avphibes

So, For the past two years or so, I've been trying to be "incognito." Now I once again want to be incog-NEATO! (oh god, please make me stop!) But seriously, identity can be a slippery eel that's hard to keep a grip on. I had a dream when I was a young whippersnapper that my life would be interesting and exciting. The price one pays for this is facing a greater number of challenges, both internal and external. When I was younger, my battles always seemed to be external: Me vs. the world and other people. With age, the battles became more internal: me vs. me vs. me. The downside of an "interesting" life is that it has to change all the time and you have to change with it.

Often, when I'm in transition between one "self" and another, I withdraw into a sort of neutral place and re-emerge when I feel like I'm on steady footing. Often the transition involves rejecting the past self. Sometimes I have this visual picture of myself from one year to the next, all the me's standing side by side, then I see all the me's make a 90 degree turn to the right and slap the preceding one upside the head. And so I rejected the past self.
Only problem is: then I started thinking "but wait! my past self DID have so much fun! I STILL WANT THAT!" and so, in the process of rejection, there was a sort of re-integration. Thank god, because this "neutral" phase has gone on for almost three damned years.

Much of my problem stemmed from placing my "self" out there for public consumption. I made myself a "brand;" and not only my social life, but my career was tied to it. I chafe under the pressure of having to behave a certain way and live up to specific expectations and when I perceived the "expectation" as coming from some anonymous consciousness in the outside world, I started hiding inside (if that sounds way neurotic, I assure you...it is!)

Now, being "incognito" has been kind of a lovely learning experience in itself. When I was a kid, I felt like an outsider involuntarily... I was "different" and didn't want to be. When I was a young adult, I decided to be "different" on purpose. It became very important to me to be seen and to express myself in everything I did. Once that became a duty instead of a privilege, it just wasn't as fun anymore. It felt burdensome. I didn't want other people to be telling me who "myself" was. I went from "freedom" meaning being able to express myself to meaning I didn't have to express myself.

These incognito years were my chance to feel what it's like to be "normal." I mean, there's only so "normal" a person can be in New York, but I just tried to be as neutral as possible. I still have a certain "physical expressiveness" (aka: awkward nerdiness) that gives me away, but if I dressed normal, I could get away with it. It was nice not to be pre-judged. It was nice to be able to conceal or reveal myself willfully. It was nice to feel invisible. It was nice to be happy letting other people shine instead of clamoring for the spotlight. It was nice to watch from the outside for awhile.

Now I'm trying to take the timeline of my life and take all the disparate parts and re-assemble them into some integrated whole of who I am now. I'm also trying to balance the negative and the positive. I've always veered between either extreme. Either from the egotistical "I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW HOW GREAT MY LIFE IS!" to the paranoid: "Oh god...everyone just thinks I'm a name-dropping attention whore! Maybe I'm giving the wrong impression!" And the problem when you "put yourself out there" is that people will confirm both sides. Trouble was, I was at the point where I was like "I CAN'T BE WHAT YOU WANT ME TO BE! I WILL ONLY DISAPPOINT YOU! I CAN'T TAKE THE PRESSURE!"

So, yeah, self-re-assembly. Stay tuned.

 There comes a time when the only thing to do is throw out your old life and start fresh.  

 

Several years back, my whole fake-famous,/attention-whore schtick turned on me and suddenly the idea of people out there in the world and internetland knowing about me, combined with the fact that so much of my persona was a fragile maquette constructed to impress other people, made me turn super paranoid and reclusive.   There were times when I would write something and be afraid to post it because "people will read it and think things about me."  This was a bad time.

 

Anyhow, after lots of therapy, I am emerging from my lair.  But emerging with new boundaries and new intentions.  I want to be real with you internet, so let me lay it down for you:

 

1.  I no longer want this to be the "look at me and how lovably eccentric I am!" journal.

I will not be trying to impress you with how quirky and "interesting" I am.  I'm not going to post photoshopped pictures of myself in hopes of being told I'm hot.  I am not trying to prove anything to you.  If I get called "quirky" again, someone's getting slapped.

 

If you enjoyed my LJ of yore for my tales of partying and promiscuity and hipster shenanigans, well, I'm sorry, but that shit is played.  So unless you want to read posts like:  "whoa dude, that game of Cranium was fucking INsane!  I had to sculpt a frying pan out of clay!"  that's not likely to be happening anymore.

 

No more games, baby.   I don't need the cool kids to be my pretend friends anymore.  I know that this disappoints some people who think I'm too boring now and would feel more comfortable liking me if I just wore flashy outfits and did kitschy hipster stuff  and fronted that I was always at glamorous events.   Sorry kids, but I'm 35 damned years old.  At a certain point, my life had to stop being performance art and start being a life.  Also, the tragic irony was that in order for my life to appear to be that exciting, I had to spend, like, 7 hours a day in front of a computer making it look that way.

 

2.  No Drama

Look, I apologize for being a drama queen in the past and making everything into a huge deal.   I'm getting over my crippling insecurity,  I'm on medication.  We're cool now.  I don't mind if you friend or unfriend me.  If you get sick of me, I ENCOURAGE you to unfriend me.   If I  hate something you like or like something you hate, it's not the end of the world.  It's just the internet.  

 

If someone gets uppity or an argument breaks out, I'm just going to ignore it. I know that I will never convince anyone of anything.  When I get obnoxious, dumb comments I'm not even going to waste time on snarky replies.

 

So what is my intent?  

 

I've been contemplating my life for awhile, dear reader, and trying to figure out what I'm actually good at  so I can do more of it and be genuinely good at something. I feel like much of my life has been an exercise in wasted potential.  I am a knife in need of sharpening. 

 

I am fairly good at writing and fairly good at writing funny things, so I want to polish and hone those skills. I'm taking back to the internet like some kind of  writing Rocky running up writing stairs to get in writing shape for a writing boxing match...or, you know, just writing.  Since I've never really studied writing or written "for real," I figure I still have stuff to learn about style and editing and structure and discipline and whatnot.  I also want to be dilligent and quicken my wit until humor flows from me like urine from a hobo! Then maybe I can "do something with it."

 

Your job is (hopefully) just to be entertained. You can help me just by telling me when you think something I write is interesting and amusing so that I know what's working.  Also, if you know anything about "real writing" maybe you can tell me what's what, because I really don't know much of anything about it.

 

I'm going to start off slow because I have other work to do setting up a congruent "real blog" since, well, as much as I like it, most of the internet thinks LJ is amateur hour and you can't really monetize it (these cocktails don't pay for themselves!) and one young friend recently mocked me for being on LJ, by saying "get with the times, grandma!" 

I expect things to get seriously rolling by mid-september.  Glad you're still here!