Drippy, muggy, moldy...with some blue sky

[shadowkat]

That's the weather in NYC in a nutshell. My mood tends to be on the drippy muggy side. Mother is at Kidbro's now, I hope.
Helping with the little one. While I continue to plug away on the job search.

It's not getting easier, if anything it just gets harder. And I get angrier and more frustrated and more annoyed at everything. Today - heard back from the 43rd job I'd applied to in the last two months, on July 9th, to be exact, (yes, I've started to keep track, have a little notebook now where I write down which job I applied to, the resume sent, and the date, I also save the response from the website explaining the job in an email archive - I'm anything if not organized) and surprise, surprise - they want me to come in for an interview this week. It's on Thurs. 11:30am. I can even take the train with my mother - who has to go in the same direction to see her
grandbaby.

Great news. Until I read over the details of the job again -
and I'm not a close match. Damn. Oh I have about 7 out 10 of the requirements but in today's market you need 10/10. I don't have 10/10. Finding myself beginning to worry that I don't remember all the current employee relations laws and regs (although I have quite a few of them in a notebook and have taken two courses on them, one this past March, and one in 1994). Also not sure I have extensive knowledge of the job and labor market (on the other hand I've been hunting for a job so long now - I certainly know it from the employees end).
I hate this sense of uncertainity and desperation. I wish for once I'd get called for the closer matches, but I don't. Or I'd find those matches. Well at least I know this resume is working.




No longer enjoying the fan/discussion boards the way I used to.
They no longer provide that sense of accomplishment, release, or validation they used to. Or make me feel good. Granted I probably never should have used them for this purpose. But I also miss the connection - now, they feel oddly like little click's where those who have known each other for a while get online and chat about things the rest of us aren't privey too or can't participate in. Such as writercon, or area meets, or whatnot. Then again this could be just me - I don't do well with groups. I join them, they begin to get insular and clickish, I leave them. In College I left my soriority Junior year because I couldn't handle the exclusivity and clickishness of it. It's rare for me to be in a group of friends that is more than one person. I like the one-to-one better, less politics. I have lots of friends, but they aren't friends with each other necessarily. So there's that.

The other issue is discussion boards are scarey places - you expose yourself when you post. People make assumptions about who you are and what you think based on words on a page. If you get a ton of positive responses you feel like king of the world or queen, then wonder, wait, who are these people and can I trust this? It is a bit like crack though as highs go. If you get negative ones, you regret ever posting and may never try again. If you get the in between thoughtful responses, you become energized and happy. And if no one replies, you feel like a leper that no one likes or cares for, and quilty for feeling like that. Because hey, that's so childish and immature any way. I swear our society provides hundreds of ways to hurt us and reject us on a daily basis, doesn't it? Or rather people do. Because when you get down to it? We are selfish bitcas who really only care about what affects us. It's all about me!!!

Did get up the courage to post to two of the boards recently, but my posts sort of just hung there, and after a little while I found myself wishing I could delete or remove them. The good news is no one slamned me for being a dumbass, thank you god. (Since I'd posted on philosophy, and philosophy confuses me, because it refuses to be nailed down and just shifts according to the philosopher. So if you read Satre but not Kierkregard or read Plato but not Aristotle, you views can be kind of myopic I guess? I think myopic is the correct word.) At any rate, very relieved no one came out and blasted me couldn't have handled that right now. A year ago or two? Yes. Now? No.
Which may be why it didn't happen - the people who would have
patiently told me - no, you've confused Existentialism and Objectivism or you're off here, are gone. Not that they always did it clearly. Problem with academics is they assume everyone reads "academic", that they can use aracheic long words or philosophers names with very little explaination and everyone will know exactly what they are saying. And if people don't get it? They are ignorant or stupid. This comes across as pretentious more than smart. Because knowing long words and being well-read does not make one smart. Just a good reader.
Smart is how you apply the knowledge you've been taught and interact with the universe. Someone who has never read a book, or gotten a high school degree, can be *smart*. At any rate, I miss the people who would gently nudge a couple of us who got our facts wrong or confused philosophies - "no sorry, you meant this". Or not sure you are right there - might want to double check that. Or I wasn't clear, was I? Let's try again.
And I wonder if those days are just in my imagination.

At any rate, I think I may just stop posting on fan discussion boards entirely. I'd been weaning myself off them slowly anyway, posting more and more on livejournal, where I feel safe and cosy, and in control. (Oh anyone reading this, please don't pet me or go over and find whichever board you know I posted to and do it. I'm just venting a little is all.)

Comments

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

Heh. I just posted over in habibti's journal about my lack of enthusiasm for posting boards rights now.

Good luck on the interview! Don't worry if you don't match on paper, so many jobs have so little relation to their descriptions/requirements it's crazy. Really any job can be done by someone who is smart - which you are - everything else is just getting used to a company's procedures.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Good luck on the interview! Don't worry if you don't match on paper, so many jobs have so little relation to their descriptions/requirements it's crazy. Really any job can be done by someone who is smart - which you are - everything else is just getting used to a company's procedures.

Thanks that's good advice and makes me feel a lot better.

Heh. I just posted over in habibti's journal about my lack of enthusiasm for posting boards rights now.

I'm wondering if the end of the series has just caused a lack of enthusiasm? Or we are just burnt?
Hesistant to ask this, but what did you think of the end of herself's fic? It ended pretty much as I expected but was disappointed.

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

Is Herself done? The last I'd read was the shmoop.

After our big discussion I've been feeling a lack of enthusiasm for the characters. Even Spike, who's usually my when all else fails I like to read about guy, I'm really not liking. He essentially coerced Buffy into keeping the baby with his threats to leave and was just generally petulant throughout. Buffy's choice I was expecting but it was presented as just so far from a strong decision - I'm all for necessary fictions in life but hers seemed more like an avoid-y delusion. I also thought there were some pretty unclear leaps made with her epiphany - there had been so many reversals from chapter to chapter in this last section that things felt messy and uncertain about whether any sort of definite decision had been reached.

It's funny, Herself's fic kind of echoes the whole board to LJ transfer of my enthusiasms. I started out so engaged in the WIP but now I'm more interested in reading about Herself's music and vacations.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Is Herself done? The last I'd read was the shmoop.

That was the ending. Buffy convincing Spike to accept Jem/Angel and deciding that their baby was a gift from the gods, so to speak. Didn't work for me. But to give her credit, she did tell me that she was writing a romance.

Even Spike, who's usually my when all else fails I like to read about guy, I'm really not liking. He essentially coerced Buffy into keeping the baby with his threats to leave and was just generally petulant throughout. Buffy's choice I was expecting but it was presented as just so far from a strong decision - I'm all for necessary fictions in life but hers seemed more like an avoid-y delusion. I also thought there were some pretty unclear leaps made with her epiphany - there had been so many reversals from chapter to chapter in this last section that things felt messy and uncertain about whether any sort of definite decision had been reached.

Had pretty much the same reaction. It didn't work for me. It seemed too neat in places, too forced, and too coerced by the writer in order to get to the schmoopy end. Which to be honest is my problem with most fanfic online.

Find myself also moving more and more towards reading about peoples takes on music, culture, politics, and their personal lives than about BTVS/ATs.

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

I think Herself could have had her shmoopy ending with strong characters but things really lost their momentum towards the end. I can actually pinpoint my break with the story, I'd been having problems with the story before but it was that argument in the car after the hot springs. I'd been thinking that this was pretty good - two people mis-communicating, hurting and being hurt by each other but still essentially an argument of equals. But then Spike crumbles and runs off and Buffy realizes that it was all her fault - I just felt that that was what the story really was all along. It became so much less interesting to me.

The trouble with this whole fanfic thing is ultimately what exactly is it? Is it something that should be held up to serious scrutiny? Is it a writing exercise? Something done entirely for pleasure? Or for sharing among like-minded people? I suppose those are the questions that can be asked of anything we do online...

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I can actually pinpoint my break with the story, I'd been having problems with the story before but it was that argument in the car after the hot springs. I'd been thinking that this was pretty good - two people mis-communicating, hurting and being hurt by each other but still essentially an argument of equals. But then Spike crumbles and runs off and Buffy realizes that it was all her fault - I just felt that that was what the story really was all along. It became so much less interesting to me.

I think that may have been mine as well, before that I had hope that she would address some of the issues bugging me - but after that scene, I knew she was tired of her tale and just wanted to wrap it up with everyone happy.

Although, my problems truly started after Johnny's Death.

The trouble with this whole fanfic thing is ultimately what exactly is it? Is it something that should be held up to serious scrutiny? Is it a writing exercise? Something done entirely for pleasure? Or for sharing among like-minded people? I suppose those are the questions that can be asked of anything we do online...

I discussed this with a friend recently who pointed out - well doesn't Herself just set up the scenes so she can write great sex between the characters? Well...sort of. Lots of NC17 fic really is written as erotica. A way to play out sexual fantasies.

Personally I think the reasons for writing fanfic, including this one, are multi-faceted.
It's sort of choose your own adventure. Or a way of controling something, or figuring out a problem. Some of us do it with essays, others with fanfic. And of course, there are a few people who use fanfic to figure out how to write. I find the whole concept of fanfic writing somewhat fascinating - what drives us to do it, why we read it, and how it adds to our culture.

[sideshowsue2003.livejournal.com]

Again, I want to apologize for being ass and just dropping in like an unwanted in-law, but Herself has really finished the story?--as in fini, finito, terminé? Man, it started off so well, but it just seemed to fall over about the time when the Jem/Angel stuff came up. But I really lost engagement with the story once B/S arrived in Iceland. Whereas before Buffy was merely getting a bum rap, in Iceland I found that she had been utterly hamstrung; if Buffy were a male character, people would have been complaining of emasculation. The ending was thoroughly unsatisfying and completely forced. I think a re-read will reinforce my perception that Herself just got sick of the narrative a couple of months back and just wanted to end the thing in any way possible.


About your views on the fan stuff. Strangely, it was Herself's WIP that brought me out of the shadows. For a few years I've been lurking on boards and fanfic sites, but I never posted--exactly for the reasons you mentioned. Even now, when I'm posting here, I feel like an ass--so it's generally something I avoid. Even on LJ, where things are ostensibly cooler and more intimate, posting a comment is like trying to reverse a car down a one-way street. You have to inch along, constantly checking your mirrors in case you snag the wrong word and bash into a politically sensitive topic by mistake. Like you, I'm now reading people's journals for their thoughts on non-fandom related topics. However, since I'm primarily a lurker, I've got a nasty sense of guilt and wrongdoing for being a voyeuse. I suspect that Herself's WIP will be the last piece of fanfic I will read--the feeling that originally drive me to fanfic is gone and I just cannot seem to recapture it.


I wish you the best for the interview and that you find a job that both suits you and that you would enjoy.

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

Hey sideshowsue don't feel like an ass! Speaking for myself I really like reading your comments, I've so enjoyed chatting about the story with you and 'kat because for a while there it felt like I was nuts in my interpretation.

Posting is an awfully weird plunge into the void. My own fear is that I'll suddenly come down with Tourette's and start unintentionally typing obscenities.

[sideshowsue2003.livejournal.com]

You guys are stars!

Having read your thoughts and comments on fandom, and fanfic in particular, has been a source of great interest and assistance to me. Frankly, I was in a weird place for a while, having invested so much of my time and focus on one piece of fanfiction, and when I saw that the narrative was taking a turn that made no sense to me, I was grappling with these odd sentiments of frustration and annoyance. The discussion about aspects of plot and characterization came at just the right time for me--I honestly thought I was obsessing over nothing, which only made me angry at myself for being so ridiculous.

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

LOL! Everything you wrote was word for word the way I was feeling. I was thisclose to writing a long detailed email to Herself about all the things we ended up talking about in shadowkat's LJ - so shadowkat provided a real service, because the private email I would have written would have been a lot crankier. I felt great after our discussion because I think I just really needed an outlet for some issues I was taking way too personally.

Obviously kudos to Herself for creating something that affected me - the WIP actually inspired some new directions in my own writing - but I felt a frustrating lack of control over a piece that seemed to me to be blatantly going off the rails. That sense that it didn't have to be this way, it could be fixed, hit all of my control issues squarely.

I wish I was a sociology student because this has been a fascinating exercise in the life cycle a fandom - as though the Buffyverse was condensed into a few months. We had the initial enthusiasm and passionate interest, then certain fragmentation over ships, big divisions over character direction, backlash, loss of fans, debates over when it jumped the shark, and what seems like a burnout on the part of the creator.

When Herself is completely done, and it looks like she's doing a bit more but we're definitely in denouement territory, I think I will comment again, but fortunately for me and her I'm not feeling that same sense of propriety over something that I was simply a fan of.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Echoing pony on this one, you are most certainly not an ass. I've enjoyed reading your comments, all of them. And I agree with your take on Herself's fanfic.

Also understand the loss of interest in fanfic, slowly moving there myself. There are very few that have satisfied me. I usually find myself railing at the writer, thinking wait, wait! You had a great idea there, don't drop it! There is one, which I wish the writer had continued that fascinated me - it was a retelling of Buffy S6, after Dead Things, where the Trio take control of Spike's chip, very painful fic, but the examination of Spike's dilemma was interesting. It was called Chain by irkios and has no sex in it, except for a suggestive scene of sexual violence.
Also not a romance.