revjim.net

writing

Another Place

Sep 28th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
1 comment

As I have always done with this space here, when a particular topic becomes prevalent enough that someone is either loving or hating seeing post after post of that nature, then it’s time to move that content into it’s own little corner.

I did this once before with Photographs. This blog became consumed with Photos. I posted almost nothing but photos. So I moved them off and away. (Check out my photoblog at Arranging Light).

I even kinda sorta did this another time in the past with a very small subset of my life that needed a smaller audience. That site has since been taken down. But, it’s not quite the same thing since I was creating a new variant of content along with the blog.

In fact, when my daughter turned 1 year old I started a site for our family, chosen family, and close friends to chronicle her life and share photos of her. Again, this is not quite the same thing since the content didn’t exist before hand.

Well, this new site will be more like the Photographs move. I’m taking content that I would ordinarily publish here, and I’m going to start publishing it in a new place instead. I know that might seem lame and silly and confusing. But I LIKE having a place for everything and a thing for every place. Chaque chose à sa place, chaque place à sa chose.

So… I introduce to you, Amorphous.

(Yes, the name is something I’ve used in the past, as is the URL. I guess I really like it.) This will be the blog in which I chronicle the life of a man aiming to live clean, love dirty, and cry ugly. That person, is, of course, me. It’ll feature stories from my life, tales of adventure, epic road trips, and peaceful evenings in. It’ll dip into love, and life, and freedom, and tolerance. It will, of course, feature my beautiful, precious daughter, and many of the wonderful people that choose to share my life.

It will touch on lots of aspects of my beliefs including clean eating, attached parenting, tolerant spirituality, blatant loyalty, and abstract socialism. It will not, however, focus on any one of these things.

I will be moving away from a “I did this, then I did that” style of writing. Instead of being historically accurate, I will attempt to focus on feeling, and meaning, and purpose. Anything that doesn’t convey that type of thought will be left here at revjim.net instead.

I may even twist facts or ideas or people or reality in order to better make a point. This isn’t to say that it isn’t non-fiction: it certainly is. However, it will convey the truths that live within my mind which may not always be the same as the truths that may have been recorded by a competent observer. To further direct the attention, I will likely never use real names of anyone and, even then, reference people as infrequently as possible.

I’m not sure if I’ll be tweeting to revjimweb when I post there, making links on Facebook, or attaching this blog to FriendFeed. Would any of those things interest you?

I am most certainly not posting to revjim on LiveJournal. You will need to set up a syndication account (which I can do if there is interest) or use a feed reader. I will probably link this blog to friendfeed.

For those of you that subscribe to revjim – world in your RSS readers, you needn’t do anything. This site will be included in that feed. For those of you that subscribe to my writing piece by piece, you’ll want to subscribe to its feed as well if you’re interesting in this content: Amorphous RSS Feed.

Thanks for reading.

keeping forever

Sep 24th, 2009
by Jim Reverend.
1 comment
cookie monsters

cookie monsters

Rows and rows of empty boxes,
waiting for their fills.
Peace, alone, time to waste,
and this handful of pills.

I used to keep a small paper notebook with me at all times. Throughout the day I’d often pull it out quickly to jot down an idea, a daydream, the remnants of a short story flashing through my mind, the chorus to a song, or a quick blurb of prose that seemed profound. Once or twice, I’ve even tried to write while driving or quickly at a stop light. In fact, I really should have gotten one of those personal recorders but hearing my words in my own voice after the fact always ruined it for me.

I don’t keep that notebook any more. I’m still filled with ideas. I still get those quick flashes of clarity. I still find myself tapping into the mind of some imaginary someone and then falling back out again. I still find ways to frame my own situation in the lives of people who are not me. But, I don’t keep the notebook any more.

Much like all the photos I take, there is just never enough time to sort through them all, polish them up, and show them off to people that might enjoy them. In a lot of ways, both the notebook and the photographs are for me alone. But even then, my time is so short, I rarely take a moment to look back over them.

So all of these notes and all of these photos stay with me. I carry them from place to moment as if packed tightly into box after box after box. A few times in the past, either by choice or by accident, I’ve emptied all of those boxes. Seeing them that way brought a sense of peace but, in the end, it was mostly just lonely.

So instead of emptying the boxes, over time, I’ve just stopped filling them up. I take fewer photos. I jot down fewer notes. Yet I maintain the illusion that I’m keeping these days with me always because there are all of these boxes forever following me around.

It’s just an illusion, though. I feel as though sharing my words, my thoughts, and my photos with others will cause them to live forever. Whether it’s peace, clarity, happiness, sadness, arousal, understanding, or knowledge, when something I’ve done carries forward into another life, it’s as though that thing lives on forever like a beneficial virus being passed from carrier to carrier.

With this in mind, it seems simple enough to just share these things, even unpolished. But that conjures up new fears. What if being so prolific and unfiltered in those things causes it to suffer the same fate I often do here in thought? What if all of these photos and moments and thoughts and dreams and ideas so precious to me become nothing but brain vomit to be kicked through and cleaned off of shoes and feet with disgust? What if it just gets in the way? Not only would I have trouble accepting that, it would have an effect the opposite of my intent.

tell me where I can put it

Dec 12th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

In the long, drawn out battle of where to put what when it comes to my online writing, it seems the dust has begun to settle with the exception of one remaining factor: life.

As I see it, there are really only 2 options.

  1. My own website powered by WordPress
  2. LiveJournal

The big deciding factor between the two is whether I want to write in public or private, and how much I want to cater to lazy people.

First, the lazy factor.

I’ve found that, for entries about Life, I get far more comments in LiveJournal than I do on the same entry posted on my website. It seems that LiveJournal users are either too lazy to click the link and read at my site, or are too lazy to bother to comment once they do.

Question 1:
Do I want to cater to this? Do I care?

Secondly, there is security.

If I’m going to really get deep into the “locked entry” writing, LiveJournal makes the most sense because it has tons of features in this arena. It means that some people will be excluded if they don’t have a LiveJournal account or know how to use OpenID. It also means I’d lost a lot of control over the look, layout, and functionality.

If i just intend to write something locked once in a great while, I can find some other means for distribution or use WordPress password protection and not really worry about it. In which case, I could just write on my own website like I’ve been doing and call it good.

Question 2:
So I ask you, do you think I write enough about my personal life? Am I candid enough in public? So you think I’m too candid in public? Should many of my life entries have a lot more filter on them?

I’m really twisted over which way to go on this. Your comments are appreciated.

held

Nov 24th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

As he was absorbed into the dark, distant night
he knew this would be the last time
he’d watch her walk away.

Yet still he held on as tightly as he could
to the one piece of her that was left.

OneWord // Held

containment issues

Sep 17th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
3 comments

Yes, it’s that time again. That time where I bitch about my web presence and how it annoys me.

I want this website to die. I should elaborate “this website” since I have no idea where you’re reading this from. I want revjim.net to die.

The name is nice. I’ve had it forever. It ties my past with my present even if it often gets confused with the singer of the Reverend Horton Heat or some character in a TV Show, Taxi, which I’ve never seen. I guess I just want the content to die.

No. That isn’t it. There is some really good content here. There is also some real crap that I’d like to keep for historical purposes but, that I don’t really have any desire to showcase. So I guess I want the content to live, I just want the container to die.

Yeah. That’s it. I want the container to die. I want all of the content to be spread out and sorted and placed into nice neat little stacks.

I’m well on my way to building that first stack: Photography. I’ve got my photoblog, Arranging Light, and I’ve got my professional site, DJamesPhoto.com, should I ever choose to use it for anything useful.

There are other buckets of Daniel I’d like to have.

1) Photos (as mentioned above)
2) Friends: things only my friends will care about. Memes and surveys, party announcements, etc. The social side of an online presence.
3) Technical Matters: I’ve really slacked here lately, with so many other things going on. I want to write about programming, and software, and gadgets, and mobile technology, and all of these things. You know, just like everyone else. I want to do so with my name on it proudly so that, in looking for a job, I could point someone there.
4) Life, Love, Art: I want to write poetry, record songs, share photos, and talk about my troubles and joys as a 30-something male. I want to talk about fatherhood and married life. I want to provide insight into my own life in a touching way that is meaningful to others, and maybe meet some new people through that.

#1 is cared for.

#2 is difficult because there are so many social sites and I have friends scattered amongst them all. I’m inclined to either just use LiveJournal, just use Facebook, or have my own website that syndicates in full to these websites.

#3 is simple enough. Make a website. If you build it they will come. This is complicated, however, by the fact that the majority of my existing work in this category is buried somewhere in the cruft of revjim.net. At one point in the past I moved everything from LiveJournal into revjim.net and that was a mistake. If I could undo that, I’d be headed in the right direction.

#4 is simple enough too. Make a website. If you build it they will come. The tough part is deciding where to make it. Should it part of revjim.net or should it be it’s own thing. It makes the most sense to put it all out on the line in one place (maybe with different categories). But, at the same time, do I really want a prospective employer reading about diaper changes, nudity with wreckless abandon, and sappy poetry about the shadow of a tree in the moonlight?

I know. I’ve been here before. But, if you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Even you, Justin, when you say “Just Write”.

the trouble with being home

Jun 27th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
3 comments

I decided that every weekday morning where I didn’t have to leave the house prior to 7am, I would write here and that would be enough. Flipping back through these virtual pages I see that has not been happening. Not even close. When I’m out of town on business, the time at which I arrive at work is rarely a set thing. Additionally, traffic is usually not something I have to contend with. So, if I intend to be at work at 9am, and I leave my hotel at 9am, that’s not really a problem.

At home, however, this is a different story. If I intend to be at work at 9am, I have to leave the house at 7:30am. And, while being slightly late to my job here isn’t a big deal, coming home late is, because the traffic only gets worse and worse. Additionally, getting in to work at 9am is rarely an acceptable thing unless I was working from home before hand. So, really I’m aiming to get to work at 8:30am, which means I have to leave at 7am and the deadline that I set for myself is begging to be missed.

On top of all that, I do work from home. When I’m out on business I only have my laptop. Because of certain limitations, I can either do work stuff or my stuff, but not both at the same time. At home, however, my work is sitting right next to me, constantly begging for more of my attention.

In summary, 7am is a terrible deadline to set and only results in me not writing at all. So, I’ve got to work out something else.

longer days

Jun 10th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

This time of year, days are about an hour longer here in Providence than they are at home in Dallas. The light knocking at my window just after five o’clock this morning startled me awake — panicked that I’d had missed my alarm. Another insignificant item in a long list of things to get used to.

Despite the heat wave and high humidity here I think I’ll walk to work. It’s only a few blocks and it makes a lot more sense than pulling the car out of valet just to find another garage to park it in a few blocks down the road. I look forward to going out for a ride tonight, though. An old coastal town like this has a lot to offer a photographer like me. I’ve got a new camera to try out in accordance with my “a simple life is a better life” mantra I’ve been chanting lately.

I know many incredible people who are content to live lives that don’t center around creating something. They live what seem to be happy, full lives filled with challenge and interest centered entirely on their experience and the happiness afforded them by friendship and the consumption of those things created by others. But, no matter how hard I try, living life that way simply does not fulfill me. I need to create. I need to produce. I need to build. I need to change.

It’s been too long since I’ve shared a photograph. It’s been even longer since I made a photograph that really challenged me or moved me. This needs to change.

It isn’t much, but it’s a start. I’m going to attempt to write here every morning with no regard for how bad, or trivial, or short, or uninteresting these words might be. My hope is that the forced creativity and attempts at accountability will renew the ambition and drive that comes along with that need.

Lighter than air, her mind burned with possibilities. She loved him. She wanted him. Yet, in the end, he had no substance. This high school dropout wouldn’t be approved by her peers.

– OneWord // Substance