i won’t treat you like you’re oh so typical

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Hi.

It feels weird to slink back here after two years of not writing. Really weird. I guess I’m not slinking since it’s my domain and I pay for it and administer it, but I feel like I’ve broken up with bluishorange and now I’ve come crawling back. So, slink I shall. Come back, please, baby, I was wrong.

I have a job now, and Maude’s still alive. Those are the two relevant updates. My job is that I make jewelry full-time for a designer here in Austin. It’s a good time–I make things all day and listen to audiobooks. Or sometimes I make things and watch Firefly. Either way.

Maude is on her last legs, I think. She’s got arthritis and kidney disease, and I’m about to start giving her glucosamine for the former and subcutaneous fluids for the latter. She’s thirteen years old, the same age as bluishorange. She seems to be pain-free and in good spirits, though, so I’m glad she’s still around. At the moment she’s curled up next to me asleep, which is as it should be.

I was unemployed for nearly a year. This affected me in the obvious financial ways, but it also affected me in some emotional ways that haven’t healed yet, and may not for some time. Eleven months of constant rejection got me used to rejection, which is valuable, but it also wore me down and got me to expect very little from anything in my life. Expecting practically nothing is great if you want to be surprised, but isn’t great if you want to move forward or achieve anything.

Right now I’m going through one of my OH GOD WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN phases. It feels a lot like a midlife crisis, which is probably accurate. As an atheist, my answer to WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN should technically be NOTHING IT MEANS NOTHING, but it’s not that simple. Does anything I do make a positive difference? How can I make more of a positive difference? What do I bring to the world that nobody else can? Those thoughts are enough to make a girl drink a bottle of wine every night, but, uh, I don’t do that anymore.

Tonight while I was driving home from a party, I listened to the first track from the new Tegan and Sara album on repeat. I love the way the verses sort of melt into the chorus, almost like they’re overlapping.

If you’re subscribed to the RSS feed (which I assume is the only way anyone could possibly see this post), please say hi in the comments, okay? I miss you guys.

55 thoughts on “i won’t treat you like you’re oh so typical”

  4. Hi. Welcome back. Sorry to hear about Maude’s health, I worry so much about dealing with losing my pets even though they are still young…
    I wrestle with those questions too but for different reasons I guess. I hope that starting back on meds after delivering my baby in January will quiet my mind and allow me to just enjoy life.
    Congrats on the job, it sounds like a good fit for you.

  5. Yay! This answers almost every answer I’ve had about how you’ve been doing. Now where can I see the jewelry.

  7. Hello! I’m still subscribed! And I think it’s great you have a job making jewelry now. Those big questions are the stuff you might spend your whole life figuring out, I think. It’s nice to see you back here. :-)

  9. Well, hi there! And welcome back to my RSS-feed, where you keep on having your place since 2002.
    ~ Wortmischer, Europe, Germany

  12. Welcome back. It’s nice to have your words in my head again, in a non-creepy way of course.

  13. Hello! so good to see you writing again! sorry to hear about maude, i actually was wondering about her recently. 13 is pretty old for a dog. glad to hear you got a new job and are enjoying it. hope you keep up the writing.

  14. It is wonderful that you are back. Hi there. And look, a hippo! They are almost as exciting as manatees.

  15. So happy to see that familiar name bolded in Google Reader. Good to “hear” you again. I have that “what does it all mean” thought quite often. Maybe we’re not supposed to know. Maybe it really does mean nothing and we’re fooling ourselves if we think some things do while others don’t.

  16. I always loved reading your blog. Your writing is some of the best I’ve come across. I’m glad to see an update from you. Cheers.

  19. Hi! It’s so refreshing to see you posting again! What a nice surprise to see a new bluishorange update after so long. You were the first blogger I followed, back in the days before people used the word blogger.

    I am sorry to hear that Maude is not doing well, as I remember enjoying Maude updates and pictures. I’ll send positive puppy energy her way.

    Hope to hear more from you, I always thought your style was very conversational and enjoyable to read. As I’ve grown older, I realize that there are many people who influence my life and I haven’t let them know. So I just wanted to thank you for the years of your writing and photos. You matter. You are significant. You have reached many people over the years. Don’t ever forget that you are glorious. xox.

  20. Funny, I haven’t checked in on you for at least a year and then today *bluishorange* just sprang to mind. And there you and Maud were! Jewelry-Maker sounds perfect.
    As a fellow atheist, it really doesn’t *matter* but nevertheless some of us do want to leave a mark that lasts at least a few years. Must be ego. I’m old enough to be your grandfather and I still haven’t figured it out…I’m thinking a mausoleum in a forest with a pithy aphorism carved in marble. Should be good for a few years.

  21. Hi! Keep writing!
    Old pets are tough but they’re the most loyal and best friends. Best to you and Maude.

  22. hi! glad to see you posting again.
    you’re right, thanks to RSS I was able to see your post.

  23. Hi! Good to see you back. 13 years, huh? You were the first blog I ever started reading, back in the day. Good to see you back!

  24. You’re here! I (normally the lurkiest of lurkers) am also here! Hugs about Maude — she’s been a wonderful dog for you. And congratulations on the job!

  25. I left a message last night, but it may be in a spam filter so I will try again. This post answered all my pressing questions except where I can buy the jewelry you’re making.

  26. hello is this website, i have been a reader for 13 years, you should go back to the train mirror photo that was real pretty what is rss

  28. glad your back – huge fan of yours since your flickr days.
    i had a huge crush on you back then cause you were a model and stuff.

  32. RSS is the gift that keeps on giving. Glad to see you back. Ryan had it wrong, the best header photo you had was the one with goldfish, possibly the original when you launched?

    Also, is there anywhere online we can see your jewelry? Is it on Etsy or anything?

    • Right! This was the design when Alison and I first started reading each other. It was a fish layered over… some other object. A toaster? Man, I don’t remember anything anymore. I do recall that it was using absolute positioning, which was new to me.

      • It was an orange layered over a fish in a blender! The orange used absolute positioning. That was February 2000-January 2001.

  33. SO glad you’re writing again. Even if it’s sporadic…I like hearing what’s going on with you at your own little corner of the Internet. I’m with Ryan – the train picture was my favorite. However, I don’t know that I want the same picture up because you’ve changed over the years. But maybe a recreation of that picture – like a little nod to the past.

  36. I already expressed delight on Facebook, but I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to welcome you back here as well.

    A few years ago I started adding various blog RSS feeds to my LiveJournal friends list so that I’d know when they were updating, or so that I wouldn’t have to go to a bunch of different blogs every day, I could just look at my LiveJournal, which I was going to look at anyhow. But I never added a feed for bluishorange. Maybe your writing had already become sporadic enough that I didn’t think of it. Definitely the greater part of the reason was that I preferred to come here, your online home, to read your writing, on the site you designed; it was just more fitting. Thus, I feel fortunate I could discover now, through Facebook, that you’re back, rather than months from now when I might’ve idly checked to see if there were new updates.

    But eventually, at some point, I would indeed have idly checked to see if there were any new updates, even after two years of silence. Because yours is a voice I’ve always enjoyed hearing. Your honesty, thoughtfulness, occasional wit, perceptiveness, and just all-around good writing have always brought me back over the dozen or so years I’ve been reading. Me, and these others, and more who perhaps would still rather lurk than comment, but whom I’m sure are out there.

    I am glad you’ve returned to write here. I hope you will continue.

  38. Hi! What a nice feeling to see you pop up again in my Google Reader. Hug Maude on behalf of all those strangers in cyberspace who remember when you first got her.

  39. Another lurker from circa early 2000s who was pleasantly surprised to see you pop up in my “must read” folder. Very sorry to hear about Maude; I remember when you got her. I hope you write more.

  41. Glad to see you back. You are a gifted writer/artist-in-general, a genius in a dumb world.

  42. So great to see you at SXSW, and to see you writing again!

    This might just inspire me to finally get off my ass and fix my own damn blog so I can write there again. :)

  46. For the record, I’ve checked your website (direct! no RSS!) at least once a month for the past two years to see if you’d posted anything. Glad you’re back!

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