Memories Consume, Like Opening the Wound

I'm picking me apart again.

I was reading over some of my older posts. I realized that I've grown more self-conscious in my writing. I used to update less frequently, and I think I'm falling into that old habit again.

Or am I breaking the habit of blogging? idecay. Via Eric Woo.

It's difficult to blog in the summer because for me, blogging is something I do when I have things to say, when the gritty gears of my mind are turning. Since summer began, even though I study most days, I don't seem to have as much on my mind. It's possibly the result of summer, or maybe I just don't have as much on my mind like I pretend to have.

I would say that I blog less often because I enjoy my life more now, but I don't think that's true. I don't really feel any happier now than I have before. My life is just bland right now.

A bland life doesn't necessarily imply an unhappy life either. People associate blandness and the neutrality of life with stagnance, like still water that collects debris and mud. I don't think it works like that. Life doesn't need to be exciting all the time. It doesn't need to be brimming with adventure or teeming with activity. Life just needs to be purposeful.

So I guess I'm okay with the way things are for me right now. There isn't the hullabaloo of college life or living with my friends, but as much as I love that, I've come to terms with living in whatever situation I happen to occupy.

I blog less because maybe I'm living more. I'm not necessarily doing more things, just things I didn't think I'd be doing.

Like playing Settlers of Catan.

Or SimCity.

Or eating at Red Robin twice a week. (Actually, not anymore. It's not easy on the wallet.)

This wasn't my vision of my summer, but it's better that I don't know all the details of my future, even though I think about those details frequently. It adds a flavor to my life that makes it a bit more daring, but not in a bad way. Like a new sauce you've never tried but know you could learn to enjoy.

I remember when I was in elementary school, probably in the second or third grade, and I was learning about the inequality signs, "<" and ">". I remember being so confused, so befuddled as to the reasoning or method to discern between the two. I think it took me weeks to figure it out. They told us something stupid to help us remember it, something to do with alligators eating each other.

Really? You're trying to teach simple arithmetic to 8-year-olds using cannibalistic reptiles as an analogy?

Needless to say even then I thought it was a stupid way to remember it. I thought the kids who drew teeth on the signs were idiots, but I never said anything because I didn't fully understand the signs themselves. I eventually figured out that the side that's bigger faces the quantity that's bigger. That's how I think about it in my head to this day. It's childish, but it works for me.

No goddamn reptiles are eating each other on my binder paper.

Random, Late-night Antics

Firstly, the term "antics" implies that I am up to something and in the dark hours of the night, at that. Well, technically, as many have been prone to point out, I would be up to these "antics" in the wee hours of the morn, as opposed to the night.

Regardless, among these antics I have included starting a blog. I recently created an email address on Gmail (not my first, but my first serious email), and I guess it's time to conform once again.

A few noteworthy cautions before you decide to follow my writing antics:

1. My writing is random and sporadic. Do not expect consistency unless you enjoy getting your hopes crushed miserably by my inability to remain constant, immutable.
2. I apologize ahead of time for any inconvenient arrogance you may detect in my rambling. I think I'm good, so humor me.
3. Conformity is a topic about which I enjoy writing. Complaining about it is probably an outlet for me to deal with my own conformity and lack of individuality.
4. I like self-reference, so pardon my recognition that blogging can be pretentious, or that bloggers probably need to spend more time focusing on other pursuits, namely school, or life in general.


So my late-night antics have taken a new low: blogging. Many of us have dealt with the casual Xanga.com blogging, prettying our sites so that our friends could ooh and ah our flashy, creative web designs. Rarely were our teenage blogs filled with substance. They were an outlet for our emotional ranges, sometimes daily.

However, depending on the person, each blog entry had its unique flavor, its own little style that distinguished it from other blog entries. Some of these were more personal entries, while others were simple ramblings that happen to cross our minds throughout the day. There are many types of teenage blog entries that pervade our Xanga memories, some of which I shall list here, while others I shall list and discuss at a more convenient, sane time.

1. The angry-personal entry: These entries are often posted the night of a particular betrayal or unhappy experience. Bloggers of these entries often are angry enough to personalize their attack in the second person but rarely name the person of their anger.
2. The daily-blase entry: These entries have little substance in terms of intellectual pursuit, but certainly are crucial for friends to keep up with each other. They are often void of emotional bias, being neither sad nor happy overall. Instead, they focus on the events of the blogger's day, or occasional few days if said blogger is lazy.
3. The angst-ridden entry: These entries are definitely "thinking-out-loud" entries. Some of these have a certain stream of consciousness appeal to them, but oftentimes they are just quietly edited entries when someone is trying to reach out for help, or maybe just stating their problems in case someone has a response that will make the blogger feel a bit better.

These three types of entries are but a few of the many types of entries that I have encountered in my teenage observation. Some other time I will expound on them and add to the list of other types of entries I happened to come across in my Xanga/LiveJournal experience. However, for now, it has recently reached the handsome hour of 4 AM, and my bedsheets beckon.

Adieu,
Andrew