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Monday, January 10, 2005
Dancing is the undefinable metaphor
It's such a subjective term. The first thought that probably comes to most minds is the act of physical dance, gyrating to a soul-moving beat, but for me, it goes so much beyond that.
Dancing is the ultimate metaphor. It is often used to describe certain conversational aspects (dancing around a subject) but it can also be used to indicate romantic or sexual overtures or even to describe more mundane things. I think that playing music can be a dance. It's a dance of your fingers over the fretboards or your dancing voice, trilling up and down the scale. Dancing can be the simple act of walking down the street in time to an imaginary rhythm.
I believe I dance in everything I do. I believe that dance is what life is all about. The gyrations, the definition, none of that matters, it's all about living your life as if each dance was your last, so throw yourself into it. Dance with a partner or dance in the corner alone, we are all always dancing, dancing together, even when we don't even realize it.
Take a minute to think about your life. Think about every majestic thing that you take for granted. Think about what it means to you when you see joy dance in the eyes of someone you love. Think about what dances you perform every day of your life.
Defining dance serves only to limit each one of us, to lock us into a mundane point of view that doesn't allow for dance to permeate our lives.
Dance your life to the fullest. Dance in your dreams, dance in your step and dance to whatever music you hear.
But don't limit yourself to thinking that dancing means structure or that it has to mean gyrations because that lack of structure, the truth in the word, the ultimate metaphor, that, my friends, is truly the meaning of life.
~FG };^>
Posted at 19:50 by FyreGoddess
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Sunday, January 09, 2005
Entirely bored. Logged into my game, played for an hour... got bored with that. Tried reading, couldn't concentrate, gave up. Cleaned the house yesterday, so that's done... still cold and snow outside, so there's no place to go even if we went out.
Seems it's a reverse from yesterday, when I was having fun or at least keeping busy while the kid complained all day about nothing to do (except the cleaning, which apparently doesn't count because it's not fun).
Blah... been a while since I've been *this* bored.
I really need something to entertain me.
It's larger than just bored right now. I think that it's just a symptom of the larger discontent I'm finding with everything. I crave change. I need it on a fairly regular basis and if I don't get it, it becomes extreme. Instead of needing to get out of town, I'll need to get out of the state, potentially to get out of the region. Instead of needing to rearrange the furniture or the wall hangings, I'll need to physically move. It has been far too long since I've had a really deep, overall altering change in my life. I'm ready for it... I'm feeling it burn at me... I'm just not sure how to get it, or even where to go.
~FG };^>
Posted at 15:57 by FyreGoddess
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Friday, January 07, 2005
I've been preoccupied lately. In part with things that I've already written about here, but also about random things that stop in my mind and stay for a while...
This song has been one of few consistently stuck in my head for a while. That and my favorite Anthem song are the two I've been bouncing back and forth between. I miss having music around me constantly, but in order to listen at work, I need headphones, and then I'm mostly cut off from a very musically-oriented group of people.
That's one of the answers I've discovered. I've been wondering for years why so many technical people are musically inclined, but I think it has a lot to do with it all being math. I explained to my son the other day that music is math, and so are computers. Several days later, it all clicked in my own head.
I feel very comfortable where I'm working right now. I love walking down the hall and hearing snippets of geek-chat. And it's all geek chat around there. I'm surrounded by programmers, techies, scientists, researchers. It's like a dream come true, only I didn't know I was having that dream.
I've decided that I don't understand why I feel so comfortable sending my feelings and personal thoughts out to the internet world. I enjoy my anonymity in a lot of ways, but when writing my blog, I just let it all out. It's funny, if this were a book journal, I would be very protective. In a lot of ways I'd feel invaded if people were to read something so private, but in this format I just don't mind. I guess it gives me a way to allow people to get to know me without giving too much of myself away.
Random thoughts and feelings are fair game, I guess. I don't think I really get into detail, because the details I already know. All I really need is a trigger for those memories.
~FG };^>
Posted at 19:00 by FyreGoddess
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Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Sometimes I am a stupid person
...like when I try to send hidden messages to people in the hopes of not obsessing only to find myself in a situation even more conducive to obsessive wondering and "what ifs". It's a new year now and I don't feel like anything has changed for the better. I'm exhausted all the time from the insane hours I'm working, I've confused the hell out of myself by trying to find a little clarity and I'm feeling more and more lonely (romantically? sexually?) as the days go by.
I want answers to questions that I am afraid to ask in the open. I want to be brave and bold, but instead cower inside an aloof public persona. I want this job, but I don't want to spend quite so long commuting... so I spend those hours every day daydreaming about things I am too scared to admit to in more than just a cryptic-link message kind of way.
*sigh*
*melodramatic mock faint*
Something is missing. This much I know. What is missing, I'm not entirely sure. I can feel inside of me these gaps begging to be filled, refusing to tell me with what... probably because I already know and just don't want to admit to wanting such a thing as I have denied, validly, for some time now.
What to do... what to do?
I have plans and hopes and pipe dreams and I do feel like I'm working toward them. These gaps, these plaguing monsters, if these holes were filled, they could keep me from some of the other things that I'm only just now in a position to achieve. It's all so hard... why is it that just when you start to feel like things are moving along the right path, all of a sudden you realize you need something more... for entirely unrelated reasons.
I just want to get to a space where I no longer have to worry about certain things. I want to be financially secure... I don't need to have a lot of money, just a little more than I need to get by... that would be nice. I could get there pretty soon if I keep up these insane hours for long enough My relationship with my kid is probably better than it's ever been, and everything is steady and good with the rest of the family. I am in good health (so far this winter, anyway). I like where I live (tho a bigger apt on this same block would be nice), love my neighbors, have good friends (when they're not copping out on me and leaving me to my on accord...
So why the hell, all of a sudden, do I want MORE out of life? Why, after several years of contentment am I yearning for a change in THAT area?
I don't like this feeling. I don't like this place. And now that I'm approaching a financial goal, I have to deal with a problem that can only be resolved by the ONE THING that I simply do not have any to spare...
Time.
~FG };^>
Posted at 21:54 by FyreGoddess
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Wednesday, December 29, 2004
I am just bad with journals
So there I was, offline for weeks. I kept thinking, "I should really sit down and write, save the text files and upload them later." Of course, I didn't actually do that.
It seems like a kind of a curse. I've tried keeping book journals before, but after some short time of writing with them, I always give up. I figured this time the blog would be easier, since I spend so much time on the internet anyway, but I'm apparently just BAD at keeping a journal.
So every now and again, when the moment strikes me just right, at least I know that I have the option to write it down and save it for another time.
~FG };^>
Posted at 19:46 by FyreGoddess
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Saturday, October 16, 2004
Gossip vs. News - Where do we draw the line?
A brief note. There have been several essays that I have posted in other forums that I would both like to keep and have available for others to read. This is one of those essays.
News
pl.n. (used with a sing. verb)
- Information about recent events or happenings, especially as reported by newspapers, periodicals, radio, or television.
- A presentation of such information, as in a newspaper or on a newscast.
- New information of any kind: The requirement was news to him.
- Newsworthy material: “a public figure on a scale unimaginable in America; whatever he did was news” (James Atlas).
Gos·sip
n.
- Rumor or talk of a personal, sensational, or intimate nature.
- A person who habitually spreads intimate or private rumors or facts.[li]Trivial, chatty talk or writing.
- A close friend or companion.
Ok, so now that we have definitions, what are you getting at, FG?
Well, I've been thinking a lot about this. I know a lot of people who discount gossip as something that women or secretaries do. Something that has no bearing on the world around us and "what's the point?" sort of things. In my experience, this is not the truth.
Rumor mills are very important to many cultures within the US - schools, workplaces, families, circles of friends, etc. If you have your ear to the ground and listen to (and share) gossip, you tend to know what's coming down the pipes. People may hear of layoffs well before they become official due to gossip or can prepare for a major event because of a rumor they heard. Gossip *can* be malicious, intending to hurt someone, but I find most often it's just an unofficial way of spreading news before it becomes REAL news.
But then I think about the news media. The mainstream media inundates us with stories that really fall more into the realm of gossip. The political bashing on both sides smacks of gossip to me. Most scandals involving sex or other indiscretions have little bearing on the running of the country, but take up so much of our reporters' time. We hear about how Kobe raped a woman or how Winona shoplifted, but it doesn't just come from entertainment sources or even infotainment, this stuff is coming from what we've long believed were valid and legitimate news sources.
So where do we draw the line? If our news consists mostly of gossip and our gossip consists of that which will be news (or already is in some cases), then why are we so reliant on mainstream news sources to supply us with a steady stream of little more than bigger gossip than we, personally, experience or hear?
Much of the American public hungers for the next scandal. We can't wait to hear about the exploits of our politicians, especially those we disagree with. When we are exposed to this information, some will notice it for what it is, but others cry out for more. The media feeds our hunger for "Rumor or talk of a personal, sensational, or intimate nature", while our need to be informed of things that affect us personally or globally is essentially ignored in many situations.
I don't know. It seems to me that we're sacrificing hard-hitting information of events of greater import for more palatable and scandalous gossip. I just wish I knew how to change it. In the meantime, I'll just keep my ear to the ground and my grapevine flourishing. I may be a gossip, but at least I'm rarely out of the loop.
~FG };^>
Posted at 23:14 by FyreGoddess
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Friday, October 15, 2004
FyreGoddess didn't start out as simply a character concept. She was a snarky joke at first, and somehow evolved into something more, some kind of anonymous extension of myself. I'm still the one with the lighter (though thankfully most others are also carrying fire with them most of the time now), but I'm also a superhero and a sim goddess and all these other things that FyreGoddess has evolved into.
That said, finding the right image to portray has been an interesting game. In TSO, when she first came into her own, it was simple using the creator. Medium skin tone, red hair - the only red hair truly befitting a goddess, IMO, evening gown for that aura of composure, beauty, grace... In City of Heroes, also a simple task. Superhero with fire-based powers, check. Medium/dark skin tone, check. Flaming red hair, gorgeous. Outfit in fire tones with fire accents, perfect. This, my friends, is the superhero identity of the FyreGoddess. Unfortunately, there are certain times when I want my overall online persona to cross platforms. At the core FyreGoddess is still me, still my overall online persona. People know me now, I'm not going to start over.
And herein lies the problem. When I posted primarily for TSO, I used my TSO face. In posting for CoH, I use my CoH face. But what about the other places? My friend made me a beautiful signature that sums up the overall feeling I have about FyreGoddess (see banner above for sig ;)), but now I just don't match.
It's fascinating really. This persona has a life of her own and a recognized identity, but I'm just not happy crossing platforms with an established, platform-specific face. The time has come to find an overall, encompassing visual that doesn't clash with the lovely graphic that fits all of that. Now I just have to figure out who I want me to be.
~FG };^>
Posted at 22:57 by FyreGoddess
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Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Instant Messaging is a curious thing for me. It is a rare moment that I am not signed into one, usually three, IM programs. However, it takes me a while to develop an IM relationship with someone.
I'm not one to make initial contact unless I have something important to say. I always fear imposing on someone or bothering them with my general (it's in my nature) inanity. Not that I don't have things to say in IM, good grief, I ALWAYS have something to say, I just wonder how important those things actually are... and if they're more important than whatever else the recipient could be doing at the time.
I've felt imposed upon when IMed by people who have pretty much nothing to say. I'm not talking about my friend who sends me pick up lines when I'm not at the computer, I mean people who IM just to say "hi", but continually prolong the lack of conversation by playing that nasty little IM game, <b>Last Word<b>.
You know the game of which I speak. There's no tone of voice in IM. Some people just have to have the last word. Saying goodbye becomes endless because of the barrage of "c ya", "bye" and "ttyl". What I consider to be imposing is just calling to say hello, having no conversation at all and THEN playing that game.
All that said, I don't think that I do that sort of thing. In fact, most of the time I IM out of boredom and conversation just forms. When I'm done, I tend to just sort of fade away or wander off, but getting to the point of just IMing out of boredom is difficult for me. I wonder if I am being perceived as imposing when I don't have a set purpose or a really good conversation starter.
*Side note... I find myself wondering if this is part of where the "Irreverent Question of the Month" came from. It probably started around the same time as my internet habit.*
For me, IM conversations are something that develop from email exchanges. Once you start going back and forth with someone in email, it's easy to transition that into a real-time discussion, and often it facilitates the communication and friendship-forming processes. When I don't get that part first, I just have no opening lines.
Sometimes, though, I lose touch with people for the exact same reason. I worry that I will be imposing upon them and simply do not double-click to say hello. Usually, though, if the relationship is well-formed, one of us will eventually say "Hey, I haven't talked to you in a while. What's going on?" The others fade away as any other acquaintanceship or friendship is liable to do if not maintained.
Maybe it's a self-esteem problem. Seems odd that I would worry more about that sort of thing online than off, but I think it's accurate. I am worried that what I have to say will be less interesting than what someone is already doing.
~FG };^>
Posted at 23:20 by FyreGoddess
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Tuesday, October 12, 2004
I don't know what it is, but I just cannot sleep these days. I still get up at a reasonable hour most of the time, but getting to bed is getting harder and harder. Making things worse is the fact that I do get tired around 10pm, when FyreSpawn (as he shall be known on my blog) goes to bed. That is, 10 pm if I'm lucky, more often it's between 8:30 and 10. Not very realistic to go to bed before the kid.
Anyway, what happens is that I wind up staying up that extra hour doing whatever I'm doing and by 11, I'm not at all tired anymore. Happens whether I smoke or not, so I don't think that's a contributing factor. Even more puzzling is that I discovered that I've been on decaf for the past 5 days or so. *Mental note, don't ask the kid to pick up coffee at Stewart's. Get it myself.*
I find myself wasted and useless in the morning, and then lying in bed awake at night. Last night I was up until around 4 or 5am. I kept going to bed, lying there restless for an hour or so and then getting up to try to wind down and make myself tired.
Tea, warm baths, none of it seems to work. I'd be tempted to pull out the old muscle relaxants if they hadn't expired - lol.
"Sleep is for the weak, I'll sleep when I'm dead." Lovely sentiment in jest, but in reality, this lack of sleep is liable to kill me one of these days, especially if I'm wasted, tired and trying to cross an Albany street. *Shudder*
~FG };^>
Posted at 00:34 by FyreGoddess
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Monday, October 11, 2004
It's a conversation that I've had with a number of people, few of whom ever understand what I'm talking about. Internet crushes are a new thing in this technological age. It's something different from a romantic crush or even a platonic crush and I don't know if there's any terminology in place to define it.
I'll admit it, I'm addicted to the internet. I rely on it for most of my communication, job searches, bill paying, banking and even, to a certain extent, socialization. I play MMOGs as well as sites like Free Arcade, Pogo and NewGrounds for games. Currently, though, my favorite time sink on the internet has got to be posting on message boards. Specifically these days, the Stratics Off-Topic forum.
I discovered message boards (and my addiction to them) when I started playing my first MMORPG, The Sims Online (TSO). From there it was only a matter of time before I branched out and started finding bigger and better places to post my thoughts about, quite frankly, everything under the sun. In learning about what it means to post in message board communities, I discovered a strange phenomenon. I found myself becoming attracted to several people who posted with me.
This surprised me, to say the least. I wasn't looking to be attracted to these people, in fact, there was little going on to lead me to that point. There wasn't a lot of flirting or playing around with the idea of internet relationships. In fact, there wasn't much, if any relationship for there to be. We played the same game, had strong opinions about it, not necessarily agreeing, but there was something about the way some of these people said whatever they were saying that somehow struck me as attractive.
I see this continuing in most forums where I post. There's attraction in some situations, but not in all of them. Even the people who I follow avidly may not be one of my "Internet crushes", there's always something extra about those people. It's like walking into a crowded room and making that intense "I know you" eye contact across the room.
It's a difficult thing to explain. Most of the time people think that I have romantic designs on these crushes, but that's really not the point of the whole thing. It's simply a matter of almost having created a second, internet-specific part of myself, not me, but an extension, who has developed her own identity over the past years. She can woo and flirt and develop that crush into something more, but the real life aspect rarely, if ever, comes into play.
I've only had a few internet crushes. At the moment, the count is at two, one of whom I've crushed upon for years, the other is newer, but just as strong. They fuel my fantasies when I lie in bed at night, but never would I pursue something RL romantic unless circumstances (in both cases) were vastly different than they are. Certainly in the years long crush, the circumstances I refer to are impossible to change.
I guess all I can really say is this:
It's not about the romance, it's not about flirting. There's a dance we do with people we know... most of the time it's superhero dancing (CoH players, you know what I'm talking about) or maybe the Hustle, but with an internet crush it feels more like an online Tango. Sultry, seductive, but everyone keeps their clothes on.
~FG };^>
Posted at 12:28 by FyreGoddess
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