07-30-04 @ 10:34 am EDT

I'm feeling anxious and tense today. I feel as if I can approach no one right, even when they DO communicate with me. I can't ask someone too much about themselves, even if I'm interested, because if I do, I might be rude or pry where I'm not supposed to. But I can't ask someone too little, because that's rude too, and indicates a lack of interest or concern. I can't even ask what I can ask about because that's just irritating, plus most people won't answer that truthfully, when given the chance. It's human nature to brush things off as inconsequential when in fact they mean the world to you. How many people would say, "Oh, yes, I DO want to talk about me"? It's always, "Oh, you pick the subject, and I'll follow along."

The thing is, I just can't do that. I literally CANNOT hold a conversation unless the other party gives me cues. I just get stuck. No words come. Even if I were to BELIEVE somebody wanted to hear from me (which I barely ever do), then what would they want to hear about? Specifically? It's not like I could keep harping to know because most people will just say, "Oh, you pick the topic," if they say anything at all. And I can't do that. I could never be the lead in anything...

I'm stuck (in more situations than one) between asking too much and asking too little, and telling too much and telling too little. I ask too much about somebody else and I'm nosy. I ask too little and I'm self-centered. Ditto if I tell too much about myself, and if I tell too LITTLE about myself, well, that's rude too, not that I would know what to tell anyway. I am one of the most boring people on the face of this planet. I get bored of myself a lot of the time, you've seen how these entries end...I just run out of focus and interest.

This isn't really going anywhere or making much sense, and should have been made violet, though I really don't know what I'm doing today. I don't get replies from people and I get all upset and self-blaming. I do get replies from people and I just get all stuck again...how do I reply to a reply? I hate having no understanding of how to socialize, even online. Everything I do feels like it will be absolutely wrong. I don't know how to keep things going, even when they bother continuing; it feels like I just sabotage the few teeny halfway decent things that I have. Not that I'd expect them to last long anyway. I shouldn't even be worried about this because with both people the communication will probably be over before it's even begun. Maybe I get so confused because I know how things will end. Silence. :(

I don't know...I can't seem to clarify how I'm feeling today, no matter how hard I try. I guess I'll have to fill the rest of this with tripe to give it some actual meaning.

I spotted a book scorpion creeping around in the bathroom today...I haven't seen one of those things in ages. What's more, I've never really seen one outside a musty old book. Why one would be in wide open space in the bathroom, I have no clue. Ugly little boogers.

I made my first journal as a gift and finished it up Thursday morning so Ma could give it to the daughter of a friend for her birthday. Ma had originally eyed my dark green journal but that one was MINE. And so are the rest. I'm not good at making something and then having to give it up to someone else, unless I specifically make it FOR somebody else, from the start. Otherwise I bond with it too much. So I asked what the girl liked--horses--and made this funky red-and-blue plaid number with a little cutout horse and rider (all from wallpaper). Added red and blue trim and glass stones, then a pocket to the inside to put some stickers in (horse stickers provided for the occasion, as well as some old Lisa Frank things of mine...I have a box full of them, from back before Lisa Frank stickers became all stupid ugly images of girls with huge heads). I don't think the pocket will hold long because it's double-stick tape and I've found that's not very reliable. But I had to finish the thing fast; I hadn't even planned on a pocket at first. *shrug* That's the latest image in my Homemade Journals album at Yahoo! (see previous entry, I think). It turned out a lot cooler than I thought such a thing would. It was okay to part with, since I have no need of a horse theme, but I did like those colors. I think I have enough of that wallpaper to make one of my own. So as soon as I'm not so sick of making journals I might make myself a plaid one. It looked like a schoolgirl uniform or something. Ma said she loved it, which surprised me, since every time I do a favor for somebody the usual reaction is "Oh, how nice..." *sets thing aside and forgets about it* That (and money) are the main reasons I don't do gifts for others. It's far easier to be thought of as stingy and forgetful, than to go to that trouble only to disappoint somebody. Disappointment is one of the feelings I hate most in the world, especially in others...when I'm the cause.

Sorry I'm such a bundle of sunshine today, don't know what's gotten into me. :/ I guess when you start out on a bad note, there's nowhere to go but down.

Anyway. I noticed that Yahoo! now allows unlimited albums and photos, the real catch being that they SHRINK everything you upload to a small size. Even you, the owner, cannot access your fullsize images without paying. I think I can see now why they can allow unlimited; I'm willing to bet they take the fullsize images offline and save them to something, hence saving themselves all sorts of money on storage...and that's why you can't access your own images unless you pay, meaning you pay them to go dig up your disks or whatever and send you the fullsize files. I rather wish they'd allow you to see a somewhat bigger image size, but I won't complain; most of my shots are stupid ones of landscapes anyway, which so far is okay. So I'm attempting to start some more albums to show the photos I wasn't even bothering to show before since there's nowhere to store them. The only thing is, they are COMPLETELY unedited...usually I'll select only some, and rotate and crop and contrast and saturate and edit the color just a tad to make them more true to life, but that would be horribly tedious to do with ALL of them, plus Yahoo! is VERY slow to upload, so I'm just doing them all one by one, as is. Thankfully they do have a rotate function there (they have a few other ones but I won't mess with them) so I can flip the sideways images the right way, but that's all the editing. That's why some of them are so dark. In a perfect world, like for display on this site, I'd crop and brighten them, but I didn't feel like doing it for big general albums. So...I've already got everything uploaded to an Ocqueoc Falls album; go on and check it out. And I'm currently near completion on the Forty Mile Point Lighthouse. For some reason I can't find my Tahquamenon pics; they must be on disk somewhere. I don't remember burning them. Hm. If I ever get the patience or desire I'll post some other things too that I have. At least until Yahoo! decides what a bad decision this was and disallows unlimited photos again. It could happen, and probably will. (Anyone been reading Skew long enough to remember my old Webphotos account? Mm-hm. *Poof,* long gone.)

My URL is http://photos.yahoo.com/social_phobe ...let's see how long THIS one lasts.

Too bad Yahoo! doesn't have a nice community hub with a topic directory for photos, either. It'd be nice to find other users with images similar to mine. Why doesn't Yahoo! offer that? Kinda dumb. :/

And they should let you provide captions for your photos, too. Instead of just giving them short little names. I'd like to say exactly what those things are. If any of them confuse you feel free to give me the image name and ask, though I doubt anyone's THAT curious.

And they should split the albums into more than one page! You can put 300 pics in one album...who would want to load all those on one page?? Ugh!

Bla bla bla. Yesterday I logged off to work on Part 17 of the Chronicles and actually found myself SICK of it. (I had stayed online long to finish proofing Lost Chapter 2 so I could post it...agonizing.) So I couldn't even write a word, though most of that chapter now is rewriting anyway. So I worked on Part 67, I think it is, of RTMI, on which I've been stuck FOREVER. I don't understand it, I just can't seem to get past that chapter; it's so dreadfully dull. -_- I've neglected that series lately to work on the Chronicles so now I'll probably lose what two readers it has left, too. (It had three, but one of them seems to be missing. Only one of the remaining actually comments, though at least the second commented once so I know who they are.) Why can't I work on two things at once, not to the detriment of either? And why am I so awfully stuck on Part 67?

Nothing says good morning like a Vin Diesel marathon. Yesterday, Boiler Room at 8 AM and then Pitch Black later on in the morning on USA Network. And people keep insisting it's the Internet and videogames and music that turn kids violent. USA and other networks like TNT, Spike TV, and T&A...sorry, I mean fX...must have brainless dolts making the schedules, to regularly show R-rated movies early in the morning, including on Sundays.

I've got a Rick Springfield song stuck in my head. Which isn't quite so bad, since I imagine Damien sounds much like him.

I'm ending this now because this is the crappiest entry I've written in a long time, including my bitchy rant entries, because at least those served a point. I can't even claim that for this one. :/