Posts tagged with "expression"

Voyeuristic

A lit­tle while ago I put up an up-to-the-minute script that would tell me how many peo­ple were view­ing this page, out of curios­i­ty. It’s always inter­est­ing to find out that some­one is vis­it­ing at the same time that I am. This week I noticed that I had 3 vis­i­tors online while I was updat­ing. I was pret­ty sur­prised, since most inter­net surfers spend much less than a minute at a page before leav­ing (most will leave the page if it does­n’t load with­in eight sec­onds, a use­ful fact to know for web design­ers).

I checked my stats and found out that I’m still get­ting more than 100 vis­its dai­ly, which is some­thing that I don’t under­stand. I haven’t done much to adver­tise my site aside from a few Canadian blog list­ings, and only a hand­ful of the peo­ple I per­son­al­ly know check on a reg­u­lar basis. I don’t think I talk about con­tro­ver­sial issues that real­ly gen­er­ate any dis­cus­sion, or any­thing that’s very inter­est­ing for that mat­ter. I don’t pan­der to poten­tial vis­i­tors, I don’t cen­sor myself, I don’t address an audi­ence, and half the time I’m just vent­ing about this or that. I first made this site over a year ago as an out­let for per­son­al expres­sion, and the pur­pose has­n’t changed one bit ever since. I won­der if peo­ple come here by mis­take or look­ing for some­thing spe­cif­ic. I per­son­al­ly have my dai­ly reads (most of them female authors, since there seems to be a short­age of male blog­gers) of peo­ple who have lives that are very dif­fer­ent from mine. Most are just plain inter­est­ing, and some give me a few alter­nate per­spec­tives.

I wish I knew what peo­ple came here for.

Garrulousness

I recent­ly renewed my con­tract with my cur­rent host for anoth­er year of ser­vice. I’m a lit­tle sur­prised that this page has­n’t fall­en into desue­tude over the last year. I sup­pose it’s only now, at 22, that I’m able to find mean­ing in almost all aspects of my life, that I have enough to write about. My pre­vi­ous sev­en or so pages have been rather emp­ty, although there was more vari­ety in the con­tent. I don’t think I’ve ever had a lay­out last this long.

It’s usu­al­ly when I have a neg­a­tive emo­tion that I’m able to write, but the last year has been a series of ups and downs, although most­ly ups, and con­sid­ered to be more sta­ble than pre­vi­ous years. Sometimes I can read back on pre­vi­ous entries and re-expe­ri­ence the emo­tion I was feel­ing at the time of writ­ing them. I’m sur­prised that I’m not embar­rassed about some entries, how rawly I’d express myself, and what I was think­ing at the time. I find that I’m usu­al­ly embar­rassed by how igno­rant, stu­pid, and idi­ot­ic a per­son I used to be. Aaron explains to me, of course, that it’s all just a mea­sure of how far I’ve come, but it’s some­times it’s dif­fi­cult to think of what I was like and not feel shame.

I remem­ber the nights I spent, after all class­es were fin­ished, com­ing home, cook­ing a meal, tak­ing a show­er, all I’d have left was to sit in front of my glow­ing mon­i­tor and write. When all I want­ed, at the end of the day, was to be able to turn the lights out, write until my eyes felt too tired to focus, and go to sleep sat­is­fied. I’m not sure if I remem­ber those nights fond­ly or not.

And per­haps there are more to come.

It Was The Gentle Waves

Access to my con­trol pan­el, my data­base, and my scripts has been tem­porar­i­ly dis­abled. Apparently, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a musi­cal group has con­tact­ed my host in regards to an mp3 I have stored. Instead of con­tact­ing me first, the rep­re­sen­ta­tive decid­ed to bring the issue up with my host. I would have been fine with remov­ing the mp3 from my site if I was sim­ply asked. I real­ized that it was a vio­la­tion of my terms of ser­vice, but I did­n’t think that any­one ever vis­it­ed this site, so I had the song for archival pur­pos­es. Now, I have no way of updat­ing my con­tent, in what has become my main heal­ing medi­um. I can­not be slowed by this, and even though it feels as though I have no means of expres­sion or com­mu­ni­ca­tion, I still feel the need to write.

Intro

To divulge is ther­a­peu­tic.

Many may not con­scious­ly know this, but they divulge nonethe­less, for what feels bet­ter than to express one’s prob­lems or opin­ions to anoth­er? Burdens fall on more than one per­son. Convictions become stronger. In a world full of talk­ers, we need a world full of ears.

But I choose not to bur­den oth­ers with my prob­lems. I choose not to make oth­ers feel bad, or wor­ry them with won­der­ing. I don’t give peo­ple point­less details about my life, or bore them with things they don’t want to know. So I speak to what always lis­tens. I write to what is always there. I opine to what nev­er judges me.

Everyone has a sto­ry to tell.

This is mine.

The Summer Nights Alone

It’s night and I don’t feel like sleep­ing. My eyes tell me I’m tired, and my mus­cles empha­size the point. My cat is asleep under my bed, hud­dled behind the skirt, wait­ing for me to give her the chair. A night show is play­ing on the Aborigal Peoples Television Network, some small bud­get­ed pro­duc­tion host­ed by a pho­ny man with an imper­a­tive voice. The cur­rent act, a group of three women with ban­shee-like voic­es, bang on the sim­ple drums they hold as they sing quick mov­ing melod­ic lines. My room glows blue from a sin­gle Candela perched atop my desk.

I’m in an odd mood. Not quite con­tent, not quite lone­ly. I try to remain sto­ic nev­er­the­less. Sometimes it feels as if the night is the only thing that accepts, the only thing that under­stands. Can I express my mind to you, the silent ora­tor?

Perhaps I’ll fall asleep to some Portishead, a rem­nant of some pleas­ant mem­o­ries.

Unfamiliar pil­lows with unfa­mil­iar sheets.