The Digital Reading Revoluton

There has been a large influx of commercials for the various electronic reading implements out there: Kindle, Nook, iPad2 (it counts), and various other tablets/phones with this capability. My phone even has a Kindle app in it. Two ladies I work with, C and S respectively, have Kindles that they keep on their desk.

Prior to my office relocating to a larger, more impersonal space, we had a small kitchen/break room. I use my breaks to read, and, back then, I would have to do so in this little kitchen. C walked in and told me that I should get a Kindle since I read so much. Her speech read just like the commercials between the competing devices.

I do admit that the concept is tempting. I could carry an entire library in my hand. But, I still find myself not really wanting to own one. I spend an entire work day staring at an electronic screen. I come home and spend even more time staring at an electronic screen. When I read, it's...nice to get away from that.

The feel and weight of a book in my hand in comforting. The smell is comforting (the scent of ink and paper in a brand new book is amongst my favorite in the world). It's a feast for all the senses by taste, really. I have piles of books in my living room and a few scattered around my bed room. I read 800 page books in about 1.5 weeks...and that's just by reading for an hour and a half at work each day. If I have time on the weekends, I read more.

So, it makes sense right? Rather than cart around my books or let them take up space, I should get a Kindle or any of it's variations. It saves space, you can take it anywhere, and you can purchase books instantly without ever leaving your house.

Well. You can do all of that except for the instant-gratification-without-travel with regular books. Well, maybe the spatial things might be a little off, but if you store them right, it's fine. If the power goes out, I don't have to worry about my battery dying and cutting me off from my content. If I'm out and about, same thing.

The saddest thing about this "revolution" is the death of a medium that has existed for so very long, and the death of the book stores. Borders is the first in a long line of bookstore deaths.

I guess I'm old fashioned, but I'll continue to buy physical books until they go the way of VHS tapes.

Anniversary

So, it seems that I am ridiculously bad at keeping up with something like this. I suppose it's a good thing that blogging isn't my job. I'd have been fired months ago if it was. See, I just haven't had much to say that didn't border on the insanely depressing. It's been a rough couple of months. I don't feel in the clear just yet, but I'm feeling well enough to bother the internet with my inane ramblings.

By the end of this week, I'll be celebrating my one year anniversary as an adult. Well, in truth, that came back on May 22 (I graduated from college May 22, 2010), but I'm talking more about the anniversary of getting "my own place" with my roommate H. I find it rather hard to imagine that it's been an entire year at this point, but, then again, I felt the same way when I had my annual review back in June. It doesn't feel like it's really been that long at all. I'm in shock.

But, I'm a little smug as well. More than one person expressed doubt in the capability of two friends to live as roommates without killing each other, destroying, or near-destroying their friendship. Yes, there have been rough points. There will still be rough points, but so far so good. We've lasted an entire year.

Here's to another great year and many more adventures.

I need to find something interesting to fill this blog with.

Hair?

It is really unlike me to go on and on about such a girly topic, but really. My hair has always been a bit of an experiment for me. In fact, ever since I was a wee little me, I had wanted to do something similar to it as seen in the picture.

By the way, that is me. My hair did, at one point, look that awesome. The instant I graduated high school, I ran home and dyed my hair purple. No lie. I walked the stage, came home, and holed up in my bathroom with my best friend at the time and slathered purple semi-permanent dye all over my bleached head.

At the time, it felt like a huge victory.

I did have to keep it natural for a little while after that, however, because I started working at the first level of hell (grocery store) for the summer before college. I did dye it neon green, though, for freshman orientation. School spirit? Maybe. Mostly, I like green, and I thought "hey, why not?" My mother, who, at one point was rather...displeased with my hair choices (they went through it with my brother) was partially relieved. I stood out in a crowd.

I also met my roommate at that time. Once the semester had started, I think I refreshed my hair to green (or was it orange?) and I think she recognized me because of it. Funnier still, her hair went nearly to her butt, so I eventually remembered her as well. Hair...bringing people together!

Anyways! I am never satisfied with the damn color or style. For the first half of my freshman year, I went through an entire rainbow. Purple, blue-green, red-orange...the purple-fuchsia pictured above. I ended up getting a job as an usher at my campus's performing arts center (best job and best bosses I have ever had), and the hair-coloring had to stop. The last wacky color I had it was blue-green. Met the Ginger with that hair.

I went black again for awhile. But my natural-love is red.
I love red hair. It looks good on me. It works with my pallid skin and brings out the green hiding in my eyes. Red. Red. Red. I always come back to it, somehow. But I still get bored with the norm. So this happens.

Black chunkies nestled amongst my favorite red (Herbal Essences "Paint the Town). I think this happened mostly because I was tired of waiting to dye the black out. This is actually where I am now. Growing the black out. Stuck with a halo of light brown nasty that makes up my actual hair color.

My actual hair color...I have not left my hair this color for several years now. Not since that night after I graduated high school. I can barely remember what it looks like. By now, I'm a pro at knowing how to nurse my poor, chemically damaged hair back to health. And I know how much it can take before I have to stop--which is a helluvah lot.

I get just as tired of a specific cut as I do the color. Right now I want to keep what I've got, but I need a different color. It's really annoying me. But argh...I have so much more to go before I can dye it. Unless I want to cut it and come out looking more like a lesbian than I normally do.

Pshhaaaw.

This has been a random hair rant.

Extending into Infinity

College feels like ages ago.

I have been acting as an adult for almost nine months now. I've been paying my own bills for about six of those months. Well, six months next month. It hasn't really been that long of a time, but the days of hiking around UNT and attending the classes I couldn't wait to be done with feels as if they are years in the past, rather than a few paltry months.

It hit even closer to home recently, I suppose. One of our little group, our close-knit friendship, is moving on. It's weird to think that now we can't just hang out whenever it strikes our fancy. But, this is life. This is growing up, and growing up sucks.

I can't say I regret throwing myself into the world as early on as I did. I am damn proud of myself for getting through college in four years instead of six like so many people I know. I am even prouder that I did it with honors, and then got a job a few weeks after graduation. I busted my ass to be where I am now. To some, I probably am not really far at all, but I like to think I've accomplished a great deal in the past few months.

I am twenty-two years old. I have a job, a car, and a place to live. I live 300 or so miles away from my closest family. There have been times when it has felt like hell. But do I regret the choices I have made? No, not really. I have so much else wrong in my head that there is no room for regret. In this one thing, I am sure of myself.

Lately, in spite of this attitude, life has felt fucked up.

I think I may be destined to self-destruct. There's a switch in there that is wobbling and teetering, tied to an invisible wire that something is tugging at relentlessly. I have been here before. Even in the halcyon days I was here at one time. Even if we could go back to those days, it would be the same. I have to remind myself of this as we all grow and move on with life. There is no perfection that we have ever reached or can reach. Perfection is an illusion of the rosy glasses with which we view our pasts. I am no different now.

If there was a point in any of this, I think I've lost it.

A Peek into the Past

No picture on this one. I can't think of one that would fit, and I really can't be bothered right now. I should be sleeping, but my brain will not stop whirling and diving into self-destroying circles. This blog is for me, and so I will use it and hope it will help me get some sleep.

Part of my personality defects lies in my inability to let the past go. I hold on to things for a long time. It's stupid, but it's not something I have ever been able to control. Things that happened years ago still find a way of snaking around back to me. It drives me utterly batshit.

But, I suppose I am a product of the things that still bother me, and perhaps they still have a hold on my current mental condition. Certainly they are a big part of why I am socially retarded.

To understand, my dear readers (my roommate, and the ginger), a little more about me, let's take a look at specific things that bother me today.

I had a shitty social life as a child

I am not referring to anything my parents did, no. They both loved me and I grew up in a stable home. I had a big brother who did what all big brother's do. My family has nothing to do with this.

I honestly can't remember a time when I wasn't painfully shy. I know there had to have been a point when I was a wee little fat kid (well I still am a fat kid) in elementary school that I still stubbornly held on to the hope that I might be capable of making friends. I had a few off-and-on friends.

I also had entire groups of kids calling me names. I didn't have a thick of enough skin, and it's ruined me for life, I think. I never got the thick skin my parents told me I needed. I grew and we went from name calling to other things.

Shoes thrown at me in gym class. Nails dug into my arm. Someone pushing me down the concrete stairs on the way to the buses--and then so many people laughing when I started to cry. (It's funny when the fat girl falls, right?) Things thrown at me while I was on the bus until I sat in the front. Then things thrown at me from the windows of the bus while it was pulling away.

Kids laughing when I destroyed my left knee.

Boys betting each other to ask the fat chick out as some big joke. The boy I liked in high school agreeing--after I got the courage to ask him--to go to that stupid fucking Winter Dance with me only because he knew my hotter friend was going. The group of kids who took my walker--I have no balance and couldn't use crutches at that point--and threw it into the middle of the cafeteria after I had surgery.

For my entire life, my peers essentially told me I was shit. And I believed it. It is my fault for believing it. It is my fault for still believing it. But please refer to my previous entry about depression. This, too, is like drowning.

I have this bad habit of getting really attached to people who treat me like a human being--especially those of the opposite gender. I think that plays a large part in why I liked the boys I did in high school. It's why I make such a big deal out of something so simple as a guy opening a door for me. It's nice to be looked at as a person, instead of a big steaming sack of shit. Which is how I think the rest of the world sees me.

Hell, I don't even like me. I hate the person I am and the person I'm becoming. I still don't know how to behave around people, and I have a huge disliking for social gatherings. I would rather hide in my car during my lunch break and read than run the risk of having to try to gather what little scraps of social ability I have to jump into a conversation. Large groups of people make me nervous.

I was the type of kid who, at recess, would find a corner to read. My parents would tell me to go outside, and I'd take my book and climb a tree to read out there. Trying to make friends and be active was too much. Far too much.

During my last year of college, I'd hit the gym with my best friend. I couldn't have done it without her, because I couldn't stand the thought of being around so many people like that. The fuck puppets who thought I was disgusting because I'm so fat--and I am disgusting--yet also looked at me like I was a moron for trying to loose weight in front of their delicate eyes.

Honestly, even if I was skinnier, I wouldn't be happier. I would still have this shit personality, and this stupid fucking mental problem. It's a problem that sucks the life out of me and has me dwell on shit that happened long ago. I hate that I can't seem to be happy. Even when I'm having a good time, it's there. Yesterday I was perfectly happy at my friend's house, and then I almost cried over something stupid. It was instant.

I hate myself. I absolutely hate myself. I am twenty-two fucking years old, college educated, and gainfully employed AND I HATE MYSELF.

I always have.

And right now, I feel like I'm losing the fight.

How Nerds Exercise

The picture is kind of dark, but you should be able to guess what it is. Yes, ladies and gentlmen, it is a DDR mat. (For those who might not know, this is Dance Dance Revolution.)

Exercising isn't fun for most people--I say most because there are those out there who do enjoy it--and I, obviously, don't particularity like it myself. When I was still in college I had a glorious rec center to visit, and I did make use of it despite the stigma involved.

When you are fat, people don't want to actually see you working out. Well, I don't know how it is for males, but this is true for fat females. At least, in my experience it is. You are subjected to staring, laughter, disparaging comments from those around you, and shitty treatment at the hands of the gym staff. These are the same people who make comments about fat people needing to exercise--get on the treadmill or something like that.

Granted, I had friendly support for my gym days and learned to ignore the assholes working out around me. I took the general attitude that the females were most likely what Christopher Moore termed as "fuck puppets" in one of his books. I think it might have been A Dirty Job. I'll double check the quote at another time. Point is, these little gym bunnies could very well go screw themselves for all I care.

Now that I have graduated and left my wonderful gym behind, I have nothing more than the little room with the meager offerings at my apartment complex. This gym is a nice thing to have, but when there are only two treadmills (one of which is always busted), one elliptical, a bike, and a modest weight set, it's not exactly the easiest thing to work out in. There are usually people filling the place, and honestly, I have lost what confidence I once had.

So, my roommate and I agreed to do something a little different and a lot more fun. We walk around the complex (me with weights in hand). We can make it around 3 and a half times in 30 minutes. We also decided to break out our DDR mats and follow the arrows to weight loss. It is imminently more fun than going to the gym, and it burns more than the walk.

Tonight was discouraging. Oh, we are both out of shape.

DDR was made for people like us, though. Nerds who want to exercise without leaving their dark little cave. In our case, this is our apartment. Couple the DDR with the laundry I had to do--3 trips up and down 3 flights of stairs--and I figure we had a pretty successful run. Granted, I still cannot do that well at Butterfly. Damn you, smile.dk!!!

Frankly, I don't care how lame it might make me. I like it, and it's fun. It also probably annoys the ever living crap out of my downstairs neighbors.

Photo Unrelated

Depression has been on my mind a lot lately. It's not just because I've been wallowing in it for so long, though that certainly plays a part in considering the subject itself. Today, in particular, I was dwelling on it while trying to get through a rather insipid day of work. A friend of mine called me out on never opening up, and I realized that I really don't. I have one close friend who hears more than she should have to, but even she doesn't ever get the whole story. My parents don't, either. I keep it bottled up inside, because, frankly, I'm rather ashamed of it.

When you go through so much of your life upset for no apparent reason, it gets old for you and the people around you. Sadness without cause is tiresome. It's hard even for me to understand, and I am the one stuck in the rut that is only controlled by prescription medication, and, even then, it feels like it is failing more often than not.

To put this into a little perspective, depression is like drowning. You wake up and it's a gamble on whether or not you're okay and breathing, or you're sinking and suffocating on the dark waters that have you trapped. I wake up and I'm fine, or I wake up and I want to cry. On the most extreme days, I wake up wondering what I am doing breathing in the first place. I can start the day fine and then crash and burn in a particularly bright spray of self-loathing and embarrassing "woe is me" moments that have left physical scars in the past. Yes, this sounds more bi-polar, does it not?

Here's the catch: even when I'm fine, I'm not fine. It's always there, ready to be triggered by something trivial, or ready to jump up without an invitation (okay, well, it doesn't ever have an invitation). Is there a reason for me to feel sad? Most of the time, no.

You can see, my non-existent readers, why I wouldn't want to burden anyone with something as aimless as this. I can't help it, but I still feel like it is my fault. Yes, I probably need to find therapy in addition to the anti-depressants, but I do not have that kind of disposable income. So I have to rely on friends and family to keep me afloat, and, for some reason, I hate doing that. Truthfully, I don't really feel like I'm worth it.

The cycle begins again.

I don't usually apply my life to songs, but if I had to do it at all, Ida Maria's "Oh My God" seems to be a perfect fit as of late. It is highly appropriate that it was the trailer theme for the film It's Kind of a Funny Story, which I related to far more than I'd like to admit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naQSB1Ozyds

Oh, and about the photo. Sunrises are new beginnings. Okay, so that is really a load of crap that I can't make myself write. It was pretty, that's all.