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| Starting from scratch.
Well. Not precisely. All the archives are available. I'll be going through during the week, remove a few things that were worthless, leave a few things that had some meaning beyond general angst mixed in with inspiration.
It's been a long time. Let's recap:
- I was in a relationship for a year and a half that almost reached engagement. The relationship found itself doomed due to financial trouble; we both lost our jobs within months of moving into our apartment together, and found ourselves in a constant scramble to catch up, with almost no time for personal growth. Irritation seemed to be the order of the day, and while the high points were high, the low points were severely fucking low. We broke up as of early October, and have found ourselves as much better friends than we ever were. A bumpy road, but worth it.
- I went through about twenty million jobs, finally finding a settling point at a nonprofit arts advocacy organization that has done nothing but treat me well since January 2007. Call me crazy, but I'm thinking of leaving.
- I'm still trying to do the college thing. This time, my bar has been set as high as California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, CA) and The Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD). The general theory, I think, is that I'm fairly fucked when it comes to focusing on normal academia, so my best option is to start applying to artsy schools with name recognition while my FAFSA is at a glorious, wonderful 0. Neither of these schools are cheap; let's hope for the best, before I have to suck it up and do the adult thing.
- I finally quit smoking, thanks to a week-long cold. I have no more urge to pick one up, other than to look cool. Or, y'know, when I see a cigarette ad. Or I walk into a liquor store. Or when someone near me is smoking one. Or when I'm drinking coffee. Or when I have a beer. I pretty much want one all the time. But the desire is manageable again, and that's all I can ask for.
- I've cut out all extracurricular writing/gaming activities in order to refocus on doing something with meaning. I've been on about ten million false starts with screenplays; I'm hoping that by the time I finally get a few specs pounded out, the WGA will have gotten everything they want from AMPTP, and I will be allowed to toss a few down the agent run.
I haven't written in a personal narrative for more than a year. I feel rusty. But I also feel good.
I want more of this. Stick around?
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| I had a smoke today.
Two, to be specific.
I'd been quits
for a week, then bummed a Marlboro Red off my English teacher at my
Saturday class. Considering the fact that I've smoked Camel Turkish
Silvers for years strictly because it's the lightest cigarette I've
ever found, a Marlboro Red was harsh enough to set me back on the
quitter's path.
Two more weeks went by, and that leads to
tonight. I lit one up in the garage at ten to nine at night, then
another at two in the morning.
I remember looking at the cherry,
wanting to feel some sort of hatred for the stinking object between my
fingers, but finding nothing but general acceptance. I'm always aware
of the fact that these things are gonna spell death for me if I
continue lighting up, and yet I'm flooded with reasons to continue.
It'll kill my appetite.
I look cool when smoke comes out of my mouth.
I need to relax.
I'll get that fuckin' Huey Lewis voice.
It's
just slightly disorienting, knowing a thing is bad for you and yet
happily doing it anyway. I'm quits again, as of this moment, but my
faith in my own resolve is officially gone. However, with the departure
of faith comes the acceptance of want.
As of this moment, I -want- to quit smoking. Not because of my health, and not because of the social stigma.
I want to quit smoking because I hate not believing in myself. I hate the idea that something like this can beat me. | | |
| Signed up for NaNoWriMo. I'm not quite sure if my idiocy knows any
bounds, but at least it'll give you guys a piece of shitty writing
every single day to read.
I have until November to decide what I'm going to write. I was leaning
towards out-and-out fiction, but more and more I'm thinking about a
fictional narrative; just an uber-long monologue that will allow me to
write in the style of which I write my blogs.
I don't know. There's still a while to decide.
I'm considering making a blog-ring just for this occasion, if any of
you fellow writers want to dive in with me and create a small support
group that'll help to encourage lazy asses to complete the goal.
More tonight or tomorrow. Peace.
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| It never ceases to amaze me how, as a culture, we are so adverse to casual interaction with people we don't know. I can't decide if this is because it's just one of those things that goes wrongfully unnoticed throughout the day, or if it's my experiences at work which required me to deal with a huge variety of people on a daily basis.
Come to think of it, I think I can fairly attribute this to my work experience. My first day on the job, I was working in a clerical pool which rarely saw the light of day; all socialization took place between the four of us, with enough sarcastic humor and scathing social commentary to fill an 8-hour sitcom.
Things changed shortly after, for the better, although I didn't see it at the time. We were moved to a new building, one which would allow our department to have its own division set aside from everyone else. It would give us the ability to operate with more professionalism, and it would keep us from being bogged down in the overflow of someone else's misplaced job.
It also meant that we got our own front desk. Having never worked a front desk before, I was terrified. Then again, I remember being terrified when, on the first day at work, I lied about knowing how to use a fax machine.
Who the fuck knew the paper was supposed to go upside down?
Six pages of the manual and an hour later, I had made my first official fax. Every single one after that got easier and easier. I realize that this is a bit simplistic, but it does relate to bigger and more complex things.
I was assigned to the front desk, which meant that for the first time, I would be dealing with the general public, and I would be answering phones, all on top of the two jobs I was already working. I thought it would kill me; I was a 19 year old kid who could barely function in high school as the smooth, wordy character that exists today. I couldn't go through the drive-thru without stuttering over my words, fearing that the 17-year-old minimum-wage two-kids dropout working the register would get impatient with me.
As the orientation went on, I was talking with my co-worker, an older mexican gentleman named Rick. Throughout the two years that I worked with him, he was the one I turned to with questions about the life, the universe, and everything.
My questions were like a shotgun blast, peppering him all at once; in retrospect, I realize that his patience must have been amazing, almost father-like to a kid of no relation to him whatsoever. He looked at me and asked a simple question.
"You're scared, aren't you?"
Let it never be said that Pride isn't the official currency of Youth. "Hell no, I'm not -scared-. I'm just, y'know, a little nervous. I've never really done this kind of thing before."
Seven words. That was all it took to get me through four years of clerical hell; words that I still reference to this day.
"Relax. Just pretend to be an adult."
If I had heard those words in any other situation, they may have failed me. But there I was, 19 years old and working behind the desk as a representative of a government program, charged with giving assistance to those who I could assist, and redirecting those that I couldn't assist to someone who could.
It worked like a charm. Pretending to be an adult had never been more efficient. I talked, and talked with confidence that developed quickly over the course of the first week. I took pride in knowing that I could provide a service to those less privileged than I, and that I could be considered a reliable, trustworthy guy.
If I had heard those words in the backroom clerical pool, I might've gone a completely different path by assuming that an adult was someone who did his work and kept his nose out of everyone else's business.
Perhaps it is, in someone else's world. But in the real world, we deal with each other every day, be it the guy behind the counter at the sandwich shop, or the girl you're standing next to while waiting for the teacher to come by and unlock the door to class.
Uncomfortable silences are universally despised. Say hello to someone next time, and don't brush off the follow-up response with something half-assed and disingenuous. | | |
| I met a girl today.
This won't be the last time you see me lead in with a cliche.
College has been in full swing now for the past week and a half. It's
an adjustment. Infinitely sexier schedule than an 8-to-5 job,
infinitely harder to get by on with nothing but bullshit and a smile.
Those fucks expect me to learn. Can you believe that shit?
Sitting around the house for a summer has been a worse experience than
I could've ever imagined possible. I am a living, vital human being; a
motivated individual with a laziness clause. Summer vacation brought
out the worst in me.
I went nowhere.
I did nothing.
I ignored everything.
My writing, my music, my family. All of it took a backburner to the
"I'm a college boy now; fuck -yeah- I deserve three months of R&R"
mentality.
I'm not that kid anymore. And that's a hard realization to make.
The loss of innocence is often tied to other, more notable, events in a
person's life. The first time you realized that there is a death, and
it will come for you one day; the first time you looked down at the
cigarette you were smoking, and realized that a plume of smoke just
ain't as badass as you once thought it was; the first time you made
love, taking part in an ages-old dance that represents the only true
human method of completely losing oneself in that wanton, urgent
scramble for every sweet and savorable moment before the inevitable
climax, certain that if you don't seize each second in a vise-like
grip, you'll never have the opportunity to catch up with it later.
My loss of innocence has come in many forms, all of the above included.
But I came to another realization today, one that has slowly tried to
make itself known to me over the past two years.
I've always wanted to go away to college. I wanted the freedom, I
wanted the experience, I wanted to be able to go back to being a dumb
kid again. Parties, women, my own place to call home even if it were
nestled comfortably in a cramped hall shared with countless other alpha
males like myself. It was a driving force for me at work; a sweet dream
that could tickle my fancy and entice me to leave my desk for a few
moments and take solace in the crafty illusions of the imagination.
Sure, one day I'll quit. I'll go back to school and be a party animal.
Sure, one day I'll get my degree. Then I'll look fondly back at all the fun I had in college.
Sure, one day I'll have kids, and share with them all of my wild stories as a reckless early-to-mid 20's student.
It took a Philosophy 101 course to snap me back into reality. Not the
subject matter, but a student. Young, idealistic, a proudly-and-loudly
proclaimed Athiest who all but -screamed- "Ron 2.0 release date August
1995". Every point that the teacher would bring up, this guy would
slant into a religious debate; every single questioning of belief that
the teacher would try to engage a student in, this guy would accuse of
being a loaded and potentially humiliating death trap.
I couldn't take it any longer, and calmly engaged the guy in debate. I
do what I do best; I do what has been passed down the family line and
served a countless number of McOwen's quite well.
I argued him into a corner, and then I destroyed him with his own
words. Calmly. Assertively. Intelligently. With no ill-will towards him.
My intention was not to destroy. My intention was to educate, a role
that I constantly have to remind myself is -not- mine to take; there is
a teacher already in the classroom, and he's being paid quite a bit
more than I am.
I impressed upon this guy that the point of Philosophy was -not- to
rabidly defend one's views; that it was to allow one's views to be
attacked, and then see if they still hold water. Only through a release
of bias, or at least a temporary reprieve through a listening ear, can
one truly maintain a thirst for knowledge from all walks.
As the guy sulked back into his seat and the conversation moved on, I
realized that the dirty look he was giving me was something I'd seen
before.
"You beat me, but I don't care what you have to say."
"You beat me, but fuck what you think."
"You beat me, but only because you have better words."
It was the glare of a child; the insipid and hateful glance that would
insist to press upon me that yes, he may have lost the argument, but
goddamnit, he knew better than me and he would do anything, -anything-,
to prove it.
I realized that this guy wasn't a guy. He was a kid. He was an average,
everyday kid, still trying to gather their wits about them and truly
identify some sort of semblance of a sense of self. It wasn't my place
to do what I did to him; to beat him with his own words in the kindest
manner possible, and then drive home the point that was trying to be
made in the first place.
Intelligent debate in junior college is like investment banking in a Cambodian whorehouse. They don't know what the fuck.
It was there that I lost another small part of innocence.
I'm not that kid anymore. I've grown beyond that; I've grown above it.
I can't relate to that anymore; at best, I can look at my school peers
and see them as potentials, as future members of a rational,
free-thinking adult society. I can no longer see myself doing the binge
drinking, the sex partying, and the utter anarchy of first-time freedom.
I'm an adult. I don't have the patience.
But I met a girl today. Losing innocence isn't the worst thing in the world. | | |
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