Me and My iPod

For a great long while, I was incredibly adamant that I didn't want to own an iPod. One of my biggest reasons for not wanting the iPod was that I saw too many people who too fully tuned out the rest of the world as soon as they placed the earbuds in their ears. I like being aware of my surroundings. As a half-blind person, it's never been a good thing when I've gotten so wrapped in something that I stopped paying attention to where I was going. I've had my share of bruises, cuts, and sprains to prove it. (Worse yet: the solid majority of these pratfalls always seemed to happen when there was an attractive, single male nearby to witness my moment of glorious clumsiness. The nice ones, I've learned, walk over to check that you're all right. The rude ones snicker and/or ignore you.)

Except that I caved a while ago and acquired an iPod (my first iPod was free, a brick of a thing handed down to me from my father--seriously, I think you could seriously have maimed someone with that iPod...when it died, I had to replace it with a Nano because I couldn't imagine life iPodless), and now I find that I love it for precisely that reason: it creates its own little world I can safely insulate myself in.

It's a wonderful tool when I want to be fully preoccupied with my own thoughts or with one particular type of action (like, say, writing...or cleaning). The music literally playing in my head becomes a background soundtrack for whatever I'm doing and allows me to fully ensconce myself in whatever I'm doing.

Sometimes I wonder if the me from back then, were she to see iPod-insulated-me now, would ruefully shake her head and mourn...

In Pursuit of...Something

As I previously mentioned, I'm breaking down and participating in NaNoWriMo. I WILL write a novel this month, dagnabit!!! It seemed to be a good year for it. Ph.D. application plans have been placed on hold, and all I do right now is work and then come home and...do stuff that isn't always as productive as it should be. Not that I think I need to be doing something for every minute of every day, but let's just say that I could've been using my time more wisely and leave it at that.

As of today, 1,779 words--meaning I've surpassed the first day goal of 1,667 words. Go me! I applaud myself. (Yes, I'm so humble, I applaud myself. There may also have been a literal pat on the back. Or maybe I was just scratching my shoulder.)

Anyway, I'm finding that the writing goes far more quickly when I don't dwell on being perfect. I believe I also noted earlier that I thought this would be true. But now I can AFFIRM that it's true. It actually behooved me to pretend that my backspace key does not exist. Not kidding.

But I realized something today: in order to achieve something, I have to pursue a goal without pursuing perfection. Pursuing perfection causes me to freeze up and spazz out and stop even trying, because I know I can't make anything that's perfect. Pursuing something else (in this case, my 1,667 words or more) gave me an aim without making me feel bad about how I quickly or how well I was reaching that aim.

Seems as though there might be a life lesson in there somewhere...

All Right, NaNoWriMo, I Give In

At approximately this time every year, someone inevitably asks me a question that--for me--had started to become cringeworthy. "Katie," they would say, "are you going to participate in NaNoWriMo?"

It's not that I want to not write a novel, mind you, it's just that...well, a lot of people seemed convinced that any creative mind worth his or her salt would attempt to scribble away and write something in the month of November. Jump on the bandwagon, most of them seemed to be saying. This month, we're all writing novels--so why don't you attempt to write a novel in a month as well?

But see, I have this perfectionism problem. I can be a tremendously prolific writer when I want to be: but just because I can write a lot when I want to doesn't mean that what I write is actually any good.

I realized this the other day when I knocked out a silly, grammar-related, four-paragraph (ish) e-mail at work in about...ten minutes. Probably less than that. I double-checked it for typos and such (because really, wouldn't it be super ironic to send out a grammar-related e-mail with errors?) and sent it off, not terribly worried. It's not that I wanted it to go unread, mind you, but I didn't have a lot of personal investment in that e-mail.

It's impossible not to create something larger without becoming invested in it. And that investment, in turn, leads to the perfectionism quandary: I don't want to let go of anything, even in a small way, until I'm more or less satisfied with it. If I tapped into my powers of prolificness (prolificivity?)...I have a feeling my initial result would look bad. If I lucked out, it might look not entirely bad...But it would be mostly bad.

Except that it occurred to me a few days ago that most things need to be a little (or a lot) bad, because we see what needs improvement--and then we can improve it. So this year, I'll actually participate in this November writing event to see what I can come up with. And I'll talk myself into not expecting things to be perfect right away.

We'll see how it goes.

Wandering Down Book-Memory Lane

I have a default present-buying setting that automatically directs my inner compass to one specific place: the bookstore. This default setting becomes even more validated when my sister tells me that my nephew loves books that have textures in them. (In all fairness, she also told me he needs pajamas. But that is neither here nor there.)

Anyway, as I perused the children's book section today, I came across a book that has long remained in my memory and may possibly still be on my parents' bookshelf: Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel.

And for a brief couple of minutes, I felt just like a little kid all over again.

Don't you love that? Books are wonderful, wonderful things.

On Why Sometimes I Ignore People I Once Knew

Today I walked past someone I used to know. At least, I'm relatively certain I used to know him: if not, he bore an incredibly uncanny resemblance to someone who studied poetry with me five years ago.

When you major in something such as Creative Writing and Poetry during your college years, you learn something in your workshops: there are other people as talented as you. And there are other people far, far more talented than you are. It's a good place to be, really, if you have an ego problem. Because unless you truly are amazing, the ego inevitably deflates more than a little as you help other people with what they wrote and realize Hey, this is far better than anything I've done yet.

Let's face it. Not all talents are created equal.

Anyway. As I walked into work today, this guy I'm pretty sure I once knew was walking in the opposite direction. He looked like...himself...from a distance. But when I got closer to him, I pulled out my cell phone and pretended to check text messages. I didn't want to make eye contact.

I always find it odd and sort of...disappointing...to see how many of my former classmates are living regular lives. Most of us haven't done anything exceptional since we left school. Only a small number of us have published--and that includes the talented ones. I don't know how many of us still try, or how many of us have simply relegated ourselves to living something different than what we imagined for ourselves just a few years ago.

And that's when I realized: I think I do stuff like this because I'm a little disappointed with myself. At what point did I opt to stop doing the brave thing and embrace the practical but not as gutsy thing? And was that decision really as wise as I liked to think it was at the time?

I think it may be time to dust off some dreams.

Mark Time, Mark Time, And...

I had a realization recently. And, like most of my epiphanies, it was rooted in a certain amount of...nerdery.

In the course of a conversation with someone who shall remain nameless (let's say that it's because I'm protecting anonymity and not because I'm not quite sure who I was speaking with, in the name of niceness, shall we?), a common lament popped up. The sentiment expressed was this--that said someone was tired of waiting, tired of marking time.

And then came the sudden jolt: waiting and marking time are not the same things to me. They haven't been for more than ten years now. (Ok, it's been eleven, but who's counting?) And if you're wondering how I can be so exact in how long the two have had a distinction for me, I have exactly two words: Marching Band.

Hey now, I told you this is an epiphany rooted in nerdery.

When you participate in a marching band, marking time isn't a matter of waiting. Marking time is, essentially, marching in place as you play those glorious songs to which you'll be marching... and you can't tell me it wasn't a little glorious to play the music from Sesame Street. Okay, so maybe glorious isn't exactly the word I wanted.

Anyway. Back to my point. Marking time allows someone to understand how their marching coordinates with the music. It helps people know the rhythm and pace of things before making them worry about direction, movement, and actual spacing.

In short, it's preparation.

So I've decided while it's absolutely true that I hate waiting, I rather hope that I'm always marking time.

If the Ghosts Kill Me, I'll Be Productive

So sometimes I go through bizarre phases wherein all decisions I make about prioritizing tasks while I'm at my house fall in the hands of... Pac-Man. You might think I jest, but I'm sorry to report it's the truth. I'm hoping that admitting to such sort of...shames...me into better behavior. (Then again, how much shame do I have if I'm admitting to it?)

Logic dictates that some things are more important than others: laundry; cleaning; writing; studying; cooking--these should trump, say, reading novels and watching television. Emphasis, of course, on should.

But lately I'm just lacking the motivation to do those most productive things and when I come home, my rationale works something like this: "If I can reach a score of 25,000 or more in Pac-Man, then I don't have to clean my room." Or do my laundry. Or cook a dinner. My expertise in keeping that little munchy man alive determines my responsibility level.

And then, when I'm in these moods, I feel entirely justified in saying that Pac-Man let me do whatever it is that I did. After all, if those things were truly important...wouldn't something intervene to harm my score?

It's silly, and I know it. But sometimes I like feeling as though my responsibility lies in the hands of something else. Even if it only last for a minute or two before I acknowledge that okay, after all, I am the master of my time. And it's probably not best spent playing Pac-Man.