I think I have carpal tunnel syndrome. and I need more clean underwear.

So, I'm doing this thing called the Joy Equation, and even though I'm only on Day Six, I already kind of hate it.  (sorry Molly!) 

I have to write every day, for thirty frickin' days.  You know what I say to that?

STAB!

I'm lucky if I remember to wear clean underwear for thirty days.

Just kidding.

Kind of.

I think one reason why I question this Joy Equation thing is because I'm doing these journal prompts and listening to these audio clips and I still don't see any results.

Confession:  I'm the type of person who needs instant gratification.

There, I said it.

If I go wrist deep* into a vagina project, I need to know what the result is going to be.  I need to know that my hard work pays off right after I am done.  But with the Joy Equation, it's a waiting game.  I write these journal prompts and when I'm finished, I'm all, what the frick?!  I just wrote for thirty-frickin'-minutes and I don't feel any differently.  The only thing I do get from these journal prompts is carpal tunnel syndrome** and I definitely did NOT ask for that.  I'm trying to be patient and I'm trying to keep an open vagina mind as I am working through these journal prompts, but I get anxious when I don't see an end result.

Patience is a virtue.

I know change doesn't happen over night.  And I don't expect to be completely happy and joyous after I complete this project.  I know that a lot of my happiness comes from within and I need to figure out how to find that.  But sometimes I want to scream.  Like when I don't have clean underwear.  Or when I don't get an instant fix from my daily journal prompt. 

I just want to know I'm on the right track.




* have you read my wrist-deep sex story?  You're welcome.
** when I was little, my brothers told me it was "car-pool tunnel syndrome," and I thought it was a disease you got when you car-pooled with someone through a tunnel.

on my memoir. and a reference to gay men and anal.

(via)

One of my ultimate goals in life is to become a published writer.  Sure, I'm a blogger for Brand-Yourself.com and a writer for the Examiner.com and I've got street cred out the wa-zoo it's all fun and awesome, but I want to publish a book.  Specifically, my memoir. 

So, I've been reading a lot of great books lately.  Like Michael J. Fox's new book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future and Jennifer Love Hewitt's, The Day I Shot Cupid.  Both of these are amazing and funny.  I'm not a big JLH fan, but my BFF wants this for her birthday next month, so I found it cheap on Amazon and figured I may as well read it, right?  The verdict is in: every woman needs to read this book.  I mean, I hate all things chick lit, but this one is definitely  worth it because she talks about crabs.  The STD, not the food.  And yesterday, on a whim, I decided to buy Jen Lancaster's Such a Pretty Fat, and holy cow this book is hilarious!  

Note: I'm a sucker for really good memoirs.  Especially anything by my two favorite authors, David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs.  Because reading about someone else's messed up life makes me think that maybe my life isn't that bad.

Maybe.

So, I'm writing my memoir.  It's been a work-in-progress for about seven years now (albeit slow progress), but it's officially crap and not something I want published.  Or even read by any of my friends.  

See, that's the thing about memoirs.  It has to be good.  Like, really, really ridiculously, mind-blowing-ly, "ohmygawdthatwasawesome"-ly good.  Whether it's about overcoming some kind of horrific, life-changing disaster or going from zero-to-hero, it has to be something your audience wants to read.  

And therein lies my problem.  

What do I have to provide to my audience?  Why is my story worth telling?  What can my audience learn from my book?

Absolutely nothing.

Sure, I have tons of crazy, drunken stories to tell.  Like that time I boarded the wrong plane and landed in Jacksonville.  Or that time I got propositioned for a threesome in Vegas and mistaken for a prostitute all in one night.  Or that time I had sex with a ziplock bag (no, I wasn't fisting myself with a ziplock bag).  Or that time a guy went wrist deep inside me to get a condom out.  But do people really want to read about that?

My current angle for my memoir is about how I transformed into [my version of] Superwoman by overcoming the loss of both of my parents and cervical cancer by age 25, and embarking on changing the world, but I realize that people probably wouldn't want to read that either, because it's just another cancer story and it's not like I'm curing AIDS or anything that a real Superwoman would do.

My flaw is, I feel like I have nothing to give people.  No one really wants to hear my story.  Sure, I've endured a lot in my 26 years, but who hasn't?  What makes my experiences any more challenging than your experiences?

I've always felt this way.  Maybe it stems from not having a close relationship with my parents, but I always feel like I don't have anything to give anyone.  I don't tell people my past experiences because it's all "Debbie Downer" and depressing and who really wants to hear about that?

I've wanted to write my memoir since I was 12 years old because I want to believe that I have a good story to tell and that maybe someone out there can relate to it or learn from it, but I don't know how to write the damn thing.  It's about believing you have an important story to tell, a life lesson to teach someone, an experience that changed your life that someone can learn from, and I don't know how to do that; I don't know how to write well.

Again, this all goes back to my #1 stunna flaw of feeling like I have nothing to give.  I also feel like I'm a terrible writer, but that's neither here nor there. 

It's hard to change the way you view yourself, and what you do, after so many years.  I want to believe that I'm a good phenomenal writer who has an amazing story to tell, but wanting to believe it and actually believing it are two different things. 

It's like hot gay men.  I want to believe I can change a gay man who is ridiculously good looking, to be straight, but actually making him swing on the other side of the see-saw is a completely different story. 

Good anal-ogy?  Ha!  Get it?  Gay men.  Anal.  

:::crickets:::

No?  Just me?

Blo Mo.

Well, I did it!  I officially survived and finished NaBloPoMo.  What did I learn from this experience? 

• Blogging every day sucks.  Especially when I have nothing "important" or "creative" to write about.
• Blogging on the weekends is even worse.  My weekends are spent away from my blog and [most of the time] away from computers.  Having to put a reminder into my crackberry to blog on Saturdays and Sundays officially marks my nerdom status.
• Thinking of topics to blog about hurts my brain.
• I'm never doing NaBloPoMo again.  Ever.
• Nor will I be participating in NaNoWriMo.  Or whatever the hell it's called.
• Blogging for 30 days straight makes me not want to blog ever for a good week or two.
• The month of November is the longest. month. ever.  But I only think that because I had to blog every day.
  

I'm glad I conformed to society's norms participated, but you can bet I won't be blogging for a little while.  Perhaps now I can focus more on perfecting my blow job skills work-related stuff and less on "ohmygawdIforgottoblog!"

P.S. I'm still waiting for my date to Checkers.  And I expect a good cuddle session afterwards.  You know who you are...