I woke up feeling pretty lousy, sinus-wise, and with a great big chip on my shoulder. I choked through two drags of a cigarette and went to the computer to check my site traffic. Web statistics are the most ego crushing thing to happen to me since I left my abusive partner years ago. I slipped into a completely defeatist attitude.
Why am I doing this? What is my point? No one is listening. Blah blah blah.
For the record (now that I’ve had a cup of coffee and a Xanax), I do this for me. I change the colors for me. I write for me. I broadcast for me. I don’t do it for my ego. I do it to have a voice. Whether anyone is listening to my soliloquies is unimportant, unnecessary. I do it because I can. When I got my first computer, I asked Cos (my tech guy at the time) if I could do certain things on my website if I got one. He told me one day I would, and explained to me the technology that would lead to it. And he was right, and I have that now. An 18 year goal completed. That, right there, is why I do this. Fuck the web stats.
IT will happen. Or IT won’t. Do I really want to be internet famous? No. I had to ask myself the same question when the Sally Jesse show called me in December 1999, was that the kind of publicity, audience, I really wanted? The answer then, as now, is “No fucking way.” What will internet virilaty get me? Trolls. Critics. I don’t need that kind of exposure, no one really does, and I don’t think they think about that when they set out to gain online recognition from a wide audience. The wider the audience, the more chance for assholes. Again, fuck that.
After my television shows tonight, I am going to make quiche, finally. A spinach/feta/red onion/garlic affair. It’s mainly for Doc, though he got me an extra package of feta today for my frozen Greek pizza, so I can use all I have in the quiche and my lamb sandwiches.
Speaking of lamb sandwiches . . . take some ground lamb, sautee it with salt, pepper, and oregano (if you use fresh, use less than if you use dry, and put it in when the lamb is half done instead of raw), and finely diced red onion. Take a flatbread (or pita) and spread it evenly with the humus of your choice. Sprinkle the cooked lamb and crumbled feta on the flatbread. Garnish with a bit of oregano and diced red onion. Fold like a taco and devour like a wild animal that hasn’t eaten for several days (if you’re me). I call it a Ground Lamb Gyro. If you can find/make it, drizzle some tzaziki sauce (sp, the cucumber/yogurt sauce) over it all before you fold it. Delicious. If you don’t like lamb, you can do it with any ground meat you want. You can also add some chopped, fresh spinach to it for greenery. I didn’t have any, only frozen, which is going in the quiche.
Oh dear, I just thought of several new projects I want to do. Remix some more poems, make videos for them, maybe record some more. I have a few printed out to record. I wonder if I can record audio and video of any quality on this machine. The video on Bollux always came out jumpy and pixellated, no matter what I did with the resolution and size. It was frustrating, it seems like everyone else and their mother’s can record video on their computers. Video blogs are everywhere. I need to make a welcome video for youtube and Patreon. Actually, two. And I don’t know how I’m going to do them. Either wear a mask, or bandanna round the bottom of my face, or put the side of my face to the camera. Not quite a Sia thing.
It’s not that I want to hide my identity, by any means. It’s because I want to hide my mouth, it is ugly when I speak. I’ve watched videos of me speaking and I make the worst faces and shapes with my mouth. It’s much better up on a stage, or on just audio. I’m afraid of video, can I admit that? Can I confess to you that I am scared to put my now-old face out there with my young words? I can’t hide behind 15 year old pictures forever. Even in those, I was 30. I looked damn good for my age, but it’s caught up with my face. I don’t have wrinkles, I just have deep parenthesis around my mouth and dark circles around my eyes that my glasses mostly hide. I don’t know where the dark circles came from. I will spend some time in the sun this spring to even out my facial skin tone. The circles are from being so pale, Doc tells me. Because I don’t have bags, or eye droopage.
Then there’s the rest of my body. Let’s just say I am not in shape, and no matter how skinny I get, there will always be loose skin and a bit of flab to wiggle. And that is just what it is. I could get up off my ass and do something about it, but apparently it doesn’t matter enough to me to.
I tested the new growth, it’s pretty good. I can’t wait until it matures.
Whis reminds me, I’m going to attempt to grow an herb garden again this year. And wildflowers in the back yard, I have the seeds. The herb garden will be in containers, so I can bring them in when it gets too hot and I can’t find any shade for any amount of time. If I have just one box of them, I can keep a tray next to the back door and put it in there and then right inside the door, so they still get sun, just not the direct heat. I think that will help them survive. The sun just gets to hot for the tender little things. I want my own supply of oregano. And cilantro. I go through them so fast, and unfortunately, since I only use a bit at a time, the fresh we buy tends to go bad. If I could just harvest what I need, that would be great. I don’t know if I’ll try to do flowers again. I may replant the bushes in the front yard, or I may replace them with cacti. I think I’d rather do that. It fits the landscape out there better. It has mini palms, and holey wood pieces, and pinkish rocks, and one tree in the middle that mutated into a giant bush that I get to take the chainsaw to. So, cacti it is. I’ll get them at Lowe’s so I get the one year warranty on them. The wee bushes take too long to grow, the cacti will look good from planting.
I wish we could afford some useless large southwestern jars and big rocks to put in the front yard, to dress it up a little. Since we’re going to trim the trees out there. If I could, I’d put a dry stream bed meandering through the front yard. They did it on a strict budget, so it’ really plain, when there is so much you can do with the open space. And it’s lifted off the sidewalk three feet, with a short white iron fence around it and brick pillars every here and there along the fence. So, the yard is almost at eye level and all the yards in the neighborhood that are the same way have really cool yards. You can tell I want to live here for a long time. Doc has even mentioned the possibility of buying this house from the management company. We would be paying less with a mortgage, rent here is outrageous for the neighborhood. If a house is worth $80,000, the rent shouldn’t be above $800. That’s my thinking. They are ripping us off because they only have two houses in this nice of a part of town. The other one is five doors down.
But coming up with the down payment is always the problem. I trust him to work it out. He wants to buy a house here. That is the first sign of commitment that he actually wants to stay here, not just drag me back to the east at the first opportunity. Maybe he wants to buy me a house so that he can go back east and live with his mom and Kelli and I have a cheap, nice place to live. Because, if he left me for his mom, Kelli would have to come out here. I told her to buy her nephew from her sister and bring him with. When he’s old enough, he can go to UNLV, they never have to be apart. If he lives here, he can go tuition free, or discounted tuition, or something for state residents. It’s how Doc and I are going to go back to university. I want more writing training, and he wants to finish his accounting degree. He doesn’t seem like an accountant. But he is really good with money. He should be a financial adviser.
For example, he keeps telling me we are broke, but he is using my check to buy my $300 medication, when I have samples, so I know we have some money to spare, or he wouldn’t be stocking up. But he doesn’t want me to have a pair of $16 skinny jeans? Okay. Whatever. He accused me the other day of having discovered and become obsessed with materialism. No, just fashion. I want to look good for me. I’ve been bothering to get dressed every day and comb my hair and get my shit together (I don’t wear make-up), I should have a choice of clothes, though a small choice, that fit me and look good on me. I have enough shirts, I’m missing pants. And those jeans were 45% off. I at least find deals. But I don’t want to argue with him over money, so I’m not going to ask him for anything for a while. I have to renew my domains soon, so that’s a $70 expense that he is expecting to pay with his own card because I can’t put that on my card. I can put the web host fees on my card, that is a justifiable expense, but the domain fees are not. Go figure, the government.