01.31.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:06 pm by kyrias
As of 1-9-2010, we had:
20,000 in student loans.
Paid $129.36 last month, of which $96.05 was applied to interest and $33.31 was deducted from the principal. Just looking at that, I understand why some people take decades to pay off their student loans. I mean, at that rate, say paying off $30 each month, it’s going to take us 56 years to pay that off in full. I don’t even want to calculate how much money in interest we’re just handing over to them. Of course, it’s not that simply because the interest rate fluctuates.
$7,900 in credit card debt over two cards. The bulk of the debt is on the 15.24% APR card, with 2k on the 12.24% APR.
I’m almost tempted to engage in credit card arbitrage to stop paying the interest for a while, but I don’t want to go to the hassle of applying for another card and then transfering the balance. On the other hand, even the usual 3% fee for transfering is probably worth the interest I’d be saving. I suppose if I can find a 0% introductory APR credit card, I might consider it. Or I might consider asking Caesura to open up a line of credit — after all, he doesn’t have a credit card at all.
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01.30.10
Posted in Money, Reviews at 11:45 pm by kyrias
I downloaded YNAB the other day to test it out at the suggestion of a financial blogger, I forget which one, and totally geeked out over it. Now I’m just having way too much fun slotting in numbers and watching the other corresponding numbers change.
What I really like about it isthat I can download my statements, import them into YNAB, and then be able to slot transactions into different categories with a few clicks of the mouse. After I verify and categorize the transactions, then the program automatically calculates for me how much money I’ve spent in each category, whether or not I’m under budget in each category, and if I’m over-budget for the month.
It’s true that I could do all this with my spreadsheets, and I have in the past — but honestly, this makes everything so much faster and easier. I have all of my accounts linked and all of the transactions in each account inter-linked so that I can see at a glance where exactly each transaction went and what it was for.
Caesura mentioned that he didn’t think that this was a good vehicle for tracking long term investments and so such, and I think he’s right. However, the beauty of this program is that it’s really simple to use, you don’t even really have to download the bank statements if you don’t want to — it’s ultimately just really useful budgeting software. Which is fine — it’s exactly what I need.
What I thought was unfortunate was that there is no way to sync between copies of YNAB on different computers — which means that if there’s only one person doing the finances in the house then everything’s fine, but if there’s two people trying to track things at the same time then there might be unfortunate discrepancies.
Anyways, our finances look pretty grim:
Student loans: $19419.04
Credit cards : $9176.29
ROTH IRA : $3677.66
+ various bank accounts
—————————————–
Net worth = - 21332.87
With my new job and Caesura’s overdue raise, I’m hoping that we’ll be able to make significant inroads into the debt this year. If we stay within budget and our plans, then we’re due to pay off the credit card debt in May 2011 and the student loans in March 2013.
Of course, that’s worst case scenario — which I’m desperately hoping won’t happen. To think that we might not get either a raise or bonus in 24 months is kind of depressing.
Tally ho, onwards and all that.
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01.29.10
Posted in Renting with friends at 11:13 pm by kyrias
Dad offered to rent me his house.
It’s out in Framingham, but he’s going to renovate it so that there’s going to be two bathrooms, 4 bedrooms, dining room, living room, and an entirely new kitchen. In fact, since he’s moving the kitchen, everything in it is going to be new and it’s possible that he’ll take input on designing the kitchen.
Pros:
- Having my parents as landlords would be pretty nice — would mean that if we needed something fixed, they’d be right on it.
- Rent control and cheaper rent for an entire house than we could possibly get in Boston. Dad’s quoting 1.3k to me for putting in an extra bedroom since he originally was going to keep the 3 bedroom layout.
- New kitchen, with counter space, storage, new fridge, garbage disposal, properly functioning stove and range and all that lovely stuff.
- We could store extra bags of rice and cat food in the garage. In fact, we’d also have a linen closet. We could probably put the extra freezers in the garage also, and free up room.
- We could probably partition the fairly large living room off so we could have a reading nook for all the bookshelves we have.
- Since we don’t need the dining room, we could probably turn that into a guest bedroom/sewing room/ extra lounge.
- Garden! Plants!
- Better separation of sleeping space and living space. No more stupid awkward hallways.
- Washer and dryer in-house.
- Two newly done, clean, nice bathrooms.
Cons:
- Having my parents as landlords. I can’t see how it could cause drama, but I’m really not ruling it out.
- It’s about 50 minutes via commuter rail into Boston, South Station. This would be very inconvenient for everyone who works in Boston.
- Commuter rail passes are 210/month assuming that the employer doesn’t pick up the tab.
- Mr P’s dating life would suffer. Assuming Dochola moving in, then his social life would probably also suffer in terms of picking up new girls.
- Our utility bills might be higher because it’s a larger place to heat. On the other hand, depending on how well the insulation goes and with 6 people paying for it, it might not be that bad. On the other hand, if we find a house of the same size, we’d have the same issues. Moot, IMO.
- It is oil heating, which might be more expensive than gas, I’m not sure. Gas is freaking expensive though.
- Going to the farmer’s markets in summer would be a chore, in fact shopping at Harvest would be a chore. Not that shopping right now isn’t a chore, but it would require a car there.
- We would probably need at least one car. Nora and Dochola mentioned that it might be around 1.8k to 2k a year, not more than that for the average car.
To be honest, I’m really hoping that people will agree to move out to Framingham. I’m looking at apartments and houses on Craigslist right now, and the prices are ludicrous. It’s possibly going to be impossible to find a decent apartment/house for less than 2k a month. Whereas 2k a month is a deal when factoring in the commuter rail pass cost for 5 people out of the 6, I’m really not optimistic that we’ll find a nice enough house for that cheap.
With 6 people living there, we’ll really want storage space and a reasonably sensible kitchen. I’m not sure we’ll be able to get that with the price range we’ll be looking at.
If we’re looking at getting cars, Kell mentioned to Dochola that he’s paying around 400/year for insurance and Nora said that the average sedan would be 1.8k/year for good coverage. Assuming 2k/year for insurance with two people being able to use it, that’s 83/month/person — which isn’t that terrible. Then that just leaves the question of gas, which if gas prices stay down, then potentially a car would be cheaper in the long run than the commuter rail pass. Asides from the initial outlay, of course.
If gas prices or rush hour is ludicrous, then there’s the option of driving into Alewife station and parking there for the day, then using the T. Alewife station is about 22 minutes from the house and charges $4.5 a day for parking, which is $1170/year.
The frustrating bit is that my father isn’t in a rush to renovate the house. He told me today that if we’re not sure we’re renting from him, then he doesn’t mind delaying for a bit. This means that if we can’t find something suitable around May, then it would probably be too late to tell him that we want the house — which would probably leave us in the position of renting a less than great place for a full year.
That would suck.
This entire thing kind of sucks.
I think I’m just going to pray that Mr. P finds a girlfriend soon.
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Posted in Health tagged milk kefir grains at 9:54 pm by kyrias
At the start of this year, I bought some milk kefir grains and a kombucha SCOBY from the kefirlady.
I had heard all about its amazing probiotic properties and I wanted to try it out. I had thought about just making yogurt, but the complications of trying to keep it warm in our house made me re-think it, at least until spring or summer. So, I was very pleasantly surprised when I found out that I could culture kefir by just adding cold milk to the milk kefir grains and leaving it out overnight. It helped that most of the people that wrote about it in their blogs mentioned how very tasty they found it.
Well.
I found it really strange, but I sort of liked it. I don’t know if I can drink it plain, but it’s pretty good in a smoothie with ripe bananas and strawberries. That really wierd thing was the carbonation — the tingly effect on my tongue really wasn’t what I’d call pleasant. But then, I don’t drink soda or really like anything with carbonation anyways.
What I found surprising was that Caesura really didn’t care for it. It wasn’t just that it was tangier than yogurt usually is, apparently he found the concept of drinking his yogurt really off-putting. I might try buying a yogurt strainer and seeing if I can make it a bit more solid so Caesura would prefer it.
Mr P had a taste and all but spat it out. He found it way too sour.
I suspect that I could just start feeding it more milk and perhaps drinking it before the full 24 hours has passed. However, that brings me to the point of this post:
My milk kefir grains are eating me out of hearth and home. Does anyone in the Boston area want some milk kefir grains?
If you come to pick them up, you can have them for free.
I finally gave in and tried dehydrating some of them, and I’ll have to see if they’re still viable after a while. I’ll probably just start eating them out of hand or dehydrating them, because I usually only have a glass of smoothie a day and so I really can’t keep up with them.
They actually taste pretty good, a bit chewy with the faint fragrance of fresh kefir.
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01.28.10
Posted in Drama Ilamas, Renting with friends tagged speechless at 6:09 pm by kyrias
I noticed that:
- someone had very thoughtfully carefully arranged the mini cupcakes I made on Saturday on top of my laptop. I sure am glad that my housemates thought of me and left me some of the cake.
- someone’s mug and dirty plate sitting on the coffee table.
- a moldy biscuit sitting in the bread box
- the box of tin foil out on the kitchen table I had cleared off and wiped clean on Saturday
- all four burners on the stove occupied with dirty pots with one of them actually having a stack of pots.
- stack of dirty dishes on the kitchen table
- a colander with pasta in it sitting forlornly on the floor
- a pot of dirty water on the kitchen table, presumably because the stove had all four burners occupied
- empty plastic containers sitting on the edge of the sink
- the dishwasher sat open, one rack full and one empty, with no way to tell if the stuff in it is supposed to be clean or not
- the sink half full
- empty food wrapper on top of stack of dirty pyrex lids in front of the microwave.
- the chicken I made on Satuday for general consumption stuck in the fridge, uneaten, with neither foil nor plastic wrap to protect it from the elements
- the kitchen trashcan filled to overflowing
- a dirty bowl sitting on the coffee table with oven mitts in it
- an open bag of rice just sitting out on the kitchen floor
To be honest, I think the rows of mini cupcakes on top of my laptop was the truly w0ndrous bit. I’m sure there’s some meaning in there somewhere.
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01.25.10
Posted in life tagged Haiti 2010 earthquake at 11:04 pm by kyrias
Caesura asked me a couple of times what I wanted for my upcoming birthday, and I wasn’t able to come up with something right off the top of my head.
These few days, I’ve been looking at clothing that I need, such as socks, and perhaps some cooking utensils — I love measuring cups, and you really can’t ever have too many of them…
But I’ve finally figured out what I want: Donate to Haiti.
I’ve thought about blogging about the situation, but there’s nothing I can say that hasn’t been said a million times over already. The amount of tragedy and devastation is incredible and there’s nothing I can say to do it justice.
I was talking about donating with Caesura the other day, and since we’re pretty much in the red or close to it each month, he was hesitant about commiting to any large amount. But now, I’m just going to say that I want a $50 dollar donation to either the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders. So, if you were thinking about giving me something for my birthday — please donate to help Haiti. Even if you just toss $10 in the pot, I believe that every little bit helps. If you weren’t, please think about donating anyways — these people need help badly.
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01.20.10
Posted in Feminism, Language, culture at 12:54 am by kyrias
Thene told me that when I say feminazis, not only am I not being politically correct, but I’m not really communicating what I really mean to say.
That troubles me — the latter more than the former. Much, actually.
So, to be clear, when I say feminazis, I don’t mean all the feminists in the world.
I mean, specifically, those women who de-value women’s work. They are opposed to women living subordinate to men in the roles of housewives and SAHMs. They consider women who are not desirous of climbing the corporate ladder with the best of them as “throwbacks” and a waste of the “foremothers” who suffered for the cause.
I mean those women who seem to all but hate men. The patriarchy and by extension, all men, is the root of all evil. The world would be much more peaceful if only women were in charge. Society as a whole would make more sense if only women led the way. Men are nothing but hulking brutes who are all capable/willing/desirous of raping women, in thought if not in deed. Those women who get terribly offended when a man opens a door for them or waves them onto the train first. God forbid that a man give up his seat or something equally archaic.
I mean those women who have issues with women with long hair, who wear skirts, or who actually might want to have children.
That’s the sort of person I mean when I say feminazi. For the sake of being politically correct, and much more importantly, to be clearer in speech — I shall just refer to them as those women in the future.
Thene mentioned the use of “second-wavers”, but I’m fairly sure that there has to be some second-wavers who don’t hate men and who wouldn’t mind wearing skirts.
Radical and extreme has been ruled out — because as Caesura pointed out, there’s more than one way of interpreting them.
Any other ideas on what phrase can be used?
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01.12.10
Posted in Depression tagged The spoon theory at 10:15 pm by kyrias
Yes. It’s more whining navel-gazing.
Being depressed means not really knowing what it’s like to not be depressed. It means not knowing your own self because your entire perception is so colored by the depression that you cannot tell where it ends and where you start.
It means, to a certain extent, never knowing yourself. If you can’t comprehend just how fucking frightening that is, then I’m happy for you.
It means that when people assume I’m a slob because I don’t clean up enough, I can’t say anything to the contrary — because the proof is right there.
It means that when people assume that I am lazy and I’m overweight because I’m a bum who hates to exercise, I don’t have much of a retort.
It means that when family and friends drift away because I’m too much of a flake to be a reliable correspondent who remembers birthdays and get-togethers and proactively seeks chances to hang out — I just have to suck it up because it’s my own fault after all.
It means that no matter that the person who I think I am or should be isn’t the person that other people see, I just have to live with that discrepancy. It’s not the failing that does the most damage. It’s the trying and failing and being judged for the failing and knowing that this is not how you would have it if only you had more energy, more vim, more something or the other.
What also hurts is when the meds don’t work. Or the meds don’t work well enough. Or the meds work, but you can’t live with the side-effects.
Remember that little discussion my classmates and I had about what side-effects would be deal-breakers? Well, I’ve discovered that when your anti-depressants kills your appetite and makes you want to sleep 20 hours out of the day, then that’s a deal-breaker too.
Those spoons — I do not have perhaps even a fifth of the ones you own. This cannot be stressed enough because the normal, not-sick person just does not get it.
I’ve actually given up explaining, because there is no explaining, there is only the sickness and the fail, and the knowledge of fail. Just yesterday night my father brought up the topic of willpower and once again I had that bitter taste in my mouch.
I have a set number of spoons each day. This number goes up or down depending on how poorly I slept, how late I slept, if I’ve managed to eat properly lately, how stressed I am, how much is going on, and how much stress I get to look forward to… etc.
Dealing with people takes spoons. Just getting ready to walk out the door to go to work takes spoons. Having to interact with people without descending into a gibbering screaming mass of hysteria takes amazing number of spoons. This isn’t even the run of the mill random strangers. Sometimes often it takes spoons even to deal with friends and family. Being at work takes spoons. Getting back home from work takes spoons. Every single little detail of my life can potentially take away a spoon and sometimes it smacks me out of the blue how many spoons I just lost.
Details:
It takes spoons to get to and from work because every time I go out the door, it’s an endless stressfest about whether I have all my stuff. My keys, my wallet, my IDs, my bags, my props for work or whatnot. If I’m not careful, I forget and lose things. If I’m not careful, I fall asleep (because of my meds) and miss my stop — which is a fucking problem when you’re on the commuter rail.
It takes spoons to deal with people because sometimes the ADD really makes it hard for me to focus on what people are saying without really working at it. Sometimes it’s real work to not be negative and complain incessantly and talk all about myself and all my problems. Yes. Note this blog post. Often when I’m not feeling too chipper, which is far too often considering my comorbid depression, I find it very hard to interact with people. My almost non-existent patience just goes into the negatives. When you add in the effort of trying to connect and interact with someone in any meaningful manner and be entertaining whilst you’re at it without wanting to bite their head off, that’s a lot of spoons right there.
It takes spoons to get to therapy. It takes spoons to get through therapy. It takes spoons to go to my doctors appointment and explain just once again what exactly I think is wrong with me. Dealing with doctors who seem skeptical about my problems pretty much takes all my spoons for the day.
To be honest, although I’m looking forward to Arisia — I’m probably going to running on fumes and spoon-less the entire time. This is an alien concept to people. Yes. Even things I enjoy takes spoons. How’s that for mind-boggling?
This will sound like unbelievable amounts of whining. Probably even most people who know me well will consider this unbelievable amounts of whining.
That’s fine. I’ve decided that I can’t care because to care is to quietly give up spoons without being able to actually affect anything. The only way to deal is to try not to care as much as possible.
Dealing with people who don’t know the concept of generalized reciprocity is hard. Dealing with people who cannot or will not put themselves in other people’s shoes is fucking hard. Dealing with people who only know how to complain and take, take, take without actually being willing to do fucking something about the entire situation is just damned fucking hard. Dealing with people who refuse to believe or refuse to take into account that for the love of the gods there’s only so many damned spoons in my hand is just a fucking worthless waste of time.
I’m sorry you think I’m a flake. I’m sorry you think I don’t care. I’m sorry you think I’m a slob. I’m sorry that you’re all superior because you’re not broken. I’m sorry that you cannot see past your own problems to see that I’m drowning here. I’m sorry that because you think that because you’ve overcome what problems you have and because of all the problems you do have that everyone else just needs to suck it up and deal. I’m sorry that you somehow have this overblown idea of just how much you’re doing as compared to what I’m doing. I’m really sorry that you cannot see the real me that is struggling within what is not a chrysalis but a shroud.
It’s ok. I often can’t see me too. Just remember, there’s only so many spoons, and if it takes too many spoons to deal with you on a regular basis — I will drop you, because there’s no way I can survive otherwise. I might hate doing it, I might regret it, but honestly, I cannot live with that amount of toxicity in my life anymore.
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01.10.10
Posted in Depression tagged rants at 11:30 pm by kyrias
Thene, my favorite link guerilla sent me something today.
I looked through my archives to see if I’ve talked about something similar, but my tagging system is erratic, full of fail, and not comprehensive. Therefore, I’m probably going to be going over old ground.
I guess that’s ok. As I was just saying to Thene, somehow navel-gazing, like talking about sex, never fails to be vaguely entertaining even when it’s getting trite.
As I said before, depression, to me, is just mostly about boredom and tedium.
I realized a while ago that my depression stems from my frustration that I feel that I’m judged and found lacking because of my lack of ambition. I feel guilty about hoarding my intelligence and creativity and not using it for the “powers of good”, whatever that means. I feel pressured to conform, to be just another cog in the machine — which depresses me.
I realized at a very young age that I really didn’t mind being a girl. All the other crap didn’t manage to overshadow the fact that being a girl meant that I could potentially spend my life doing what I preferred to do. Much to my dismay, the feminazis those women, society, and practical members of my family have killed that for me.
I think I once admitted to a friend that my goal was to become a housewife. His immediate loss of respect was palpable and lest I be accused to paranoia, he said something to that effect.
The thing is, I don’t see the point in becoming just another easily replacable cog in the corporate machine when that’s really not where my talents or interests lie. I believe that I would enjoy myself more and be more useful being a homemaker. Feeding the people I love and making sure their life runs smoothly is more meaningful to me than just being another worker ant. I don’t see the point in having both members of a couple sit there on the couch in dazed weariness after work, too tired to even care that their quality of life has gone straight down the drain in the name of feminism, practicality and reality.
The fact is, when Caesura and I were both going to work, our life sucked. I would get home from work, too exhausted to even think about nuking something for dinner, much less making something delicious and healthy. Laundry would only get done when we were absolutely out of clothing. We would stay up until late at night, desperately trying to unwind enough to go to sleep. I would come straight home and log onto World of Warcraft because it was a easy, mindless, soothing thing to do — that I could see my riches accumulate in a more tangible manner was also good for my soul. Unlike real life, there was actually progress. Between my stress levels, my unhappiness with how I was spending my time, the amount of money we spent on eating out or convenience foods, and my work wardrobe — I don’t believe we were coming out on top at the end of the month in terms of anything.
Despite my telling my parents this, they are pressuring me to find a job. They worry because a woman who is merely a housewife is vulnerable. They worry more because I’m not even a wife, so I wouldn’t even get alimony if things go south. The many women that we know who are in a bad spot because they put themselves in a financially vulnerable spot in their marriage are legion.
The feminists believe that I must needs only find the right job for me and I would feel fulfilled. My wanting to stay at home is a slap in their collective face and they can’t believe how someone would just so easily throw herself away like that.
Reality tells me that I’m in a terrible place unless I can find someone else to latch onto if Caesura breaks up with me. Not having money, having a sparse resume with a large blank in years worked, falling out of step with the rest of society… I know all that and more.
I can function with depression. I even flatter myself that I’m fairly high-functioning for the level and duration of depression I have.
It’s just this endless thought of how easy it would be to end it all and why not end it all? Life is filled with soul-killing tedium, and endless grind that doesn’t even reward you with anything worth speaking of. There’s no hope of it getting better because unlike someone who would be happy with getting a raise or promotion or even more money, all I can think about is how I would rather be home puttering in the kitchen or getting the chores done. It’s not even as simple as working as a chef or something like that, because I’m still just another kind of cog in another machine. There’s nothing to look forward except a lifetime in a job that barely pays you enough to do anything past existing and then perhaps retirement or perhaps just an early death from depression. Nothing but counting the hours until the end of work, and mourning how the minutes away from work speed by like a meteor shower. Life drags on, slower and slower, until the only thing that stops your hand from reaching for that knife is the thought that it would be cruel to have your family or friends walk in the bathroom and find you floating in a tub of bloody water and the only fear left is of the last, ultimate failure.
My reason to say all this is because it’s necessary for what I’m going to say next:
ACW, your comment was not only not helpful, but offensive. I’m sure you meant well, but congratulations, you fail.
To quote:
“As I leave this comment, a character from a book I once read pops into my head, saying, “If you’re going to wax poetic, don’t be trite.”
I’ve never been diagnosed, though certainly we all have a bit of that Seasonal Affective Disorder going on this time of year. I recognize that Depression (with a capital D) is different from just being low every now and then. Regardless, I thought I’d share a favorite quote that helps when I’m low or thinking self-defeating thoughts. I hope it’s not trite. I also hope that, whatever your thoughts on religion or spirituality, you can pick out the good parts. I know I do.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
–Marianne Williamson”
First off, that quote is trite.
Seasonal affective disorder is not depression. For that matter, no two people with depression have the same story. It’s just aggravating for useless comparisons to be made.
Then, thank you for assuming that my depression stems from self-esteem problems. In fact, thank you for telling me what’s my problem.
On top of that, it’s irritating for you to bring God into this. The assumption that I either know or care about God and his supposed plans for and about me is, frankly, bloody presumptuous. Leave him out of it and stay out of my religious views or lack thereof.
Lastly, I love how you’re managing to throw in a guilt-trip about how I’m not serving the world because I’m not brilliantly shining whilst liberating myself and others. Thanks. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.
To be fair, there might have been or will be a time when I would have been able to draw something out of that quote. That’s not saying much, though. At best, it’s just another one of those generic motivation things that doesn’t really manage to sound like anything other than a platitude because it was trite the first time it was said. It doesn’t resonate with truth and nor does it tell me anything that I haven’t heard a million times before in other incarnations.
Meh.
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01.09.10
Posted in Books tagged rant, Twilight at 1:30 am by kyrias
Friend links me to someone’s status on Facebook:
“Just finished reading the 4th and final Twilight book today. What a wonderful series! I completely fell in love with all the characters, even the ones I started off not liking. Two thumbs up!”
My comment:
“This is the series with the guy who watches his crush sleep whilst thinking about how tasty she might be who tells her she’s stupid for liking him who sparkles who then fathers a mommy-mutilating baby who will become pre-birth-engaged to a guy who wanted to be her father, right? I should read that series — I haven’t yet. The library is out of copies *sad face*”
So this reminds me of the topic I saw in the Arisia event listing yesterday: “How fans hurt and help public faces of fandom”.
“Last year, Stephen King said Stephenie Meyer “can’t write”, and the “Twi-hards” came to defend her. Twilight boards were filled with reasonable discussions of the criticism, while sites like the Entertainment Weekly blog were filled with ill-informed attacks on King. Many fans have said they would never read the Twilight books because of the public image of Meyer’s fanbase. How does the public face of fans help or hurt an author? Can fans do anything to change the perception of their fandom?”
I don’t think I would go so far as to say “I would never read any of ___ because X and Y loves it and they’re blooming idiots”, but I have to agree insofar that I probably would never be encouraged into reading a book by someone I think is an idiot, and that I might even be less likely to want to seek it out.
The fact is, a lot of people read certain books because their friends or people they identify with and like read them. One phrase: Oprah book club. If prestigious or popular people come out as saying they like an author, then that’s going to be a huge boost to their sales. I can’t say how many books I’ve bought even when I didn’t like the blurb simply because one of my favorite authors had something favorable to say about it. The flip side is certainly true. I’ve put down books even when blurbs sound attractive because an author whose writing I loathe praises it.
I don’t know how fans can actively help matters, however. After all, I don’t think it’s possible to actively control how stupid you appear. Nor can you help just how loony or ridiculous you appear to other people. Of course, it doesn’t help if a person engages in a immature flaming war on the internet — but it appears that the stupid is like life itself in that it will find a way out.
On the other hand, I know almost first-hand just how stupid some of the people who read my favorite authors are, and I think at some level, it’s not really the author’s fault that they attract the stupid.
The real problem, I think, is that Twilight is perhaps a bad example. After all, people who are intelligent, respected, and otherwise known as more sane than not have come out and said that Twilight is laughable. It’s not exactly a neutral landscape which can be littered upon or cleaned up by passersby. The plot is terrible, the writing sophomoric, the language overdone and purple, the premise disturbing, and it isn’t even redeemable by lovable characters. In fact, even if the characters didn’t make me want to fall upon a sword with their sheer Mary Sue-ness, I’d despise them for going along with such an atrociously bad plot. I think that its almost to be expected that anyone with a modicum of taste and intelligence would see it for what it is.
If you tell me you absolutely adore Twilight, I’d probably lose a ton of estimation for you. I don’t think our relationship or potential for one would go unblemished by this admission. In fact, one of the main reasons I really hate Twilight isn’t even because it’s a fucking trainwreck — it’s actually because the fact that so many people have gone gaga over something so awful actually dents my faith in humanity. Not that I had particularly much to begin with, but every little bit counts when you’re sliding into the hate zone.
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