Me, Interrupted

This is to answer the dreaded twin questions:

What have you been doing?
and
WTF is wrong with you?

The shortest answer: everything and nothing, all at once.

The long answer:

I guess I had a more difficult time adjusting to college life than I realized or let on. I started having mean/bad/strange intrusive thoughts near the end of my freshman year. Most prominent among those was that "I need to disappear," which, in and of itself is something every socially awkward person thinks every once in a while, but when it's a weekly, daily, hourly occurrence, you know something is wrong.

So I did disappear - I went to Florida and had my Disney World adventure, where I had everything that I thought I wanted - a solid friend group who liked me, a great job, my own money, an escape from the real world, decent roommates, an apartment I paid for, etc., and during that time, I subconsciously tried to cut myself off from the last noticeable vestige of imperfection in my life - my family. I had stopped returning their calls, so they shut off my phone - the last little bit of easy control they had over me. I used WiFi instead, and since everyone I cared about used email, messenger, and groupme, it wasn't too much of a hardship.

After that, I went back to school, spent the summer in a pothead house (I didn't smoke), and when I wasn't in class, I hunkered down in the library until dark, bingeing Smallville and Vlogbrothers and occasionally actually doing homework, alone, hot, bored, tired. I did okay over the summer, but I hated it. To try and break the monotony, I joined Tinder and went on a few dates, none of which led to anything substantial. Despite constantly slugging water, eating semi-healthy, and getting plenty of exercise, and being in regular communication with some people, I felt like crap. At least the dog liked me. Some blogs talk about a "post-Disney depression", so I chalked it up to that and having to wear jeans in 110 degree heat for a shop class.

Then came Senior year, where my slowly downward sloping trajectory took a turn for the exponential. I stopped going to the classes I found boring, then I stopped going to the classes that were in the morning, then I stopped going to Rube, then I stopped going to classes at all - except for my dance classes, and I didn't finish any of the written work they required, making that the one class I didn't fail my last semester. Then I stopped participating in my senior project. And that was it. I still maintained a facade of normalcy - I still had my Wednesday night group, and when people asked me to do fun stuff with them, I did. I was passably sociable, and BSed about "being busy" and "everything's getting so tough" and "I don't know what I'm doing" - I just repeated what everyone else said, and no one was any the wiser.

I tried to get out of the house at least once every day - I did a lot of walking, explored Fourth Ave, went to all the libraries a lot. I actually was on campus most days - I still had a meal plan to work off. I had a quiet corner in the main library with a power socket, comfy chair, and table all to myself that I jealously guarded. At the same time, there were days when I hid in my room and stayed really quiet, hoping that my roommate, whose classes started later than mine, wouldn't notice that I hadn't yet left the house. I left the door closed at night and when I wasn't there so that the cats wouldn't wander in, so it looked the same either way. I went hungry some days because she had most of her classes in the afternoon and didn't leave until well after lunch. I did start going to counselling after a late night anxiety attack, but although the lady was nice, I didn't feel like it helped much.

I got almost literally dragged home by my parents for my little sister's Confirmation, and have been stuck at home since. I still haven't completely unpacked, and a lot of my stuff is still gathering dust in the garage. I took a community college class over the summer, and got a job. I got a C.

I went to see a doctor, who said that I was completely physically healthy. No help there. I went to a psychiatrist, who told me that I had suffered a major depressive episode. That sounded about right. Then, horror upon horrors, she ordered a blood test. After nearly passing out, the results came in. Slight anemia, nothing physical to worry about. So it really was all in my head.

I'm now taking community college courses, getting therapy, and taking meds.

The next logical question:

Am I doing better?

Honestly, at the moment, not really. I'm going to class, and talking to people, and keeping up appearances, but my head's still feeling pretty crowded and confused and scared and I still seem stuck in my own little bubble. I was running along the road more traveled, took a left turn to avoid monotony, ran into a wall, fell almost all the way off the path, and got stuck in a ditch, which, despite some effort, I seem to be digging myself deeper into. I'm trying to blindly feel my way to the train tracks so that I have a minute chance of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. No luck yet. I haven't even figured out if my eyes are open. Telling myself to quit feeling so out of it hasn't worked yet.

So yeah, that's what's going on with me, and WTF is wrong with me. I'll probably expound a bit more later, but that's the overview.

TL;DR: Apparently, I'm depressed. No, I'm not suicidal. And yeah, it sucks. And yes, I screwed up. And no, I'm not sure what to do about it.

So, yeah. That's it for now.

Why I'm Not Famous

Speaking of fame, the closest I ever got was in elementary school - we were graduating/promoting/going from the fifth grade to the sixth.

I, being a good little student well liked by at least my teachers, had gotten the best grades in the school in my graduating class and was kind of the valedictorian, except I didn't get a give a speech. As such, I got called up on stage to get an award, which I hadn't known about beforehand.

I flounced up the stairs to my elementary school cafeteria stage, resplendent in a brand new teal polo shirt and skort outfit, my floofy ponytail bouncing behind me, to shake the principle's hand and get a shiny plaque celebrating my accomplishment. Afterward, the whole way home, everybody - teachers, classmates, parents, relatives, kids I didn't know, everybody - came up and congratulated me on my "accomplishment", on what a "good job" I'd done, on how I was a "great kid" and they'd "miss me".

I was overwhelmed. Instead of just going home to a nice dinner with just my family, where I could relax and stuff my face with pasta, I was stuck for some time after the ceremony, taking pictures with everyone and getting all the attention and not eating the stuffed shells that I knew lay waiting at home.

Everybody loved me, and I hated it.

I couldn't not smile, couldn't stop repeating "thank you", "you too", "I'm sure it was close", etc. I couldn't breathe I couldn't comprehend everything that was going on, I was overwhelmed. I wasn't consuming my cheesy saucy carb-filled deliciousness.

That 15 minutes of being the most popular kid in my 700 person elementary school proved to me that I never wanted to be really famous. I couldn't even handle slight notoriety in a limited context; being truly well known, where everyone thinks they have a right to you and what you do and think and say, would probably kill me. I would never be able to relax, let my guard down, and enjoy it.


I've always had issues with people watching me.

I stopped posting negative stuff here for a while because I'd always get concerned people asking what was wrong.  I put on personas and change my affect around people I don't know. I can play the "Find the Hidden Security Camera" game on hard mode. I've got tape over my laptop camera. I've turned off location tracking on my phone. I'm hyperaware that as I'm writing this right now over school Internet with at least two eye-in-the-skys watching me, every keystroke, every website I visit, is being recorded along with my identity by the school in association with my identity.

I really hate being watched because it makes me hyperaware of myself and everything I'm doing "wrong". It's like the "you are now manually breathing" trick - it makes me pay attention even when I know what's going on and how everything works. It doesn't help that the modern world is a panopticon of cameras, trackers, and spyware where you never know who is looking at whom.

At least when it's overt, when it's people I know and that I can see, I can analyze a situation and react appropriately - and I've gotten a lot better at that since elementary school.

So, my dear anonymous audience - like, comment, and subscribe - I like knowing who I have to avoid. ;)

Encounters

When people ask where I'm from, I tell them I'm from Los Angeles. (I'm actually from a suburb of a suburb of LA, but for most people, it's close enough)

When people hear that I am from LA, they almost always ask one of the same two questions: 

Do you surf? 

OR

Have you met any famous people?

And my answers are as follows: 

Um, kinda, yeah, I did once when I was, like, ten. I like to boogie board, though! 

OR

Yeah, I've seen Bob Hope/Frank Sinatra Drive, haha. 

In all seriousness, though, yes, I have met some famous people. My hometown is kinda like the vacation resort town for people who can't quite afford Malibu, so we get our share of C-listers and wannabes. 

There was one time, I was taking a walk down Main Street when a guy with an acoustic guitar walked up behind me and tried to jump scare me. While violently strumming right when he walked past me, the guitar slipped a little from his hand. 

"You know, that might be easier if you had a strap," I yelled after him, and he cracked a smile. 

"I don't need to - I do this for a living," he said. "I'm Jay-Z's guitarist - I'm the only white guy on tour."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah! Look me up!"

And with another violent strum of the acoustic, he was off into the sunset. 

I did look him up. At the time, I was pretty sure he was legit. Now, I'm not so sure, but it's a fun  story. 

So yeah, there's one "celebrity" I've met.

Also, Whitney Houston's daughter went to my middle school. We had the same PE period and everything when I was in 6th grade. I didn't really talk to her - she was older than me and had her own clique - but at the same time everyone knew who she was, even if a lot of us didn't have a clue who Whitney Houston was. Every time there was one of those stupid school fundraisers, selling magazines or some shit, one of the rewards was a Whitney Houston CD - I guess her mom had donated a bunch and the school had no idea what to do with them. Nothing more motivating to a kid than trying to earn a CD for a person his parents probably liked.

Rebecca Black, of "Friday" fame, almost went to the crosstown high school, but dropped and did homeschooling because of "harassment." She was also at Disneyland the day of our 8th grade trip. 

I met the dude form Candyman, the dude from Starship Troopers, and one of the original visual effects guys for Star Wars when I volunteered at Comic Con. That was pretty cool. 

I've also gone to stuff like TV tapings for stuff like America's Got Talent, Conan, the Late Late Show, and Jimmy Kimmel, where I've obviously seen, but not interacted with their respective hosts and guests for the day - including Adam Sandler, Darius Rucker, and a bunch of people no one's ever heard of. 

However, the best celebrity encounter I've had was the one time I was walking out of Kimmel, minding my own business, trying like mad to remember where I parked my car, when I walk onto Hollywood Boulevard where the premiere of Thor: Ragnarok was taking place. I got to visually see and take pictures of the beautiful Chris Helmsworth, the incredible Mark Ruffalo, and the indescribable Tom Hiddleston - from behind a barrier on the street that was about 30 feet away from any of the action. 

Sometimes living near Los Angeles can be pretty cool.  

Internet Layers

The internet is a multilayered thing.

On top you have sites that you can get to from the front page of Google results that tend to be a one way transaction of information - knowledge passes from some server through the magical internet wires to your computer and into your brain. Anybody with internet access is familiar with this level.

Scratch the paint on that just a little bit and you find a massive turf war of "communities" and "families" and "interest groups" with names that sound like made up words. This is where all the fun happens because it depends on a two way interaction with three parts - someone makes or does a thing then sends it through the aforementioned internet wires to you, and you can internalize it and call the first person a "f&#@ a#-$+# q1@-$+# of a k-$+#(" - and they'll see it! (through the magical internet wires of course)

The social internet is not usually a bad thing - crowd-sourced sites like Wikipedia or GitHub show that people are drawn to create order as much if not more than they are to create chaos. It's a place to connect with people you never thought you'd know - and, while some are inevitably horrible people, most of them are nice and empathetic and a little bit weird - and they are people on the other end.

In my personal opinion, this is the best place to hang out. You can be as anonymous as you want, say whatever you want, disagree with anything, or find people who are just like you in unexpected ways.

Then of course, there's the dark web, which you need a Tor browser and some savvy to get to where Bitcoin is king and you can get whatever you want - but you can't watch Netflix there so what's the point?

NaBlEDiNoMo

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people make it a goal to write 50,000 words in November (along with not shaving, being aware of diabetes, and going vegan) as part of National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo was started as a way to bring writers together and to give people a kick in the pants to actually write that novel they've been talking about forever.

Every year I have friends who participate and get close. I even tried once or twice myself, often in a post-Halloween sugar detox depression, only to realize that 1,667 words a day is a heck of a lot and give up my (mostly directionless, plot-less, single character) attempts at a novel within the first few days.

The idea is kind of exhilarating - you write like mad for a month and at the end you have something you can slam down triumphantly on a publisher's desk only to have them throw it in the slush pile with everyone else's - or maybe it becomes the next Harry Potter. Who knows? It's all fun.

That being said, I am not - repeat NOT - participating in NaNoWriMo this year (Nor am I participating in NaFADOYBIMSCOM).

I am, however, at a point in my life where I would really like to get better at writing (with feedback) and I need achievable, tangible regular goals. I also have a lot of thoughts and opinions on stuff that I am just dying for the Internet to ignore.

As such I will be participating in NaBlEDiNoMo - National Blog Every Day in November Month. Every day this month, I will post something new on this blog. It may be a sentence, it may be a story, it may be ranty, it may be a meditation - I don't know yet, but every day on November 2017, something sill be going up. That way, I can still participate in all the fun part of NaNoWriMo - the word wars, the storytelling, the writing stupid shit that sounds so terrible you laugh while sobbing - without the added pressures of having to end up with one coherent story and having a word count.

I do have some things that I would ask of you, dear reader, if indeed you are not a German adbot (in which case, I AM TOTALLY HUMAN AND WELCOME YOUR HUMAN VIEWS).
First, I would love if you commented, said hi, or interacted with what you read. I would love to know that it is not just German adbots reading my stuff.
Second, I welcome any and all constructive criticism. I really do want to get better at writing and they say the way to get better at writing is to just write, but knowing how I can get better would really help me out. (Note: "Git Gud" and "Be happier" are not valid criticisms)
Finally, know that I reserve the right to opinions and ideas that may not match you own or others. Please, if you do interact with me or the single other reader in France, please be civil.

Thanks. Let the fun begin!

I'll see you tomorrow.

-G :)