Dweeb

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven’t blogged in awhile. I know. It isn’t busy-ness (See what I did there?) per se, just a lot of sticky personal stuff. I’ll say, all in all, 2008 has been a difficult year for me. Anyone who has been reading has probably figured that out already. I’m not, however, going to dwell on all that. I’m doing my best to kick things back into shape.

I will say that 2009 is looking fantastic. Not one, but two of my siblings are looking to tie the knot. I’m very happy for all of the people involved. I’m going to have some awesome people added to my family in the next year. Lucky me, indeed.

In less spectacular (but way more nerdy) positive news, I’ve been geeking out about some of the movies/tv I’m looking forward to next year. I got one piece of bad news and two pieces of nerdgasm-inducing amazing news today.

***WARNING***Really nerdy gushing ensues:

First the bad: One of the movies on my fall must-watch list was moved into next year. The Road is the adaption of the fantastic Cormac McCarthy novel starring Viggo Mortensen, and though I would have liked to see it between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’m sure the wait will be worth it.

Now the good: I’ve put my foot in my mouth many times before, but I think I’d never stuffed it in there farther than when I dismissed The Watchmen out of hand as another cult graphic novel not deserving of its near universal acclaim. I finally came to my senses recently and decided to give it a read. Though it may not be among my favorite novels of all time, it is certainly a masterpiece. All of the now-clichéd descriptions are correct: it is the ultimate deconstruction of the superhero; it is a criticism of “power politics”. It’s great. So, of course, despite troubling rumors about the script, I am excited about the film. You can imagine how pleased I was to find today that new footage had been released in a recut trailer.

Secondly, my LOST fandom has reached feverish heights since I decided to give it a second chance this spring after abandoning it after watching some of season 2 when it aired in 2005. I’m certainly not the biggest sci-fi fan in the world, but I always have time for clever, well-written, and subtle stuff. The series is just that, in my humble opinion. Its gigantic fan base and popularity on a major network despite being incredibly nerdy and complex attest to that. Of course, there have been missteps. I can hear my husband shouting, (Highlight to read spoiler) “Mr.Eko’s death was mishandled!” now, but it has well-fleshed out characters and great pacing which is a lot to say about a television show or science fiction. Unfortunately, it won’t be back on air until 2009, so I’ve been following the hiatus spoilers and message boards closely. You can imagine how thrilled I was to find the first Season 5 promo was posted today.

So there it is. I’m done geeking out…maybe. For now, I’ll be sitting on the second floor of the Round Rock Higher Education Center listening to Norwegian Wood and people-watching.

Hiatus

Oh dear! I didn’t write yesterday. I’ve been out of my normal rhythm lately and completely changing my strategy, so I’ve been spending a little time away from the computer. Now, we are going away for four days to the ‘rents house. My family is quite nerdy and has decided to see Indiana Jones together. We also have some other family stuff in the form of a graduation. So I won’t be around any wireless Internet in my parent’s lovely rural/suburban community until I run to my brother’s house to check my email. No posts till Tuesday.

I’ve been praying, thinking, and generally worrying about getting back into a full-time mode. I like my time freelancing and do think I could definitely take it somewhere great in another year of networking and writing, but I’m not sure that’s what I want right now. One of the reasons I started all of this is that I was so discouraged by the jobs that were available to me right out of college. I’ve had the ability to monitor things and develop myself for awhile now, and I feel that it may be best for my sanity to take the right on-site job that rolls around. In the mean time, I’m switching my freelancing focus, taking developmental classes, and still sniffing out freelance jobs. I will definitely keep working with some clients even if I go into a job. I know I will return to contracting in the future once I get some more solid stuff under my belt.

I am, as ever, thrilled with all of the experiences I’ve had in my life. I will be ready and willing to throw myself into the next adventure. I even got my permit yesterday. I’m quickly becoming a real girl.

Preoccupied

My husband and I were pondering to ourselves whether or not we are too career oriented. It seems like there are babies popping up all around us. We were discussing the fact that we don’t want to have kids for at least four years. We decided that was mainly because we wanted to be heading in the right direction professionally and be settled first.

I don’t think is unreasonable. I know plenty of people who do this. I just thinks it’s weird that we are mainly thinking about work goals before all of this family stuff. We’ve barely seen each other for the past few months, and I have started to think that we might need to strike some sort of balance.

All in all, I guess it comes down to different strokes. In the mean time, we’re having a date tonight.

Wunderkammer

I’ve been looking at code all day, so I happily skipped off (apple-t, “wordpress”) to write a blog entry. Then it hit me: writing about code is boring. This is why the majority of programmers don’t write.

That’s not to say that a writer’s life is any more exciting than a programmer’s. I probably spend as much time on the computer a day as my husband. I also don’t write off programming as uncreative. It can be. Language is language and using it to convey anything is exciting.

That being said, a writer’s life can be pretty exciting. When I was in college, I used to dream about being like Hemingway. I wanted to cavort around the world, participate in ancient tribal customs, and drink away a few years of my life running around Asia. Some people do this. When I worked for a literary magazine, we used to get submissions from a guy that claimed he was a world traveler. He sent us to his website, and it did feature pictures of him giving the bird to the great wall of China, among other things.

The funny thing was that this guy could not write. Seriously, he was abysmal. He had these positively boring characters that would go on drug-fueled complaining binges. This kind of thing can be done well, but you have to have basic understanding of grammar and syntax first. He certainly didn’t. The stuff was so bad it became a joke between my coworkers and me.

I think that there are a lot of beautiful things in this world. God willing, I will see a fraction of them in my lifetime. I will try everything I can to bring some depth of knowledge to what I do. I just think that sometimes you should stay inside and work on your form. One of the most important parts of good writing is editing. You can hardly edit a manuscript while hunting tigers or visiting the best brothels in Bangkok.

Still, I think I need to get out of this house. I’m no Hemingway, but I’m no Dickinson either.