Famous Last Words

"These are the last words I have to say, that's why this took so long to write. There will be other words some other day, but that's the story of my life..."

Damn, I wish I'd written this, but I didn't, Billy Joel did.

 I love a few things in this material life (not spiritual), Billy Joel songs, pizza, cats and words. I care about other things, but just not as passionately.
In any case, I can't think of any more fitting words to end this blog series.

Yep, you heard right. I've decided to end Gen X Life (aka Strikes Back). For reasons of both practicality and creativity. Google plus is going away and it's time for me to take a new approach to my writing. Maybe even gain a following. All apologies to those who do read this. Although, I am not really sure who any of you are, because most of you have never commented. 

I am still proudly Gen X and I'm certain it will be mentioned in my next incarnation. I'll put a link up here soon.

This feels bittersweet. Over the last few days, I've been going over old posts and alternately thinking, "Wow, I really love this!" and "Man, I really phoned that in" and "What was I thinking?"
Sometimes I feel like I've been too candid in some of my posts. Or embarrassingly wordy. Other times it seemed like I just couldn't fit the words to my hypothesis. There are many posts that still remain as drafts because they were just too personal to share.

My mom (one of my main fans) once said that often the posts sounded angry, which is a fair assessment; I figured if you can't be angry in your own blog, where can you be? She also mentioned that they'd be intimidating to people who weren't as in love with words as I am. For years, I've constantly walked the line between not wanting to stifle my own voice and stop being me and wanting to develop more of a following.

Two recent examples of this come to mind. Both happened in Improv class. Once, one of my instructors asked me to 'give him a word' and as God as my witness, the first word that came to mind was "antidisestablishmentarianism'. I'll never forget the look on his face as long as I live when the word came flying out of my mouth. I know the common reaction here would be that I was 'showing off' but actually, when he asked for a word, I was so flattered that I thought, 'let me give him the best one I can!' People don't always take it that way though...

The second recent example was the other week, when I was in a scene and threw out the word 'ordnance' (like your type of explosive, i.e., what's your ordnance, ordinary dynamite or C4). I figured in a world where there is a new action movie released every week, it would be a no-brainer. But in notes, my instructor noted, "You know Jill, 90% of our audience is not going to know what ordnance means".  I understood but I was crushed inside.

All of my life, the words have just been there. I figure it's my superpower. The gift I'd been bequeathed. To not use them, for me, is to not breathe, not be. I'm fair at a lot of things, I'm pretty terrible at sports or anything that requires any level of hand eye coordination. In 'shop class', I caught my hand in a vice, had my birdhouse fly back at me from the band saw and hit me in the head and repeatedly glued myself to things. Let's just say that the Property Brothers don't keep me on speed dial for finish carpentry. Although strangely, I am actually a bronze level Ballroom dancer, so I can move my feet just not my hands?  Being socially awkward is only twice as painful when in addition to the awkward, people don't understand you or worse feel that you are snobby or somehow 'making fun' of them. Even so, I decided a long time ago, that I'd rather deal with it, than give up the words.

I hope that you at least enjoyed some of them.

Thanks for reading.
Catch you later.