i can just run so time can't even see me
One of the things I love about the Critical Thinking and Composition courses I’m taking this term is that the majority of the information revolves around “EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET IS NOT ALWAYS TRUE AND YOU SHOULD KNOW HOW TO DETERMINE THIS.” Can we just make EVERYONE who joins Facebook or TwiX take these courses?
…..
I know the answer is no but I can dream.
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.
Went and had hot pot for dinner with the husband and my two best friends last night for my birthday.
Today, my brother and his gf are coming over, we’re gonna play games and I’m cooking dinner.
Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a more wonderful post-birthday weekend. Here’s to my 47th year in existence being full of time with more loved ones and simple, cozy joy.
Taking VERY deep breaths today. I’m doing a group onboarding at work for multiple users in different offices. I’ve only done this a couple of times before, and I have a checklist to follow, but it’s still nerve-wracking. I need to get more practice with it, though, because I would really like to be able to do this MORE often. It makes things a lot less stressful.
Had a relaxing, yet productive day today. Got a good bit of chores done, spent the morning studying, submitted my first task for my Composition class, then made dinner in the crockpot (pot roast, with rice and a salad). Also did a few things on the backend of the site. Hopefully I fixed the oddball syndication issues I keep having!
So I joined the #indieweb IRC channel and GOD why does it take so damn long for me to get used to using #IRC whenever I use it? I can never remember commands even though I was using this stuff for YEARS back in the day. And I always feel like such a newbie when I get on IRC.
I don’t know why I am so intimidated about it, it just seems like some side of the internet that I was not supposed to be on (which is just my imposter syndrome talking, I know).
I took a few days off from school, but it’s back to studying today! Starting my Composition course. It’s a little weird reading about the proper way to write an email…
Been sitting at home all morning and making some final tweaks and adjustments on the back end of the site. I kept having PHP errors and updates were giving me issues and I could NOT understand why. I got them working, though, and adjusted the layout and design! Feeling very accomplished.
Decided to join this month’s Indieweb Carnival and talk about Digital Relationships. Thanks to Manu for hosting!
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.
Next project! Set up my laptop to dual boot Windows and Linux Mint. I’ve been poking around looking at Linux Mint this evening and it seems like a pretty good option for someone who’s testing the waters for Linux. After the whole AI installation last night, I think it’s just time for me to look at other OSes.
Plus, I have Linux courses coming up in the next few semesters at school, so getting a little headstart in learning about it will be very helpful!
Hello, I’m Karen!
I’m a Gen X eldergeek, currently working in IT and going for my degree in cybersecurity. I’m passionate about photography, vintage inspired fashion, K-Pop, gaming, sci-fi cons, my two doggos, and lots of other assorted oddities. I’m a proud bi liberal feminist, I support LGBTQIA+ rights, believe that Black Lives Matter, and am a firm believer in mental health support. BE NICE OR LEAVE.
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