at midday the rain ended and the sun came out and the day turned glorious so i rallied all my energies, donned gym clothing and began the walk to the gym. never clocked the distance but it takes 90 minutes so i estimate somewhere around five miles. it started pouring again 30 minutes in. i loathe getting rained on, especially just for a cardio day. hell, i could've run in place while watching a movie and been much happier.
bad flashbacks on the walk back when a driver stopped a little short to allow me to use the crosswalk and got superbly rear ended. and i was close enough that he would have hit me had i been two or three steps into the crosswalk. if he had only known that i was slowing my pace to let him make the right turn his day would be going much more lovely right now. the sound of the impact two feet away from me brought back all those unpleasant memories from December. and i was in a foul mood because it was raining twice as hard then and i was freezing and my joints were tightening up. then i got to wait 45 minutes to make a witness statement for cops who never showed. curse you, karma!
two hours later and i'm finally starting to thaw out. diving back into twin peaks and working on a new master plan: owning some sort of dubious bar/casino/brothel just across a border. haven't decided on which border yet though. hmmmmmmmm mexico or canada? rage onward debate!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
The best laid plans...
I was performing admirably (minus being lazy with my gym visits) until last night but in the face of a coworker's bachelor party there is no saying no. Against all odds I still did ok-ish but my belief that hard liquor is evil is even more firmly entrenched now. Four or five beers on the west coast is nothing, but the shot of whiskey during the pre-party just makes for a terrible morning. What is one supposed to do when a host thrusts a cup in your face and says, "You have to drink this. I paid $50 for the bottle"? I was just being hospitable. Between the splitting headache and the inability to decide whether I want to play video games and watch twin peaks or watch a movie or finish the second season of dollhouse or take a walk, I really just wish that I could sleep for another four hours. The first four wasn't enough.
Add to the head troubles the fresh bruises from being punched half a dozen times by another coworker who doesn't understand the nuances of properly throwing a game of pool to get a stranger to buy rounds for all of us and it all equals another fascinating evening in the valley. That coworker is an amateur fighter too, no ground game, all stand up striking. I can take a punch, his hurt like hell. A decade ago I thought I'd be set with a family by now, instead I seem to have devolved into forever living like a twenty year old.
Since I returned to sunny California I've been having nightmares, most often work related nightmares. Exceptionally odd because I'm not working on anything at the moment. While working on my most recent job I did not dream of it once, which I usually do. Since coming back, twice. No reason, job's done, highest marks from everyone from whom high marks are required. But I have twice dreamed of being stuck in situations where I couldn't perform the tasks required of me and the dreams turn into nightmares when normal troubleshooting fails and the pressure to succeed builds until I wake up in the middle of the night pissed off that I couldn't solve whatever problem it was. And the dreams have been lucid. Nothing drives me crazier than waking up and being convinced that something that happened in a dream was real and having to take time to sort out the difference between reality and fantasy.
In spite of all this particular morning's handicaps I feel like today is going to be an exceptional day. Twin Peaks and video games it is, then off to meet a friend, then the sky, as always, is the limit.
Chin, Chin.
Add to the head troubles the fresh bruises from being punched half a dozen times by another coworker who doesn't understand the nuances of properly throwing a game of pool to get a stranger to buy rounds for all of us and it all equals another fascinating evening in the valley. That coworker is an amateur fighter too, no ground game, all stand up striking. I can take a punch, his hurt like hell. A decade ago I thought I'd be set with a family by now, instead I seem to have devolved into forever living like a twenty year old.
Since I returned to sunny California I've been having nightmares, most often work related nightmares. Exceptionally odd because I'm not working on anything at the moment. While working on my most recent job I did not dream of it once, which I usually do. Since coming back, twice. No reason, job's done, highest marks from everyone from whom high marks are required. But I have twice dreamed of being stuck in situations where I couldn't perform the tasks required of me and the dreams turn into nightmares when normal troubleshooting fails and the pressure to succeed builds until I wake up in the middle of the night pissed off that I couldn't solve whatever problem it was. And the dreams have been lucid. Nothing drives me crazier than waking up and being convinced that something that happened in a dream was real and having to take time to sort out the difference between reality and fantasy.
In spite of all this particular morning's handicaps I feel like today is going to be an exceptional day. Twin Peaks and video games it is, then off to meet a friend, then the sky, as always, is the limit.
Chin, Chin.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
*Insert Catchy Title Here*
Last post January 3rd, eh? Lazy bastard.
Seems as though the car accident was the boot in the back of the pants that I needed to jolt me down the right path after all, at least for the time being. The trip to New York was very low profile. Took care of business, performed up to my usual high standards, exited. Drinking = minimal. Bad eating = minimal. Excessive stupid spending = minimal. I wouldn't go so far as to say I've gone from bad to good, but I'd say I've gone from bad to maybe-not-so-bad. Maybe like I'm acting now like a 12 year old instead of an 8 year old :) In an attempt to take the next step up I've decided to go hardcore, no drinking period, no stupid eating, daily trips to the gym. New regimine starting on Sunday, February 21st. Time to get down to a lean 150. Just enjoyed the last of the junk food stash, just polished off the last two beers in the fridge. Sayonara!
At the moment I'm watching one of my all-time favorite awful movies, SFW. At one point Jake Busey says, "Reality programming gives reality a bad name". Amen! The plane ride from NYC to Burbank was eye opening. Did the usual and slept for the first half of the ride and then suffered through the second half. What did I learn? A) Three out of four members of the Russian women's curling team are damned gorgeous. Yekaterina Galkina, lovely. Anna Sidorova, gorgeous. Lyudmila Privivkova, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Otherwise, no reason to watch curling for even two seconds. My attention was rapt for at least an hour. B) I've been part of some of the worst reality tv shows of all-time but 16 and Pregnant on MTV is terrible and pathetic. Who really gives a shit about pregnant 16 year old rednecks? Half the people I went to high school with fit that description and zero of them had there own reality tv shows. Yay Maine! C) Kevin Federline is a fat bastard now.
This is the first time I've ever returned anywhere and felt like I was coming home. I was elated when I touched down. Twice as elated when I got to clean up, shave and get out of dirty clothes. And even twice as elated again when I got to see a dearly missed friend. It's the little things that make life grand. But then she beat me at pool and now I owe a homework assignment.
So onto the business portion of the post. I owe a paragraph on why Help! I'm Alive by Metric strikes a cord with me. This feels so English Lit right now I'm getting all nostalgiac for the high school and college days where it was the only thing I cared about and, subsequently, the only thing I excelled at. It is a song about the fear one suffers when they put themselves out there for others to see, or in the case of the singer/songwriter, their work. Being a writer and a filmmaker is the same type of thing. When you show your work to someone to watch or read, you open yourself up to their praise or disdain. Praise feels wonderful. Disdain feels like shit. I've done lots of work that has been praised, I always love it. But every so often I've done something that has been met with complete disdain and there is no worse feeling in the world. I'll tell a personal story later on to put the exclamation point to that but now I'm drifting off topic which will probably score me low marks so back to it. Word has it the song was written when the lead singer moved from wherever to LA to make it big as a musician. I can relate to this move although mine was a little more calculated and safe, her's was more a "This had better work or I'm screwed" kind of thing. I find LA to be an easy place because I made a successful living for myself in the tv industry in NYC, much smaller pond with much hungrier fish. LA is a much larger pond with much lazier fish. Makes it very easy to be a shark. The same guidelines do not apply to musicians. Long story short, their album is fantastic, they have a popular track, the praise has been heaped upon them and all has worked out well. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. The fear sprouts from the uncertainty.
Thing is, when I think of fear I never think of work. I have always kept a cool head about work and believe in one truth: if you make a piece of art, there are people who will think it is great and there are people who will think it is bad. You will never be able to satisfy everyone. If a person praises my work, high fives and knuckle bumps all day, back pats and beers. If a person doesn't like it, fuck off.
When I think of fear I think about relationships. Nothing scares me more than the thought of putting myself out there to a person and feeling the disdain of rejection. For a long time it crippled me and I would almost refuse to meet people. Friends in college thought it was hilarious that I wouldn't have conversations with people until I had hung out with them four or five times. I ended up becoming friends with roommates and coworkers and classmates and only met people outside those circles when they were with friends often enough for me to gauge them and decide whether or not they were worth even investing the time to talk too. It still seems surreal to me because it walks the tightrope line between narcisstic superiority and crippling inferiority that I still can't put my finger on which it was more of, but it was definitely heaping helpings of both. I am barely recognizable now compared to how I was then, thank the good Lord.
Why be so afraid of relationships?, you ask. Never been in a good one is the answer. I was unlucky enough to have my formative years filled with horrible relationships amd incidents which have completely fucked me all sorts of up :) Being cheated on was the exclamation point because it happened when I thought everything was so good. What I really should have been thinking was that I was so young that none of it even really mattered. That everything that happens before you graduate college is temporary. Hell, I'm 32 now and everything is still temporary. The personal story I was thinking of before happened shortly after getting cheated on by Kati. I set my sights on another girl, one in my class, Kati was a year younger. I wrote this girl a love letter and had a friend of hers hand it off to her. I was remarkably proud of my work. At a school dance shortly thereafter she approached me, asked me to hold out my hands, and deposited said letter into them, torn to shreds. Thinking back on it now I find it hysterical. Not so much then. Turns out she had been dating a friend of mine and I had no idea. The devil's in the details, pays to find that kind of stuff out beforehand. That was the harshest example of both myself and my work meeting disdain. The funny postscript is that she was not smart, which means she I most likely still in Maine, married to a redneck, poor, with a couple of kids that are borderline retarded. Some would read that as me being bitter, perhaps it is, but in that I like to see the wheel of karmic justice spinning.
Back to the song though. The thing that strikes the biggest cord with me is the admiration I feel for anyone who has the sack to put their work out there to be judged by an audience. I used to want to be a writer when I was younger. After tasting those kinds of rejections a few times I turtled up and would never even think of putting my work out there. An actor going to an audition has my admiration. A musician getting on a stage to perform has my admiration. In the beginning I was horrified even about the idea of writing a blog, knowing that the person who suggested I do it would be reading it and might not enjoy it. It took a lot of energy to get over that hurdle and I'm very glad I managed it because it is wondefully therapuetic.
Thanks, D, for being an inspiration ;)
Seems as though the car accident was the boot in the back of the pants that I needed to jolt me down the right path after all, at least for the time being. The trip to New York was very low profile. Took care of business, performed up to my usual high standards, exited. Drinking = minimal. Bad eating = minimal. Excessive stupid spending = minimal. I wouldn't go so far as to say I've gone from bad to good, but I'd say I've gone from bad to maybe-not-so-bad. Maybe like I'm acting now like a 12 year old instead of an 8 year old :) In an attempt to take the next step up I've decided to go hardcore, no drinking period, no stupid eating, daily trips to the gym. New regimine starting on Sunday, February 21st. Time to get down to a lean 150. Just enjoyed the last of the junk food stash, just polished off the last two beers in the fridge. Sayonara!
At the moment I'm watching one of my all-time favorite awful movies, SFW. At one point Jake Busey says, "Reality programming gives reality a bad name". Amen! The plane ride from NYC to Burbank was eye opening. Did the usual and slept for the first half of the ride and then suffered through the second half. What did I learn? A) Three out of four members of the Russian women's curling team are damned gorgeous. Yekaterina Galkina, lovely. Anna Sidorova, gorgeous. Lyudmila Privivkova, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Otherwise, no reason to watch curling for even two seconds. My attention was rapt for at least an hour. B) I've been part of some of the worst reality tv shows of all-time but 16 and Pregnant on MTV is terrible and pathetic. Who really gives a shit about pregnant 16 year old rednecks? Half the people I went to high school with fit that description and zero of them had there own reality tv shows. Yay Maine! C) Kevin Federline is a fat bastard now.
This is the first time I've ever returned anywhere and felt like I was coming home. I was elated when I touched down. Twice as elated when I got to clean up, shave and get out of dirty clothes. And even twice as elated again when I got to see a dearly missed friend. It's the little things that make life grand. But then she beat me at pool and now I owe a homework assignment.
So onto the business portion of the post. I owe a paragraph on why Help! I'm Alive by Metric strikes a cord with me. This feels so English Lit right now I'm getting all nostalgiac for the high school and college days where it was the only thing I cared about and, subsequently, the only thing I excelled at. It is a song about the fear one suffers when they put themselves out there for others to see, or in the case of the singer/songwriter, their work. Being a writer and a filmmaker is the same type of thing. When you show your work to someone to watch or read, you open yourself up to their praise or disdain. Praise feels wonderful. Disdain feels like shit. I've done lots of work that has been praised, I always love it. But every so often I've done something that has been met with complete disdain and there is no worse feeling in the world. I'll tell a personal story later on to put the exclamation point to that but now I'm drifting off topic which will probably score me low marks so back to it. Word has it the song was written when the lead singer moved from wherever to LA to make it big as a musician. I can relate to this move although mine was a little more calculated and safe, her's was more a "This had better work or I'm screwed" kind of thing. I find LA to be an easy place because I made a successful living for myself in the tv industry in NYC, much smaller pond with much hungrier fish. LA is a much larger pond with much lazier fish. Makes it very easy to be a shark. The same guidelines do not apply to musicians. Long story short, their album is fantastic, they have a popular track, the praise has been heaped upon them and all has worked out well. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. The fear sprouts from the uncertainty.
Thing is, when I think of fear I never think of work. I have always kept a cool head about work and believe in one truth: if you make a piece of art, there are people who will think it is great and there are people who will think it is bad. You will never be able to satisfy everyone. If a person praises my work, high fives and knuckle bumps all day, back pats and beers. If a person doesn't like it, fuck off.
When I think of fear I think about relationships. Nothing scares me more than the thought of putting myself out there to a person and feeling the disdain of rejection. For a long time it crippled me and I would almost refuse to meet people. Friends in college thought it was hilarious that I wouldn't have conversations with people until I had hung out with them four or five times. I ended up becoming friends with roommates and coworkers and classmates and only met people outside those circles when they were with friends often enough for me to gauge them and decide whether or not they were worth even investing the time to talk too. It still seems surreal to me because it walks the tightrope line between narcisstic superiority and crippling inferiority that I still can't put my finger on which it was more of, but it was definitely heaping helpings of both. I am barely recognizable now compared to how I was then, thank the good Lord.
Why be so afraid of relationships?, you ask. Never been in a good one is the answer. I was unlucky enough to have my formative years filled with horrible relationships amd incidents which have completely fucked me all sorts of up :) Being cheated on was the exclamation point because it happened when I thought everything was so good. What I really should have been thinking was that I was so young that none of it even really mattered. That everything that happens before you graduate college is temporary. Hell, I'm 32 now and everything is still temporary. The personal story I was thinking of before happened shortly after getting cheated on by Kati. I set my sights on another girl, one in my class, Kati was a year younger. I wrote this girl a love letter and had a friend of hers hand it off to her. I was remarkably proud of my work. At a school dance shortly thereafter she approached me, asked me to hold out my hands, and deposited said letter into them, torn to shreds. Thinking back on it now I find it hysterical. Not so much then. Turns out she had been dating a friend of mine and I had no idea. The devil's in the details, pays to find that kind of stuff out beforehand. That was the harshest example of both myself and my work meeting disdain. The funny postscript is that she was not smart, which means she I most likely still in Maine, married to a redneck, poor, with a couple of kids that are borderline retarded. Some would read that as me being bitter, perhaps it is, but in that I like to see the wheel of karmic justice spinning.
Back to the song though. The thing that strikes the biggest cord with me is the admiration I feel for anyone who has the sack to put their work out there to be judged by an audience. I used to want to be a writer when I was younger. After tasting those kinds of rejections a few times I turtled up and would never even think of putting my work out there. An actor going to an audition has my admiration. A musician getting on a stage to perform has my admiration. In the beginning I was horrified even about the idea of writing a blog, knowing that the person who suggested I do it would be reading it and might not enjoy it. It took a lot of energy to get over that hurdle and I'm very glad I managed it because it is wondefully therapuetic.
Thanks, D, for being an inspiration ;)
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