2003-08-11 - 4:16 p.m.

The New Regime

Another month goes by, and here I am. I wanted to start writing here regularly again, but I lacked the will. To make a long explanation short, I haven't been feeling that my life has been so interesting lately, and I haven't particularly felt like sharing it. However, I have been thinking about this diary a good deal in the interim.

One of my biggest problems here is that writing here has always been difficult for me. Sometimes it will take me practically all day to produce an entry, and even then I won't be happy with it. Entries just seem to fall out of other diarists heads without effort, and I envy those people a lot.

Perhaps I should just reconcile myself to the fact that it will never be easy for me and just continue on regardless. I think it was Dorothy Parker that said that she didn't enjoy writing, but she enjoyed having written.

Also, there's been a little fog of negativity hovering over this little corner of the universe, at least from my point of view. I seem to have fallen out of love with online journaling, probably as a result of the crap that happened earlier this year.

A few days ago I was looking at the online journal of comic writer Warren Ellis and a little wave of journal-nausea washed over me. Looking at the people posting comments I was just struck by how self-absorbed, phony and pretentious it all seemed. Everyone has their little cool names and little cool icons like they're somebody important or adventurous, when in fact their just a bunch of pale, puffy nonentities, hiding behind their computers, safe in their houses.

Of course all of this could just be a natural reaction to LiveJournal which sets itself up a some sort of journaling elite. While you can be invited to join LiveJournal I think you can also just buy your way in - what's so special about that? Anyway, I much prefer the no-frills, seat-of-the-pants spirit of Diaryland. Still, getting too caught up in this stuff can't be good for anyone.

I think I need to return to first principles. I started out writing here for myself, and just letting other people read it as an afterthought. My attempts to focus on my hitcount or whatever have proven to be frustrating and ultimately futile. I think my writing was most successful when I handled it that way, but can I turn back the clock and do it again?

Another niggling problem is the online personal I've chosen for myself, Uberhamster. The original intention was an ironic one - at the time I started this journal I didn't particularly feel like much of an Uber-anything, but the early months here were an amazing learning and growing experience. It's only natural that there should be a law of diminishing returns, but that doesn't mean that what goes on here is without value.

In typical fashion, that last paragraph rambled off its original point: the name/personal that I chose for myself has shown itself to be a little confining. Which is to say - I'm not exactly as cute and fluffy as my namesake. I'm a 44 year old guy, and I have some rough edges. A few months ago some of my (former) readers were upset that I'd killed a mouse that I'd found in my house, and I felt the need to defend myself. Talk about a tempest in a teapot! Somehow I don't think that anyone would have been so outraged about my solution to my household pest problem if my online handle were something like "BadAss666" or if I hadn't used Hamtaro in my banner ads.

Well, I've grown attached to Uberhamster and I don't feel like abandoning the name, at least right now. I guess I'll just have to deal with any flak I get from it.

So, hopefully this will restart this journal and get me writing here again. Contrary to what I said above things have been happening in my life, things worth talking about and working through. Hopefully there will still be some people reading while I'm doing this!