On Moving and Loneliness

Moving is draining.

It’s physically draining, of course. It takes effort to put all of one’s things into boxes and bags, and it’s a time drain for the same reason. It drains money (gas, renting a truck, miscellaneous things you never think of until you need them). It drains relationships (calling in favors, strain and bickering during the move).

But, for me at least, it’s mostly emotionally draining.

For the last several years, I’ve lived with my best friend. He joined the army recently and left a lot of stuff behind, some of which I wanted and some of which I tossed into boxes and bags at the last possible moment to sort through later.

I opened a box and saw our things, mixed, and was reminded of the last several years of my life. Our library, with my trashy vampire novels and his Chinese-American literature. His computer, to be stowed away until needed or he gets it. My Guitar Hero controllers. Our pots and pans. Our lives.

I set up his credenza and shoved his bookshelf into the room I can’t help but call “Austin’s room,” no matter how hard I try to call it the spare bedroom or study. I saw the remnants of his influence in my life as I put away sparkly decorations and fold his comforter, which still smells like him despite being washed.

I opened boxes I never touched at my previous place, see things I packed quickly and forgot from our first apartment together two years ago. I sorted through plastic drawers and tried not to cry over the couch (our couch) I had to leave behind. Because it’s just a couch. It shouldn’t matter.

But it does. That couch is where we watched House and Bones. That’s where we played WoW. Where we sat and talked and laughed and grew together. And I stood there, in the room I can’t help but think of as his, looking at the barely organized piles of books and boxes, full of our things, and realized I couldn’t take it, that I miss him too much, I regret not saying enough, and I am too crushingly alone at that moment and this to unpack so much as one more thing.

I’ll see him again, but our life together is over and I’m mourning.

That’s all there is to that, really; my friend is no longer actively in my life and I am sad.

Revelations this is not. 

On Self Image, Weight, and Being Awesome.

I have recently decided I've spent enough time not being awesome.

This is a hard post to write, which means I should, but hang with me here while I sort my thoughts and push past my instincts to cover or twist the truth.

I'm fat.

I'm inclined to write something like, "big" or "heavy-set" or some other ridiculously cushy word designed to help me feel better about my weight. Calling something what it is strikes me as infinitely more effective, however. Thus, I'm fat. I am morbidly obese, in the most present and terrifying sense of morbid. If I do nothing, it will kill me.

It is difficult to be honest with myself about this, let alone the wide world of the internet. I know what happens when you put emotions online, or even out in the world. Even more terrifying, however, is the idea that I must face that I have failed myself so spectacularly, that it has not only cost me years of my life where I could have truly lived but could also cost me my life altogether.

Shortly after my family moved to Iowa, I found myself rather lacking in friends. I spent more time at home, playing games and reading. My mother was working and often I'd be left to myself. One day she came home and found that I had eaten an entire bag of Cooler Ranch Doritos. Not the small kind: the big bag. An entire bag, all by my little first-grade self. She was so upset, but looking back I realize she was actually scared. Looking back, I'm now sad and scared for little me. Little lonely me, who ate because she had nothing else to do and the chips tasted good.

I was never really conscious of what I was doing. I'd eat when I was hungry, or bored. I didn't eat when I was actively sad, but it's only looking back that I realize I'd eat to try and prevent the feelings of loneliness and boredom. The hardest part to face is really how much of it was my fault. I didn't have to be so lonely. I wasn't painfully shy, nor horribly socially awkward. Quite the contrary, I was a horribly arrogant and conceited person. I told myself I didn't want to be friends with my high school classmates because I felt smarter than all of them and that they weren't worth being close to.

But I remember wanting to go to a movie one night and the only two people I considered friends in town told me they'd rather be alone than be with me.

I should take a moment to thank Celia and Helena. The internet, and the people I've met here, saved my life many times over while I was in high school. I am indebted to them for both talking to me that night and listening to me cry.

I understand better now why I wasn't liked in high school. It was because I am weird; I don't exactly have the most normal interests. How could they possibly relate to someone who couldn't care less about the things they cared so much about? And why would they have wanted to be friends with me anyway? I poorly hid that I felt I was smarter than them all. I spent so much time acting above them that it's little wonder a few (and only a few to the great credit of my high school classmates) sought to drag me down from my high fucking horse.

I've placed so much value of myself in my supposed intelligence. My entire self-worth has been balanced on this trait that I've held to be singularly true: I am smart, probably smarter than most of the people around me. That simply isn't true, though. I am above average, perhaps, but I am not that intelligent, and certainly not in an all-encompassing sense. I lack knowledge in so many areas, and my wisdom about the world is so severely lacking as to be comical. Even as I write this, however, I can't quite bring myself to really believe it. A large, perhaps a fat, part of me clings to this idea that I'm worth something because of my brain.

Because that's the only part of me I feel is worth anything.

Just writing that is hard. Allow me to write it again.

I feel the only worth I have is based in my intelligence and without that, I'm worth nothing.

Telling myself that isn't true is beyond my scope right now.

I am starting to realize why so much of my self-hatred stems from appearance. I tell myself it doesn't matter to me. If they (they being them, the plebeians who are not me, the sad fools) don't like me despite my appearance, well, they don't deserve me and my precious mind and insight then.

That's just stupid though. The sentiment, minus some of the arrogance, isn't the worst; yes, who I am should mean more than just what I look like. But who I am includes what I look like, and even I don't like my appearance. Why in the world should I expect other people to look past that when I can't?

It's not a great day when you realize you wouldn't want to be your own friend. That you would look at yourself and go, "How'd she get to that size?"

I know exactly how I did. I ate and sat my way to it, refusing to believe it wasn't just self-loathing and depression.

I am not this body. I am not this person trapped in this mountain of fat. I have more worth than to let myself crush my body under my own weight.  I am not yet sure where that worth comes from, but I know I am better than the person I was five years ago.

I might not want to be my friend yet but I will. I will be awesome, and part of being awesome is being healthy.

I have lost twenty pounds already and I will lose the rest. I will be vicious to myself, and I will be celebrate my victories, and soon, I will meet the person that my family and friends all see in me.

I hear she's pretty damn cool.

On Netflix and the Way the Net Works

Dear Netflix,

I've been your customer for a few years now. For the most part, your service has only ever been worth my money and a convenient and happy part of my life. Oh sure, I sometimes have arguments over our queue with my roommate, but that's no fault of yours. And sometimes the streaming is a bit spotty, but most of the time that's my internet provider, who can be kind of sketch, and not your servers. Well, there was that one time it was you, but you fixed it and I lived without my streaming movies for the short duration. I digress. I just want this to be clear; I like your service, and I like you! You're a good company, you treat your customers well in my experience, and you've provided a service I never thought I would enjoy or need so much!

So why do you have to lie to my face, Netflix?

I just don't understand. You're an internet business, like eBay or Amazon. You were born on the web and you'll die by the web. Perhaps you've gotten a bit bloated since you've grown, and taken on one too many people who don't understand how the internet works. I can understand that; old people have all those pretty qualifications and references, and they seem like such sure business bets when it comes to making those Big Decisions That Change the Company's Future. We also haven't had a really good example yet of what happens when a company makes a decision without first thinking about how the internet works. Unfortunately, I feel you may be about to become that example.

I understand why you're raising your prices, Netflix. The real reasons your raising your prices, I mean, not the bald-faced lies you told me and your other customers. I know the companies that make your product, like Sony (I bet you don't like Sony a lot right now), are realizing that you're making a profit and they would like that profit for themselves, or at least more of yours.

I would go on more, but you know what? This is the internet. All I have to do is link you to this article. That, there? That's why you're raising your prices. Because, if you don't, you'll go under like you're in Australia.

And I support you.

No, really. I would totally, 100% get behind you raising your prices so that you can afford to keep your streaming contracts and maybe even add new ones. I would think nothing of paying to keep the great customer support and to prevent a future where I have to pay 6 or 7 different companies to get the same service you, all in one site, could provide. I don't much like the big companies you have to contract with anyway. I don't like the way they limit streaming, the way they make it hard for me to get content online in a timely fashion, and the way they're dragging their feet on presenting new business models that work with this more tech-savvy age. And, as we already established, I like you.

So why did you have to lie to me? Don't try to hide it either. This is the internet, and anyone who spends any short length of time here knows this one very simple fact about the internet: Truth will out. Sure, we netizens stole it wholesale from Shakespeare, but we do that here. Plus, it's fitting. Here, where we swim in information, where almost anything we could ever want to know is a Google search away, the truth will eventually be known. And shared. And remixed. And set into humorous captions with the Hitler from Downfall.

And, the big thing is, the worst of it really, is that your lie wasn't even very good. It was spin. We hate spin. Like pornography, we know it when we see it, and your announcement was extremely NC-17. You didn't have to do that either. You could have just linked to the same article I did and say, "We have no choice. We're sorry. We'll do our best to continue to serve you, and hope you will help us usher in a new way of doing business."

It's honest. It's open. It isn't a goddamn lie to everyone giving you money.

So say that. Apologize for the attack on our collective intelligence, fire the idiots who don't understand the internet, and detail your goals for everyone, even the people who aren't your shareholders. Because, Netflix? Truth will out. And on the internet, the truth can also damn.

Most sincerely,

Kristin

A Netflix Subscriber

EDIT: For those who haven't seen the announcement, here it is.

On Narcissism and Internet Dragons

(A repost from my last failed attempt at blogging!)

Part of being a blogger is the firm conviction that you have something to say and people should want to listen to it. There’s also the implication that you have something new to say, but I would like to think my narcissism is more realistic in scope. I will, doubtless, say things many people have said before me. I can only hope that I either say it in a new way, a funny way, or in a way to reach a different audience than the ones that have heard it before.

To that end, I understand I will mostly rant, rave, and carry on into a void. And, like the ocean, a few of my messages in bottles may eventually reach others. If you have found this bottle; hello! Stay on the shore. I will try to send more your way.

I also understand the value of a good concept; blogs without some focus are generally blogs that lose traction quickly. On the other end of the scale, blogs that are too specific tend to run out of things to talk about just as fast. So, on this blog, I will talk about slaying internet dragons. First however, you all, who don’t live in my head (which is a wonderful, fantastic place) need to know what I mean by “internet dragons.”

I mean this in a few senses. First is, in a nut shell, a World of Warcraft sense. The best way to get a feel for this would be to visit this post from Shades of Grey. You don’t need to know anything about WoW to get it; just look at the images and the ALL CAPS text. Slaying internet dragons is why I play(ed; Warcraft and I have an on-again-off-again relationship) WoW, and a lot of other games as well. Slaying internet dragons is epic and I wish to write about it.

I also mean internet dragons in a sense I’ve yet to see before; internet dragons are the massive amounts of hate, homophobia, sexism, etc., that plague the areas of the internet I visit and much of our IRL world as well. An internet dragon is ignorance and arrogance, laid bare and open for all to see. These internet dragons make me angry, so me and my clue-by-four will attempt to dispense the great power of education in hopes of slaying one or two. Or at least making for some great case studies for my third love and passion.

Trolls. I love trolls, and trolling, and flame wars, and internet drama. I love it. I can’t express to you how much I enjoy watching people get trolled, intentionally or not. Oh, I call it an interest in internet anthropology and I’ll make plenty of academic references and dress it up in intellectualism all I can, but let me just be honest at the front: I am laughing at your e-pain.

Yes, some of the internet drama makes me angry. Angry enough to rant about it on a blog, in fact. Mostly, though, internet drama makes my damn day. As such, in one post, you will see me laughing my ass off about RaceFail 09, and in the next, I will post lengthy thoughts on the poor response of Penny Arcade to the Dickwolves Debacle. These posts may very well be on the same day. You’ll need to learn to roll with it. And I will link to this first entry for the inevitable attempt to call me out for saying, “TITS OR GTFO” to someone who comments on an eventual Women in Gaming post.

It’ll happen. Mark my words.