won't see every day, and no one knows the sound of my voice. I am able to bleed all over the keyboard, knowing that I will stand up and walk away when I am done.

What doesn't do it for me are journals with tedious accounts of the food consumed in a day in order to lose weight. I don't know why, either, because I basically have an unhealthy obsession with food and have been trying to watch/lose weight since I was twelve. I tried to read one journal a few years ago where the writer had a before picture, and a computer enhanced 'after' photo as the header. I tried to read it before I nearly lost my mind with boredom. Why would anyone think that would be worth reading? I mean, if you're going to list the food you consumed, at least make it read delicious or tell me what you were feeling that day. It was like reading a menu at the world's worst restaurant, so I stopped reading, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the writer didn't meet her goal. The way she wrote, obviously she wasn't into it.

I also used to read another journal (with shocking regularity) by someone who basically thought that writing about how intimidating she considered herself to be was somehow interesting. Obviously, I agreed with her for a while, otherwise I wouldn't have read her, but then it dawned on me that I was reading her because she was such a train wreck, that I was somehow enjoying the sensation of 'thank god that's not me'. I did not actually find her frightening or special in any way. I thought she was crass, ill-mannered, a little spoiled, with an ego that needed a pin stuck in it. One day I found myself thinking that behaving like a moron doesn't make others fear you. It makes them take you off their favourite journal list. Click It's not writing, you know? It's all a facade, a sham in a lacklustre font. I had other journals to read.

I don't want to read journals which lack detail, that put other people down unnecessarily or have massive spelling errors. I can't deal with that, just my thing, I find it distracting. I like intelligent, careful thought, and pretty much have no time for those in which stupid ideas and beliefs are belched and vomited onto a screen. I don't think I have to elaborate on that; belched, vomited entries are pretty easily identified. I do like light entries which may have nothing to do with much at all, but if the writer is actually writing, it will seem wholly important to the people reading it. I also like heavy thoughts, meaty ideas and dignified debate.

I won't write to please others, at least, I try not to be conscious of an audience while I'm writing, even in the FTL contest, because it will read that way, needy and contrived (but, I do usually go back to look for errors because I'm a Virgo, and it's what we do). I also don't really see the point of inciting riots with my thoughts either, purposely causing in-house fighting by attempting to be shocking or malicious. Isn't that what you do if you can't rely on your intelligence or talent to get you through? Schoolyard tactics, manic deflection. I have other stuff to do. Oh, I can be seriously evil when I choose, but I'm starting to realize that it doesn't amount to much. I don't spar with my favourites. They're my favourites because I admire each of them for something different, even if I don't always agree with them. They are gracious, witty, insightful, challenging, intelligent, strong (although most of them don't think so), interesting, searching, grasping and sincere. They're...writers.

So, dear writers, see if you can find yourselves in some of the following lines which, I feel, best show why I choose to read you...

I regret being so closed off from everyone early in life. I don't know what I was afraid of, or what caused the fear.

I want to make love and the love make blood between us

The whole thing about balls, that's about the only reason I'm glad I'm not a boy. On every other basis, I'd gladly swap

I have a serious problem with the notion that on this end of our shared history, which, differing perspectives notwithstanding, consists of the exact same series of events for both of us, we can exchange maybe two words, and while he hangs up feeling the same way he did before, I hang up feeling raw and regressive.

And now you know something about me. Except that you don't.

I like reading about people's skeletons. I like it more than I like good customer service. I find more truth in it, as well.

I've also come to think there is a very real danger in believing in the concept of soulmates.

Until someone strings you from a tree, drags you to death behind a truck, or beats you with a pistol and then ties you to a post and leaves you there to die, for no other reason than that you were the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time, shut up.

There are others. Some which fill in the empty hours when the ones I wait for are left untouched and some that only sometimes updated, almost forgotten until the writer returns. My list is small at the moment, but I'm not against adding more. What I want in a regular read is honesty, effort and art. Sometimes I will respond to something which unnerves me in some way, either positively or negatively, but it's generally because I am so involved in the person I'm reading that I want to lend a hand, even if they don't want it. It's a way of extending a little humanity in a time when so many people are dizzy from trying to keep their world together. I'm not a saint, mind you. I'm just someone who has an idea what it feels like to be lost in my head without a real person to talk to.

At the end of the day, we're all talking to someone or looking for answers in our journals, even if we tell ourselves we're not.