~~ not nearly real.
May. 28th, 2004 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI wrote this... thing about myself, trying to give people background on me. I hate being the sum of my ramblings on HP meta. If anything, the things that attract me about stories and the questions I gravitate to in lit-crit have much more to do with -me- than they do with lit-crit, really. And I really do need to reach out more. I was thinking about the "reality" of internet identities and how I'm always sincere but I do edit myself. Most parts of my life outside of my theoretical or creative thinking kind of annoy, fluster or make me very anxious. So of course, I avoid a lot, and that makes any picture someone could have of me through lj rather... skewed, I suppose.
The problem is, I don't know what to say. What would anyone want to know? Even more confusingly, what would someone -need- to know to "get" me?
I wanted people to understand how I think, and I realized that talking about my life doesn't necessarily accomplish that. I really hate being misunderstood-- it bugs me to the point of maddening me-- and I would honestly say -anything-, explain anything, just so that my motivations and mental habits become a part of the equation. I know that who I am is part of the sum total of what I say. If you just take what I say without knowing who's saying it (outside of fiction), I don't think you can really understand.
Some things I say flippantly, right, and some things are really central to my way of thinking, and some things I can easily change my mind about 'cause they're one of my (myriad) logic errors. People keep trying to apply logic to whatever I write, and it just confuses me, because it always involves a process of translation. Something gets lost. Usually, what gets lost is -why- I say whatever it is, and to me, that's utterly -central-. Context is everything, basically, when you're not someone who's very linear or logical in their writings.
So what about the facts of my life made me into the person I am right now? What's important, not to me, but to someone else to know so that they can see what makes me tick? Is there, in fact, a short-cut to understanding/knowing someone without spending lots of time with them and having an understanding coalesce out of longtime acquiantance?
Somewhat accidentally, I've come across several people mentioning that whole "online persona" thing and how people are "less real" online, and I've been thinking about it on and off for years, anyway. My knee-jerk reaction is that I don't -have- a "persona" and I'm "just me", but thinking about that a bit more, it becomes kind of a joke.
How could anyone think online people are "less real"-- do -they- feel "less real" themselves? And then I realize it's not a question of feeling "real" or whatever, it's just a question of control of information, even unconciously. Without -seeing- the other person, we really assume so much about them merely from their style of writing, using word-choice & vocabulary in place of mannerisms. My own vocabulary in monologue-type writing is pretty different than in conversation, rather different than it is in comments, different again than it is in chat, and seriously different from my fiction. I'm not a -different person- during any of those times, but it's hard to know, isn't it? Well, unless you're good at figuring people out.
It makes me sad, I guess, since I'm almost always sincere, but that doesn't matter because I'm almost always responding to others' input more than generating self-identifying output . I'm almost always confusing the issue, whatever it is. If I can say something in a roundabout way, I'm never going to be blunt.
So the problem
- a) would be that most people online know next to nothing about my "real life" or any actual facts about me whatsoever;
- b) would be that I assume most people don't -want- to know, and would be much less interested in me if they knew (whatever it is that I don't think is actually worth knowing);
- c) I don't actually chat with people in messaging programs much, though I excuse that by saying it ate my brain once and can easily do it again. Regardless, this also doesn't improve anyone's chances of having a clue about me. Funnily enough, I feel like I "know" the people whose lj's I follow closely on a pretty high level compared to most acquaintances I have in real life.
~~
My name is Irina, but I hate my last name, and people -have- called me Reena in real life. However, it's not hard to figure out, since I used it at Nimbus & was on a panel. Um. I'm going to be 26 this June 24th, and I feel really old. I'm still in college (kinda), but I have no direction. I'm sort of a default English major (double with Studio Art) but that means nothing; it's an accident. I may not be in college this coming fall-- it's all up in the air. I'm sort of a directionless bum, but that's neither here nor there.
I want to be a writer, but that's obvious. Um. What might be less obvious is that I'm pretty scared of all the work & effort & commitment I'd have to put into it to really do it. I'm probably somewhat scared of really going out there and trying, and of -succeeding- (or failing). Reality is not my friend.
I was born in Moscow (not the one in Idaho), and came to New York City when I was 11. That was right before the fall of the Soviet Union-- thank the god I don't believe in! Heh. My father had the most curable of cancers since I was little, but since we were behind the Iron Curtain, he died half a year after we got here. I didn't even know how many issues I had about it till much later. Then again, I have so many other issues, it was a bit distracting.
Whatever else is true, I had a pretty happy childhood. My mom spent a lot of time with me, though I mostly just... wandered around, playing by myself. I've always liked wandering and looking at things; sometimes I'd draw & I loved dancing (a lot). I went through about 4-5 years of choreography/figure-skating school, and about a year of pre-art-school classes. Sort of. Oh, and I spent the year from ages 12 to 13 trying Judo, which showed that I like martial arts (a lot) but falling a lot isn't my thing (should've figured that out in figure skating).
I'm such a stationary bookworm, generally, but when I was little I used to love walking & bicycling & swimming. I took swimming classes, but mostly I just have tons of fun in seawater. I have this obsession with the ocean; have since I first came to it around age 6 or 8 or whatever it was. I'm just magnetically drawn to it, even though I'm a city-girl by breeding. I've always loved nature an obscene amount, and had a lot of fun going to summer-camp even though I hate group activity things.
I used to have very close girlfriends when I was little-- before we left, and I've never had friends that close since (that I saw every day). I did lots of "fun activities" in and after school, most of which my mom forced me into. My favorite personal "fun activity" since age 8 (before then, I dunno what I did) has been spending all my afterschool time in the library, after I got my ice-cream. Mmm, ice-cream.
I've always been a little hedonist. Give me good food or pretty things and I'm your slave. As long as you also leave me alone a lot and maybe talk to me sometimes when I feel like it.
I've always been more into reading than anything else-- like say, schoolwork or social interaction. Once a dork, always a dork. Back then, around age 10, was my golden time, though. I had a nice balance of work and play, my friendships were expanding for some insane reason, and I was becoming more sociable. I was doing social stuff in school, like getting involved with clubs and such, and I was really improving fast with my extracurricular art class and such. I had swimming club several times a week and I -still- managed to read like a maniac. I had a boy friend (not a boyfriend!!) who was 2 years older that I hung out with sometimes (we did stuff like feed the pigeons in the attic), which is like a height of sociability I've never had before or since. I think I was happy.
Around ages 9-10, I already wanted to write novels when I grew up (I immediately wanted to, as soon as I realized I could write stuff! for fun! whoa!), but that was always going to be on the side. Mostly, I was going to go off and explore the Amazon and be an adventurer like in 19th century novels, y'know. I've always gotten my life goals from novels, ahahah. Well, after I got over wanting to be a librarian like my mommy or a doctor like my gramma, ehehe. But I did seriously always want to be an adventurer, too. I'm cut out for it, I tell you! I am!
I mostly read fairy-tales. A lot of fairy-tales. I was a worldwide fairy-tale scholar at age 9. I seriously read every single one I could get my hands on-- and well, my mom was a bibliographer at the Soviet equivalent of the Library of Congress, so I could get my hands on a -lot-. My other thing was English 18-19th century adventure novels like Maine Reade and Walter Scott and Jules Verne and stuff. Aahahah and Mark Twain. Plus 19th century children's fantasy novels & Sherlock Holmes (crush!), I guess. Mostly I just read anything fantasy-like (and almost anything else besides) I could get my hot little hands on, but there wasn't actual mass produced fantasy lit in Russia the way there is here. Boy, was I overwhelmed with all the sci-fi/fantasy riches this side of the pond. Oh boy.
My mother's kind of a benevolent Nazi dictator, so she made me do stuff & I did all right in school, though I dropped out in 8th grade and didn't really go back all the way until halfway through 10th. My adolescence was a special, intricate kind of (hormonal, no-one-understands-my-ANGEST&PANE) hell. I read a lot of Star Trek books, mass-market fantasy & smutty romance novels back then, and fantasized about running away with Spock. I also wrote oodles of fantasy-type stuff I never finished, but it -was- a massive amount (comparatively). I could always write on the drop of a hat, and I've written (het) porn since about the time I started reading it-- age 13. I was a quick study :>
Yeah, my H/D porn-writing kick isn't really startling if you know me, ahahah. Though I never wanted to be doing that when I grew up or anything (writing porn, I mean). It was just sort of something I couldn't stop doing. They don't call it "masturbatory" for nothing, do they~:)
I was rather messed up by the whole coming-to-America-and-my-father-dying-and-losing-all-my-friends-and-personal-habits thing. I still read a lot, but I started reading large-print Agatha Christie novels about a half a year after I came here. Well, mostly this is because I went to a specialized English-language school while in grades 2-4. So I guess I had a decent writing/reading/speaking grasp of English by age 11. I liked reading in English a little -too- much, and soon stopped both reading and writing in Russian-- I never went back, though my mom speaks to me in Russian & I answer in English.
I kind of hate the Russian immigrants around me in Brooklyn, and it probably is part of that whole "no one's like me, I'm an outcast and a weirdo" thing I had going on during adolescence. I reeeally didn't even -want- to fit in with the Russians or the inner-city "cool" people. There were no geeky cool people anywhere I went to public school to, that I know of.
I ran away from 6th grade (and my severe culture-shock) to a girl's yeshiva, which is Jewish school. I learned Hebrew badly, 'cause basically I didn't -want- to learn Hebrew. I now know all kinds of things I don't need to about Judaism and the Torah, though. It would all have been alright if they didn't try to put me into a serious Jewish High School at first. The trial of actually having to learn new subjects -in- Hebrew -and- catch up with science & math after my really easy Junior High... as well as the stress of a new school... let's just say it wasn't pretty.
Well, mostly I just snapped and refused to go back (like I did with my public school in 6th grade), and things were okay for the remainder of that semester, but then the public school I went to was too much also. It's hard to explain how much I thought everything -sucked-, back then. Nothing I did in school seemed really worthwhile, and I didn't -like- the world I saw, so I wanted no part in it. I had these fantasies about being cryogenically frozen (and I thought about this rather seriously), so that I could wake up 250 years later. When Star Trek was supposed to happen.
There are no starships now??! WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THERE ARE NO STARSHIPS NOW?! heh.
I was in the thick of my Star Trek reading around 9th grade, and I wanted to be a astrophysicist and save the world, or possibly just help invent warp drive so I could get the hell off this planet. I was not happy with the way "you people" were running it. Most people want to blow their stupid backwater town, but, y'know, I was already in NYC, so I wanted to blow this stupid backwater planet. I'm still not quite over that, actually, but I've grown a whole lot more affectionate towards the world as it is now. Sort of.
I never went back to the incomprehensible, alien world (...ironically) that was 9th & 10th grade in a Brooklyn High School. It was so freaky, 'cause nothing really -mattered- to me anymore, but I wasn't doing the usual drugs: I mean, y'know, the illegal ones. I read like it was crack & I watched tons of anime, though (using my mother's credit). Eventually, the counselor they made me go to recommended this small alternative school for misfits & drop-outs on Brooklyn College campus, where they paid you a lot of personal attention (very important!) and didn't give you too many rules.
So I tried it. And I latched on to an English teacher. And I had a killer Creative Writing class right that first semester. *siiigh* I still didn't bond with any of the kids (they were the wrong sort of misfits, generally), but I -loved- my English teacher, and that was enough. At first, I couldn't get myself to go every day, but eventually it felt... normal. I graduated valedictorian. Of the misfit school :>
I define myself by my addictions: comics, anime, fantasy novels & art, movies, music, fanfic. I like knowing everything I -can- know about any subject that interests me. I am very messy and obsessive and unreasonable in my desires for "that thing". I'm also painfully lazy whenever I'm not frenziedly focused on "that thing" I'm doing. I psychoanalyze myself and everyone else to extremes, and often thought I should just give up & "do" psychology somehow, except dealing with people all my life scares me. I'm obsessed with teenage years, in a theoretical sense, though. In a way, I think I never "left", so to speak. Heh.
Most people irritate me. I wouldn't say I -hate- people, because I generally quite like people, and they amuse the hell out of me, when they don't drive me insane. I guess you could say it's a love/hate relationship.
The most important things to me vacillate between being art, love & magic. I'm not always sure magic exists, but even when I'm not sure, I'm still obsessed. (Being unsure never stops me).
Oh right, my life. Oh... well, I've spent a disgusting amount of time online since I discovered it around 1996 (when I started college for the first time). Yah, I'm an old-timer (sort of). I know how to use UNIX, man. (ooooh.) In fact, I like UNIX better than most things. I dutifully hate Windows, etcetc. Um, okay, off track again. Anyway, I got way -too- into it. It would've been a lot better if I never touched a computer in many ways, I'm sure, but I was painfully lonely in my freshman year (though I did have friends, I wasn't close enough to them yet). So I had my first internet romance. Baaaaad Reena. Bad.
I think ever since I was 18 (and met my first boyfriend), one could pretty much ask me what crack was I on, except, you know, I was always on some sort of crack. Just a different, more reclusive crack.
I just emailed back and forth & then (after meeting a few times), I moved in with him & his parents for the summer (supposedly as part of a comics-store internship with him). Yeah. I've had brighter ideas.
So... -that- messed up the next year while I angsted and wrote whiny poetry (that whole love-angst whining thing is GREAT for poetry). Just when I thought I was getting over that, I discovered IRC. It just keeps getting better and better. After this, I hate even telling this story, because the sheer daunting pathos breaks me. I mean, honestly, I'm like Teddy (from QAF), except -worse-. Yeah, worse than Ted. I'm like... Teddy's junkie boyfriend, except without the drugs & the glowing recovery.
Anyway, I fell head-over-heels in love with this poet dude on IRC, who was actually kind of a psycho (AGAIN). He broke my heart into like a zillion trillion tiny pieces when he just went away, and he fuels my-- or Draco's-- rage even now. Without him, I could not write love angst. Seriously. So maybe I should thank him for that. And of course there goes me dropping out of school (again) and writing loads of dark lovelorn poetry (again). And then... making the same mistake with Guy #3 (again!)
It... I wish I could say it gets better. What with the ill-fated "why don't I Go West to California on $250" idea & the "why don't I move in with a guy I barely know-- and his -parents-, again-- idea. And all the others. God, it sickens me to even write it in glancing reference, and this was like, 3-4 years of my life. It's like adolescence, except with -people- involved, which is a lot worse, I'm telling you! I miss the days when all my angst was squarely in my head. Sort of.
Anyway, I went back to college, and started living alone, but that only helped for a bit. Then I discovered fanfic. And.
Here I am.
A (porn-writing, fic-reading, babbling, ranting, uber-dorky) basketcase if there ever was one. And somehow, I still suspect that told most people next to nothing about the "real" me, ahahah. Not to mention I think one would more -more- confused, reading this, not less. *sigh* Oh well.
The problem is, I don't know what to say. What would anyone want to know? Even more confusingly, what would someone -need- to know to "get" me?
I wanted people to understand how I think, and I realized that talking about my life doesn't necessarily accomplish that. I really hate being misunderstood-- it bugs me to the point of maddening me-- and I would honestly say -anything-, explain anything, just so that my motivations and mental habits become a part of the equation. I know that who I am is part of the sum total of what I say. If you just take what I say without knowing who's saying it (outside of fiction), I don't think you can really understand.
Some things I say flippantly, right, and some things are really central to my way of thinking, and some things I can easily change my mind about 'cause they're one of my (myriad) logic errors. People keep trying to apply logic to whatever I write, and it just confuses me, because it always involves a process of translation. Something gets lost. Usually, what gets lost is -why- I say whatever it is, and to me, that's utterly -central-. Context is everything, basically, when you're not someone who's very linear or logical in their writings.
So what about the facts of my life made me into the person I am right now? What's important, not to me, but to someone else to know so that they can see what makes me tick? Is there, in fact, a short-cut to understanding/knowing someone without spending lots of time with them and having an understanding coalesce out of longtime acquiantance?
Somewhat accidentally, I've come across several people mentioning that whole "online persona" thing and how people are "less real" online, and I've been thinking about it on and off for years, anyway. My knee-jerk reaction is that I don't -have- a "persona" and I'm "just me", but thinking about that a bit more, it becomes kind of a joke.
How could anyone think online people are "less real"-- do -they- feel "less real" themselves? And then I realize it's not a question of feeling "real" or whatever, it's just a question of control of information, even unconciously. Without -seeing- the other person, we really assume so much about them merely from their style of writing, using word-choice & vocabulary in place of mannerisms. My own vocabulary in monologue-type writing is pretty different than in conversation, rather different than it is in comments, different again than it is in chat, and seriously different from my fiction. I'm not a -different person- during any of those times, but it's hard to know, isn't it? Well, unless you're good at figuring people out.
It makes me sad, I guess, since I'm almost always sincere, but that doesn't matter because I'm almost always responding to others' input more than generating self-identifying output . I'm almost always confusing the issue, whatever it is. If I can say something in a roundabout way, I'm never going to be blunt.
So the problem
- a) would be that most people online know next to nothing about my "real life" or any actual facts about me whatsoever;
- b) would be that I assume most people don't -want- to know, and would be much less interested in me if they knew (whatever it is that I don't think is actually worth knowing);
- c) I don't actually chat with people in messaging programs much, though I excuse that by saying it ate my brain once and can easily do it again. Regardless, this also doesn't improve anyone's chances of having a clue about me. Funnily enough, I feel like I "know" the people whose lj's I follow closely on a pretty high level compared to most acquaintances I have in real life.
~~
My name is Irina, but I hate my last name, and people -have- called me Reena in real life. However, it's not hard to figure out, since I used it at Nimbus & was on a panel. Um. I'm going to be 26 this June 24th, and I feel really old. I'm still in college (kinda), but I have no direction. I'm sort of a default English major (double with Studio Art) but that means nothing; it's an accident. I may not be in college this coming fall-- it's all up in the air. I'm sort of a directionless bum, but that's neither here nor there.
I want to be a writer, but that's obvious. Um. What might be less obvious is that I'm pretty scared of all the work & effort & commitment I'd have to put into it to really do it. I'm probably somewhat scared of really going out there and trying, and of -succeeding- (or failing). Reality is not my friend.
I was born in Moscow (not the one in Idaho), and came to New York City when I was 11. That was right before the fall of the Soviet Union-- thank the god I don't believe in! Heh. My father had the most curable of cancers since I was little, but since we were behind the Iron Curtain, he died half a year after we got here. I didn't even know how many issues I had about it till much later. Then again, I have so many other issues, it was a bit distracting.
Whatever else is true, I had a pretty happy childhood. My mom spent a lot of time with me, though I mostly just... wandered around, playing by myself. I've always liked wandering and looking at things; sometimes I'd draw & I loved dancing (a lot). I went through about 4-5 years of choreography/figure-skating school, and about a year of pre-art-school classes. Sort of. Oh, and I spent the year from ages 12 to 13 trying Judo, which showed that I like martial arts (a lot) but falling a lot isn't my thing (should've figured that out in figure skating).
I'm such a stationary bookworm, generally, but when I was little I used to love walking & bicycling & swimming. I took swimming classes, but mostly I just have tons of fun in seawater. I have this obsession with the ocean; have since I first came to it around age 6 or 8 or whatever it was. I'm just magnetically drawn to it, even though I'm a city-girl by breeding. I've always loved nature an obscene amount, and had a lot of fun going to summer-camp even though I hate group activity things.
I used to have very close girlfriends when I was little-- before we left, and I've never had friends that close since (that I saw every day). I did lots of "fun activities" in and after school, most of which my mom forced me into. My favorite personal "fun activity" since age 8 (before then, I dunno what I did) has been spending all my afterschool time in the library, after I got my ice-cream. Mmm, ice-cream.
I've always been a little hedonist. Give me good food or pretty things and I'm your slave. As long as you also leave me alone a lot and maybe talk to me sometimes when I feel like it.
I've always been more into reading than anything else-- like say, schoolwork or social interaction. Once a dork, always a dork. Back then, around age 10, was my golden time, though. I had a nice balance of work and play, my friendships were expanding for some insane reason, and I was becoming more sociable. I was doing social stuff in school, like getting involved with clubs and such, and I was really improving fast with my extracurricular art class and such. I had swimming club several times a week and I -still- managed to read like a maniac. I had a boy friend (not a boyfriend!!) who was 2 years older that I hung out with sometimes (we did stuff like feed the pigeons in the attic), which is like a height of sociability I've never had before or since. I think I was happy.
Around ages 9-10, I already wanted to write novels when I grew up (I immediately wanted to, as soon as I realized I could write stuff! for fun! whoa!), but that was always going to be on the side. Mostly, I was going to go off and explore the Amazon and be an adventurer like in 19th century novels, y'know. I've always gotten my life goals from novels, ahahah. Well, after I got over wanting to be a librarian like my mommy or a doctor like my gramma, ehehe. But I did seriously always want to be an adventurer, too. I'm cut out for it, I tell you! I am!
I mostly read fairy-tales. A lot of fairy-tales. I was a worldwide fairy-tale scholar at age 9. I seriously read every single one I could get my hands on-- and well, my mom was a bibliographer at the Soviet equivalent of the Library of Congress, so I could get my hands on a -lot-. My other thing was English 18-19th century adventure novels like Maine Reade and Walter Scott and Jules Verne and stuff. Aahahah and Mark Twain. Plus 19th century children's fantasy novels & Sherlock Holmes (crush!), I guess. Mostly I just read anything fantasy-like (and almost anything else besides) I could get my hot little hands on, but there wasn't actual mass produced fantasy lit in Russia the way there is here. Boy, was I overwhelmed with all the sci-fi/fantasy riches this side of the pond. Oh boy.
My mother's kind of a benevolent Nazi dictator, so she made me do stuff & I did all right in school, though I dropped out in 8th grade and didn't really go back all the way until halfway through 10th. My adolescence was a special, intricate kind of (hormonal, no-one-understands-my-ANGEST&PANE) hell. I read a lot of Star Trek books, mass-market fantasy & smutty romance novels back then, and fantasized about running away with Spock. I also wrote oodles of fantasy-type stuff I never finished, but it -was- a massive amount (comparatively). I could always write on the drop of a hat, and I've written (het) porn since about the time I started reading it-- age 13. I was a quick study :>
Yeah, my H/D porn-writing kick isn't really startling if you know me, ahahah. Though I never wanted to be doing that when I grew up or anything (writing porn, I mean). It was just sort of something I couldn't stop doing. They don't call it "masturbatory" for nothing, do they~:)
I was rather messed up by the whole coming-to-America-and-my-father-dying-and-losing-all-my-friends-and-personal-habits thing. I still read a lot, but I started reading large-print Agatha Christie novels about a half a year after I came here. Well, mostly this is because I went to a specialized English-language school while in grades 2-4. So I guess I had a decent writing/reading/speaking grasp of English by age 11. I liked reading in English a little -too- much, and soon stopped both reading and writing in Russian-- I never went back, though my mom speaks to me in Russian & I answer in English.
I kind of hate the Russian immigrants around me in Brooklyn, and it probably is part of that whole "no one's like me, I'm an outcast and a weirdo" thing I had going on during adolescence. I reeeally didn't even -want- to fit in with the Russians or the inner-city "cool" people. There were no geeky cool people anywhere I went to public school to, that I know of.
I ran away from 6th grade (and my severe culture-shock) to a girl's yeshiva, which is Jewish school. I learned Hebrew badly, 'cause basically I didn't -want- to learn Hebrew. I now know all kinds of things I don't need to about Judaism and the Torah, though. It would all have been alright if they didn't try to put me into a serious Jewish High School at first. The trial of actually having to learn new subjects -in- Hebrew -and- catch up with science & math after my really easy Junior High... as well as the stress of a new school... let's just say it wasn't pretty.
Well, mostly I just snapped and refused to go back (like I did with my public school in 6th grade), and things were okay for the remainder of that semester, but then the public school I went to was too much also. It's hard to explain how much I thought everything -sucked-, back then. Nothing I did in school seemed really worthwhile, and I didn't -like- the world I saw, so I wanted no part in it. I had these fantasies about being cryogenically frozen (and I thought about this rather seriously), so that I could wake up 250 years later. When Star Trek was supposed to happen.
There are no starships now??! WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THERE ARE NO STARSHIPS NOW?! heh.
I was in the thick of my Star Trek reading around 9th grade, and I wanted to be a astrophysicist and save the world, or possibly just help invent warp drive so I could get the hell off this planet. I was not happy with the way "you people" were running it. Most people want to blow their stupid backwater town, but, y'know, I was already in NYC, so I wanted to blow this stupid backwater planet. I'm still not quite over that, actually, but I've grown a whole lot more affectionate towards the world as it is now. Sort of.
I never went back to the incomprehensible, alien world (...ironically) that was 9th & 10th grade in a Brooklyn High School. It was so freaky, 'cause nothing really -mattered- to me anymore, but I wasn't doing the usual drugs: I mean, y'know, the illegal ones. I read like it was crack & I watched tons of anime, though (using my mother's credit). Eventually, the counselor they made me go to recommended this small alternative school for misfits & drop-outs on Brooklyn College campus, where they paid you a lot of personal attention (very important!) and didn't give you too many rules.
So I tried it. And I latched on to an English teacher. And I had a killer Creative Writing class right that first semester. *siiigh* I still didn't bond with any of the kids (they were the wrong sort of misfits, generally), but I -loved- my English teacher, and that was enough. At first, I couldn't get myself to go every day, but eventually it felt... normal. I graduated valedictorian. Of the misfit school :>
I define myself by my addictions: comics, anime, fantasy novels & art, movies, music, fanfic. I like knowing everything I -can- know about any subject that interests me. I am very messy and obsessive and unreasonable in my desires for "that thing". I'm also painfully lazy whenever I'm not frenziedly focused on "that thing" I'm doing. I psychoanalyze myself and everyone else to extremes, and often thought I should just give up & "do" psychology somehow, except dealing with people all my life scares me. I'm obsessed with teenage years, in a theoretical sense, though. In a way, I think I never "left", so to speak. Heh.
Most people irritate me. I wouldn't say I -hate- people, because I generally quite like people, and they amuse the hell out of me, when they don't drive me insane. I guess you could say it's a love/hate relationship.
The most important things to me vacillate between being art, love & magic. I'm not always sure magic exists, but even when I'm not sure, I'm still obsessed. (Being unsure never stops me).
Oh right, my life. Oh... well, I've spent a disgusting amount of time online since I discovered it around 1996 (when I started college for the first time). Yah, I'm an old-timer (sort of). I know how to use UNIX, man. (ooooh.) In fact, I like UNIX better than most things. I dutifully hate Windows, etcetc. Um, okay, off track again. Anyway, I got way -too- into it. It would've been a lot better if I never touched a computer in many ways, I'm sure, but I was painfully lonely in my freshman year (though I did have friends, I wasn't close enough to them yet). So I had my first internet romance. Baaaaad Reena. Bad.
I think ever since I was 18 (and met my first boyfriend), one could pretty much ask me what crack was I on, except, you know, I was always on some sort of crack. Just a different, more reclusive crack.
I just emailed back and forth & then (after meeting a few times), I moved in with him & his parents for the summer (supposedly as part of a comics-store internship with him). Yeah. I've had brighter ideas.
So... -that- messed up the next year while I angsted and wrote whiny poetry (that whole love-angst whining thing is GREAT for poetry). Just when I thought I was getting over that, I discovered IRC. It just keeps getting better and better. After this, I hate even telling this story, because the sheer daunting pathos breaks me. I mean, honestly, I'm like Teddy (from QAF), except -worse-. Yeah, worse than Ted. I'm like... Teddy's junkie boyfriend, except without the drugs & the glowing recovery.
Anyway, I fell head-over-heels in love with this poet dude on IRC, who was actually kind of a psycho (AGAIN). He broke my heart into like a zillion trillion tiny pieces when he just went away, and he fuels my-- or Draco's-- rage even now. Without him, I could not write love angst. Seriously. So maybe I should thank him for that. And of course there goes me dropping out of school (again) and writing loads of dark lovelorn poetry (again). And then... making the same mistake with Guy #3 (again!)
It... I wish I could say it gets better. What with the ill-fated "why don't I Go West to California on $250" idea & the "why don't I move in with a guy I barely know-- and his -parents-, again-- idea. And all the others. God, it sickens me to even write it in glancing reference, and this was like, 3-4 years of my life. It's like adolescence, except with -people- involved, which is a lot worse, I'm telling you! I miss the days when all my angst was squarely in my head. Sort of.
Anyway, I went back to college, and started living alone, but that only helped for a bit. Then I discovered fanfic. And.
Here I am.
A (porn-writing, fic-reading, babbling, ranting, uber-dorky) basketcase if there ever was one. And somehow, I still suspect that told most people next to nothing about the "real" me, ahahah. Not to mention I think one would more -more- confused, reading this, not less. *sigh* Oh well.
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Date: 2004-06-01 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-01 07:28 pm (UTC)oh god. *wishes she could scrub out own brain*