Eunice

This month sort of sucks. I'm still having a hard time with the actually interacting with other people or getting done anything I need to get done. Mostly I've been just sort of drifting through days staring blankly, the tv might be on but I'm not really watching, I can't focus long enough to play the Wii most of the time, and my house is an absolute disaster. I hate when I do this. It kind of scares me. I hate that I don't have any real fannish focus right now that might act as a distraction, or any real motivation to be creative at all. The best I've got right now is a continuing fascination with Hugh Dillon, and bless Zen for uploading all of the Headstones for me this morning to load up in my iTunes for obsessive listening. At least I have good music to accompany my wallowing.

What are y'all up to?

I think I may have broken my pinky toe, except since I'm pretty sure that there isn't much that can be done for a broken toe, and I don't have insurance, I haven't bothered to go have it checked out, so I don't know for sure. You people are usually full of all sorts of random knowledge, so does anyone know how I can tell for sure, and if there's anything I should be doing if it is?

Goes like this, since I am about as clumsy as a newborn colt on LSD, last week I tripped over my own feet and bashed my foot hard against the side of the trunk I use for a coffee table in my living room. Ow, and all that. Eventually the pain subsided enough to stop my whimpering and I figured it would be like every other time I've tripped over my own feet and bashed my foot against somethng (sadly, this is not an unusual occurance at all). Except my pinky toe has stayed swollen and red and while I can stand and walk on it, it remains sore. Weirdest of all, whenever I am standing or putting pressure on it this white line appears across it in the red. What the hell is that?

It really isn't painful enough that I can't live with it if it's going to heal on it's own, and I'd rather not spend the money if I don't have to, so my primary concern is stuff like...will this make my toe fall off? Because I am rather fond of having ten of them.

I have officially dropped into the yearly post VVC funk. One of the pitfalls of being surrounded by, and focusing on, amazing vids and wildly talented vidders is the inevitable crash when you start comparing yourself to the field. This is entirely unproductive and pointless, of course, but it's a hard thing to kick out of sometimes. Learning from your mistakes and picking up ideas and techniques is a good thing...doing it without tacking on "because I suck" is kinda tricky.

One of the hardest things about learning anything is that the more you learn the more you realize how much you don't know. I remember the first vid I ever made (which, what the hell was I thinking, Another One Bites the Dust...to Buffy. With a random barn door transition. *facepalm*) and it was all, "Oh my god, you can put CLIPS...to MUSIC...who KNEW?" And I sort of miss that clueless and giddy glee. I also really don't, because it's actually much more satsifying and fun to me this way. I think I'd get bored with vidding very, very quickly if there wasn't something new to learn, some goal to push for. And it's thrilling to watch other people hit new levels, and do cool new things, and to watch with awe at an insanely well crafted vid that hits right there.

Remembering it's not a race is a bit harder. I can only make the vids I can make, at the level I am, and that's okay. No vid I ever make is going to be good enough for me, and that's okay too, because it's what keeps me wanting to learn, and what leads me to that insanely addictive rush of understanding something I didn't understand before. That's really what I'm here for. I get that, and on good days I even feel it. And then there are those days you watch a vid that is so amazing your first reaction is the urge to chuck your computer out the window and give up forever. Or you see a newbie sail right past you in skill level on their first or second vid and wonder just how dumb you are.

I'd like to find a balance...using that desire to be better to push myself into growing and learning as a vidder without letting pointless jealousy or comparisons stop me in my tracks. I want to be able to look at one of my vids and think "That's the best vid I could make, at the time I made it." and be proud of that and what that means. Because that is cool no matter how far there is left to go. I'll let you know if I figure out how to do that.