30 Day Challenge

Lately I've been looking for ways to get myself to write on this blog more regularly. For example, yesterday I was thinking about doing a game where I sum up my week in the form of a TVtropes article, but I found that to be a bit too time consuming, nor do I think everyone would get the joke. Even worse, I found the whole process to be a little egotistical, so I decided not even to post the one I half completed. Besides, when I was looking at my friend Behn's tumblr page I found an idea that was way cooler.

Behn:

hotdogitsemily:
Tumblr 30 Day Letter Challenge. • •Day 1 — Your Best Friend
•Day 2 — Your Crush
•Day 3 — Your parents
•Day 4 — Your sibling (or closest relative)
•Day 5 — Your dreams
•Day 6 — A stranger
•Day 7 — Your Ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/love/crush
•Day 8 — Your favorite internet friend
•Day 9 — Someone you wish you could meet
•Day 10 — Someone you don’t talk to as much as you’d like to
•Day 11 — A Deceased person you wish you could talk to
•Day 12 — The person you hate most/caused you a lot of pain
•Day 13 — Someone you wish could forgive you
•Day 14 — Someone you’ve drifted away from
•Day 15 — The person you miss the most
•Day 16 — Someone that’s not in your state/country
•Day 17 — Someone from your childhood
•Day 18 — The person that you wish you could be
•Day 19 — Someone that pesters your mind—good or bad
•Day 20 — The one that broke your heart the hardest
•Day 21 — Someone you judged by their first impression
•Day 22 — Someone you want to give a second chance to
•Day 23 — The last person you kissed
•Day 24 — The person that gave you your favorite memory
•Day 25 — The person you know that is going through the worst of times
•Day 26 — The last person you made a pinky promise to
•Day 27 — The friendliest person you knew for only one day
•Day 28 — Someone that changed your life
•Day 29 — The person that you want tell everything to, but too afraid to
•Day 30 — Your reflection in the mirror

Not only would this exercise be more illuminating about myself, it would keep me blogging on a daily basis. I can't wait to get started on it, which would be later today if I get the chance. (Only reason I'm not starting this challenge right now is because I have a manuscript to edit. Work before play, after all.) I might skip a step or two, but overall this should be pretty cool.

Doctor Strangebuck (Or How I Learned to Love Valentine’s Day)

The last time I wrote on this dear blog of mine, I was a bit lonely and very, very whiny. Since then a lot of things have happened and while I don’t have a girlfriend still, I’ve dealt with a lot of the emotional problems that caused me to be so lonely back then. Also I got laid, which was pretty awesome, and redeemed sex for me. So I’d like to think I’ve matured over the past four months, to the point that I really don’t care what day today is.

You see, the past Brendan would have entered this day feeling super depressed. I would have walked around seeing all the lovers here and there looking all lovey dovey and jealously would have filled my being. I would have been depressed on being single and spent the day beating myself up. If I was feeling in a particularly writey mood, I would have posted a little emo diatribe about how evil this holiday is and how it made me feel all depressed and shit. Because it did make me depressed for a long time, including the year I wasn’t single.

But I simply don’t care anymore. This day fails to inspire the feelings it used to. And I don’t mean in a, “I feel sorta dead kind of way.” Valentine’s Day just doesn’t piss me off anymore. It’s just another day. A day where chocolate prices might be marked up to stupidly high levels, maybe, but it balances it out when the day afterward chocolate is deliciously cheap. It’s consumerism for the sake of consumerism masked under the auspices of love. As simply that, the holiday works and if that product actually gives someone, anyone joy, why get all jelly?

So when I see people getting all down about this consumerist holiday, I now have to ask, “Why?” It’s not like this holiday is actually about love. It’s about love in a heart shaped box that has “Fannie May” written on it. But I know the answer; it’s because the holiday reminds lonely people how lonely they are. The reason this day doesn’t bother me is that I don’t feel lonely anymore. I don’t need someone to be happy anymore. Perhaps if those lonelyhearts could learn what I’ve learned, maybe V-Day wouldn’t hurt them either.