Alex Dobrenko

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 07:48:21 -0400

I know part of the big problem with using a service like this:

a. going on the computer to write means going on the computer means being in a very loud carnival mall full of stuff that makes me forget why the fuck I am here at all. A casino. I forget why I came. And the dopamine hunter part of my brain starts searching for the dopamine. That’s it.

Maybe instead of writing these I can write logs and publish them?

Or maybe I just don’t need to publish everything?

I’m not sure.

Maybe publishing everything is okay? I don’t know!!

Sun, 01 Sep 2024 07:36:21 -0400

what’s interesting, as I write this here, is to see that I have tried this before. In Dec 2023. And clearly it didn’t stick. Maybe that’s fine? Or maybe that means there needs to be a different solution?

Interesting to think about WHY didn’t it work though…like maybe I set the expectations too high? Or the process itself wasn’t streamlined enough? Something to think on as / if I try this again

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 19:57:26 -0400

very cool new thing with the mac: hookmark, which is an app that allows you to link to anything on your computer as though it was a URL. So If i’m in Tana, I can link to a document I’m working on. Bam wam this is great.

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 20:41:19 -0400

Easily the best named songs on an album i’ve ever seen

handed it in

Wed, 27 Dec 2023 21:06:26 -0400

515am time to start writing again. Need to hand in a version of the new essay today. Stressed. I always get so stressed when writing these fucking essays. Like, it narrows my scope of the world SO much I forget about everything else. Hyperfocus? Idk but its scary.

628am - after mostly being on ‘sit while wilder falls asleep’ duty and spending my free time working on some abasolutely useless bullshtt, I am now here sitting next to Wilder as he watches tV and still the essay has not begun!

idk where this went but I handed this in at around 1230pm!!!

Now, time to dance.

Actually I didn’t dance I sorta fell apart but who cares

some lil passages i've been writing

Wed, 27 Dec 2023 10:12:36 -0400

“happiness is a loaded gun” he thought to himself, wondering right away whether it was an original thought or a song he’d heard somewhere. This was the modern question: is this mine or is this someone else’s?

It was someone else’s, he googled, but also not what he was thinking of which was the beatles’ happiness is a warm gun.

But some other band - Hybrid Children - had beat him to the 'loaded gun’ alt by 2007 back when he was a freshman in college. What the hell was he supposed to do with this information?

the cuteness fades but the responsibility lingers, grows stronger actually. parenting 101.

these came after reading a couple more chapter’s in Jennifer Egan’s Look at Me. i love when a book makes me write and think a different way.

a log of time poorly spent, #3030

Tue, 26 Dec 2023 20:14:33 -0400

I have to rewrite a big essay today for WORK. Will soon disclose what work this is not that anyone cares also no one knows about this blog haha.

BUT When I am faced with such a thing, I find myself…overwhelmed? Like the scope of the task make it hard for me to envision completing. So I figured I’d sorta…log it here and see what happens.

12:28pm

Ok spent 6 min getting music set up on this NTS to Spotify thing. Well, I’d never heard of NTS before but now I do. Here we go. Listening to this

12:35pm

Gonna start writing now

1:42pm

Ok honestly I have been very very productive. Already done with the intro and cruising with the second part about the audience. The thesis of the piece is about how a company is no longer about a product but a community/product fit.

1:51pm

ok now I’m doubting the whole fucking essay. Is it bullshit? Or is it real? Still loving the NTS radio shit I cannot believe I’d never heard of this before. Another random note: loving the Reeder app.
“High Noon” - let’s get into it. Let’s fly.

sometime around 2:20pm

I left the coffee shop super tired and went to take a nap in my car

3:15pm

Went back to get another espresso and then walked to the library which is a block away
set up my shit to work

3:34pm

Have not yet started work but did come across this amazing creator Lu Wilson

3:41pm

Still haven’t fucking started doing any work. god damn it.

3:44pm

still nothing. gonna really start now.

4:13pm

Ok, did a good 20 min maybe of work? Note to self: this was not a graet use of time I don’t think. Like, I could have done something else? idk.
Anywyas, time to go scooter w Wilder

Jennifer Egan's Look At Me

Mon, 25 Dec 2023 10:45:23 -0400

I can’t stop reading Jennfier Egan’s books they’re so fucking good. In the middle of “Look At Me” and i read this:

“I leaned close to Paul Shepherd. This was always interesting: the moment when the surface first peeled away and what was underneath—desire, perversion, whatever it might be—moved into the light. The truth. I wanted to see it. Everyone was a liar, blah-blahing their way through life, pretending to be good and constant, to have and to hold and all that. Everyone was a politician, wearing a pious face until the last possible moment when the press unearthed a taste for child amputees or a beheaded mistress chained to a radiator. And I’d been pious, too, at first—I’d believed my own act until the pressure of sustaining it became too much. Since then, I’d sought out the opposite: I wanted to be the child amputee or the mistress, to make my domain the dark corners where I could see the things people took such pains to hide from everyone else.”

I love this. It’s an opinion that i’ve never had exactly but have had ones similar, or nearby, but maybe never took them as far? never gave myself permission to or maybe never wanted to? So to put an opinion like that into a character! That’s really fucking cool.

Egan’s stuff reminds of me Lorrie Moore in the best way possible. Moore is prob one of my top 5 writers. Her, Vonnegut, Egan probably. who else idk.

------------

Like, there’s just something about this line -

“You look tired,” he said, and the two halves of him fused in a moment of humanity. It wasn’t what I’d hoped for, yet I felt relieved.”

- the idea of the two halves of him fused in a moment of humanity. Like, humanity comes from the blending of the shadow and the face. The heel and the face. Everything connects to wrestling if you want it to...

But there’s something so beautiful about that idea, and the way she expressed it so economically and through the description of a person in space and time as seen by the narrator. A++++

Mon, 25 Dec 2023 01:20:26 -0400

xmas eve. as a jew it is strange to be a dad of a family that is so into christmas but i think I like it? tbd but I think I do? its complicated but I think a lot of that has to do with me always feeling like i’m not really getting enough stuff lol.

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 20:12:40 -0400

the hype of AI is so fucking strong, it feels like a big ol fomo mountain of everyone going “omg omg this is so crazy its so cool’ that I feel stupid not participating!

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 19:47:29 -0400

A list of tiny companies and people doing cool shit on the internet

1. Good Enough

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 17:33:10 -0400

Am writing these now in MarsEdit and enjoying that flow. Also enjoying the fact that no one actually knows this exists yet. Maybe I’ll keep it that way?

mirror mirror on the screen

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 11:40:31 -0400

thinking about mirrors as that which we look into for a distorted view of self.

if that’s true, what is there more mirror-like than our screens? We look into a mirror like…5-15 min a day? maybe 30?

We stare into screens for 6+ hours.

And inside them we see other things, but we really see ourselves. I mean, you could make this argument for anything, we stare at it and see just ourselves, but the screen - and TV specifically - feels interesting…

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 11:50:51 -0400

this looks cool - excited for it next year yes www.metalabel.com/canvas

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 10:31:26 -0400

been wanting a place to have a tiny lil blog and maybe this is it?

Tue, 21 May 2019 12:32:50 -0400

thanks to everyone for the support these last couple days about Game of Thrones. As you all saw, my emotionally fulfilling scene that explained everything was CUT FOR TIME. Not sure what to do next, but am hopeful I’ll be tapped for one or more of the sequels.

Mon, 20 May 2019 18:37:51 -0400

website URLs should allow emojis don’t @ me, just send the $$ and let’s get this done

Watch: a near perfect short film (7 min)

Sun, 19 May 2019 15:28:00 -0400

Got seven minutes for a damn near perfect short film about two dudes riding bicycles? Good. Here it is: The Climb

LISTEN UP: Howard Stern and Terry Gross on Fresh Air wherein I also realize Stern Was A Weirdly Big Part of My Childhood...

Sat, 18 May 2019 22:38:16 -0400

Everyone should listen to the love battle of fire and ice that is Howard Stern going on Fresh Air. It’s a great interview about Stern and how he seems to be changing / getting less awful.

It also made me think about how many nights I stayed up late watching Howard Stern in my bedroom, most of which was specifically to see sexy ladies. My mind was no doubt shaped a whole lot by that sort of thing. It was also shaped by the scrambled porn I would try and ~~watch~~ listen to… I do hope that I am a better man than the kid I was back then, but who can know for sure.

LISTEN UP

[Part One] (https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2019/05/14/723182920/fresh-air-for-may-14-2019-howard-stern-part-1?showDate=2019-05-14)

[Part Two] (https://www.npr.org/2019/05/15/723521561/howard-stern-on-fresh-air-part-2)