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 |   My first blog about my life, my favorite music, my opinions, my feelings. Whatever. |
This is the first blog I've ever had! You'll have to bear with me because I'm still learning how to do this whole thing. I'll admit that it's bit of a mess right now. I started blogging for "The Soundtrack of Your Life"  and I couldn't just let it end there! I don't think there's any point in keeping a separate blog for all of the blogging groups I want to join. I'm going to keep them all in this one so I can grow into an eclectic pot of confusion.What you'll find here:  My opinions on everything. Blog prompts for various groups. A different song everyday that means something to me. Experiences I've had in lifeWARNING This blog is rated GC and will contain offensive language, stories, and opinions. Please don't read if you're easily offended! My intentions aren't to offend anyone, so trust my warning and turn back now or forever hold your peace!  Things I'll be using this blog for:  "The Soundtrack of Your Life"  "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" I want to hear from you! As I mentioned before, this is my first blog. I'd love to hear from anyone who reads this. Leave a comment, rating, or review. Let me know what you like to read about. Have a suggestion for me to write about? I'd love to hear it. The best thing about a blog is the exchanging of opinions between bloggers and readers. I want to keep us all interested. Plus, it's just nice to get a little love sometimes. Let's get to know each other.   Charlie ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **   ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
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Artist: Aerosmith Album: Toys In The Attic Song: Walk This Way [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics 30DBC: Everyone talks about the changes they want to make when New Years Day comes. I don't want to know about your resolutions...I want to know what you don't plan on doing in 2015. Don't be obvious...be creative! Who brings out the best in you and why? Hello, 2015 bloggers! How are you? Did we all make it through the year transition? I think my mind made it through, but my aching body is telling me otherwise. The good news is my stomach doesn't hurt anymore. The bad news is.. my head is killing me.  I went out with a few people last night. It was pretty low-key but involved lots of drinking followed by shitty, greasy diner food at three in the morning. I'm just glad I was feeling up to it enough to hang out and have a good time. My regrets will be short-lived as I'm sure I'll be cool by tonight. Thank god for Ibuprofen.  Today starts Fivesixer  's first 30DBC challenge as official group owner. I had to join up on the quick because I know my boy's got a lot up his sleeve this month and I can't miss out. I'll probably be a bit busy, but that's never stopped me from kicking out an entry per day before. I'm up to the challenge. I think I'm most excited about getting the prompts on time. So today we're talking about what we aren't doing in 2015. Now, we're told to be creative here, not obvious and I guess those are rather subjective terms. I mean, my first thought was, "Oh, be creative, so... I don't plan on falling through the ground into the hot inner core of Middle Earth and befriending the mythological Sharkhorses that have built a civilization down there." But that's kind of obvious, isn't it? I mean, who plans on that? So, I present to you: What I Won't Do In 2015 1. Book a flight on a southeast Asian plane 2. Tell the police no about, um, anything 3. Make a movie about assassinating Kim Jong Un 4. Become famous and take nude photos 5. Get Ebola 6. Join ISIS 7. Pour a bucket of ice on my head 8. Suddenly become Russian, sorry about that Ukraine. 9. Forget about Robin Williams 10. Be a protesting student in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. Now I just need to decide who brings out the best in me. This might sound weird, but I think I bring out the best in myself. I actually bring out the best and the worst in myself. I can either be my own worst enemy or my biggest supporter. I try not to depend on other people to make me a better person. It's hard to find people to rely on for something like that, and really, it's probably too much to ask of someone. I know that the people around you are supposed to organically bring out the best in you, but I just don't find that to be the case, for me anyway. There are a lot of awesome people in my life who support me and I appreciate them a lot, but I'm the only person I can rely on to be my best self. If I have missteps along the way, those are my problems, not anyone else's, and I don't expect anyone to take the fall for them. I don't think there's anyone I bring the best out in either. Maybe that's something I should strive to do, but I don't. I let people do what they want and how they want to do it. Even if I see something that I know is going to work out poorly, I'll make a slight suggestion at best and move on. People will learn their mistakes just like I learn mine and, through making those mistakes, they learn how to be the best version of their self. Backstroke lover, always hidin' 'neath the covers |
| Welcome to my post for Day 5 of the Blog Harbor 12 Days of Christmas challenge. I'm going to get caught up today, I swear! Well, I'm going to try to anyway. These entries take a minute to write, ya know? I am determined though, and that's like, three-fourths of the battle. Day 5 is an easy one for me because it's what I do! Our challenge is: To give the number five its props, post five meaningful and/or thoughtful blog comments on other Blog Harbor members' blogs. Bonus points if you comment on blog posts connected to this activity! Blog commenting First I want to mention that commenting on other people's blogs is such a huge part of the blogging experience. It's nice and all to write your entries and be done with it, but where is the community spirit in that? It's so important to put yourself out there and read other people's blogs and let them know what you think. I totally understand not having anything to say though. Sometimes I read an entry and while I like it, I have nothing to add to it. In that case, I'll just hit the 'like' button to let them know that I did read and enjoy their entry, but had nothing worthy to say. I feel like the more active I am in other people's blogs, the more interested they are in mine. You know, I think a lot of things are like that too. I've never had any issue getting reviews on my writing here, but I also give a lot of reviews. It's all about give and take in the end, isn't it? Brooke My first comment was on Brooklyn's entry "Invalid Entry" . Apparently, she's had some catching up to do too. See, I'm not alone! Thank you, by the way, Jaeff | KBtW of the Free Folk for letting us have until the fifth to do everything instead of having each entry due at midnight. Brooke and I would be dead in the water. This was a nice entry because it let me know what I'm in for with the next two challenges. The quizzes/polls one looks like a lot of fun. I think that'll be the next entry.Ken Comment numero dos was on 🌕 HuntersMoon's entry "Invalid Entry" . I must be into Day 6 because that's what this entry was for too. He talked about a lot of different surveys, polls, and quizzes that I'd never taken or seen. For some reason, I've never delved into that whole thing much. I did know about Cinn Frin's surveys about being a new member. I remember taking those a while back when she first made them. I'm lucky I was able to remember some of the stuff. I have no clue how Ken has even wisps of memories after six years. He might have a photographic memory.  Neva I read Prosperous Snow celebrating's blog all the time from other blogging groups that we're in. It's not uncommon for me to read and comment on her entries. The one I commented on this time was "The Third Day of Christmas. " from Day 3 of this challenge. Day 3 was when we nominated people for Quills. She mentioned that she had a lot of fun with that challenge. I thought that was a fun one too. I can't wait for the award ceremony!Sharon Fourth comment went to pandapaws on her entry, "Invalid Entry" . She did really well with Day 4 in going above and beyond by reviewing one of the newbies she had replied to. I'm sure that member felt really welcomed by PP, so it's awesome that she did that. I thought it was cool that she supported the Lucky Leprechaun Raffle too by buying ten tickets. It's always encouraging to have someone show their community spirit by supporting auctions and raffles.Abcoach My final comment was on abcoachnz-Sometimes around's entry, "Trying to Catch Up when behind the 8-ball" . This was a great entry with a lot of detailed information about the different aspects of the challenge. I totally forgot about not mentioning the same user twice in the challenge. I don't think I have so far, but I'm glad that was mentioned because it had totally slipped my mind! |
How did I get so far behind with the Blog Harbor challenge? Brooklyn  , you're doing way better than me! Well, I think we're on Day 8 of 12 right now, but I'm on Day 4. I got this, don't worry! Our challenge for Day 4 was: In order to give the number four its due credit, post four helpful or supportive forum posts (or replies to posts). This might seem easy enough, but I had trouble with it for some odd reason. Don't ask.New things One thing I can say for certain, this challenge is getting me to do a lot of things I've never done before. For a long time, and I guess still to this day, I didn't really post in the general site forums like the technical supports ones because I figured I was too new to be much of help to anyone. Even if I knew how to do something that was being asked, I didn't want to jump into the conversation because I thought there would be a more senior member who could describe it better than me or perhaps even had a shortcut or something. I'm glad this challenge is making me sort of let go of that because really, it doesn't matter. If a member who has been here longer has an easier or better way to do something, they can share that and maybe I can learn something new as well. Content rating The first one I responded to was in the "Non-Technical Support Forum" . It was about the rating system and what to rate certain items. I felt fairly confident in my response, "Re: Question Regarding Content Rating System" . I remember having that same issue with my blog at one point. I wasn't sure where I should be, but I knew it was somewhere between 18+ and GC. I went ahead and bumped it up to GC because it's important for me to say whatever I want here. If I'm having a rough day and I want to rant like crazy, I need to be able to do that with gratuitous cursing. Getting into the biz The next was a response over in "Noticing Newbies" . This is a fun forum because all you're doing is learning about new members and welcoming them to the site. I really should be more active over there because I talk to new members a lot through reviewing their work. Why wouldn't I want to know a little more about them before I find one of their items on the "Read a Newbie" page? I posted this "Re: How do I get into this biz?" in response to a new member introduction. He sounds like a cool dude!The chapter dilemma I responded to another post in the Noticing Newbies forum, "Re: Hello, my name is Sophie! " . This one led into a conversation about creating chapters vs. posting a whole story as one item. When asked, I responded with "Re: Re: Re: Hello, my name is Sophie! " . I've always thought it's better to break a longer novella or novel up into shorter chapters. I can't think of many people who have time to read a 50kb story all at once. It's much easier for the reviewer if that's broken up into five 10kb chapters or even ten 5kb chapters. I know I have a super short attention span, so that might partially be my fault, but I have a lot of trouble focusing for longer stories. I'll get about three paragraphs in, then feel overwhelmed by the length and just give up because I know I can't concentrate through the whole thing. Please tell me I'm not the only one who does that? Returning member My last post was in "Writing.Com General Discussion" for a returning member who has been here a couple times and ended up leaving for one reason or another. It was similar to welcoming a newbie, but a little different because he has been here in the past as a preferred author even. In my post, "Re: Returnee" , I discussed a song he mentioned and the art of teaching others. He responded back talking a bit about his past time on the site and the fear beginners have, to which I responded with "Re: Re: Re: Returnee" . I do think fear is a huge issue for beginners in any aspect of life. If someone's too afraid to take the leap or are convinced they're going to fail, it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. |
Artist: The Shins Album: Wincing The Night Away Song: Girl Sailor [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics Blog City: "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." JK Rowlings Do you agree with this? Blogging Circle of Friends: Day 774: Wednesday, December 31, 2014 "Forget yesterday--it has already forgotten you. Don't sweat tomorrow--you haven't even met. Instead, open your eyes and your heart to a truly precious gift--today." Steve Maraboli Do you agree or disagree with this quote? Why or Why not? Welcome to my Reality: Looking out the closest window to you right now, what do you see? Welcome to the last blog entry of 2014! I can't believe I've almost been here a year. I have, what, one month to go until this blog is one year old. I bet I'll be running out of space soon. I've had a lot of fun on WDC this year, although I'm surprised I've stuck with it. I don't tend to stick with things for prolonged periods of time, but I guess that's the power of writing and socializing. I woke up at 4 or 4:30 this morning feeling pretty sick. It totally sucks because it's New Year's Eve! I want to have fun and go out, ya know? My stomach hurts though and I've not eaten today, so drinking much probably won't be an option. That's okay though. I can still have fun without drinking. It's just, ya know, one of those things where everyone else is drinking and you've gotta be the lame-o trying to laugh along with their drunken adventures. I hope I don't end up being DD. I don't think I've ever been sick on New Year's Eve before. That's alright though. I'm sure it'll still be fun. Can you see me trying to convince myself? About the prompts today, I agree with the BCOF and Blog City quotes. They're kind of similar too, don't you think? Sort of the idea that you should live in the moment and appreciate what you have now rather than worrying about the past or future. It's kind of strange that they were picked together on the same day. Great minds think alike, yeah? I wasn't going to write an entry today, but then I thought, it's the last day of the year, so I've gotta finish out with an entry. This one's easy enough too. When you were too much about your future goals or past failures, you aren't allowing yourself to live in the present. It's unfair to yourself. I admire people who can stay in the moment and not worry about things that have already happened or haven't happened yet. I'm totally not like that. I worry about a lot of things and I'm very thoughtful about potential outcomes of various situations. I do think I'm getting better with that though. When I was younger, I had a hard time taking care of situations because I was so afraid of what could happen. It's so much easier to just avoid things sometimes, but in the end, it just leaves you with more to worry about for a longer period of time. I'm trying to take things one day at a time now and confront my problems more directly. It always feels good to resolve something rather than worry about them. It gives you more of a chance to appreciate the positive things you have for the time being. I went with the Welcome to my Reality prompt about what I see out the window today because I don't feel well and it requires so little thinking. I live in an apartment complex and have lived in various ones for several years. The view is always the same because fuck paying an extra $50 a month for a tiny man-made lake view. When I look out the window, I see a parking lot. I forget sometimes that not everyone has a parking lot outside their living room window. There are a bunch of cars, people walking their dogs, some nice landscaping with small trees. Apartment trees never get big. Every apartment I've ever lived in has these small saplings all lined in rows. It's like they get cutdown after they get too big and replanted. I do have a slightly better view at this apartment than my last one. The last one was literally just a blacktop parking lot with garages in the back. You couldn't see anything outside of that. This one has a nice green patch between two of the buildings in the complex. There's a big patch with some more landscaped trees and stuff. You learn to appreciate patches of grass in the city. It might not seem like much, but it's good for the mind.Hopefully someday I'll have a super nice view to talk about outside my window, but that day is not today. Still though, it's not so bad. See, I'm appreciating the now. Have a nice New Year's Eve, ya'll. Be careful, don't drink and drive.  Just a moment or two from now Not a mind will retain even a trace Of the thoughts that I struggled to tell And how our stack of cards just fell |
Artist: The Mountain Goats Album: The Sunset Tree Song: This Year [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics BCOF: As the year closes, many of us consider New Year's Resolutions. On January 1st, we are opening a brand new 365 page book about what? This book is our opportunity to create something unique. Do you make resolutions? What's the first page/chapter of your book going to say? Blog City: What is your formula of sticking to New Year's resolutions or any other promises to yourself, after making them? Welcome to my reality: We are fast approaching the end of 2014 what are your goals/hopes/wishes/dreams for 2015? It’s all about the New Year today, huh? I haven’t even locked down what I’ll be doing tomorrow night, but I can only imagine it’ll involve gratuitous amounts of alcohol and party horns. I was actually supposed to do something with my brothers, but then the whole Christmas dinner thing happened and now I haven’t really talked to anyone, even though I was totally uninvolved in the entire situation, I guess people are still feeling awkward. Doesn’t matter though, I’ll just hang out with my best friend and see what we can get into. It’s nice to be friends with him again after months of fighting. It’s so much easier to always have someone to hang out with at the last minute. We’re starting 2015 and I know the first page of my book will probably be written right here in my blog. I’m thinking it’ll go something like this: “Oh man, why did we drink so much? My head hurts. I’m gonna vomit.” Really though, my 365 page book starts the same way every year. I’m usually happy that all the holidays are over and we can all just hunker down and wait for Spring to come. I know most people hate the stretch between New Years and Spring, but I don’t think it’s so bad. The worst stretch for me is after Halloween to after the New Year. There are so many holidays and family events and expectations. I’m not into the holidays at all. The New Year is always a fresh start for me. I can maybe have a better year than the one before, and that’s a good feeling. I always plan for the best.I have a lot of goals for 2015 that I hope I'm able to realize. For one thing, I start college full-time in two weeks. I hope that I'm able to maintain a healthy balance between work and school. I want to get really good grades so that my transfer process to uni is easier in a couple years. I guess those are my two main goals for 2015. I want to keep up with my job and making the same amount I am now while also getting a high GPA. If I can somehow do both of those things, I'll consider it a successful year. There are a lot of things hanging over my head right now, but I have to straighten out my priorities in the new year and not get hung up on things. I have a tendency to worry a lot about the possibilities of a situation before I know all the details. Life is stressful like that, but worrying about something before it happens just builds anticipation and makes it worse. So, in the new year, I'm going to try to work on my relationships with the people in my life, including myself. I'm going to try to not work myself up over things and go with the flow a little more, if possible. I'm going to try to not be so impulsive with the things I do and say. I think in order to create better relationships with the people around me, I need to work on fixing my own issues too. I don't think there is an exact formula for sticking to New Year's resolutions. Every year is different for me, and I definitely don't sit down and make a list of things I want to do by a certain time in the new year. Like, I wouldn't ever have an exact goal like, "I want to lose twenty pounds by June" or whatever like that. My goals are much more open-ended, like improving relationships and stuff like that. There's never this big disappointment like, "Aw, I broke my New Year's resolutions!" because mine are so vague and subjective that I'll neither succeed nor fail. If anything, I try to stick to them by reminding myself of things I said I was going to do. So, if I'm getting impulsive about doing something, I can say to myself, "You said you weren't going to do things like this anymore." Sometimes I can almost guilt trip myself into not doing something, just by telling myself that I promised not to do it. I'd say the success rate on that is 50/50. It works sometimes and doesn't others. All you can do is hope that it'll work the next time. I try not to put too much pressure on myself. There will be feasting and dancing In Jerusalem next year I am going to make it through this year If it kills me |
Artist: Vampire Weekend Album: Modern Vampires of the City Song: Step [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics Blog City: Where teaching in schools and universities are concerned, shouldn't character be as important as the intellect? Shouldn't students who are otherwise smart and capable be held responsible for the crimes they commit, such as bullying, robbery, rape, and destructiveness, or should we just overlook their crimes because they are so capable? BCOF: Do you have a special or traditional food that you eat on New Year's Day? or Do you have a recipe for one the traditional foods that you would like to share? Serious question: When do you just give up on family relationships? I mean, really, when is it just not worth it anymore? I didn't see my family for years and now the past two holiday dinners (Thanksgiving and Christmas) there have been family arguments. Somehow, I haven't been directly involved in any of them, but I hate doing these family things now because there's always something awkward that arises. I don't know if all families are like this after the children become adults and bring others into the family, but I'm so not into it. Our next one will be in a month for my niece's birthday and I can't see how it's possibly going to work after my brother's longtime girlfriend got into a fight with my mother last night over the girlfriend's treatment of my niece. It's just so uncomfortable and even though I want to have a relationship with my family, I don't want to do these dinners that are full of tension and arguments. Of course, if I refuse to go these functions, I won't really have a relationship with the family as a whole. I mean, I see my brothers occasionally, but that's it. If it weren't for these family dinners several times a year, I would never see my parents or grandparents. I guess I could just start seeing them separately on occasion and skip out on the family stuff that is done as a whole group, but that seems even more odd to me. I'm used to family dinners being full of passive aggressive comments toward me by my father, but I'm not used to these all out yelling, debating, arguing things. Not a fan. Anyway, moving on to the Blog City prompt, um, yeah, I think everyone should be held responsible for serious crimes they commit. If there's one thing in life I've learned, it's that there is always someone who is better than you at whatever it is. There's someone who's smarter or more athletic. None of us are necessities to any school team. If you're awesome at basketball, but you also like to date rape, you should go to prison so a better person can fill your shoes. Moral character doesn't matter at all to me. Moral character should not have a stake in anything professional or scholastic, in my opinion. If I don't agree with someone's lifestyle, but they're super capable of doing something I need them for, I kind of need to get over it. Crimes that hurt other people though, like rape and bullying, are a legal issue, not a moral character issue, and they should be dealt with accordingly. Food on New Year's Day? No way. I'm always way too sick from the night before to even think about eating. The best I can do on New Year's Day is nurse my headache with some dim light and drink a bunch of water until my situation improves. I've never really heard of traditional New Year's Day food, but if there was one, it would be something light that goes down easily. I dunno, maybe salad? Salad is my go-to meal when I really need to eat something but can't seem to force anything down. Yeah, I'll definitely go with a generic salad for my New Year's Day meal. Maybe she's gone and I can't resurrect her The truth is she doesn't need me to protect her We know the true death, the true way of all flesh Everyone's dying, but girl - you're not old yet |
| We're on Day 3 of the "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" 12 Days of Christmas challenge already. Where does the time go? I swear, I lose days somewhere. It doesn't even feel like a Saturday because everyone's been off work since Wednesday or whenever. It feels like it should be a Monday or Tuesday. But anyway, today's challenge has to do with The Quill Awards and the power of the number three. Out of respect for the power of the number three, head on over to "Invalid Item" and nominate three of your favorite items, activities, or people from the past year. My experience My first experience with the Quill Awards wasn't long after I'd joined the site. I think it was sometime in February and I was drunk in IRC just chatting people up like I'd known them forever. I remember Fivesixer being there and I think we'd just finished or were currently doing the first Soundtrackers challenge. I had just gotten into blogging so I'm not sure how well we knew each other then. I do remember talking to him a lot though, because he's awesome, right?  This year I definitely plan to be there for the Quill Awards. I think it'll be a lot of fun now that I know everyone a lot better too. It was fun before, but it was just like a chaos of things going on. I wasn't sure what I was even looking at while following the chat and forum where announcements were being made. Now I know more about the way it works and how nominations/judging works. I'm definitely excited for it this year! The nominees I was planning on nominating people this year, but I wasn't exactly sure how it worked, so I'm glad you had us do this, Jeff. My nominees are people who I have a lot of respect for in this community. I chose people who are hardworking and good writers. Is there a limit on how many people I can nominate? I'll definitely go back and nominate more people before the deadline's up because there are so many deserving people here who do deserve recognition for their writing and their community involvement. WDC to me is like a set of gears and we need all the different types of people and writers to make it work, so it's nice to have something like the Quill Awards where you can nominate people who are working hard on the forefront and behind the scenes. Lyn When I saw the Best New Group category, I thought of Blog City. Not only did Lyn's a sly fox  work hard on building the group before we even knew each other, she also took the reins when the group was dropped on her in the middle of the Game of Thrones challenge. We all know how intense GoT was, but Lyn managed to do a kickass job of leading our team in the challenge AND leading a new blogging group. I'm sure it would have been much easier to just drop one of the two, but Lyn didn't need to do that because she's a focused and hardworking person.It isn't just Lyn that makes Blog City great though. I'm a part of many blogging groups on the site and none of them have the general community spirit and blogger interaction that Blog City has. That doesn't mean that other groups aren't great too, but Blog City is the mecca of social blogging on the site, in my opinion. If you want to find a place where you can blog and meet new people at the same time, I think most of us would recommend Blog City. The members there are the bee's knees. Ky Cinn Frin was another easy choice, it's just a matter of which category to nominate her in because she could easily fit into so many of them. I ended up going with her for Best Poetry Collection with "2014" . Cinn  and I have bonded over many things, but I think poetry was our first and strongest way of bonding. We both love free verse and her collection from this year has over thirty poems that range from good to awesome. We all know what Ky does around the site with helping new members and judging. I would have nominated "Invalid Item" , but I had no idea which category to put that in. If someone can tell me or nominate her yourself, that would be awesome. This group helps newbies so much by giving them inspiration and motivation when they need it the most. The smallest token of recognition in the beginning stages on this site are so important for keeping new members around.Tiggy I'm sure Tiggy doesn't feel like she deserves to be nominated for the Best Medium-Length Poem, Free Verse category. Can someone read "Crying windows" and help me prove her otherwise? This poem has excellent use of emotion and imagery that cradle and complement each other so well. I don't care what you say, Tiggy  , I already nominated it so just shhh. If I can figure out how to nominate a person for best reviewer, I'll probably throw a nom up for Tiggy in that category too. Her reviews are never repetitive and always helpful. She tells it like it is, but does it in a style that is supportive and thoughtful. Just from reading her reviews, you can tell that she puts a lot of time into it and tries to look at everything from different perspectives. Too bad I can't get any Tiggy reviews.  Now off... Now off to go nominate some more people. As I've been writing this, I've already thought of several more groups and people I want to nominate for various categories. See you all on Day four! |
Artist: Rilo Kiley Album: Take Offs and Landings Song: Go Ahead [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics Blog City: What do you think is the basic secret or secrets to meaningful relationships? By this, I mean any kind of a relationship, man-woman, parent-child, sibling to sibling, friendships, etc. Blogging Circle of Friends: Do you save things like greeting cards and ticket stubs? How sentimental are you about small things like this? I finished my Welcome to my Reality prompts for the week, so I'm doing these two prompts today. I've got some time, but I'm going to see my friend, Jordan, later and we're going to try to get to the bottom of my current dilemma. It's kind of a shitty day for it, because my family is doing a lunch this tomorrow, so I have to be up early in the morning. Let's just hope this family get together doesn't end in tears like Thanksgiving did. On the topic of secrets for meaningful relationships, someone please tell me if you find out. I'm apparently going about the whole thing wrong because I constantly have bad, awkward, or otherwise negative aspects to my relationships. I think there are a few basic things that help build the base of a relationship, like trust and a general fondness of each other. Without both of those, it's screwed from jump street. But surely there has to be something more to it than that, right? If there's one thing I lack in relationships (romantic, family, and friends) it's that I have a lot of trouble putting someone else before myself. I think that I do it all the time and I'll even complain about putting more into a relationship than the other person, but really, I'm only putting in and taking away what benefits me. That isn't how you have meaningful relationships with people. You don't compare all the things you've done for them with all the things they've done to you. I also think one of the secrets is appreciating the small things. You have to have a balance of big picture and small frames. You have to know when to do which too. Look at the big picture when something's going wrong so that you don't get overwhelmed. Look at the small frames when everything's cool so you can be truly grateful of the positive things the other person does. Man, it looks so easy written out, why do I have so much trouble applying it? Being sentimental I think runs in my family a little bit. My grandparents have ever card I made them as a child for birthdays, Christmas, etc... Of course, I stopped making them by the time I was ten or so, but they have a shoebox full of cards, letters, postcards, drawings, etc... The postcards and letters are mostly from my teen years when I wasn't around to see them, but still wanted to maintain contact while keeping a distance. So basically, "Here's this postcard from DC, but don't tell anyone I wrote you or where I am." I don't have a lot of things to be sentimental about. By the time I was seventeen or so, I was down to one bag that had clothes and journals. I don't have anything from before 17 or 18 years old. I mean, nothing. Well, wait, I have a couple journals, but that's it. I don't have any photos, CDs, records, books, birthday cards, childhood toys or blankets, knick knacks, jewelry, gaming systems, concert tickets etc... Whatever people typically hold sentimental value in, I don't have. I had to throw everything away through moving so much and going from couch to couch. My entire life was in one very small bag for years. Now that I've settled down quite a bit, I have a lot of material things, but nothing that a person would consider sentimental. My house if full of things I've bought myself, like electronics, books, furniture, etc... It's hard to be sentimental about things you've worked for yourself. I could trash everything in my apartment and feel nothing. Well, except it was suck because I worked hard for the stuff. I just mean I have no sentimental attachment to it. So, to answer the question, I would be sentimental if I had anything worthy of sentimental value. If you want to find yourself by travelling out west Or if you want to find somebody else that's better Go ahead Go ahead |
| It's Day two of the "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond" 12 Days of Christmas challenge. I'm ready to spread some holiday cheer with this one. Today's challenge is to send out a couple unsuspected merit badges or awardicons and then write about it. Easy enough, yeah? The gifts I put emphasis on the 'surprise' part of this challenge. If I'm told to give two unexpected gifts and I give them to the people I always randomly gift, it isn't really much of a surprise. I wanted to give something that was out of the ordinary for the receiver and for me as the gifter. On the site, I try to help out the new members as much as I can by giving reviews and offering help with general site navigation. I don't know how effective I am, but I do try. In trying to think of a surprise gift though, I realized that I've never sent a Welcome merit badge to any new members. What better way to welcome a new member to the site? The recipients I decided to find two new members that didn't have any community credit yet and joined the site this month. I think getting a small gift like that early on can be a lot of encouragement for a new member. Of course, I wanted to find ones that have been active in their short time here, so I started going through my email to see who I've talked to and reviewed in the last month. Part A The first person was pretty much a given. I've talked to MichelleP  quite a bit and we've both been reviewing each other's stuff the last week or so. I don't know about her, but I've stalked her port a little bit and read a lot of her poetry and whatnot. She has a lot of emotion and imagery in her words. I'm an fiend for emotion and imagery, if you haven't worked that out yet. She's also done quite a few reviews herself for only being here, what, nine days? Here is my favorite poem of hers so far, if you want to check it out: "Pretty Boy" ![Merit Badge in Welcome
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Welcome to WDC, Michelle! I hope your experience is as enjoyable as mine has been. *^*Smile*^*](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/general-Welcome.gif) Part B The second person I sent a merit badge to was S Grace . She writes free verse poetry, which is my favorite thing ever. I thought of her because she told me something that reminded me of when I was younger that I'd totally forgotten about. There was this book called The Perks of Being a Wallflower that came out when I was younger, probably eight or nine or something. Anyway, it got really popular with the kids in my school when we were like twelve or thirteen. Everyone kept telling me that I reminded them of the main character and his name was Charlie too. They kept urging me to read it, but of course in my rebellious "No, I'm my own person! The character and I cannot be alike because I'm so unique" phase, I refused to read it. Now I'm 23 and probably too old to read it and appreciate it the way I could've then if I would've stopped being so stuck up. Anyway, this has to do with S Grace because she said she likes the name Charlie after reading the book. Totally not the point of this challenge, but it jogged my memory on something I'd forgotten, so it was cool. If you want to check out my favorite poem of hers, here you go: "Losers Road" Wait, you are a girl, right? |
Artist: The Get Up Kids Album: On A Wire Song: Overdue [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Lyrics Welcome to my Reality: What's the strangest dream you ever had? Blog City: What's more noticeable to you a person's facial expression or their body language when you are talking? Yay, we made it to the 26th, or Returns Day, as we called it in retail. No, I have no idea why your in-laws got you rabbit-themed salt and pepper shakers. I'm sorry that you hate rabbits.. and salt.. and pepper... It was a very wino Christmas around my place. I really laid into it and watched a bunch of Christmas movies. Hey, any day full of wine and movies has to be a decent one at least, right? I am happy it's over though, truthfully. I might've gotten myself in some deep shit, but I have no idea yet. I'm hoping that I'm just hearing some shady rumors and can get it figured out over the weekend. Either nothing is going on at all or I've completely fucked up my life, so I'm trying to keep myself busy until my friend gets back into town and can help me get to the bottom of it. That means full immersion into work and writing stuff, but hopefully everything's just cool and blown out of proportion. That's pretty much best case scenario at this point. It's funny because all my life, when things go wrong, I've been like, "Man, everyone around me is an asshole." I'm only just now realizing that I've been the asshole all along. Facial expressions vs. body language is an interesting concept. I believe this is the setup I'd use: eyes > body language > facial expression. I mean, some people can't help the way their face looks. You know, the people with resting bitch face who always looked pissed off or upset even when they're completely fine. I don't put much stock into someone's facial expressions as a whole.Body language though, there's something you could go off. If someone's body is turned away from you, that means they want to end the conversation, even if their top half is facing you. If someone's standing tall and has their arms crossed or on their hips, they're probably defiant/about to argue with you. Someone's posture says a lot about them. Some people stand around like they're trying to sink into the ground below them. If someone rubs their palms together while you're talking to them, they're about to ask you to do them a favor and have confidence you're going to say yes. I mean, none of those are foolproof. Sometimes people just do things and it doesn't mean anything, but the majority of the time, body language doesn't lie. Eyes and eyebrows are the biggest indicator to me of how someone really feels. I learned at a young age to make eye contact with people, so I do it regularly, unless I'm upset. The smallest thing in someone's eyes tells you what they're really thinking. You know what I mean. Something is said and the person raises one eyebrow for a half second, their eyes light up. They're amused by the situation. In another situation, something flashes through their eyes, they break contact, and their brows furrow for a half second before they continue eye contact. Something just pissed them off, watch out. Their pupils dilate, their gaze softens. You're about to get laid. Good job. Although, I guess eyes are part of body language, yeah? On the subject of dreams, I guess I'm a bit out of the loop on this one. I rarely remember mine. I know it takes more than an hour of full sleep to reach the dream point, REM, or whatever. I don't sleep very well at all unless I'm messed up and in the 'pass out' stage, and of course I don't remember dreams at that point. I remember having lots of them when I was younger and in school. I'm assuming those were anxiety dreams because they magically stopped after I moved out. Even now, I only get them when I'm super stressed out and they're always stressful dreams where I need to do something but am unable to accomplish it for whatever reason. When I try to walk, my legs don't work and if I'm being attacked, every punch I throw misses. Luckily, I don't get those too often. Am I the only one who hates listening to people talk about dreams? Like, I'm writing this right now feeling super bored even though I thought the question sounded fun at the beginning. I mean, if someone has a legit dream and they can tell it pretty quickly, then it's okay. Unfortunately, the type of people who talk about dreams are usually the ones who ramble on for a million years about what it could mean and it's full of new age theories they read in a book one time. All of a sudden they're talking about auras and what they mean. Then they're suddenly reading your aura and you just want to ask if they can tell that the conversation's aura is black because it totally sucks.I did have a dream once when I was probably twelve or so and I was in a very specific house during the dream. Red carpeted stairs, loft room with a teal cloth sofa and a bar in the corner with stools and writing on the countertop. I mentioned it to my ma and she knew what I was talking about right away. It was super weird because she started telling me about the house in my dream before I could finish and I totally thought we had the same dream the night before or something. It turns out the house was just where we lived when I was super young and it was a recalled memory, possibly from hearing conversations or seeing photos. That's as strange as my dreams get, I guess. You're a few years overdue. I spent them waiting here for you. Now your charity's refused, I can name a penance for abuse. |
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