Monday, May 10, 2010

Turns out, writing gives free reign to the crazy in me

Writing has changed me, gentle readers. More specifically, blogging has changed me. How do I know this? Because I just wrote an email to my mom that contained the phrases "ohhhh, hygiene burn" and "I'll use the time to think of possibly the most epic mother's day present ever contrived." Was epic part of my vocabulary before the blogosphere? Maybe. Was it such an integral part of my daily speech? Most definitely not.

I've always come off better on paper. I have more time to organize my thoughts and pull together the exact right cocktail of words to impart the true meaning and extent of my words. But writing and blogging have tightened up my natural verbosity (somewhat), and they've taught me how to create a distinct character in my writing. Not to say I'm actually a robot who is emulating human emotions in an attempt to better understand the human experience and build toward my eventual world domination (JEM is nothing like HAL, we promise. I mean, I promise...). But a public persona is like the party version of you: you're looking to impress and be on your best behavior. Your words are your accessories; in the right pair of heels and earrings you can take on the world. That's a lot of pressure to be something acceptable.

But now, childrens, now I can be the me I've always wanted to be. What was that weird thought you had that you kept to yourself because you didn't want to seem strange, JEM? Eh, Lila wrote a blog post about boobs, you're cool. What, you want to wax enthusiastic about The Hunger Games ONE MORE TIME YOU PROMISE IT'S JUST ONCE MORE YOU JUST NEED IT THIS ONCE? Oh, well, Sarah has orRyanGosling as an assistant. Go ahead and talk about your Post-it Note wall, Elana has a desk full of them. Indulge that penchant for the all caps key, Le R and T.H. Mafi are way ahead of you.

In short, my friends of the writerly persuasion, thanks for empowering the crazy in me. Or: it's all your fault. Your choice.

5 comments:

Lydia Kang said...

Ha ha! Nice. Be crazy. Love it, embrace it.
Now I'm going to check out those posts because they look too good to pass up!

lisa and laura said...

I couldn't agree more! Writing has made me so much cooler...okay, okay, that might be a stretch--writing has made me FEEL so much cooler. I'm pretty shy in real life, so I think it's helped pull me out of my shell a little bit.

JEM said...

Lydia: enjoy the links!
Lila: Shy? I'm pretty sure if my brain tried to put your names and "shy" in a sentence together I would get a server error screen with the words "do no compute."
btdubs, thanks for making me veer off into a nerd comment. Well played.

Sherrie Petersen said...

Ha! Yeah, I'm much better at writing my blog than speaking to people. And isn't great to find a place where being a nerd is cool? :D

Kimberly Franklin said...

Haha... I love this post. I feel like writing has made me cooler. Or, it has at least brought out my too cool for school side that's been hiding! LOL. ;)