What are you obsessed with right now?

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Not really heavy AS style obsession, just a facet of my general linguistic bent, but I just translated over 4,000 lines of poem from Middle English (good typing practice too ); took me about two weeks of lunch breaks . I was really into it and was pleased to get through, but that was only the first rough pass (the translating), and I'm finding it hard to get motivation to continue (making it alliterate properly again*) even thought the promise of being able to do the alliteration was what I was looking forward to most. I hate crashing out of things like that. It's nearly always the same, fanatic hyper concentration for a couple of weeks or a month followed by total disinterest, which I rarely if ever overcome.


*especially given the original has about ten words (starting with different letters) all meaning "man" to draw from, only some of which translate exactly. Bern, renk, lede, gome, wye, freke...

Interesting question! I'm actually going through an "obsession transition" recently.

For years I've had two main obsessions, a certain guy and a certain band. ( & to a lesser degree NFL football (watching TV, not playing football - I haven't watched in years but it used to be the only show I watched - now I guess, I don't have a tv show that I like). At various times embroidery, beadwork, painting, making things out of clay, wood, fabric** and so on. **fabric = "you can never have too much fabric!" I think, when I get the chance to get some. What obsession? The six big bins full of fabric that have been on my bed quite a while, I don't want to put them away because I'm in the middle of several projects, all one-off designs (which means some don't work - but I haven't had the patience to plan ahead & see if it works so I just wing it, thinking maybe that I'll save time & have a chance of finishing the project before something else captures my attention..... sometimes it works.)

As my children came along, they became my top obsessions at their moments of birth. A couple of them, I've had for quite a while and I notice they get even more fascinating as they get older. Such a deal! Considering that they were already the best thing ever.

Anyhow those transitions I mentioned: over the summer, I abruptly I became un-obsessed with a long-held obsession. I felt the obsession lift away in the course of a phone conversation (with the object of my obsession, which was a person). I could almost see the obsession leaving ( ! ) = I don't think I actually saw it visually, but somehow, I do know exactly what it looked like: sort of like a flying saucer-shaped thing consisting of some gaseous-like stuff, similar to an aura but less ethereal almost like very diluted cigarette smoke (diluted with lots of air, thin on the smoke) (and I do know that "diluted" isn't technically the word to use, since we aren't discussing water!) (& I'm NOT going to another website to verify that, I'm just not, I have resisted the temptation, I'll just say maybe colloquially, it's used the way I used it but technically I'm pretty sure it only refers to water.

I marvel at that, wonder what my life would have been like if I'd "turned off" that obsession in say, 15 years rather than 23. But I wasn even when we were both married to other people it was in the back of my mind that he & I were this perfect match..... if only the circumstances were, well, I didn't know exactly but Oh well that's one of those things I'll just always have to wonder, if even.

At the same time, my other, even longer-lasting obsession is actually fading a bit in intensity, I haven't been indulging in it.

The internet ~ I think that is my "new" obsession. However I have had a computer at home for 13 years (not the same one, obviously!) and have been obsessed with the internet (shh don't tell anyone) for maybe the last three years. And digital technology. My little black shiny thing on the floor, no bigger than a breadbox, makes color copies!! ! and scans, and prints (or if I could get ink for it, it would print [it's HP Photosmart model C4780 that I bought at the Apple store, if anyone knows of any ink source for that]).

In the beginning of my working years these things weren't even close to happening - one of my first jobs I actually used a manual typewriter (though we soon moved on to the very snazzy Selectric, which was luxuriously "self-correcting" at least for the top copy), had to use sheaves of carbon paper and type really hard, lest the back copies be too faint to read. It was a huge ordeal to correct a mistake too - first you have to backspace so the carriage would move back to the letter(s) you typed wrong, then you put a little piece of paper right on top of the mistake, powder side down, and strike that same letter again so it got covered up by the powder. Then starting with the front copy put index card(s) between the layers of carbon copies, to protect them from getting smudged as you vigorously erased the error on each copy in turn.

Then you close the "sandwich" back up, put the little bar over the paper and rolled the carriage with the little roller handle until you were on the line you needed to be on.

And, the carbon copies were a multi-step procedure in themselves, that's the nature of typing through several layers of paper. Often it would be "carbon sets", almost like tissue paper that comes with a piece of carbon paper loosely attached at the top - meant to be removed and discarded (or maybe saved for later re-use). But the paper itself was a bit too easy to rip, and plus I've always been a mad perfectionist - and fast typer - so I would rather pull out and discard half a page of text if I had just written "test" for "text" and just start over.

Other people weren't as good at typing so they struggled to cover up their mistakes (basically you don't want them to show, of course). But seriously oh my goodness how freaking old am I ! !! ! That sounds so incredibly primitive and looking back I'm surprised I ever got anything done. But I definitely typed and distributed a lot of words on a lot of pages, over the years.

All that ^ to explain why I like computers so much, and the internet.

For example how awesome is it, to wonder something and in that [i]very moment[i] have thousands or millions of choices pop to obtain information, confirm that I'm right, etc. Not wait to the next day for the library to open & then sift through the card catalog etc. etc. --- can you imagine?? I mean, I used to do it every single day at work for years, and I'm feeling like pioneer times, describing all that. Like I'm in a dark cold hut with a kettle hanging over the fireplace, scraping a deer hide or some other yuckiness and my mother is there with an apron and some dingy old bonnet - that's the picture I get from describing the dinosaurish method of fixing a mistake.... for some reason.

I mean, this stuff is absolutely wonderful! Do you take for granted (as I sometimes do) the ability to quickly backspace out of a mistake, not to mention pick up and move entire phrases, paragraphs, pages even!! Woo hoo! And the ability to get instant knowledge, from nearly every viewpoint in the world, gosh!! Well, I think I'm a bit obsessed with that.... actually I'm not sure why everybody doesn't keep a connected laptop within reach at all times. Which to me feels like I could potentially know everything. Well, not all of it but that it's all here (OK I do realize the internet doesn't have literally all the information in the world.... but you've got to admit there's a lot lot lot.)

And I also love how everything keeps getting refined / improved. The little, thoughtful things like you get to a website and your cursor is magically already in the search box, instead of having to locate it it up in the address bar and mouse or tab it down, like we still do at the majority of sites.... (And I did just step over for one second to one of "those" websites to verify myself - OK, I'll admit it, two websites - but I only meant to go to one! Then, I saw the double o's in the other one too - [can't resist inserting "and then I was doomed" < "too" he he "hoo boy" - in any case it's true. And that's sweet, and there are a billion things like that happening all the time. Zowie! (Not "zoowie"? No, not. Nor "noot"!) OK I'm outa here..... But whatever, just as long as I am not wrong!

You know what's amazing is that possibly, someone on wrong planet will read ^ that, and know just where I'm coming from. I've only just come here a couple of weeks ago - only recently was linking around randomly /recreationally & came across one of the aspie tests, did it because I love filling out forms & questions about me are the most fun). But I scored pretty high, it was then that I discovered that there was a "syndrome" out there to explain almost all of my little weirdnesses that don't quite fit into the ADD diagnosis.

OMFG, I do not have time for all this writing!! actually maybe it's therapeutic (it definitely is, I think). It's just so nice NOT to have to edit out 95% of my post b/c I know if I don't, people just won't read it - short, clever posts seem to be the rule (as in "the rule rather than the exception" as opposed to a literal rule, ... although it may be a literal rule perhaps at a site w/bandwidth issues [if we even still use bandwidth, or are we on to something else?] ..... but I just don't know all the rules as I did not memorize the TOS at any of these sites, and if I even did skim over it with glazed eyes. Or just not read it... they're all the same right? J/k but I really don't have time. OK, desire.

OK I wasn't gonna come back b/c 90,000 edits is enough but I had to come back and fix a really stupid cut-and-paste accident - I even left some bad punctuation .... yikes!

Last edited by Hermier on 08 Feb 2010, 7:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And....... b/c my last post wasn't long enough....


I'm obsessed with perfection -- to the point that my drug pusher, woops excuse me, I meant to say my psychiatrist who I really like, drug pusher or not. She doesn't really "push" as in say it over & over, she does take "no" for an answer... but sometimes she's been known to suggest adding this or that to the chemical mix within.... and I really don't like "new" psychiatric meds (like less than 10 years new) esp. those that have a long list of really nasty side effects, b/c I'm a side effect-getting sort of person with that kind of medicine. {Holy crap, the only reason I mentioned her was to say she recently diagnosed me with OCD - because it takes me hours & hours to write the simplest stuff, among other recent developments! Wheee! Chug chug up to the top, woops WheeeeWhweeeee! <that, in case it's not clear, was me imitating a rollercoaster, as a metaphor of course. Anyway, I had to come back and say that - otherwise the paragraph was senseless.)

Really, I'm going now.

And I think I may be obsessed with writing a bunch drivel to post at (or is it "post on"?) Wrong Planet - I feel as if I've been doing this for hours & hours... I love Wrong Planet! (The name, not so much - it's a bit negative for my taste - like, Wrong? Shoot! I'm too claustrophobic for space travel, so I'm on the wrong planet all my life?? seems harsh - but it's definitely catchy!)

Ohhhh, and it IS harsh.... ooo I get it... maybe?

And I don't know if I'm obsessed, but I constantly edit myself & like to make up my own metaphors rather than using the same old stale olds, but because I am able to verify the exact meanings of the words on a double-o site with a tip of the finger, how can I not??

(J/k - I don't Really Have To verify a darn thing.....I just like to, is all.)

And I know there are mistakes up there, in my other post - looks like a cut & paste mishap, ironically.... but I gotta draw the line so forgive me for not going back to fix it.

B/c I need to get obsessed with getting more organized or doing something to bring in some money - not a new treat on the internet! I wonder if I can force/ subtly sneak in an obsession of that nature, to myself. (I don't think so....)

Last edited by Hermier on 08 Feb 2010, 7:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I read it all the way to the end. My fellow oldster, I understand completely your thrill at how new technology changes everything. Kids These Days are so used to just typing and being able to edit without Whiteout or throwing away the paper and starting over. But I too remember those ancient machines and typing through carbon copies. We are the generation that understands in a very literal way what the expression "carbon copy" means. But I think to younger people it's just an expression and carries no memories of flimsy black paper that got ink all over your fingers.


What am I obsessed with with? Like you, the marvels of new technology. I am obsessed with my ipod and how many songs can now fit in my purse. If you are old enough to have typed literal carbon copies, you are also old enough to remember when music was not quite so portable and at any given time your Walkman could only have about 30 songs in it (assuming you used 90 minute tapes) and you couldn't just scroll to your selection. You had to fast forward and rewind. But it seemed so marvelous then. And it was at the time. But my ipod! I have 5,000 songs in it. My entire CD collection fits in my pocket. Amazing. Somebody who once typed carbon copies and knows how to use a card catalogue can understand my marveling at this and obsession.

Definitely! I almost forgot about the music. I don't have an ipod although I've bought a few, but I listen to music online all the time. It's a space saver! (b/c that way need fewer or even, no cd's... but some of y'all already understood that, even w/o the explanation, possibly?)

And yes, the Dewey Decimal System was a marvel in its day.... I wonder if Mr. or Ms. Dewey was "one of us" (now that I know there's an "us" to be one of....) .... definitely s/he seems to have had some traits, at least.

I know I could know the whole story about that in an instant, but I will resist educating myself on ancient history for the time being..... and thus resist at least one excess edit, prob'ly.

right now skateboading- can't stop watching trick tip vids on youtube, playing tony hawk ride on my xbox and praticing for hours on end in my basement wiht a ramp and rail

also, bmx biking- can't stop fantsizning bout when the snow melt and me andmy bmx crew can go ot street spots and skate parks, and my leading one right now is socializing i am curenlty while writing this talking to 20 people on facebook chati called 8 people sinceii been home i am planning and organzning numours group acvties to do with difrent groups of people this long weekend( Pd day and family day).i also am obsessed with people i wanna talk to going online i keep refreshing the page to see if they will go from idle to online again and this one guy kurtis campell is mad at me cuz i bugged him to be in a bmx video last fall asked him 20 times he was in in loved in thanked me said he had fun but after that has been anyoed to talk to me i think he considers me anoying cuzi didn't wait for his answer i pestured him too much now i am always walking by his house like 20 times hoping he will come out once when he says me and talk to me and we can get past this shaky freindship.

Right now I am getting more into comics and animation. I recently purchased some animation software and I am learning Adobe Photoshop.

I'm a bit like a humming bird.

I do get obsessed with something, to the exclusion of ALMOST everything and then..................puff................it's gone.

I think this might be the ADHD part of my cocktail.

Right now its Special Education with special emphasis on dyscalculia, which relates to one of my children.

This is likely to remain a lifelong passion with me.

I am truly grateful for my Autism which has allowed me to hyperfocus, learn a new language and in just a few months to become a competent Special Education tutor at home

Doesn't leave me much time for socializing (oh, wait a minute, I don't care about that anyway )

Lately I've been watching a ton of different movies, briefly becoming obsessed with each one until I was obsessed with around 6 or 7 at once. However, I quickly realized it was too much for me and I should only pursue my interest in a couple of them. I noticed that I enjoyed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the most, so that's the movie I'm going to focus on for now.

I know I'm a little old for being into Chocolate Factory, but my mom thinks it's really cute. Plus, she reminded me that my Nana is obsessed with Harry Potter and she's in her 70s!

Last edited by IdahoRose on 11 Feb 2010, 9:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Wrong Planet..................and it would seem I am NOT the only one

Bento boxes! I used to do similar with my food when eating it when I was little... but in this form, it's acceptable to play with your food.

There's this great little eat-out near the city where we live called Shuji Sushi and they offer a variety of Bento boxes - teriyaki chicken, teriyaki beef, tempura, pork-chop, or vegetarian meal. I'm not 100% but I have an inkling my favourite was the tempura offering, but really, whatever I chose, it was just unbelievably scrumptious and I had to take care not to devour it too quickly. Japanese cuisine is awesome, bento, sushi, side of miso soup to finish it all.

Damn, I'm feeling hungry now. lol

Doctor Who and Classical Guitar.

Doctor Who is a long time thing, and so is music, but I'm just now beginning to get really good on the guitar, and have my first music recital coming up in a few months. (I've sung at recitals before, but never played an instrument.) At the moment I'm choosing my repertoire, and I can't seem to stop changing my mind, and tweaking things about... The only thing I know for sure is that Bach is going to feature somewhere on the programme.

xemnas from kingdom hearts 2, other then that dragon age.

John Kricfalusi/Spumco-style animation.

The emotions on Ren & Stimpy's faces just cracks me up, as does George Liquor's, and the Log song, oh, God, it's catchy!

still my typical one, trans ams, cars in general, and video games.