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.

Change

Sometimes I wonder if I am the emotional equivalent of a hobo. It would make a lot of sense. I am among the emotionally needy. I am constantly begging for love from any source I think I can get it. I want a lot of love, enough love that it's suffocating.

Yet to those I beg, I am repulsive. People resist giving me their love to the point they are willing to be rude to do so. They spit at me, or hide their wall from me on Facebook, or call me emo even when they've been telling me how they want to fuck other guys while still with me. (Guess which of the three didn't happen to me.) Or sometimes they'll say sweet words of rejection to me because they have nothing else. If I'm lucky, I'll get a little love, but not nearly enough.

People say that instead of begging, there is something I must acquire. For the hobo it's a job, but for me they say I need to get self confidence. I say to get self confidence I'll need a little love to get me on my feet, it's proof that I'm not a total loser. But they refuse to hear it. To get love, I need self confidence; self confidence, love.

So lovelies, could I have some change?

Grumpy pants

Today on Facebook I logged in to see that one acquaintance of mine had changed their status to "married". Knowing she isn't married, this annoys the living fuck out of me. But the question is, why?

My natural inclination is to say this: "Okay, look, this is basically making your relationship look more substantive than it really is." Particularly, this couple has been dating for a half of a year at best, so to me it seems gaudy to me that they'd even joke about marriage. So I say, "Look kids, you're about several years off from this, at least."

But then again, that isn't the REAL reason I'm annoyed.

While there is a lot of truth to what I'd like to say, the crux of the matter is that this time last year, I was the one with the blinders on. I was, for all extents and purposes, as puppy-eyed for Shanndra. We were the ones who were happily dreaming about marriage and a seemingly endless future together. But then everything went to shit, and I was hurt harder then I've been since my childhood.

So what's really happened is that I've gotten incredibly cynical. Instead of taking it as a cute gesture, I get angry since because I have problems with the concept of that kind of relationship lasting. That kind of romantic love didn't last for me right? So why would it, or should it, last for anyone else?

Pardon My Dust

Since I dispelled those negative feelings through making them public, I have one request for you, the reader.

As anyone who is a regular reader of my work can contest, I'm really bad at self editing. I just read over my own words as how I want them to be, not how they actually are. So, dear reader, if you ever see a mistake, please don't be afraid to point it out. In fact, try reaching me by email at so I can fix my grammatical error for the good of all mankind.

I thank you in advance.

The Lesson of the Day

This weekend has been full of many lessons.

One lesson important lesson I learned is that it doesn't matter if you try to get as many of your friends as possible to see a movie. The rest of America just won't. They prefer to just watch the same old crappy action movie over and over again.

The other important lesson I learned, which I should have learned six months ago, is to never tell people you take fancy with any of your negative feelings. Always pretend everything is peachy. Fuck your depression. It doesn't matter. Bottle it up until you can't feel. Because putting up a front is better than letting guys or girls know how you feel.

Because knowing is half the battle.

(/snark)

Scott Pilgrim's Overrated Girlfriend: Why Scott Shouldn't End Up with Ramona Flowers

Warning: Spoilers for up to Volume 5. You have been warned.

About this time next week, we'll all know how Scott Pilgrim ends. When Volume 6 comes out, canon will be canon, and the only hope alternative shippers is in fix fics and fan comics. Thus, this is the last chance to say what I want to say about the relationships of Scott Pilgrim without sounding like some crazy and bitter Harry/Hermonie shipper who, after the release of the Deathly Hallows, sent JKR death threats regarding how she ruined their OTP.. So while I still can, I must assert that I don't really want Scott to end up with Ramona.

Let me start off by saying that I don't detest the couple. They have had their moments, here and there. In fact, the entirety of volume 4 almost sold me on the relationship. However, there have been a couple consistent threads throughout Scott Pilgrim that have given me reason to think she's bad news.

One such thread is that the vast majority of her exes turned evil after her, or in some cases explicitly because of her. In the Matthew Patel flashback, we see him gritting his teeth in anger after Ramona dumps him. Lucas Lee sells out after Ramona cheated on him with Todd. (Todd, admittedly, is perhaps the only evil ex that we know was evil the whole damn time.) Roxanne's abrasive demeanor was suggested to stem from bitterness over comments that Ramona made about her. And let us not forget the twins, whose creepy twin act was directly born out the incident where she played them off each other.

Speaking of the twins, Ramona is very much so a hypocrite. Okay, what Scott did in volume 1 was fairly reprehensible, it wasn't nearly as bad as anything that she's done, given that she mutually cheated on a pair of brothers. She has little right to get as angry as she did at Scott. Besides, he at least ended it fairly quickly, where as with regards to Ramona, we still aren't sure if she really ended with Gideon.

Her still being involved with Gideon is a distinct possibility. Envy's suggestion in volume 3 hinted her work for Gideon was less than legitimate, and the journey into Ramona's mind during volume 4 gave me the feeling that Gideon was very controlling in the relationship. (She was sitting right next to him, like a pet.) Combined with Ramona's disappearance at the end of volume 5, we can probably guess that Gideon still has her around his finger.

But let's be honest, the main reason I don't ship Scott/Ramona is that I think he can do better. Let's see if you can guess who I'm thinking here.

Knives Chau? No. She's batshit insane and immature. Besides, she's probably going to end up with Stephen Stills in the end, so I think she's covered.

Wallace? Hey, look, Wallace already has a boyfriend. Besides Wallace is too awesome for Scott. Moving on...

Lisa? Okay, while I think she and Scott would make a very good couple, I think I should remind you that Scott ignored her in highschool for someone else. Someone snakier. And more talented. Someone with freckles and looks very good chained to a wall.

Yes, I'm a Kim Pine shipper, and I think I've been since the flashback sequence in volume 2. Kim is not only one of the funniest characters in the book, she's proven herself to be the most loyal, leagues above Ramona. Whereas Ramona has done very little to show that she cares for Scott, Kim did an extremely self sacrificing act during volume six in order to get him motivated enough to beat the twins. And even though she occasionally call Scott an idiot, or chews him out for doing something stupid, she has demonstrated a degree of faith in him that's missing from Ramona, which can be best summed up in her repeating mantra from volume 5, “Come on, he's Scott Pilgrim!” And judging by her behavior over the book, it's very obvious that she still has feelings for Scott, even though they broke it off in high school.

Now while I would prefer Scott/Kim, I know that series will end up with Ramona magically changing into a better person after Scott gives Gideon the beat down. I will have no choice but to accept it and smile at the end. But tell me, fellow Scott Pilgrim fans, who really deserves Scott? The person who has constantly cheats and turns people evil? Or the smart, sarcastic girl next door who is loyal till the end?