Facebook Fast

So I'm fasting a bit from Facebook.

And it's hard. Really hard. It's hard because my sister just had her teeth removed and that's so many excellent FB statuses (like I am 100% honest when I say that she woke up in the recovery room and began reading the instructions on the side of a wet wipe container with great detail to her recovery room roommate in a very loud voice). It's hard because I'm living at home and there's not much going on except what my parents have to do etc. I'm an extrovert. I get energy from others. It's a bit difficult to get human interaction when I have no friends to feed my emotions. It's strange strange strange to have nothing to do when you're terribly bored. But if nothing else, I've figured out just how much I'm addicted to FB. I AUTOMATICALLY type in "f" in the bar at the beginning of the day, in the middle of the day, at the end of the day... whenenever I'm doing nothing else. It's almost disturbing how often this happens.

Do I need to know what Suzy Lou Freebush just had for lunch and then Instagramed it? No. Do I need to see the new, organic 100% post consumer fedora that Hipster Chipdougal ironically bought at the local Farmer's Market? No. Do I need to know that Joebob Jones just got married to Jane Doe-Smith? Maybe... if I see Joebob and Jane in the next 5 days... or the next 5 years... or if I ever see them again... ever.

There's a big wide world of "people, lookatmes" who make their social platform Facebook. I'm pleased that it IS a social platform on which most people attempt to spell well, be informed, and try not to be TOO insulting. There are, of course, exceptions to these rules, but for the most part, everyone is pretty well behaved and polite. This is probably because your picture is RIGHT THERE. There's no anonymity with facebook. I KNOW who you are. You know who I am... based on my "maps" you know around where I live... and if you check out a person's statuses and information long enough, you can figure out where they go to school, went to school or where they work. Anyone on facebook has the potential to become a stalker. We all trust each other enough not to become a stalker. I'm not sure we SHOULD be trusting each other this much, but as I have gathered from personal experience, the things we should do are usually not the things we actually do.

FOR EXAMPLE. I should not have wasted... 6 years of my life... on FB. But I probably did. These are years I'm not getting back. These are hours and hours I could have spent sleeping, talking to friends, sleeping, doing homework, looking for jobs and sleeping. Did I need that sleep? Yes. Yes, I did.

So I'm not staying off of FB for too long. I'm going to see how long I can last... I might make it to the 40 days I should have given up for Lent. Though giving anything up for lent is just so cliche... and I can never do it. I've never given up a single thing for lent that I've been able to maintain for 40 days. It's tough. I know a guy I've been talking to on FB that I really want to keep talking to... but I also don't want him to think that I'm stalking him.... on FB. < Read this sentence... for it shall be deleted in a week.... if I remember to delete it.

My Ex-Lover

"Lately, I have been having the overwhelming urge to create. It itches in my very bones. I sit through class and the only thing I can think of is that I have these collagraphs in the printmaking room that I could do at least a dozen more prints off of, or that I have a terrible looking coil pot in the ceramics center that desperately needs help. I want to draw everything, and everything I don't draw, I want to paint. I want to paint on everything. I want to paint on my computer, so the white top isn't white anymore. I want to find spiderwebs to draw. I want to take pictures of everything and everyone. I want to spend hours with friends, taking dozens of pictures of them.
I imagine that this is what it feels like to be head-over-heels in love. Nothing matters much anymore, just me and my art. I was so happy, so elated today, just looking at my prints and thinking about doing more printing. So many ideas chase themselves through my mind, it's hard to keep track of them anymore."
~ January, 2009~

Oh, what have I done? I think I know now what it feels like to fall out of love. My Art, where are you now? I wish you were here. We'd make beautiful children together. I used to love that feeling, that my art was something special... that no matter what I did, everyone would at least feel value in it and people would love it. Now, I feel as if I still love Art desperately, but he ignores me.

It used to be that he was abusive. He'd coerce me into spending hours and hours with him, ignoring my friends, sometimes forgetting to eat, just so I'd stay with him. He was a selfish monster, but I was happy, and he was happy and I think we were happy together. Then time changed. I couldn't communicate with him as well as I wanted and he stopped trying. He no longer keeps me captive for more than a few hours a week at most. We hardly even talk. I don't know what holds this relationship together anymore except for my undying envy of his other lovers.

All Artists Are Arrogant

It's true. Look at almost any great artist. Hang around with great artists. You'll realize they are mostly all arrogant snobs.

There are the few exceptions, of course. I've met a great many an artist who is far from any even hint of arrogance; while they're exceptional artists, I think it is doubtful too many of them will ever be famous. I suppose I'm referring to the great artists. Many of the great artists are well known for being egotistical jerks. And those who are not egotistical jerks, hung and hang around with egotistical jerks, making them egotistical jerks by association.

Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Diego Rivera... even Michelangelo... fantastic egos.

Many excuse artists for it.

"Who can understand such genius?" They ask.

It's not that I have a problem with egos. I wish I had one, a fantastic ego, that is. My ego is small. It lives in a box with many shiny objects. It keeps to itself and runs on a hamster wheel every once in a while just to keep busy. It hides when others come to pick it up and play with it. They want to see what tricks my poor little ego can do. But all that poor little ego wants to do is hide in the corner of the box, buried under wood shavings and sleep, pretending that no one can see it. It doesn't want to be an arrogant jerk. It doesn't want to be noticed even. It bites the hand that's holding it and runs away.

Oh these woodchips are so safe. No one will find my little ego here.


Little Ego, don't you want to come out?

No.

Not even for a little bit?

No.

We could paint a little while... you could show people how good you are at it.

No. No I'm not.

But you are! Honestly, you are. I promise you are.

No. No, I'm not. I don't want to come out. I don't like people looking at me. I don't want to be noticed.

But you do want people to notice how good you are, don't you?

Yes. Well, maybe. No.

But how will people know?

They'll find me.

No they won't, Little Ego. They don't know where to look for you if all you're going to do is hide under woodchips all day.

If they want me, they'll look for me.


And they leave because they're tired of trying to negotiate with someone who won't listen.

I wish, my friends, that this was far from the truth, but I don't think it is. I guess everyone is a little like this sometimes. We want people to notice us but we don't want to have to go out of our way to have people notice us. But me? I like to sabotage myself. Even when people DO notice me, I still try and make myself as small as possible, shivering in my little box, scared to death someone will try and make me come out.

I'm not a recluse; I just can't stand the rejection.

I am terribly insecure. I don't think I'm a very good artist. I don't think I'm a very good anything. It's crippling. It's like someone has taken a baseball bat and clubbed both my knees. It's very difficult to deal, I understand, with people who are so full of self-loathing. Van Gogh... Freida Khalo... self-loathers.... difficult people. No one wants to be around someone who doesn't even want to be around themselves.

It might have started on the playground, when some "well wisher" chose to inform me that I was not the most unpopular girl in school anymore at there was someone who was more unpopular than I. It might have started when that kid Dominic Whatshisname could always draw better guns than I and I lost a contest on who could draw a better science fiction based guns. What I hadn't grasped at the time was the power of shading.

But anyway, these insecurities still feed me, like an evil wife only after my life insurance policy, slowly feeding me arsenic so that it looks like I just have terrible stomach cramps until one day it ends in my foaming at the mouth in agony as my internal organs shut down. Who knew insecurity could be so malicious? It looks so docile in the store window. Who would have known the kitten to have claws?

I want to be free of my insecurities. I want my little ego to grow up big and strong and become a large insufferable ego. I want my ego to be so loud and obnoxious, everyone will want to hang around with me to perhaps glean some gold from my shimmering. My desire to be this is greater than my fear of becoming a self-absorbed brat as most artists are, needing an entourage of those less talented at self-absorption to tell them how absolutely wonderful and beautiful and talented they are at everything.

That's how artists are, you know. They are so full of themselves.