Anniversary

O My God 66th Post

Thesis

So, the anniversary of #METASWAG is on a night like this. I've gotten nine hours of sleep in the past three days. The weekend is only twelve hours away. Twitter and I are restless following the execution of Troy Davis. Reading took up the bulk of my evening.

All of this somehow adding up to the place where I am right now: a good place.

I never really expected this project to take hold of me the way it has. It's more important to me than it has any right to be: something that I cherish and depend on for comfort and relief. Sure, I have a Twitter account that bares the brunt of my dissemination, but it is by no means as rewarding as the extended sit-downs I have with this blog. Here is the space where I construct language more carefully, even if it's to critique a movie or write about Kanye. Here is the space where I get to really engage with my own headspace.

In other words: I love you, #METASWAG!

Reflection

This past year has been one of the most significant of my life. Some things have remained constant (my sleeplessness, my love of Grouper), others have changed (my majors, my facial hair). Not too many surprises there. I'm continuously redefining and reconstructing an identity that suits me in the moment, while noticing that I can't shake some behaviors - I'm still too comfortable around people I barely know, and too removed from people I know best.

Most importantly (on a day-to-day basis for the Self that I do and don't know), I've gone from thinking about different things to thinking differently about things. Which is to say: I've undergone a sort of ideological shift. I'm not seeing with the same eyes I did a year ago.

My hindsight is still nowhere near 20/20. Even if I'm more self-critical (read: hungover shower-cry-singing "Marvins Room" with all the wisdom of a few hard nights), I'm not very self-restrained (read: I keep trying to be that guy at the party). Maybe in another year I'll have constructed a Me that doesn't fear letting others make an impression first. That can ignore anxieties so I can help You better. That thinks more carefully about words before using them.

Or maybe I can take my time with Me and continue to blog like it's the only thing that matters.

#TYBG

By the way, thank You. For reading. Chances are you matter a lot to me. It means something. Have I told you lately? I was probably too busy complaining about the amount of reading I have or screaming the lyrics to "Countdown." Let's just be honest: You're great, whoever You are.

Conclusions

Here I am. Listening to the Garden State soundtrack (so help me Based God, I didn't even disable scrobbling). Excited to see where the next year takes me. More excited to sleep. Goodnight, fam.

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Rapture

I N T R O S P E C T I O N

Thesis

Existential crises are cool in the summer, because you can have them in the sun. This is the first real blog of the summer, one that has come on the heels of hefty reading, lots of Netflix instant-streaming, and a fair amount of self-examination.

#SUMMER

I've tried to keep myself busy (and my business varied), which has resulted in a ridiculous number of #tagged summer themes this year:

> Ambitious Summer 2011 (because I'm working on myself a lot)

> Nerd Summer 2011 (because I'm playing D&D and writing X-Men fanfic)

> Smart Summer 2011 (because I'm reading lots of feminist and social theory)

> Productive Summer 2011 (because I'm organizing FACIU with other feminists)

> Metal Summer 2011 (because I'm listening to lots of Liturgy and Krallice)

> Cartoon Summer 2011 (because I'm watching cartoons with Ted online)

Real Talk

Most of all, as I've discussed with RZA, this has been a summer for thinking about myself and what I do (which doesn't mean I've become a better person; how do you do that?). I'm just tryna take my thoughts and words into more careful consideration, because language is everything, because I want to perform a different sort of identity, because I've all-too-often been an unwitting annoyance (I'm probably talking to you).

This has meant, of course, wondering why I blog. For the most part, it's to get attention. I want my friends and others to read what I write. I've come to enjoy writing, and especially writing when I know others can comment on it, respond to it, acknowledge it. So I blog to seem eclectic and different and interesting and smart, but also because it's fun. Right? I've also questioned where the voice in which I write comes from. That one's a real head-scratcher. This isn't how I talk in person (duh, because this is written). But this isn't how I write papers for school, or how I write in my diary, or how I write on forums, or how I write on Twitter. #METASWAG writing feels more conversational, affectedly intellectual, self-deprecating and self-aware, but still self-serious. Right?

I wonder if people who talk to me on a daily basis would recognize the voice that has been developed and is developing on this blog. I'd hope something of the personality I perform regularly is noticeable here, but there's no guaranteeing that (especially given the different ways I act around different people).

Funny enough, my writing that is most masturbatory (music reviews) is the writing that I enjoy the most and have written even when I didn't expect anyone to read it. I've also realized it's my most inaccessibly writing, because it isn't really written for any audience but myself. Then again, it is, because it's published on this blog. Contradictions.

Conclusions

I guess I haven't come to any. It's a process, fam. The next blog (hopefully before the end of May, so my monthly tally doesn't reveal serious slacking on my part) will feature more conventional topics, like what I've been reading, listening to, and watching. Why do I feel compelled to write about all this stuff?

tl;dr I BLOG BECAUSE I DO

Before You Go, Enjoy My Latest Obsession