Hiatus

I always hate when my favorite webcomics/blogs/bands go on "hiatus." It's a detested word. It is never used to mean, "I'll be back soon." Instead, it is code for, "I have abandoned this creative pursuit forever, left it stagnant, incomplete, and frozen, and I won't be honest enough to admit it to myself or you." I didn't want to use that word when I stopped blogging last fall (effectively going "on hiatus"), but now that I face the last six months from a new living situation, I can see that my life and my writing suffered from a paralyzing stagnance. My home environment, something that affects my emotional state greatly, was cramped and hostile, crippling everything from social interactions (you can't have anyone over when your roommate lives in the living room and there's no room in your bedroom because two people are sardine-canned in) to creative pursuits (I only touched my banjo to dust it; I only wrote to fulfill assignments) to making food (I had to clean the entire kitchen before using it. Every time.) My whole life was on hiatus.

I don't know what to say here now that I'm back - and, my friends, I do plan to be back and to write often. This whole thing - the roommate situation - was a mistake I hope not to make again. I could rehash what has happened these past two months, but I doubt that that would be beneficial to anyone. The situation cost me a friend, a semester of productivity, and not a little sanity.

These last few weeks have been bittersweet. After two weeks of cleaning and rearranging, Ashley and I now have much-needed private space, room to stretch, and a clean living room and kitchen, but the spectre of guilt still tries to wheedle its way in. Neither of us is much into confrontation, drama, or putting ourselves before others, so the process of detaching ourselves from our roles as the enablers of our roommate and friend has been rather trying. The fact that it meant hardening ourselves enough to throw that same friend and roommate out on the street in order to save our sanity made the whole affair somewhat of an epic struggle. Ashley's the hero of this one; I was her silent sidekick, the go-between with a quiet agenda, the mole - the coward. I stayed quiet and let her take the fall for being "selfish" for casting Randi out into the cold, and for that I owe her an enormous apology.

At last, though, I have an environment in which I can work and be happy, a class and work schedule (15 credits and 11 hours of work) that leaves time for me and for what I want to do, and positive relationships to inspire me. Hiatus? Over.

Vote or Death!

Okay, maybe I won't actually kill anyone if they don't vote. After all, how can I blame my upwards of four readers if they are apathetic about an infrequently-updated personal blog? Anyway, here's the pitch: you get to help me pick out the theme of this blag for the next little while (code for "whenever Caitlin decides to change it again"). Should I keep the one that's up now, or should I put one of these lovely options up instead? No pressure, I mostly wanted to show off the other options.

It is true what you say: I live like a hermit in my own head.

I open, stare at, close, and reopen a Blogger tab on Firefox, like an agorophobe cracking open a door, asking himself if today will be today, then deciding that he is not dressed right, or witty enough, or that his library needs dusting. I have homework to do, after all. So I post a picture here and a video there. Pay no attention to the writing major behind the sparse, unoriginal text.

Here's a picture. My polarizer decided to make some photos lomo-tastic, which is nice, since Costco won't process my 120 film. This one hasn't been messed with because I do not yet have photoshop, and Google hates Mac.



Here, too, in my usual custom, is a video of a song I'm digging these days. This is the band Loney, Dear. They have a sweet and quiet sound that they use for stealth. They will sneak up on you and steal your iPod listening time from other artists and you won't even know why. Damn, dirty Swedes.

I bet she bought that dress at WalMart. Sellout.

Sure, the homework hasn't started yet, but I reel like blogging. Something about the bourgeois-ness of having a French class and a Spanish literature class one after the other. And with my hair cut, don't I look like a snobby hipster blogger now?

No Ian, you cannot be a snobby hipster blogger, too. We reserve that for people with a-line haircuts only. You are just too mainstream.

Okay, time to get some fancy coffee.

Back by popular demand.

Since all three of my readers have officially made me feel guilty about not writing anything for so long, I suppose I can make myself write a post or two.

But I have (or, as it were, had) so many good excuses for utterly forsaking this little patch of cyberspace. My computer's long-lobbied mutiny against me (I ask you, little iMac, was it all the cephalopod porn? Was it the blogging? The presence of Windows Office? Was I jamming your keyboard too hard? WHY OH WHY??!) was rather crippling. And I've been busy, I guess, though I'll often find myself alone in my room doing nothing in the middle of the day, which, as you know, is the perfect environment for hatching a blog post (note post time).

One factor is that I haven't had any homework from which to procrastinate. Believe you me, homework spurs a great many blog posts in this world. If I had to guess, I'd say that the imminent threat of actual work prompts about, oh, 98% of all clutter in the blagosphere. Livejournal, Blogger, Wordpress... all of these have been found under microscopic examination to be comprised almost entirely of a digitalized compound of laziness and fear of doing real things. Just look at the pixels on the page of any blog. You can see that they ooze with loathing for actual work. However, since I have had very little actual work that involved me sitting at a computer this summer, I have not been able to generate enough laziness and fear to excrete a blog.

See? Completely not my fault, and in a simple, explainable, concise form.




Frankly, I can't believe that, either. Really I've spent most of this summer, and really probably most of this year, being utterly terrified. It hasn't kept me up at night or anything, but I can't help but feel overwhelmed with my choice of college major. I love reading; literature gives me a jolt like few things can. I love writing; there is no joy quite like creating something that you know is good. The problem is where these two joys and my perfectionism intersect. I read great fiction by people such as Joey Comeau and Megan McCarron and wonder to myself how the hell I would EVER be able to come up with something witty, creative, and moving enough to even lick the shoes of a story like "Where Are You Off To Now?" or "The Flying Woman" or even projects such as 55 Words. My creative writing class ended with my miserable failure at creating a cohesive short story (for me, a favorite medium), and I find myself afraid now to even try - and, well, that doesn't leave a blog based mostly on writing in any kind of a good place, does it?

Maybe I'll buck up and get over it. Surely I'm not going to change my major based on this. I've let similar bouts of perfectionist paralysis mess up my schooling far too many times. So for now, my three dear readers, I shall do my best to overcome this. Bear with me, but don't be afraid to push me, either. And, over all, thanks for everything.

On the Genesis of said Blog, Or, Wherein the Author Reveals Her Motives, Or, The First Post.

There is only so long that I can put off writing this damn thing. So here it goes.

I've been sitting on the idea of creating a blog for several months now. I have a blog (of sorts) on MySpace (forgive me Internets for MySpacing), but I do not have freedom of pen there- the people I want to write about have access to it. That fact alone would not necessarily stop me if I were inspired enough, but, combined with the tendency for drama on MySpace (and we all know that drama only breeds more drama), I have taken the plunge into the BlagoSphere. This move was hampered by several reservations I have:

1) I need the freedom to write what I want. In order to accomplish this, I had two choices: A) Get rid of any reservations I have about offending friends and family; or B) Keep it a secret. Maybe someday in the future I will accomplish A, but in the meantime I have chosen to undertake B in spite of the next reservation:

2) I like to have an audience. I doubt that many people will read this, and even if they do, few will comment. I'll admit that this makes me sad: I like feedback; I like to impress people, especially with my writing. I will give this up for a while, though. I don't need it anyway- "you can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself."

3) Blogging is dominated by people who think everyone cares about every little thing they do, and I do not wish to "blog" in this way. So I will try to stay clear of this. Only things that are important or actually interesting will go here, not some stupid tangent on what I ate or who said what. I like the Interwebs too much to do that.



So, setting aside these reservations, I have set out to begin this blog. In it, I hope to provide introspective short stories and extended thoughts. I have always been fascinated by the little things that go on around me, and my school year in Helena has only served to heighten my interest in the mini-dramas constantly playing themselves out around me- the secret worlds. I hope to evoke cricket-serenaded summer nights in which anything can happen, snowy mornings that sheath the world in wonder, and blustery days that pass with little less than mystery.


Welcome to The Secret August Worlds.