Gotdamned January

If I had to be any month I would be any month but January. Being January would suck.

Think about it. Everyone is all hyped up and fat from the festivities of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and coming down hard from the high of a new year starting. They are broke from all of the shopping and traveling, either re-fed up with family members or missing them, and freezing because January is freezing. If they are anything like me they are already feeling crushed under the weight of their resolutions, are still holiday lazy, and are itchy because they keep taking ill-advised hot showers. If they winterize their hair like I do their protective style is getting old and the new growth struggle is real, and they are just now realizing that their dog might need winter boots after all.

It’s like the driving home from an awesome party with people that are only kind of your friends. Uncomfortable. And cold. And we all wish it was over with already.

I’ve never had my shit together in January. In fact I’m currently laying backdown on my couch covered in braiding hair (because my hair is half done) staring at my laptop sitting on my stomach when I’m not unenthusiastically typing this post, letter by letter. It’s agonizing because I’m too lazy to sit up. And also this is the only way my piece of pie is within arms reach.

I can’t seem to get anything on the page this week during this damned month. I have about six unfinished stories sitting open in front of me. Only two of them are worth finishing I think. I keep staring at all of them, trying to figure out which one is worse than the others so that I can hit the little read button in it’s corner without feeling like I’m loosing some awesome work that I’ve overlooked because I’m overwhelmed. Whenever I start to read off of the screen and I feel like nothing makes sense because my brain is straight up mush, yo. It’s working so slowly that I swear every time I have an idea for a story that is even slightly intelligent I feel it buzz a little. Subsequently I’m feeling pretty ashamed for my laziness.

Not ashamed enough to stay off of Facebook, obviously, where all of my very happy motivated successful friends can post pictures and statuses that confirm how much better than me they are doing. Or where internet celebrities that I remember from when they were internet nobodies get featured in internet magazines who are in love with their opinions because they all have better work ethic than I do (try to imagine me saying this unironically, because I am, I just type sarcastically). Or where Every. Damn. Body. Is. Engaged. Whereas in this apartment the only thing drier than my skin is my phone.

I must be a masochist because I cannot seem to log out for more than ten minutes at a time if I really restrain myself. Literally. If I go to the bathroom and leave my phone or ipad in the other room I’m like, fighting to push the bulk out of my body (eww) so that I can get back to that sweet, sweet social media validation. I seem to fall into this mood every few minutes days. This sort of self-deprecating cocoon of sluggishness and put downs and unfair comparisons.

I talk to my like-minded sister (who thankfully is never down at the same time I am) who always tells me that I don’t need to be so hard on myself, that I’m shooting myself in the foot or whatever, and that whatever I’m working on is probably pretty brilliant and I’m going to be a pop star big, like literary Britney Spears big or that girl who wrote 50 Shades of Grey except, you know, good.

Then how come no one liked my last IG post, Janna? You said the same time thing about that.

Because social media is becoming commercialized and so it’s harder to get things out on it unless you pay.

Hmph.

Gotdamn her for saying that so smugly. Those are literally the exact words that I said to her last week.

Why won’t IG and FB let me be great, man? Why can’t I both stack my coins AND my following, huh? Mark Zuckaberg is so rich and famous that everyone who is reading this sentence knows that I spelled his last name wrong, and rumors of him sharing his fortune caused mass ridiculous postings and roasting a few weeks ago. Why he does need my pennies? He probably has money parties where he makes it rain with my and other poor people’s ten dollar boosting costs, or maybe he flushes it down the toilet or buys more slides or ice cream pools or trampolines made out of Jell-o for all of his lucky and genius employees while they laugh at people like me who lay on their couch with their tiny dog standing on their stomachs (I’m my bitch’s bitch), whining because my life looks nothing like a social network feed anywhere, not even my own.

If I weren’t so attached to the notion of success I might be happier right now. If I were ok with answering, “I’m just doing me” when asked what I’m doing with my 30 year life I’d be totally content with nesting in my living room, writing whatever comes to my mind, making my readers and happy and giving no shits about what the rest of the world thinks. I could scroll past all of the posts from people who seem to float through life, unscathed, and be like yeah, I’m not impacted by this at all, we all have our thing, blah blah, like those mature people in romantic comedies who are never the leading lady. I thought that I was her. Until Facebook started talking about how successful I would be if I just paid them $4 to let people who might like me know that I am here, then just $10, then just $18, and now I’m seriously considering cutting into my pie budget so that I can feel good about what I am doing once again.

What a weasel Facebook is.

I’m gonna pay for the boosts though. I don’t have a choice. I need likes on my posts and traffic to my website so that I can eventually get up and switch pie with baby carrots, or at least get more pie, or else rest of my year will be January.