Send in the clowns...

I figured that I would share the scariest picture that I could find tonight. I’m pretty sure it can’t be beat. The depressing circular tables, the unergonomic chairs and the horrifying ennui of a little used hotel conference room.

Oh, and the clowns. Definitely the clowns. There is no way in the world that the second one on the left hasn’t left a few bodies hastily disposed of in a forest.

I’m not sure if the intense fear of clowns is new or just something I’ve become more aware of over the years. My grandmother collected little clown figurines and I have a few of hers on my desk at home as a reminder of her. It’s really tough for me to view clowns as scary in that regard. They just remind me of grandma’s house.

This picture, on the other hand…

I think there are a few reasons why clowns terrify people. Some of it must go back to childhood birthday parties where this giant person in outrageous makeup and costume acts crazy in front of you and instead of finding it funny you have no idea how to react because this thing is the exact opposite of everything that you have encountered in your entire life. Also, your average birthday clown isn’t particularly funny and balloon animals are highly overrated.

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In my mind what makes people scared of clowns is that there makeup and costume makes them impossible to read. They are so outlandish and noticeable that our minds can’t grasp their motivations. The white makeup erases your ability to focus on any facial expressions other than the big red nose. The wigs freak you out because of the fact that they clearly are wigs and it puts them in that uncanny valley between people and pictures. Add in the baggy, oversized clothing that drives you to insane thoughts about what might be hiding amongst the folds and you have the stuff of nightmares.

So just remember tonight that in the Ramada off that highway exit that you’ve never seen anyone actually take, in a back corner conference room reserved for a “Cereal Convention” this scene is taking place. Beware.

The enormity of tiny actions

Occasionally on Facebook I will reach out to someone I haven’t talked to in years. Inevitably I start off by saying, “I apologize if I was ever an asshole to you in the past. I didn’t mean to but it is only recently that I’ve realized that the way I view myself and the ways others view me is not always the same thing.”

This opening may also be why most people don’t reply back. That and the fact that getting in touch via Facebook is so 2008…

Anyway, as I have gotten older I’ve realized just how clueless we are in understanding the role we play in other people’s lives. We all view ourselves as the hero of our own story with the camera constantly focused on us and us alone. Since we are the focus of our own lives it just seems natural that others would view things the same way. I think the first time most people really understand the disconnect is that first unrequited crush where the other person is your everything but to them you are nothing but a passing glance.

Even with that knowledge we still walk around oblivious to the fact that what we do impacts others. I’m only now realizing that things that I said that I felt were jokes that played off my dry and dark sense of humor were just viewed by other people as being mean. (I’ve also realized that many of my jokes aren’t nearly as funny as I thought they were though I still feel that is because I am too cutting edge. I’m just working on a different level, man.) I’m trying to keep in mind that what I say or do can have an impact on someone else even if I have no intention or knowledge of it. We are all the heroes of our own lives while alternating between villains and supporting characters and extras in those around us and we are never quite sure where we are being cast.

Still, it is important to remember the difference you can make in someone’s life through an action that is small.

Ages ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and my Commodore 64 was the epitome of technology, I was part of a teenage Catholic youth retreat in Chicago. One of those events where you put a lot of teens together and tell them that they are our future without giving them any guidance or even an explanation that the future is going to need a lot of work due to the mistakes that everyone else made in the past. Being a teenager who is aware of the future is like the person walking into the house the morning after the party. You can see that everyone had a lot of fun last night but you are going to be the one on their hands and knees scrubbing the vomit off of the tile floor before mom comes home.

Anyway, I will never forget one thing that happened to me at this event. We were all supposed to go around to various people and pray with them. It sounds odd to start and add a bunch of teenagers who don’t know each other and you can just feel the awkwardness rising. Surprisingly, I never seemed to have a problem with this. I did what I was told, completed the exercise, and was waiting for the next step when near the end this girl grabbed me and asked if I would pray with her. I was going to mutter something about how I had already done one of these but decided to be nice and listen. Which is pretty much all I did. I sat there and listened and paid attention.

After everyone was done they went around and asked people to talk about their experiences. We’re talking about a room of several hundred people so it was easy to just fade into the background and disappear. You’re just a face in the crowd. Except once I realized that the girl I just prayed with was coming up to the microphone I suddenly wasn’t. And when she explained how she walked around for minutes, terrified about coming up to some stranger and talking to them and how at the last minute she turned to this one guy who looked nice and was stunned to find that he listened and cared about what she had to say made her completely rethink what people can be.

I was stunned because I had no idea I had this impact.

I don’t remember her name. I don’t think I ever knew her name. What she said was probably the greatest compliment anyone has ever given me in my entire life. What I did may have been the nicest act I’ve ever done and I was oblivious to it. I’ll never forget it though. People never forget how you make them feel.

Still battling, different current

In a week or so this blog will be fourteen years old, which would either make it a very old eighth grader or a very young freshman in high school. Fall birthdays are the worst no matter how you cut it.

I started writing Battling the Current because I was confounded by where I had found myself in life. I was living in Kansas City with few friends, a job that wasn’t very satisfying, no social life to speak of and an overwhelming feeling that I was struggling against this flow of mediocrity and boredom that was driving me to bitterness. Hence the title, I was battling the current state of my life and the world around me.

(Funny sidebar. I started writing in November 2004 because I was so upset about politics and Bush being reelected. Remember when that was the worst thing that anyone could imagine in politics? Do you know what I would give right now to go back to that time? Hell, do you know what I would give to just not be appalled by watching the news every day?)

Anyway, so I started posting five nights a week about whatever was on my mind. It turned into a mix of pop culture analysis and bar stories with a disturbing level of focus on the daily activities of Lindsay Lohan. What it really captured was my life in my early 30’s as I tried to figure out who I was, what I was supposed to do with my life and find someone who would be willing to share the journey with me. The blog ended up being what I deemed vaguely successful. I had an actual readership; stunned that people I didn’t know read it and horrified that people I knew read it as well. It’s a wonderful little time capsule of my life.

Then a funny thing happened. I actually found all of those things that I was searching for.

Ok, that is not entirely true. I don’t think anyone ever figures out the fullness of their life, especially in their 30’s, but my life made a spectacular turn. Mainly, I finally met the woman of my dreams. Met her again to be more precise but this time we were at the right time in our lives and suddenly all of those late nights at bars talking to random women were replaced with, well, married life. And the blog slowly faded away…

There were a lot of reasons. Most of my focus was on marriage and my job and I had always kept a hard and fast rule to never write about either. Life grew busier and busier and I could barely find time to think, much less spend time each night writing about reality television. Some of my luck in life changed and to quote the Drive By Truckers I was spending most of my time trying to keep it in between the ditches. It was hard for me to find time to write and even when I did I couldn’t go back to writing the way I did before.

But the thing is I really need to write. I feel much better when I do and it is much easier for me to express myself through a keyboard than out loud (though my grammar will always leave much to be desired). And I think I have figured out what to write about and what my goal is going to be this time around.

My plan is just to write about the little things in life. Some bits of beauty or joy or laughter or just thoughts about the world that hit me. Sure there may be some pop culture commentary in there but I hope to keep things light and positive. Everything around us is so dark and caustic and it is so easy to find ourselves drawn into the muck. My goal is to stay away from politics and far, far away from hatred and just focus on the good that is around us. Toss in some old story ideas as well along with some music suggestions because that was always one of my favorite parts of the blog.

The main thing is that I’m going to keep these posts short. I’m borrowing this whole idea from my favorite author Jonathan Carroll whose book The Crow’s Dinner is basically a compilation of pieces like I just described. In fact, I will be using a lot of pictures and quotes that he has shared online because they inspire me. But the main thing is that I’m not going to focus on hitting a word count or a readership level or anything more than writing about some of the beauty around us.

We will see how far this goes. I can’t guarantee anything but it might be nice to have a corner of the internet to myself again.

Test of the Emergency Blogging System

This is a test of the Emergency Blogging System

A grasshopper walks into a bar.

The bartender gazes down at him and says "Hey, we have a drink named after you."

The grasshopper looks up at the bartender in confusion and says quizzically "You have a drink named Steve?"

This has been a test of the Emergency Blogging System. If this was actual content it....it....probably would be very similar.