Today is officially Twitter Deletion Day. I’m currently downloading an archive of all my stuff off of there (why, I don’t know, I guess just because?) and I’ve made my final post letting people know where they can find me in other places, including this site.
I’ve had this account since June 2007. I originally created it as a planned micro-blog for our UK trip in October 2007, I was planning on texting updates to it from our little Nokia spare phone so people could follow along on our trip. That ended up not happening, but I found a pretty cool group of New Orleans-based users on there and sticking around.
Jeez, 2007. I’ve had that account for almost 20 years. The only account I had for longer was my old LiveJournal account, which I had until I got the “Happy Anniversary from LiveJournal” reminder this year and was like “oh yeah I should delete that account too”. I don’t remember how long, but at least 21 years, because I told someone that my LiveJournal was old enough to legally drink. Why did I hold on to LJ even though I hadn’t used that account in at least 15 years? I have no idea, honestly.
As for Twitter…well. It’s always been kind of an off-on thing for a while now, and even though I picked it back up to meet more people in the K-Pop fandom circles early last year, I just can’t deal with the toxicity and negativity that is always all over that platform. Plus, with all the changes that the Muskrat Manchild was making – it was just no longer a good place to be for me. And after a few months of me being on “hiatus” and not posting or going to the site, I wondered, “Why even keep this account at all?”
Can I just say – that feeling is INCREDIBLY freeing. Getting back to blogging on my own site is INCREDIBLY freeing. Realizing that I can just…go. I can keep in touch with the few people I’m friends with on there, and just – delete the account. Like a bad breakup, just disappearing and cutting all ties from the nastiness and things I don’t like.
So, with that, it was a good run, Twitter. We had a good go and made some memories.
I’m starting my Fundamentals of Information Security course today, and is it silly to say that I’m really excited? Like this is the first official class for my specific major and I’m really looking forward to learning more about the field I want to be in.
I never thought I’d be this hyped up to be back in school, ever. I never thought I’d be ABLE to go back to school. But I’m realizing now that maybe I just wasn’t meant to be in school at the time I was there. I wasn’t ready. And I wonder, looking at these kids who roll right to college a few months out of high school, if those kids are really even ready.
So, a little background. I originally went to college for an English/Journalism degree back in the 90s. I graduated high school, I had the summer off, and I went to college. Most of my college was paid for by student loans, of course. I had a few other grants and things that I didn’t have to pay back, but it barely covered anything. My grades were – okay. Passable, but not spectacular, so I didn’t have scholarships. My mom refused to get a PLUS loan, since that had to be paid back by the parents, and we couldn’t afford to pay for school. Essentially, if I didn’t take out Stafford loans, I wasn’t going to be able to go. And I wanted to go to college. It was the only way I could get a “real job”, according to my mom and my grandparents and every adult in my life.
(Funny thing, though – my mom was an executive assistant and didn’t go to college. So was she saying that SHE didn’t have a “real job”? Looking back on that now, that makes no sense.)
So, off to school I went. I lived in the dorms, even though I was only 30 minutes from home. I didn’t have a car, I didn’t even know how to drive. (My mom refused to let me take drivers ed in high school because she didn’t want to put me on her insurance.) It was the first time I was sort of “on my own”, and I was SO excited. I could do what I wanted! So I did.
And as a result, after almost two years, I had to leave college because I failed out. I partied, I hung out with friends, I didn’t attend class. It was entirely my mistake, I didn’t have the willpower to focus at the time. I was all about living for myself, for the first time in my life. Well – what I THOUGHT was living for myself. Looking back on it, I don’t know what I was doing. I was hanging on the best way I knew how.
And after that, I worked. Retail for SO MANY YEARS. Then office jobs, etc. And all those student loans got pushed back, forbearance after forbearance. I finally paid them off in 2015. And I didn’t even finish school.
The whole time, I regretted failing out. I was foolish, I was stupid, I fucked up. That’s what I told myself for DECADES. Finally, after a lot of therapy and a lot of talking, I realized that yeah, I made a mistake. But I wasn’t stupid. It just…wasn’t my time. It wasn’t for me, at that point in my life.
I should have taken one of those “gap years”, and worked, and saved, and saw the world. I should have probably taken five gap years. Not traveling and playing around, like most people think when they think of a gap year. Just worked, saw how the world worked, figured out what I really wanted. I was better equipped to make a decision about what I wanted to do with my life at 21 or 22 than I was at 17, even mroe so at 25. The Universe knew that.
Now, in my late 40s, I know myself better than I did at 17, and I feel more confident and focused. Now is the time I was meant to go to school. Not at 17. Do I regret flunking out? Sure. Do I hate myself for it anymore? Absolutely not.
This morning, while perusing assorted blogs and adding my new reads to my blogroll, I came across this post from Cafelog titled “Blogging without overthinking”.
I’ve always had plenty of ideas about what to write, but I used to overthink what I was going to publish: Is it interesting? Is it well-written? Haven’t dozens of people already written about this topic? Do I have the legitimacy to talk about this? And so on.
Well, this hits hard.
Do you know how OFTEN I have sat here in front of my site and just been like “Ehhhhhh no one wants to read me talk about The Thing. I don’t know enough about The Thing to post it.” Or, worse yet, REALLY wanting to post about The Thing, coming to the realization that I need to research it more, and then getting d-motivated to talk about The Thing after doing HOURS of reading and research?
For Jebus’ sake, Karen, it’s a post about The Thing, not a damn thesis paper.
I NEVER had this problem in the early 00s. I just POSTED. If it was three paragraphs or twenty, it got posted. Blathering, squealing about the things I was watching or reading or listening to, telling people what I did that day, ranting about work (this MAY not go over so well now, haha), whatever. I posted to my site, to my LiveJournal, whenever and wherever I could. I talked about fashion and makeup and dates with my boyfriend and going out dancing and posted pictures from my wee little digicam of the random shit I was doing, eating, looking at.
Then came Twitter. Microblogging! Great!
Then Facebook.
Then everything else.
And suddenly…I was afraid to post. I felt like it was all futile. No one was reading, because my life was BORING and nothing to look at. Another plus-sized woman, getting older, chattering about the banality of her day. Who cares? it’s not all about you, Karen. No one cares. Only post GOOD things, BIG things, things you are qualified to talk about. Only post hot takes or snark or memes.
Where the FUCK did this fear come from? Can I blame it on social media, or the fear of not wanting to be lumped in with anyone too vapid or too vain or too stupid? I don’t know. I do know I got TIRED. Tired of having to keep up with tweets and posts and pictures and people. Too many sites, so little time, all just…screams into the void.
But there’s SOMETHING beneficial about screaming into the void, isn’t there? Scream therapy. Grabbing the pillow and just yelling into it. The mind clears, the breaths even out. The stress is released. Is anyone there to listen? Does it matter? The pent up feelings is released and that’s the ultimate goal. Doesn’t matter if someone hears. If they do, and they take the time to commiserate, great. Otherwise, it’s still good.
Last year, I started cutting cords with things and people that didn’t benefit me. And I found in late 2023 that a lot of that was standard social media. I found an article about the Indieweb and Mastodon and discovered that there were still people who enjoyed the simple act of screaming into the void and seeing if someone yelled back. Stop thinking, and just TALK. Stop wondering if it matters to everyone. If it matters to ME, that’s the important part. If it matters to someone, fantastic. But otherwise, just let it out.
I’m going to scream into the void a lot more this year, without fear, without overthinking. I’m gonna talk and yell and holler whenever I like. No matter how big or small. I’m gonna stand on this little cliff-side space here online and just…let it out.
If you’d like to come by and holler into space with me, that would be lovely. I’ll make coffee and put out a picnic blanket to sit on. The ground can get chilly up here, after all.
I can’t tell you how many people I have met that have turned up their noses at digital relationships, saying they aren’t nearly as connected or deep as in-person relationships.
To that, I call bullshit.
Almost all of the people I know and call close friends in my life I have met online, or I have developed a deeper connection because of being online. I would have never considered how much the internet and using it for connection would have affected my life the first time I sat in front of a computer.
I grew up in the 1980s. The first computer I ever got on was an Apple IIe back in my Gifted classes in like 4th-5th grade, I think? But the first time I really connected with a person at the other end of the keyboard was when I was in college (well, the first go-round anyway) back in like 1994 or so. In my first Journalism class at SLU, the professor insisted that we use the school’s Journalism Usenet newsgroup to pull up his weekly quizzes, and we would have to copy the questions from there, post them into an email, and send him the answers.
Well, what started as me getting on Usenet for class turned into me joining a few other newsgroups, namely the rec.music.tori-amos one. Through that group I met a few people online and started emailing them. One guy, Pierre, was in school in Toronto, Canada, and we hit it off. We even wrote each other handwritten letters when I was on summer break and couldn’t get to a computer. Of course, once I left college, I left the newsgroup, and never heard from him again. I often wonder what happened to him. I’ve tried doing a little Google search now and again, but I don’t want to risk contacting the wrong person. “Hey, by any chance, were you into Tori Amos back in like 1994-1996 or so?” Yeahhhhhhh no.
After that, there were so many connections. Chat rooms, ICQ, AIM, forums, LiveJournal, my old personal blogs, comments, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr…
Some of my most memorable connections were with people in the assorted things I’m into.
My husband – who I did meet in person first – we became good friends through AIM chats and forum posts in our old Vampire LARP forum. A few months later, we started dating. We still message each other on Discord daily.
On Facebook, I connected with a group of awesome people through an old group devoted to the vintage-inspired brand Trashy Diva. One of them is my best friend now, and we see each other at least once a week (we got together for dinner last Saturday). Others that live all over the country, I’ve gone to visit. From DC to Seattle…Dress Cult is Best Cult. Now we may not all be as utterly devoted to TD as we used to be, but we still stay in touch, and in fact, one of them is coming to visit me in March and we’re gonna spend the week hanging out, getting fancy every so often, and even getting tattoos together.
The Loki fandom on Tumblr landed me two good friends that I still talk to 10 years later. I lost touch with them for a bit, but we always reconnect in little ways.
Most recently, I’ve been connecting with people over Discord, mostly in the K-Pop fandom, and I’ve gotten really close with a few of them. I’ve visited a few, met up with some of them during concert trips, and even had one come stay with me in October when I ran my ATEEZ cupsleeve. I got to show her around New Orleans and get her some good food, which is always fun.
Some of my good friends I still haven’t met! We only communicate online in assorted ways. We text, we send each other memes and voice messages and emails. I count them as some of my very best friends and they have been there for me in some of my darkest moments.
I see these relationships, these friendships, no less than any other in-person friendship I’ve ever had. I even commented to my hairstylist last week that it is an utter pain in the ASS to make friends as you get older. It’s harder to find someone that you have a connection with randomly, in real life. Online, you can discover people that are in the same circles as you, and you already HAVE that thing in common, making striking up a conversation much easier and smoother. I’m too much of an extrovert to totally write off meeting people in person, but I have to admit that making those initial connections digitally is much easier.
Don’t write off digital relationships. They’re just as critical for connection and meaningful friendships as an in-person relationship.
One year ago, I was in the lowest space mentally that I’d ever been. I was desperate and scared and hated myself so very much. I wanted to…not be. There were other things happening in my life that was exacerbating the problem, but I felt entirely, totally alone. I was surrounded by people – my best friend, my husband, people I talked to online, coworkers. I was even seeing my therapist regularly.
But I felt like they’d all be better off without me around.
One year.
If you ask me how I came out of it, I can’t tell you. It wasn’t easy. I got a psychiatrist. I started telling my husband and my best friends about how I felt. I added a second therapist that I started seeing weekly for a while. I focused on work. I focused on my mental health. I made slow and steady and regular changes. I got medicated – well, even more medicated.
I clawed and scraped and scratched and fought through whatever pit I was in. If people weren’t willing to help me up, then I left them behind.
One year.
I told my therapist today, “It’s amazing what one can happen in one year.” When I left her office, the sun was shining, a little breeze in the air, the traffic on the highway was backed up. And I took a picture. There’s lines in my face, my lipstick is kind of worn off, my eyeshadow is smudged.
One year, and I’m still working on being better and getting better.
One of the things I missed the most about the personal internet of the early 00s was the fact that you could lose yourself in finding some REALLY good blogs just through poking around other pages’ links. Forget diving down a wiki hole, I loved falling down a blog hole. So many people, all over the world, sharing little snippets of their lives.
While poking about today and looking for new blogs, I came across this post from Manu:
“I don’t know what to write about” and “what if no one will read it?”. These are the two most common reasons why people don’t want to start a personal blog. I already addressed the first one, so let me tackle the second one in the easiest way possible: I’ll read it. If you decide to start a blog in either English or Italian, I’ll read it. I don’t care about the topic. Start a blog, write something, send it to me, and I’ll read it. And you’ll have your first reader. If you add an RSS feed to your blog, I’ll add you to my reading list, and I’ll keep reading what you post. As soon as a bunch of you have blogs, I’ll compile a list and make it available on this site. Hopefully, more people will read what you write. But I promise you that if you start writing, you’ll have a reader.
One of the concerns that I feel most bloggers have is that their words that they put out will just be lost in the ether. You put yourself out there day after day after day, week after week after week, and you find…silence. Nothing. It’s intimidating as hell. It makes a lot of people give up personal blogging and online journaling.
So, I’d like to offer myself up as one of your first readers. If you have a blog, drop me a line and let me know. I’ll read it. I only have two requests:
Your blog must be in English (I wish I could read other languages, maybe soon!)
If your blog has an RSS feed, let me know so I can add you to my reading list!
Let’s connect and maybe have a good conversation or two. 🙂
Hello and welcome to my sparkly new blog! Well, new-ish. If I transferred all of my posts from my previous three blogs, does that count? Ha.
God, I just felt like I was back in 2002 or so when I typed that. I just got a full on recollection of when I started my LiveJournal. Daaaaaamn. Anyway.
So, yes. Hi. If you’re familiar with my old sites, you may notice that this is a lot simpler. 2024 is going to be the year of a significant change for me, I am paring down, social media-wise. I’ve already started moving to Mastodon as my preferred social network, and I’ll be posting more here instead of all over socials. I’m not sure if I want to drop Meta stuff yet – even though I dislike Facebook with a burning passion, I still have a LOT of friends and family there and on Instagram. So, for now, those can stay. But Twitter/X/TwiX? Nah. It can go. I’ve made my peace with losing people there. The people I really want to stay in touch with, I either communicate with them on a personal level via Discord and text messaging, or on the networks I choose to be on. As much as I want to follow all the K-Pop news, I don’t need to. Plus, since I’m in school again, I simply don’t have the time that I used to, and I’d rather cultivate connections that are meaningful rather than just numbers and follower counts.
So, welcome. Hello to online friends new and old alike. It’s gonna be a good year. 🙂
Key’s new album, Good & Great, dropped last night, and I’d like to chat a bit about the title track of the same name.
A little background for those not familiar with Key – he’s from the group SHINee, which debuted on May 25, 2008. He is still with SHINee today, but also has a prolific solo career, starting with his first album Face in 2018. Key is considered a major style icon, and is widely looked up to by many K-Pop idols. I could go into more, but I strongly recommend others take a look at his solo work, he’s an excellent artist. (Key is the main reason I got into SHINee.)
He announced the release of his latest album, Good & Great, on August 20th, through assorted social media posts. It kind of threw some of his fans for a loop, considering that the concept seemed to be…office worker?
This was unexpected, considering the concept and themes for his last three releases – Bad Love, Gasoline, and Killer – were very retro inspired and a bit campy. Bad Love was sci-fi, Gasoline was horror, and Killer was video games (think classic NES/SNES stuff).
So when people saw this theme of…working in an office?…it was a smidge unexpected. Key does have a habit of reinventing and spinning things on their head, though, so we all waited to see what came out of it. And sure enough, he delivered. A few teaser trailers were released of Key working for some odd gray stuffed monsters, and teaser pictures of him seeming to cause chaos in an office while releasing BOK-SILLee, the fuzzy pink character that he’s made popular through the fandom.
Key’s always gonna be JUST a bit weird. I love that so much.
So…back to Good & Great. The album dropped last night, along with the MV. And we’ve been seeing a few clips online of Key doing dance challenges to the chorus of the song, which seems chirpy and peppy and cute. But take a look at that middle part of the chorus. Full translated lyrics below:
I’m good I’m great I work get paid Thank god all day I love it, I’m epic
All day, a dozen times and more Repeat the magic words OK, doing good I’m pulling through
I’m good I’m great Because I’m grateful I’m good I’m great Because I’m grateful
Wake up in the morning, mission-ready When I see myself sleepy in the mirror Man, coffee’s the only Reason I function Hurry, hit the road and get bussin’
The world is an irregular puzzle One wrong step, you’re lost in this jungle Can I be saved by the bell today? It’s a whole new vibe, again I shout out
Days when you wanna let go of it all There’re more than a few, oh, do I know I wanted this so bad Chose this path, but don’t mean it’s easy
I’m good I’m great I work get paid Thank god all day I love it, I’m epic
All day, a dozen times and more Repeat the magic words OK, doing good I’m pulling through
I’m good I’m great Because I’m grateful I’m good I’m great Because I’m grateful
Stop Stop worrying ahead Feeling jump Drift away on a parachute out that window Dreaming of an escape from reality Or maybe three hours go AWOL If I’m feeling my edge has dulled Means I’ve been grinding in this world That’s Right, grateful for all this But still sometimes just wanna vanish
On days when I’m having a hard time Again, believe that I’m chosen
I’m good I’m great I work get paid Thank god all day I love it, I’m epic
All day, a dozen times and more Repeat the magic words OK, doing good I’m pulling through
I’m good I’m great Because I’m grateful I’m good I’m great Because I’m grateful
Grab whatever’s in reach And fire it into the sky I’m great because I’m grateful You know that I’m
I’m good I’m great I work get paid Thank god all day I love it, I’m epic
All day, a dozen times and more Repeat the magic words OK, doing good I am confident in myself
I’m good I’m great Because I’m grateful I’m good I’m great Because I’m grateful
Sure, the beat and lyrics are good and upbeat and fun, and I won’t lie, I’m gonna bop to this for a while. But to me, it talks more about the face that we have to put on when you’re working. You know, that mask that you show your boss and coworkers, the one that you practically live about 40 hours a week. Those platitudes of “get up, get coffee, get going” and “your daily grind”. Put on that face to everyone else, the one that says “this is who I am, this is what I do”. Those little Instagram posts of “don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee” and all that.
Deep down, though – we’re TIRED. We’re exhausted. Hustling 24/7 takes it out of us. But we don’t know what else to do, we have to make that paycheck to live, so we tell our coworkers and bosses and post on our socials that we’re good, slap a smile on our faces and just repeat it over and over and over. Because if you just keep saying it, you’ll eventually get there and believe it, right?
Meanwhile we daydream while in our cubicles, zoning out, thinking about what it would be like to just escape from reality and not have to worry. Wondering that if we could leave the office, disappear for an afternoon. Squinting under florescent lighting, thinking about how we’ve been ground down and softened from what we used to be, the passions that we used to have. And sure, we may be making great money, and we may even like what we do – but still, just wanting an escape from the same old same old of every day working.
It’s no longer an option though. We smile, we put on our mask, and when your manager asks you at the coffeepot how you’re doing, you say:
“I’m good, I’m great.”
The odd thing is, you’d think that in a song like this, there would be some sort of resolution, a reminder that our work is not all of who we are. But there’s not. You show up at that office, in that lunchroom, in that meeting room, and you just say the same refrain:
“I’m good, I’m great. I’m so grateful to be here. I’m doing good.”
As upbeat as the song is…it’s just a fact that this is who we are as adults. We’re all just pulling through, and on hard days, we remind ourselves that this is the life we chose, and this is what we have to do to get by.
To me, this song is a little more subversive – not to mention a bit sad – than we initially think at first listen.
Of course, the video is chaotic and weird and fun and odd, exactly what I expected from Key. His looks are spectacular, as always. Give it a watch on YouTube, and check out the full album on Spotify.
Have you ever heard a song at an exact moment in your life and had it resonate so deeply with you that you just felt like it was written right for you at that very moment?
That was me, listening to Seventeen’s song “F*ck My Life” today.
I’ve spent the past week up and down emotionally, and today in particular I am very much in my feelings. While I was handling some blog work earlier, I was listening to a Seventeen playlist, and this song came on. I’d watched this video the day it dropped, and I remember liking the odd “Truman Show”-esque vibes of it, and that the lyrics were really meaningful…but it didn’t really hit until today, when I was just in an emotional state for it to REALLY hit me right in the heart.
This fucking world
In this fucking world, I’m the only stupid I lost my way, I lost my aim Dumbest person alive Let’s just forget all of this, let’s just laugh through all of this Because this comfort is meaningless
On my way back home I get choked up Keep feeling like crying, woah-oh-oh, oh I just wanna find myself before I disappear completely When I was young and watched cartoons I wondered why I couldn’t be The main character like I would see My heart’s all too blackened Isn’t there anyone who could trade their heart with mine just for a day?
In this fucking world, I’m the only stupid I lost my way, I lost my aim Dumbest person alivе From now on I’ll fight for my life For my own good, fight for my life We’rе so used to feeling numb in this life Now I just wanna find myself
I’m getting so tired dreaming by myself I’m so sick of it all now, just wanna give up Don’t wanna be an embarrassment tomorrow for the me I knew yesterday Because this commitment is meaningless
I look so dumb, it’s almost ridiculous Keep feeling like crying, woah-oh-oh, oh I’m getting so numb to this life that it feels like I’m shrinking away I got a secret I can’t tell and it’s turning to tears again I can’t tell a soul, I’m too ashamed for that Isn’t there anyone who could trade their heart with mine just for a day?
In this fucking world, I’m the only stupid I lost my way, I lost my aim Dumbest person alive From now on I’ll fight for my life For my own good, fight for my life We’re so used to feeling numb in this life Now I just wanna find myself
We’re so used to feeling numb in this life Now I just wanna find myself
Holy SHIT. Haven’t we all felt like this at some point in our lives, where we just feel so dumb and numb, feeling like you don’t fit into the world, but also wanting to be part of it, but afraid to reach out and tell someone, ANYONE, that you’re floundering?
As sad as the main concept behind the song is…there’s still a call to fight for your life. There’s still a reminder that we all have the capability to fight and make a stand, and not let the waves of life, stress, fears, anxiety drag you to the depths. You can still fight, you can still swim. There’s still joy and happiness to be had, and we all deserve it. It’s going to be a battle, but you can come out of the other side.
A few dear friends have recently got me into Seventeen (thanks Eve, Jake, and Bee!), and I have been slowly listening to more of their stuff and picking out my favorites. I’ve decided Seventeen will be the first group that I’ll start going through their discography for the blog, so keep an eye out for more posts with my thoughts on their albums.
I see all these people creating things – art, writing, etc. – and want to do that. I want to create something. I want to write, I want to create something beautiful and meaningful. It’s been so long since I’ve felt that way.
But it also seems like nothing I create is “good enough”, and I hate feeling that way.
I see so many talented people creating things all over social media, especially in the K-Pop fandom. Hell, some of the best friends I have are INCREDIBLY talented writers and artists. And I support them wholeheartedly, and adore the work they do! I am not jealous of their talent in the least. I love it and want to show the world and talk about it with them.
Then I look at what I create, what I write and what I do, and I just feel so…lacking. And logically, I know that my friends will also support and love the things I make, and they will hype me up just as much as I do for them. I just feel so LESS THAN, and I hate it. It saps my creative spirit and makes me want to not even bother. But the desire is THERE and it is STRONG.
How do I get it back? How do I find that space again? Do I carry my camera everywhere? Do I just grab snapshots with my phone wherever I can? Do I block time to just write, and whatever comes out goes up? Do I force it, fake it until I make it? How do I get back into that mindset and STAY there?
