To the right: Phantasy Star 2 (Sega Genesis).
When you Google yourself, you expect to find yourself in at least a few places that you didn’t expect to be found.
What no one expects is for some idiot to treat their blog like it’s some pre-teen’s live journal and talk about you unkindly as if no one would ever know it was you. If someone were to do that, you’d at least expect them to try and hide who you are. Like say “this guy” or “someone I know…” or “…we’ll call him Bobalicious…”. If they still used, not just your first name, but your whole legal, given name, you’d figure they’d at least have a reason to… like some kind of vendetta. Maybe you keyed their car or slept with their sister. Maybe you kicked their dog.
What if all you did was try to be polite?
A friend of mine ran into someone she used to know. During the conversation, another old mutual friend came up. She asked how this friend was doing, what they were up to, and even took down their number. She did it just to be polite, never called the number, and didn’t even think about it again until much later.
Much later, she was playing everyone’s favorite internet game: Google myself!!
When she Googles herself, she gets a lot of results from people who are spell check impaired since her name is close enough to real words. There are other people with the same name. Nothing too noteworthy…
Then she found this (all misspellings, bad grammar, etc. I kept, but the names are ***ed out):
“So I wonder what’s gonna happen when ********** calls my cell-phone. Will I answe it? What would we ever have to talk about. Apparently we’ve been living in the same town for quite awhile- I wonder why she doesn’t ever come downtown. ***** said she looked the same, acted the same. It would be a shame if she’d never blossomed. Maybe she just still shy. I’m terrified of talking to her”
She was satisfied with telling her friends about it and us all saying ‘what an ass’, but I was a bit more pissed. I wanted to call that number and give this guy something to be terrified about.
Another friend did some reconnaissance and found the blog. I left a comment. I even left a link to my blog…
“So I wonder what’s gonna happen when ********** calls my cell-phone. Will I answe it?”
When? Don’t you mean if? Just because she was polite enough to ask for your number doesn’t mean she’ll call it, especially if you’re posting this.
“What would we ever have to talk about.”
Life? Is there really so little that has happened to you since you last spoke that you’d have nothing interesting to tell an old friend about?
“***** said she looked the same, acted the same. It would be a shame if she’d never blossomed.”
She still looks and acts like ****. Yeah, I know, too bad she didn’t conform to the way she should look or act.
“Maybe she just still shy. I’m terrified of talking to her.”
She’s shy but you’re terrified of talking? She’s like barely five feet tall and an openminded individual. Whatever she had to say, I bet it would have been nicer than what you had to say on the internet.
Well, no need to be afraid. I’m sure she won’t be calling you now.
I hope he reads it. I hope it makes him blush. I hope he then links to here and sees that I talked about it in my blog. I hope he then writes a follow up post either bad mouthing me or trying to defend himself.
Never blossomed? I’m sorry that we’re not all flowers or bloomin’ onions. We’re women who come into our own, but not exclusively in ways designed specifically to appeal to your own individual male sensibilities.
Look the same? Did he expect her to have a problem with not being a six foot blonde with a paper thin tummy and mushy melons? Did he expect plastic surgery on his behalf?
Sound the same? She’s always had interesting things to say and an amazing singing voice. Who should she sound like…
Him?
And all these conclusions are jumped to because he talked to someone who talked to her.
Is the terrifying thing that he may hear about how great she’s doing? She’ll tell him all the places she’s been and things she’s done, and he’ll feel small and empty and write about it on his blog. So instead of calling her, and judging for himself how this friend is doing, make a preemptive strike online. He belittles her so he can feel better about it when she calls. If she calls. She isn’t going to call him. Why would she?
He apparently has nothing much to say anyways.
Tag Archives: people
Trust, Even After Trying it’s Gone
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest for the SNES. One of the crappiest Final Fantasy games ever made has some of the crappiest writers and translators at the wheel.
A warning to those who don’t know eating flour provided by undead dinosaurs may be potentially hazardous: an adventuring career maybe isn’t for you. This has been a video game public announcement.
What kind of adjective is “flamerous”? It certainly isn’t English.
– – – – –
Gawn and Treye sat down together in a cafe in a the small, industrial city of Worner, sleepy in its wintry shell. They hadn’t seen each other in months, though they live but miles apart. Treye had been calling Gawn off and on for weeks- as well as everyone else she knows in the city with little luck. Even friends with which Treye knew nothing but good times seem to have moved on to somewhere or something new and exclusive. Treye was getting sick of being positive about her loneliness, and her desire to vent was fast overcoming the desire not drive Gawn away. It had been three days since Treye spoke to anyone other than customers at work and voicemail boxes of friends. All of her recent attempts to try and meet new people were met with polite but cold reactions or hopes of sex.
Treye was about to give up on humanity and the act of putting trust in people. Still, she reached out to Gawn on more time hoping she’d be proven wrong.
Gawn tried to reassure Treye but also has a hard time disagreeing with her assessments.
“In all trust there is the possibility for betrayal,” admits Gawn.
“Then it is better not to trust,” Treye stared into her cup of black tea, hunched over it as if huddling for warmth..
“But… without trust there is no real friendship, no closeness, none of the emotional bonds that make life worth living…” Gawn lists passionately.
“These are the experiences and feelings that make up life itself,” agrees Treye.
“Exactly,” Gawn slapped the table, glad to be getting through.
“So… you put yourself at risk, and do so knowingly and willingly.”
“…every single time,” admitted Gawn, smiling.
“How do you know when to trust others and when to trust your doubt?” Treye pushes herself and her tea further across the table towards Gawn, “How can you separate paranoia from a real, deserving lack of trust?”
“Hopefully you trust yourself over others before the knife ends up in your back. Other than that, I really can’t give you an answer. Some people trust others until they give them sure reason not to. Some will even forgive and extend trust again and again.”
“How does one find a trustworthy individual?” Gawn seemed to have all the answers, and Treye hoped she could pull some to apply to her own life.
“The same way one finds an honest man.”
“What?”
“I’m saying, one doesn’t. The capacity for betrayal is within all of us.”
“Not me,” Treye denied without a hint of pride or happiness at the proclamation.
“If that’s true, then I pity you. You are doomed to a lifetime of expectations that no one can fulfill and things given that no one can reciprocate.”
“Perhaps there is something wrong with me,” Treye squeezed the ceramic mug, “Sometimes I suspect I am not human.”
“Oh, you’re human all right- human enough to feel betrayed, rejected, isolated, like no one understands you-”
“So, I’m just a whiny cliche?” Treye chuckled at herself without a bit of humor.
“No, just human: individual, but part of a common experience of common emotions.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. People don’t feel the same way,” Treye paused, thinking before finding the words to explain, “Sure, we all get sad or angry, but one person’s depression is barely another person’s sadness. The same sad person maybe feels barely any anger”
“How would you know?”
“I know when I react honestly and deeply, there are times I’m told I should be in a mental institution or on a drug.”
“Yes… I guess some people are… sensitive,” Gawn conceded.
“And I’ve met other… sensitive… people and have found they understand me better, but are perhaps even more selfish that the norm. The can be more unsympathetic.”
“They’re trying and protect themselves maybe?”
“I could think of many reasons. In the end, it just is. The sensitive person is a victim in a cycle of their own creation making themselves more the victim by throwing themselves under trucks and into fires- that is unenjoyable, but comfortably selfish: the attention they attract, the band aid of other’s pity and self pity. Other people become competition,” Treye shakes her head bitterly.
“And you’re different..?”
“Yes. I know I hurt myself by giving trust to those who don’t deserve it, by not being able to connect with people that would treat me better, but I don’t advertise it like a beacon hoping for those to flock to me to ease the pain as well as allow it to continue so the flock stays.”
“Maybe you should. Maybe you just don’t because you’re afraid they won’t come.”
“No, I’m afraid of being disgusting and weak like them. I’m afraid of my own guilt,” admitted Treye.
“Oh, so bottle it up inside and try hard not to trust those you want to. There’s a logical solution,” Gawn rolled his eyes and nibbled at the left over crumbs of his scone.
“I guess I’m caught in a bit of a paradox.”
“If your values weren’t mixed up in this, I’d have a solution: throw your honesty, integrity, pride, loyalty out the door… Just be and accept.”
“What, like them? Those people don’t accept anything- they live in constant delusion. I’d rather be miserable than delude myself,”
“Would you rather be lonely than to try to trust again? To never connect or know someone else again?” Gawn was getting frustrated.
“It doesn’t matter much what I want. I’m lonely either way. Trust gives darkness a face to whisper to at least.”
“For a bit of pity for you?”
“No. Connection. For real, honest connection. Not ‘I feel bad for you’, but ‘I know what you mean, and hang in there.’.”
“You’re talking about wanting someone to care, understand, and accept you as you are,” Gawn was trying the best to be understanding and sympathetic, but was seeing the circular logic Treye was caught in.
“Yes. And I know I will find it again. It’s just painful knowing it never lasts. At the next inconvenient moment the connection ceases.”
“Um… can we maybe talk about this some other time? I mean, it’s been good talking but… I just have a lot of stuff to do, you know?” Gawn got up to leave. He put forth a forced smile and mentally asked for forgiveness.
“Yes. I understand. I know. Goodbye.”
Treye and Gawn never saw each other again.
Past Sitting Beside You
Screen shot from Lufia & The Fortress of Doom (SNES, 1993). I know I’d like fries with that.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but it keeps coming up. I’m moving forward, but since I’ve moved back to where I grew up, the past has been saying ‘hello’ at odd times and scaring the ever living CRAP out of me.
It then leaks into my subconscious and leaves a weird residue. I have weird dreams. I think about it too much. I get a strong urge to move (and I hate moving and rather like my place).
On one hand, being here is perfect. I have studio space. I have a place to live. My family is nearby. I have a nice yard.
On the other, it’s perfectly wrong for me. Memories live next door. I’m having a hard time finding a job that fits and isn’t ‘just another job’, but is something like the beginning of a career. I don’t know a lot of people I have deep relationships with nearby. There are a few (and I love you guys), but I feel like I’m still to far from them. They are an forty-five minute drive away. I really got to love being able to walk to everyone and everything. I’m back to being super inactive with little appetite. Then there is my family being nearby not always a good thing. Their problems become my problems.
I have issues with the general attitudes of people here. Yes, it’s a generalization, but I got used to people being friendly.
One of the first things that happened to me when I got here is that I got followed home by some woman in her car who screamed at me because somewhere I supposedly cut her off. She wanted me to get out of the car. I felt like I was on an episode of Law & Order or part of tomorrows news. I remember there was a news story years back about a person in MA who was shot with a crossbow and killed after being followed by someone with road rage. I figured I’d be safe in my truck as long as she didn’t have a gun or crossbow.
I feel like this is some psychological thing I should be able to break. I’m not in high school, but this is where I was when I was in high school. I spent a lot of my time a couple of streets over. I built up a new identity in college and post college. I’m someone who was a lot more confident, outgoing, and happy. Sure, I’ve kept the cynical half-smile and sarcasm, but I’ve grown up. Just by being here, I’m identifying with parts of my past that, though they are irrelevant, are managing to psych me out.
So, I build new memories of this place.
I am somehow simultaneously living and avoiding here. I interview for jobs outside of Boston, I take classes in the same area, and I hang out with friends up there too. I stay in my apartment when I’m here. There’s not a ton to do here in the middle of winter with little money, but there are things.
I live here. This is where I came from. I don’t hate this place, but I almost feel like it hates me. The people and attitudes I am trying to avoid are the ones with the issues. I need to stop owning that.
If Rory Blyth can deal with past living next door, well then so can I. Granted, this is no Portland, Oregon, but there are things to like, do, and people. I just need to gather up the gumption to go find them.
I need to put aside the girl that lived here so I can get on with being the woman that lives here.
Sculptor or Potter?
As artists, if we made ceramics just to be functional, we wouldn’t be making ceramic art. We’d be making ceramic tupperware. Think about it. Tupperware is very light, cheap, portable, durable, and stackable. You can heat, store, and eat your food out of it. Plastic tupperware is automatically more functional than any dish made out of ceramic due to the properties of the material.
If your statement is to make things functional, then why make things out of clay? Our statement cannot simply be one of function, it is one of design elements that convey additional content.
As clay artists, we especially cannot be caught thinking of a cup as ‘just a cup’. It’s function is to hold and allow us to enjoy liquid, but its function is also and primarily art. It’s function is sculptural as much as utilitarian. Otherwise it wouldn’t be art, it would be a slip-cast mug or a plastic tumbler from a department store.
If we know this, then why is it when I meet another clay artists, one of their first questions is inevitably, “potter or sculptor?”, “pottery or sculpture?”, separate and concise categories without a thought that they may be the same thing.
What do the tile makers say to this? They are often utilitarian clay artists, but when someone says ‘functional ceramics’ they inadvertently are expecting ‘pottery’. Tile is not really considered sculpture either, existing in both the two and three dimensional realms to varying degrees according to the artist. They are forced to answer to this question with, “None of the above.”
How many clay artists make both pottery and sculpture or consider our pottery to be as sculptural as anything labeled sculpture? To say that something is ’sculptural pottery’ is a misnomer, telling people that other utilitarian pottery itself isn’t at all sculptural. To define pottery as utilitarian is to define it as being functional before being, or without being, art. These definitions are inaccurate for the contemporary clay artist.
With the risk of sounding like a post-modernist saying, “Everything is art,” I’m going to have to say:
“All pottery is sculpture.”
Disagree if you want, but you can’t argue with the functionality of tupperware.