Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

I see you over there in the menu bar, Weight Watcher's tab, don't get all lonely because I haven't touched you since summer. I got stuff for you too, I just haven't felt like writing. And you know those Facebook statuses? They've been taking the place of Low Budget Superhero. Almost a decade of writing, and it's coming undone because I can now post my thoughts in 220 character micro-blogs throughout the day and night, getting immediate and satisfying comments from every other obsessive Live Feed button-pusher. You know who you are! I have no legitimate claims to outrage, having been the cheerleader whose rallying whoops enticed at least five people to join. If you're tweeting because of me, I'm sorry.

I do need to write up the essay about that October trip. I just need like a, I don't know, a decompression? Like a couple of weeks off with no TV and no Facebook. So that I can write about Facebook and how it's blurring the normally linear timeline of our weird little lives. Come on, your old boyfriend commenting along with your best friend from fifth grade and your new boyfriend's mom is just...well, you'd never find all those people in the same room. Worlds colliding, rainbows connecting.

You'll notice there's no longer any commenting available HERE. This I changed so that I could control a spammer problem I was having, but I think I'll keep it comment'less for awhile. The people I would want to hear from, you know how to reach me if it's so important. And there's always the Facebook comment, because you know I'll be posting this to my profile...what a brave new world we live in, hm?

So much going on, so much. Let's see, well, the earthquake in Haiti is the worst thing I've seen in my lifetime. Here at home, the nation's economy is in the toilet. Last night was the State of the Union address, and while I'm still an Obama Mama, I just feel like it was too much salesy talk, finger pointing, platitudes and "in a perfect world" promises. OH, and too much applause by the Dems for what really amounted to a pep rally! Anyone else annoyed by that? When did that start, the constant applause during the SOTU? I don't recall that from when I was a kid. I don't know what any of the answers are, I just know things need to change. That's what drove the commonwealth, which was rocked by the Scott Brown win last week. Because nobody knows what to think past "what the f....?"

Joe's still not working. While I must say I like that he's picked up this new hobby of cooking, I would also like to, oh, maybe buy a house? Or at least a condo? My credit is only in the high six hundreds and my savings is like two or three paychecks' away from not-existing. Realistically, we need both incomes and his superior credit if we're ever going to move out of this tiny apartment. It's hard to believe October was a whole entire calendar year since he was laid off. I'd just made an appointment with a Realtor to look at some condo's, and by the time the appointment day came around, he was out of work. Thanks, Universe, yer hilarious. That was a good one.

Joe has become quite the cook, though. Last Thanksgiving, I mean 2008, he watched me taking down a raw butternut squash and turning it into a delightful soup and, when he turned out to love the soup, acted like I'd just leaped a tall building in a single bound. By THIS Thanksgiving, he had experimented with a number of different variations on butternut squash soup (with apple, with leeks) and made a big pot to take over to his sister's house. Leeks? A mere few months ago he had to call me from the grocery store with list in hand.

"Which ones are leeks?"

"They're with the swiss chard and kale." That didn't help at all. I suspect he thought "swiss chard" and "kale" were some kind of fish.

"They look like scallions, but bigger and fatter...scallions look like leeks' mini-me."

Now he's expertly washing leeks ("That's not easy, baby!" "I know, I found a video online!"), crisping them and using them to top his culinary creations. It just proves that old adage about the clouds and the silver lining. "Oh, 2009? Yes, Joe didn't have a job for one single day of it, but on the plus side, he learned to make a perfect pie crust...from SCRATCH." We may have limped along on one income, but holy moly...fresh pie!

Actually, it's overstating to say we're "limping along." We're fine. We can live perfectly fine on one income. For one thing, they just keep extending the unemployment bennies, though we won't discuss how much of that goes straight into paying for health care. For another, we don't have any of life's luxur...I mean money pits. No house, so no lawn to care for or snow to remove, there's no repair bills for big appliances because we own no big appliances. No property taxes, heat is part of our rent. No car, so no insurance or gas or repairs. No pets, so no food or vet bills. No kids. When I think about it all, you know what? I don't know how people are doing it. Even just adding a car right now would change our whole financial picture. And I have decent income!

How are people doing it?!

Are they living on credit? We only got credit cards because, last year, our mortgage adviser dude said we both lack revolving debt, which hurts our credit for home loans. Meaning: you guys actually SAVE UP for what you want to buy? Oh, that won't do, you need to fling credit cards all around so we can see that you...have...credit?

I am sorry, I still just do NOT get the whole credit dance. It's retarded, and yes I know that's un-PC language, and since I'm already offending your delicate nature, it's motherfucking retarded. If you're frugal, non-extravagant, careful to live within your means with habits such as saving up for the big ticket purchases and only buying them when you have the money, it's the same thing as being a deadbeat loser. Really? REALLY? Credit score what? It is my belief that CREDIT SCORE should only be the jumping-off place, not the be-all and end-all factor that spells out a person's entire financial story. There's so much more to define a person's financial responsibility than just that score. I care about being careful with money, that's all. Score THIS, hosers. Makes me want to live somewhere where I can give you a chicken and a goat in trade for a hut.

People are angry. I'm angry. There's going to be a lot more flag-waving in 2010. What's your flag going to say on it?

One of my co-workers...FORMER co-workers...made his own stimulus package. Sticky Fingers decided to sneak out with about twenty grand worth of electronic parts. Can you even imagine? It's a pretty good story too, but I'll save that for another day.

Al ist klar, der kommisar.

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. (Oscar Wilde)

There's nothing special about autumn that would necessarily lead to my total abandonment of all writing. No all-consuming life events, no tragic finger injury, no kind of projects or extreme busyness to account for the past six weeks of Low Budget Superhero complete and total silence. Not even a lack of ideas. I've even had IDEAS, lots of 'em, fraught with Sarah Palin, Project Runway, guns, babies, quirky coworkers, School House Rock, cops, "As Seen On TV" products -- y'know, the kind of perfectly inane fodder that could garner a couple hundred words a day, easy.

So how come no entry since October 6th? I dunno. I guess I haven't felt like it. I haven't had the words at hand. I'd launch the blog tool that creates a new entry, gaze at the blank page for awhile, be unable to...start...then realized it ain't gonna happen, close the laptop and watch a movie. Or play a few hours of Sim City. Take a quiz to make sure I can still place all fifty states on the map. Whatever. I mean, plenty of stuff happened since October 6th. I just didn't have the words to write about it...they just wouldn't come.

Anybody else who writes just not feel like writing? Words not coming? I joked to Joe that maybe it's no coincidence. Maybe, just maybe, it's a universal-word-count-balance thing. Let me explain. See, I know a few people participating in this challenge, this NanoWriMo thing where they're actually writing a book in one month, and maybe if they have to somehow churn out fifty thousand words in a single month (!), then some of us have to back out and write ZERO words.

Y'know. Like maybe there's only so many writeable words in the universe, floating invisible in the air. I didn't use any for six weeks so the Nanowrimozians could have them. Maybe when they're done with their insanity, the words'll come back to me.

I guess we'll see on December first. I'll use the extra day to make out my Christmas card list.

By the way, I disabled all commenting for awhile. Too many hacky comments, I have to figure out how they're getting in and plug the hole, then I'll re-establish commenting here.

Hey peoples. Howdy. I'm ever so glad I made good on my promise to lay off the Facebook. I'm doing SO much writing and feel super-duper good about my creativity!

NOT.

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You would think, having quit local rock, that I'd have scads of extra time now, right? I somehow don't...or, I do but I'm squandering precious time on stupid shit. For example, I probably need to lay off the Facebook thing for awhile. I'm going to reach the end of my life and have to explain to my maker that I never did write the Great American Novel because I was too busy clicking "Hide" on all my friends' efforts to find out who they are...

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I'm here, I'm here! I have just been a lame-ass about writing in Low Budget Superhero.

A funny thing - since I began this diary on April 1, 2000 I'd intended it to be a place where I sort of do prose gymnastics, trying out ideas, telling stories, seeing what I can do about finding a voice. The theory was that I would then develop some real (ie, non-online?) prose and finish some short stories. Maybe a book. But only recently has that happened! I've been doing a lot of writing...offline. And not music reviews, yo.

Randomly reading back into the old entries, I'm gonna say I like my first three years of entries the best. You have to go back to Diaryland for those archives. It's funny. I mean, I was funny. I lost that voice at some point. Back then I was still with Hub and still talking to my family. I guess they were comic fodder. I also had more disposable income and "did" more stuff. More to write about.

I was also a lot stupider.

Happy anniversary to me!

Well! I was going to start putting hints in my seven-year-old online diary (lexikahn.diaryland.com) about this. I was even considering writing "Thirty Days Left" and "Twenty-nine Days Left" all through December, and have a big email/Facebook/Myspace "online launch" on New Year's Day. I figured I'd work on it all through the month so that every section had a lot of interesting content, all the bugs would be worked out, and final design, well, finalized!

But you know, this is looking pretty good already. Let's call it...the BETA LAUNCH of the NEW LOW BUDGET SUPERHERO!

Feel free to tell me what you think.

Link: http://lexikahn.diaryland.com/

Here it is, guys. The only link back to the original diary, started as Jungle Sweet Jungle in 2000 and changed to Diary of a Low Budget Superhero in 2005. I'm pretty thrilled with my new home on the web, so I think this is it. I don't see going back to Diaryland except for the archives. Hope you come with me and read here!