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Before you read this, you might want to read Jester, Britt, and my post from yesterday including the comments. What’s written below pertains to all of these posts.

After yesterday’s soul baring post about my writing and self esteem, I have something that seems, on the surface, to go along with it nicely. I took this damned color test thingy because Jester did. I wondered if the color thing explained why Jester had been annoyed recently. Maybe it explains why I’ve been so moody lately. That would certainly be the answer for someone who believes in karma and fate and all that stuff. I don’t really happen to believe in supernatural explanations for the inexplicable, however.

At any rate, here’s the results of my Color Test.

Winter took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!“Strives for a life rich in activity and experience…” Click here to read the rest of the results.

I don’t think we can box any of us up as tidily as all of these quizzes do. No two of us are alike and the answers are too pat. Still, they are kinda fun and this one tied in nicely to yesterday’s post.

At Britt’s yesterday, she had people post the link(s) to posts they wrote that they liked best. Reading them was an adventure. I haven’t finished yet, but it was an amazingly creative thing to post. I liked the way it was interactive and how Britt herself went to read all the posts. It was one of those things that makes you smile about the community that is this blogging world.

I posted the link to my 10th Thursday Thirteen. It was 13 excerpts from The Bar that included a kiss. The reason it is my favorite post is because in the comments people told me how the kisses made them feel, and how they wanted to go kiss their S.O. Reaching people with my writing is important to me, whether it’s here or at The Bar. So on the day my self esteem was feeling bruised about my writing, Britt’s post made me think of that TT and how the readers felt after reading my writing.

I feel much better now. Vindicated in a sense. I loved all the comments I got on yesterday’s post, but Vixen was right in the end. I had to find the satisfaction within me. My satisfaction wasn’t in my writing, but was in the feelings my writing evoked in others. So thank you to Jester, Britt, the commenters on my blog yesterday, and everyone who commented on my Thursday Thirteen the Tenth. My self esteem is totally sending you all hugs right now!

Have a colorful Thursday!

*sigh* My self esteem has taken a hit in the solar plexus. Lucky for me, I’m used to gasping for air. However, it’s left my mindset that of the poor kid staring in the window of FAO Schwarz at Christmas. Or Ebeneezer Scrooge looking in the window at the happiness of Bob Cratchit’s family despite their lack of money. So I’m a little disconnected, a little lost today. You’ll have to forgive me my moodiness.

One night ShinyBitch told me she needed a poem for her character Sascha. Sascha was going to write a poem to her mate. Shiny was looking for poetry on the internet. A few minutes later, I gave her this:

Winter breeze cold and chill
The screams of broken hearts so shrill
You stand before me so tall and real
But hold me always, let me feel.

The path to love is long and hard
The potholes linger, like your guard
Upon me always watching, ever there
Catch my stumbles with your care

You hold me up when I’m alone
When I can’t bear the river’s moan
The shrieks of pain from winter’s night
You always shield me from its fright

To me you are the only one
Who breathes and sighs and always comes
To my side in darkness free
And lives to love no one but me.

Another time, my friend Jen, who uses the name Opalgirl on message boards and IM, was bemoaning the fact that people were writing poems for each other on the Zanctuary board, but no one had written her a poem. A few minutes later I gave her this:

She glows with a regal light
Twists and turns give forth
Fire beneath the surface
Brilliance not as like the diamond
But instead a warmth felt
From the heart out to the skin
Her moonglow in muted hues
Outshines her sisters
With understated elegance
A genius caught within
The unknown, the mysterious
She is aglow with magic
Her fire banked always
But flashing brighter than the sun
To make those self same sisters
Pale in comparison
And kneel as supplicants
To the Opal.

I’m not into writing poetry these days, although on occasion I can just slap something together like those two poems. I’m sure that neither of them would survive a critique, but both made people I care about happy, and that was all that mattered to me. With the hit to my self esteem, I’ve been sort of bashing myself internally, wondering if all the things I write only matter to a few people. I’ve been questioning my creativity, my skills. I’m no literary genius, but I somehow thought I had it in me to be something more than a technically proficient cliche.

You expect to be critiqued and judged when you put the things you write out there in this electronic media world for others to read. Somehow I’ve come away from a few recent writing experiences with the sense that I’m not expressing myself very well. When I write a piece that is meant to give the reader a sense of the character’s quietly growing despair, a spiraling swirling darkness that is sucking them in, and the reader doesn’t feel that… I can tell myself that it’s just one person. When others chime in with a “meh” attitude about it, I begin to wonder what I could have done to make that sense of quiet despair more palpable. And the answer, of course, is nothing.

I yam what I yam. My creativeness has been honed over a lot of years, and if it’s just not there… then it’s not. I’m not going to drink some magic bean juice and wake up in the morning with a brilliantly creative bean stalk of ideas sprouting from my brain as if I was a JR Ward, Nora Roberts, or Charlaine Harris. (Harris’ books have spawned a new HBO series called True Blood.) I guess I have to admit that I’m just not that creative in an original sense.

I don’t have any trouble being run of the mill and cliche on most days. I was just a little more sensitive today what with the way things have been shaking out at home and work. Tomorrow I’ll probably wonder why I ever felt as if my self esteem had taken a hit to the gut. I’ll probably look at my writing and be happy with it again. Today, I’m just gonna sigh again.

Hope your Wednesday is sigh free!

I can’t remember the last time I was alone for an indefinite period of time. I mean, Motley’s always been here (excepting camp, trips, Rawhide Ranch, that sort of thing) for 19 years. And Rott’s been here (excepting a night or two at his pal Curt’s and 3 months while he waited to get a Prop 9 I think it’s called) for almost 10 years. Now, I’m not sure when Motley’s coming home. I know she will, just not when. And Rott, well he won’t be home for awhile. I’m really freaking alone. It feels… weird.

Since I’m alone this weekend, I might try to write my Zanctuary writing competition piece. It’s 5K words. I did 6K for Pink Chair Diaries in a day. Of course, I was a little inspired there. I’m hoping the Z piece calls me because I’d like to have it done.

Today, since I’m basically free from constraints of any kind, my Friday pimping having been yesterday, I thought I’d give you a little taste of what it’s like to do what I do. I need to write a post for the Bar. It’s from a male point of view in the first person. The guy just found out that he’s related to the Kohl family. He’s sitting at a table with his cousins and his best friend at his half sister’s wedding reception. His half brothers are sitting at the table with the wedding party. One half brother is accepting of him, the other is being a serious prick. The prick’s new girlfriend is sitting with them, as are his cousins’ wives.

I have a little bit of an idea of where the post needs to go. Nothing fully formed. Griffin (the character I’m writing) has thus far been really good about speaking to me when I start typing. He’s got a couple of secrets he’s hiding. One is a secret I can’t tell you in case any of the Bar people come by. Another secret is that he just found his bloodmate, another vampire named Dante. Dante has 2 bloodmates. Griffin and a man named Roman. Roman just happens to be Griffin’s best friend. Nasty little triangle, eh? Dante knows about Griffin and she knows about Roman. She just doesn’t know that they know each other. Neither of the men know that they are the other man in her life. Messy, isn’t it? I love it when it gets all sticky like this.

So Griffin and Roman are sitting at this table, each of them keeping a secret from the other. They’re sitting with the Kohls who are damned wary of Griffin. Griffin also once had the hots for his cousin’s wife because she posed in Playboy before she was married. The guy is seriously uncomfortable.

Now, that you know this… I’m gonna start writing his post, here in this window. Not in Word like I usually do. You’ll see my boo boos etc because I’m not going to edit them out. You’ll see how I took the info I just gave you and craft the beginning of my Griffin post. Ready? Let’s go…

Sitting through Sascha’s wedding ceremony hadn’t been too bad. Sitting through the reception was making me edgy. For one, having Johann’s girlfriend Lacey plop her ass down next to me was NOT going to endear me to my new brother. He was going to want blood for this… my blood… blood that would spill as he ripped my nuts from my body with one wicked twist of his hand. I bit back a sigh. The asshole wasn’t even trying. And regardless of what Lacey said, I wasn’t going to believe in an accepting Johann until I saw evidence of one.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roman shift uncomfortably. He knew no one here but me. It was just like Roman to get all dressed up in his best Armani suit and attend something like this with me, even though he hated this kind of function with a passion. Later, I would pick his brain because his observations were important to me. I trusted Roman as I trusted no one else. What he saw and heard while in the presence of the Kohls was important to me.

My eyes flicked over to Alaric and Lex. I suppressed a shiver. Lex Valentine was still one of the hottest women on the planet as far as I was concerned. Even married to my 6′6″ cousin Alaric and pregnant with his son, she still outshone every woman in the room in my eyes. I had to keep reminding myself not to look at her breasts or remember what they looked like naked in the magazine photos. Alaric was being protective of her, as usual. He wasn’t stupid.

Next to Alaric and Lex, across the table from me, was Lucius and his new wife Opal. I’d felt Lucius’ eyes on me often during dinner. I didn’t blame the guy for staring. I’d been staring at him too. After all, we looked almost exactly alike. Looking at Lucius was almost like looking in a mirror.

There ya go. The beginning of my post. No edits. No stopping. I wonder how much I’ll have to edit it later after I finish it and before posting to the Bar. So far, all the Griffin posts have been good ones though. He has so much going on in his head, it’s easy to write him. Characters with less going on in their lives are tough to write. Sometimes you have to stretch to find something to write about them. Luckily, my fellow Bar writers always seem to enjoy my posts.

That’s enough freedom for me for now. I’m going to bed where my sheets will tangle my legs and take back some of this freedom. I wish all you Americans a very happy 4th of July. Don’t eat too much or set your asses on fire with rockets. Oh! And if any of you want Rott’s recipe for a really loud BOOM… all you need are one of those small rockets (about 4 inches long) and an empty 2 liter soda bottle. HEH.

Andrei Andrei has been posting to his blog recently. If you don’t know the story, Andrei is the reason I started blogging. Well, Andrei and this idea his blog gave me for a short story about a woman blogger who falls for a male model because of his blog. I had no clue what blogging was about. I mean, I’ve been out here on the net a long ass time. I’ve had more incarnations of my website than I’ve had hair color. I’ve had message boards for years. Never once did I have the urge to blog.

Frankly, I didn’t really know what the whole blogging thing was about. I figured why blog when all my friends came to the message boards and chats to see what I had to say? Why should I bother with a blog? Well, I certainly learned that lesson in the last six months. The reasons for blogging are myriad, but the biggest one is the people.

When I created this blog (not Sunlight Sucks, but the original one on Blogger), I had a couple of people come by and comment. Some days, it’s still like that. I’m not that amusing. I don’t really have a schtick, other than the fact that I write fictional vampires, and I don’t always give you the deep details of my life and psyche, let alone cool cartoons with a monkey who picks his nose and eats urinal cakes. (Gawd, I love that cartoon!) I’m not sure why people keep coming back here except that in the cases of some, it’s because I read and comment on their blog.

The Blogger Circle of Life, as I explained to Motley when I created Socially Dead for her, is that you visit other blogs and comment. Then those people reciprocate. I told her, there are some people whose new blog posts you can’t wait for (ie Snackiepoo because you never know what facet of Hilly she will reveal today), and there are some that you love every day… except maybe one day a week (ie Avitable whose Lazy Sunday is all Greek to me because I’m a workaholic who writes all the time and never goes to movies or remembers crap from songs.) There are people whose blogs you love, even though they don’t read you, and there are those who are meticulous about always coming by and leaving thoughtful, inciteful comments. There are people who read you most of the time, but only comment once in awhile. When they do, they leave you laughing your ass off, or chuckling in your coffee at their pithyness, or snorting over their particular brand of commenting.

There are others who are always supportive of what you’re doing, even if they can’t get to your posts for a few days. Some do drivebys on you and say something short and to the point or especially perceptive. Others have become fans, because you’ve become fans of them. Some wish they could come by more, but always bring good wishes when they do. And there are always people who come by, because you have things in common with them, like writing in my case. Finally, there are people who visit your blog because they love you or have known you forever.

Not everyone posts comments every day. Not everyone reads you every day. But every day is a journey and sometimes the road takes you places you haven’t been before. Like the process of writing itself, some things are always in flux while other things are constants. The journeys I take each day through these places are all things that help make me a better writer, a better blogger, and maybe even a better person. It’s a path I’ve come to late, but like I usually do with things that are challenging and interesting, I’ve embraced it and immersed myself in the culture.

It’s a rich culture, too. Every sight (and site) and sound in 3D. These people… this culture… well, I’m not quite sure how it happened, but my journeys brought me to them, and now I find that no matter how painful the day may be (and lately they have been excruciatingly painful) I can’t get through the day very well without them via blog posts, Flickr pics, twats, or IMs.

The People’s Republic of Blogistan… long may it reign! And don’t forget to bring bacon and chocolate pudding along on your journeys through this country. The peasants might spork you to death if you don’t embrace the pudi-cake-a-cookie.

There’s too much emotion out here in this corner of the Blogosphere. I’m swimming in the stuff. I have a couple of things to say and they are prolly not things that will gain me any fans. Yeah, I don’t like lying or cheating. Yes, there are people I like who have cheated and lied. Usually, they didn’t lie or cheat on me. Well, actually, no one’s ever cheated on me. Yes, if I don’t have first hand knowledge, proof positive of something, I don’t like to rush to judgment. If the reasons for why something happened are not readily available, I don’t like to assume. I probably should have been a lawyer. I often have a very logical mind. I also have been accused of being a cold blooded, cold hearted bitch.

What are you going to believe? What you see and hear of me on this blog and the other sites I go to on a daily basis? What my kid says about me on her blog? What my sister would tell you if you met her? (She’s the one who’s repeatedly tarred me with the cold bitch label.) What do you believe about me? What do you KNOW?

Are you disappointed in me now that you know my sister believes those things about me? If I make a mistake, if I’m confused and upset and I make poor choices in my life and blog about them here, will you tell the internet that you’re disappointed in me, that I’m a liar or not what I presented myself to you as? Does my whole blogging “reputation” come down your assumptions about who I am on the inside, as misguided as that may be?

I’m not taking a stance on either side of the fence in the drama that happened. It’s a horrible tragedy, and neither of the extremes in stance that I have heard appeal to me. My sense is that the truth lies somewhere in the middle and no one but the participants really knows the whole truth.

However, seeing and hearing all the opinions about this, does raise some questions with me. I find myself looking over my shoulder, wondering what fucked up thing about me will be the thing that turns first one person, and then many others who listen to that person and allow those opinions to color them, against me. Because truthfully, I’m not pristine. I would never claim to be nor present myself in that manner. I’m a hugely flawed person, from my emotions, to my motivations, to my heart, and my soul. Which one of those flaws will one day disappoint you?

Devil’s advocate is a role I can never seem to shake. I always have to ask those questions and look at the other side. I’m eternally optimistic and practical at the same time. I have a scientist’s love of facts and digging for them. I have the psychologist’s yearning to delve into the psyches of others and understand their motivations. I like people who are real. Or are at least as real as I can determine them to be based on the information I have to work with.

I was really gonna do a Thursday Thirteen about 12 giraffe photos in my My Pictures folder. I guess my thoughts just took over and wrote this though. I don’t want to be judged by all of you, yet I know that every word I type, whether it’s funny or reveals my heart, are words that you will all judge… even if you say you won’t. I’m a big enough girl to accept that people will judge me. I learned long ago that is just another part of human nature and to rail against it is to isolate myself from the world.

So, instead, here are my thoughts for you to see, to judge, to like, to dislike, to do with what you will. I’ll be back tomorrow, whether all of you stop by or not. I’ve been through too many brouhahas and other shit in this life to let people’s feelings about me stop me from doing something I like doing. After all, you’re entitled to your feelings and reactions… and so am I.

Maybe next week I’ll do the 12 giraffe photos. You might want to stop by and see them. One of them is giraffe sex. I’m not quite sure how I found that photo. It was completely by accident, I swear. And it’s funny. Well, really what’s funny is the way Shinygal laughs at it. Yeah. I think I will post the giraffe pics next Thursday. I hope you come by to see them.

BTW… here’s the pic of me at the company picnic that Motley took with her Nikon. No makeup. All grey haired, and age spotted, with crow’s feet and bags under the eyes. WYSIWYG. If you’re not afraid of all that reality click on the photo and look at the larger version. Maybe if you look real close… you’ll see into my soul.

I’m beyond pissed off at someone who is staying in my house at the moment. I cannot do anything right now, I am so pissed off. I cannot go off on this person either. He has a heart condition, and he’s a bonehead. He’s been a bonehead most of my adult life. Saying something will get me absolutely nowhere. And I’ll feel guilty later if I yell at him. I mean, his kids don’t do jack for him. I guess I feel a little resentful because I supported him for a few years. A few years when I didn’t have the money to. I lost everything I owned because I was supporting more people than I could afford to.

He’s here “visiting”. That really means he has nowhere to go and no money until his Social Security check hits the bank Monday. I was hoping that then he would go back to Seattle, but apparently, he’s not quite ready to go yet. It might be another couple of weeks… I hope I survive that long.

For the 2 weeks he’s been here I’ve barely turned on my TV because he has to have the TV on in the living room. I can’t afford an inflated electricity bill so I leave my TV off. He has all kinds of lights on because his vision is bad. He has poor marksmanship in the bathroom. He cooks and leaves food out all day and night. All of which wouldn’t be so bad if he would just CLEAN UP AFTER HIMSELF!

I’m so angry right now, I’m crying. My brand new manicure is messed up from cleaning the stove because he couldn’t clean up from the stuff he cooked yesterday and the day before. And then he roasted a chicken and baked on all the crap he spilled on the stove yesterday.

Tomorrow, I’m going to the company picnic… ALONE. That’s right. I’m not taking my brother. I’m not taking anyone. I am NOT good company right now. And the worst thing of all… this stupid shit makes me feel very alone. I put a good face on it for those around me and for those I’m talking to on IM, but the fact of the matter is… I am alone and I FEEL alone.

This is why I need my characters, and why I’ve been rather irritated that I couldn’t write them. They are never too busy playing online or going to the mall to have time for me. It’s just imaginary time… but still, they never leave me alone. I can always turn to them and lose myself in them. I don’t feel inferior with them. I don’t feel like a wallflower or the unpopular girl or the bitch with them. They hear me. They listen to me. Okay, maybe the guys flirt with me too. HEH. I mean, if they don’t, who will?

Maybe it’s a horrible selfish whiny ass woe is me pack of bullshit fed by where I work, but a lot of the time, I wonder how long anyone would miss me if I died. And ya know, even though it is a stupid whiny feeling sorry for myself thing, I think I’m entitled to a few of those a year, wouldn’t you think? I’m responsible the rest of the time after all.

Sheesh. I’m already regretting what I’ve ranted. I guess, it’s not just the alone. I think… I think I’m lonely too. I can’t remember the last time I really felt lonely. I talk on IM and in email and on boards and to people at work… all the time. But for some reason, I think I feel lonely. It’s kinda weird. I haven’t had this feeling in a very long time. I’m no Pollyanna, but I always spring back from every bad mood I have. I guess I will from this one too. It’s just that I can’t remember the last time I felt like one of those movie tricks where someone is standing still and there is all kinds of activity that goes on around them in a blur because they filmed it in slow motion. All these conversations going on around me, on Twitter, in IM, email, boards, in the office, in my house… and I’m just not feeling connected. Weird.

I’m going to bed. Maybe my characters will talk to me. Motley was nice to me on the phone just now. She’s gonna help me get my hair really straight tomorrow morning for the picnic. That’s nice of her. Although… she still needs to take out the trash. HEH.

Wishing you a non-lonely Sunday!

Everything irks me. I’m in one of those prickly kinda moods where nothing satisfies. I look at my template and I seethe. I think about all the stuff I wanna tweak in Photoshop because I need to create something “perfect”. I read other blogs and think, why aren’t I this funny or deep? I stand at the refrigerator door, stomach growling like a grizzly bear, contemplating everything that is inside the big white box… and close the door. Nothing in there appeals. Which is fucking bizarre because for one, I have BACON. For another, I buy what I like when I order groceries. I don’t have anyone else to please at the moment when I’m buying food.

This phenomena inside me occurs every now and again. Usually, I cannot write when I’m in this mood. What I end up doing is working on the Bar character pages. Or I make something else new. I’m not sure I understand why I feel the need to build/create when I’m in a dissatisfied state. I mean, the writing is building and creating too. Why can’t I do it when I’m feeling persnickety?

I’ve got a ton of projects I’m juggling and I’m eager to do them all. Why is it that I’m more interested in breakfast at Johnny Reb’s? And not for the food either because at the moment, nothing appeals even though my stomach is protesting. Maybe I just want out of the house. But if that is the case, why am I feeling like I don’t wanna go get the mani/pedi that I have to get because the company picnic is tomorrow? (Cannot show up in flip flops without a fresh pedi. God forbid that I give someone fresh fodder to gossip about me!) I have to go to the bank, but I don’t wanna. I need to watch my races at the sim because I have a 2 year old filly who is so evenly matched against another filly that the race should be incredibly exciting. But I’m dragging my heels about clicking the link.

I don’t think I’m unhappy per se. Dissatisfied with some things, certainly. Depressed about money, always. But what the hell do those things have to do with me feeling bitchy and nitpicky and just… irritated? And before one of you raises the female banner let me tell you point blank that it is NOT PMS. I do not suffer from it. I have never in my life had excess estrogen. I am missing internal girly parts and because of that I have never had PMS. Menopause is going to be a piece of cake for me because I won’t need hormone replacement, I’m told by my doctor. I’ve never had much of it to begin with.

I guess I just have to be a crank ass every now and again. A Scrooge, if you will. Irritated. Pissy. Cantankerous. Bitchy. Whiny. Persnickety. Fussy. Disgruntled. That’s it. I’m a fucking malcontent. A nitpicky malcontent. Luckily, the mood won’t last. Something will perk me up like boobs in a water bra. This mood never lasts. If it did, I might need to shoot myself. Or change my blog template daily.

Have a great non-nitpicky Saturday, people of the Blogosphere!