One of my biggest pet peeves in the world is people who keep diaries and always beg you to write them and give feedback, then never respond when you do.

I realize that people get busy but I figure, if you have the time to plug wanting mail then you have time to answer the mail. There are few things more annoying than taking the time to write something really nice and thoughtful only to have someone completely ignore it. I mean, I only have so many nice and thoughtful emotions in a given day, and I'm sure I could share them with people who would be far more appreciative.

If someone sends me an email, I generally always answer it. To every rule there's an exception. Like, if someone says "I like your page. Please visit my page and sign my guestbook, and by the way please buy my band's latest album" then I don't bother, because I just consider that barely veiled spam. But if someone actually takes the time to respond to something I wrote and is nice enough to leave some encouraging words, I always either email them or leave a note in their guestbook if they have one. I figure there's so much stupidity on the internet if someone displays a modicum of intelligence and maturity, why not encourage it?

I realize not everyone has the time to do this, nor is everyone good at letter writing (Though I don't know that I understand that. There seem to be a lot of writers who can't send a letter or email to save their life. I figure, that's writing too, right?) but if you aren't, at least admit it. Don't go asking people to write you under the premise that you really want to get to know your readers when all you want is a pat on the back. That just annoys me.

Anyhow, so I was reading an interesting article the other day. It was actually more of a series of papers about the internet from a Freuidan perspective. Some of the stuff was brilliant and insightful (like explaining the psychological impact of suddenly not answering an email for a long span of time when you formerly had been in regular contact. He described the emotional impact as the "black hole effect". Or analysing the anonymity of the internet and how that combines both our most repressed and most idealized aspects of ourselves) whereas other stuff was silly ramblings that you'd have to be a Freudian to really appreciate (like saying that computers embody aspects that we wish our opposite sex parent had possessed or that they bring out our maternal instincts, and that our propensity for frustration at errors directly correlates with our level of transferrence) but overall it was pretty fascinating. I read it for about three hours, which gave me something of a headache. After awhile, I started overthinking and overanalysing, which caused my head to want to explode. But it was pretty interesting, and I think there were some valid points. Anonymity does really strange things to a person. That's why someone is more likely to be rude to you in a crowded subway than they would be at a laid back coffeehouse. I think this is especially true in forums where people aren't too inclined to meet you in person. I've seen some pretty ludicrous behavior in these forums. Though I'm trying to wean myself off of things like this, sticking to either information oriented forums (eg for a certain industry or a certain interest where I can go when I have a question.) or familiar forums (eg like my mailing list where I already know half the people and its just a convenient way for all of my friends to hang out and talk).

Anyhow, so I was working on the dancer book. I decided to take a looser approach to the whole thing, and start off by transcribing my diaries. I started with a diary from the summer of 1996. Reading these things can be very insightful and it taught me three very important things.

1: in any given situation, people will basically annoy me.

2: in any given situation, I will hate my job.

3: in any given situation, I will feel that I don't have enough money.

Well. I guess that does one of two things. Make me curse my time on this planet and fall into a pit of Kierkegaard-esque despair or quit whining, shut up and just make the best of it.

Well, I'm always going to bitch about my situation which should probably be point number four. But it also means that all my excuses for not doing stuff is crap, and I need to get off my ass and do them.

I suppose for awhile there, I was exceptionally depressed and unmotivated, and there were a lot of reasons for this, especially after Jennifer died. But I guess if I'm going to be bitter and bitch about the situation, I may as well bitch about a situation that has the potential to eventually better my station in life. Be that publishing my book, going to college, or just getting a job that pays worth a damn, but I'm not doing anyone any good by sitting around watching court dramas all day long.

And besides, I'm starting to loathe television and art supplies are getting expensive...