Validation

You might notice that I haven't been posting that much. Come to think of it, I don't know if anybody's been reading this at all, given the lack of comments and e-mail.

The truth is, my life sucks. Not like I get beat up or pantsed on an everyday basis, but there's so little to write about. I have ideas, but I never feel like following through. Why? Most of it is stuff magnified to an absurd degree...commentary where I get a little too into things, the stuff that got me kicked off that other site and made this blog possible. And most of my life is the little problems that end up getting blown out of proportion.

Example: On Television Without Pity, there's a thread for Pixel Challenges. Basically, you're given a theme or a picture to mess with, and you run with it. A few weeks ago, there was a Deadwood-themed PC. I didn't know the show, but I knew open cursing was involved. Lots of cursing. Particularly the word "cocksucker." I ended up popping out six entries. One of them had me plunging into Desperate Housewives sites, looking for the right pics. In the end, I had recreated the scene where Edie throws the ashes of Mrs. Huber into Susan's face. I ended up with six panels; the last one with Teri Hatcher's face covered in human remains, and Al Swearengen (the cussiest cusser of Deadwood, or so I've heard) in the last panel, mumbling, "Oh, Susan" (it's a running gag used by the recapper anytime Susan takes a pratfall or a hit to her diginty).

Fast forward to today. I'm sitting out the Pixel Challenge, since I know jack about Farscape. I find out that there's a special PC: banners for TWoPcons (in short: get-togethers for the TWoP faithful). After thinking about it, I decide to use Susan's face. I open the aforementioned file. I cut out Teri's face. I go over the words, stuff that will either go unnoticed or guarantee somebody to propose marriage to me. Then I save the file. And I think to myself, "Huh. How come I'm not getting a 'Save As' notice?" And then...

"Oh, CRAP!"

I had messed up the file. Quickly, I use "Save As," but the damage is done. Worse, I had deleated the file from my Earthlink Personal Webspace account, since I wanted to keep things less crowded. So what do I do? Do I try and recreate it? Use System Restore and hope that I can get it back? Hope that somebody copied it for their own enjoyment, then ask for it back?

See? See how trite this all sounds? So I lost a file. Big whoop! Not like I needed to waste your time. Yet...I need validation. I used to think of myself as a recogintion whore. I define "attention whore" as somebody who would do anything to get noticed. In my mind, a recognition whore would be somebody who does stuff, and then tries to get it noticed. The difference? I wouldn't try to run in traffic to get attention, but I would write recaps, then send a message to folks via MTV.com to the tune of "Guess how I skewer these idjits this week!"

But I discovered another level of whoredom: validation. I had mentioned the business with Tubey's Kids a few weeks ago. I set up a Challenge thread. I e-mailed as many people as I could about it. You know how many people responded? Two. That's it. The show hasn't been recapped on the site since 2002, and only two other people were interested in paying for the right to bring it back, even on a temporary basis. I also set up threads for two animated series: Cowboy Bebop and Justice League. Total number of people who responded to both threads: two.

Suddenly, I have to ask myself: Am I the only one who gets worked up about this? This is where the validation thing kicks in...I need people to be on the same page as me. It's not about agreeing with me, but about caring enough. I'm willing to pay money to see somebody recap a show that I like, and I want somebody there with me, plunking down currency alongside me. Otherwise, why bother? Aside from showing my ex-colleagues that I can recap even after being dismissed, I want people to read my reviews, to give me feedback. Otherwise, I'm just some bozo ranting about some dumb reality show nobody should give two spits about.

I just had to get that out of my system.