Author and Columnist
I am coming to terms with the fact that I very likely have an addictive personality. [...] I get frantic, typing into the wee hours of the morning, striving for connection. Striving to be known, I suppose.
You are trying for a humble bragging rhetoric, but we do have an addictive personality. Yesterday, I wrote a 5000-word chapter. It took hours, and I felt none of them because I was in my zone. I wrote another today. Other people say they could not do that in a month, which might be true—different modalities.
However, you also retreat so much into your writing that it becomes a hiding place. You accrete the words around you and treat yourself as little more than a character avatar in the world -- you cease to be a complete person. No matter how miserable you are, you think how good this will look on the page, so you don't take the steps necessary to improve your life. You will eschew social obligations so you can get a few more pages out when you are in your flow state, which other people do not appreciate -- nor should they. Your spouse complains that you write books too quickly simply because you have them formatting two books, and they have five more ahead of them. (Three of those were previously published and are currently out-of-print, but I have rewritten them, and they deserve to look better than they did with the original publisher.)
I could not count how many hours we spent typing and scribbling. We have exceeded the myth of ten thousand hours so far that this sounds laughably tiny. (I just did the calculations and believe it is about fifteen thousand writing hours between the two of us, not counting conventions, panels, and various other things that are writing adjacent, but not writing in fact.) There must be at least five million words in these journal entries alone. How many of those hours could have been spent in more memorable ways? While you are recording, you are not entirely living.
On vacation a few years ago, my family was playing a game or being social. I was scribbling notes and thoughts into a small red book with an expensive fountain pen. My father asked why I was doing that, the implication being why I was not enjoying vacation. My answer was simply that writing is what I do and that I was happy doing it. (I do like writing around other people while they do their own things. It is social but still practice.)
Which would be fine, even healthy, but I do it obsessively and erratically. I write ten pages of information.
Ten pages? Lightweight.
I have evened out, but that only means that the addiction is regular, and the force behind it is constant.
I code for hours and hours.
That I do not enjoy. I have not updated the code on any of my sites in years.
Right now it is a video game (yes, I truly am that lame) that Emily and I began playing together on a lark during a lazy day
I have not played a video game not associated with exercise in a decade. It is one of those things I chose to sacrifice for more time I could devote to writing.
I sit down and indulge in the ocean of words, my eyes sailing over them, laughing and weeping openly.
My gods, do you ever lay it on thick. You do not sound deeper when you do this.
Not like all those aluminum Christma... wait, no... {crustomoney proceed cake}.
I remember your writing "crustomoney proceed cake" often. Technically, it is "Crustimoney Proceedcake" and is from Winnie-the-Pooh, preceding "For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me."
I do not know why you wrote it here or in most situations. You, for all your faults, are not a Bear of Very Little Brain and long words do not Bother you, which might be an issue. You would use a long word where your presumptive audience would better receive a simpler one. You believe this makes you sound more intelligent. It does not. Instead, you are pretentious and opaque.
If you want to connect with people, do not throw wall-sized shibboleths in their way.
Emily will soon be testing for her black belt in Tae Kwon Do (on December 14, my birthday), which is why our playtime is severely limited by her training.
As you are addicted to writing, she is to training. You were only ever going to be her mistress -- and a far less important one than taekwondo.
Now she is with her true Sensei in my opinion, the one who wishes to have Emily one day follow in his footsteps.
She does have her own martial arts school. I do not know if Master Baron is involved.
Basically that Melissa doesn't have an opinion of Kate because Kate doesn't open up to being known.
Melissa comes to like Kate much more than she reportedly ever liked Emily. It just took dumping you and wanting to get high together.
Melissa is not the hardest nut to crack.
Kate felt that they were right, that she doesn't try to open up to people because the concept isn't that appealing to her. Except, you know, she said it in a tender way that resulted in my stating, "I think I understand. I know you, and that is all that matters to me."
I don't think this reservation extends much past college. Kate tells stories of too many people who take to her to assume she isn't giving them a good reason to presume mutual intimacy.
Tina explained that Kate was glad that Emily would no longer be working in the dining hall and that Kate had specifically requested to work in an area away from M because, and I quote, "she gives off weird vibes."
No, no, this is fair. Emily does not like what Kate represents. Emily also gives off "weird vibes" with other people -- something they make abundantly clear once she leaves you. With some, I think it is the static of being around people with similar flaws and brokenness, much as you would bristle at people trying so hard to be seen as intelligent and deep.
Friends told you that something about Emily always seemed performative, as though everything was an improv show for her. She is intelligent -- no one could say otherwise -- and her mental illness may have made her rehearse her demeanor before sharing it. It read as charming but inauthentic.
She did this as a coping mechanism, but not everyone cared to see through it.
Emily makes an extreme effort to be social with Kate because she knows how important Kate was and is to me.
Without intending, you make this clear here. Emily is putting effort into her interactions with Kate rather than just having them. Even if Emily chose to dislike Kate openly, I think Kate would have liked this better. It would have seemed real to her, which she respected. Kate was accustomed to people not liking her, but she wouldn't know what to do with someone putting effort into liking her. There is no reason they would ever become friends, so why bother with the pretense?
Emily would like Kate to cease to exist. It would be much easier for her if you never again considered Kate an option, even for friendship.
However, Emily is political and knows how to play nice. If she made an issue of your friendship with Kate, she cannot be entirely sure with whom you would side.
I cannot know either.
Stevehen interjected in a half serious way that maybe that was because I jumped right from Kate to being with Emily and Kate resented that. What kind of retroactive continuity be this?!
I still wonder what Kate told Stevehen the night she dumped you. I guess she had already slept with other men -- or at least had specific plans.
You were trying to date Kate again shortly before you met Emily -- I could argue that you had gone on an actual date, but you didn't call it so to her face so you could preserve the illusion. You may have been intensely pursuing Emily because of Kate's confusion. It is nevertheless unfair of Stevehen to suggest you jumped from Kate to Emily. Kate had jumped from you multiple times in the interim.
I tried to be with Kate and she... well, she made my life confusing and made me feel used on more than one occasion.
I recall repeatedly yelling at you about that and that you passed over potential opportunities because you kept slamming your head against the glass that she made seem like an open window.