Sex, Lies & Online Profiles (Or Posing For Fun & Profit)

Creating profiles seems to be the bane of my existence as a writer and “online personality,” so while working on a profile for that new project I was looking for something I’d previously used that I could cut, paste and tweak a bit.

When I found my old LiveJournal (don’t bother to click; there’s only the one post and I’m sharing it below), I had a good giggle. The sole entry (because I lost all password recovery options) is dated from January 10th, 2005, and reads:

I am moody, enjoy being moody for the most part. And I like things that elicit moods, such as books, weird finds at thrift shops, strange items & photographs, and the thoughts of other people. I enjoy weird writings, even if I must make them myself.

Dark, dark is good, but I do not like the disgusting shock-value or wannabe-goth dark. Dark is a place. A mood. Not a place constructed by mere crass comments, incredible images, or the grotesque-on-display.

I enjoy intelligent discourse. As long as it’s not too brainy. (I don’t like to read web articles or posts that require footnotes.)

Humor is good. Humor is subjective. I heartily enjoy good subjective laughter.

I believe creativity is the spawn of Dark & Humor. Somewhere in the incompatibility, the wry sparks intelligence that seeks a life of it’s own.

I enjoy chocolate before, during & after sex.

In don’t enjoy long walks on the beach holding hands, unless we are holding hands to hold one another up, laughing so hard are we at some hideous find, some inappropriate humor.

I dislike intensely cutesy animated gifs & websites with insipid ‘music.’

I am curious as to how this works, both from the tech side & the culture/social aspect. A tad uncomfortable even.

I’m not really quite sure what that last line was all about… I’d been writing online for roughly five years already by that point. Was the “blogging” software that new to me? (I do recall finding the display of mood by text and emoticon as insipid as embeded music.) I’d have to use the Wayback Machine to verify the publishing mechanism of the old columns and websites back then– and I’m not in the mood.

Or maybe I was posing as a newbie so that no one would be able to connect that LJ user to the professional me. That’s what that whole “I enjoy intelligent discourse. As long as it’s not too brainy. (I don’t like to read web articles or posts that require footnotes.)” thing was about. How funny!

Funny that my self-described identification as a writer was so tied to intelligence and even footnotes that I thought my best disguise was “not too brainy.” What, do I own both the attribute and the ability to properly attribute documents? lol

Funny that my level of paranoia at being “found out.” Just avoid your legal name and other specific information guaranteed to be found via a search engine, and you can’t be found — at least not with any degree of certainty by even the most smugly sure of themselves. Omission is the key, not little lies.

Funnier still that it reads rather like a dating site profile or something.

Ah, but what really prompts me to post all this is the thought that your profiles are like mini-memoirs…

Memoirs, as a genre, are not like biographies or autobiographies. Our limited sense of self combined with our abundant egos creates both the space and need for fiction; fiction to fill in the spots left by the fallible fragility of human memory, inspired by the need for the delicate deceptions we tell ourselves. In fact, memoirs are rather more like narrative non-fiction or, if we are so deluded that we present ourselves in the correct time and place yet doing and saying things through the filter of wishes, they even become historical fiction.

In fact, it has me wondering if autobiographies can really be so distinct from memoirs at all.

Reading our profiles — even the current ones, is not only to laugh, cringe &/or be puzzled by that moment’s snapshot of our own psyche, but to wonder, if at some future time someone should feel it’s warranted, how our own words would color the research and writing done by our biographers…

Why would we even need to fear the filter of the biographer? Our own recollections and presentations get in the way!

When it does come to the filter or agenda of the biographer, perhaps their bias is far more important, even necessary, than typically thought. For certainly their own human reaction to our own (sad, amusing, trite, etc.) constructs is one way to get past the posing and self-fiction to a more real truth about ourselves.

And it is for this reason — certainly not my personal discomfort and loathing! — that I wish for someone else to write all my own bio boxes and profiles.

Co-Misery Loves Company

So I’ve been away for awhile. Normally, I wouldn’t even bother to address it — if anyone cared to ask or whine about it, I’d just tell them to kiss my ass.

[What? Am I paid to talk to you? There are many upsides to self-publishing, but a guarantee of "a blogger blogging" isn't one of them. You get what you pay for; and since you've paid absolutely nothing, I am not compelled to do anything more -- or less, when I'm loquacious with the logorrhea -- than I feel like.]

But lately I’ve been hanging with my girls, licking our wounds. Now, before you go dreaming of lusty lesbian scenes and making puns about gashes, let me tell you that there’s nothing sexual involved. And it hasn’t even been particularly fun.

…At least not in the usual knee-slapping variety of frivolous gaiety that passes as “fun” for most people.

You see, these women, like myself, are survivors of domestic violence. Along with the boatload of issues you’ve managed to absorb from the various media portrayals (news, talk shows and dramatic tellings alike) you’ve likely clicked to bypass as soon as you recognized the subject matter, there’s a shitload more that we deal with. Especially if you are, as we are, mothers.

[Yeah, I kiss my kids goodnight with this potty mouth.]

Anyway, we’ve long been talking about sharing a place to talk in public about this under-exposed societal disease which threatens the lives of women and children — even after they are separated from their abuser. Naturally, there are plenty of official sites and legitimate organizations covering the issue, and I wouldn’t knock them for nothin’, but we felt there was something missing… Something that would be as beneficial to the public at large as it would be for us, the private at smalls, I guess.

So we’re working on that. Stay tuned, as the saying goes

Hard Read

Commentary comic about women who don’t like men to take short-cuts. *wink*

The Situation With The Books

We moved recently, which is always a pain. Months later, I’m still having spaz attacks — tonight over The Situation With The Books.

My husband, in his quest to get everything unpacked, rammed the contents of our individual and joint book collections onto the shelves; the results have left me cranky.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m anal enough that I use the dewy decimal system to organize my books, but I do prefer them organized.

There are several parts to my system: grouping and physical placement.

1. Grouping

I group my books loosely by topic, so that I can find them. There are admittedly blurry distinctions and overlaps that true librarians might gasp at; but then my system simply has to work for me. Currently the only consistency in grouping is “whatever boxes hubby had around him at the time that fit on the shelf,” which is so not helpful when you want to find your 18th century courting customs book.

While I don’t care how he arranges his books (his books and the finding — or not finding thereof is his problem), I am hyper critical regarding the physical placement of books in terms of appearance.

2. Physical Placement / Appearance

This is essential to me because books which appear to be put away with all the care of a child forced to clean his room, shoved in any place so that the floor is clean, means there are books that seem to be ready to tumble towards the floor.  This is not a matter of Type A personality, for dust can and will accumulate; but “shoved” shows a lack of overall care — and my psyche cannot rest with such disheveled shelves.

It’s like I hear the chaos.

And I fear it.

My antique books cannot withstand such dastardly deeds as falls to the floor and uneven spines — and all my books are my friends, and I take care of my friends.

The physical placement of my library is based on the delicate balance between my preferred general sense of care and the realities of limited space.

The limited space issue is a practical reality which I grudgingly accept. While hubby is willing to box his books and pack them away, I cannot. I will not. How can I discover and read them then? How can I use them for research that way?

No, the best way to deal with this is to maximize shelf space.

Here’s how I address it:

A) All books must be placed as far back onto the shelves as is possible. This allows for double rows, or, in the case of over-sized tomes, no spines hanging over to bump. (You’d think this is obvious, but my husband apparently thinks that placing books in the middle of the shelf is best — for what indeterminable reason I cannot fathom.)

B) Books of similar size ought to be placed together; this way, if you must slide a particularly oversized volume along the top, it will lay flat — not only looking less precarious, but presenting less risk of damage to the binding. This also might allow for some sections of the shelf to be double-rowed.

C) All paperbacks ought to be laid flat and stacked. This not only maximizes space by using the full height of the shelf space, but it easily allows for double-rows of on a single shelf. And such stacks also make it much easier for browsing and hunting for books (it is much easier to lift a stack up to peer behind it than to tip or grab a handful at a time).

D) When trying to keep your books in your previously defined groups, there will be times when hardcovers must also be laid flat and stacked; double-rowed, where possible.

I realize many of my rules of book organization may be an anathema to many serious book collectors, but until I hit the lottery or there’s a grant for book collectors like myself, I must work with what I have. And what I have are thousands of books, finite floor space, very limited shelving, and even more limited funds.

And a husband who just doesn’t seem to have the book angst I do.

I’ve Shaved My Head

I’ve shaved my head – again. This time it’s purpose is to mark the passage of time. Calendars and clocks do not seem to suffice; nor do they seem concrete enough for the issues I am measuring.

Photo by Rust2d; also at DeviantArt.