On the eve of 2010 I'm sitting down the street from my new, very unfamiliar, place, enjoying a vanilla something or other, surfing the web compliments of a Coffee Bean. I hate being without the interweb at my beckon call. Three weeks to kill until work in New York begins and thanks to the holidays there is absolutely nothing going on so the three weeks will be killed with a big stack of unwatched movies, a big stack of unread books and a big stack of unwatched television shows. Looks like I'll finally get through the entirety of Twin Peaks.
Workout routine is going excellently and sleep has been plentiful and fitful, but at really odd hours. Somehow I seem to have gotten on east coast time already andsleep from 9pm to 3am every day. So weird. Last night I got on the treadmill for the first time since December 27th. On that miserable day I cramped up at thetwo mile mark and the final mile was excrutiating. Last night, four miles without breathing hard. Seems like the air is way better in Toluca Lake than in Northridge.
Sitting at a sidewalk table, surfing the net and people watching is good practice for New York. Its one of the things I miss most about the city. Normally there would be a friend sitting across the table to shoot the breeze with but they've all beeen left behind, doing their own things, minding the fort until I return for visits. Holding it down. Just had to jump off facebook because a girl I went to high school withwho's been stalking me ever since just started messaging me. Oh me, oh my, I graduated high school 15 years ago. Got to admire that kind of persistence. Apparently she lives in San Diego now and was all "You're so close! We should hang out!" Nope. I'm a big fan of kind-of-crazy, it keeps conversation interesting and thingsnever get boring. She's completely crazy, the not-so-fun kind.
A coworker friend of mine let slip the other day that he'd never seen The Life Aquatic so we took a two hour lunch break and watched it. His mind was suitably blown. It was probabaly the 300th time I've watched it and it still holds all the magic of that first viewing. There are very few movies that can keep me occupied like that. It is a masterpiece. Then he let slip that he'd never seen Eternal Sunshone of the Spotless Mind and I almost punched him. Its almost as though he's been living in a cave for the past decade.
I keep pushing back a trip to Vegas to visit a friend and its starting to get annoying. Seems like nothing can be just as simple as getting in the car and driving. Andnothing of any great weight has been crawling through this mind lately so those are the surface ramblings. Time to go back to the gym and cook some chicken and rice. Mmmmmmmm! Albums are taking to long to download anyway :(
See you all in 2010.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
The end of an era
As the decade draws to a close I sit in my lucky chair amidst a giant pile of shit that needs to be out of this house in just a few days.
Peyton Manning has just completed the pass that puts him over 50,000 career yards. Youngest ever by two years, two games faster than Dan Marino, hailed by all as the greatest pure QB ever. The Colts have just retaken the lead and seem to be on the way to 15-0. Go Colts!
Christmas Eve was a furious movie marathon. All sorts of christmasy stuff like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Inglorious Basterds, The Darjeeling Limited, The Goods, and shortly, once the Colts have put paid to the Jets, (500) Days of Summer. The family started texting me at 7am EST, 4am here. First pic, the family dog chewing on my stocking. I was already up, sleeping now from midnight until 3am or so every night. Its so inconvenient.
I finally have my car back and it is one huge weight lifted off me shoulders. I am solidly down between 160 and 165 for the first time since I arrived at college for my freshman year. Seems like I lose it in five pound increments and each new five pounds is a struggle. Sunday is day off from the gym and day off from paying attention to what I eat. Giant pile of fast food later and I about to lapse into a carb coma. Even that will be over in a few weeks when NFL sunday is a thing of the recent past and distant future and I switch to seven days a week at the gym :) I am much happer with myself when I am trying to hurt myself as much as possible.
My parents thought it was hysterical when I told them what I did on Christmas day. "Played video games and watched tv. Same as I would have done if I was home." Dad laughed his ass off. We always open our presents on Christmas Eve. Grandmother comes over with Aunt and Uncle on the day after Christmas. Chhristmas day I always make my whole family watch Home for the Holidays, my favorite holiday movie ever. They also have to watch it every Thanksgiving I make it home too. They watched it in my honor :)
Now the Colts have benched all their high profile guys and are down by 6, about to go down by 13. End of the undefeated season and breaking the record of 23 straight regular season victories. Booooooooooooooooo!
McDonalds vanilla ice cream is still my all-time favorite.
Sherlock Holmes tickets for tomorrow night, should be a fun time. First time I get to really see a friend of mine since New York and not just watch her perform. Catching up should be eye opening as I suspect her music career has proceeded with leaps and bounds since we first met. Yesterday was her birthday so it's my treat. Always fun to spend time with friends at their birthday time. I always work on mine, was never a big fan of celebrating, but I'll celebrate friends' birthdays for days at a time. In Boston we used to do birthday weeks :)
I'll be so happy when December's over :)
Bring on January!
Peyton Manning has just completed the pass that puts him over 50,000 career yards. Youngest ever by two years, two games faster than Dan Marino, hailed by all as the greatest pure QB ever. The Colts have just retaken the lead and seem to be on the way to 15-0. Go Colts!
Christmas Eve was a furious movie marathon. All sorts of christmasy stuff like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Inglorious Basterds, The Darjeeling Limited, The Goods, and shortly, once the Colts have put paid to the Jets, (500) Days of Summer. The family started texting me at 7am EST, 4am here. First pic, the family dog chewing on my stocking. I was already up, sleeping now from midnight until 3am or so every night. Its so inconvenient.
I finally have my car back and it is one huge weight lifted off me shoulders. I am solidly down between 160 and 165 for the first time since I arrived at college for my freshman year. Seems like I lose it in five pound increments and each new five pounds is a struggle. Sunday is day off from the gym and day off from paying attention to what I eat. Giant pile of fast food later and I about to lapse into a carb coma. Even that will be over in a few weeks when NFL sunday is a thing of the recent past and distant future and I switch to seven days a week at the gym :) I am much happer with myself when I am trying to hurt myself as much as possible.
My parents thought it was hysterical when I told them what I did on Christmas day. "Played video games and watched tv. Same as I would have done if I was home." Dad laughed his ass off. We always open our presents on Christmas Eve. Grandmother comes over with Aunt and Uncle on the day after Christmas. Chhristmas day I always make my whole family watch Home for the Holidays, my favorite holiday movie ever. They also have to watch it every Thanksgiving I make it home too. They watched it in my honor :)
Now the Colts have benched all their high profile guys and are down by 6, about to go down by 13. End of the undefeated season and breaking the record of 23 straight regular season victories. Booooooooooooooooo!
McDonalds vanilla ice cream is still my all-time favorite.
Sherlock Holmes tickets for tomorrow night, should be a fun time. First time I get to really see a friend of mine since New York and not just watch her perform. Catching up should be eye opening as I suspect her music career has proceeded with leaps and bounds since we first met. Yesterday was her birthday so it's my treat. Always fun to spend time with friends at their birthday time. I always work on mine, was never a big fan of celebrating, but I'll celebrate friends' birthdays for days at a time. In Boston we used to do birthday weeks :)
I'll be so happy when December's over :)
Bring on January!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
The Price Tag of Stupidity
Yesterday I found out that the price tag of my stupidity is $14,200 :)
Half of my house is completely empty, vacated by roommates who have all returned to the east coast. The other half is apparently my responsibility to empty out in the next couple of days. So my holidays will be spent packing and moving :)
I could've picked up my car yesterday but no one thought to call and say, "Hi! Just wanted to let you know you're car will be ready tomorrow", so I could arrange to pay for it and all that fun stuff. Now the holidays push me getting it back to Saturday at the earliest. This I'm refusing to count on because I'm sure something will get screwed up in the mail and it'll most likely be Monday. This will destroy all the fun plans that are possible this weekend.
Yesterday I spoke to the woman I rear ended and felt horrible for her because she felt horrible for me. The guy I was working with was laughing his ass off as I informed her I was uninsured and she reluctantly told me the initial estimate on her car was $8700. He said my feeble "Oh?" was priceless and sounded like I was deflating. I spent the rest of the conversation with her laughing. Best part at the very end: "Well, at least try to enjoy your holidays..." I burst out laughing because she was mortified and I was just relieved to know she was okay and that writing two checks would finish this little holiday adventure.
I'm pretty sure the second I do get my car back I am going to leave the city and hide from myself for a little while with a stack of movies and books. I need a break from being me for a bit, it's becoming tiring :)
Half of my house is completely empty, vacated by roommates who have all returned to the east coast. The other half is apparently my responsibility to empty out in the next couple of days. So my holidays will be spent packing and moving :)
I could've picked up my car yesterday but no one thought to call and say, "Hi! Just wanted to let you know you're car will be ready tomorrow", so I could arrange to pay for it and all that fun stuff. Now the holidays push me getting it back to Saturday at the earliest. This I'm refusing to count on because I'm sure something will get screwed up in the mail and it'll most likely be Monday. This will destroy all the fun plans that are possible this weekend.
Yesterday I spoke to the woman I rear ended and felt horrible for her because she felt horrible for me. The guy I was working with was laughing his ass off as I informed her I was uninsured and she reluctantly told me the initial estimate on her car was $8700. He said my feeble "Oh?" was priceless and sounded like I was deflating. I spent the rest of the conversation with her laughing. Best part at the very end: "Well, at least try to enjoy your holidays..." I burst out laughing because she was mortified and I was just relieved to know she was okay and that writing two checks would finish this little holiday adventure.
I'm pretty sure the second I do get my car back I am going to leave the city and hide from myself for a little while with a stack of movies and books. I need a break from being me for a bit, it's becoming tiring :)
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Oh how crazy things happen unexpectedly
12/14/09, 2:37am. Last blog post happened almost exactly 5 hours before I raced headlong into the rear end of a stopped car in traffic. Getting hit in the face unexpectedly by an air bag is not fun. Then I found out my insurance policy had been cancelled because of my tendency to make late payments on everything. So irresponsible. Final price tag for my stupidity is still TBD but it is mucho big. Just in time for the holidays.
The silver lining is that it was the kick in the backside that has been much needed lately. When I am pleased with myself I tend to function poorly. I eat poorly, I drink too much, I don't exercise as much, pay little to no attention to finances, I just relax and enjoy life. After this mishap I have once again gotten into a more New York state of mind, everything very militaristic. Wake up, exercise, eat right and light, read until work starts. Work ceases only for lunch. After work, gym. After work and the gym I am usually so exhausted that I pass out early and sleep fit. Sleep has been hard to come by lately. Sunday is the only day I relax and watch football.
Only day I broke from this routine was Thursday. After the gym I got home and was dragged out by roomates and coworkers, despite my protests and exhaustion. Got to the bar and ordered a beer in hopes it would give me a second wind. Nope. Made it through half before I started to fall asleep at a corner table. There is nothing that makes me more sketched out than falling asleep at a bar. Eventually I was shaken awake by my roommate and pointed in the direction of our car so I could sleep. Woke up the next morning to discover that I had unsuccessfully tried to keep myself awake by texting something funny to a friend. Not a good idea. After a series of bizarre attempts and pleas for her to call me back I had given up. In the angry voicemail she left me she assumed I was wasted, it was the only real assumption anyone could make. Usually I just sleepwalk when I'm that tired, this time not so lucky. She won't talk to me anymore.
To recap: 1) wrecked car.... check, 2) pissed off a dear friend.... check. I've been on a roll lately.
After this series of shit events I decided to stay in California for Christmas. Figured with my luck any plane I got on would nose dive into a mountain and then not only mine but 100-200 other people would have their Christmas' ruined too. I'd feel horrible if I was responsible for that. So it'll be an orphan Christmas in Cali this year, either solo or with a couple coworkers. Having these extra couple days will make the house move more leisurely. I'm taking the silver linings where I can get them.
An upcoming trip to New York for work is turning into an extra fun one as I get to see a lot of people I haven't for a while. An old friend from Boston University is coming to visit for a couple days. It'll be the first time I've seen her in 9 years. It should be an eventful reunion. Another friend from Long Island I used to work with is going to accompany me to a show at Fashion Week which will also be a lot of fun. It'll be the first time I've seen her in five years. Lots of catching up to do there. And the other day I got in touch with the last girl I had any type of relationship with and made plans to visit her and her family. These reunions are always fun but kind of awkward as her family was very nearly my family. It'll be the first time in two years I've seen her. I got the chance to meet her first son then and apparently he's monstrous huge now. This trip will be the first time I get to meet her second son. I love dealing with kids that young. No intellect required or social back and forth, just a big smile and loving eyes and a soft tone and you're golden. The difficulty of having fun and easy conversations with a person who you used to spend nearly every waking second with but is now on the very outskirts of your life is astounding. Lots of uncomfortable pauses and trying to keep everything nonchalant so her husband doesn't ever suspect we were romantic. Mentally exhausting. She is the reason I refuse to lie to people I'm close to anymore, it is what makes our encounters so awkward now.
Finally get to blow some steam off this weekend by taking a musician friend to a movie double feature. We've been trying unsuccessfully to find mutual free days to catch up since I got back from New York this summer and it looks to finally be about to happen. Will be a merciful departure from the way things have been going recently. And then a few days in Vegas next week to spend a bit of the holidays with my favorite person in the world. Just what the doctor ordered to restore my holiday cheer.
Now to try to get back to sleep, house is disturbingly quiet now that I am the only one left. Last day of work this week before focusing on moving and trying to get friends un-pissed off at me. Lots of holiday work to do :)
The silver lining is that it was the kick in the backside that has been much needed lately. When I am pleased with myself I tend to function poorly. I eat poorly, I drink too much, I don't exercise as much, pay little to no attention to finances, I just relax and enjoy life. After this mishap I have once again gotten into a more New York state of mind, everything very militaristic. Wake up, exercise, eat right and light, read until work starts. Work ceases only for lunch. After work, gym. After work and the gym I am usually so exhausted that I pass out early and sleep fit. Sleep has been hard to come by lately. Sunday is the only day I relax and watch football.
Only day I broke from this routine was Thursday. After the gym I got home and was dragged out by roomates and coworkers, despite my protests and exhaustion. Got to the bar and ordered a beer in hopes it would give me a second wind. Nope. Made it through half before I started to fall asleep at a corner table. There is nothing that makes me more sketched out than falling asleep at a bar. Eventually I was shaken awake by my roommate and pointed in the direction of our car so I could sleep. Woke up the next morning to discover that I had unsuccessfully tried to keep myself awake by texting something funny to a friend. Not a good idea. After a series of bizarre attempts and pleas for her to call me back I had given up. In the angry voicemail she left me she assumed I was wasted, it was the only real assumption anyone could make. Usually I just sleepwalk when I'm that tired, this time not so lucky. She won't talk to me anymore.
To recap: 1) wrecked car.... check, 2) pissed off a dear friend.... check. I've been on a roll lately.
After this series of shit events I decided to stay in California for Christmas. Figured with my luck any plane I got on would nose dive into a mountain and then not only mine but 100-200 other people would have their Christmas' ruined too. I'd feel horrible if I was responsible for that. So it'll be an orphan Christmas in Cali this year, either solo or with a couple coworkers. Having these extra couple days will make the house move more leisurely. I'm taking the silver linings where I can get them.
An upcoming trip to New York for work is turning into an extra fun one as I get to see a lot of people I haven't for a while. An old friend from Boston University is coming to visit for a couple days. It'll be the first time I've seen her in 9 years. It should be an eventful reunion. Another friend from Long Island I used to work with is going to accompany me to a show at Fashion Week which will also be a lot of fun. It'll be the first time I've seen her in five years. Lots of catching up to do there. And the other day I got in touch with the last girl I had any type of relationship with and made plans to visit her and her family. These reunions are always fun but kind of awkward as her family was very nearly my family. It'll be the first time in two years I've seen her. I got the chance to meet her first son then and apparently he's monstrous huge now. This trip will be the first time I get to meet her second son. I love dealing with kids that young. No intellect required or social back and forth, just a big smile and loving eyes and a soft tone and you're golden. The difficulty of having fun and easy conversations with a person who you used to spend nearly every waking second with but is now on the very outskirts of your life is astounding. Lots of uncomfortable pauses and trying to keep everything nonchalant so her husband doesn't ever suspect we were romantic. Mentally exhausting. She is the reason I refuse to lie to people I'm close to anymore, it is what makes our encounters so awkward now.
Finally get to blow some steam off this weekend by taking a musician friend to a movie double feature. We've been trying unsuccessfully to find mutual free days to catch up since I got back from New York this summer and it looks to finally be about to happen. Will be a merciful departure from the way things have been going recently. And then a few days in Vegas next week to spend a bit of the holidays with my favorite person in the world. Just what the doctor ordered to restore my holiday cheer.
Now to try to get back to sleep, house is disturbingly quiet now that I am the only one left. Last day of work this week before focusing on moving and trying to get friends un-pissed off at me. Lots of holiday work to do :)
Monday, December 14, 2009
Meteor showers
Seems like every time I looked up tonight I saw a massive, wonderfully bright falling star. When we were beginning this show I got the chance to witness the Perseid meteor shower and it was incredible. Tonight's felt more special. On the drive to work it rained for two minutes and then stopped and the sky is crystal clear out here far enough away from the lights of Los Angeles that viewing conditions were pretty optimal. My work list is wonderfully brief and easy. Late coworkers helped me finish the difficult stuff before they bailed and while they were schlepping stuff around I hung out in the hills on the property coiling cables. Usually this freaks me out because these hills are crawling with coyotes and mountain lions and rattle snakes and poisonous spiders and they all love our gear because electricity warms it. Instead of fretting I blasted Pandora radio and sang along with The Pixies without a care in the world. This after I kept giving one of our production assistants those looks that can kill because he was making too much noise near me when I wanted to hear nothing last night, just perfect silence. My moods are swinging now fast and furious.
Sleep once again doesn't happen. I past out at 8am this morning only to wake at 10am. I thought, "fine, I'll watch tv." Two hours later my roommate turned on last nights UFC fights so I started watching. Go BJ Penn. Two hours later I got pissed at myself for a lot of the stupid mistakes I've been making lately and went for a run when the fights were done. This happens often. I spend most of my time furious with myself for being an idiot and that is when I run my life properly. Its almost like I'm grounding myself. I come up with a routine and that's what I do, day in, day out. This is when I'm financially secure and responsible, I achieve goals, I eat healthy and exercise, when I most closely resemble the adult that I should be. I haven't been good and angry with myself for a while. And the odd thing is that when I'm angry with myself I get much much happier.
I arrived at work and knew I was going to be miserable because of the lack of sleep. When an outdoor segment started rolling I snatched a chair, popped it under a portable heater, rested elbows on thighs like I was intently paying attention to the cast and past out. In and out, 15-20 minutes at a time. Woke up refreshed and proceeded into the hills :) Now its 3am though and the ol' lids are starting to get hella heavy.
When I pulled my laptop out now and opened it up I realized I had once again unknowingly participated in my favorite past time: leaving the power cable on my floor at home. And the power cable for this beautiful machine is massive, not so easily forgettable. This is like forgetting the bottom half of your crutch when you rely on it entirely to get around. Oh silly me.
This is the beginning of the final week of work for 2009. 2010 will be an interesting year because it seems like we won't be going as heavily as we usually do which means I'll need to hit the pavement again. Excited and nervous about it. I think its funny that most of the people we work with are from the West Coast. When they work its like a relaxed stroll, all's well, super cool. The guys I work with are all from the East Coast or were taught by guys from the East Coast. When we work its like a platoon of pissed off soldiers storming a building guns blazing. I prefer it. Relaxed and cool causes problems, ask no questions take no prisoners solves them :)
What else? Trader Joe's Sesame Honey Almonds are my newest favoritest snack.
Also, when I walk the ground in a few minutes all of the remaining West Coast peeps will be sleeping in random nooks and crannies in the house. Fucking shameful laziness. Pandora's playing The Yeah Yeah Yeahs now. Brilliant :)
Along with not sleeping I don't really eat anymore either. 1 meal per day, very small. I'm into holes on my belt that haven't seen use since I was in high school. Gym trips will resume very soon.
I still don't know what I'm going to do when I leave my current house but I do have a place to go and the situation seems as good as possible for having to share a place with someone and that makes me rest easy about one big looming disaster I was about to tackle at full speed.
Watching an episode of UK sci-fi series Paradox last night and Multiple Universe Theories popped up again. Sigmund Freud theorized that if something kept popping up over and over again it was because your subconscious recognized it as something important in your future. It was mostly with numbers because, I believe (double check me), that when you noticed a number over and over ad nauseum it had something to do with the way you die (Freud believed part of your subconscious could see the future). Theory was called Significant Number Theory. Sigmund Freud was a coked out lunatic who's theories have mostly been proven useless or wrong but his method was genius and won him his status as a great mind. The number that kept popping up for me was 26 so I was convinced that I was a goner young. WRONG! Imagine how stupid I felt when I turned 27. And you question whether or not I'm an idiot. I think its funny now that a lot of the brilliant things theorized by the great minds of the late 1800's/early 1900's have been debunked as complete bullshit. I'm pointing at you, Einstein. That also makes me much more impressed when you think a man like Nicola Tesla created radio, tv broadcasting, x rays, wireless technology and the power system that runs the country today all by 1920 (there's way more but those are the ones that affect nearly every single person on the planet). The greatest technical mind that ever lived. He fixed the errors in most of Thomas Jefferson's greatest inventions too. Why do most people not know he is? Why do most people think of the band Tesla when his name is mentioned? Preposterous. A mind like his will never be seen again because of our fascination with specialization.
I love all kinds of music. Different things strike me at different times. Melancholy tracks and their haunting beauty. Ruckus rock that drives your heart to pump a little faster. Witty indy rock. The complexity of symphonies. The posturing of rap. Dance music despite the fact I can't dance for shit :) Tonight it was lines by Modest Mouse from a song I'd never heard and struck me as melancholy. "I'm trying to drink away the part of the day that I cannot sleep away." Beautiful and sad. Been there. "And I know I should go but I will probably stay and that's all you can do about some things." I've been living there recently. Modest Mouse is excellent. No country music. Utter garbage, the lot of it, with the exception of Johnny Cash.
Battery.....dying.....batt.....dy.....
Be back in a few days and on a normal schedule again. I can get back to living a normal life.
HA! Who the fuck am I kidding? ;)
Sleep once again doesn't happen. I past out at 8am this morning only to wake at 10am. I thought, "fine, I'll watch tv." Two hours later my roommate turned on last nights UFC fights so I started watching. Go BJ Penn. Two hours later I got pissed at myself for a lot of the stupid mistakes I've been making lately and went for a run when the fights were done. This happens often. I spend most of my time furious with myself for being an idiot and that is when I run my life properly. Its almost like I'm grounding myself. I come up with a routine and that's what I do, day in, day out. This is when I'm financially secure and responsible, I achieve goals, I eat healthy and exercise, when I most closely resemble the adult that I should be. I haven't been good and angry with myself for a while. And the odd thing is that when I'm angry with myself I get much much happier.
I arrived at work and knew I was going to be miserable because of the lack of sleep. When an outdoor segment started rolling I snatched a chair, popped it under a portable heater, rested elbows on thighs like I was intently paying attention to the cast and past out. In and out, 15-20 minutes at a time. Woke up refreshed and proceeded into the hills :) Now its 3am though and the ol' lids are starting to get hella heavy.
When I pulled my laptop out now and opened it up I realized I had once again unknowingly participated in my favorite past time: leaving the power cable on my floor at home. And the power cable for this beautiful machine is massive, not so easily forgettable. This is like forgetting the bottom half of your crutch when you rely on it entirely to get around. Oh silly me.
This is the beginning of the final week of work for 2009. 2010 will be an interesting year because it seems like we won't be going as heavily as we usually do which means I'll need to hit the pavement again. Excited and nervous about it. I think its funny that most of the people we work with are from the West Coast. When they work its like a relaxed stroll, all's well, super cool. The guys I work with are all from the East Coast or were taught by guys from the East Coast. When we work its like a platoon of pissed off soldiers storming a building guns blazing. I prefer it. Relaxed and cool causes problems, ask no questions take no prisoners solves them :)
What else? Trader Joe's Sesame Honey Almonds are my newest favoritest snack.
Also, when I walk the ground in a few minutes all of the remaining West Coast peeps will be sleeping in random nooks and crannies in the house. Fucking shameful laziness. Pandora's playing The Yeah Yeah Yeahs now. Brilliant :)
Along with not sleeping I don't really eat anymore either. 1 meal per day, very small. I'm into holes on my belt that haven't seen use since I was in high school. Gym trips will resume very soon.
I still don't know what I'm going to do when I leave my current house but I do have a place to go and the situation seems as good as possible for having to share a place with someone and that makes me rest easy about one big looming disaster I was about to tackle at full speed.
Watching an episode of UK sci-fi series Paradox last night and Multiple Universe Theories popped up again. Sigmund Freud theorized that if something kept popping up over and over again it was because your subconscious recognized it as something important in your future. It was mostly with numbers because, I believe (double check me), that when you noticed a number over and over ad nauseum it had something to do with the way you die (Freud believed part of your subconscious could see the future). Theory was called Significant Number Theory. Sigmund Freud was a coked out lunatic who's theories have mostly been proven useless or wrong but his method was genius and won him his status as a great mind. The number that kept popping up for me was 26 so I was convinced that I was a goner young. WRONG! Imagine how stupid I felt when I turned 27. And you question whether or not I'm an idiot. I think its funny now that a lot of the brilliant things theorized by the great minds of the late 1800's/early 1900's have been debunked as complete bullshit. I'm pointing at you, Einstein. That also makes me much more impressed when you think a man like Nicola Tesla created radio, tv broadcasting, x rays, wireless technology and the power system that runs the country today all by 1920 (there's way more but those are the ones that affect nearly every single person on the planet). The greatest technical mind that ever lived. He fixed the errors in most of Thomas Jefferson's greatest inventions too. Why do most people not know he is? Why do most people think of the band Tesla when his name is mentioned? Preposterous. A mind like his will never be seen again because of our fascination with specialization.
I love all kinds of music. Different things strike me at different times. Melancholy tracks and their haunting beauty. Ruckus rock that drives your heart to pump a little faster. Witty indy rock. The complexity of symphonies. The posturing of rap. Dance music despite the fact I can't dance for shit :) Tonight it was lines by Modest Mouse from a song I'd never heard and struck me as melancholy. "I'm trying to drink away the part of the day that I cannot sleep away." Beautiful and sad. Been there. "And I know I should go but I will probably stay and that's all you can do about some things." I've been living there recently. Modest Mouse is excellent. No country music. Utter garbage, the lot of it, with the exception of Johnny Cash.
Battery.....dying.....batt.....dy.....
Be back in a few days and on a normal schedule again. I can get back to living a normal life.
HA! Who the fuck am I kidding? ;)
Sunday, December 13, 2009
my favorite nonfiction piece of writing ever
An essay by Chuck Palahniuk entitled "Brinksmanship"
http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0501/palahniuk/essay.html
http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0501/palahniuk/essay.html
The G.D. rain will not stop
It pretends to every so often and its pretty sweet out when it does, then I inevitably run outside in just my hoodie and get drenched when it starts pouring. The desert sucks. Then I come back in my little cave and sit in the rolling office chair and think about all the thoughts pinging around my head and which are going to be vomited out on this electronic page.
First thoughts are of complete and overwhelming happiness as my transgressions of the previous night have been forgiven and the beautiful thing I thought I broke has emerged unscratched and wonderful again. It raises a gaggle of red flags with me though because I definitely need to pay way more attention to what I do and be less of an out of control retard. I get nervous around strangers, really for no reason, I can engage and befriend anyone. I get nervous around people who are very important to me for all sorts of inferiority complex and intimacy issues (all of which are completely retarded). I get really nervous if I'm trying to process emotional things because very little upsets me emotionally. I get obsessive compulsive when I'm nervous and then rely on doing things with my hands to keep my mind occupied. At a party this means entertaining myself with a beer bottle. I arrived at 7:30pm and left somewhere between 3:30 and 4am. That's a lot of hours. I should have known better. I suck at pacing myself. And usually I launch into a weird kind of autopilot (lovingly referred to as the Irish Robot) when I drink too much. I stop talking, listen intently, drive fine and perform anything routine with precision. This night I decided to try to have an important conversation, which did not happen with any sort of precision at all. Idiocy. Error! Error! Error! But its all good now and I am overjoyed and happy and giddy and uplifted and lacking a thesaurus to come up with all the other words that mean the same thing. Big smile on my face like :D and its a happy coincidence that the smile part is made up of the D.
My other most favorite person in the world called me today from Las Vegas. Talk is usually shop with her. She is remarkably similar to me and spends all of her time working so conversations always start there. From there though they can go anywhere so talking is incredible mental exercise. Smart, funny, sarcastic and lovely. This girl bartended at the hotel I stayed at while doing a tv show in Vegas. I thought it was funny to watch all my coworkers hit on her while she worked. She thought I was funny watching all my coworkers strike out. We hit it off and ended up hanging out. This is where my mental retardation kicks in. Usually the only girls I meet are coworkers, I won't go there, not interested. Whenever a girl shows interest in me that I am interested in I start to pay extra attention to everything she does until I find something that makes me not attracted. Then I sever ties. Captain Self-Sabateur. Now I have known her for almost three years and she is the most important person in the world to me. For a while she was thinking of leaving Vegas to return to Arizona which would have meant me never being able to see her. Looks like now she's staying put. This was fantastic news. But after nearly three years of friendly lunches and dinners and movies and phone calls and living 350 miles away, I have no idea how to turn this relationship romantic. I am horrible at life. When my boss tells me I need to find a responsible girlfriend to fix all my mistakes, she is definitely this person. I wonder what the hell my parents did to me to make me so incredibly adaptive and successfully professionally and so fucking inept relationally.
These posts that require thought are not as much fun as last night's. And talking to these two always gets me thinking of why I ignore some very specific rules I live by. Why certain people I meet I never want to talk to again after a few minutes so I walk away. These two have both told me stories now that would have me running screaming from any other person but instead there was absolutely nothing. Tonight after hearing the story I paused and my friend thought I was judging her. "Do you think less of me now?" The pause was because I knew that this was that moment where the sirens should start wailing and the red lights should start flashing. There was nothing. "Not at all, there is nothing you can do that would make me think any less of you." I have never lied to this person or my friend in Vegas. Lying is a waste of time and completely disrespectful.
These people mean everything to me and scare the hell out of me.
Later she said she couldn't figure me out and I told her she didn't want to. The conversation went unfinished because I had to start working. The past few weeks have been interesting because I could tell in certain parts of my life exactly what was going to happen. Patterns emerged and played out as expected for both good and bad and everything ended ok.
That feeling went away while processing this. I have no idea what's going to happen next.
This is all I can think of now and the thoughts are too fast and incomplete and my brain is too tired to work with them :(
Bailing out. Need to finish work and then sleep.
First thoughts are of complete and overwhelming happiness as my transgressions of the previous night have been forgiven and the beautiful thing I thought I broke has emerged unscratched and wonderful again. It raises a gaggle of red flags with me though because I definitely need to pay way more attention to what I do and be less of an out of control retard. I get nervous around strangers, really for no reason, I can engage and befriend anyone. I get nervous around people who are very important to me for all sorts of inferiority complex and intimacy issues (all of which are completely retarded). I get really nervous if I'm trying to process emotional things because very little upsets me emotionally. I get obsessive compulsive when I'm nervous and then rely on doing things with my hands to keep my mind occupied. At a party this means entertaining myself with a beer bottle. I arrived at 7:30pm and left somewhere between 3:30 and 4am. That's a lot of hours. I should have known better. I suck at pacing myself. And usually I launch into a weird kind of autopilot (lovingly referred to as the Irish Robot) when I drink too much. I stop talking, listen intently, drive fine and perform anything routine with precision. This night I decided to try to have an important conversation, which did not happen with any sort of precision at all. Idiocy. Error! Error! Error! But its all good now and I am overjoyed and happy and giddy and uplifted and lacking a thesaurus to come up with all the other words that mean the same thing. Big smile on my face like :D and its a happy coincidence that the smile part is made up of the D.
My other most favorite person in the world called me today from Las Vegas. Talk is usually shop with her. She is remarkably similar to me and spends all of her time working so conversations always start there. From there though they can go anywhere so talking is incredible mental exercise. Smart, funny, sarcastic and lovely. This girl bartended at the hotel I stayed at while doing a tv show in Vegas. I thought it was funny to watch all my coworkers hit on her while she worked. She thought I was funny watching all my coworkers strike out. We hit it off and ended up hanging out. This is where my mental retardation kicks in. Usually the only girls I meet are coworkers, I won't go there, not interested. Whenever a girl shows interest in me that I am interested in I start to pay extra attention to everything she does until I find something that makes me not attracted. Then I sever ties. Captain Self-Sabateur. Now I have known her for almost three years and she is the most important person in the world to me. For a while she was thinking of leaving Vegas to return to Arizona which would have meant me never being able to see her. Looks like now she's staying put. This was fantastic news. But after nearly three years of friendly lunches and dinners and movies and phone calls and living 350 miles away, I have no idea how to turn this relationship romantic. I am horrible at life. When my boss tells me I need to find a responsible girlfriend to fix all my mistakes, she is definitely this person. I wonder what the hell my parents did to me to make me so incredibly adaptive and successfully professionally and so fucking inept relationally.
These posts that require thought are not as much fun as last night's. And talking to these two always gets me thinking of why I ignore some very specific rules I live by. Why certain people I meet I never want to talk to again after a few minutes so I walk away. These two have both told me stories now that would have me running screaming from any other person but instead there was absolutely nothing. Tonight after hearing the story I paused and my friend thought I was judging her. "Do you think less of me now?" The pause was because I knew that this was that moment where the sirens should start wailing and the red lights should start flashing. There was nothing. "Not at all, there is nothing you can do that would make me think any less of you." I have never lied to this person or my friend in Vegas. Lying is a waste of time and completely disrespectful.
These people mean everything to me and scare the hell out of me.
Later she said she couldn't figure me out and I told her she didn't want to. The conversation went unfinished because I had to start working. The past few weeks have been interesting because I could tell in certain parts of my life exactly what was going to happen. Patterns emerged and played out as expected for both good and bad and everything ended ok.
That feeling went away while processing this. I have no idea what's going to happen next.
This is all I can think of now and the thoughts are too fast and incomplete and my brain is too tired to work with them :(
Bailing out. Need to finish work and then sleep.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
These things going on
Tonight I get to be the puppet master :)
At random intervals I will flick one of three switches. Said switches trigger a wailing siren and light show that will wake up three couples, one of which will have to tend to a fake baby, depending on which switch is flipped. Daily I wonder how I got myself into this situation, marvelling at the twists and turns, paths abruptly stopping and starting, choices. I'm oddly compelled by what I do so I am happy with it for now, who knows how long it will last or what surprises might be in store for me.
And this train of thought usually leads me down the path of wondering where different choices would have landed me. Twice now over the past few months Multiple Universe Theory has popped up while entertaining myself and its always intriguing. Physicists and those other brilliant minds that expend all their mental faculties thinking about time theorize that timelines exist for every -
My job is crazy, as I'll interject here an example of the lunacy I deal with on a day to day basis. One of the three couples just seperated explosively. Two hours ago, all's well. Now, 1:44am, all's not well and it looks like someone's going to get punched. It is riotously funny though because these people we work with are caricatures. Two people were fighting like normal. Then person #3 tells the instigator they did something stupid and the instigator went from 0 to light speed in somewhere around a half a second. This house is huge and you can hear the cursing from one end to another. And I heard at least 1400 f-bombs in the last 6 minutes :) Fear not, person #3 has adopted the fake baby of the newly seperated couple but they can't remember the words to Jack and Jill. That's when I surprise myself by remembering the words having not heard it for probably 27 years now. 1:50am: all's quiet. We'll see how long this lasts.
- choice we make. Every fork in the road every one of us takes creates a new timeline. Like reading a choose your own adventure book over and over and exploring the ins and outs of every combination of choices. I never had the patience for this because I always looked ahead to make sure my choice was right, the fear of failure causing me to cheat. I wish I could do the same thing now.
In 2046, Wong Kar-wai wrote a beautiful piece of dialogue. Tony Leung's writer lives in an apartment building and witnesses the lives and loves of people around him. While observing the love affair between his chinese landlord's daughter and a japanese businessman he starts to fall in love with her. While watching her smoke a cigarette on the roof he wonders something along the lines of: If I could go back and make different choices could they possibly put me on a different path that would lead me to a realtionship with her. I'll wager I've butchered this and it sounds better in Leung's measured mandarin. Kar-wai is one of my favorite filmmakers, Leung is one of the best actors alive and the story is hauntingly beautiful, leaping back and forth between affirming and heartbreaking. Faye Wong plays the daughter. Rarely has there ever been a greater mix of beauty and talent.
The theory also recently popped up in an episode of FlashForward but it was far less beautiful and used more as a "we're so smart!" analogy so it only really bears mentioning at all because it makes me wonder if I'm using it as an "I'm so smart!" analogy. Hmmmmmmm. Anyway it reminded me of the monologue in 2046 so BOOM!
I more think about the theory because I like to think that along other timelines I haven't made the stupid mistakes I'm forced to deal with in this one. I'd like to think that I'm smart enough that I'm not an idiot in infinite timelines, that I'd get it right one way or another at least a couple times. My roomate/boss is concerned that the only thing that will right my wrongs is a responsible girlfriend. My whole life I've believed that there is no problem that arises that I can't solve myself, especially all the problems that plague me. I'm becoming concerned that he's right because he was in the same spot. What kind of quandary is that? I'm hesitant to date anyone because I'd feel like an asshole to saddle them with my problems but maybe the only way to solve the problems is to date someone responsible who'll fix them.
Today my looming homeless scenario resolved itself. As soon as I walked into work one of the guys who used to live at our horrible house told me a friend of his was looking to split his one bedroom. Dirt cheap temporary solution. One problem solved miraculously, a solution fallen into my lap. Now if a responsible woman would fall in my lap apparently I'd be all set.
Found out today work is skinny through January and February so the gig in New York will be a delightful diversion. Other than that I need to reach out and see what else is out there. Been a while since I've legitimately placed those calls. I have that nervous excited terrified feeling in the pit of my stomach that I'm about to enter the next phase of my life.
Plenty of time for all that after I wander around and see if neanderthals are hitting each other.
It's 2:32 am and the switches haven't been hit once. I've just been sitting here listening to the tech guys play bad Italian house music and tell bad jokes and I've been threatened twice because I refuse to laugh at them. It should be a crime that I get paid to do this.
We're all in stitches that the last show we made is causing MTV to get bombarded for promoting violence against women and racial stereotyping. Pretty much guarentees the ratings from episode three to four will double and we'll be making the second season next summer. Reality tv is diabolical. And all because someone had a camera on when a scumbag punched a girl. The Real World destroyed tv.
I found out today that a former friend of mine is on one of my favorite new tv comedies. I met this girl at Boston University. Super cute and very smart, we hit it off because she was also from Maine. After sophomore year she either transferred or changed majors and I didn't see her again. I graduated in '99. In 2002 I was living at home for a year, banking money for my doomed trip to Long Island when, lo and behold, channel surfing I see her on MTV. No, can't be. Waited for end credits, never showed cast. Hmmmm. Exercised patience, one episode of a marathon, sweet! Opening credits there she was. I thought it was hilarious. The show probably still stands as the worst thing I've ever seen on TV, and that is a miracle when one considers the new Melrose Place. Thinking of it makes me want to dig my eyes out, yet I feel compelled to keep watching it. So masochistic. Anyway, YAY! A friend of mine is on a major network TV show. I never watch it again. After Long Island explodes in my face I crash in New York City with a buddy. Opening night Terminator 3 I get back from the bank I work at late, rush to the ridiculously packed theater, scan the crowd for my friends. Obviously first in line they have the cherry row in the center dominated, empty seat in the middle for me. -
2:47am: the couple that exploded an hour ago are having the try to talk it out talk. This won't work because the guy, our "victim", is a normal guy, good looking, not intelligent, but normal. His girl is a train wreck. He has finally realized it and there is nothing she can say to change his mind.
3:10am: conversation continues. One couple sleeps which means my reign of terror is about to begin.
TAG! BACK IN! - I do the theater sideways walk, crotch to face for those curious, and as I'm about to take my seat I see my friend from BU sitting directly behind me. While recognition is dawning on me she recognizes me and we have our big "holy shit! what a small world" reunion. I ask her about the show, she's now an actress, congrats. She moved to the area live in the area, we should get together and grab coffee, sweet, great seeing you, talk soon. T3 = 2003. Fast forward to '09, I can't place where I know this actress from on one of my favorite new comedies. Finally catch the end credits of episode 5 and there she is. Its always a fun discovery.
Stream of consciousness is becoming a fun way of killing time. So far, 2 hours 15 minutes.
3:17am: Sleeping couple is awake. I might not have to do anything tonight.
Purchased a fresh new copy of Catcher in the Rye today. When I start rereading it that will make the third book I am currently rereading. Somewhere in this jamble I want to try to come up with a way to mash the stories together. How interesting would it be to jumble the characters and goings ons of Catcher in the Rye, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and American Psycho. I read damn good literature.
3:23am: The feuding couple is cuddling on a couch and seem to be on the mend. My faith renewed that these people I work around are the cream of the crop of stupid people and should not be allowed to breed. Or our producers should quit working these obnoxious hours and become handsomely paid couples counselors.
Raining again tonight but because I'm responsible for the air raid sirens and devilish light show I'm stuck in a room with a blairing heater. I'm f'ing hot but I know how miserable I've been the past few nights so I refuse to turn it off. Gluttony.-
3:40pm: The exploded couple is reunited, they have resumed control of their fake baby and are moving back in to the bedroom. The things I see are indescribable and go contrary to any kind of reason or logic. Its like watching behavioral chaos theory. Anything can happen anytime and is controlled only by whimsy. They sleep next to each other but there is a rift so my faith in man is still hanging by a thread.
The other day I was watching a movie trailer and Jean Reno told the story of the creation of man according to Greek myth. The gods created man because they were bored. -
3:48am: Bedroom lights out. The madness is now really about to begin.
-Man could not entertain the gods so they created women because they were still bored. Man and woman together could still not entertain the gods so they created love.-
:) 4am: first switch flipped. Chaos. They are also playing music and audio of a screaming, crying baby. Brilliant torture. Wouldn't have been shocked if it had been ripped straight out of A Clockwork Orange.
-And in creating love they created happiness and tragedy. Here they were finally entertained but realized that these emotions were too much for mankind to handle so they created laughter to help us survive.
4:15am: 15 minutes of chaos later. Cast is mortified. Crew is all in stitches.
Just under three hours to kill before relief arrives. Raining chaos every thirty minutes or so. Heading out into the cold until the next cacophany. I hope everyone else sleeps soundly.
Be seein' you :)
At random intervals I will flick one of three switches. Said switches trigger a wailing siren and light show that will wake up three couples, one of which will have to tend to a fake baby, depending on which switch is flipped. Daily I wonder how I got myself into this situation, marvelling at the twists and turns, paths abruptly stopping and starting, choices. I'm oddly compelled by what I do so I am happy with it for now, who knows how long it will last or what surprises might be in store for me.
And this train of thought usually leads me down the path of wondering where different choices would have landed me. Twice now over the past few months Multiple Universe Theory has popped up while entertaining myself and its always intriguing. Physicists and those other brilliant minds that expend all their mental faculties thinking about time theorize that timelines exist for every -
My job is crazy, as I'll interject here an example of the lunacy I deal with on a day to day basis. One of the three couples just seperated explosively. Two hours ago, all's well. Now, 1:44am, all's not well and it looks like someone's going to get punched. It is riotously funny though because these people we work with are caricatures. Two people were fighting like normal. Then person #3 tells the instigator they did something stupid and the instigator went from 0 to light speed in somewhere around a half a second. This house is huge and you can hear the cursing from one end to another. And I heard at least 1400 f-bombs in the last 6 minutes :) Fear not, person #3 has adopted the fake baby of the newly seperated couple but they can't remember the words to Jack and Jill. That's when I surprise myself by remembering the words having not heard it for probably 27 years now. 1:50am: all's quiet. We'll see how long this lasts.
- choice we make. Every fork in the road every one of us takes creates a new timeline. Like reading a choose your own adventure book over and over and exploring the ins and outs of every combination of choices. I never had the patience for this because I always looked ahead to make sure my choice was right, the fear of failure causing me to cheat. I wish I could do the same thing now.
In 2046, Wong Kar-wai wrote a beautiful piece of dialogue. Tony Leung's writer lives in an apartment building and witnesses the lives and loves of people around him. While observing the love affair between his chinese landlord's daughter and a japanese businessman he starts to fall in love with her. While watching her smoke a cigarette on the roof he wonders something along the lines of: If I could go back and make different choices could they possibly put me on a different path that would lead me to a realtionship with her. I'll wager I've butchered this and it sounds better in Leung's measured mandarin. Kar-wai is one of my favorite filmmakers, Leung is one of the best actors alive and the story is hauntingly beautiful, leaping back and forth between affirming and heartbreaking. Faye Wong plays the daughter. Rarely has there ever been a greater mix of beauty and talent.
The theory also recently popped up in an episode of FlashForward but it was far less beautiful and used more as a "we're so smart!" analogy so it only really bears mentioning at all because it makes me wonder if I'm using it as an "I'm so smart!" analogy. Hmmmmmmm. Anyway it reminded me of the monologue in 2046 so BOOM!
I more think about the theory because I like to think that along other timelines I haven't made the stupid mistakes I'm forced to deal with in this one. I'd like to think that I'm smart enough that I'm not an idiot in infinite timelines, that I'd get it right one way or another at least a couple times. My roomate/boss is concerned that the only thing that will right my wrongs is a responsible girlfriend. My whole life I've believed that there is no problem that arises that I can't solve myself, especially all the problems that plague me. I'm becoming concerned that he's right because he was in the same spot. What kind of quandary is that? I'm hesitant to date anyone because I'd feel like an asshole to saddle them with my problems but maybe the only way to solve the problems is to date someone responsible who'll fix them.
Today my looming homeless scenario resolved itself. As soon as I walked into work one of the guys who used to live at our horrible house told me a friend of his was looking to split his one bedroom. Dirt cheap temporary solution. One problem solved miraculously, a solution fallen into my lap. Now if a responsible woman would fall in my lap apparently I'd be all set.
Found out today work is skinny through January and February so the gig in New York will be a delightful diversion. Other than that I need to reach out and see what else is out there. Been a while since I've legitimately placed those calls. I have that nervous excited terrified feeling in the pit of my stomach that I'm about to enter the next phase of my life.
Plenty of time for all that after I wander around and see if neanderthals are hitting each other.
It's 2:32 am and the switches haven't been hit once. I've just been sitting here listening to the tech guys play bad Italian house music and tell bad jokes and I've been threatened twice because I refuse to laugh at them. It should be a crime that I get paid to do this.
We're all in stitches that the last show we made is causing MTV to get bombarded for promoting violence against women and racial stereotyping. Pretty much guarentees the ratings from episode three to four will double and we'll be making the second season next summer. Reality tv is diabolical. And all because someone had a camera on when a scumbag punched a girl. The Real World destroyed tv.
I found out today that a former friend of mine is on one of my favorite new tv comedies. I met this girl at Boston University. Super cute and very smart, we hit it off because she was also from Maine. After sophomore year she either transferred or changed majors and I didn't see her again. I graduated in '99. In 2002 I was living at home for a year, banking money for my doomed trip to Long Island when, lo and behold, channel surfing I see her on MTV. No, can't be. Waited for end credits, never showed cast. Hmmmm. Exercised patience, one episode of a marathon, sweet! Opening credits there she was. I thought it was hilarious. The show probably still stands as the worst thing I've ever seen on TV, and that is a miracle when one considers the new Melrose Place. Thinking of it makes me want to dig my eyes out, yet I feel compelled to keep watching it. So masochistic. Anyway, YAY! A friend of mine is on a major network TV show. I never watch it again. After Long Island explodes in my face I crash in New York City with a buddy. Opening night Terminator 3 I get back from the bank I work at late, rush to the ridiculously packed theater, scan the crowd for my friends. Obviously first in line they have the cherry row in the center dominated, empty seat in the middle for me. -
2:47am: the couple that exploded an hour ago are having the try to talk it out talk. This won't work because the guy, our "victim", is a normal guy, good looking, not intelligent, but normal. His girl is a train wreck. He has finally realized it and there is nothing she can say to change his mind.
3:10am: conversation continues. One couple sleeps which means my reign of terror is about to begin.
TAG! BACK IN! - I do the theater sideways walk, crotch to face for those curious, and as I'm about to take my seat I see my friend from BU sitting directly behind me. While recognition is dawning on me she recognizes me and we have our big "holy shit! what a small world" reunion. I ask her about the show, she's now an actress, congrats. She moved to the area live in the area, we should get together and grab coffee, sweet, great seeing you, talk soon. T3 = 2003. Fast forward to '09, I can't place where I know this actress from on one of my favorite new comedies. Finally catch the end credits of episode 5 and there she is. Its always a fun discovery.
Stream of consciousness is becoming a fun way of killing time. So far, 2 hours 15 minutes.
3:17am: Sleeping couple is awake. I might not have to do anything tonight.
Purchased a fresh new copy of Catcher in the Rye today. When I start rereading it that will make the third book I am currently rereading. Somewhere in this jamble I want to try to come up with a way to mash the stories together. How interesting would it be to jumble the characters and goings ons of Catcher in the Rye, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and American Psycho. I read damn good literature.
3:23am: The feuding couple is cuddling on a couch and seem to be on the mend. My faith renewed that these people I work around are the cream of the crop of stupid people and should not be allowed to breed. Or our producers should quit working these obnoxious hours and become handsomely paid couples counselors.
Raining again tonight but because I'm responsible for the air raid sirens and devilish light show I'm stuck in a room with a blairing heater. I'm f'ing hot but I know how miserable I've been the past few nights so I refuse to turn it off. Gluttony.-
3:40pm: The exploded couple is reunited, they have resumed control of their fake baby and are moving back in to the bedroom. The things I see are indescribable and go contrary to any kind of reason or logic. Its like watching behavioral chaos theory. Anything can happen anytime and is controlled only by whimsy. They sleep next to each other but there is a rift so my faith in man is still hanging by a thread.
The other day I was watching a movie trailer and Jean Reno told the story of the creation of man according to Greek myth. The gods created man because they were bored. -
3:48am: Bedroom lights out. The madness is now really about to begin.
-Man could not entertain the gods so they created women because they were still bored. Man and woman together could still not entertain the gods so they created love.-
:) 4am: first switch flipped. Chaos. They are also playing music and audio of a screaming, crying baby. Brilliant torture. Wouldn't have been shocked if it had been ripped straight out of A Clockwork Orange.
-And in creating love they created happiness and tragedy. Here they were finally entertained but realized that these emotions were too much for mankind to handle so they created laughter to help us survive.
4:15am: 15 minutes of chaos later. Cast is mortified. Crew is all in stitches.
Just under three hours to kill before relief arrives. Raining chaos every thirty minutes or so. Heading out into the cold until the next cacophany. I hope everyone else sleeps soundly.
Be seein' you :)
Thursday, December 10, 2009
:)
Picture a great big dark stage. A spotlight illuminates a podium with a microphone on it. I walk out from the wings of this stage and stand in front of the podium. The air of confidence is a total front, I am deathly afraid of being in front of a crowd, especially a crowd of strangers, and here I stand about to address everyone. EVERYONE. Picture six billion chairs warmed by the backsides of every person on the planet. Every speech should start with a throat clearing, so AHEM. Tap, tap, tap and rest assured that the microphone will carry tese words that I am about to say to the ears of all these people. Then I begin.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you all because it has recently been deemed that out of everyone on the planet I am the biggest idiot. In my days I have met a fraction of a percent of you and some of you are huge idiots but rest assured I put you to shame."
That would be followed by the fake self-deprecating laugh that is actually another total front to cover up how terrified I am. But this all needs to be said so I press on.
"I took a beautiful thing that made me happy and I broke it. You there in the front row, you asked Why? Damned if I know. Its just what I do. I knew full well what the outcome would be and how awful it would make me feel and I still took the hammer to it. I could have walked away. I could have hit the brakes, stopped the car, opened the door and got out. Instead I accelerated and hit the wall as fast as possible, a huge nuclear fireball of a wreck, one of those kind that makes things disintegrate. I don't know if I'll ever know why. I think I can't be trusted with anything beautiful because I'll just drag it down into the mud with me. And the breaking of the beautiful thing was a glorious event to watch. It was the equivalent of pulling the pin on a grenade and then just staring at it in the palm of my hand until it exploded in my face. So stupid and embarrassing and pointless. Why can't I just leave well enough alone? I've tried so hard to fix myself for the past two decades and I've failed. Even more painful is that there have been a few times I thought I succeeded but it was all an elaborate ruse played on me by myself."
Here I would actually laugh, heartily, at my own expense, because I am joke. So much squandered potential.
"I am a molotov cocktail of self-destruction and good intentions. This scenario that played itself out was one of those 'only a matter of time' things. All the players involved knew it. I just floored it to the end. And it made me sad. Still makes me sad."
Here is where the tears would start to well up a bit. God knows there's been enough of those lately :)
"It is very rare that I feel truly happy. I am a happy person. I have nothing to not be happy about. Successful in work. Healthy. Intelligent. Young. Capable of anything. There is not an obstacle that can't be overcome. But truly happy? That happiness that fills you up and radiates out of you. The kind that people see in your eyes and your smile and your body language. Nope. Not here :) I can fake it here and there. But how sad is that?"
Shrugs for the audience and takes a moment to register the looks on faces in the crowd.
"I have been truly happy for the past few days and it was wonderful. I ate it up gluttonously. But it never should have happened and there was a great big ol' expiration date on it. So I pulled the plug. Nothing that ever happens in my life is clear cut. I seem to live on the fence that seperates wonderful and horrible. To feel such happiness and to know that it is kind of make believe is incredibly depressing. But then even the selfless act of pulling the plug was selfish. I didn't even back myself into a corner. I ran into the corner knowing full well it was a corner and that when I turned around there would be no escape. I pride myself on being very intelligent and then do so many stupid things. Is it just me or would other people continue on a path that they knew ended disastrously? I saw a series of events happening that ended badly and then went through the events one by one until it ended badly. It bears repeating over and over again because I still can't believe it happened."
Here I would remove the microphone from the podium and walk around to the front of the stage and hunker down. Legs dangling. Swinging back and forth like a little kid.
"I was a happy kid. (Such a superb spot for a slide show). I got broken in my teeens by a girl I loved. It was a complicated situation. I wanted to be so grown up. I had dreams and goals. I was very shy so when we started dating it was the biggest confidence boost ever. She was smart and funny and beautiful. And I was the happiest person on the planet. When she left me it was brilliant the damge she did. It was so surgical and subtle and glorious that I will never cease to be amazed by it. Something was just gone. Whatever it was I have never really put my finger on. It just left a void that nothing has ever been able to fill. And now whenever I find anything that threatens to make me happy I ruin it. And I could not be more apologetic to anyone who gets caught in my wake. You all know who you are and I never meant to hurt any of you."
"I had a dream last night that I was standing outside of the house where this whole scenario played itself out. I was in a hurry to escape but it was surrounded by a wall. As I ran around the house I realized that the wall was solid. There was no way out. There was someone chasing me whom I knew had bad intentions so I kept running until I got tired. Then I gave up. The last thing I heard before I woke up was me laughing at myself. In Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield says that wherever you go someone has already been there and written "Fuck you" on the wall. Somehow for me that person is me. It seems like there is a diabolical sliver of my psyche that runs ahead of the rest of me and sabotages everything I do. It is the only way I can explain knowing all of the different things that are horribly wrong with me but not being able to correct them. I am out of control."
Getting nervous now so I stand and commence with the pacing, trying to work through everything in my broken head.
"I'm the guy who hits rock bottom and then starts jackhammering. :) There is not a hole deep enough that I can crawl into right now. I am ground zero. And I am sincerely sorry for the one person out there who was unfortunately standing too close to me when the explosion happened. Such a collosal idiot."
And then I would put the microphone back and marvel on how self-aggrandizing this whole thing was :)
In all honesty, I shock myself over and over by how retarded I can be and the past two days were like a giant exclamation point. RETARDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then at the end I broke :) It was a sight to behold. The complete falling apart of barriers and safe guards and self-control. Now I get down on my knees and start picking up pieces.
Need to find scotch tape and glue :)
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the beautiful thing I ruined is salvageable ;) Time will tell.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you all because it has recently been deemed that out of everyone on the planet I am the biggest idiot. In my days I have met a fraction of a percent of you and some of you are huge idiots but rest assured I put you to shame."
That would be followed by the fake self-deprecating laugh that is actually another total front to cover up how terrified I am. But this all needs to be said so I press on.
"I took a beautiful thing that made me happy and I broke it. You there in the front row, you asked Why? Damned if I know. Its just what I do. I knew full well what the outcome would be and how awful it would make me feel and I still took the hammer to it. I could have walked away. I could have hit the brakes, stopped the car, opened the door and got out. Instead I accelerated and hit the wall as fast as possible, a huge nuclear fireball of a wreck, one of those kind that makes things disintegrate. I don't know if I'll ever know why. I think I can't be trusted with anything beautiful because I'll just drag it down into the mud with me. And the breaking of the beautiful thing was a glorious event to watch. It was the equivalent of pulling the pin on a grenade and then just staring at it in the palm of my hand until it exploded in my face. So stupid and embarrassing and pointless. Why can't I just leave well enough alone? I've tried so hard to fix myself for the past two decades and I've failed. Even more painful is that there have been a few times I thought I succeeded but it was all an elaborate ruse played on me by myself."
Here I would actually laugh, heartily, at my own expense, because I am joke. So much squandered potential.
"I am a molotov cocktail of self-destruction and good intentions. This scenario that played itself out was one of those 'only a matter of time' things. All the players involved knew it. I just floored it to the end. And it made me sad. Still makes me sad."
Here is where the tears would start to well up a bit. God knows there's been enough of those lately :)
"It is very rare that I feel truly happy. I am a happy person. I have nothing to not be happy about. Successful in work. Healthy. Intelligent. Young. Capable of anything. There is not an obstacle that can't be overcome. But truly happy? That happiness that fills you up and radiates out of you. The kind that people see in your eyes and your smile and your body language. Nope. Not here :) I can fake it here and there. But how sad is that?"
Shrugs for the audience and takes a moment to register the looks on faces in the crowd.
"I have been truly happy for the past few days and it was wonderful. I ate it up gluttonously. But it never should have happened and there was a great big ol' expiration date on it. So I pulled the plug. Nothing that ever happens in my life is clear cut. I seem to live on the fence that seperates wonderful and horrible. To feel such happiness and to know that it is kind of make believe is incredibly depressing. But then even the selfless act of pulling the plug was selfish. I didn't even back myself into a corner. I ran into the corner knowing full well it was a corner and that when I turned around there would be no escape. I pride myself on being very intelligent and then do so many stupid things. Is it just me or would other people continue on a path that they knew ended disastrously? I saw a series of events happening that ended badly and then went through the events one by one until it ended badly. It bears repeating over and over again because I still can't believe it happened."
Here I would remove the microphone from the podium and walk around to the front of the stage and hunker down. Legs dangling. Swinging back and forth like a little kid.
"I was a happy kid. (Such a superb spot for a slide show). I got broken in my teeens by a girl I loved. It was a complicated situation. I wanted to be so grown up. I had dreams and goals. I was very shy so when we started dating it was the biggest confidence boost ever. She was smart and funny and beautiful. And I was the happiest person on the planet. When she left me it was brilliant the damge she did. It was so surgical and subtle and glorious that I will never cease to be amazed by it. Something was just gone. Whatever it was I have never really put my finger on. It just left a void that nothing has ever been able to fill. And now whenever I find anything that threatens to make me happy I ruin it. And I could not be more apologetic to anyone who gets caught in my wake. You all know who you are and I never meant to hurt any of you."
"I had a dream last night that I was standing outside of the house where this whole scenario played itself out. I was in a hurry to escape but it was surrounded by a wall. As I ran around the house I realized that the wall was solid. There was no way out. There was someone chasing me whom I knew had bad intentions so I kept running until I got tired. Then I gave up. The last thing I heard before I woke up was me laughing at myself. In Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield says that wherever you go someone has already been there and written "Fuck you" on the wall. Somehow for me that person is me. It seems like there is a diabolical sliver of my psyche that runs ahead of the rest of me and sabotages everything I do. It is the only way I can explain knowing all of the different things that are horribly wrong with me but not being able to correct them. I am out of control."
Getting nervous now so I stand and commence with the pacing, trying to work through everything in my broken head.
"I'm the guy who hits rock bottom and then starts jackhammering. :) There is not a hole deep enough that I can crawl into right now. I am ground zero. And I am sincerely sorry for the one person out there who was unfortunately standing too close to me when the explosion happened. Such a collosal idiot."
And then I would put the microphone back and marvel on how self-aggrandizing this whole thing was :)
In all honesty, I shock myself over and over by how retarded I can be and the past two days were like a giant exclamation point. RETARDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then at the end I broke :) It was a sight to behold. The complete falling apart of barriers and safe guards and self-control. Now I get down on my knees and start picking up pieces.
Need to find scotch tape and glue :)
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the beautiful thing I ruined is salvageable ;) Time will tell.
Monday, December 7, 2009
The Graveyard Shift
Overnight shifts suck. 3am to 7am are the most boring four hours there are. Night is cold in the desert in Southern California and now it has decided to rain early. This makes it that vicious cold that sinks into your bones and makes it appalling to move around. And then there is always work to do, but not really enough to kill the entire shift so you either have to stretch it or entertain yourself until relief arrives. Then you get to sleep through the beautiful days, very reminiscent of East Coast fall days, my favorite, and wake up just as it is getting dark and cold again.
The other night I was so cold that when I misstepped exiting one of our cast houses, my ankle turned when I missed half the step and I toppled over. Falling down a flight of three steps is more embarrassing than painful but it was the fact I was freezing that caused me to do nothing. I just flopped to the ground, fantastically catching my weight first on my knee and then on my elbow, also the two most painful places to catch yourself. I was going to just lay there forever until I realized the tile I fell on was surprisingly colder than the night so I hopped up and walked it off. For the record, fine now. Only thing wounded was my pride. I'm usually very graceful. Tonight I smashed my thumb between a metal stand and the rack we store it in, my hand slipping on it because it was wet. Smashing cold wet fingers, painful. Then I jumped to unlock a door and came down abdominal region first on a massive doorknob. Lovely colorful bruise surrounding a gash. I usually don't hurt myself. The past 24 hours have been remarkably eventful in that area.
Couple nights ago I got to meet one of the original Pussycat Dolls, Carmit Bachar. Very cute. Brings me around to the other type of woman I'm attracted to. Huge smile, super fun, infecting everyone around them with a general sense that life is as good as it could possibly be at present but that it will keep getting better and better. I know very few of these type of people but when I find them they become very dear to me very quickly. I worry about to many little things and I am very critical of myself at all times, analyzing everything that I do and say and what they cause to happen around me. These people are like a black hole for this and it all just goes away while I'm with them. It's wonderful.
One more hour to go and a bunch of shit left to accomplish so off I go. Means one more hour to see how much more pain I can inflict upon myself before relief spells me and I have three days off to lick my wounds.
At least I have my laptop back to entertain me whilst licking. :) Despite the fact it keeps failing me I'll always love technology like the beaten lover who just can't bring themself to leave. We'll see how long this hard drive lasts before I fry it. And once again throwing caution to the wind and not editing ;) Oh to live so dangerously.
Over and out.
The other night I was so cold that when I misstepped exiting one of our cast houses, my ankle turned when I missed half the step and I toppled over. Falling down a flight of three steps is more embarrassing than painful but it was the fact I was freezing that caused me to do nothing. I just flopped to the ground, fantastically catching my weight first on my knee and then on my elbow, also the two most painful places to catch yourself. I was going to just lay there forever until I realized the tile I fell on was surprisingly colder than the night so I hopped up and walked it off. For the record, fine now. Only thing wounded was my pride. I'm usually very graceful. Tonight I smashed my thumb between a metal stand and the rack we store it in, my hand slipping on it because it was wet. Smashing cold wet fingers, painful. Then I jumped to unlock a door and came down abdominal region first on a massive doorknob. Lovely colorful bruise surrounding a gash. I usually don't hurt myself. The past 24 hours have been remarkably eventful in that area.
Couple nights ago I got to meet one of the original Pussycat Dolls, Carmit Bachar. Very cute. Brings me around to the other type of woman I'm attracted to. Huge smile, super fun, infecting everyone around them with a general sense that life is as good as it could possibly be at present but that it will keep getting better and better. I know very few of these type of people but when I find them they become very dear to me very quickly. I worry about to many little things and I am very critical of myself at all times, analyzing everything that I do and say and what they cause to happen around me. These people are like a black hole for this and it all just goes away while I'm with them. It's wonderful.
One more hour to go and a bunch of shit left to accomplish so off I go. Means one more hour to see how much more pain I can inflict upon myself before relief spells me and I have three days off to lick my wounds.
At least I have my laptop back to entertain me whilst licking. :) Despite the fact it keeps failing me I'll always love technology like the beaten lover who just can't bring themself to leave. We'll see how long this hard drive lasts before I fry it. And once again throwing caution to the wind and not editing ;) Oh to live so dangerously.
Over and out.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Thanksgiving with the Tools
After a few remarkably boring days off, punctuated by an unsuccessful update of the Entropia Universe that did not allow me to log in for two days, I am back on set and the day has just finished up at 3:30am. Not too bad, leaves me with three and a half mindless hours to kill.
Thanksgiving was fun this year. Everyone was very jolly and apparently there was a huge, delicious catered Thanksgiving dinner. I avoided it because it would've been bad form to plow through a plate and then pass out an hour after I got here. I suffered through a huge bag of McDonald's to induce a food coma so I could get a few hours nap in before arriving here. It is one of the most disgusting things I feel necessary to do when trying to switch over from days to nights. And I always feel guilty because I'm descended from the Scottish clan Campbell and I think its my ancestral duty to stab any McDonald I come across and watch them bleed out. Plus the awfulness of a McDonald's meal means that every free second I find while working I tear through doing crunches, push ups and hill climbs. It always seems like a good idea before the cash exchanges hands :(
This did end up being the most action packed Thanksgiving I've ever had. About an hour after I arrived everyone else left. Male cast members had been exposed as a bunch of cheating scumbags, which should have just been a "HA! I knew it!" moment but apparetly was more a heartbreaking, weeping, emotional tornado. Female cast members decided to blow off steam with some drunken skinny dipping, also pretty par for the course. Except then one of them said the wrong thing and four hours later they finally stopped screaming at each other. And they were screaming loud. I'd estimate the two main houses on this property are a quarter mile from each other and you could hear them clearly between the two. Extra funny was that the first hour of screaming happened while five of them were naked in the pool. Never a dull moment in reality tv land.
Even funnier is that most of them are that trashy New York/New Jersey/ Canadian hot that I find irresistably charming. I've never been able to figure it out. It's just a weird thing I have.
Weather was surprisingly calm tonight, first night I heard the coyotes howling. Probably still pissed when the other guys who works the graveyard shift ran over Monday night while racing around on our little transport vehicle. I always miss the real exciting stuff :)
Other than those tidbits, nothing else going on really. I'm tired, but not so tired I won't last until 7. Should be easy to get to sleep and stay asleep when I get home, fingers crossed. Work is like a novocaine shot to my brain. I don't think, I don't worry, I just get a list of stuff to accomplish and then accomplish it. When the list is done, the laptop comes out and off I go on me own :)
Nice and simple. ;) 2 hours 45 minutes to go.
Thanksgiving was fun this year. Everyone was very jolly and apparently there was a huge, delicious catered Thanksgiving dinner. I avoided it because it would've been bad form to plow through a plate and then pass out an hour after I got here. I suffered through a huge bag of McDonald's to induce a food coma so I could get a few hours nap in before arriving here. It is one of the most disgusting things I feel necessary to do when trying to switch over from days to nights. And I always feel guilty because I'm descended from the Scottish clan Campbell and I think its my ancestral duty to stab any McDonald I come across and watch them bleed out. Plus the awfulness of a McDonald's meal means that every free second I find while working I tear through doing crunches, push ups and hill climbs. It always seems like a good idea before the cash exchanges hands :(
This did end up being the most action packed Thanksgiving I've ever had. About an hour after I arrived everyone else left. Male cast members had been exposed as a bunch of cheating scumbags, which should have just been a "HA! I knew it!" moment but apparetly was more a heartbreaking, weeping, emotional tornado. Female cast members decided to blow off steam with some drunken skinny dipping, also pretty par for the course. Except then one of them said the wrong thing and four hours later they finally stopped screaming at each other. And they were screaming loud. I'd estimate the two main houses on this property are a quarter mile from each other and you could hear them clearly between the two. Extra funny was that the first hour of screaming happened while five of them were naked in the pool. Never a dull moment in reality tv land.
Even funnier is that most of them are that trashy New York/New Jersey/ Canadian hot that I find irresistably charming. I've never been able to figure it out. It's just a weird thing I have.
Weather was surprisingly calm tonight, first night I heard the coyotes howling. Probably still pissed when the other guys who works the graveyard shift ran over Monday night while racing around on our little transport vehicle. I always miss the real exciting stuff :)
Other than those tidbits, nothing else going on really. I'm tired, but not so tired I won't last until 7. Should be easy to get to sleep and stay asleep when I get home, fingers crossed. Work is like a novocaine shot to my brain. I don't think, I don't worry, I just get a list of stuff to accomplish and then accomplish it. When the list is done, the laptop comes out and off I go on me own :)
Nice and simple. ;) 2 hours 45 minutes to go.
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Good, The Bad and The TBD
There's been a ton of stuff going on and I'm dead tired right now, 6am and one hour to go until this graveyard shift has ended, so I'll most likely forget half the stuff I've been processing since I got back to California. So I'll break it up into these three easy sections and tackle it a bit at a time.
The Good
1. Killing days had gotten so gd boring that work was the greatest relief of all and despite the aforementioned present exhaustion, work almost feels like a vacation. And at the end of the vacation week I get a fat paycheck. This is glorious.
2. *Pushes glasses up nose, enabling geek mode* I'll admit that killing days had recently become easier when I got the Entropia Universe successfully reloaded on my laptop and could blissfully spend all of my free time in a virtual universe far far away. The they revamped the space station and day 1 I made an easy $200. I love technology, I love video games and I love anything that has stakes. If I'm going to invest time and money into something I am comforted knowing that there will be something that comes of it. This is why I can no longer waste time with platform games. *Geek mode off*
3. Saw D and Christian for the first time in a long time and realized that most of the people I regard as very close friends I don't miss, I just fall right back into comfortable mode with them when I see them and all's well. But with these two there was an elation that is truly special and heart warming during these little reunions. Makes me extra happier to be back on the west coast.
4. Indianapolis Colts still undefeated and my fantasy football team rolling into the playoffs #1. Sights clearly set on prize money and aiming for a glorious head shot.
5. No longer 115 degrees in the valley.
Hmmmmmmm The Bad
1. Work is located in the middle of the desert and it is damned cold at night. And the wind blows all the time as soon as it gets dark. And it gets dark an hour before I get here and gets light right around the time I'll be trying to get some sleep. Methinks I'll have some heavy bags under me eyes before this is all said and done. On thebright side, I have never successfully lasted through a night shift and I'm fifty minutes away, counting on y'all to help me pull through. That's right, I said y'all, work is also located on a horse ranch so it's obligatory.
2. Running = pain. My knee is f'ed in the a and I don't know if I banged it at work or after a night out drinking. Its lovely too cause right around the three mile mark that I'm trying to routinely break a glorious white hot ball of fire starts to ping from my knee to the middle of my shin and then back, and I start to do the nervous giggle that I always do when I get hurt. Then I get mad because the nervous giggle is ridiculous and a preposterous reaction to excruciating pain. I am at constant war with myself :)
3. Most of the tv shows I watch are the worst things on television because I am obsessed with why the hell they are on television in the first place. And I am doubly annoyed because I know most of them have good ratings and I think there are a lot of guardians of stupid children out there allowing said children to unfairly sway the Nielson ratings into tricking network execs into ordering more episodes of these awful shows. It is a vicious vicious cycle.
4. Getting screwed out of mucho dinero on my tax returns and now having to jump through flaming hoops to get it back. Like I don't have anything better to do then talk to smarmy government officials and try to figure out why I'm being audited for '07 when I had to pay. Do you really want more money from me? Ain't got it, too irresponsible with it ;)
And The TBD
Now I'm drawing a blank. I think Imight have lumped most of the TBD stuff into The Good and The Bad. Which means I was done processing it apparently. Funny, I wish my mind would shoot into auto pilot like that more often and solve problems that I'd been puzzling over. Its like having a super handy assistant that does everything for you and you just get a post-it saying its done and all's good. Oh, oh!
1. Moving at the end of the year and for some reason desiring to become a resident in a seedy motel. I suspect that now that I have crawled out of my shell I'm trying to turn myselfinto a movie character. Damned if I know which one but there is something interesting to me about becoming a full-time resident at, like, a $30 a night hotel. Need to check into this.
2. End of Mad Men season 2, I think in episode 10, Don Draper says the following, and I quote: "I have been watching my life, scratching at it, trying to get into it. But I can't." As soon as he said it I felt it applied to me 100% and then tried to put my finger on why but it's been elusive. The character of Don Draper has the world cupped in the palm of his hand, a perfect life. But he is not happy. I have never been able to tell if I am ever happy or not. Sure there are timeswhen I am very content, there are people who, when I am with them, I am very happy. But if I am by myself, no really doing anything, I wonder if I am happy. This character with his perfect life and job and family, his fairy tale rise from nothing to being the king of the New York advertising world feels like a dog. This requires a lot more pondering and I wonder if every time I hear the quote I'm just at a moment where I'm doing nothing, killing time, or just bored and wondering if I'm living my life to the fullest. Which I'm usually not, I'll be the first to admit. Past failures have left me very guarded about what I do and the circumstances under which I'll do them. There'll be more on this in the future, probably spurred on by an epiphany caused by the soothing sensations of the magic fingers action of the bed in my seedy motel room. It's going to double the number of quarters I use in a month, which is surprisingly high due to strip club pool sharking. Oh snap, and laundary! I'll have to refactor my monthly budget.
Even in the midst of some of these weightier questions I am in fantastic high spirits as I walk around this massive property, freezing and trying to suss out sounds in the darkness to make sure I don't get gotten at by the coyotes and the mountain lions. I still firmly believe that nothing will ever happen to me that I won't be able to deftly maneuver through. The young, good looking and intelligent theory is one that I am starting to hang my hat on regularly :)
And now I'm down to 27 minutes and it's no longer pitch black or freezing. And this little wander through my headspace has given me my second wind. Time to pack up and make my presence here a fleeting memory for the moment and I'm not even going to edit. Enjoy folks, warts and all.
In the words of #6 - Be seein' you ;)
The Good
1. Killing days had gotten so gd boring that work was the greatest relief of all and despite the aforementioned present exhaustion, work almost feels like a vacation. And at the end of the vacation week I get a fat paycheck. This is glorious.
2. *Pushes glasses up nose, enabling geek mode* I'll admit that killing days had recently become easier when I got the Entropia Universe successfully reloaded on my laptop and could blissfully spend all of my free time in a virtual universe far far away. The they revamped the space station and day 1 I made an easy $200. I love technology, I love video games and I love anything that has stakes. If I'm going to invest time and money into something I am comforted knowing that there will be something that comes of it. This is why I can no longer waste time with platform games. *Geek mode off*
3. Saw D and Christian for the first time in a long time and realized that most of the people I regard as very close friends I don't miss, I just fall right back into comfortable mode with them when I see them and all's well. But with these two there was an elation that is truly special and heart warming during these little reunions. Makes me extra happier to be back on the west coast.
4. Indianapolis Colts still undefeated and my fantasy football team rolling into the playoffs #1. Sights clearly set on prize money and aiming for a glorious head shot.
5. No longer 115 degrees in the valley.
Hmmmmmmm The Bad
1. Work is located in the middle of the desert and it is damned cold at night. And the wind blows all the time as soon as it gets dark. And it gets dark an hour before I get here and gets light right around the time I'll be trying to get some sleep. Methinks I'll have some heavy bags under me eyes before this is all said and done. On thebright side, I have never successfully lasted through a night shift and I'm fifty minutes away, counting on y'all to help me pull through. That's right, I said y'all, work is also located on a horse ranch so it's obligatory.
2. Running = pain. My knee is f'ed in the a and I don't know if I banged it at work or after a night out drinking. Its lovely too cause right around the three mile mark that I'm trying to routinely break a glorious white hot ball of fire starts to ping from my knee to the middle of my shin and then back, and I start to do the nervous giggle that I always do when I get hurt. Then I get mad because the nervous giggle is ridiculous and a preposterous reaction to excruciating pain. I am at constant war with myself :)
3. Most of the tv shows I watch are the worst things on television because I am obsessed with why the hell they are on television in the first place. And I am doubly annoyed because I know most of them have good ratings and I think there are a lot of guardians of stupid children out there allowing said children to unfairly sway the Nielson ratings into tricking network execs into ordering more episodes of these awful shows. It is a vicious vicious cycle.
4. Getting screwed out of mucho dinero on my tax returns and now having to jump through flaming hoops to get it back. Like I don't have anything better to do then talk to smarmy government officials and try to figure out why I'm being audited for '07 when I had to pay. Do you really want more money from me? Ain't got it, too irresponsible with it ;)
And The TBD
Now I'm drawing a blank. I think Imight have lumped most of the TBD stuff into The Good and The Bad. Which means I was done processing it apparently. Funny, I wish my mind would shoot into auto pilot like that more often and solve problems that I'd been puzzling over. Its like having a super handy assistant that does everything for you and you just get a post-it saying its done and all's good. Oh, oh!
1. Moving at the end of the year and for some reason desiring to become a resident in a seedy motel. I suspect that now that I have crawled out of my shell I'm trying to turn myselfinto a movie character. Damned if I know which one but there is something interesting to me about becoming a full-time resident at, like, a $30 a night hotel. Need to check into this.
2. End of Mad Men season 2, I think in episode 10, Don Draper says the following, and I quote: "I have been watching my life, scratching at it, trying to get into it. But I can't." As soon as he said it I felt it applied to me 100% and then tried to put my finger on why but it's been elusive. The character of Don Draper has the world cupped in the palm of his hand, a perfect life. But he is not happy. I have never been able to tell if I am ever happy or not. Sure there are timeswhen I am very content, there are people who, when I am with them, I am very happy. But if I am by myself, no really doing anything, I wonder if I am happy. This character with his perfect life and job and family, his fairy tale rise from nothing to being the king of the New York advertising world feels like a dog. This requires a lot more pondering and I wonder if every time I hear the quote I'm just at a moment where I'm doing nothing, killing time, or just bored and wondering if I'm living my life to the fullest. Which I'm usually not, I'll be the first to admit. Past failures have left me very guarded about what I do and the circumstances under which I'll do them. There'll be more on this in the future, probably spurred on by an epiphany caused by the soothing sensations of the magic fingers action of the bed in my seedy motel room. It's going to double the number of quarters I use in a month, which is surprisingly high due to strip club pool sharking. Oh snap, and laundary! I'll have to refactor my monthly budget.
Even in the midst of some of these weightier questions I am in fantastic high spirits as I walk around this massive property, freezing and trying to suss out sounds in the darkness to make sure I don't get gotten at by the coyotes and the mountain lions. I still firmly believe that nothing will ever happen to me that I won't be able to deftly maneuver through. The young, good looking and intelligent theory is one that I am starting to hang my hat on regularly :)
And now I'm down to 27 minutes and it's no longer pitch black or freezing. And this little wander through my headspace has given me my second wind. Time to pack up and make my presence here a fleeting memory for the moment and I'm not even going to edit. Enjoy folks, warts and all.
In the words of #6 - Be seein' you ;)
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Back at it
Laptop back up and running, back in glorious LA and the fantastic weather, work starting back up a week into November, massive tax return arriving imminently.
Things are looking pretty damn good from where I stand.
I picked up a book my mother gave me about how to financially survive 2009 the other day while I was laptopless and started reading, way too late to usefully apply the wisdom inside to maximize all the potential of 2009 financially but it has triggered another shift in thinking.
I have always been focused on the present. The only thing that ever mattered was what was happening in the now. Instant gratification and wants were given precedence over intelligent foresight and needs. Not surprisingly, if I had read the book at the end of last year when it was presented to me, I would be in a far different position today than I am, probably looking to buy my first home. Instead I'm kicking myself for being remarkably foolish.
So I'm getting off to a bit of a late start but I am thinking more about the future and all its uncertainties. Anything can happen, it is wondrous and scary at the same time. The 2009 tips the book gives are of course applicable to any year, the interesting thing is that it pretty accurately predicts everything that has happened this year and laid out steps to avoid getting screwed by the things when they happened. I have always been fascinated by the fact that you can fairly easily predict the future in certain ways just by being intelligent and seeing patterns. I did not pay attention to the patterns and got tripped up because I was watching my feet, not where I was going. Silly me, we learn from our mistakes.
Went to the Staples Center in Downtown LA and saw the UFC fights on Saturday night zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....... Two times been there live, both were kind of disappointing. Think I'm watching from the comfort of my own living room from now on.
Friend's birthday last night was good fun. Sitting around a booth in a crowded bar over beers with the guys is something that hasn't happened for a while now. Good natured razzing and marvelling at how poorly the birthday boy tried to hook up with a friend and ex-roommate. Some guys just have no game.
The light at the end of the boredom tunnel is getting brighter.
Watching: horror movies for Halloween
Reading: For Whom the Bell Tolls (again, been too long) and American Psycho (another of my all-time faves)
Listening: lots of Sublime (reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaal good to be back in LA and get out of Maine before first snow storm, made it by two days)
Things are looking pretty damn good from where I stand.
I picked up a book my mother gave me about how to financially survive 2009 the other day while I was laptopless and started reading, way too late to usefully apply the wisdom inside to maximize all the potential of 2009 financially but it has triggered another shift in thinking.
I have always been focused on the present. The only thing that ever mattered was what was happening in the now. Instant gratification and wants were given precedence over intelligent foresight and needs. Not surprisingly, if I had read the book at the end of last year when it was presented to me, I would be in a far different position today than I am, probably looking to buy my first home. Instead I'm kicking myself for being remarkably foolish.
So I'm getting off to a bit of a late start but I am thinking more about the future and all its uncertainties. Anything can happen, it is wondrous and scary at the same time. The 2009 tips the book gives are of course applicable to any year, the interesting thing is that it pretty accurately predicts everything that has happened this year and laid out steps to avoid getting screwed by the things when they happened. I have always been fascinated by the fact that you can fairly easily predict the future in certain ways just by being intelligent and seeing patterns. I did not pay attention to the patterns and got tripped up because I was watching my feet, not where I was going. Silly me, we learn from our mistakes.
Went to the Staples Center in Downtown LA and saw the UFC fights on Saturday night zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....... Two times been there live, both were kind of disappointing. Think I'm watching from the comfort of my own living room from now on.
Friend's birthday last night was good fun. Sitting around a booth in a crowded bar over beers with the guys is something that hasn't happened for a while now. Good natured razzing and marvelling at how poorly the birthday boy tried to hook up with a friend and ex-roommate. Some guys just have no game.
The light at the end of the boredom tunnel is getting brighter.
Watching: horror movies for Halloween
Reading: For Whom the Bell Tolls (again, been too long) and American Psycho (another of my all-time faves)
Listening: lots of Sublime (reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaal good to be back in LA and get out of Maine before first snow storm, made it by two days)
Friday, October 9, 2009
Mourning
For the past week my super laptop has been warning me about an imminent hard drive failure. Having only had it for a year I foolishly ignored the warnings and carried on with me day to day. Last night the failure became less imminent and all too real. For the second time I have lost a laptop without backing up any of the info on it.
Now I find myself relegated to the use of a netbook which is much less super than the super laptop and allows me to do next to nothing that makes the super laptop like a trusted friend. No TV shows, no movies, no video games, superb internet capabilities. Positive that when I go to see if they can't mine some of the data off the corrupted drive the answer will most likely be, "Nope. Sorry."
This sucks.
Now I find myself relegated to the use of a netbook which is much less super than the super laptop and allows me to do next to nothing that makes the super laptop like a trusted friend. No TV shows, no movies, no video games, superb internet capabilities. Positive that when I go to see if they can't mine some of the data off the corrupted drive the answer will most likely be, "Nope. Sorry."
This sucks.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Tsk Tsk Tsk
I've been remiss in my posting duties.
Solitary confinement progresses swimmingly. The past few days have been some of the pain in the ass days. Ladder too short to reach the tall tall parts of the house so it gets fully extended to thirty feet and then I have to fight with a paint brush on a stick to get to the tippy top. Thems the brakes when you're vertically challenged. Ahhhhh and the spiders. Great big hairy bastards everywhere. Nothing like turning your head when your thirty feet in the air and seeing a spider half the size of your fist right in your face. I'm talking bigger than the Harry Potter spiders. So every trip up the ladder starts first with broom in hand, then down, then up with paint scraper, then down, then up with bucket and brush. Ahhhhhhh and the power lines. Nothing like trying to paint around power lines with a brush attached to a six foot long metal pole while standing thirty feet in the air on a metal ladder. That was a little nerve racking. But those parts are all over. Except the spiders. I have a few more days of battling them.
Three sides done. Yesterday I got news that work in California starts up again near the end of October and goes straight through to Christmas. This is happy news. Usually we go dark from Thanksgiving to Christmas and I find myself bored again. And a woman who knows my sister mentioned she may want me to do her house too while I'm in Maine. TBD on that one but great to know that there is work afoot to keep my hands from being idle.
Reading: Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. excellent science fiction.
Watching: hours of new fall television daily, Freaks & Geeks season 1, Popular seasons 1 & 2. I used to never watch television, regarded it as the place where talentless actors and creators went to ride out their days of work. Not any more. And I'm becoming obsessed with anything that has high school or college story lines. I think I suspect subconsciously I missed out on the opportunity to be a great high school and college character so I live vicariously through the hijinxes and dramas of tv characters. Oh if I could go back and do it all over again, the adventures I'd have!
Listening: Metric - Help, I'm Alive. Over and over and over.
The track brings up an interesting discovery that dawned on me yesterday while watching the video clips on youtube of their live performances and the two-hour season premiere of House. I love quality time with an amazing person more than anything. The closest thing to that is a piece of artwork that strikes an emotional cord. I am inspired and envious whenever I see or hear something that invokes a sharp physical response. My skin crawls every time I watch the live performances of Metric's Help, I'm Alive. It is an amazing song about the fear of failure. At the end of the House season premiere I found myself crying because it was so perfectly put together. When all of the story elements that had been put into place over the first hour and fifteen minutes started to fall into place during the last fifteen minutes I was overcome with joy at the perfection that I was witnessing. I've always been a big fan of House, one of the best characters ever created for tv, the doctor who is afraid to fail.
These two things settled in my head last night and it dawned on me that the one thing I am really terrified of is failure. It doesn't happen often. In my professional life I am smart and talented enough to figure out anything that is thrown at me on the fly. I have always been good and quick at solving problems. The only thing I have ever failed at is relationships.
The other thing I realized over the past two days is I love eating ice cream for breakfast. Mmmmmmmmmm.
Solitary confinement progresses swimmingly. The past few days have been some of the pain in the ass days. Ladder too short to reach the tall tall parts of the house so it gets fully extended to thirty feet and then I have to fight with a paint brush on a stick to get to the tippy top. Thems the brakes when you're vertically challenged. Ahhhhh and the spiders. Great big hairy bastards everywhere. Nothing like turning your head when your thirty feet in the air and seeing a spider half the size of your fist right in your face. I'm talking bigger than the Harry Potter spiders. So every trip up the ladder starts first with broom in hand, then down, then up with paint scraper, then down, then up with bucket and brush. Ahhhhhhh and the power lines. Nothing like trying to paint around power lines with a brush attached to a six foot long metal pole while standing thirty feet in the air on a metal ladder. That was a little nerve racking. But those parts are all over. Except the spiders. I have a few more days of battling them.
Three sides done. Yesterday I got news that work in California starts up again near the end of October and goes straight through to Christmas. This is happy news. Usually we go dark from Thanksgiving to Christmas and I find myself bored again. And a woman who knows my sister mentioned she may want me to do her house too while I'm in Maine. TBD on that one but great to know that there is work afoot to keep my hands from being idle.
Reading: Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. excellent science fiction.
Watching: hours of new fall television daily, Freaks & Geeks season 1, Popular seasons 1 & 2. I used to never watch television, regarded it as the place where talentless actors and creators went to ride out their days of work. Not any more. And I'm becoming obsessed with anything that has high school or college story lines. I think I suspect subconsciously I missed out on the opportunity to be a great high school and college character so I live vicariously through the hijinxes and dramas of tv characters. Oh if I could go back and do it all over again, the adventures I'd have!
Listening: Metric - Help, I'm Alive. Over and over and over.
The track brings up an interesting discovery that dawned on me yesterday while watching the video clips on youtube of their live performances and the two-hour season premiere of House. I love quality time with an amazing person more than anything. The closest thing to that is a piece of artwork that strikes an emotional cord. I am inspired and envious whenever I see or hear something that invokes a sharp physical response. My skin crawls every time I watch the live performances of Metric's Help, I'm Alive. It is an amazing song about the fear of failure. At the end of the House season premiere I found myself crying because it was so perfectly put together. When all of the story elements that had been put into place over the first hour and fifteen minutes started to fall into place during the last fifteen minutes I was overcome with joy at the perfection that I was witnessing. I've always been a big fan of House, one of the best characters ever created for tv, the doctor who is afraid to fail.
These two things settled in my head last night and it dawned on me that the one thing I am really terrified of is failure. It doesn't happen often. In my professional life I am smart and talented enough to figure out anything that is thrown at me on the fly. I have always been good and quick at solving problems. The only thing I have ever failed at is relationships.
The other thing I realized over the past two days is I love eating ice cream for breakfast. Mmmmmmmmmm.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Ugh
Still waging war with the time difference. Who would have ever thought three hours would so royally screw up someone's system.
Slept too late again today so no morning exercise :( I like to blame the time difference and whine about jet lag and insomnia but I suspect deep down I'm just not disciplined. But here again it's 12:30am and I have been reading for three hours in an attempt to put myself to sleep and the only thing I sucessfully accomplished was finishing The Game. Interesting read, funny how it reads like Neil Strauss' personal Fight Club, only not as poignant because he comes off as a total douche through half of it. Wading through all the pap about sexual conquests though, I love to read intelligent accounts of people interacting with other people and how complicated or simple it can be. The limitless possibilities of what can happen when two people start talking for the first time is wonderful.
Happily got to watch another episode of Sons of Anarchy this morning. I watch a lot of crap TV, always fascinated in why something is popular, especially if it is garbage. Sons of Anarchy is brilliant, a weird twist on Hamlet with motorcycles and gun running and gang wars. Seeing the finished product of creative and talented people making something that is flawless is a beautiful thing and inspires me to do the same. Watching most of the junk on the CW teaches me how not to do things. Yeah, I'm talking to you, 90210.
Passed the 25% mark on the house today, the massive side is complete and I curled around to the front and the back and got a little headstart on both. The fourth side will be tricky because of the solarium that I'm not sure I can get over. Glass structures are a pain in the ass. The air is clean though and nature is beautiful. I love being surrounded by woods and haven't been for far too long.
A correction to last night's post that I was thinking about today while working. Once upon a time D called me "a prince amung men". This was the second best compliment I've ever received. She sees a lot of men and the vast majority of them could be described as the dregs. I could have easily been lumped in with the rest of the dregs but instead we connected and developed an interesting friendship.
I miss you, D, and can't wait to see you again. Know that I hope you are well, feeling better and that rehearsals are going great.
Slept too late again today so no morning exercise :( I like to blame the time difference and whine about jet lag and insomnia but I suspect deep down I'm just not disciplined. But here again it's 12:30am and I have been reading for three hours in an attempt to put myself to sleep and the only thing I sucessfully accomplished was finishing The Game. Interesting read, funny how it reads like Neil Strauss' personal Fight Club, only not as poignant because he comes off as a total douche through half of it. Wading through all the pap about sexual conquests though, I love to read intelligent accounts of people interacting with other people and how complicated or simple it can be. The limitless possibilities of what can happen when two people start talking for the first time is wonderful.
Happily got to watch another episode of Sons of Anarchy this morning. I watch a lot of crap TV, always fascinated in why something is popular, especially if it is garbage. Sons of Anarchy is brilliant, a weird twist on Hamlet with motorcycles and gun running and gang wars. Seeing the finished product of creative and talented people making something that is flawless is a beautiful thing and inspires me to do the same. Watching most of the junk on the CW teaches me how not to do things. Yeah, I'm talking to you, 90210.
Passed the 25% mark on the house today, the massive side is complete and I curled around to the front and the back and got a little headstart on both. The fourth side will be tricky because of the solarium that I'm not sure I can get over. Glass structures are a pain in the ass. The air is clean though and nature is beautiful. I love being surrounded by woods and haven't been for far too long.
A correction to last night's post that I was thinking about today while working. Once upon a time D called me "a prince amung men". This was the second best compliment I've ever received. She sees a lot of men and the vast majority of them could be described as the dregs. I could have easily been lumped in with the rest of the dregs but instead we connected and developed an interesting friendship.
I miss you, D, and can't wait to see you again. Know that I hope you are well, feeling better and that rehearsals are going great.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Day #3
Day #3 is in the books.
I woke up Sunday morning and convinced myself that I would rest on Sundays, knowing full well that I will most likely spend Sundays watching football with my cousins and old high school friends. Five minutes after making that decision I went out and started to work on the house anyway, intending to get some kind of head start. I felt compelled to take breaks to watch football every fifteen minutes so it was not a fully productive day. I did eventually run the island circle again and got my time down to 40.20, not bad and I think I can shave another five minutes off it but ten will be impossible. The insomnia vs. jet lag battle royale continued and made it impossible to start my intended routine on Monday.
Monday was as bad as Sunday work wise without the benefit of having the NFL to blame. I felt the need to take breaks every fifteen minutes and do nothing. I was sluggish and slow and eventually pssed out for two hours from 4pm to 6pm. Work ouput was light enough that my father joked as to whether or not I had done any painting. I had. I skipped the evening run so I wouldn't be sore for the Tuesday morning run.
Tuesday morning I woke up at 6am, which would have been perfect if I hadn't then immediately fallen back asleep for two more hours. I woke up as everyone was leaving, ate breakfast and started working. Today was the day. I worked like a madman from 9am to 6pm. The largest side of the house, that which requires the most work, is nearly complete by the end of day three. I then took a long walk around the island, same route as the run. 1 hour and ten minutes, so 35 minutes seems like a much more realistic goal. Not sure whether or not I'll have my first morning run tomorrow as it is 12.30am now and I am not at all sleepy. Jet lag vs. insomnia sucks.
Tonight I missed my first attempt to see old friends. A friend from my close circle in high school was having drinks with the brother of another of our close friends, whom we knew but rarely hung out with because he was three years older than us. After the fact I happened to be surfing facebook when my friend messaged me. He had driven home after a few too many and had thankfully made it safely. They had a good time and he informed me it seemed like our friend's brother was doing good, which is always nice to hear. Last I saw him was in '99 and his long time girlfriend had dumped him and he was pretty miserable. My friend then went on to inform me that I had been a lively topic of discussion.
Most of the time these people knew me I was a very shy introvert. My friend, his name is Matt, had a best friend named John. John was the guy whom the first girl I ever loved cheated on me with, then they thought they'd make it up to me by tossing me John's girlfriend as a peace offering. I declined. I was good friends with Matt but I have always leery and suspicious of anyone who would associate with someone who would do such a thing. John I rarely spoke to afterwards. There are few things that disturb me as much as this kind of betrayal and this particular instance would lead to me closing myself off to people for a number of years. Oh, the folly of youth.
I assume Matt told our friend's brother, Pete, that I was in town and he had tried to get in touch with me through my sister to meet them out. Upon hearing my name Pete would inevitably tell his favorite story of us playing Little League baseball together. Pete was in his last year of eligiblity and one of the best in our league. He was huge and would go on to become one of our best high school basketball players. At the time of the story he was 16, twice my size and threw a baseball close to 60 mph. I was 12 and tiny but fast as hell. We were doing base running drills combined with fielding drills. Coach would hit a ball and someone would take off from home plate. If it was to an infielder they made the attempt to get the out at first. If it was to an outfielder, they made the attempt to keep it to a single. Pete played first base so he always ended up with the ball and threw it in to coach. When it came time for me to run something caught my attention, I believe it was a girl but my memory of it all is fuzzy. People started screaming, I looked up and caught a Pete fast ball with my left occipital bone. When I came to I was four feet back from where I had started with my left eye already swollen shut. Pete thought he killed me. My father threw me in our car and rushed me to my Grandmother's house to put a frozen steak on it.
Matt thought this story was hilarious. The facebook chat went like this.
Matt: Pete told me the story of how he ended your baseball career.
Me: HA! I couldn't hit for shit after that. But I could walk and steal bases like a motherfucker.
Matt: You are the ultimate!
Now I know that he was to some degree intoxicated but I felt surprised at the response. During all the time that Matt knew me I was anything but the ultimate anything. I was a turtle who spent all my time inside my own shell. I haven't seen Matt since '99 either, shortly after we graduated high school. I wouldn't start to peek out of my shell for another 4 years. There is something remarkably validating about someone who only knew you when you felt very small telling you that you are the ultimate. It feels wonderful.
The only compliment I will ever cherish more is when the woman I love more than anything in the entire world told me I was the most amazing person she had ever met. Today's was almost as sweet.
I woke up Sunday morning and convinced myself that I would rest on Sundays, knowing full well that I will most likely spend Sundays watching football with my cousins and old high school friends. Five minutes after making that decision I went out and started to work on the house anyway, intending to get some kind of head start. I felt compelled to take breaks to watch football every fifteen minutes so it was not a fully productive day. I did eventually run the island circle again and got my time down to 40.20, not bad and I think I can shave another five minutes off it but ten will be impossible. The insomnia vs. jet lag battle royale continued and made it impossible to start my intended routine on Monday.
Monday was as bad as Sunday work wise without the benefit of having the NFL to blame. I felt the need to take breaks every fifteen minutes and do nothing. I was sluggish and slow and eventually pssed out for two hours from 4pm to 6pm. Work ouput was light enough that my father joked as to whether or not I had done any painting. I had. I skipped the evening run so I wouldn't be sore for the Tuesday morning run.
Tuesday morning I woke up at 6am, which would have been perfect if I hadn't then immediately fallen back asleep for two more hours. I woke up as everyone was leaving, ate breakfast and started working. Today was the day. I worked like a madman from 9am to 6pm. The largest side of the house, that which requires the most work, is nearly complete by the end of day three. I then took a long walk around the island, same route as the run. 1 hour and ten minutes, so 35 minutes seems like a much more realistic goal. Not sure whether or not I'll have my first morning run tomorrow as it is 12.30am now and I am not at all sleepy. Jet lag vs. insomnia sucks.
Tonight I missed my first attempt to see old friends. A friend from my close circle in high school was having drinks with the brother of another of our close friends, whom we knew but rarely hung out with because he was three years older than us. After the fact I happened to be surfing facebook when my friend messaged me. He had driven home after a few too many and had thankfully made it safely. They had a good time and he informed me it seemed like our friend's brother was doing good, which is always nice to hear. Last I saw him was in '99 and his long time girlfriend had dumped him and he was pretty miserable. My friend then went on to inform me that I had been a lively topic of discussion.
Most of the time these people knew me I was a very shy introvert. My friend, his name is Matt, had a best friend named John. John was the guy whom the first girl I ever loved cheated on me with, then they thought they'd make it up to me by tossing me John's girlfriend as a peace offering. I declined. I was good friends with Matt but I have always leery and suspicious of anyone who would associate with someone who would do such a thing. John I rarely spoke to afterwards. There are few things that disturb me as much as this kind of betrayal and this particular instance would lead to me closing myself off to people for a number of years. Oh, the folly of youth.
I assume Matt told our friend's brother, Pete, that I was in town and he had tried to get in touch with me through my sister to meet them out. Upon hearing my name Pete would inevitably tell his favorite story of us playing Little League baseball together. Pete was in his last year of eligiblity and one of the best in our league. He was huge and would go on to become one of our best high school basketball players. At the time of the story he was 16, twice my size and threw a baseball close to 60 mph. I was 12 and tiny but fast as hell. We were doing base running drills combined with fielding drills. Coach would hit a ball and someone would take off from home plate. If it was to an infielder they made the attempt to get the out at first. If it was to an outfielder, they made the attempt to keep it to a single. Pete played first base so he always ended up with the ball and threw it in to coach. When it came time for me to run something caught my attention, I believe it was a girl but my memory of it all is fuzzy. People started screaming, I looked up and caught a Pete fast ball with my left occipital bone. When I came to I was four feet back from where I had started with my left eye already swollen shut. Pete thought he killed me. My father threw me in our car and rushed me to my Grandmother's house to put a frozen steak on it.
Matt thought this story was hilarious. The facebook chat went like this.
Matt: Pete told me the story of how he ended your baseball career.
Me: HA! I couldn't hit for shit after that. But I could walk and steal bases like a motherfucker.
Matt: You are the ultimate!
Now I know that he was to some degree intoxicated but I felt surprised at the response. During all the time that Matt knew me I was anything but the ultimate anything. I was a turtle who spent all my time inside my own shell. I haven't seen Matt since '99 either, shortly after we graduated high school. I wouldn't start to peek out of my shell for another 4 years. There is something remarkably validating about someone who only knew you when you felt very small telling you that you are the ultimate. It feels wonderful.
The only compliment I will ever cherish more is when the woman I love more than anything in the entire world told me I was the most amazing person she had ever met. Today's was almost as sweet.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
hmmmmmmm...
insomnia + jet lag = x. i'm working it all out now.
i have a sneaking suspicion i'm going to be up forever. 1.15am in Maine but it feels like 10.15pm in Cali and I can't foresee myself sleeping for another three or four hours, if that. Then if I sleep the standard three hours means Sunday will suck and I have a heightened probability of falling off a ladder.
:( stay tuned!
i have a sneaking suspicion i'm going to be up forever. 1.15am in Maine but it feels like 10.15pm in Cali and I can't foresee myself sleeping for another three or four hours, if that. Then if I sleep the standard three hours means Sunday will suck and I have a heightened probability of falling off a ladder.
:( stay tuned!
Barter's Island
Might as well continue to the present.
I arrived on the island much later than was originally intended, around 4pm. Greeted by our crazy dog. He smiles, I tried to take a picture but the bastard thrashes around too much and they never come out. You'd think all the heavy handed training my sister did with him and he'd know how to pose for a picture. The cats sat in the window and eyed me suspiciously. A brother and sister, they were identical at birth almost, all black with white paws. Only way to tell them apart was the boy had a diamond white spot on his nose, the girl had an hourglass. I drove my sister to the animal shelter in 2002 before I moved away for good so she could rescue them. Now the girl is tiny and can climb anything, even walls. The boy is enormous and lazy, an easy 20-pounder.
I walked around the house to survey what needed to be done. Figure if I bust my ass I can do the house in ten or twelve days, the garage in four or so. Then I'll either find some other stuff to do or head back to California early. We'll see how that all goes. Went for a run around the island. There is a road that circles the main island that all the houses are on. It is 4.2 miles long. I did a lap in 42 minutes. Now I work on getting that time down, hopefully to a half hour. Ambitious :) It is easier to run here than in the valley, nice breeze off the ocean, 60 degrees, quiet and beautiful. Northridge is not beautiful. It rains though, this is what I love most about California. No rain. But in Northridge you don't have to be careful of coyotes.
Got back to the house and took an amazing shower after the trip from hell. Lay down on the couch and watched Michigan upset Notre Dame with Dad and the dog and the giant cat. I'm not a big college football fan but it was a great game. Looking forward to starting working on the house tomorrow. My cousin got in touch with me to make plans to do NFL Sundays at his house so I'll probably start that in a week. It was during a public facebook conversation so two friends from high school I haven't seen in ten years or so were immediately in too. My predictions often come true, I'm suspecting a superpower #3. Eerily prescient. It is rapidly turning into my own version of Beautiful Girls. If I start writing about some hot 13-year old I've met who I have a great connection with, someone shoot me. I shouldn't be anyone's Pooh Bear.
Of course as soon as I leave town both roommates called and needed me to do work for them. I respectfully declined.
This is going to be a revelatory three weeks.
I arrived on the island much later than was originally intended, around 4pm. Greeted by our crazy dog. He smiles, I tried to take a picture but the bastard thrashes around too much and they never come out. You'd think all the heavy handed training my sister did with him and he'd know how to pose for a picture. The cats sat in the window and eyed me suspiciously. A brother and sister, they were identical at birth almost, all black with white paws. Only way to tell them apart was the boy had a diamond white spot on his nose, the girl had an hourglass. I drove my sister to the animal shelter in 2002 before I moved away for good so she could rescue them. Now the girl is tiny and can climb anything, even walls. The boy is enormous and lazy, an easy 20-pounder.
I walked around the house to survey what needed to be done. Figure if I bust my ass I can do the house in ten or twelve days, the garage in four or so. Then I'll either find some other stuff to do or head back to California early. We'll see how that all goes. Went for a run around the island. There is a road that circles the main island that all the houses are on. It is 4.2 miles long. I did a lap in 42 minutes. Now I work on getting that time down, hopefully to a half hour. Ambitious :) It is easier to run here than in the valley, nice breeze off the ocean, 60 degrees, quiet and beautiful. Northridge is not beautiful. It rains though, this is what I love most about California. No rain. But in Northridge you don't have to be careful of coyotes.
Got back to the house and took an amazing shower after the trip from hell. Lay down on the couch and watched Michigan upset Notre Dame with Dad and the dog and the giant cat. I'm not a big college football fan but it was a great game. Looking forward to starting working on the house tomorrow. My cousin got in touch with me to make plans to do NFL Sundays at his house so I'll probably start that in a week. It was during a public facebook conversation so two friends from high school I haven't seen in ten years or so were immediately in too. My predictions often come true, I'm suspecting a superpower #3. Eerily prescient. It is rapidly turning into my own version of Beautiful Girls. If I start writing about some hot 13-year old I've met who I have a great connection with, someone shoot me. I shouldn't be anyone's Pooh Bear.
Of course as soon as I leave town both roommates called and needed me to do work for them. I respectfully declined.
This is going to be a revelatory three weeks.
The Bastardly tag team of Murphy and Karma
The trip was atrocious.
A friend of mine I work with occasionally ferried me to LAX, but not before insisting I go out to eat with her and her husband. I try to never eat a meal before travelling so this didn't gel at all with my plans but I couldn't refuse so I grinned and bared it. I barely touched the chicken and mushroom crepe though so it went home with them. This was after she made me drink an entire bottle of kombucha. It was recently introduced to me by D, who loves it and is endlessly entertained by making me try things that always require a very close visual inspection first, like "What the hell is all that stuff floating in there?". It is fantastic for you, but like everything fantastic for you, tastes kind of awful. I'm too harsh, the grape flavor tastes ok, very, very powerful tang to it, but just before you take your swallow you smell what seems like being just a little too close to really dirty feet. I suffered through it. Her husband drank the mango flavored one, it smelled like sweat. She cheated and drank the ginger one which smelled like herbal tea.
My flight was at 11:45pm. I was over cautious getting there early with my dodgy ID as it was barely glanced over before I was waved through and I found I had two hours to kill. Laptop came out and I discovered I was unable to get online, screw LAX, how I hate thee. Last post to the blog was successfly made via Blackberry, which did a little to renew my faith in technology.
My master plan was to drink two tall boys at the sports bar while watching whatever sporting event was on tv, scamper to the gate at 11:15, get on the plane and by the grace of god be asleep before takeoff.
Murphy's Law lesson #1: Scampered to the gate at 11:15 to find the flight was delayed and not boarding until 12:30. The tall boy plan worked however, I was exhausted, and fell asleep in the most awkward position in the waiting area, wasting precious plane z's and waking up every five minutes to thrash and try to get the kink out of my neck. Eventually we arrived at 12:30 and the plane began to board.
Murphy's Law lesson #2: And I boarded the plane to the not-so-angelic sounds of the crying baby. First thought - Only the Devil himself would take a baby on a red eye, knowing full well that just because they, the offensive parents, coulnd't sleep, neither should anyone else. I threw the head phones in and, mercifully, the baby was enough rows away that the sound of Adult Swim cartoons drowned it out. Oh but I had no idea what was still in store for me.
Murphy's Law lesson #3: This is the lesson where Murphy teamed up with Karma and I must have done something horrible to someone who didn't deserve it because the 20-somethings that took up the middle and window seats next to me were the physical embodiment of just about every pet peeve I have about people. It was incredible really, if I created two people that did everything that drove me crazy, these two would have bested them. The guy sat in the window seat. Dishevelled looking and doughy, film student, nasal - he did the worst thing ever and that was keep his girlfriend talking. She was the icing on the cake. Every three seconds she came into contact with me in some way, either elbowing me, grabbing me accidentally, hitting me with her stuffed monkey or trying unsuccessfully to climb over me the few precious moments I got to doze off. She was not graceful. Every bump, and we were told at the jump off there would be many, she flung both hands out in a death grip on the two arm rests. If I was changing channels on the tv I got clawed. If I wasn't the channel changed rapidly or the volume got turned way up, not cool when you are asleep. The coup de grace came when I had to turn ipod and tv off for landing and had to listen to her for 20 minutes whine about how her ears wouldn't pop. It was killing her, the pain too intense to bear. Except her ears did keep popping, she said so immediately after. Or one would, but not the other. Oh, there it goes....nope, still excrutiating. But she didn't keep popping them until the pressure equalized. She was a first time flyer and terrified of it. Eventually she became convinced that all she needed was to get off the plane as quick as possible and during my exit I felt like I was running with the bulls in Pamplona and a scant step away from getting trampled to death. She was also nasal and everything she said came out in a whine. Her boyfriend is a stronger man than I. My superpower #2: thanks to an evening where I nearly blew out my eardrums huffing nitrous oxide from whipped cream cans in high school I have been able to pop my ears just by moving my jaw around a bit. Super useful superpower on planes. Probably means I really screwed something up in my head but I'm not a doctor so I'll reap the rewards at the present time.
The delay made me late for the bus I was supposed to take to Portland, Maine. This was going to be my favorite part of the trip. I hate flying because you can't see anything. It's a quick way out. I always prefer to drive. The bus trip from Boston to Maine at this time of year is gorgeous because the leaves start to change colors. People drive to the Northeast from all over the country to see it, I always thought that a bit silly but it certainly makes the drive prettier. That was all tarnished by the fact I got to sit in front of Logan Airport for the next two and a half hours waiting for the next one.
An observation while waiting: a man ran around the terminal in a frenzy, looking for someone. He ran to the same few spots over and over, would throw his arms up in exasperation, then run off, only to show up ten minutes later doing the same routine. He'd make a phone call to someone, "Have you seen mom?" and then race off agan. He did this for an hour. Logan is not a big place. My first job ever I worked with a woman named Becky. I was a production assistant and good at it, very dependable. Becky was a field coordinator, my direct supervisor when we were on location and she always went crazy, frantic, a little out of control. One day we were driving and I gave her advice. "No matter how crazy things are, keep control of yourself. No one wants to see their commanding officer freak out. People lose respect for you. If you are freaking out, appear calm. It will keep everyone calm around you. Your people will follow your orders and your supervisors will always see you as in charge of any situation." She mulled it over and would thank me a year later. It was some of the best advice she had ever been given. All the man running around was accomplishing was convincing everyone he was an idiot. Especially when he worked himself up so much he had to take his overshirt off and wrap it around his waist. Just relax. I always like to keep a clear head, everyone who works underneath me knows this. The interesting psychological aspect is then, if you ever do freak out, and it happened quite often last year when I was saddled with people who had no idea what they were doing and spent most of their time screwing around, people get amazingly scared when you start yelling. It was endlessly entertaining. Becky was a sweetheart and tried to hook up with me later because of the advice I gave her, I was not attracted to her because she had a history of liking douchebags and because I knew she was spastic. But I was happy she took my advice to heart and it helped her climb the ladder. I quit the job babysitting the retarded kids and now never have to worry about being the field commander, but I always keep a level head.
That's why you can never distract me during a game of pool, D. Or can you......? You'll never know and I'll never tell ;)
A friend of mine I work with occasionally ferried me to LAX, but not before insisting I go out to eat with her and her husband. I try to never eat a meal before travelling so this didn't gel at all with my plans but I couldn't refuse so I grinned and bared it. I barely touched the chicken and mushroom crepe though so it went home with them. This was after she made me drink an entire bottle of kombucha. It was recently introduced to me by D, who loves it and is endlessly entertained by making me try things that always require a very close visual inspection first, like "What the hell is all that stuff floating in there?". It is fantastic for you, but like everything fantastic for you, tastes kind of awful. I'm too harsh, the grape flavor tastes ok, very, very powerful tang to it, but just before you take your swallow you smell what seems like being just a little too close to really dirty feet. I suffered through it. Her husband drank the mango flavored one, it smelled like sweat. She cheated and drank the ginger one which smelled like herbal tea.
My flight was at 11:45pm. I was over cautious getting there early with my dodgy ID as it was barely glanced over before I was waved through and I found I had two hours to kill. Laptop came out and I discovered I was unable to get online, screw LAX, how I hate thee. Last post to the blog was successfly made via Blackberry, which did a little to renew my faith in technology.
My master plan was to drink two tall boys at the sports bar while watching whatever sporting event was on tv, scamper to the gate at 11:15, get on the plane and by the grace of god be asleep before takeoff.
Murphy's Law lesson #1: Scampered to the gate at 11:15 to find the flight was delayed and not boarding until 12:30. The tall boy plan worked however, I was exhausted, and fell asleep in the most awkward position in the waiting area, wasting precious plane z's and waking up every five minutes to thrash and try to get the kink out of my neck. Eventually we arrived at 12:30 and the plane began to board.
Murphy's Law lesson #2: And I boarded the plane to the not-so-angelic sounds of the crying baby. First thought - Only the Devil himself would take a baby on a red eye, knowing full well that just because they, the offensive parents, coulnd't sleep, neither should anyone else. I threw the head phones in and, mercifully, the baby was enough rows away that the sound of Adult Swim cartoons drowned it out. Oh but I had no idea what was still in store for me.
Murphy's Law lesson #3: This is the lesson where Murphy teamed up with Karma and I must have done something horrible to someone who didn't deserve it because the 20-somethings that took up the middle and window seats next to me were the physical embodiment of just about every pet peeve I have about people. It was incredible really, if I created two people that did everything that drove me crazy, these two would have bested them. The guy sat in the window seat. Dishevelled looking and doughy, film student, nasal - he did the worst thing ever and that was keep his girlfriend talking. She was the icing on the cake. Every three seconds she came into contact with me in some way, either elbowing me, grabbing me accidentally, hitting me with her stuffed monkey or trying unsuccessfully to climb over me the few precious moments I got to doze off. She was not graceful. Every bump, and we were told at the jump off there would be many, she flung both hands out in a death grip on the two arm rests. If I was changing channels on the tv I got clawed. If I wasn't the channel changed rapidly or the volume got turned way up, not cool when you are asleep. The coup de grace came when I had to turn ipod and tv off for landing and had to listen to her for 20 minutes whine about how her ears wouldn't pop. It was killing her, the pain too intense to bear. Except her ears did keep popping, she said so immediately after. Or one would, but not the other. Oh, there it goes....nope, still excrutiating. But she didn't keep popping them until the pressure equalized. She was a first time flyer and terrified of it. Eventually she became convinced that all she needed was to get off the plane as quick as possible and during my exit I felt like I was running with the bulls in Pamplona and a scant step away from getting trampled to death. She was also nasal and everything she said came out in a whine. Her boyfriend is a stronger man than I. My superpower #2: thanks to an evening where I nearly blew out my eardrums huffing nitrous oxide from whipped cream cans in high school I have been able to pop my ears just by moving my jaw around a bit. Super useful superpower on planes. Probably means I really screwed something up in my head but I'm not a doctor so I'll reap the rewards at the present time.
The delay made me late for the bus I was supposed to take to Portland, Maine. This was going to be my favorite part of the trip. I hate flying because you can't see anything. It's a quick way out. I always prefer to drive. The bus trip from Boston to Maine at this time of year is gorgeous because the leaves start to change colors. People drive to the Northeast from all over the country to see it, I always thought that a bit silly but it certainly makes the drive prettier. That was all tarnished by the fact I got to sit in front of Logan Airport for the next two and a half hours waiting for the next one.
An observation while waiting: a man ran around the terminal in a frenzy, looking for someone. He ran to the same few spots over and over, would throw his arms up in exasperation, then run off, only to show up ten minutes later doing the same routine. He'd make a phone call to someone, "Have you seen mom?" and then race off agan. He did this for an hour. Logan is not a big place. My first job ever I worked with a woman named Becky. I was a production assistant and good at it, very dependable. Becky was a field coordinator, my direct supervisor when we were on location and she always went crazy, frantic, a little out of control. One day we were driving and I gave her advice. "No matter how crazy things are, keep control of yourself. No one wants to see their commanding officer freak out. People lose respect for you. If you are freaking out, appear calm. It will keep everyone calm around you. Your people will follow your orders and your supervisors will always see you as in charge of any situation." She mulled it over and would thank me a year later. It was some of the best advice she had ever been given. All the man running around was accomplishing was convincing everyone he was an idiot. Especially when he worked himself up so much he had to take his overshirt off and wrap it around his waist. Just relax. I always like to keep a clear head, everyone who works underneath me knows this. The interesting psychological aspect is then, if you ever do freak out, and it happened quite often last year when I was saddled with people who had no idea what they were doing and spent most of their time screwing around, people get amazingly scared when you start yelling. It was endlessly entertaining. Becky was a sweetheart and tried to hook up with me later because of the advice I gave her, I was not attracted to her because she had a history of liking douchebags and because I knew she was spastic. But I was happy she took my advice to heart and it helped her climb the ladder. I quit the job babysitting the retarded kids and now never have to worry about being the field commander, but I always keep a level head.
That's why you can never distract me during a game of pool, D. Or can you......? You'll never know and I'll never tell ;)
Friday, September 11, 2009
It just hit me
It is now 2:50pm and that moment just hit me. The what am I forgetting, what do I have left to do moment that usually strikes just when you've convinced yourself you aren't forgetting anything and you have nothing left to do.
It has been a whirlwind day of packing and washing dishes which is odd because I pack like I'm going to be away for four days and then just do lots of laundry in Maine and I rarely use dishes when I eat, always cleaning as I go. I suspect foul play.
I actually have discovered over the past few days that I can cook, which amuses me and cements in my mind that I do have a superpower. I have always been able to watch someone who knows what they are doing and learn from them very quick. One of my housemates is a very talented chef, occasionally I watch him cook and lend a hand to be useful. He leaves for six weeks and, voila, I can cook. It is a super useful superpower. Prior to the past week all I would ever attempt was boiling pasta, which I'm excellent at, and making mac and cheese, which is the best. Oooooo, and grilled cheese sandwiches. Cross my heart and hope to die, it's an honest to goodness superpower, learned all the tricks I've been using during work for the past three years and all of the tricks I'm about to use fixing the rent's house and painting while watching a carpentry crew for a week five years ago on my third tv show. I will however never admit it was my fault if anything goes horribly wrong at the house. Maine is an awful place when it comes to homes and vehicles weathering poorly ;)
So I think I have only one stop left at the kitchen sink to do a final batch of cutlery, then a shower and then I'm off. You can't see the photo on my driver's license so I always end up at the airport three hours early as I am constantly flagged for extra security, which is tons o' fun especially on 9/11, and definitely high priority to take care of while home. So I'll most likely be sitting around for at least two hours before the plane takes off which means today may mark the first day with a pair of posts. Depends on a) # of snotty kids racing around and b) # of drinks imbibed pre-boarding. Today may also mark the first occasion I go back on the whole no drinking thing. It is one of very few things that actually does put me to sleep and flying is an awful bore.
I'm off to continue the what am I forgetting, what do I still have to do game. I'm not a fan.
It has been a whirlwind day of packing and washing dishes which is odd because I pack like I'm going to be away for four days and then just do lots of laundry in Maine and I rarely use dishes when I eat, always cleaning as I go. I suspect foul play.
I actually have discovered over the past few days that I can cook, which amuses me and cements in my mind that I do have a superpower. I have always been able to watch someone who knows what they are doing and learn from them very quick. One of my housemates is a very talented chef, occasionally I watch him cook and lend a hand to be useful. He leaves for six weeks and, voila, I can cook. It is a super useful superpower. Prior to the past week all I would ever attempt was boiling pasta, which I'm excellent at, and making mac and cheese, which is the best. Oooooo, and grilled cheese sandwiches. Cross my heart and hope to die, it's an honest to goodness superpower, learned all the tricks I've been using during work for the past three years and all of the tricks I'm about to use fixing the rent's house and painting while watching a carpentry crew for a week five years ago on my third tv show. I will however never admit it was my fault if anything goes horribly wrong at the house. Maine is an awful place when it comes to homes and vehicles weathering poorly ;)
So I think I have only one stop left at the kitchen sink to do a final batch of cutlery, then a shower and then I'm off. You can't see the photo on my driver's license so I always end up at the airport three hours early as I am constantly flagged for extra security, which is tons o' fun especially on 9/11, and definitely high priority to take care of while home. So I'll most likely be sitting around for at least two hours before the plane takes off which means today may mark the first day with a pair of posts. Depends on a) # of snotty kids racing around and b) # of drinks imbibed pre-boarding. Today may also mark the first occasion I go back on the whole no drinking thing. It is one of very few things that actually does put me to sleep and flying is an awful bore.
I'm off to continue the what am I forgetting, what do I still have to do game. I'm not a fan.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Timer's counting down
Plane ticket has been booked and now the clock is ticking. What surprises me is I feel very little about it. When I talk to my mother and father they are overjoyed at the prospect of me coming home outside of Christmas time. My sister even gets giggly at the thought of the four of us all under the same roof for an extended period of time for the first time in a decade. I get amused by all this but as soon as I'm off the phone with them I feel nothing.
It is more a surprise than anything. I hesitated booking the plane ticket because I figured once the clock started ticking I would feel fear. I have always been the kind of person who compartmentalized every aspect of their life. Family here, friends over there, work there at the back. It was difficult to do growing up because my world in Maine was tiny. When I went to school in Boston it became easier. Even easier in New York and when I moved to California. Now the compartments separate themselves geographically. I've always needed to do this because I am a radically different person with each group.
I've always thought of myself as a mirror. I pick up the traits of anyone I spend a lot of time around and do a bit of a mimic. It isn't something I do purposefully, it just happens. I continue to do it because I am generally loved by everyone I come into contact with. Only recently have I learned that this is a staple of NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming. It is a form of hypnosis that utilizes body language and voice tones to manipulate a subject. In my case, the picking up of traits and assumption of them into my general body language and actions shows someone watching me that I am a kindred spirit, someone like them and therefore likable. But I find that when Maine friends meet friends from New York there is something strained about any of the interaction because the two geographical locations might as well be on different planets. Life is too different from the one to the other. I find it very hard to talk with people I grew up with now because my life is remarkably different.
I haven't decided yet whether or not I will see anyone in Maine. Nearest I can describe its like talking to someone from the 60's. Everyone has a house, wife and kids by age 25. They work the same job for 40 years. They settle into a pattern and they never leave it. I, technically, work 8-12 jobs a year. Their 40 hours a week is my 80-120 so I make 5 times as much money but have no time to start a family. I travel often so renting a house or apartment makes much more sense. I never know where the next big money gig will show up so I keep myself liquid, always able to sweep everthing into a small storage unit and abandon it if the need arises. So talking to a friend from high school, one who 16 years ago would have been like a brother, is now a lot of sports, nostalgia and surface talk about how their life is. It's difficult to explain to someone that the amount of money I spend drinking in a month would pay their next three mortgage payments. Two different planets.
The one thing that excites me is nature. I haven't really been out in nature for a very long time. My parents house is surrounded by 18 acres of forest. It is the secluded house in the horror movies, the one where someone is lurking in the impossibly vast expanse of forest that cuts them all off from any hope of rescue. Add to that the fact that it's on an island about a mile off the coast and you get a recipe for some amazing freedom. There are no surprise visits, hardly any interaction with the scattered few who live there. There is just peace and quiet. My mother was complaining when she looked out the window today that there were four deer eating from her garden. This doesn't happen in the valley. And the air is so clean. Every breathe is thrilling.
I've let loose the reigns of this ramble at this point, it goes where it will from here on. I guess the overall thought I was having was that it is a small wonder I'm kind of excited to be going back. I still haven't decided on whether or not I'll see anyone but I suspct it'll go like: I'll work my ass off for a week on the house, the writing and the exercising. I'll get incredibly bored and during week two will put out the apb to all those I have called brothers in the past and we'll meet up. We'll shoot the shit abouttheir lives and families, they'll demand stories of celebrities and what really goes on during the tv shows I work on, I'll completely go back on my swearing off of beer and we'll have a raucous good time. We always do. Then I'll go back to the island and return to solitary.
The thing that shocks me more is that I know there is nothing in California I will miss with the lone exception of D. I don't know that this place will ever be home when the only thing that tethers me here is a paycheck. I have a sneaking suspicion that upon my return things will change for me, all for the better, as the rewiring process takes hold. The pieces of the life I want to have will start to click into place, one after another.
And with each new piece a greater happiness.
It is more a surprise than anything. I hesitated booking the plane ticket because I figured once the clock started ticking I would feel fear. I have always been the kind of person who compartmentalized every aspect of their life. Family here, friends over there, work there at the back. It was difficult to do growing up because my world in Maine was tiny. When I went to school in Boston it became easier. Even easier in New York and when I moved to California. Now the compartments separate themselves geographically. I've always needed to do this because I am a radically different person with each group.
I've always thought of myself as a mirror. I pick up the traits of anyone I spend a lot of time around and do a bit of a mimic. It isn't something I do purposefully, it just happens. I continue to do it because I am generally loved by everyone I come into contact with. Only recently have I learned that this is a staple of NLP, Neuro Linguistic Programming. It is a form of hypnosis that utilizes body language and voice tones to manipulate a subject. In my case, the picking up of traits and assumption of them into my general body language and actions shows someone watching me that I am a kindred spirit, someone like them and therefore likable. But I find that when Maine friends meet friends from New York there is something strained about any of the interaction because the two geographical locations might as well be on different planets. Life is too different from the one to the other. I find it very hard to talk with people I grew up with now because my life is remarkably different.
I haven't decided yet whether or not I will see anyone in Maine. Nearest I can describe its like talking to someone from the 60's. Everyone has a house, wife and kids by age 25. They work the same job for 40 years. They settle into a pattern and they never leave it. I, technically, work 8-12 jobs a year. Their 40 hours a week is my 80-120 so I make 5 times as much money but have no time to start a family. I travel often so renting a house or apartment makes much more sense. I never know where the next big money gig will show up so I keep myself liquid, always able to sweep everthing into a small storage unit and abandon it if the need arises. So talking to a friend from high school, one who 16 years ago would have been like a brother, is now a lot of sports, nostalgia and surface talk about how their life is. It's difficult to explain to someone that the amount of money I spend drinking in a month would pay their next three mortgage payments. Two different planets.
The one thing that excites me is nature. I haven't really been out in nature for a very long time. My parents house is surrounded by 18 acres of forest. It is the secluded house in the horror movies, the one where someone is lurking in the impossibly vast expanse of forest that cuts them all off from any hope of rescue. Add to that the fact that it's on an island about a mile off the coast and you get a recipe for some amazing freedom. There are no surprise visits, hardly any interaction with the scattered few who live there. There is just peace and quiet. My mother was complaining when she looked out the window today that there were four deer eating from her garden. This doesn't happen in the valley. And the air is so clean. Every breathe is thrilling.
I've let loose the reigns of this ramble at this point, it goes where it will from here on. I guess the overall thought I was having was that it is a small wonder I'm kind of excited to be going back. I still haven't decided on whether or not I'll see anyone but I suspct it'll go like: I'll work my ass off for a week on the house, the writing and the exercising. I'll get incredibly bored and during week two will put out the apb to all those I have called brothers in the past and we'll meet up. We'll shoot the shit abouttheir lives and families, they'll demand stories of celebrities and what really goes on during the tv shows I work on, I'll completely go back on my swearing off of beer and we'll have a raucous good time. We always do. Then I'll go back to the island and return to solitary.
The thing that shocks me more is that I know there is nothing in California I will miss with the lone exception of D. I don't know that this place will ever be home when the only thing that tethers me here is a paycheck. I have a sneaking suspicion that upon my return things will change for me, all for the better, as the rewiring process takes hold. The pieces of the life I want to have will start to click into place, one after another.
And with each new piece a greater happiness.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Lazy Labor Day
Game planned today, it being impossibe and all to set about building a better life for oneself without some kind of blueprint. Made the decision to once again start the torturous process of p90x, the most masochistic of all exercise programs. Results are guarenteed though, just need to have the willpower to go through with it.
Last night marked the last night of drinking for a while, yesterday marked the last day of soda drinking, nothing but water from here on out. Snacks have all been squirreled away and I feel comfortable getting to business. My head is in the perfect place.
I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall for the dozenth time or so, absolutely hysterical. Now I'm in the midst of Intolerable Cruelty for the millionth time or so. Snappy dialogue is such a rarity these days. I love a movie I can put on and never look at, laughing heartily just based on what I hear. Even more impressive when it comes from a romantic comedy, which I have always regarded as one of the worst film genres. So much garbage pumped out of Hollywood in a shallow attempt to get guys to take their girls to the movies. The hypocrisy isn't lost on me that the one screenplay I've finished with my writing partner is a romantic comedy.
Work recommencing on the horror outline, movie up next is The Girl Next Door, figure I might as well keep it up with the rom coms. Simon and Garfunkel never sounded as good as it does on bagpipes at the Wee Church of the Heather chapel.
Last night marked the last night of drinking for a while, yesterday marked the last day of soda drinking, nothing but water from here on out. Snacks have all been squirreled away and I feel comfortable getting to business. My head is in the perfect place.
I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall for the dozenth time or so, absolutely hysterical. Now I'm in the midst of Intolerable Cruelty for the millionth time or so. Snappy dialogue is such a rarity these days. I love a movie I can put on and never look at, laughing heartily just based on what I hear. Even more impressive when it comes from a romantic comedy, which I have always regarded as one of the worst film genres. So much garbage pumped out of Hollywood in a shallow attempt to get guys to take their girls to the movies. The hypocrisy isn't lost on me that the one screenplay I've finished with my writing partner is a romantic comedy.
Work recommencing on the horror outline, movie up next is The Girl Next Door, figure I might as well keep it up with the rom coms. Simon and Garfunkel never sounded as good as it does on bagpipes at the Wee Church of the Heather chapel.
For D
I stared at this white square for twenty minutes before giving up and meeting a friend of mine at her work place, the lovely D. She will become the first non-narrator character in this thread of mine, suitable as she has become the most important person to me during this four week prison sentence in Northridge, California.
I didn't know what to write about, hence the staring, so she rescued me by requesting I write about the ins and outs of the trip to Maine. It is a good topic that I will hardly do justice to.
The past four weeks have very much been like a prison sentence, Maine will be like four more weeks of solitary confinement. My family lives on a tiny island off the coast and I will probably never leave it. Life will consist of exercise in the morning, painting a massive house during the day and writing during the evenings. It will be regimented strictly by me, my family will probably think I'm crazy but I have a specific goal in mind. I used to have an incredible inferiority complex, felt like I had zero self worth. After a number of years of thought and interaction I realized that was foolish, I was being a complete retard. It has recently dawned on me that when you're young, beautiful and intelligent there is nothing outside the realm of possibility.
The goal of the trip is to cement this change of thought. This kind of paradigm shift has happened four times now. The first two were very negative, caused by having my heart broken and resulting in me retreating into myself, closing off. The second two were positive, caused by meeting amazing people who opened my eyes and showed me that I was an amazing person. I will not look back. I have always hidden, not any more. If my body is my temple, the temple I have dwealt in for the past 16 years will be raized. Over the next month I will rebuild it, twice as beautiful and glorious. There are no more boundaries.
The trip will be incredibly difficult. Since I moved away from Maine permanently at age 21 I have not returned for more than five days at a time. The state depresses me. There is nothing to do there. Trips home would result in nothing but thinking time, and that was horrible. Unhindered dwelling on how things were not how I wanted them to be. There will be no more of that. The first 18 years of my life were spent trying to escape the state because it was a dead end, a stagnant place, an oblivion. I often wonder what life would be like if I had stayed. It is impossible to tell how miserable I'd be. Most likely I'd have a kid or two, a wife that I was growing to loathe, the same group of close friends I maintain contact with to this day but they would be my safety net, the people who I bitched to about how miserable I was. And I would just ride out my time. But I did escape. And in escaping saw that the world was my oyster.
How beautiful is it to realize that you are capable of doing anything you desire and having whatever you want? Words will never be able to describe it.
As for D. I cannot thank you enough, nor will I ever be able to. You were the most perfect person standing in the right place at the exact right time. You are an angel. She reads this now and I hope she breaks out into a brilliant smile, knowing that I am forever grateful. I adore every second we have together because you are amazing, despite how hampered those seconds are by the restrictions of our situation. Anyone else wouldn't be worth the hassle, you are.
My mind's been too preoccupied lately to memorize a poem properly like you won but have faith that this is from memory and appropriate:
There was a lady, sweet and kind,
Was never a face so pleased my mind,
I did but see her passing by,
And now I love her 'til I die.
I'll have the Shakespeare recitation ready for you when I return.
I didn't know what to write about, hence the staring, so she rescued me by requesting I write about the ins and outs of the trip to Maine. It is a good topic that I will hardly do justice to.
The past four weeks have very much been like a prison sentence, Maine will be like four more weeks of solitary confinement. My family lives on a tiny island off the coast and I will probably never leave it. Life will consist of exercise in the morning, painting a massive house during the day and writing during the evenings. It will be regimented strictly by me, my family will probably think I'm crazy but I have a specific goal in mind. I used to have an incredible inferiority complex, felt like I had zero self worth. After a number of years of thought and interaction I realized that was foolish, I was being a complete retard. It has recently dawned on me that when you're young, beautiful and intelligent there is nothing outside the realm of possibility.
The goal of the trip is to cement this change of thought. This kind of paradigm shift has happened four times now. The first two were very negative, caused by having my heart broken and resulting in me retreating into myself, closing off. The second two were positive, caused by meeting amazing people who opened my eyes and showed me that I was an amazing person. I will not look back. I have always hidden, not any more. If my body is my temple, the temple I have dwealt in for the past 16 years will be raized. Over the next month I will rebuild it, twice as beautiful and glorious. There are no more boundaries.
The trip will be incredibly difficult. Since I moved away from Maine permanently at age 21 I have not returned for more than five days at a time. The state depresses me. There is nothing to do there. Trips home would result in nothing but thinking time, and that was horrible. Unhindered dwelling on how things were not how I wanted them to be. There will be no more of that. The first 18 years of my life were spent trying to escape the state because it was a dead end, a stagnant place, an oblivion. I often wonder what life would be like if I had stayed. It is impossible to tell how miserable I'd be. Most likely I'd have a kid or two, a wife that I was growing to loathe, the same group of close friends I maintain contact with to this day but they would be my safety net, the people who I bitched to about how miserable I was. And I would just ride out my time. But I did escape. And in escaping saw that the world was my oyster.
How beautiful is it to realize that you are capable of doing anything you desire and having whatever you want? Words will never be able to describe it.
As for D. I cannot thank you enough, nor will I ever be able to. You were the most perfect person standing in the right place at the exact right time. You are an angel. She reads this now and I hope she breaks out into a brilliant smile, knowing that I am forever grateful. I adore every second we have together because you are amazing, despite how hampered those seconds are by the restrictions of our situation. Anyone else wouldn't be worth the hassle, you are.
My mind's been too preoccupied lately to memorize a poem properly like you won but have faith that this is from memory and appropriate:
There was a lady, sweet and kind,
Was never a face so pleased my mind,
I did but see her passing by,
And now I love her 'til I die.
I'll have the Shakespeare recitation ready for you when I return.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Today was a good day
Being a suffering insomniac, any day i get more than three hours of sleep is golden. I slept from 3-6am and was bummed but then I dozed off from 10am to 4pm and was elated. It stunted the rest of my day but i didn't care. I woke, watched some tv, read some and then went to work on the horror screenplay outline.
The outline process is key. I can't write anything if I don't know what I'm writing. A screenplay is point A to point B. In between is plot, character development, actions and reactions. I refuse to even begin the process if we haven't fleshed out A -> B. With A to B concrete it is only a matter of time until completion. A -> B is now concrete.
Now the clock is ticking.
The outline process is key. I can't write anything if I don't know what I'm writing. A screenplay is point A to point B. In between is plot, character development, actions and reactions. I refuse to even begin the process if we haven't fleshed out A -> B. With A to B concrete it is only a matter of time until completion. A -> B is now concrete.
Now the clock is ticking.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Today is the day
Today is the first day of the past month that didn't feel like I was serving a prison sentence so it has been wonderfully enjoyable.
A friend came over first thing this morning because she wanted to go see a movie. Instead we shot the shit about life and upcoming work for an hour or so. She wanted to confirm that I would be with her on the next gig in New York at the end of January, beginning of February and then again in the summer. I told her I would to the degrees that she cared about. She filled me in on her upcoming move to Seattle with her husband and the pros and cons of it. I filled her in on what going to Maine meant. It was a good chat. Then I blew her mind by showing her The Fall, Tarsem Singh's second movie. For a film it is an amazing work of art: beautiful story, incredible performances, and quite possibly the most beautifully shot movie I've ever seen. I loved it all over again for the dozenth time or so. She fell in love for the first. I've never seen anyone not love it.
After she took off I started in on the normal routine. Reading: Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke and The Game by Neil Strauss. Jury's still out on both. Very curious to see how The Game ends, hoping that it is more than just a very funny book about social retards trying to make themselves alpha males to pick up women and thereby give their lives meaning. Fingers are crossed that there is a bigger picture than just dudes posturing but everytime the narrative tells you there is a bigger picture you kind of wondering if Neil's bullshitting. Time will tell. Watching: season 5 of Alias and The Cell. Every time I watch The Fall it reminds me that I liked The Cell, Tarsem Singh's first movie, even though it was a huge failure. It is also a beautifully shot movie but the performances are hideous and the writing was poor. Interesting idea though. Except I dozed off before the parts I really wanted to see, Jennifer Lopez vs. King Stargher, some of the most beautiful and powerful images ever preserved on film. Maybe I'll go back and pick it up where I left off while I do some work this evening.
Drove around for a little bit running some errands and then went for the evening's long walk. The other day I was cleaning my room and found the paper outline of the last project I had begun writing, a horror screenplay. Tonight is the night I resume work on it. The only reason I started working on it in New York was to give me a prop by which to strike up conversation with my favorite waitress.
Here there is no reason to pick it up but to do it. And do it I shall anon.
A friend came over first thing this morning because she wanted to go see a movie. Instead we shot the shit about life and upcoming work for an hour or so. She wanted to confirm that I would be with her on the next gig in New York at the end of January, beginning of February and then again in the summer. I told her I would to the degrees that she cared about. She filled me in on her upcoming move to Seattle with her husband and the pros and cons of it. I filled her in on what going to Maine meant. It was a good chat. Then I blew her mind by showing her The Fall, Tarsem Singh's second movie. For a film it is an amazing work of art: beautiful story, incredible performances, and quite possibly the most beautifully shot movie I've ever seen. I loved it all over again for the dozenth time or so. She fell in love for the first. I've never seen anyone not love it.
After she took off I started in on the normal routine. Reading: Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke and The Game by Neil Strauss. Jury's still out on both. Very curious to see how The Game ends, hoping that it is more than just a very funny book about social retards trying to make themselves alpha males to pick up women and thereby give their lives meaning. Fingers are crossed that there is a bigger picture than just dudes posturing but everytime the narrative tells you there is a bigger picture you kind of wondering if Neil's bullshitting. Time will tell. Watching: season 5 of Alias and The Cell. Every time I watch The Fall it reminds me that I liked The Cell, Tarsem Singh's first movie, even though it was a huge failure. It is also a beautifully shot movie but the performances are hideous and the writing was poor. Interesting idea though. Except I dozed off before the parts I really wanted to see, Jennifer Lopez vs. King Stargher, some of the most beautiful and powerful images ever preserved on film. Maybe I'll go back and pick it up where I left off while I do some work this evening.
Drove around for a little bit running some errands and then went for the evening's long walk. The other day I was cleaning my room and found the paper outline of the last project I had begun writing, a horror screenplay. Tonight is the night I resume work on it. The only reason I started working on it in New York was to give me a prop by which to strike up conversation with my favorite waitress.
Here there is no reason to pick it up but to do it. And do it I shall anon.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Time is NOT of the essence
I have now successfully killed one entire month of free time. This is quite the accomplishment for someone who, until very recently, could not stand to be alone with himself for more than a day or two.
I had a job finish in New York City on July 18th. I flew back to LA on the 19th, landed at 11am and was working on the next show at 2pm. This is how I like to organize my schedule, no rest for the wicked and idle hands are the devil's playpen and all that. Mostly I like to keep myself busy because I don't like to have time to think. Thinking time was never good because it always devolved into thinking about what was missing from my life and why was it missing. This could have been very constructive but it never was, thine own self being thy harshest judge. Thinking was always very negative.
A few years ago I got very lucky. Things fell apart: I lost the girl, I lost the apartment, I lost the job. Like I was putting together a beautiful puzzle of the rest of my life and then the table got nuked. Three times. Right in my face. A friend suggested I come to New York and crash with him so I did, nothing to lose by it. Going back to Maine would be an admission of defeat. Then another friend called with a job offer to help on a popular tv show for a week. That became two months. Then the next show started and I found myself working year round, making good money. I felt like a lotto winner. Year two was even better. Year three I started getting calls to travel for work. At the end of year three I found myself attached to a company in Los Angles that became very successful, year round work making three times as much as in New York. So I moved to sunny California. I felt like the luckiest man on the planet. The negative thinking quieted down but the shadow always remained in the back of my mind.
I work like a crazy person. Despite the initial job falling in my lap, I worked my ass off, impressed my supervisors and they kept me working. The higher up the ladder I climbed, the higher up the people I impressed. I was always good at earning my keep. Year 4 started with two straight months, no days off. I loved it and I was loved for it. First month I broke my toe: worked through it. If I had taken time off I would have just sat there and thought about what was missing and I couldn't do it.
This ramble leads up to returning from New York at the end of July, I love it when the end circles back to the beginning.
I worked for two weeks and then found out over beers that the next show was in New Jersey and already staffed, as was the small jobs happening in LA. This kind of hiatus happens. I had cash in the bank so killing four weeks wouldn't be a big deal. The first three weeks were torture. Every day: watch movies, watch tv, read. Intend to write but never actually do it. Exercise. I always drink too much and eat like shit in New York, this trip I put on 20 pounds. It was gone by the end of week one. All exercise accompanied by loud music to keep from thinking. Movies, tv and books kept me from thinking. If I got bored I went out to play pool and drink, people watch, conversation with new people being an excellent way to keep out of my own head. Anything to distract myself. During week 3 I learned the hiatus wasn't going to be four weeks but ten. I panicked.
Panic lasted two days. The shadow leapt out and the negative thinking began. I had been foolish financially and didn't have enough to ride out that long with no work. Had I seen the possibility of the hiatus I could have been prepared. I didn't so I wasn't. I went for a walk to try to suss out what to do, no music so I could think clearly. After four miles I realized I was happy and enjoying myself. I was curious. Two days later I had no solution and was till upbeat and chipper. Every day, long walks to think and never a negative thought. Call it a revelation or an epiphany.
This story ends yesterday with a call to my mother. The folks have been meaning to paint the house. I told her I would do it. Next week I leave for Maine and I will be there for a month or so. For the past eight years I've gone back once a year for Christmas, sometimes for Thanksgiving. I never stay more than five days because there is nothing to do there but think. This hiatus, which has felt so much like a prison sentence, is about to become much more grueling because Maine is like solitary confinement. But I'm embracing it. I am taking my newfound positive outlook and I'm going back home. The sentence is short. I know the next show starts in mid-October and I'll be back for it and ready. I know there are shows stacked one after another for months thereafter so my poor dwindled bank accounts will once again swell. But this will be the perfect opportunity to do that which I have been too scared to do for the past decade: crawl inside my own and think. Start to play with the circuits and switches and do some rewiring. Figure out what is missing and why and not lament it but correct it.
Oh, and write a bit.
I'm looking forward to the challenge.
I had a job finish in New York City on July 18th. I flew back to LA on the 19th, landed at 11am and was working on the next show at 2pm. This is how I like to organize my schedule, no rest for the wicked and idle hands are the devil's playpen and all that. Mostly I like to keep myself busy because I don't like to have time to think. Thinking time was never good because it always devolved into thinking about what was missing from my life and why was it missing. This could have been very constructive but it never was, thine own self being thy harshest judge. Thinking was always very negative.
A few years ago I got very lucky. Things fell apart: I lost the girl, I lost the apartment, I lost the job. Like I was putting together a beautiful puzzle of the rest of my life and then the table got nuked. Three times. Right in my face. A friend suggested I come to New York and crash with him so I did, nothing to lose by it. Going back to Maine would be an admission of defeat. Then another friend called with a job offer to help on a popular tv show for a week. That became two months. Then the next show started and I found myself working year round, making good money. I felt like a lotto winner. Year two was even better. Year three I started getting calls to travel for work. At the end of year three I found myself attached to a company in Los Angles that became very successful, year round work making three times as much as in New York. So I moved to sunny California. I felt like the luckiest man on the planet. The negative thinking quieted down but the shadow always remained in the back of my mind.
I work like a crazy person. Despite the initial job falling in my lap, I worked my ass off, impressed my supervisors and they kept me working. The higher up the ladder I climbed, the higher up the people I impressed. I was always good at earning my keep. Year 4 started with two straight months, no days off. I loved it and I was loved for it. First month I broke my toe: worked through it. If I had taken time off I would have just sat there and thought about what was missing and I couldn't do it.
This ramble leads up to returning from New York at the end of July, I love it when the end circles back to the beginning.
I worked for two weeks and then found out over beers that the next show was in New Jersey and already staffed, as was the small jobs happening in LA. This kind of hiatus happens. I had cash in the bank so killing four weeks wouldn't be a big deal. The first three weeks were torture. Every day: watch movies, watch tv, read. Intend to write but never actually do it. Exercise. I always drink too much and eat like shit in New York, this trip I put on 20 pounds. It was gone by the end of week one. All exercise accompanied by loud music to keep from thinking. Movies, tv and books kept me from thinking. If I got bored I went out to play pool and drink, people watch, conversation with new people being an excellent way to keep out of my own head. Anything to distract myself. During week 3 I learned the hiatus wasn't going to be four weeks but ten. I panicked.
Panic lasted two days. The shadow leapt out and the negative thinking began. I had been foolish financially and didn't have enough to ride out that long with no work. Had I seen the possibility of the hiatus I could have been prepared. I didn't so I wasn't. I went for a walk to try to suss out what to do, no music so I could think clearly. After four miles I realized I was happy and enjoying myself. I was curious. Two days later I had no solution and was till upbeat and chipper. Every day, long walks to think and never a negative thought. Call it a revelation or an epiphany.
This story ends yesterday with a call to my mother. The folks have been meaning to paint the house. I told her I would do it. Next week I leave for Maine and I will be there for a month or so. For the past eight years I've gone back once a year for Christmas, sometimes for Thanksgiving. I never stay more than five days because there is nothing to do there but think. This hiatus, which has felt so much like a prison sentence, is about to become much more grueling because Maine is like solitary confinement. But I'm embracing it. I am taking my newfound positive outlook and I'm going back home. The sentence is short. I know the next show starts in mid-October and I'll be back for it and ready. I know there are shows stacked one after another for months thereafter so my poor dwindled bank accounts will once again swell. But this will be the perfect opportunity to do that which I have been too scared to do for the past decade: crawl inside my own and think. Start to play with the circuits and switches and do some rewiring. Figure out what is missing and why and not lament it but correct it.
Oh, and write a bit.
I'm looking forward to the challenge.
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