( thoughts from the throne | previous decrees | propaganda | outside guidance | sit with me )

November 20, 2000
2:28 A.M.
 
Paranoid, Pretentious, De-Pretentioning Pansy*

Attempting to build a new website has always been more difficult for me than actually working on it. Just thinking about layout and coming up with fancy words to introduce it is just a real pain in the nostril. (Well, my nostrils are killing me right now, they're dryclogged right now, but you really didn't need to know that.)

Personal websites are probably even more difficult, especially since I'm sure that I swore at one point that I'd never make one. After all, most of the ones out there have lame HTML layouts created by brainless AOL citizens who think pictures of their cat make terribly compelling Webbage.

It just goes to show how much I've been weaned on traditional media that I am in possession of this terrible desire to open with a dead-stiff "This is <x site>, and I strive to make it the best site about <x interest>.", or at least come up with an pretentious manifesto that states a lofty agenda to change the <world/industry/ web content paradigm> for the better.

This is definitely not meant to be a website of tell-all where I confess my deepest and darkest most secrets. Besides, whatever dark secrets I have I already reveal indiscriminately, so it really wouldn't be anything big for me to do that here.

Not that this is meant to be big. I don't plan to make this website about anything bigger than myself. (Although, people who know me are already aware that I'm pretty bloated in the ego department as it is.) What I do intend to do, however, is to finally get the task of creating self-fulfilling writings into my system on a regular basis. After all, recent events have given me a lot more free time to do this, so I have no excuses.+

So anyway, at the moment, this is really meant to be a place for me to keep my thoughts into a journal. Yyyyepp, keep a jooournal. Because I'm so artsy and brilliant and have terribly compelling things to say. Because I've got like, problems and issues and stuff. Hah. Right. 

Admittedly, I have always harbored deep seated fantasies of glamorous neo-Bohemian sensibilities permeating my lifestyle, to the point that I'm living it now, and it seems like one big Situationist joke. My hair is dyed a shockingly bright yellow, and I always wear an artsy jacket or coat. I spend time in coffee shops, reading while sipping cappuccinos and eating quail eggs. "You're starving for your art," a friend joked once.

When it comes to a lot of things, I do get paranoid and terribly self-conscious about my own image. I'm pretentious about looking pretentious. I avoided goth clothes during my "AntiChrist" phase because it seemed, well, pretentious. And I try to keep all my "Bohemesque" belongings out of sight for fear of looking like I'm trying to look like a disaffected member of Generation X (that is like, so 1990s!). I'm paranoid of people thinking they're on to me.

Fortunately, I haven't encountered many people like that, because most of them are either ridiculously stupid, easily deflated, or both. Sometimes they're even easier to dick around with if they're UA&P students.

Anyway getting back on track...: My paranoia of pretention may be the reason why I've been, for months, reluctant to do this. When I look at all the other webnodes with a similar theme, I get paranoid wondering whether I'm just joining a bandwagon.

I'm inclined to believe that we all have our own private little SPIN magazine tucked away somewhere between the fisher, constantly guiding our private trends. Whether it conforms to local trends or not is when one would be perceived as particularly hip or trendy then. But I digress... 

Thus, I  constantly question the things I do, wondering whether this is just a phase or that I'm just catching on to something. 

With regards to this website, I wonder whether my ideas are real or fabricated for the intention of creating a certain image. Did I buy Jack Kerouac's Maggie Cassidy because I wanted to, or because it was good to look at when rummaging through my bag? Do I munch on coffee beans in public to perpetrate a charming character quirk?

I question whether I'll end up taking personal events and post-rationalizing them out of unconscious pretention. "Oh shit, someone just insulted me! I think I'll deconstruct that on the train later, and see if I can make a long treatise on classist assumptions that are implicated in that because it looks good!" 

I get paranoid about even the mere layout of this website. Taking a look at other websites, and you'll see a requisite "avant-gardization" of typical weblinks. A library for articles would be called things like agenda, propaganda or truths. Travelogues are named seeing eye or camera. Slogans like the personal is political or the revolution begins with (insert something to be destroyed, such as bikinis being torn like sedula or the rich people being burned, or something like that.)

And what did I do? Well, look up at the top, and you'll see the very same thing. Talagang pilit ako, ano?**
It doesn't take a genius to realize that you don't need to write for 2BU, or be part of the Pinoy rock scene to be pretentious. Even the most antisocial of images can and most likely will be faked by some capricious dunderhead for kicks. I would know. I think I may have done it myself.

Whatever. The point is I'm here now, so whether or not I've just wired up a data fort of BS is irrelevant now. These are neither cold facts, nor hard truths, nor warm fuzzy memories. Don't ask me what this is really all about, because I haven't got a f---ing clue clue. 

I'm just doing the writing here. 

Don't expect me to know any better.

* Ooh look, alliteration! I'm so clever and witty in coming up with titles! (rolls eyes)
** In English, the best translation I can come up with is: "I'm really trying, aren't I?"
+Claire has some entertaining musings on getting one's ass in gear here.