Well, I was almost, but not entirely, productive today. To be honest I probably would have been better off watching every Star Wars film. True, that would have meant a brain dead day but I would have spent the entire day writing about and hence have a rather witty blog post right about now. Instead, I kind of just bummed around today, wrote about four paragraphs of my novel and subsequently trashed three of them. That is one of the challenges for me as a writer. It’s tough for me to write when my muse isn’t there and today Calliope was not visiting me in any way, shape or form.
I did have a good run on the treadmill though. Yes, even though it was beautiful outside I still work out in a stuffy, ill-equipped apartment gym. My knees just can’t take running on concrete anymore. I’m old and battered, which is a really sad predicament to find oneself in. However, I would like to recommend listening to The New Pornographers “Challengers” for your next workout. It is a great 50 minute disc with just enough energy to get you through til the end. It sounds great on my Zune because the coolness of the band just counteracts the incredible awkwardness of actually owning a Zune.
Getting back to my original thought, while I was sitting in the coffee shop just completely stumped as to where my novel should actually start (in the office or in the bar parking lot) it dawned on me how odd it is for me to be at a loss for words. It’s happened occasionally and usually at the times when I least expect it. It seldom happens when I write at least not in blog form. Most of these posts are really just me sitting down at the laptop and then fifteen or twenty minutes later I have an entry. There is no real planning involved. I might have a vague idea and then six hundred misspelled words later I have a post. Usually the quality of the post is dependent on how tired / drunk / hungover I am at the moment (those are not linear relationships, either.)
In the real world, away from the protection and anonymity of my computer screen, you probably wouldn’t call me a talkative soul (again, discounting the effect of any libations I may have encountered that evening.) That is not to indicate that I have nothing to say. It’s more of an indication that I sometimes feel that by entering a conversation all that will result is the other person annoying me so I am better off remaining quiet. (Yes, I am as someone recently put it an arrogant pratt.) With the right person though I can talk all night, which makes some people wonder where I hide that part of my personality during the day.
The interesting thing is that when things get emotional my ability to speak or even to form coherent thoughts seems to disappear. I’m not someone who is able to recite poetry to a woman. I’ve written poetry and if you let me stand in front of you with the paper trembling in my hand I might even be able to read it to you but made to improvise I would probably stammer, “Uh…uh…you’re purty.” It’s tough to present yourself as this educated, artistic guy when your brain turns you into a nine year old whenever you’re around someone you like. I’ve had relationships crumble around me while my brain searched for the right word, hell any word, to say.
I’m pretty sure what I just described is being human. Unlike the movies we don’t have scriptwriters working in the background carefully crafting our lines. As much as I like to consider myself witty a lot of it does not come off the cuff. A line might appear in my head days before I actually try to use it. So while I would like to be Cary Grant at every moment without a script or a director or a key grip it is rather difficult to pull of the illusion. I just go out there and try the best I can. Hopefully the right words will come across my lips. If not, you can always ask for a reshoot.
The five random CDs for the week (forgot about this last night. Unemployment makes Sundays unrecognizable from other days of the week):
1) Garrison Starr “Fans Greatest Hits”
2) Rilo Kiley “Under the Blacklight”
3) Kasey Chambers “Wayward Angel”
4) Steve Earle “I Feel Alright”
5) White Rabbits “Fort Nightly”
Monday, April 21, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Dude, pass the Funyuns...
(Cough cough. No, I haven’t been celebrating anything today. Why do you ask? But I mean, have you ever just looked at the sky and gone “Wow man, it’s so effing huge! Play that Dead album again!”)
When I got my apartment one of my big selling points was my deck. It seemed so cool that I would have this little patio all my own. It made it seem a little less like a completely cookie cutter existence. I even had a view, how awesome is that? I just imagined myself sitting out there on summer nights, reading away.
Well, things didn’t work out quite as well as planned. My patio overlooks a parking lot and my city view consists of a couple of stoplights and skyline dominated by radio towers. Per Missouri state law it is illegal for me to have a barbecue grill, which was good planning on the legislature’s part because it would prove to be dangerous to my health. I also completely misjudged the Kansas City weather as my dreams of coming home from work on a summer night and reading to relax were dashed by the fact that summer nights here are 95 and humid, which along with the exhaust fumes from the road really ruin the moment. But there are a few weeks in spring (with today being a prime example) where I get to sit outside and just relax in some fresher air than what I have in the apartment. Except that I am no longer alone out there.
A few years ago a couple of pigeons decided to roost on my patio. Now I don’t really have a problem with this even though pigeons are nothing more than flying rats. However, they are living creatures and everything has a right to try to make its way in this world and as long as they don’t bother me I won’t bother them. They’re peaceful enough, don’t make noise and due to their nature are really kindred souls to me. Let me explain.
These pigeons have decided to roost on a support plank for the patio above my apartment that is maybe five inches wide. This is not exactly the right size for a nest so they have created some rather intricate engineering work to just keep this thing stable. In addition, my neighborhood lacks trees so I believe that part of their nest is constructed out of Sonic take out cups. While they had the sense to make sure that they are out of the rain they have never learned to anticipate the wind patterns that come with storms and blow down their nest. For years I have watched these birds build a nest, set up shop, have a windstorm knock everything around, and then rebuild the nest. They continually do the exact same thing with the hope that things will work out better next time.
Let’s be honest, I live my life the exact same way. If something fails I just blame luck and go back and try again. At some point it will have to work out. I joked with someone recently that I consider my luck with relationships to be the same as flipping a coin fifty times in a row and getting tails every single time. Sure, from a probabilistic point of view there is nothing wrong with that result but at some point you have to start questioning the coin. I never question the coin, just assume that I am right and move on. That’s not precisely the best attitude to have in life. Eventually I will have to admit that possibly, as unbelievably unlikely as that may be, that I could theoretically be wrong. Of course I’m never wrong so I’ll continue rebuilding my broken nest with my pigeon friends.
Best of 120 Minutes: In honor of 4/20 I was originally going to post the Spin Doctors “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” as a public service message warning children about what music they will end up liking if they do drugs. However, in their infinite wisdom Sony has decided that embedding Spin Doctors videos is a bad thing so I can’t do that. (Apparently there is a huge piracy ring surrounding fifteen year old Spin Doctors songs. Who knew?) Instead I’ll post a cool Sugar era Bob Mould song. At least this way I raised the level of musical discourse for the day.
When I got my apartment one of my big selling points was my deck. It seemed so cool that I would have this little patio all my own. It made it seem a little less like a completely cookie cutter existence. I even had a view, how awesome is that? I just imagined myself sitting out there on summer nights, reading away.
Well, things didn’t work out quite as well as planned. My patio overlooks a parking lot and my city view consists of a couple of stoplights and skyline dominated by radio towers. Per Missouri state law it is illegal for me to have a barbecue grill, which was good planning on the legislature’s part because it would prove to be dangerous to my health. I also completely misjudged the Kansas City weather as my dreams of coming home from work on a summer night and reading to relax were dashed by the fact that summer nights here are 95 and humid, which along with the exhaust fumes from the road really ruin the moment. But there are a few weeks in spring (with today being a prime example) where I get to sit outside and just relax in some fresher air than what I have in the apartment. Except that I am no longer alone out there.
A few years ago a couple of pigeons decided to roost on my patio. Now I don’t really have a problem with this even though pigeons are nothing more than flying rats. However, they are living creatures and everything has a right to try to make its way in this world and as long as they don’t bother me I won’t bother them. They’re peaceful enough, don’t make noise and due to their nature are really kindred souls to me. Let me explain.
These pigeons have decided to roost on a support plank for the patio above my apartment that is maybe five inches wide. This is not exactly the right size for a nest so they have created some rather intricate engineering work to just keep this thing stable. In addition, my neighborhood lacks trees so I believe that part of their nest is constructed out of Sonic take out cups. While they had the sense to make sure that they are out of the rain they have never learned to anticipate the wind patterns that come with storms and blow down their nest. For years I have watched these birds build a nest, set up shop, have a windstorm knock everything around, and then rebuild the nest. They continually do the exact same thing with the hope that things will work out better next time.
Let’s be honest, I live my life the exact same way. If something fails I just blame luck and go back and try again. At some point it will have to work out. I joked with someone recently that I consider my luck with relationships to be the same as flipping a coin fifty times in a row and getting tails every single time. Sure, from a probabilistic point of view there is nothing wrong with that result but at some point you have to start questioning the coin. I never question the coin, just assume that I am right and move on. That’s not precisely the best attitude to have in life. Eventually I will have to admit that possibly, as unbelievably unlikely as that may be, that I could theoretically be wrong. Of course I’m never wrong so I’ll continue rebuilding my broken nest with my pigeon friends.
Best of 120 Minutes: In honor of 4/20 I was originally going to post the Spin Doctors “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” as a public service message warning children about what music they will end up liking if they do drugs. However, in their infinite wisdom Sony has decided that embedding Spin Doctors videos is a bad thing so I can’t do that. (Apparently there is a huge piracy ring surrounding fifteen year old Spin Doctors songs. Who knew?) Instead I’ll post a cool Sugar era Bob Mould song. At least this way I raised the level of musical discourse for the day.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Sometimes I'm not me
Ok, I know that I am supposed to write something creative here. I made this big thing about writing every day now and how this is being used as the Messy Room, which would be great if my life was anywhere near normal except that it isn’t. Last night resulted in my falling asleep at what would technically be considered this morning so my brain is not functioning at full capacity at the moment. I’m amazed that I can type to be honest with you.
But since I did promise new material here it goes. Actually, it is very old material but I don’t believe that anyone who reads this knew me in high school. It is how I somehow obtained the nickname of Bart two years ahead of the creation of Bart Simpson.
It was freshman year and I was in my awkward and gawky phase. I had a hell of a time coming out of my shell and figuring out where I fit in the world. I really felt like a kid amidst adults. It wasn’t a question of holding my own academically; it just seemed like everyone else was so much mature and together than I was. So I just kind of kept to myself.
Now one of the first people to really understand me was my English teacher. He saw that I was this witty, sharp guy who just wasn’t letting anyone see it. So he took it upon himself to make sure that the rest of the world was going to understand just what a type a guy I was. It was his goal to break me out of my shell. One of the ways he did this was give me a nickname that not only stuck for the rest of high school but is still mentioned whenever I meet an old classmate.
We were doing the annual freshman ritual of studying Romeo and Juliet. While studying Shakespeare’s history he decided to test how many of the students were sleeping through the lecture by inventing the story of Bart Shakespeare, Bill’s younger brother who wrote all the plays and got all of the credit. Some of the girls (cheerleaders to be exact) really did start wondering who the hell Bart Shakespeare was. Somehow I became Bart Shakespeare, which I never did understand but I appreciated the attention.
Soon not only was he calling me Bart in classes but other students and other teachers started referring to me as Bart. I think some people knew me better as Bart than as Chris. It worked wonders for me because it gave me a persona to play with. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin so I could use this character of Bart to escape into where I was popular and confident. Bart was the writer and the jokester while Chris was trying to figure out who he was. Sure, I would have been better off having confidence some other way but it really helped me out. I became somebody because of that nickname.
Bart’s been retired for year now. The persona has served its purpose. When someone asked me about him once I said that he had made his way to New Orleans where he writes novels and dates strippers. I think he’d appreciate that fate.
But since I did promise new material here it goes. Actually, it is very old material but I don’t believe that anyone who reads this knew me in high school. It is how I somehow obtained the nickname of Bart two years ahead of the creation of Bart Simpson.
It was freshman year and I was in my awkward and gawky phase. I had a hell of a time coming out of my shell and figuring out where I fit in the world. I really felt like a kid amidst adults. It wasn’t a question of holding my own academically; it just seemed like everyone else was so much mature and together than I was. So I just kind of kept to myself.
Now one of the first people to really understand me was my English teacher. He saw that I was this witty, sharp guy who just wasn’t letting anyone see it. So he took it upon himself to make sure that the rest of the world was going to understand just what a type a guy I was. It was his goal to break me out of my shell. One of the ways he did this was give me a nickname that not only stuck for the rest of high school but is still mentioned whenever I meet an old classmate.
We were doing the annual freshman ritual of studying Romeo and Juliet. While studying Shakespeare’s history he decided to test how many of the students were sleeping through the lecture by inventing the story of Bart Shakespeare, Bill’s younger brother who wrote all the plays and got all of the credit. Some of the girls (cheerleaders to be exact) really did start wondering who the hell Bart Shakespeare was. Somehow I became Bart Shakespeare, which I never did understand but I appreciated the attention.
Soon not only was he calling me Bart in classes but other students and other teachers started referring to me as Bart. I think some people knew me better as Bart than as Chris. It worked wonders for me because it gave me a persona to play with. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin so I could use this character of Bart to escape into where I was popular and confident. Bart was the writer and the jokester while Chris was trying to figure out who he was. Sure, I would have been better off having confidence some other way but it really helped me out. I became somebody because of that nickname.
Bart’s been retired for year now. The persona has served its purpose. When someone asked me about him once I said that he had made his way to New Orleans where he writes novels and dates strippers. I think he’d appreciate that fate.
Friday, April 18, 2008
It's not you, it's me...
At happy hour last night my friend Celia asked me for my opinions on how women break up with guys. Since this is a topic that I am very familiar with and as it plays a vital role in my novel I figured that I will use the Messy Room to dig a little deeper into this quandary of human emotions.
Now as I often mention in this space I have been the recipient of an email that stated quite plainly that the sender never wanted to talk to me again. A lot of people would consider this to be a rather harsh and impersonal way to break up with somebody. It is but I will state that it has the benefit of being incredibly concrete. You might replay phone conversations in your mind and go “Oh, she really doesn’t mean that” but with email every time you open it the result doesn’t change. Trust me, I tried. Kept on reopening it and continually saw that she didn’t want to speak to me again along with a full list of bullet points explaining why that was the case and a pie chart emphasizing just what parts of my personality that she found to be so horribly flawed that I wasn’t even worth knowing. Give a guy something in writing and he’ll believe it. The male species does not view the world in shades of gray so while email is impersonal it does get the point across.
(For the record, I should state that two weeks after getting the email (and my responding in such a way that I am too embarrassed to even put it in my novel) she did call me. We’ve been very good friends ever since. This just goes to show a) the world is an irrational place and b) I have such a magnetic personality that no woman could stay away from me for long.)
While I haven’t encountered this, a buddy of mine had the misfortune of dealing with a technological advance and being dumped via a text message. Without a doubt this trumps email in terms of cruelty. I mean if you already have the phone in your hand the least you could do is call. Being broken up with is bad enough; you really don’t want to be told that you are not even worth the use of daytime minutes. But what is worse is that it means that she is going to condense all of her feelings down to 160 characters and maybe put a frowny face emoticon at the end. That is the sharpest cut of all; having everything you feel about a person being summed up in a freaking emoticon.
But even texting is an improvement over what has become the most common and most cruel method that women have used to break up with me: simply not returning my phone calls. You wouldn’t believe how much I hate this. The story goes like this. I meet someone and we start dating and we are a month or two into the relationship. We’re having a ton of fun together, going out, buying her dinner, all of those wonderful early relationship moments. One night when we are both blissfully happy as we kiss goodnight I promise to call her. A day or two later I call and get her voicemail. Leave a message and when I don’t hear back from her for a few days I call her again. When she still doesn’t answer I leave a message and just figure that she is really busy. This continues for several weeks until I finally come to the conclusion of “Hmmm, maybe she doesn’t like me anymore.” Knowing that if I keep up the calls the phrase restraining order will be in my future I make one last call typically ending with, “Call me back if you want otherwise I’ll see you around”, which is a very polite way of me saying “This is your last chance otherwise I’ll see you in hell.”
Now I know why women break up with me this way. I am an incredibly nice guy. That is just my very nature. I don’t provide them with some brilliant reason to just scream at me, toss a drink in my face, yell “You slept with my sister!” and storm out of the bar. Instead they would have to explain to me why it isn’t working out knowing that I will ask what I did wrong when there is nothing that either of us did wrong. Some things are just not meant to be. That is an incredibly difficult conversation to have with someone so it is just easier to not have it and know that eventually the point will be made. What kills me about that is the fact that it makes me a complete non-entity. I get treated as if I don’t even exist and that sucks. I’ll spend a month or two wondering what is going on, realize that I have been dumped without being told, and then spend weeks moping about listening to The Smiths all day. Just acknowledge my existence that is all I ask.
So this leads us to actually having a real conversation to break up with someone. These are also fraught with peril and I have one that I still list amongst the worst moments of my life. Back in college I kind of dated this girl Lori. I say kind of dated because she was a military brat who still officially had a boyfriend in Germany but would spend all of her time with me as I played the role of boyfriend substitute who was waiting for her to finally break up with her boyfriend so we could become an official couple. When she did finally do that she decided to move right pass me and on to a guy who was, for lack of a better term, a complete douche (not that I’m still bitter or anything). As I made one last ditch call to see if I could change her mind she basically thanked me for my time as a boyfriend substitute and said “for the past year I haven’t felt alive but now I do.” Given that for the past year I had been the only one going out with her I had the unnerving feeling that I had just been compared to a chair. Really nice to have around but you have no regrets sending it off to Goodwill once it gets a little scuffed.
(Her roommate Heather told me that she almost strangled Lori that night because of the way she treated me. She couldn’t believe that an amazing guy like me would be turfed like that. I ended up dating Heather for a while. Guess it all worked out in the end.)
This leads us to the final question: How should you break up with me? Talk to me. Look me in the eye and talk to me. Tell me that this isn’t working out; a fact that I already know but haven’t had the courage to believe just yet. Don’t give me a speech about how any woman in the world would want a guy like me because that is obviously not true. If it was you wouldn’t be giving me this speech right now. There is nothing wrong with telling me that I am an amazing, nice guy but that the situation just isn’t right. Not everyone in the world is perfect for each other and while it sucks royally to care about someone and then be told that the wonderful fantasy world that you invented inside your head will never be it is infinitely more palatable than being misled or ignored. A woman who tells me the truth, lets me know that it is over, has my undying respect. I’ll hug her, wish her all the best in the world, and probably give her one last kiss for the road. In a few weeks when emotions have died down I’ll try to be friends once again. I’ll celebrate when she finds the right guy for her even if it isn’t me. You should never fault the happiness of someone you care about.
But treat me like a human being. Acknowledge that I exist and that for one moment you really did, and possibly still do, care about me. Let me know that you hate having this moment as well. Do that and I promise you; you will never have to fear having my write nasty things about you in my blog ever.
Now as I often mention in this space I have been the recipient of an email that stated quite plainly that the sender never wanted to talk to me again. A lot of people would consider this to be a rather harsh and impersonal way to break up with somebody. It is but I will state that it has the benefit of being incredibly concrete. You might replay phone conversations in your mind and go “Oh, she really doesn’t mean that” but with email every time you open it the result doesn’t change. Trust me, I tried. Kept on reopening it and continually saw that she didn’t want to speak to me again along with a full list of bullet points explaining why that was the case and a pie chart emphasizing just what parts of my personality that she found to be so horribly flawed that I wasn’t even worth knowing. Give a guy something in writing and he’ll believe it. The male species does not view the world in shades of gray so while email is impersonal it does get the point across.
(For the record, I should state that two weeks after getting the email (and my responding in such a way that I am too embarrassed to even put it in my novel) she did call me. We’ve been very good friends ever since. This just goes to show a) the world is an irrational place and b) I have such a magnetic personality that no woman could stay away from me for long.)
While I haven’t encountered this, a buddy of mine had the misfortune of dealing with a technological advance and being dumped via a text message. Without a doubt this trumps email in terms of cruelty. I mean if you already have the phone in your hand the least you could do is call. Being broken up with is bad enough; you really don’t want to be told that you are not even worth the use of daytime minutes. But what is worse is that it means that she is going to condense all of her feelings down to 160 characters and maybe put a frowny face emoticon at the end. That is the sharpest cut of all; having everything you feel about a person being summed up in a freaking emoticon.
But even texting is an improvement over what has become the most common and most cruel method that women have used to break up with me: simply not returning my phone calls. You wouldn’t believe how much I hate this. The story goes like this. I meet someone and we start dating and we are a month or two into the relationship. We’re having a ton of fun together, going out, buying her dinner, all of those wonderful early relationship moments. One night when we are both blissfully happy as we kiss goodnight I promise to call her. A day or two later I call and get her voicemail. Leave a message and when I don’t hear back from her for a few days I call her again. When she still doesn’t answer I leave a message and just figure that she is really busy. This continues for several weeks until I finally come to the conclusion of “Hmmm, maybe she doesn’t like me anymore.” Knowing that if I keep up the calls the phrase restraining order will be in my future I make one last call typically ending with, “Call me back if you want otherwise I’ll see you around”, which is a very polite way of me saying “This is your last chance otherwise I’ll see you in hell.”
Now I know why women break up with me this way. I am an incredibly nice guy. That is just my very nature. I don’t provide them with some brilliant reason to just scream at me, toss a drink in my face, yell “You slept with my sister!” and storm out of the bar. Instead they would have to explain to me why it isn’t working out knowing that I will ask what I did wrong when there is nothing that either of us did wrong. Some things are just not meant to be. That is an incredibly difficult conversation to have with someone so it is just easier to not have it and know that eventually the point will be made. What kills me about that is the fact that it makes me a complete non-entity. I get treated as if I don’t even exist and that sucks. I’ll spend a month or two wondering what is going on, realize that I have been dumped without being told, and then spend weeks moping about listening to The Smiths all day. Just acknowledge my existence that is all I ask.
So this leads us to actually having a real conversation to break up with someone. These are also fraught with peril and I have one that I still list amongst the worst moments of my life. Back in college I kind of dated this girl Lori. I say kind of dated because she was a military brat who still officially had a boyfriend in Germany but would spend all of her time with me as I played the role of boyfriend substitute who was waiting for her to finally break up with her boyfriend so we could become an official couple. When she did finally do that she decided to move right pass me and on to a guy who was, for lack of a better term, a complete douche (not that I’m still bitter or anything). As I made one last ditch call to see if I could change her mind she basically thanked me for my time as a boyfriend substitute and said “for the past year I haven’t felt alive but now I do.” Given that for the past year I had been the only one going out with her I had the unnerving feeling that I had just been compared to a chair. Really nice to have around but you have no regrets sending it off to Goodwill once it gets a little scuffed.
(Her roommate Heather told me that she almost strangled Lori that night because of the way she treated me. She couldn’t believe that an amazing guy like me would be turfed like that. I ended up dating Heather for a while. Guess it all worked out in the end.)
This leads us to the final question: How should you break up with me? Talk to me. Look me in the eye and talk to me. Tell me that this isn’t working out; a fact that I already know but haven’t had the courage to believe just yet. Don’t give me a speech about how any woman in the world would want a guy like me because that is obviously not true. If it was you wouldn’t be giving me this speech right now. There is nothing wrong with telling me that I am an amazing, nice guy but that the situation just isn’t right. Not everyone in the world is perfect for each other and while it sucks royally to care about someone and then be told that the wonderful fantasy world that you invented inside your head will never be it is infinitely more palatable than being misled or ignored. A woman who tells me the truth, lets me know that it is over, has my undying respect. I’ll hug her, wish her all the best in the world, and probably give her one last kiss for the road. In a few weeks when emotions have died down I’ll try to be friends once again. I’ll celebrate when she finds the right guy for her even if it isn’t me. You should never fault the happiness of someone you care about.
But treat me like a human being. Acknowledge that I exist and that for one moment you really did, and possibly still do, care about me. Let me know that you hate having this moment as well. Do that and I promise you; you will never have to fear having my write nasty things about you in my blog ever.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Break out the lightsabers
I need to start off tonight by offering a heartfelt congratulations to my blog partner in crime / self-professed stalker who is going to be starting her new job on Monday. On one hand I am incredibly happy for her as I’ve been pulling for her to get this job for a while now. On the other, extremely selfish, hand I am now faced with the realization that I have lost a weekday writing partner as well as a fellow unemployed layabout. Now people are going to be expecting me to get a job. Seriously, what’s up with that?
But I will say that this can only mean one thing. Unless someone can come up with something better this means that Monday will be Star Wars-a-Palooza! With no distractions, or at least no one who will force me to leave my apartment, I will partake of my epic quest to watch all six Star Wars films in one seating. Imagine the spectacle, imagine the drama, imagine just how much junk food I am going to consume over the approximately 14 hours it is going to take for me to do this. It will be a feat for the ages.
(Like I’ve said before, I am under no false impression that whatever I write here is going to improve anyone’s opinion of me. I’m just who I am and I’m happy with that.)
For those who are thinking that I am just a lazy bastard right now, well, you are probably correct but I did start writing my novel today. Got through 1,300 words and two chapters both of which will need to be rewritten. I know that I am supposed to silence my inner editor, which is a challenge given that I’ve been trying to do that oh, I don’t know, my entire life but I still am playing around with verb tense and perspective. It’s first person writing about the past but there are a lot of reflections about the present so I don’t know if I’ll just convert it to present tense and have a prologue and epilogue in the future. These are the things that you think about as a writer. That and wondering if you are impressing anyone at the coffee shop.
Oh, and I guess that I should write my follow up to last night, which was probably not the most exciting post that I had ever written but did have myself simultaneously comparing myself to a phone and to Robert Redford and that has to count for something. Overnight my phone miraculously healed itself. I’m not making this up. When I woke up this morning all the disastrous issues that were plaguing my phone had gone away and it was working just as it was supposed to.
This does raise the question of whether or not my phone has become sentient. There is a strong possibility that my phone read my blog, realized that if it didn’t repair itself that it would be sent off to silicon heaven, and then quickly corrected all of its flaws in order to maintain its status as one of my closest companions. I don’t think I can throw it out now because there is a slight but measurable possibility that it will attempt to kill me on the way to the store. I wouldn’t put it past it. It’s already called up old girlfriends late at night without my knowledge. It even mimicked my voice in a way that made me sound drunk and remorseful. Technology is fascinating.
(And of course there is a silicon heaven. If not, where would all the dead calculators go?)
One last programming note before I call it a night. I am going to continue with the request that was made last week regarding changing from a five day a week writing schedule to a seven day a week schedule. Given that the reason I wasn’t writing every day is no longer valid (that after spending all week sitting in an office staring at a computer screen I couldn’t justify spending the weekend doing the same) I really feel that I should make an effort to turn this into an everyday venture. But Fridays and Saturdays are going to be a little different here. Let’s call it the messy room.
I got this from a Frames concert. The messy room is that place in your school or house where you can go and be completely creative and not have to worry about what happens. It’s a chance to let your creativity have free reign. So that’s what I am going to try to do on Fridays and Saturdays. It is going to consist of a lot more fiction, short essays, philosophical analysis, attempts at humor and maybe even some poetry. I’ll probably tell some life stories as well, though hopefully nothing as bad as last week because writing those tend to make me lie on the couch all day in a self-loathing stupor until I call myself an idiot and shake myself out of it. But the main idea is less “what is going on in my life and the world” and more creative, one of a kind pieces. Maybe it will work and maybe it won’t but it will be different. Let me know what you guys think.
But I will say that this can only mean one thing. Unless someone can come up with something better this means that Monday will be Star Wars-a-Palooza! With no distractions, or at least no one who will force me to leave my apartment, I will partake of my epic quest to watch all six Star Wars films in one seating. Imagine the spectacle, imagine the drama, imagine just how much junk food I am going to consume over the approximately 14 hours it is going to take for me to do this. It will be a feat for the ages.
(Like I’ve said before, I am under no false impression that whatever I write here is going to improve anyone’s opinion of me. I’m just who I am and I’m happy with that.)
For those who are thinking that I am just a lazy bastard right now, well, you are probably correct but I did start writing my novel today. Got through 1,300 words and two chapters both of which will need to be rewritten. I know that I am supposed to silence my inner editor, which is a challenge given that I’ve been trying to do that oh, I don’t know, my entire life but I still am playing around with verb tense and perspective. It’s first person writing about the past but there are a lot of reflections about the present so I don’t know if I’ll just convert it to present tense and have a prologue and epilogue in the future. These are the things that you think about as a writer. That and wondering if you are impressing anyone at the coffee shop.
Oh, and I guess that I should write my follow up to last night, which was probably not the most exciting post that I had ever written but did have myself simultaneously comparing myself to a phone and to Robert Redford and that has to count for something. Overnight my phone miraculously healed itself. I’m not making this up. When I woke up this morning all the disastrous issues that were plaguing my phone had gone away and it was working just as it was supposed to.
This does raise the question of whether or not my phone has become sentient. There is a strong possibility that my phone read my blog, realized that if it didn’t repair itself that it would be sent off to silicon heaven, and then quickly corrected all of its flaws in order to maintain its status as one of my closest companions. I don’t think I can throw it out now because there is a slight but measurable possibility that it will attempt to kill me on the way to the store. I wouldn’t put it past it. It’s already called up old girlfriends late at night without my knowledge. It even mimicked my voice in a way that made me sound drunk and remorseful. Technology is fascinating.
(And of course there is a silicon heaven. If not, where would all the dead calculators go?)
One last programming note before I call it a night. I am going to continue with the request that was made last week regarding changing from a five day a week writing schedule to a seven day a week schedule. Given that the reason I wasn’t writing every day is no longer valid (that after spending all week sitting in an office staring at a computer screen I couldn’t justify spending the weekend doing the same) I really feel that I should make an effort to turn this into an everyday venture. But Fridays and Saturdays are going to be a little different here. Let’s call it the messy room.
I got this from a Frames concert. The messy room is that place in your school or house where you can go and be completely creative and not have to worry about what happens. It’s a chance to let your creativity have free reign. So that’s what I am going to try to do on Fridays and Saturdays. It is going to consist of a lot more fiction, short essays, philosophical analysis, attempts at humor and maybe even some poetry. I’ll probably tell some life stories as well, though hopefully nothing as bad as last week because writing those tend to make me lie on the couch all day in a self-loathing stupor until I call myself an idiot and shake myself out of it. But the main idea is less “what is going on in my life and the world” and more creative, one of a kind pieces. Maybe it will work and maybe it won’t but it will be different. Let me know what you guys think.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The end of an era?
I am in a very frazzled state right now. Probably even more frazzled than I was this weekend where my posts made people wonder if I should be allowed to operate a laptop much less heavy machinery. But right now I am faced with the very serious possibility that my life is going to have to undergo a tremendous change tomorrow.
I think my cel phone might be broken.
Well, technically it is not broken broken. I can still make calls (assume I can receive them as well) and text messaging works. Those are all good things. But somehow without doing anything my internet access has crashed and I can’t send picture mail. For most people this would not be an issue but as someone who feels the need to constantly update his Facebook status and who uses his phone to capture blog ideas I really need internet access. Hell, what am I going to do when I’m bored in a social situation? Talk to people? That’s crazy. Why wouldn’t you just surf the internet?
Now admittedly there are a lot of people who I used to work with who are cheering the very possibility that I might be getting a new phone. This is because of the fact that even though I worked for a phone company, even though that I managed product lines and had access to free phones, I continually used my two year old phone for one simple reason. Customers keep their phones for two years, don’t see any reason why I should be any different. My job was to think like a customer so I needed a phone that the average customer would have.
Of course, most people would have traded in a phone that had as many scratch marks as mine. It was originally black but now large portions of the phone are gray as the paint has literally been scraped away by my keys. There are gouge marks in the keypads because I text by using my fingernails. It has nearly become a flip phone that can no longer flip. But I am incredibly nervous about trading it in and getting a new model because the darn thing works and works brilliantly. Sure it looks ugly but it is damn effective. My phone is pretty much a metaphor for me.
Ok, I’m not ugly. Let’s go with ruggedly handsome like a later era Robert Redford. Sure, other guys might have a better body or nicer hair but I have that whole “I’ve seen it all and I know how to whisper to horses” aspect about me that women adore, or at least tolerate. Yeah, that works.
(Sorry, it’s been a long night. Even I’m not quite sure where I was going with that last paragraph other than making sure everyone knows that I don’t consider myself to be ugly. More like Zach Braff with glasses.)
So here is the plan for tomorrow. I can either a) call customer service and see if they have a solution or b) walk down to the store and see if they can fix it or get me a new phone. I’ll probably settle on the latter because I really don’t have anything better to do. Yes, I could write but this does take priority over writing. Plus, my writing partner in crime has decided to get a job so that takes some of the fun out of it. Will my phone work again? Am I just going to find myself a victim of a customer service nightmare? Is this sadly going to be the most excitement I have all day? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Wednesday Night Music Club: I think I’ve featured Damien Rice before in this space but I’m in that type of mood. Basically I need an excuse to listen to Lisa Hannigan sing like an angel while looking amazing. If you want to know the type of girl who can win my heart in a second she is the prime example. Plus, Volcano is such an awesome song everyone should listen to it daily. Click play on this one, it’s a good one.
I think my cel phone might be broken.
Well, technically it is not broken broken. I can still make calls (assume I can receive them as well) and text messaging works. Those are all good things. But somehow without doing anything my internet access has crashed and I can’t send picture mail. For most people this would not be an issue but as someone who feels the need to constantly update his Facebook status and who uses his phone to capture blog ideas I really need internet access. Hell, what am I going to do when I’m bored in a social situation? Talk to people? That’s crazy. Why wouldn’t you just surf the internet?
Now admittedly there are a lot of people who I used to work with who are cheering the very possibility that I might be getting a new phone. This is because of the fact that even though I worked for a phone company, even though that I managed product lines and had access to free phones, I continually used my two year old phone for one simple reason. Customers keep their phones for two years, don’t see any reason why I should be any different. My job was to think like a customer so I needed a phone that the average customer would have.
Of course, most people would have traded in a phone that had as many scratch marks as mine. It was originally black but now large portions of the phone are gray as the paint has literally been scraped away by my keys. There are gouge marks in the keypads because I text by using my fingernails. It has nearly become a flip phone that can no longer flip. But I am incredibly nervous about trading it in and getting a new model because the darn thing works and works brilliantly. Sure it looks ugly but it is damn effective. My phone is pretty much a metaphor for me.
Ok, I’m not ugly. Let’s go with ruggedly handsome like a later era Robert Redford. Sure, other guys might have a better body or nicer hair but I have that whole “I’ve seen it all and I know how to whisper to horses” aspect about me that women adore, or at least tolerate. Yeah, that works.
(Sorry, it’s been a long night. Even I’m not quite sure where I was going with that last paragraph other than making sure everyone knows that I don’t consider myself to be ugly. More like Zach Braff with glasses.)
So here is the plan for tomorrow. I can either a) call customer service and see if they have a solution or b) walk down to the store and see if they can fix it or get me a new phone. I’ll probably settle on the latter because I really don’t have anything better to do. Yes, I could write but this does take priority over writing. Plus, my writing partner in crime has decided to get a job so that takes some of the fun out of it. Will my phone work again? Am I just going to find myself a victim of a customer service nightmare? Is this sadly going to be the most excitement I have all day? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Wednesday Night Music Club: I think I’ve featured Damien Rice before in this space but I’m in that type of mood. Basically I need an excuse to listen to Lisa Hannigan sing like an angel while looking amazing. If you want to know the type of girl who can win my heart in a second she is the prime example. Plus, Volcano is such an awesome song everyone should listen to it daily. Click play on this one, it’s a good one.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Yes, I hang out at coffee shops now. I'm so arty.
From the Oddities of Modern Life File: A few days ago I saw in a strip mall a store called Simply Amish. What other options for an Amish store would there be? Extravagently Amish? Pimp Your Ride the Amish Way? Also, does the store have electricity? That would really seem to go against the entire theme. At a minimum they should use the old carbon sheets for credit card payments as opposed to an internet connection.
Should I be ashamed at how interested I was in the final episode of The Biggest Loser tonight? Or the fact that I think that I watched every episode this season? Not every moment of every episode, given that it often broke down into watching grown men cry for five minutes at a time followed by an in show ad for Extra Sugar Free Gum (It’s like eating but it’s not!). Hell, even the finale featured a blatant plug for Subway, which was promoted as a healthy eating option for little kids because they need foot long sandwiches at their age.
As much as I was hoping for it, none of the contestants actually gained weight over the four months they were on the show. Not that I was hoping for anyone to fail miserably; I just wanted to see how the producers would try to spin that one. For the most part I was incredibly impressed by what the contestants accomplished. I think the lowest percentage weight loss was 20% and a lot of them look really good. The winners lost about 45% of their starting weight, which is insane and requires them to get to a weight that I still don’t know if it is healthy. They aren’t skinny but I’m of a belief that you need to have some weight on you. Back when I was six one and weighed 150 pounds I was officially within the normal weight range for my height. But trust me, it wasn’t healthy at all.
On my current weight loss goals on Monday I weighed in at 193.5 pounds just 3.5 pounds shy of my overall goal. See, once I get to 190 I can tell my doctors to screw off because I will no longer officially be considered overweight. True, I’ll still have all of my medical issues but at least I will not be deemed a fatty per a chart. This is down from my max of 215 (when I really did feel as if I was fat) so I’m proud of what I’ve done. Been doing runs of three and a half miles on the treadmill recently with minimal issues so I actually feel like I have some stamina once again. Nice thing about having free time; it is much easier to work out now.
(Oh, but I should remind myself to not go out drinking immediately after running three and a half miles. I did that on Friday and let’s just say that the beer hit me much quicker than I expected it to. Not particularly fun though it did get me playing Dance Dance Revolution, which is also something I should not do after running. Given my rhythm it is probably something I should never do in the first place.)
Anyway, time to explain the picture at the top of the page. As my goal of completing a massive jigsaw puzzle has been, uh, sidetracked for the time being I decided to keep my stalker happy by getting focused on the novel. (Given that the novel is #2 on my list of things to do and the puzzle is #6 I should have tackled them it that order to begin with. Learning to juggle still tops the list though.) Since yesterday taught me that working in my home office can be a bit of a challenge I decided to be the bohemian slacker that I am and go to a coffee shop.
So I have moved from a cube to this. Armed with a rather massive cup of coffee I am joined by Julie the Laptop as well as Julie the Zune. Yeah, I still have the whole Julie Delpy obsession going. For those who remember, Julie is my old laptop who spent nearly six years as my daily companion. We’ve been through everything together; moves, promotions, storms, all faced side by side. That is of course until I turfed her last year for a newer model. But like all guys I have come crawling back hoping for forgiveness.
More accurately, Julie is smaller than my current laptop and is a lot easier to carry. Plus six years of daily use means that I am just innately used to the keyboard even if the letters have actually been worn off of the keypad. It also has a great laziness protector as she predates wi-fi so I can’t even get online when I use her. It is all business when I fire her up.
That’s what today was. Four hours of working on the novel at least in terms of setup. I ended up with a two page synopsis of the entire story, an outline with about 60 preliminary chapter ideas with the first seven or eight set in stone ready to get started, and a full cast of characters. Including a brand new character that I only thought up today who might end up stealing the entire novel. She’s already worked her way into the opening chapter and I’ve had that planned for four years. Writing will start tomorrow, let’s set a 45 day goal on this, and I’ll hopefully be done by the end of May. Anyone willing to bet me on my ability to do this (with all proceeds going to autism research) please let me know. Game on.
Should I be ashamed at how interested I was in the final episode of The Biggest Loser tonight? Or the fact that I think that I watched every episode this season? Not every moment of every episode, given that it often broke down into watching grown men cry for five minutes at a time followed by an in show ad for Extra Sugar Free Gum (It’s like eating but it’s not!). Hell, even the finale featured a blatant plug for Subway, which was promoted as a healthy eating option for little kids because they need foot long sandwiches at their age.
As much as I was hoping for it, none of the contestants actually gained weight over the four months they were on the show. Not that I was hoping for anyone to fail miserably; I just wanted to see how the producers would try to spin that one. For the most part I was incredibly impressed by what the contestants accomplished. I think the lowest percentage weight loss was 20% and a lot of them look really good. The winners lost about 45% of their starting weight, which is insane and requires them to get to a weight that I still don’t know if it is healthy. They aren’t skinny but I’m of a belief that you need to have some weight on you. Back when I was six one and weighed 150 pounds I was officially within the normal weight range for my height. But trust me, it wasn’t healthy at all.
On my current weight loss goals on Monday I weighed in at 193.5 pounds just 3.5 pounds shy of my overall goal. See, once I get to 190 I can tell my doctors to screw off because I will no longer officially be considered overweight. True, I’ll still have all of my medical issues but at least I will not be deemed a fatty per a chart. This is down from my max of 215 (when I really did feel as if I was fat) so I’m proud of what I’ve done. Been doing runs of three and a half miles on the treadmill recently with minimal issues so I actually feel like I have some stamina once again. Nice thing about having free time; it is much easier to work out now.
(Oh, but I should remind myself to not go out drinking immediately after running three and a half miles. I did that on Friday and let’s just say that the beer hit me much quicker than I expected it to. Not particularly fun though it did get me playing Dance Dance Revolution, which is also something I should not do after running. Given my rhythm it is probably something I should never do in the first place.)
Anyway, time to explain the picture at the top of the page. As my goal of completing a massive jigsaw puzzle has been, uh, sidetracked for the time being I decided to keep my stalker happy by getting focused on the novel. (Given that the novel is #2 on my list of things to do and the puzzle is #6 I should have tackled them it that order to begin with. Learning to juggle still tops the list though.) Since yesterday taught me that working in my home office can be a bit of a challenge I decided to be the bohemian slacker that I am and go to a coffee shop.
So I have moved from a cube to this. Armed with a rather massive cup of coffee I am joined by Julie the Laptop as well as Julie the Zune. Yeah, I still have the whole Julie Delpy obsession going. For those who remember, Julie is my old laptop who spent nearly six years as my daily companion. We’ve been through everything together; moves, promotions, storms, all faced side by side. That is of course until I turfed her last year for a newer model. But like all guys I have come crawling back hoping for forgiveness.
More accurately, Julie is smaller than my current laptop and is a lot easier to carry. Plus six years of daily use means that I am just innately used to the keyboard even if the letters have actually been worn off of the keypad. It also has a great laziness protector as she predates wi-fi so I can’t even get online when I use her. It is all business when I fire her up.
That’s what today was. Four hours of working on the novel at least in terms of setup. I ended up with a two page synopsis of the entire story, an outline with about 60 preliminary chapter ideas with the first seven or eight set in stone ready to get started, and a full cast of characters. Including a brand new character that I only thought up today who might end up stealing the entire novel. She’s already worked her way into the opening chapter and I’ve had that planned for four years. Writing will start tomorrow, let’s set a 45 day goal on this, and I’ll hopefully be done by the end of May. Anyone willing to bet me on my ability to do this (with all proceeds going to autism research) please let me know. Game on.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Because I don't have enough puzzles in my life...
Reason number 287 to love The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon used my favorite phrase “curiouser and curiouser” tonight when he was struck by a social situation that he could not comprehend. I do that all the time. Why yes, I identify with fictional geniuses. Why do you ask?
Let’s see what Kelli has for my horoscope today: “It’s easy to dismiss what you don’t understand. Confusion invites learning. This could even be a growth experience. You needed one anyway.”
So apparently my astrologer wants me to grow up. It’s nice to know that one twelfth of the earth’s population is having the exact same problems that I am.
Anyway, so I promised yesterday that I was going to attack the day today. That I was going to leave no stone unturned, no challenge unmet and that I would be up at 7 in order to do it. Technically it was more like 7:45 so to my faithful commenter, oops, sorry I didn’t get your kids to school on time. Eh, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t make a difference. I had my share of perfect attendance awards and look where it got me.
But I did get up earlier than I had been and made breakfast and drove to a coffee shop in order to pick up my morning coffee. Now given that it was only four blocks away I could have walked except that a) I’m still lazy and b) it was like 30 degrees out this morning (hear that Al Gore!) and no way I was walking in that weather. I also could have brewed my own coffee as I do have a coffee pot in my apartment. However, in the nearly five years that I have lived here it has been used exactly zero times. Not only am I not entirely sure how it works but I am relatively convinced that using it will result in a disaster of epic proportions. It exists solely as ornamentation with the coffee in my pantry just being a prop to indicate to women that I could conceivably take care of myself. There is a similar theory behind my occasionally buying a plant in order to show that I can take care of another living creature (the fact said plants tend to die notwithstanding.)
So, coffee in hand I sat down at the laptop and promised myself to do a few hours of job search followed by some writing. Logged in, went to job sites and, in a word, “Eep”.
“Eep” being shorthand for “I suddenly have a feeling that I am totally out of my league here.”
Now CareerBuilder does give me some nice suggestions. For instance, they are continually recommending that I apply for a Product Marketing Manager position at Sprint, which at least meets my federally mandated daily irony consumption requirement. But I am completely lost in their system and I just felt completely overwhelmed by the whole process. I didn’t have my head around where to look, what to look for, or what to do. So I did what any rational minded individual would do. I went shopping.
Thus I am now the proud owner of the above pictured 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Now as those who read the 43 Things post know one of my goals is to complete a massive jigsaw puzzle all by myself. Technically it was supposed to be a 5,000 piece puzzle but a) I couldn’t find one anywhere in town and b) those things are apparently really expensive. At least a hobby shop had this 3,000 piece one (on sale so it was obviously an intelligent purchase). I then had to find a board for it. I could give up the use of my dining room table for a month in order to complete it but I occasionally dream of having someone visit my apartment who doesn’t read the blog and I have a feeling that using an entire room of my apartment for a jigsaw puzzle would not quite give off the best impression. (I figure that there is nothing that I can say or do that would ever change the opinion of someone who reads this blog. They’ve pretty much seen me at my best and worst so they can make of it what they will.)
My solution? I picked up one of those boards that kids use for science fair projects. Fits perfectly under the bed in my spare bedroom. The plan is for me to spend some time on this every day as a kind of meditation, mind emptying exercise. At the end of the day I’ll take a picture of my progress and when I complete it I’ll create a slideshow of the progress. I’m pretty sure that if I add in some Benny Hill music I’ll be an internet sensation.
Does this get me any closer to getting a job? Well, no. It doesn’t get me any closer to finishing the novel either. But it did take up a portion of my day. Tomorrow will be a work day. Unless I decide to get my car washed. But Wednesday I’ll certainly do some work…
Let’s see what Kelli has for my horoscope today: “It’s easy to dismiss what you don’t understand. Confusion invites learning. This could even be a growth experience. You needed one anyway.”
So apparently my astrologer wants me to grow up. It’s nice to know that one twelfth of the earth’s population is having the exact same problems that I am.
Anyway, so I promised yesterday that I was going to attack the day today. That I was going to leave no stone unturned, no challenge unmet and that I would be up at 7 in order to do it. Technically it was more like 7:45 so to my faithful commenter, oops, sorry I didn’t get your kids to school on time. Eh, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t make a difference. I had my share of perfect attendance awards and look where it got me.
But I did get up earlier than I had been and made breakfast and drove to a coffee shop in order to pick up my morning coffee. Now given that it was only four blocks away I could have walked except that a) I’m still lazy and b) it was like 30 degrees out this morning (hear that Al Gore!) and no way I was walking in that weather. I also could have brewed my own coffee as I do have a coffee pot in my apartment. However, in the nearly five years that I have lived here it has been used exactly zero times. Not only am I not entirely sure how it works but I am relatively convinced that using it will result in a disaster of epic proportions. It exists solely as ornamentation with the coffee in my pantry just being a prop to indicate to women that I could conceivably take care of myself. There is a similar theory behind my occasionally buying a plant in order to show that I can take care of another living creature (the fact said plants tend to die notwithstanding.)
So, coffee in hand I sat down at the laptop and promised myself to do a few hours of job search followed by some writing. Logged in, went to job sites and, in a word, “Eep”.
“Eep” being shorthand for “I suddenly have a feeling that I am totally out of my league here.”
Now CareerBuilder does give me some nice suggestions. For instance, they are continually recommending that I apply for a Product Marketing Manager position at Sprint, which at least meets my federally mandated daily irony consumption requirement. But I am completely lost in their system and I just felt completely overwhelmed by the whole process. I didn’t have my head around where to look, what to look for, or what to do. So I did what any rational minded individual would do. I went shopping.
Thus I am now the proud owner of the above pictured 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Now as those who read the 43 Things post know one of my goals is to complete a massive jigsaw puzzle all by myself. Technically it was supposed to be a 5,000 piece puzzle but a) I couldn’t find one anywhere in town and b) those things are apparently really expensive. At least a hobby shop had this 3,000 piece one (on sale so it was obviously an intelligent purchase). I then had to find a board for it. I could give up the use of my dining room table for a month in order to complete it but I occasionally dream of having someone visit my apartment who doesn’t read the blog and I have a feeling that using an entire room of my apartment for a jigsaw puzzle would not quite give off the best impression. (I figure that there is nothing that I can say or do that would ever change the opinion of someone who reads this blog. They’ve pretty much seen me at my best and worst so they can make of it what they will.)
My solution? I picked up one of those boards that kids use for science fair projects. Fits perfectly under the bed in my spare bedroom. The plan is for me to spend some time on this every day as a kind of meditation, mind emptying exercise. At the end of the day I’ll take a picture of my progress and when I complete it I’ll create a slideshow of the progress. I’m pretty sure that if I add in some Benny Hill music I’ll be an internet sensation.
Does this get me any closer to getting a job? Well, no. It doesn’t get me any closer to finishing the novel either. But it did take up a portion of my day. Tomorrow will be a work day. Unless I decide to get my car washed. But Wednesday I’ll certainly do some work…
Sunday, April 13, 2008
It is always important to listen to your astrologer...
Since my partner in crime (in the blog world, at least) decided to post about her dream last night I feel that it is my duty to do the same. As always, reading about others’ dreams is an iffy proposition but I really think this is a good story. And it is absolutely true.
I dreamt that I was back at my parents’ house. Apparently they had cleared out the crawlspace and came across some old stuff of mine. I started digging through it and was thrilled to find this old basketball game I had as a kid. (It was kind of like Strat-O-Matic where you got to replay entire seasons with real players by using cards and I kept meticulous stats and ran tournaments and everything). But while digging through the box I came across this remnant of an old cartoon of the day desk calendar. It looked like a Dilbert collection drawn by The Far Side’s Gary Larson. It was showing December 23, and it looked like it was from the early 90’s. Here is what the top cartoon read.
Panel 1: A Dilbertish guy is sitting in this vast contraption with a lot of levers and doohickeys and a big wheel behind him. It is clearly a time machine based on the fact that there is a sign on the front of it that reads “time machine”. Dilbertish guy is just looking straight ahead with no expression on his face.
Panel 2: Just smoke and sparks and bolts of lightning with the word “POOF” in the middle. Obviously the word poof can only indicate time travel.
Panel 3: The exact same image as the first panel. Line for line, same vacant expression as before except that now above his head there is a word bubble that reads simply “I’m lonely.”
Think about it. I couldn’t think of something that amazing while awake. I’m jealous of my own subconscious.
Ok, on to what I wrote yesterday and some further explanations. I knew it would get a reaction and even my personal astrologer chimed in. Here is my horoscope that was texted to me this morning:
“You’re better than they are. You want to escape from mediocrity. Stop listening to echoes of sadder days. Take a fresh, optimistic outlook.”
(When I say she is my personal astrologer I am not kidding. I actually know Kelli. She did my chart as part of a project in my old job. Why I gave up a job where conference calls with astrologers were regular occurrences still confuses me.)
In a way, what amazes me most about what I wrote is how coherent it was. I was going on four hours sleep, maybe, and just got out of bed, walked to my office and sat down at the laptop and wrote it. The only light was from the screen and I had no notes, no outline, just what was running through my head. There are no edits in the piece. That truly was where my head was at yesterday morning.
If you noticed I didn’t post it immediately and might not have at all if someone didn’t request it. I tend not to show so clearly what I mean when I say that I was in a bad headspace or spent some time in the dark corners of my soul. For someone who has spent nearly four years exposing himself (from a writing perspective, get your minds out of the gutter) to anyone in the world who wanted to drop by I hide an awful lot. I don’t want people to know about my insecurities and the thoughts that keep me up at night. I fear that it will change their impression of me. I spend so much time cultivating an image of a guy who is always on the ball, always in control that to show that in a lot of ways I’m not is scary. Though it does show that I am a human being after all.
Do I dwell on stuff like this a lot? Not really. I’ve come to an understanding that yes, people will make fun of me to improve their own self-esteem. I’ll never have a reason why even in business school people would yell at me “Why do you have to be so smart?” as if I was doing something wrong. I never go up to someone and complain “Why are you so social?” or “Why do you always get to talk to the girl? How about letting me have a chance?” I’d be laughed at for that but apparently my main skill is ripe for abuse. But I can deal with it since no matter what anyone says I have heard worse (and most likely from myself, which is a huge issue I’ll address some other time.) But recently I have been getting more and more upset when I see others being picked on. I’ve realized that life is not easy for anyone and I can’t stand people who are intentionally making someone else’s life worse even if it is as a momentary joke. It just seems mean. We’re all struggling out here, why go out of your way to make it tougher for someone?
(Yes, I know that most of what I write is ripping on celebrities. Just remember, they are celebrities and not, you know, people.)
There are a lot of reasons why I was in that mood on Saturday but one of the big ones is this realization of the stressful position I have found myself in. Now I have talked about how much I enjoy having total freedom right now but there is a big counter to it. I do have this realization in the back of my mind that I am about to turn 35 with no wife, no kids, no job, an apartment whose lease is coming due, and no clear plan for the future. That scares the ever living shit out of me. I never planned to be in this position. I always assumed that I would have one of those things on that list by now. I know that I have a family that loves me, friends that support me, people who care about me no matter how stupid I am from time to time and enough skill to accomplish whatever I set my mind to but to be facing such a blank slate is frightening. I think that Saturday morning it hit me and I used that story to best explain that feeling of momentary helplessness. That the universe itself seems to be out to get me.
But the one nice thing about that feeling is that it goes away. It’s not fun when I go into the dark corners of my soul but I always come out stronger for it. View it like weightlifting; you have to hurt the muscle to improve. I’m feeling better about myself now than I did a few days ago. When I go to bed tonight I will know that I have a car full of gas, a fridge full of groceries, all of my clothes washed and put away, a clean apartment, and a day of wonder ahead of me. I’ll wake up at 7 tomorrow, get out of bed, take a shower, put on pants (yes, I will wear pants), make breakfast and take on the day. Because there is nothing I like more than proving to myself that I really am something after all.
Best of 120 Minutes: I’ve been trying to think of a song that I would have blared when I was in these moods in college. This will work. Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Jeff Buckley “Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk”
2) Rhett Miller “The Believer”
3) Josh Ritter “The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter”
4) The Shins “Wincing the Night Away”
5) Various Artists “Soundtrack to the movie Garden State”
I dreamt that I was back at my parents’ house. Apparently they had cleared out the crawlspace and came across some old stuff of mine. I started digging through it and was thrilled to find this old basketball game I had as a kid. (It was kind of like Strat-O-Matic where you got to replay entire seasons with real players by using cards and I kept meticulous stats and ran tournaments and everything). But while digging through the box I came across this remnant of an old cartoon of the day desk calendar. It looked like a Dilbert collection drawn by The Far Side’s Gary Larson. It was showing December 23, and it looked like it was from the early 90’s. Here is what the top cartoon read.
Panel 1: A Dilbertish guy is sitting in this vast contraption with a lot of levers and doohickeys and a big wheel behind him. It is clearly a time machine based on the fact that there is a sign on the front of it that reads “time machine”. Dilbertish guy is just looking straight ahead with no expression on his face.
Panel 2: Just smoke and sparks and bolts of lightning with the word “POOF” in the middle. Obviously the word poof can only indicate time travel.
Panel 3: The exact same image as the first panel. Line for line, same vacant expression as before except that now above his head there is a word bubble that reads simply “I’m lonely.”
Think about it. I couldn’t think of something that amazing while awake. I’m jealous of my own subconscious.
Ok, on to what I wrote yesterday and some further explanations. I knew it would get a reaction and even my personal astrologer chimed in. Here is my horoscope that was texted to me this morning:
“You’re better than they are. You want to escape from mediocrity. Stop listening to echoes of sadder days. Take a fresh, optimistic outlook.”
(When I say she is my personal astrologer I am not kidding. I actually know Kelli. She did my chart as part of a project in my old job. Why I gave up a job where conference calls with astrologers were regular occurrences still confuses me.)
In a way, what amazes me most about what I wrote is how coherent it was. I was going on four hours sleep, maybe, and just got out of bed, walked to my office and sat down at the laptop and wrote it. The only light was from the screen and I had no notes, no outline, just what was running through my head. There are no edits in the piece. That truly was where my head was at yesterday morning.
If you noticed I didn’t post it immediately and might not have at all if someone didn’t request it. I tend not to show so clearly what I mean when I say that I was in a bad headspace or spent some time in the dark corners of my soul. For someone who has spent nearly four years exposing himself (from a writing perspective, get your minds out of the gutter) to anyone in the world who wanted to drop by I hide an awful lot. I don’t want people to know about my insecurities and the thoughts that keep me up at night. I fear that it will change their impression of me. I spend so much time cultivating an image of a guy who is always on the ball, always in control that to show that in a lot of ways I’m not is scary. Though it does show that I am a human being after all.
Do I dwell on stuff like this a lot? Not really. I’ve come to an understanding that yes, people will make fun of me to improve their own self-esteem. I’ll never have a reason why even in business school people would yell at me “Why do you have to be so smart?” as if I was doing something wrong. I never go up to someone and complain “Why are you so social?” or “Why do you always get to talk to the girl? How about letting me have a chance?” I’d be laughed at for that but apparently my main skill is ripe for abuse. But I can deal with it since no matter what anyone says I have heard worse (and most likely from myself, which is a huge issue I’ll address some other time.) But recently I have been getting more and more upset when I see others being picked on. I’ve realized that life is not easy for anyone and I can’t stand people who are intentionally making someone else’s life worse even if it is as a momentary joke. It just seems mean. We’re all struggling out here, why go out of your way to make it tougher for someone?
(Yes, I know that most of what I write is ripping on celebrities. Just remember, they are celebrities and not, you know, people.)
There are a lot of reasons why I was in that mood on Saturday but one of the big ones is this realization of the stressful position I have found myself in. Now I have talked about how much I enjoy having total freedom right now but there is a big counter to it. I do have this realization in the back of my mind that I am about to turn 35 with no wife, no kids, no job, an apartment whose lease is coming due, and no clear plan for the future. That scares the ever living shit out of me. I never planned to be in this position. I always assumed that I would have one of those things on that list by now. I know that I have a family that loves me, friends that support me, people who care about me no matter how stupid I am from time to time and enough skill to accomplish whatever I set my mind to but to be facing such a blank slate is frightening. I think that Saturday morning it hit me and I used that story to best explain that feeling of momentary helplessness. That the universe itself seems to be out to get me.
But the one nice thing about that feeling is that it goes away. It’s not fun when I go into the dark corners of my soul but I always come out stronger for it. View it like weightlifting; you have to hurt the muscle to improve. I’m feeling better about myself now than I did a few days ago. When I go to bed tonight I will know that I have a car full of gas, a fridge full of groceries, all of my clothes washed and put away, a clean apartment, and a day of wonder ahead of me. I’ll wake up at 7 tomorrow, get out of bed, take a shower, put on pants (yes, I will wear pants), make breakfast and take on the day. Because there is nothing I like more than proving to myself that I really am something after all.
Best of 120 Minutes: I’ve been trying to think of a song that I would have blared when I was in these moods in college. This will work. Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Jeff Buckley “Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk”
2) Rhett Miller “The Believer”
3) Josh Ritter “The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter”
4) The Shins “Wincing the Night Away”
5) Various Artists “Soundtrack to the movie Garden State”
Saturday, April 12, 2008
What causes a thick skin...
[Author's Note: I woke up at 6 this morning with this essay running through my brain. At 6:30 I realized that the only way I was going to sleep was by writing it and getting it off my mind. I wish my mind wouldn't go off into so many dark corners on a Saturday morning but that is just part of who I am. In a better mood now, thanks to the people who know they are responsible for it, but I'm still listening to every Josh Rouse CD I own until I lift the gray from my own eyes. And find the Josh Rouse song I sang to myself last night before I fell asleep that I have an unnerving feeling doesn't actually exist. Here we go.]
(I may have told this story in the past. If I did it was probably for a different purpose. But right now I really need to use it to explain a certain aspect of my personality that not too many people know about.)
I’ve written before about being picked on and beat up as a kid and along with everything else that falls under the 75% rule most people wonder just what part of that is true. For the record, I’ve never been in a fight in my entire life. I’ve been pretty lucky in that regard. I come from a big family so I always had numbers on my side while growing up. I also figured out early on that by being funny you can defuse most situations before someone starts throwing punches at you. Fear of getting beat up helped to form my self-deprecating brand of humor. I realized that if I called myself a geek and a nerd, played up my own awkwardness, that I could avoid confrontation. Who wants to beat up someone who is already beating up themselves? What is there to gain from it?
So while I was never given a black eye by a playground bully I have been picked on for pretty much forever. It goes with the territory. I happen to be an extremely intelligent gawky guy with glasses and slightly inadequate social skills. Those qualities tend to bring insults along with them. I’ve never quite understood why. I could never comprehend why people would fault me for wanting to learn things and viewing the classroom as my playing field. But it is apparently fine to make fun of someone for knowing the presidents over being able to throw a tight spiral. For the most part when I talk about being picked on I’m not referring to that. What I am usually referring to are moments like the following, which still ranks as the worst moment of my life.
I was probably fifteen at the time. Puberty was not kind to me. It still isn’t given the fact that I might still be going through it. Basically all of my gawkiness and awkwardness was emphasized as I tried to figure out how to deal with a six foot one frame and these weird things called emotions. I remember that I was happy when this story started. Don’t know why but I was feeling good about myself. It wasn’t a rare occurrence but it was always nice to leave the house thinking that I was doing things right for a change.
I left the house to go return a movie at the video store. It was just a couple blocks so I walked there in my usual blissful ignorance. Walking down the street I saw these two girls sitting at a bus stop and I gave them no notice. Didn’t know who they were, hadn’t seen them in my entire life. As I approached them they started yelling at me, “Hey faggot. What the fuck are you doing faggot? Where are you going faggot?”
(I remember being taken back by the insult. Last time I checked I wasn’t gay so I was really confused by it. That and the fact that having your manhood questioned at fifteen is not enjoyable in the least.)
Remember that I hadn’t spoken a word to these girls. I was just walking down the street with a few movies in my hand. The only crime that I had committed was my very existence. Yet these girls insulted me as I walked towards them and as I walked past them. I was nearly two blocks away and I could still hear them yelling at me. I got to the video store, returned the movies, looked around for a little bit and hoped that the bus system was working that day. I left and decided to cross the street early in an attempt to avoid confrontation.
Didn’t work. They were still there and still calling me a faggot and wondering why I crossed the street. I walked home silently, just listening to them rip on me in every way imaginable. I didn’t say a word the entire time. I just took the abuse. It was the worst feeling I have had in my entire life. I just wanted to crawl under a rock and die.
This story bothers me to this day. It literally was more than half a lifetime ago and I still hate thinking about it. I was a few blocks from my home, one of those places where you should always feel safe, and I felt like I was going to be attacked for nothing more than just existing. Like my very presence made people just out and out hate me. Hate is really the right word for this. That is what I encountered that day.
As a result of this (and other instances like kids throwing rocks at me when I walked home from school when I was seven) I am really, really sensitive to being picked on. I simply can’t stand it. Seeing it brings up all of these emotions in me and I go to a very bad place mentally. Now that I’m an adult I realized that if people start insulting me I can just get up and leave. I’ve done it on occasion with people thinking I can’t take a joke. They don’t realize that insulting what I’ve accomplished in my life is an unforgivable sin in my eyes. But I also feel the same way when I see other people being made fun of. It kills me to see people I like treated badly. It makes me just want to tell everyone to go to hell if they don’t want to be a compassionate human being for once in their existence.
Of course I don’t actually say that. The politeness gene in me is too strong for that. Instead I just stew there silently, hating myself for not being brave enough to speak what is on my mind. For all of my visions of being the gallant white knight in this world, fighting for honor and integrity and chivalry, I sure do a sucky job of it.
I wish I wasn’t like this. I wish I could take good natured jokes for what they are instead of viewing everything as a personal affront. I wish I could just relax around people, take down the masks and the walls and not worry what people think. To live life without being afraid of getting hurt. It’s caused me to cocoon myself much more than I would like. It’s easier for me to hide behind a façade, to live life from behind a computer screen because that way people can’t get to me as easily. It is not the person that I feel that I am and certainly not the person that I want to be.
So when I say that I was picked on as a kid this is what I am referring to. It’s having people who never accomplished anything close to what you have done hate you for simply existing. And it’s why sometimes it seems like I can’t take a joke. Because for as long as I live I will never let anyone make me feel that way again.
(I may have told this story in the past. If I did it was probably for a different purpose. But right now I really need to use it to explain a certain aspect of my personality that not too many people know about.)
I’ve written before about being picked on and beat up as a kid and along with everything else that falls under the 75% rule most people wonder just what part of that is true. For the record, I’ve never been in a fight in my entire life. I’ve been pretty lucky in that regard. I come from a big family so I always had numbers on my side while growing up. I also figured out early on that by being funny you can defuse most situations before someone starts throwing punches at you. Fear of getting beat up helped to form my self-deprecating brand of humor. I realized that if I called myself a geek and a nerd, played up my own awkwardness, that I could avoid confrontation. Who wants to beat up someone who is already beating up themselves? What is there to gain from it?
So while I was never given a black eye by a playground bully I have been picked on for pretty much forever. It goes with the territory. I happen to be an extremely intelligent gawky guy with glasses and slightly inadequate social skills. Those qualities tend to bring insults along with them. I’ve never quite understood why. I could never comprehend why people would fault me for wanting to learn things and viewing the classroom as my playing field. But it is apparently fine to make fun of someone for knowing the presidents over being able to throw a tight spiral. For the most part when I talk about being picked on I’m not referring to that. What I am usually referring to are moments like the following, which still ranks as the worst moment of my life.
I was probably fifteen at the time. Puberty was not kind to me. It still isn’t given the fact that I might still be going through it. Basically all of my gawkiness and awkwardness was emphasized as I tried to figure out how to deal with a six foot one frame and these weird things called emotions. I remember that I was happy when this story started. Don’t know why but I was feeling good about myself. It wasn’t a rare occurrence but it was always nice to leave the house thinking that I was doing things right for a change.
I left the house to go return a movie at the video store. It was just a couple blocks so I walked there in my usual blissful ignorance. Walking down the street I saw these two girls sitting at a bus stop and I gave them no notice. Didn’t know who they were, hadn’t seen them in my entire life. As I approached them they started yelling at me, “Hey faggot. What the fuck are you doing faggot? Where are you going faggot?”
(I remember being taken back by the insult. Last time I checked I wasn’t gay so I was really confused by it. That and the fact that having your manhood questioned at fifteen is not enjoyable in the least.)
Remember that I hadn’t spoken a word to these girls. I was just walking down the street with a few movies in my hand. The only crime that I had committed was my very existence. Yet these girls insulted me as I walked towards them and as I walked past them. I was nearly two blocks away and I could still hear them yelling at me. I got to the video store, returned the movies, looked around for a little bit and hoped that the bus system was working that day. I left and decided to cross the street early in an attempt to avoid confrontation.
Didn’t work. They were still there and still calling me a faggot and wondering why I crossed the street. I walked home silently, just listening to them rip on me in every way imaginable. I didn’t say a word the entire time. I just took the abuse. It was the worst feeling I have had in my entire life. I just wanted to crawl under a rock and die.
This story bothers me to this day. It literally was more than half a lifetime ago and I still hate thinking about it. I was a few blocks from my home, one of those places where you should always feel safe, and I felt like I was going to be attacked for nothing more than just existing. Like my very presence made people just out and out hate me. Hate is really the right word for this. That is what I encountered that day.
As a result of this (and other instances like kids throwing rocks at me when I walked home from school when I was seven) I am really, really sensitive to being picked on. I simply can’t stand it. Seeing it brings up all of these emotions in me and I go to a very bad place mentally. Now that I’m an adult I realized that if people start insulting me I can just get up and leave. I’ve done it on occasion with people thinking I can’t take a joke. They don’t realize that insulting what I’ve accomplished in my life is an unforgivable sin in my eyes. But I also feel the same way when I see other people being made fun of. It kills me to see people I like treated badly. It makes me just want to tell everyone to go to hell if they don’t want to be a compassionate human being for once in their existence.
Of course I don’t actually say that. The politeness gene in me is too strong for that. Instead I just stew there silently, hating myself for not being brave enough to speak what is on my mind. For all of my visions of being the gallant white knight in this world, fighting for honor and integrity and chivalry, I sure do a sucky job of it.
I wish I wasn’t like this. I wish I could take good natured jokes for what they are instead of viewing everything as a personal affront. I wish I could just relax around people, take down the masks and the walls and not worry what people think. To live life without being afraid of getting hurt. It’s caused me to cocoon myself much more than I would like. It’s easier for me to hide behind a façade, to live life from behind a computer screen because that way people can’t get to me as easily. It is not the person that I feel that I am and certainly not the person that I want to be.
So when I say that I was picked on as a kid this is what I am referring to. It’s having people who never accomplished anything close to what you have done hate you for simply existing. And it’s why sometimes it seems like I can’t take a joke. Because for as long as I live I will never let anyone make me feel that way again.
Friday, April 11, 2008
An airport terminal and a blank ticket
About five years ago, the last time when I embarked on a momentary vagabond lifestyle, a friend called me in the middle of the night and we had the following conversation.
Friend: “So how is Kansas City?”
EC (still trying to wake up): “I’m not in Kansas City.”
Friend: “So where are you?”
EC (looking blankly around the room): “Good question. Where the hell am I?”
I really meant it. I had spent the past several weeks bouncing around the country and was never in the same city for more than two days. In my stupor I woke up without being able to name what state I was in and it took a while to realize that I was crashing at my parents’ house for the time being. I was that far out of it. Even though I know where I am physically right now, hanging out in the home office in front of a Snoopy calendar, I’ve been thinking about the question recently in the metaphorical sense. Once again, I find myself with no idea where the hell I am.
For some reason I’ve recently started to refer to myself as being 35 even though I still have five months to go before I hit that milestone. It just sounds better. It shows that I am in my mid-thirties and that a mid-life crisis is perfectly reasonable especially given the way that I live. But while I don’t consider myself to be in a mid-life crisis just yet (haven’t bought the sports car, dyed my hair blonde or paid the 22 year old to be my girlfriend) I am a bit adrift in my life right now. So I’m hoping that writing about it will help.
I’ve been not working for two weeks now, the longest period of time I have had off since finishing grad school and prior to that only a few trips to Europe kept me out of the office for that long. Strangely, and I have to admit frighteningly, over the past two weeks I have done absolutely nothing in an attempt to find a new job. Now I am still being paid so it’s not like I’m running the risk of being homeless soon but I have simply had no desire to send out resumes. My brain just wants to rest and I kind of want to enjoy the moments that I am currently having.
I didn’t really expect this. I always assumed that I would immediately be going through job hunt checklists and filling out spreadsheets worth of data in order to obtain the perfect job. Except that I have realized that I don’t know what the perfect job for me is any more. Though most people didn’t understand it I didn’t attend business school (and I certainly didn’t leave it) with the intention of being the high flying corporate hot shot. There was something about that lifestyle that always left me cold. It’s too political, too smarmy, too unconnected with the actual business to appeal to me. I went to school to change careers and to find some fun new adventures for me. They would pay well and my photographic memory and ability to add quickly would insure my success but I didn’t have many aspirations beyond that.
That leaves me where I am right now, which is wondering what my next goal is. I don’t know if I want to make one last charge up the corporate ladder. If I don’t like 60 hour weeks now I doubt they will become more fulfilling as I get older. My ability to handle idiots has not improved as much as I would have liked. But more than anything I don’t want to work in a job where I feel like I need to take a shower when I leave any more. I want to do something that actually has meaning. Maybe it is working for a clean energy startup or finally breaking down and working for a non-profit like I had always promised. I just want those 8 to 10 hours of my day to have the meaning that they have been missing in recent years. I’m just wondering how to find it.
The other big realization that has been hitting me is that it is rather silly to hope to have your job provide you with all of your fulfillment. It’s important or otherwise I’ve just wasted everyone’s time for a few paragraphs and I apologize for that but it’s not the entire story. Since I’ve had some time away from the pressure of the office and the drab cubicles and what was a rather oppressive atmosphere I keep on finding parts of myself that I actually enjoy again. I’m having a blast getting to sit down and write for a change. I’m amazed that people want to read this much less tell me that I have actually talent. Writing has always been one of my secret passions; one that I kind of doubted most people would ever notice. Now I’m wondering if I can really have a go at this.
Being away from the office has let me be myself for once and I’ve forgotten how nice a feeling that can be. I no longer have to wear a mask in order to protect myself from some far off performance review. I can just be me and since I am floating out here with minimal attachments I have reached that wonderful point of not caring. I can hang out with friends and not worry about what might happen next. Whatever happens will happen and I’ll make the best of it. I’m no longer freaking over every word, every inflection, every action that might change someone’s opinion of me. I’m just stepping out there as myself, warts and all. (Ok, no warts. How about glasses, slight beer belly and all? That’s more accurate.) And you know what? I’m meeting people and having a lot more fun now than I have had in years. Makes me wonder what would have happened if I said screw it years ago.
I still have no idea where I am in life or where I am going. I think every part of my life from job to profession to location to the big overhanging question of my life is up for grabs right now. For the moment I’ve decided to see where the current takes me. I’ve battled it for long enough; I could use a little rest.
Friend: “So how is Kansas City?”
EC (still trying to wake up): “I’m not in Kansas City.”
Friend: “So where are you?”
EC (looking blankly around the room): “Good question. Where the hell am I?”
I really meant it. I had spent the past several weeks bouncing around the country and was never in the same city for more than two days. In my stupor I woke up without being able to name what state I was in and it took a while to realize that I was crashing at my parents’ house for the time being. I was that far out of it. Even though I know where I am physically right now, hanging out in the home office in front of a Snoopy calendar, I’ve been thinking about the question recently in the metaphorical sense. Once again, I find myself with no idea where the hell I am.
For some reason I’ve recently started to refer to myself as being 35 even though I still have five months to go before I hit that milestone. It just sounds better. It shows that I am in my mid-thirties and that a mid-life crisis is perfectly reasonable especially given the way that I live. But while I don’t consider myself to be in a mid-life crisis just yet (haven’t bought the sports car, dyed my hair blonde or paid the 22 year old to be my girlfriend) I am a bit adrift in my life right now. So I’m hoping that writing about it will help.
I’ve been not working for two weeks now, the longest period of time I have had off since finishing grad school and prior to that only a few trips to Europe kept me out of the office for that long. Strangely, and I have to admit frighteningly, over the past two weeks I have done absolutely nothing in an attempt to find a new job. Now I am still being paid so it’s not like I’m running the risk of being homeless soon but I have simply had no desire to send out resumes. My brain just wants to rest and I kind of want to enjoy the moments that I am currently having.
I didn’t really expect this. I always assumed that I would immediately be going through job hunt checklists and filling out spreadsheets worth of data in order to obtain the perfect job. Except that I have realized that I don’t know what the perfect job for me is any more. Though most people didn’t understand it I didn’t attend business school (and I certainly didn’t leave it) with the intention of being the high flying corporate hot shot. There was something about that lifestyle that always left me cold. It’s too political, too smarmy, too unconnected with the actual business to appeal to me. I went to school to change careers and to find some fun new adventures for me. They would pay well and my photographic memory and ability to add quickly would insure my success but I didn’t have many aspirations beyond that.
That leaves me where I am right now, which is wondering what my next goal is. I don’t know if I want to make one last charge up the corporate ladder. If I don’t like 60 hour weeks now I doubt they will become more fulfilling as I get older. My ability to handle idiots has not improved as much as I would have liked. But more than anything I don’t want to work in a job where I feel like I need to take a shower when I leave any more. I want to do something that actually has meaning. Maybe it is working for a clean energy startup or finally breaking down and working for a non-profit like I had always promised. I just want those 8 to 10 hours of my day to have the meaning that they have been missing in recent years. I’m just wondering how to find it.
The other big realization that has been hitting me is that it is rather silly to hope to have your job provide you with all of your fulfillment. It’s important or otherwise I’ve just wasted everyone’s time for a few paragraphs and I apologize for that but it’s not the entire story. Since I’ve had some time away from the pressure of the office and the drab cubicles and what was a rather oppressive atmosphere I keep on finding parts of myself that I actually enjoy again. I’m having a blast getting to sit down and write for a change. I’m amazed that people want to read this much less tell me that I have actually talent. Writing has always been one of my secret passions; one that I kind of doubted most people would ever notice. Now I’m wondering if I can really have a go at this.
Being away from the office has let me be myself for once and I’ve forgotten how nice a feeling that can be. I no longer have to wear a mask in order to protect myself from some far off performance review. I can just be me and since I am floating out here with minimal attachments I have reached that wonderful point of not caring. I can hang out with friends and not worry about what might happen next. Whatever happens will happen and I’ll make the best of it. I’m no longer freaking over every word, every inflection, every action that might change someone’s opinion of me. I’m just stepping out there as myself, warts and all. (Ok, no warts. How about glasses, slight beer belly and all? That’s more accurate.) And you know what? I’m meeting people and having a lot more fun now than I have had in years. Makes me wonder what would have happened if I said screw it years ago.
I still have no idea where I am in life or where I am going. I think every part of my life from job to profession to location to the big overhanging question of my life is up for grabs right now. For the moment I’ve decided to see where the current takes me. I’ve battled it for long enough; I could use a little rest.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
What's on My Bookshelf? Besides, uh, you know...
Today has been one of those days that I have feared ever since I left my job. Slept in, putzed around for a bit, watched my tape of Top Chef, grabbed some fast food for lunch, fell asleep on the couch while watching A History of Britain, and just accomplishing nothing all day. If it wasn’t for some text messages I a) would still be on the couch and b) would have had zero fun today. Still, in an effort to try to kick start the rest of my day and stop feeling so lazy I’m going to write early tonight and fulfill the request of listing my ten favorite books of all time.
Again, these are my favorite books and not necessarily the best books I’ve ever read. So I won’t list James Joyce because it did take me ten years to finish Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It’s genius and painful at the same time. Also, I’m not going to try to rank order these because it would be like choosing your favorite Star Wars action figure. How can you choose between the awesomeness of Boba Fett and a Darth Vader complete with lightsaber? Here is the list.
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams: I was probably nine when I first read this book. I still pick it up regularly. Of everything that I have read this book has had more influence on me in terms of writing style and sense of humor than anything else. So much of the cadence of my writing, the use of footnotes and parentheticals and combining philosophy with humor are all based on the hours I spent with this book and its subsequent sequels. This along with Monty Python is the basis of my sense of humor. The plot is threadbare, the characters don’t have incredible depth, but how can you question a book that features the following exchange…
“It’s at times like this I wish I had listened to what my mother always told me.”
“Why? What did she say?”
“I don’t know! I never listened!”
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Well, duh. Look at the URL, the name of the blog, the last line of my profile and you can tell that I have a thing for Fitzgerald. Simply put this is the great American novel. Nothing can touch it in terms of symbolism and meaning. The green light on the dock, voices being full of money, the fading eyes of God, catching time in your hands, I could go on forever about the brilliance of this book. One day, when I really become Gatsby, I’ll get to recreate the scene of tossing expensive shirts in the air to show that I have arrived. I’ll probably then be shot by a jealous husband but such is life.
“Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut: One of those books that I enjoy on numerous levels. It turned the entire idea of a novel on its head for me in terms of structure and the mixing of fact and fiction and breaking the fourth wall. A war chronicle that expresses the sheer pointlessness of war without ever turning preachy. Strange in that the book comes out and tells you what it is and how it is going to end and yet you follow Billy Pilgrim on the path hoping for a change. For as much as I love the book I think I failed every essay I wrote about it. As someone who has a hard time keeping verb tense straight normally books about time travel are really difficult to write about.
“A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters” by Julian Barnes: It begins with the story of stowaways on Noah’s Ark. It ends with a vision of heaven. In between it takes side trips into art and history, love and war, and all of the issues that make us human (good and bad both). I’m still not sure what caused me to pick up the book, I had heard about Julian Barnes and there is a photo on the cover that I like, but it has quickly become my favorite book that no one else knows of. Find a copy, you won’t be disappointed.
“The Sandman” by Neil Gaiman: It’s not a comic book! It’s a graphic novel! More accurately, I’m considering the entire series of 75 issues along with the two follow up books and the Death limited editions. For those who don’t spend time in comic book stores, it is the story of Morpheus: Dream of the Endless. Brother of Death and Destiny, Desire and Despair, and Delirium who was born Delight. Dream is literally that, he is the embodiment of dreams. Not a god because he is older than gods. The series itself deals with Dream’s escape from captivity and dealing with the question of how does one change and accept responsibility at the same time. Neil created the greatest mythology I have ever seen in doing this story. Every part makes sense and is unique and fascinating. Even when Shakespeare makes his appearance it makes perfect sense. If you’ve wondered what people mean when they talk about graphic novels this is where you should start.
“Life After God” by Douglas Coupland: This is my guilty pleasure selection. It is not a good book. Critics hate it with its pithy sayings and drawings and just meandering stuff. Heck, I probably enjoyed reading “jPod” and “Microserfs” more and would recommend those over this. But I just love this book. I like the idea that the only things that separate us from animals are smoking, body building and writing. Of a fortune teller with a sign that reads “I’m not going to tell you that you are going to die.” For some reason this book holds a lot of meaning for me. Not sure why but it just does.
“White Apples” by Jonathan Carroll: It is insanely difficult for me to pick a favorite Jonathan Carroll book. If I have a top ten list he has to make the list but I have to struggle over which one to pick. “Bones of the Moon” has a character lost in her own dreams, “Sleeping in Flame” makes you rethink fairy tales and “After Silence” still has the best opening two thirds of a novel that I have ever read. If you are interested in speculative fiction, stories that take place in this world but explain what happens beneath the shadows, this is someone you must read. He is horribly out of print but is so worth the effort to find. Why did I choose “White Apples”? Because a few years back while reading it I dreamt that I was the male lead and someone in my life, who shall remain nameless, was the female lead. In the dream we acted out the first fifty pages of the novel, scene for scene, word for word. Find another book that will make you do that.
“My Legendary Girlfriend” by Mike Gayle: When I get my novel going (and the fact that it isn’t is a reason why I am currently bemoaning my laziness) it will probably resemble Mike Gayle’s work. He writes what can only be described as a male version of Bridget Jones with the added bonus of being British. When I found myself in England last year I was scouring bookstores trying to find his latest work that hasn’t even been published in the states. It’s not high brow literature but he does a great job of explaining what it is like to be a guy in his late twenties / early thirties. This book addresses what it is like to be completely unable to get over an old girlfriend. Years after she had broken up with you, even though she has moved on with her life, she still has power over you. Great book even if my life went to hell after reading it (and in this instance it very well could have been the book’s fault.)
“Assassination Vacation” by Sarah Vowell: I wanted to make sure that I included one non-fiction / memoir type book on here and I like Sarah Vowell’s work more than Chuck Klosterman’s or David Sedaris. She just has a wonderful voice (both as one of The Incredibles and as a writer) that is a pleasure to read. The book is about her traveling to the sites of presidential assassinations and learning the history behind the people and events. It sounds sick and macabre but it makes for a fascinating read. You actually learn something at the end of the day as well, which is rare.
“Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare: Look, I can’t make a favorite list without including Shakespeare in there somewhere. His work is only pure genius after all. While I can (and one day will) write doctoral essays about the characters in “Hamlet” it is a bit of a downer of a play. Everyone dies including Ophelia (whose tragic flaw was that she loved Hamlet) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (whose tragic flaw was, well, they were there.) For just pure enjoyment though I will go with Beatrice and Benedict sparring in Much Ado. Those pages and scenes just show how wonderful words can be when they are used properly.
Have a great weekend everyone. Per a request I may be stopping in and making a post or two over the weekend. Hey, I have to keep my fan(s) happy. Especially when I am apparently good at it. Go Irish.
Again, these are my favorite books and not necessarily the best books I’ve ever read. So I won’t list James Joyce because it did take me ten years to finish Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It’s genius and painful at the same time. Also, I’m not going to try to rank order these because it would be like choosing your favorite Star Wars action figure. How can you choose between the awesomeness of Boba Fett and a Darth Vader complete with lightsaber? Here is the list.
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams: I was probably nine when I first read this book. I still pick it up regularly. Of everything that I have read this book has had more influence on me in terms of writing style and sense of humor than anything else. So much of the cadence of my writing, the use of footnotes and parentheticals and combining philosophy with humor are all based on the hours I spent with this book and its subsequent sequels. This along with Monty Python is the basis of my sense of humor. The plot is threadbare, the characters don’t have incredible depth, but how can you question a book that features the following exchange…
“It’s at times like this I wish I had listened to what my mother always told me.”
“Why? What did she say?”
“I don’t know! I never listened!”
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Well, duh. Look at the URL, the name of the blog, the last line of my profile and you can tell that I have a thing for Fitzgerald. Simply put this is the great American novel. Nothing can touch it in terms of symbolism and meaning. The green light on the dock, voices being full of money, the fading eyes of God, catching time in your hands, I could go on forever about the brilliance of this book. One day, when I really become Gatsby, I’ll get to recreate the scene of tossing expensive shirts in the air to show that I have arrived. I’ll probably then be shot by a jealous husband but such is life.
“Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut: One of those books that I enjoy on numerous levels. It turned the entire idea of a novel on its head for me in terms of structure and the mixing of fact and fiction and breaking the fourth wall. A war chronicle that expresses the sheer pointlessness of war without ever turning preachy. Strange in that the book comes out and tells you what it is and how it is going to end and yet you follow Billy Pilgrim on the path hoping for a change. For as much as I love the book I think I failed every essay I wrote about it. As someone who has a hard time keeping verb tense straight normally books about time travel are really difficult to write about.
“A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters” by Julian Barnes: It begins with the story of stowaways on Noah’s Ark. It ends with a vision of heaven. In between it takes side trips into art and history, love and war, and all of the issues that make us human (good and bad both). I’m still not sure what caused me to pick up the book, I had heard about Julian Barnes and there is a photo on the cover that I like, but it has quickly become my favorite book that no one else knows of. Find a copy, you won’t be disappointed.
“The Sandman” by Neil Gaiman: It’s not a comic book! It’s a graphic novel! More accurately, I’m considering the entire series of 75 issues along with the two follow up books and the Death limited editions. For those who don’t spend time in comic book stores, it is the story of Morpheus: Dream of the Endless. Brother of Death and Destiny, Desire and Despair, and Delirium who was born Delight. Dream is literally that, he is the embodiment of dreams. Not a god because he is older than gods. The series itself deals with Dream’s escape from captivity and dealing with the question of how does one change and accept responsibility at the same time. Neil created the greatest mythology I have ever seen in doing this story. Every part makes sense and is unique and fascinating. Even when Shakespeare makes his appearance it makes perfect sense. If you’ve wondered what people mean when they talk about graphic novels this is where you should start.
“Life After God” by Douglas Coupland: This is my guilty pleasure selection. It is not a good book. Critics hate it with its pithy sayings and drawings and just meandering stuff. Heck, I probably enjoyed reading “jPod” and “Microserfs” more and would recommend those over this. But I just love this book. I like the idea that the only things that separate us from animals are smoking, body building and writing. Of a fortune teller with a sign that reads “I’m not going to tell you that you are going to die.” For some reason this book holds a lot of meaning for me. Not sure why but it just does.
“White Apples” by Jonathan Carroll: It is insanely difficult for me to pick a favorite Jonathan Carroll book. If I have a top ten list he has to make the list but I have to struggle over which one to pick. “Bones of the Moon” has a character lost in her own dreams, “Sleeping in Flame” makes you rethink fairy tales and “After Silence” still has the best opening two thirds of a novel that I have ever read. If you are interested in speculative fiction, stories that take place in this world but explain what happens beneath the shadows, this is someone you must read. He is horribly out of print but is so worth the effort to find. Why did I choose “White Apples”? Because a few years back while reading it I dreamt that I was the male lead and someone in my life, who shall remain nameless, was the female lead. In the dream we acted out the first fifty pages of the novel, scene for scene, word for word. Find another book that will make you do that.
“My Legendary Girlfriend” by Mike Gayle: When I get my novel going (and the fact that it isn’t is a reason why I am currently bemoaning my laziness) it will probably resemble Mike Gayle’s work. He writes what can only be described as a male version of Bridget Jones with the added bonus of being British. When I found myself in England last year I was scouring bookstores trying to find his latest work that hasn’t even been published in the states. It’s not high brow literature but he does a great job of explaining what it is like to be a guy in his late twenties / early thirties. This book addresses what it is like to be completely unable to get over an old girlfriend. Years after she had broken up with you, even though she has moved on with her life, she still has power over you. Great book even if my life went to hell after reading it (and in this instance it very well could have been the book’s fault.)
“Assassination Vacation” by Sarah Vowell: I wanted to make sure that I included one non-fiction / memoir type book on here and I like Sarah Vowell’s work more than Chuck Klosterman’s or David Sedaris. She just has a wonderful voice (both as one of The Incredibles and as a writer) that is a pleasure to read. The book is about her traveling to the sites of presidential assassinations and learning the history behind the people and events. It sounds sick and macabre but it makes for a fascinating read. You actually learn something at the end of the day as well, which is rare.
“Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare: Look, I can’t make a favorite list without including Shakespeare in there somewhere. His work is only pure genius after all. While I can (and one day will) write doctoral essays about the characters in “Hamlet” it is a bit of a downer of a play. Everyone dies including Ophelia (whose tragic flaw was that she loved Hamlet) and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (whose tragic flaw was, well, they were there.) For just pure enjoyment though I will go with Beatrice and Benedict sparring in Much Ado. Those pages and scenes just show how wonderful words can be when they are used properly.
Have a great weekend everyone. Per a request I may be stopping in and making a post or two over the weekend. Hey, I have to keep my fan(s) happy. Especially when I am apparently good at it. Go Irish.
What's on America's Bookshelf? Besides porn, of course...
So the Harris group just ran a poll to determine what America’s favorite book is. Now let’s remember a few things before we dig into the poll here. We are talking favorite as opposed to best. This means that there might be a Schindler’s List effect here in that Schindler’s List might be the best movie you have ever seen I doubt that too many people would consider it their favorite. It’s just not a film that you pop in on a rainy Saturday because you are bored. So a book like Ulysses probably won’t make the cut. Also, this is a survey of Americans and sadly we are not a very high brow nation. The fact that a collection of Jeff Foxworthy redneck jokes did not make the cut is rather surprising. We are a nation that felt that sticking a Garfield doll to our car window was some sort of fashion statement. With this in mind, let’s go through the top ten and see just how bad it is this year.
#10: “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger: A surprisingly good choice to start off the top ten. It’s the classic book of teen rebellion that parents in Johnson County wanted to ban because it involves swearing and prostitutes. It also has poetry written on a baseball glove, which is one of my favorite literary images of all time. I’ve read it and enjoyed it but I don’t know if I would consider it one of my favorites. Maybe by the time that I had read it the book had collapsed under the weight of its own genius. It’s tough to read a book with an open mind when you know going into it that the story inspired someone to murder John Lennon. Still, absolutely no issues with this being on the list.
#9: “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand: Every time they do one of these polls for best books or favorite books Ayn Rand always makes the list. It’s amazing just how long her popularity has last especially given the fact that she is one of the worst authors I have ever read. I’m not questioning her philosophy, which is quite good in parts and definitely something that everyone should examine at a minimum. But my God this woman has less understanding of plot and character than I do. Now I haven’t read this one but I did read “The Fountainhead” and outside of some great discussions around architecture I found it to be one of the most depressing books I have ever read. Every character hated themselves and when one character is introduced halfway through the novel in a suicidal state my reaction as a reader was “Go ahead and kill yourself or at least run off to Florida. Trust me, it is a better fate than being stuck in a novel with all these depressing characters.” Sadly, the guy chose three hundred pages of torments over a vacation.
#8: “Angels and Demons” by Dan Brown: Sigh. Ok, I have read this book. I spend a lot of time in airports so I am required by law to read Dan Brown novels. Let’s be honest, they could just call this book “Scooby Doo Goes to the Vatican” and it would be just as accurate. Yes, it is a great page turner and it hits upon just enough of the mysterious goings on behind closed doors to catch your attention. So did Leonard Nimoy on In Search Of but that doesn’t make it one of the best books ever. It’s a beach read with a love story that seems to have been stapled on in an attempt to make the future movie and easy sell. Oh and apparently to become pope you also have to be trained as a fighter pilot. I missed that one in school.
#7: “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I was completely let down by the lack of hunting scenes in this book. I also am embarrassed to say that until last year I had never read this book. For someone who considers themselves to be as well read as I do that seems like an awfully big gap. I don’t think anyone can question this choice. Maybe its popularity is driven by the fact that it is required reading in many schools (though not mine apparently) but it is simply a twentieth century American classic. A story about race and society and standing up for your beliefs that never turns too preachy. Score one for the American reading public.
#6: “The DaVinci Code” by Dan Brown: Yeah, we might want to take that point away. I’ll admit it. I own this book in hardcover. I picked it up before the craze hit and actually recommended it to people based on how it uses the Mary symbolism and the role of the feminine in the church. But once again it is a Scooby Doo story. A wonderful page turning one that will keep you up late at night to see what happens next but it is not literature. It is not even very good theology. And once again we find a woman falling madly in love for the hero despite the fact that her father had been brutally murdered less than twenty four hours ago. Funny how that always happens. Yes, I can understand how this makes the favorite list but it doesn’t mean that I have to be happy about it.
#5: “The Stand” by Stephen King: Of all the Stephen King books one could list I am happy that this is the one to make the cut. I think from a story and symbolism perspective it is the best he has ever written and it has retained its power over the years. Interestingly though when I reread parts of it a few years back (it’s the type of book you can read in bits and pieces when you are bored) I wasn’t really that impressed by how it was written. Just something about the language and the fact that there seemed to be so much superfluous stuff going on. Maybe it was just because I was reading the expanded version but it does seem to be stuck in that horrible point of having too many brilliant ideas. That said, the section discussing those last few days when society collapses are some of my favorites. Oh and Molly Ringwald was in the mini-series. It’s my favorite book for that alone.
#4: “Harry Potter” by J.K. Rowling: I’m kind of stunned that this only ranks fourth. I would think that with all of the hoopla over the past few years that this would definitely be one of the top two. I’ve written about Harry Potter before so I’ll just try to sum up here. As a children’s story it is a wonderful series and I get to talk with my niece about the books (she’s up to the fourth one and wonders why I continually say that Neville is my favorite character). As literature it leaves something to be desired. Some of the later books could use some editing, some of the earlier books could use some expanding (or at least a rewrite) but at the end of the day she did create a mythology out of whole cloth. I’m not too ashamed that I’ve read these books as an adult. I’m more ashamed about the DaVinci Code.
#3: “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien: I am going to state something here that absolutely no one will believe. I have never read these books. I have never seen the films, either. I know I know, I am someone who owns several twenty sided dice. I have answered to the title of Dungeon Master. I once bought a t-shirt that read “I’m not Chaotic Good, I’m Chaotic Great!” But for some reason when I tried to read the Hobbit as a kid it bored me to tears and I put it down after a hundred pages. Same thing happened with The Fellowship of the Ring. I don’t get it. I will now hand in my geek badge as I am apparently not worth my salt in this regard.
#2: “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell: I’m pretty sure most people here are referencing the movie and not the book. As opposed to every other one on the list I really doubt that a ton of people have read this one. I’m not sure if I have ever witnessed anyone actually reading it. Maybe I’m just a part of the wrong book clubs or something. Did Oprah feature it? That could explain it. Another case where I haven’t read the book or seen the movie. I think I can live a full life without reading the book. I should see the movie if just to shore up my cinema bona fides. This is the one book on the entire list that actually surprises me. I just don’t see it as being popular.
#1: The Bible by Various Authors: It is the book that has everything. Sex! Violence! Redemption! Discussion of what types of locusts are edible! Long lists of genealogical history that seem to hold no real purpose! This is where the cynical and spiritual side of me really clash. The cynic asks how many people really read the bible and of those who do how many really understand it at a theological or artistic level. On the other hand, I can’t fault anyone who would list this as their favorite book. If it gives them meaning in life, if it helps them get through the day to day struggle that is existence, then who can blame them? So no complaints as long as people read and think. You do have to do both.
Wednesday Night Music Club: I want to be sure to end this on an upbeat note. I was trying to think of what music always makes me smile and The Ditty Bops are at the top of the list. Here they are as they started their cross country musical bicycle tour. Still the coolest thing I’ve ever gotten to see.
#10: “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger: A surprisingly good choice to start off the top ten. It’s the classic book of teen rebellion that parents in Johnson County wanted to ban because it involves swearing and prostitutes. It also has poetry written on a baseball glove, which is one of my favorite literary images of all time. I’ve read it and enjoyed it but I don’t know if I would consider it one of my favorites. Maybe by the time that I had read it the book had collapsed under the weight of its own genius. It’s tough to read a book with an open mind when you know going into it that the story inspired someone to murder John Lennon. Still, absolutely no issues with this being on the list.
#9: “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand: Every time they do one of these polls for best books or favorite books Ayn Rand always makes the list. It’s amazing just how long her popularity has last especially given the fact that she is one of the worst authors I have ever read. I’m not questioning her philosophy, which is quite good in parts and definitely something that everyone should examine at a minimum. But my God this woman has less understanding of plot and character than I do. Now I haven’t read this one but I did read “The Fountainhead” and outside of some great discussions around architecture I found it to be one of the most depressing books I have ever read. Every character hated themselves and when one character is introduced halfway through the novel in a suicidal state my reaction as a reader was “Go ahead and kill yourself or at least run off to Florida. Trust me, it is a better fate than being stuck in a novel with all these depressing characters.” Sadly, the guy chose three hundred pages of torments over a vacation.
#8: “Angels and Demons” by Dan Brown: Sigh. Ok, I have read this book. I spend a lot of time in airports so I am required by law to read Dan Brown novels. Let’s be honest, they could just call this book “Scooby Doo Goes to the Vatican” and it would be just as accurate. Yes, it is a great page turner and it hits upon just enough of the mysterious goings on behind closed doors to catch your attention. So did Leonard Nimoy on In Search Of but that doesn’t make it one of the best books ever. It’s a beach read with a love story that seems to have been stapled on in an attempt to make the future movie and easy sell. Oh and apparently to become pope you also have to be trained as a fighter pilot. I missed that one in school.
#7: “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I was completely let down by the lack of hunting scenes in this book. I also am embarrassed to say that until last year I had never read this book. For someone who considers themselves to be as well read as I do that seems like an awfully big gap. I don’t think anyone can question this choice. Maybe its popularity is driven by the fact that it is required reading in many schools (though not mine apparently) but it is simply a twentieth century American classic. A story about race and society and standing up for your beliefs that never turns too preachy. Score one for the American reading public.
#6: “The DaVinci Code” by Dan Brown: Yeah, we might want to take that point away. I’ll admit it. I own this book in hardcover. I picked it up before the craze hit and actually recommended it to people based on how it uses the Mary symbolism and the role of the feminine in the church. But once again it is a Scooby Doo story. A wonderful page turning one that will keep you up late at night to see what happens next but it is not literature. It is not even very good theology. And once again we find a woman falling madly in love for the hero despite the fact that her father had been brutally murdered less than twenty four hours ago. Funny how that always happens. Yes, I can understand how this makes the favorite list but it doesn’t mean that I have to be happy about it.
#5: “The Stand” by Stephen King: Of all the Stephen King books one could list I am happy that this is the one to make the cut. I think from a story and symbolism perspective it is the best he has ever written and it has retained its power over the years. Interestingly though when I reread parts of it a few years back (it’s the type of book you can read in bits and pieces when you are bored) I wasn’t really that impressed by how it was written. Just something about the language and the fact that there seemed to be so much superfluous stuff going on. Maybe it was just because I was reading the expanded version but it does seem to be stuck in that horrible point of having too many brilliant ideas. That said, the section discussing those last few days when society collapses are some of my favorites. Oh and Molly Ringwald was in the mini-series. It’s my favorite book for that alone.
#4: “Harry Potter” by J.K. Rowling: I’m kind of stunned that this only ranks fourth. I would think that with all of the hoopla over the past few years that this would definitely be one of the top two. I’ve written about Harry Potter before so I’ll just try to sum up here. As a children’s story it is a wonderful series and I get to talk with my niece about the books (she’s up to the fourth one and wonders why I continually say that Neville is my favorite character). As literature it leaves something to be desired. Some of the later books could use some editing, some of the earlier books could use some expanding (or at least a rewrite) but at the end of the day she did create a mythology out of whole cloth. I’m not too ashamed that I’ve read these books as an adult. I’m more ashamed about the DaVinci Code.
#3: “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien: I am going to state something here that absolutely no one will believe. I have never read these books. I have never seen the films, either. I know I know, I am someone who owns several twenty sided dice. I have answered to the title of Dungeon Master. I once bought a t-shirt that read “I’m not Chaotic Good, I’m Chaotic Great!” But for some reason when I tried to read the Hobbit as a kid it bored me to tears and I put it down after a hundred pages. Same thing happened with The Fellowship of the Ring. I don’t get it. I will now hand in my geek badge as I am apparently not worth my salt in this regard.
#2: “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell: I’m pretty sure most people here are referencing the movie and not the book. As opposed to every other one on the list I really doubt that a ton of people have read this one. I’m not sure if I have ever witnessed anyone actually reading it. Maybe I’m just a part of the wrong book clubs or something. Did Oprah feature it? That could explain it. Another case where I haven’t read the book or seen the movie. I think I can live a full life without reading the book. I should see the movie if just to shore up my cinema bona fides. This is the one book on the entire list that actually surprises me. I just don’t see it as being popular.
#1: The Bible by Various Authors: It is the book that has everything. Sex! Violence! Redemption! Discussion of what types of locusts are edible! Long lists of genealogical history that seem to hold no real purpose! This is where the cynical and spiritual side of me really clash. The cynic asks how many people really read the bible and of those who do how many really understand it at a theological or artistic level. On the other hand, I can’t fault anyone who would list this as their favorite book. If it gives them meaning in life, if it helps them get through the day to day struggle that is existence, then who can blame them? So no complaints as long as people read and think. You do have to do both.
Wednesday Night Music Club: I want to be sure to end this on an upbeat note. I was trying to think of what music always makes me smile and The Ditty Bops are at the top of the list. Here they are as they started their cross country musical bicycle tour. Still the coolest thing I’ve ever gotten to see.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
My reality just slightly tops reality TV
As I am now unemployed, I find myself undertaking various tasks that are fitting to my current situation. Such as going out on a Monday night and then spending Tuesday wandering around in a fog until making macaroni and cheese for lunch sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea. We’re not talking about any fancy recipe mac and cheese here. We’re talking Kraft, fluorescent orange, mac and cheese. I didn’t even spring for the dinosaur shaped noodles. I keep it old school.
What is interesting is the amazingly detailed directions you find on the box. Not only do they tell you to boil water but they actually show you specifically what level to set the burner to. I find that very useful as I tend to view the kitchen the same as viewed my chemistry labs in college. I don’t want to be there, I have an unnerving sense that if I make a mistake I might end up in the hospital, and the only reason I’m going through with this is some misplaced opinion that it will one day impress a woman. Hence, when they tell me to use six cups of water I am measuring out exactly six cups of water. I use a stopwatch for cooking times. Kraft thankfully provides me with these important details as I settle down to cook (or at least make) mac and cheese. This is possibly because they made the instructions to be understood by a nine year old as opposed to someone with multiple degrees. Sometimes I’m amazed that I’ve made it this far on my own.
Next step on the unemployment express, getting me one of those General Grievous motorcycles as mentioned in the comments. Have to love any vehicle that takes the inherent instability of a motorcycle and ups it by essentially turning it into a motorized unicycle. It seems to be an awfully dangerous form of transportation for someone whose heart is exposed in a plastic container outside of his robotic body (wow, that is a metaphor for myself that I haven’t used yet.) Apparently the empire cut funding to their engineering schools because their designs are awfully flawed. Maybe they should consider outsourcing.
Switching gears, I did watch a bit of The Biggest Loser tonight. I couldn’t watch all of it mainly because I have gotten rather bored of watching grown men cry over how much weight that they’ve lost. I’ve never quite understood this aspect of reality shows. Every time someone is voted off there is a tearful goodbye to the point that you think that the contestant is going to be given the Old Yeller treatment as soon as they go off screen. When in reality they are going back home for a few blissful days of not being recorded every moment of every day. Sure, I understand why the losing contestant is crying because they could have won money if they stayed. But it’s not like the other contestants are never going to see him again.
Oh, and while flipping around the dial yesterday I found proof that by the end of the year everyone will be on television. Coming soon on Animal Planet “Groomer Has It”. Hosted by Jai, the culture guy from Queer Eye, this show features twelve dog groomers in competition to prove who has the top dog grooming skills. With elimination challenges and drama and intrigue and villains and what the hell am I writing here? It’s a show about people who cut dogs’ hair! A species that has existed for thousands of years without ever needing any additional grooming. At least on Top Chef I watch people cook and I do technically have to eat. The dog will just shed in summer. Yeah, it’s horrible for the carpet but at least it is not the basis of a game show. And people wonder why I’m so cynical.
What is interesting is the amazingly detailed directions you find on the box. Not only do they tell you to boil water but they actually show you specifically what level to set the burner to. I find that very useful as I tend to view the kitchen the same as viewed my chemistry labs in college. I don’t want to be there, I have an unnerving sense that if I make a mistake I might end up in the hospital, and the only reason I’m going through with this is some misplaced opinion that it will one day impress a woman. Hence, when they tell me to use six cups of water I am measuring out exactly six cups of water. I use a stopwatch for cooking times. Kraft thankfully provides me with these important details as I settle down to cook (or at least make) mac and cheese. This is possibly because they made the instructions to be understood by a nine year old as opposed to someone with multiple degrees. Sometimes I’m amazed that I’ve made it this far on my own.
Next step on the unemployment express, getting me one of those General Grievous motorcycles as mentioned in the comments. Have to love any vehicle that takes the inherent instability of a motorcycle and ups it by essentially turning it into a motorized unicycle. It seems to be an awfully dangerous form of transportation for someone whose heart is exposed in a plastic container outside of his robotic body (wow, that is a metaphor for myself that I haven’t used yet.) Apparently the empire cut funding to their engineering schools because their designs are awfully flawed. Maybe they should consider outsourcing.
Switching gears, I did watch a bit of The Biggest Loser tonight. I couldn’t watch all of it mainly because I have gotten rather bored of watching grown men cry over how much weight that they’ve lost. I’ve never quite understood this aspect of reality shows. Every time someone is voted off there is a tearful goodbye to the point that you think that the contestant is going to be given the Old Yeller treatment as soon as they go off screen. When in reality they are going back home for a few blissful days of not being recorded every moment of every day. Sure, I understand why the losing contestant is crying because they could have won money if they stayed. But it’s not like the other contestants are never going to see him again.
Oh, and while flipping around the dial yesterday I found proof that by the end of the year everyone will be on television. Coming soon on Animal Planet “Groomer Has It”. Hosted by Jai, the culture guy from Queer Eye, this show features twelve dog groomers in competition to prove who has the top dog grooming skills. With elimination challenges and drama and intrigue and villains and what the hell am I writing here? It’s a show about people who cut dogs’ hair! A species that has existed for thousands of years without ever needing any additional grooming. At least on Top Chef I watch people cook and I do technically have to eat. The dog will just shed in summer. Yeah, it’s horrible for the carpet but at least it is not the basis of a game show. And people wonder why I’m so cynical.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Congrats to those in the Sunflower State
Sigh. I know I know. I’ve made a living, or at least as much of a living as one can make on a blog with no revenue stream, making fun of Kansas in general. But tonight I have to congratulate the Kansas Jayhawks and most valuable player Supernintendo Chalmers for winning the national championship tonight. I have to give them credit. A team that I constantly deride for folding and choking whenever things get tough made an amazing comeback. They didn’t give up, they made a huge steal when they needed it and they went for the kill in overtime. Congrats to all of those partying on Mass. Street and elsewhere tonight.
(I still stand by my belief that Bill Self is a toupee wearing traitor. I am an Illini after all. But I think I even like him more than Calapari, who makes me feel like I need to take a shower after just watching him coach.)
As opposed to writing a review of the game, which you’ll probably find elsewhere on the web written by people who actually took notes other than Chris Douglas-Roberts really should have just stayed with his maiden name, I have two commercials that I saw that I need to discuss. The first was I believe for Degree anti-preprint. This ad features our hero using degree before he rushes off to a futuristic business meeting. One that requires a jet pack and numerous technological advances to meet with his boss which is apparently a liquid metal robot. A robot who uses thousands of years of scientific advancement to determine whether or not he is sweating when he enters the room.
I have two issues with this ad. First off, what would the robot care if he was sweating or not? Does he have some incredible olfactory sensors built in to his design? Why would a robot be programmed to be incredibly sensitive to the point of being offended by biological based faux pas? That seems like a major waste of code. Secondly, if we are now at the point where we have jetpacks and liquid metal robots wouldn’t you think that we would be able to also invent some decent videoconferencing capabilities? Why in the world is this guy in such a hurry for a face to liquid metal construct meeting? Just set up a webcam. It would save a lot of effort.
The other was a Miller Lite ad for beer heaven. Obviously I am someone who has spent a lot of time dreaming of a beer heaven. Many nights have been spent at the end of the bar wondering just what a place would be like. They were right on many aspects. The beer that automatically moves from the bartenders hand to your own. The stool with your own name on it that turns into a recliner. Those I both dream of. However, the bartender was a dude, which wasn’t quite the way I envisioned it. While it was nice that the waitress didn’t shatter the bottles when she dropped them when she picked them up she didn’t turn to the guy and tell him to stop by after closing. And most importantly, it seemed like you were only able to order Miller Lite. Now I do drink Miller Lite, it is my default beer of choice when I really don’t care what I am drinking, but I would hope to have other options in beer heaven. A keg of Boulevard Wheat. The occasional Guinness. A Pilsner Urquell always at the ready. That is my idea of heaven.
Speaking of that, I am rather confident that there is a large party going on down the block from me right now. I’ve been ordered out drinking so that others can live vicariously through me. Good enough reason for me.
(I still stand by my belief that Bill Self is a toupee wearing traitor. I am an Illini after all. But I think I even like him more than Calapari, who makes me feel like I need to take a shower after just watching him coach.)
As opposed to writing a review of the game, which you’ll probably find elsewhere on the web written by people who actually took notes other than Chris Douglas-Roberts really should have just stayed with his maiden name, I have two commercials that I saw that I need to discuss. The first was I believe for Degree anti-preprint. This ad features our hero using degree before he rushes off to a futuristic business meeting. One that requires a jet pack and numerous technological advances to meet with his boss which is apparently a liquid metal robot. A robot who uses thousands of years of scientific advancement to determine whether or not he is sweating when he enters the room.
I have two issues with this ad. First off, what would the robot care if he was sweating or not? Does he have some incredible olfactory sensors built in to his design? Why would a robot be programmed to be incredibly sensitive to the point of being offended by biological based faux pas? That seems like a major waste of code. Secondly, if we are now at the point where we have jetpacks and liquid metal robots wouldn’t you think that we would be able to also invent some decent videoconferencing capabilities? Why in the world is this guy in such a hurry for a face to liquid metal construct meeting? Just set up a webcam. It would save a lot of effort.
The other was a Miller Lite ad for beer heaven. Obviously I am someone who has spent a lot of time dreaming of a beer heaven. Many nights have been spent at the end of the bar wondering just what a place would be like. They were right on many aspects. The beer that automatically moves from the bartenders hand to your own. The stool with your own name on it that turns into a recliner. Those I both dream of. However, the bartender was a dude, which wasn’t quite the way I envisioned it. While it was nice that the waitress didn’t shatter the bottles when she dropped them when she picked them up she didn’t turn to the guy and tell him to stop by after closing. And most importantly, it seemed like you were only able to order Miller Lite. Now I do drink Miller Lite, it is my default beer of choice when I really don’t care what I am drinking, but I would hope to have other options in beer heaven. A keg of Boulevard Wheat. The occasional Guinness. A Pilsner Urquell always at the ready. That is my idea of heaven.
Speaking of that, I am rather confident that there is a large party going on down the block from me right now. I’ve been ordered out drinking so that others can live vicariously through me. Good enough reason for me.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
What follows dreams...
(Some people would be concerned at someone declaring themselves to be their stalker. Me? I appreciate the attention.)
Sometimes the pleasures that technology take from us our the simplest kind. Such as spending a lazy Sunday morning reading the comics section. It’s not something that I do anymore and I don’t know many people who do. I no longer read a newspaper daily at least not a newsprint version. I just flick to the online version and besides I can’t bring myself to subscribe to the Kansas City Star. I prefer a newspaper that has a level of discourse above that of the typical Dick and Jane tome.
But my online reading has taken all of the fun away from reading the comics. The thrill you had as a kid of lying on the floor with the paper stretched out before you. Going through all of your favorites and those lesser strips you read just to have the moment last just a little longer. I don’t know if I ever laughed at Heathcliff or Marmaduke but I read them all the same. Now I’m lucky if I click on the latest Doonesbury or Dilbert. That sense of wonder is gone. I don’t think it is because I am older now. I think it is because I just don’t have that magical piece of paper flicking across my fingertips anymore.
I mention all of this because I just finished reading the new Charles Schulz biography and it made me think about all the time I’ve spent with the Peanuts characters. I’m an unabashed fan, a proud owner of a Snoopy painting and if I ever break down and get a tattoo it will probably be of Snoopy in full World War I flying gear. The strip was just a cornerstone of my life. People referred to me as a Linus. I read it daily and badgered my parents into keeping their Tribune subscription so I could always see it.
That’s what makes reading about Schulz interesting and a little off putting. He was just not what you would call a happy person. Depressed isn’t the right word because if that was the case he would never have gotten out of bed, never been able to create art day in and day out. More like he was continually ill at ease. Based on the biography you could tell that he was phobic and anxiety ridden. He was never sure if he was loved, never understood the attention and never thought that he was good enough. Reading the book it seemed like he was the ultimate guy who could never figure out how to stop and smell the flowers.
For some reason this makes me think of a story I heard about the Apollo astronauts. Years later a reporter went to interview the twelve men who had walked on the moon and found that they all had significant issues on their return. One went off to find Noah’s Ark. Neil Armstrong disappeared into seclusion on his farm. Basically they all came to the realization that they had walked on the moon. What else in their lives was ever going to compare to that moment? I think Charles Schulz found himself in the same position. What happens when you achieve your dream? Where in the world do you go from there.
I’ve been thinking about my dreams a lot lately. I live my life in terms of five year plans and my five years are nearly up. Some dreams I will fall short on and others I will accomplish. The big thing for me right now is to solidify my new dreams and new goals. Find that passion inside me for the next cycle of my life. How do I deal with achieving my dreams? I find new ones. It’s the only way I know how to keep moving forward.
Best of 120 Minutes: Sometimes in life all that matters is a name. A name like Toad the Wet Sprocket. Immortality can be so easy to obtain if you have a cool name.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Tift Merritt “Another Country”
2) The Ditty Bops “The Ditty Bops”
3) Amy Farris “Anyway”
4) Sting “Ten Summoner’s Tales”
5) Kathleen Edwards “Asking for Flowers”
Sometimes the pleasures that technology take from us our the simplest kind. Such as spending a lazy Sunday morning reading the comics section. It’s not something that I do anymore and I don’t know many people who do. I no longer read a newspaper daily at least not a newsprint version. I just flick to the online version and besides I can’t bring myself to subscribe to the Kansas City Star. I prefer a newspaper that has a level of discourse above that of the typical Dick and Jane tome.
But my online reading has taken all of the fun away from reading the comics. The thrill you had as a kid of lying on the floor with the paper stretched out before you. Going through all of your favorites and those lesser strips you read just to have the moment last just a little longer. I don’t know if I ever laughed at Heathcliff or Marmaduke but I read them all the same. Now I’m lucky if I click on the latest Doonesbury or Dilbert. That sense of wonder is gone. I don’t think it is because I am older now. I think it is because I just don’t have that magical piece of paper flicking across my fingertips anymore.
I mention all of this because I just finished reading the new Charles Schulz biography and it made me think about all the time I’ve spent with the Peanuts characters. I’m an unabashed fan, a proud owner of a Snoopy painting and if I ever break down and get a tattoo it will probably be of Snoopy in full World War I flying gear. The strip was just a cornerstone of my life. People referred to me as a Linus. I read it daily and badgered my parents into keeping their Tribune subscription so I could always see it.
That’s what makes reading about Schulz interesting and a little off putting. He was just not what you would call a happy person. Depressed isn’t the right word because if that was the case he would never have gotten out of bed, never been able to create art day in and day out. More like he was continually ill at ease. Based on the biography you could tell that he was phobic and anxiety ridden. He was never sure if he was loved, never understood the attention and never thought that he was good enough. Reading the book it seemed like he was the ultimate guy who could never figure out how to stop and smell the flowers.
For some reason this makes me think of a story I heard about the Apollo astronauts. Years later a reporter went to interview the twelve men who had walked on the moon and found that they all had significant issues on their return. One went off to find Noah’s Ark. Neil Armstrong disappeared into seclusion on his farm. Basically they all came to the realization that they had walked on the moon. What else in their lives was ever going to compare to that moment? I think Charles Schulz found himself in the same position. What happens when you achieve your dream? Where in the world do you go from there.
I’ve been thinking about my dreams a lot lately. I live my life in terms of five year plans and my five years are nearly up. Some dreams I will fall short on and others I will accomplish. The big thing for me right now is to solidify my new dreams and new goals. Find that passion inside me for the next cycle of my life. How do I deal with achieving my dreams? I find new ones. It’s the only way I know how to keep moving forward.
Best of 120 Minutes: Sometimes in life all that matters is a name. A name like Toad the Wet Sprocket. Immortality can be so easy to obtain if you have a cool name.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Tift Merritt “Another Country”
2) The Ditty Bops “The Ditty Bops”
3) Amy Farris “Anyway”
4) Sting “Ten Summoner’s Tales”
5) Kathleen Edwards “Asking for Flowers”
Friday, April 04, 2008
Your life in words
Here is what I like about seeing hockey highlights on television. On the box scores you get to see lines like “Satan shot on goal”. It makes for a much more interesting sports recap knowing that the devil himself laced up the skates tonight but was still only held to one shot. He needs a lot more help on the wings.
Played trivia tonight and did not have one of my better performances. I’ll be lazy and blame the categories as opposed to any lack of knowledge on my part. I’m just not going to be able to contribute much when a quarter of the game is devoted to Grey’s Anatomy and Name the Royals Player Based on their Picture. Heck, I only knew two of the Mortal Kombat characters because I only played that game once in my life. Now if it was Virtua Fighter I would have run the darn thing. Screw fatalities, I want to play the game where I can master drunken Kung Fu.
It’s incredibly late right now so I’ll finish off just by writing about something interesting I’ve discovered over the past few days. Ok, discovered is not the right word but I’ve now seen firsthand the effects of it. I’m nearing the ten year anniversary of starting my writer’s journal which later morphed into the blog so I’ve been going through my old entries. It’s also been part of my novel research because I wanted to tap into certain parts of my past to tell the story.
What I’ve found by going through these entries is that I have documented entire swaths of my life. Events that I had completely forgotten were all there written in my bad grammar and stream of consciousness style. There were entire conversations that I recapped that now strike me as fascinating. I could even point to my first recollections of meeting someone and all that has happened since that moment. It is really amazing to have such a record of your life.
But the strange thing is that once the blog started what I wrote about has changed. The writer’s journal was always meant to be just for me (and my future biographers. Can’t forget them.) It didn’t have an audience. It was just my attempt at cataloguing my life in a way to clear out some of the thoughts in my head. As a result it was straightforward and truthful even if in some cases there were stories I didn’t tell because I didn’t want a record of them. And while the blog is truthful (at least within the 75% rule) my subject matter has really changed. I no longer write about myself in the same way. It’s not just that entire posts revolve around My Beloved Lindsay. I tend to write much less about the people in my life.
It’s mainly a case of what I would like to share to the whole world. I hide parts of myself. Not very well but I do hide them. Some people would probably be less than pleased to discover that I am writing about them and posting it online. Plus, I have a horrible feeling that if I would ever write about something good happening in my life I would jinx it and it would go south immediately. So the blog has taken on more of a resemblance to a daily newspaper column than a personal journal.
In some ways that is good. It’s more enjoyable for others to read and I am a lot funnier this way. Plus, sometimes my life is so boring even I don’t want to read about it and I doubt many people are that interested in the ups and downs and more downs and so far down that you come out the other side of my romantic life. But I miss not having a record of it. When I look back at the past couple of years I won’t be able to point to a passage and go “See, this is what I thought the moment I met you.” Maybe what I’ll write will become a little more personal (especially now that I don’t have the spectre of a company blogging policy hanging over me.) Maybe I’ll just write more pieces that are only for my eyes. But I’d like to find a way to keep a record of my real life.
Enjoy the weekend everyone. Go to hell Carolina. I’m not cheering for Kansas, I’m cheering against Carolina.
Played trivia tonight and did not have one of my better performances. I’ll be lazy and blame the categories as opposed to any lack of knowledge on my part. I’m just not going to be able to contribute much when a quarter of the game is devoted to Grey’s Anatomy and Name the Royals Player Based on their Picture. Heck, I only knew two of the Mortal Kombat characters because I only played that game once in my life. Now if it was Virtua Fighter I would have run the darn thing. Screw fatalities, I want to play the game where I can master drunken Kung Fu.
It’s incredibly late right now so I’ll finish off just by writing about something interesting I’ve discovered over the past few days. Ok, discovered is not the right word but I’ve now seen firsthand the effects of it. I’m nearing the ten year anniversary of starting my writer’s journal which later morphed into the blog so I’ve been going through my old entries. It’s also been part of my novel research because I wanted to tap into certain parts of my past to tell the story.
What I’ve found by going through these entries is that I have documented entire swaths of my life. Events that I had completely forgotten were all there written in my bad grammar and stream of consciousness style. There were entire conversations that I recapped that now strike me as fascinating. I could even point to my first recollections of meeting someone and all that has happened since that moment. It is really amazing to have such a record of your life.
But the strange thing is that once the blog started what I wrote about has changed. The writer’s journal was always meant to be just for me (and my future biographers. Can’t forget them.) It didn’t have an audience. It was just my attempt at cataloguing my life in a way to clear out some of the thoughts in my head. As a result it was straightforward and truthful even if in some cases there were stories I didn’t tell because I didn’t want a record of them. And while the blog is truthful (at least within the 75% rule) my subject matter has really changed. I no longer write about myself in the same way. It’s not just that entire posts revolve around My Beloved Lindsay. I tend to write much less about the people in my life.
It’s mainly a case of what I would like to share to the whole world. I hide parts of myself. Not very well but I do hide them. Some people would probably be less than pleased to discover that I am writing about them and posting it online. Plus, I have a horrible feeling that if I would ever write about something good happening in my life I would jinx it and it would go south immediately. So the blog has taken on more of a resemblance to a daily newspaper column than a personal journal.
In some ways that is good. It’s more enjoyable for others to read and I am a lot funnier this way. Plus, sometimes my life is so boring even I don’t want to read about it and I doubt many people are that interested in the ups and downs and more downs and so far down that you come out the other side of my romantic life. But I miss not having a record of it. When I look back at the past couple of years I won’t be able to point to a passage and go “See, this is what I thought the moment I met you.” Maybe what I’ll write will become a little more personal (especially now that I don’t have the spectre of a company blogging policy hanging over me.) Maybe I’ll just write more pieces that are only for my eyes. But I’d like to find a way to keep a record of my real life.
Enjoy the weekend everyone. Go to hell Carolina. I’m not cheering for Kansas, I’m cheering against Carolina.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
I'm not trying to be a hippie...
Just a whole bunch of random stuff tonight…
Point # 1: I just got back from the Spoon concert. I don’t know if this was because of Spoon or because of the Uptown but some part of this show was sponsored by Camel cigarettes. As in there were big Camel logos everywhere, between sets large video screens portrayed a running film discussing the cool, crisp taste of a Camel, and as I left I walked past a glass case that contained what can only be described as spinning tobacco leaves. The end result of all this? I really wanted a cigarette and the Uptown is no smoking. I don’t know if it was either very effective advertising or an April Fools prank that they left up overnight.
Show was pretty good. Loud and packed, which is what I needed tonight. I did however take my usual space in front of the soundboard with my back firmly on the guardrail. At least this way I know that no one is going to be running into me from behind. That and I can keep my eyes on the dumb dancing guys in front of me.
Point # 2: For those who were in the pool, I received my first message from my old job requesting assistance at 8:21 this morning. So it took just slightly more than two days for things to fall to pieces in my absence. I’m kind of surprised that it took that long. I’m surprised that the lights are even working without me there.
(Why yes, I am often referred to as an arrogant prick. Why do you ask?)
Point # 3: I’ve had a couple of people ask me what my first few days of unemployment have been like. The good news is that I have been motivated enough every morning to put on pants. That might not sound like much but trust me, going into this I was really wondering if I was entering a pants free phase of my life and that wouldn’t be enjoyable for anyone. I really haven’t started the job search yet (wanted at least a moment to catch my breath) but I can’t say that I have been totally unproductive. The apartment is clean and organized and I even started scanning in some old photos. At least I don’t spend the day half asleep on my couch wondering what is going to be on Oprah today.
Mainly what I’ve been doing is slowly outlining my novel and editing some of the old stories. Foodie has been kind enough to make sure that I get out of my apartment and writing, a feat that she probably deserves a medal for. The good news is that I am nearing something almost resembling a novel outline. I at least know what happens in the first couple of chapters though I need to settle in on some characters still. Hope is to have the outline done this week and start writing in earnest next week.
Oh and for some reason I walked around Westport yesterday wearing a fake mustache. Sadly, that is the only time in my life I will ever have a mustache (damn you puberty! Finish up already!) There are pictures but I believe the holder of them will retain them for future blackmail purposes.
Wednesday Night Music Club: An actual upbeat song in the music club for once. Not my typical fare to be sure. First, I just like Gomez and I don’t think I’ve ever included one of their songs. Second, any opinions on whether I should get glasses like the guy in the video? I don’t know if I could look cool in them or if I would just be unbelievably dorky in them. Finally, and this actually has nothing to do with the video, yes I know I need a haircut. I’m getting one this weekend. I figured not having to go into the office would allow me to last one extra week without a haircut. Hence the uncontrollable mop of hair on top of my head right now.
Point # 1: I just got back from the Spoon concert. I don’t know if this was because of Spoon or because of the Uptown but some part of this show was sponsored by Camel cigarettes. As in there were big Camel logos everywhere, between sets large video screens portrayed a running film discussing the cool, crisp taste of a Camel, and as I left I walked past a glass case that contained what can only be described as spinning tobacco leaves. The end result of all this? I really wanted a cigarette and the Uptown is no smoking. I don’t know if it was either very effective advertising or an April Fools prank that they left up overnight.
Show was pretty good. Loud and packed, which is what I needed tonight. I did however take my usual space in front of the soundboard with my back firmly on the guardrail. At least this way I know that no one is going to be running into me from behind. That and I can keep my eyes on the dumb dancing guys in front of me.
Point # 2: For those who were in the pool, I received my first message from my old job requesting assistance at 8:21 this morning. So it took just slightly more than two days for things to fall to pieces in my absence. I’m kind of surprised that it took that long. I’m surprised that the lights are even working without me there.
(Why yes, I am often referred to as an arrogant prick. Why do you ask?)
Point # 3: I’ve had a couple of people ask me what my first few days of unemployment have been like. The good news is that I have been motivated enough every morning to put on pants. That might not sound like much but trust me, going into this I was really wondering if I was entering a pants free phase of my life and that wouldn’t be enjoyable for anyone. I really haven’t started the job search yet (wanted at least a moment to catch my breath) but I can’t say that I have been totally unproductive. The apartment is clean and organized and I even started scanning in some old photos. At least I don’t spend the day half asleep on my couch wondering what is going to be on Oprah today.
Mainly what I’ve been doing is slowly outlining my novel and editing some of the old stories. Foodie has been kind enough to make sure that I get out of my apartment and writing, a feat that she probably deserves a medal for. The good news is that I am nearing something almost resembling a novel outline. I at least know what happens in the first couple of chapters though I need to settle in on some characters still. Hope is to have the outline done this week and start writing in earnest next week.
Oh and for some reason I walked around Westport yesterday wearing a fake mustache. Sadly, that is the only time in my life I will ever have a mustache (damn you puberty! Finish up already!) There are pictures but I believe the holder of them will retain them for future blackmail purposes.
Wednesday Night Music Club: An actual upbeat song in the music club for once. Not my typical fare to be sure. First, I just like Gomez and I don’t think I’ve ever included one of their songs. Second, any opinions on whether I should get glasses like the guy in the video? I don’t know if I could look cool in them or if I would just be unbelievably dorky in them. Finally, and this actually has nothing to do with the video, yes I know I need a haircut. I’m getting one this weekend. I figured not having to go into the office would allow me to last one extra week without a haircut. Hence the uncontrollable mop of hair on top of my head right now.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
What defines a friend
Sometimes technology has a way of muddling things. Even if the goal is to simplify matters advancements always seem to create more issues than there were before. What is worse is that sometimes what makes us human, those events that cannot be broken down to bits and bytes, become victims of our own attempts at self-expression.Back when I started up my Facebook account it asked if I wanted to import my email address book in order to determine who my “friends” were. Like everyone else I went ahead and did so and I was glad to see the profiles of a number of my friends from school automatically listed on the page. It was wonderfully simple; one click and I was reconnected with friends around the world. But the very last profile shown made me pause.
It was the profile of a girl I saw a few times last fall and who, thanks to my rampant stupidity regarding picking up a dinner tab, I totally failed to hit it off with. Now I was looking at her picture and being asked if I wanted to make her my friend. It seemed like a totally bizarre and foreign question. I wouldn’t email her because I was pretty sure she wouldn’t respond. I wouldn’t call her because I was certain she wouldn’t answer. Yet it would have been perfectly reasonable if I sent her this request to be my “friend”.
That’s one of those things that bothers me about Facebook. It seems to belittle the concept of friends to the point where they seem to be one of those things you collect and stack in alphabetical order. I wanted her to be my friend but we weren’t and I didn’t want to use a faceless computer program to try to reconcile the distance. Like everyone else I end up with a collection of friends that consist of a mix of people who mean the world to me and people who I like hanging out with and a handful of people I vaguely know. They are all lumped into the same meaningless category. Friend might be just a word but it is a powerful one. It shouldn’t be made into a worthless platitude.
But let’s say she actually accepted my friend request. What would she know of me? A couple of witty status entries, a list of books I’ve read, a couple of favorite movies, nothing of any real significance. True, all of those items are a part of who I am but I don’t know if they show the full story. Seurat proved that you can paint a picture with only dots but at the end of the day you need distance and a hell of a lot of dots to gain the full image and even then it isn’t anywhere near seeing the same image with your own eyes. If all you knew of me was my Facebook profile (or maybe even the blog) I don’t think you could say that you actually knew me. All those things are just a handful of dots compared to the complex, contradicting, ever-changing picture of who I actually am.
What I fear is that people will start using Facebook and its ilk more and more as some sort of friend management system. A way to neatly compartmentalize all of those wildly inconsistent people who make up our lives. Keep everyone to quick soundbites and away from the deeper picture. And while I love everyone who messages me through Facebook and I will use it daily myself because it is wonderful to hear from everyone I just hope I don’t become dependent on only knowing the digital form of my friends. They are so much more than a collection of zeros and ones. We should always have a chance to remain analog.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)