Time is marching ever on, and I am left here to wonder if this is all there is. My son is set to finish with the Second Grade in just about one month, and my granddaughter should be born within the week. I have no choice but to end my sabbatical sometime in the very near future, if just to pay the bills, and the adult kids may or may not be moving out. It’s strange: for a man who is terrified of change down to his very core, I seem to be taking all of this with a surprisingly calm demeanor, as if I am squarely centered in the eye of all this chaos, able to witness it unfold with reckless beauty and untold power, yet protected from it due to my sheer, dumb luck of having nestled myself safely ‘gainst its breast. At the end of it all, I will climb out of the wreckage of my life, brush off the dust, and shield my eyes from the summer sun as I move ever onward.
But for everything that’s set to change, it’s also strange how everything seems to be staying in place. I can feel the weight of waiting weighing down upon me, and I just want to know how I’m going to manage to pull off another miracle. I had a small glimmer of hope the other day when my sister-in-law, Valentina, became the first person to support The Cause through the “Donate” button on my page. It’s not enough to keep the dream going at full speed, but it might be enough to keep the dream alive. When I finish this post, I’ll be going through Terracrats with a fine-tooth comb, looking it over a final time before I get it ready for sale on Amazon. And I also need to finish up the first Quarterly Edition of The Vaults of Uncle Walt (which, as I recall, stalled out somewhere toward the month of February). I know that there will be a waiting period before I’ll see any money from either of those, but at least I will be able to say that I’ve made some money doing something which I love.
I will also be starting work on The Novel, which I had been able to put off for the past couple of years, but which seems ready to begin the process of actually existing outside of my mind. Of course, this is still entirely academic. I need to figure out how to pump some cash into my life while I’m waiting for my words to starting pulling their own weight. But I am going to be the Little Writer That Could. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. And so on. Every single time in my life when I have had the opportunity to try and make this happen, I have always found a reason to shy away, whether it was a nervous breakdown, or that I was living in the woods behind the local Safeway, or that I simply had to have something to eat that week. I know that I’ve gone about this all wrong, and that I should have been more cautious in my life decisions. Except that when I’m cautious, I never take any chances, which means that I keep shoving the words within me down a little deeper, doing my best to suffocate my hopes and dreams before they break my heart. Almost thirty years I’ve had to get this done, and for all of that time, all of those dreams, I haven’t made it happen. That has got to change.
My greatest obstacle, of course, in none other than myself. Better than any imaginable archenemy, I know exactly how to foil my best laid plans so that they yield only ruination. It’s funny: I was talking to Wildflower as we were walking home (the Minkey and I met her at work and then walked back with her), and she was telling me that sometimes it is hard for her to see that anything is actually wrong inside me. That is, for me, the worst part of mental illness. From the outside, it just looks like someone is lazy, and all they need to get going is a swift kick to the posterior. I mean, if I can still crack a joke or two, and actually get out of bed, then why can’t I bear to face a stranger for a shitty cashier job? Well, let me let you in on a little secret, one which makes me grateful that I am not seeking to impress any members of the opposite sex:
I’m not taking care of myself. Ooh, big surprise, I know. But I’m talking about the basic things: showers, brushing teeth, changing my pair of jeans. Now, it’s not as gross as it might appear, as I do change my underwear, socks, and t-shirts daily. But the background level of apathy is so high, that I just don’t give enough of a crap about myself to actually make any of the most basic bits of care seem worth the time and effort. This isn’t because I am lazy, or that I cannot get out of bed (although that has happened once or twice), it’s just that I do not see the point. It’s difficult to see the sickness which hides behind a carefully constructed façade of jokes and misdirection. I do my best to make people laugh so that they won’t think to judge me for my failings. And I’ve learned to make myself laugh because I know that it’s better than collapsing into a pile of booger-streaming tears. Well, that, and I know that if it’s especially painful, it will make the most amusing anecdote in four or five years, so why not tell it now, and find the humor in it?
I just have to keep reminding myself that I can do this. I just wish that I believed me…
Don’t forget to come back this evening for my long-awaited review of Girlfiend’s E.P., Comrade Isodora Duncan. It will be up at 6 o’clock Pacific.
I knew this day would come, but I didn’t expect it to take so long in its arrival. I knew that I wouldn’t really start to get going on what I wanted to write until I had no time left to do it. It’s not really a surprise then that everything seems to be blowing up in my face just as I am on the verge of actually getting something accomplished. Not a full-length novel, mind you, but at least something that isn’t just the blog, something that I might be able to convince people to purchase. I thought the day would come sometime back in January, but it seems the gods of apathy had other things in mind for me. Whatever. I’m still going to finishing working on it, and then I’m going to see what I can do to try to make a little money. It’s taking all my will to keep from falling back down into the depths of despair, and every ounce of ego to tell myself that I should keep working at it. A lesser (or smarter) man might have given up by now, with his entire life snowballing into ruin. But not me. I’ve been putting this off for decades, and I don’t think that I’ll ever muster up the courage to try again if I don’t follow through this time.
I asked my wife before I began this little adventure of mine, if she believed in me, if she thought that I could do it. I know that rough Spanish translations are a poor substitute to showcase my abilities, but it was all I had to work with. Even then, she told me that she believed, and for the first time in what seemed like nearly forever and a day, I almost thought that I could do it. I just wish that I had managed to get back into form a little sooner. And that I had socked away some money back when I was making it. I know that I can pull this out (I have always known it), but I cannot seem to adequately explain it to my wife. We are both stressed out about what the near-future holds, and the best that I can offer her is that I’m pretty sure that everything will be okay. I mean, I have a track record of always landing on my feet, but the cynic inside me says that only means that I am due to finally taste the sweet agony of complete and utter failure.
Maybe it’s just a side effect of my mental illness, this delusion that I should, or could, do this for a living. I mean, who’s to say that this isn’t just a particularly deluded fantasy of mine which might better be relegated to the status of a hobby? Except that I have known down to the deepest part of me since I was just a boy that it was going to be this path or nothing. In school, while I saw everyone around me plagued with doubt about the lives they were desperately trying to decide between, I floated by upon a cloud of certainty that I knew what I was doing. Maybe this is my greatest sin of all: pride. Or self-delusion, whatever you want to call it. I have to be right, and more often than not, I am. But now is not the time for me to learn that I am fallible. Or maybe it’s the best time, philosophically, but I can’t let myself think like that. There will be plenty of time to learn that I am just as capable of committing errors when the stakes aren’t quite so high.
On a happier note, if I was forced to guess my progress with the story I am working on, I’d probably have to say that I am almost halfway done. I shot past the roadblock that had been causing me so many problems, and now it’s just a matter of finishing up the flashback and trying it all together with the ending of the story. The only thing that is giving me problems now is the massive tonal shift in the original. I liked the juxtaposition then, but I’m not sure if I can make it work this time. To be fair, I like telling myself that something is impossible when I’m fairly certain that it’s not so that when I finally pull it off, I can pat myself on the back and feel like a miracle worker. I’m relearning how to write fiction again, and I should have started with that from the very beginning, as the odds that someone would read the random things I write about here on the blog and decide that they wanted to pay me to do it for them were always nonexistent. But at least I’ve gotten faster at transferring thought to page, which has helped me with writing in general.
To tie everything back in together, I guess what I’ve been trying to spit out is that I know that the majority of the work that I do when I am writing is nearly indistinguishable from just lounging about. But I am always mulling over what my next move is, or distracting myself from focusing directly on the problem so that the answer comes to me more organically. When I’m reading, I’m actually taking classes in advanced creative writing. When I’m watching television, I’m soaking the interplay of characters and themes. When I’m listening to music, I’m… well I’m usually just grooving to the music, but putting myself in the mood is also important. But none of this is making me a dime, at least not yet. I have nothing to show for my efforts aside from a crumbling relationship and the looming threat of a nervous breakdown. I need to knuckle down and become the little writer who could. I’m pretty sure that I can do it. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen if I’m wrong?
It’s way too late at night, and I cannot get to sleep. I don’t mind going ’round the bend if I’m creatively insane, but this wandering around in apathetic madness is for the birds. It just feels so blah. So I’ve decided to perform a little experiment to measure the effects of sadness on the insomniac psyche. I would much rather be fine-tuning my short story, but unless something changes in my head before I go to sleep, the best I can do is pound out some abstract nonsense and say that it was done on purpose. It used to be a matter of just altering perception, but I’m a father and grandfather now, so how would that kind of narcissistic, hedonistic behavior look? I miss going on adventures, both in time and space and within my mind. I miss staying awake until the wee hours and making candles dance, chasing off the Beasties with a magick word or two. I guess what I’m trying to get across is that the world just seems so two-dimensional now that I’ve grown older, the colors are all muted, and vibrancy is something which I barely can remember. It’s too bad they changed the formula for NyQuil, or I could relive my glory days once more while stumbling through the streets of Not Quite Richmond, California.
I guess what I really miss is feeling like I am tapping into something larger than myself. I remember wandering around the Island late at night with Fed beneath the purple skies of clouds sailing o’er the Witching Hour. We used to walk miles, with no thought of aching muscles, or tired feet, and just talk for hours until we finally passed out. We drank shitty beer in graveyards with my girlfriend, and wrote songs which I was convinced would be my ticket out of obscurity, but which don’t even exist outside my mind anymore. We gave a demo tape to one of our friends, but she lost it soon after. Not that we would have made it as a live band. Fed was good, but I could barely find a steady rhythm, let alone keep it, and the two and a half chords which I could play still required thought before I could change between them. I did love recording with him, though. I remember when we were working on one of his songs, Compass Rose, and he made me take a walk outside because he felt self-conscious about his voice. I never recorded with Bad Leon, though we’ve talked about instrumental backing to my angry love poetry.
What am I doing here? I’ve managed to accomplish exactly nothing in my time since I left work, at least nothing which will make me any money. It wasn’t so bad being destitute when I was living on my own, but as I said just a few days ago, that’s not really going to cut it with my wife and son. I just hate the dichotomy of being me. I shut off this artistic part of me for so long that I don’t know if he is ever coming back. I suppose that until November of last year, I could have described my artistic self as Schrödinger’s Wordsmith: both extant and extinct. But now Pandora’s Box is open, and I’ve had the misfortune to peek inside. What terrifies me most is the thought that it’s not just institutionalized apathy; that it’s simply a matter of me not having what it takes to do this for a living. That my lifelong dream is never destined to be more than just a hobby. I think of all the stories which are running around inside my head, and I am screaming silently at myself for not doing a damned thing about them. Every time I try to write, I go in with the notion that I’ll only screw everything up, and then manage to stay true to my word.
I can feel the fires burning just beneath my eyes, and the anxiety throbbing beneath my skin. And yet it’s all held down snugly beneath a blanket of exhaustion. I want to touch the energy of youth once more, even if it’s only for a day. To have the knowledge that the world is mine, and there’s nothing that can stop me. I used to know that I would change the world, but somewhere in my twenties, I managed to lose sight of that. And now, because I cannot even encourage myself to do what I love most because I lack the discipline required to work for myself, I’m going to have to shove myself back into that tiny box without even the reassurance that I’ll unpack myself again. This was my shot. This was the last batch of courage I could muster, and I couldn’t get it done. I was so excited when it dawned on me to rewrite that bloody story. I thought that if it was good enough, if I was good enough, I could use the momentum I had built and hop tracks to something of a slightly longer format. If I cannot even get excited about the crap that I am writing, what makes me think that someone will pay money for it?
Welcome to the Pity Party. If I ran for office, I would have to run with them. We’re not much to look at, but we’re sort of attached… to us. Is it like this for everyone? Do other writers get halfway into something which they’re pouring themselves into (enjoying it along the way), and then just throw their notebook down, and scream, “Bullshit!” at the walls? Not that it really matters. Reality, it seems, has finally caught up with me. Who thought that this could last forever? What is it going to take for me to get this figured out? I wish there was a desert I could visit, or rolling hills which I could roam at night while screaming at the wind, and howling at the moon or clouded sky. More than anything, I want to have a little garden where I can grow tomatoes and chili peppers. I want to find excuses not to write so that I can just hang out in the garden and dig my fingers into soil and pretend that I’m alive. Which, to be honest, is a little weird, because I’m not that into vegetables. I guess I just like to see things grow.
I’m looking at the word count and realizing that if I could have just gotten in the flow while I was working on that stupid story, I might almost be close to done by now. I don’t know what the holdup is, to be completely honest. I know the story, almost like I was actually there. Almost. And even if it wasn’t burned into my brain, I have the story which I wrote half my life ago, which kind of lays the whole thing out for me. I even managed to solve the roadblock in the text which had been bothering me since I started to rewrite it. It was an elegant solution, altering the exposition slightly to turn it into dialogue. Maybe what’s killing it is that I’m trying to do too much. I remembered that I’d also written a story called Nic Buzz around the same time, though not a single copy of the original remains, and that since that revelation, I’ve been trying to figure out how to squeeze it into what I’m already trying to do. I would just jump right back into where I’ve left off, setting aside that notion for a little while, but every time I try to get myself back into it, I find that story which I have no idea how it went has left a giant hole just beyond the words which I have written. Like always, my cardinal sin appears to be overthinking everything.
So what’s a boy to do? I’m beating back exhaustion with silken bat wings thrumming in the dark of night, and only my tenacity is driving these words from within the whispers in my head through my fingers, and onto the screen before me. I want to just curl up into a little ball of safety, and sleep until the necessity of the real world has expired. There has never been a problem too large, in my opinion, that it cannot be slept away. But I know that this time I cannot simply ignore the demands of my responsibilities. This time I have got to make it work somehow. Both Bad Leon and my wife think that the answer is in brain-dead work, like a cashiering job or line cook, which I can leave at the door when my shift is over, and then come home with enough energy to write. But I have been in management too long to think that that’s an option anymore. If I’m going to work for someone who isn’t me, then I need to be in control of at least some of the variables in my working life. I despise working for people less qualified than me, and if I’m going to climb the ladder, I’d prefer to start somewhere closer to the top. It’s not that I haven’t worked my way up before, just that there’s a limit to just how much crap that I can deal with while I’m trying to get ahead.
Maybe I’ll stop writing this, and work on something more productive, like a love letter to Death. Courting the Grim Reaper has always been my secret ambition. Well, I don’t know if it’s still a secret if you tell everyone you meet, but I haven’t, until now, broadcasted my desire to the entire world. Some thought experiment that this turned out to be. More like a convoluted pep talk for someone who isn’t listening. But at least that I know that words are flowing once again, and though it’s true that the narrative voice between the story and the blog are slightly different, tonally, it’s still me who’s rambling on, and that should count for something. Maybe I could pop in the part about Applesauce and Abby, or that time when Crys and I almost died because she was way too drunk to drive. Or how her daughter stole those beers from us, which we had stolen first (or so the story goes, if I’m to retain plausible deniability), just so that she could share them with her stupid friends that weren’t us. Of course, if I get in too deep, I’ll just have to go ahead and write the book that I know that I’m not ready to tackle yet. I should probably get started before too long, before all my memories have dissipated, but there’s something which I want to do stylistically, which I know that I’m not quite good enough to actually pull off. At least, not yet.
I can’t believe I’ve written almost two thousand words in just an hour and a half. Turns out that when I’m typing at almost the speed of thought, I can get something accomplished. And now the thought has bubbled up which I want nothing more than to ignore, which is that I should really sit down and read this for the podcast version. Except that the calm and collected voice which is narrating this between my ears won’t sound nearly as impressive if it has to pass my vocal cords. I guess the audio version of this will just have to wait until I get around to it, which, knowing me, is probably somewhere close to never. And here I thought that I would wind up arguing the point with a little bit more passion. I suppose that the time has come for me to get back to work on that thing which I really wanted to be doing. Now if only I could manage saying that with even a modicum of sincerity, I’d be set. Just one more thing before I go: In the comments for this post (or on Facebook or Twitter), please let me know which of these photos you prefer for the cover image.
This one, which is both primal AND artistic…or this one, which holds a slightly different perspective.
The other night, I finally sat down to start working on the story which I promised you all last week. And you want to know something? It was kind of fun. I’ve been doing these columns almost daily for the past six months, and, though I like writing with such frequency, it’s not quite the same as focusing all my energy on a piece of fiction. With this blog, I can ramble on about whatever strikes my fancy, with no regard to what I wrote even the day before. But coming back to the same story day after day, worrying about continuity in events and tone, well, I’m more out of practice with all of that than I was with writing back when I reopened the Vaults in December. In truth, I’ve never really had to sit down and try to figure out how to keep a story going. Most everything I wrote before could most generously be defined as “Short Fiction”, apart from that poetry kick I was on for the better part of a decade. In all honesty, the last thing I wrote which was longer than a page or two was the novel I started when I was in the Eighth Grade (which I only did so that I wouldn’t have to be bothered with doing actual schoolwork). I’ve had a couple of friends tell me that my intransigence that year helped inspire an “alternative” track, and that there may somewhere be a copy of the babble which I penned so long ago. I don’t know whether I’d rather read it for nostalgia, or have it expunged from the physical world.
Then again, I still peruse the book my class made in the Third Grade, so I’d probably want to see it at least once more before I die. It was horrible, to be sure. I’d finished rereading the Dragonlance Chronicles, and thought that I was good enough to try my hand at fantasy. I drew some maps, and came up with a backstory which was, charitably, an homage of every tired and recycled trope of fantastic fiction that had ever come before. I was fairly proud of myself. But it’s hard to write with any sort of authority when you’ve only read about the things your characters are doing, and have not the slightest clue why coffee follows a night of drinking, or what drinking is even like, not to mention a complete lack of understanding of what hangovers are. I mean, I didn’t even start sneaking sips of my grandparents’ booze until my Freshman year of High School, and I didn’t get my first hangover until the first time that I drank Gin, nearly two and a half years later. I hadn’t gone out camping, or even built a fire. Hell, I wasn’t even allowed to play with knives, so the sum total of my experience with the swords which I was describing came from repeated viewings of Highlander. But I kept working on that book. Even after the school year ended, I kept plugging away at that story. My Grandfather took me on a trip that summer (mainly, I believe, to get me the hell out of the house, and give my Mom a vacation from me), and I packed my notebooks with me, and was writing every day.
I don’t remember when I stopped working on it, but I think it was at least a week or two before the school year started up again. By then, I was worried about taking Honors English, and hoping that maybe I’d have the chance (finally) to stop worrying about assholes and get down to learning. I should have known that High School would be just like Middle School, except all the jerks were far more practiced. And there was the distraction of the girls. By the time January had arrived, I’d all but given up. I was disillusioned with the entire experience of education, and my bi-polar disorder (still undiagnosed) was just beginning to come into its own. Don’t get me wrong: I’m thrilled that I never actually tried to get that piece of garbage published, but I’m still a little saddened by how easily I managed to give it all up. Looks like that’s not really a new development in the life of Mr. Batmart. Hell, the name Tex Batmart didn’t even come into existence until I had turned eighteen.
All of this cute, and, I’m sure, terribly informative, but if I can just take the tiniest of breaks from this ennui in which I’m bathing, I’d like to get back to my original point (hold on while I scroll up and try to figure out exactly what it was):
Yeah, I’m not sure that I actually had one. Writing is Hard, maybe? Or, I’m Wasted on Cross-Country? No, that was dwarves. Interesting digression: I think it was my Junior year in High School when the track coach approached me through a friend of my to see if I’d be interested in joining the cross-country team. He’d seen me (literally) running circles around one of his athletes as he’d been making his way around the track. I’d only been doing it because he was dating this girl who my friend was desperately in love with, and it was fun to show off and harass him. I politely declined the offer, as the Athletic Department was a bit more serious about their Anti-Drug Pledge than the Theatre Department or Debate Team, and I wanted to leave my options open. That, and I really didn’t relish the thought of intentional exercise. I rode my bike to school every day, and rode it home again (and due to the geographic peculiarities of the Island, I did indeed ride uphill both ways), not to mention walking almost everywhere else when I didn’t want to take my bike. But running for fun? What was the point in that? Plus, I would have probably had to give up smoking, and I’d only just started doing that for real (ah, back when every cigarette rewarded me with a Nic Buzz (and now I have another idea for a thing. Maybe I really will just go with Batmart Begins (not its real title), and just tie in all my old stories together like they were all on purpose), and I actually enjoyed smoking (not to mention that I looked 30% cooler) with my friends).
If it wasn’t for that cigarette, I’d look like a total dork!
Looks like my legs may be getting a workout once again. My wife and I have not won the lottery, so it looks like I’ll get to see just how good I’ve gotten at writing no matter what. I’ve submitted several applications and hope to hear back from at least somebody within a day or two. I may not have done everything by the book in my younger years, but a decade and a half of experience in the same field has made me somewhat of a commodity. Ideally, I’d like to just go into restaurants and tell them how to fix the things that they are doing wrong, but there’s already someone doing that, and he has got a camera crew. I suppose that if I had started this whole process a few months earlier, I might have been able to coast by as a cashier, but since I’ve left it until the last moment, I’ll have to jump right back in where I left off, at least in terms of responsibility (and pay). And I know that once I’ve gotten hired and get used to where I’m working, all of this anxiety will dissipate, as I throw myself completely into the task at hand. In addition, depending on my salary, I may be able to give my wife the same opportunity for joblessness that she has given me.
Well, that’s not entirely accurate. Actually, I suppose that it is. Whereas I have been writing nearly every day that I have been away from Blondie’s Pizza (discounting a reasonable number of days off and time spend on vacation in December), I’m sure that she will launch into an all-out assault on the apartment, and have it organized exactly how she wants it. She’ll have all the time she’s said she’s wanted to devote to her home and to her children. I give her about a month, tops, before she’s ready to get back to work. I am the type who needs to mull things over, chew on thoughts, and then explode in prose while seated before my laptop. Wildflower, on the other hand, just sort of rages at the various tasks before her until they disappear or submit before her mastery. It would be nice to have some money again. That’s what I’d have to say I miss the most since leaving my last job. It’s hard going from having enough to pay the bills and maybe have a little fun (time permitting) to trying to figure out how to make the magic work.
It used to be so much simpler, before I had people who were counting on me. One person bouncing from couch to couch isn’t all that much, but trying drag along your entire family just makes it that much harder. But I’m going to be positive today. I’m going to believe that it’s all going to work out like it should. I’ve been far more productive than I was the last time I renounced a gainful state of employment, and I think that it was necessary to get me writing again. I wish that the cost wouldn’t have been so high, but I’m doing something that I feel that I was meant to do. The last time, I got to spend six months bonding with my son. This time, I’ve been bonding with myself.
In retrospect, I probably could have phrased that better.
But I’ve rebuilt my writing muscles, and the only thing that I need now is a little inspiration. It’s easy to get trapped inside your own feedback of madness, and I may have mined most of what’s been hiding in my head. I’m impressed that it took so long. I figured that I would have run out of nonsense to spout weeks ago. Then again, I have written this same column probably five or six times, so I don’t think that I should be so terribly impressed. Yeah, I need some outside influence on my reality. Fortune favors the bold. That used to mean being the guy who threw away a career to jump toward his destiny, but apparently that now means making enough money so that I can feed my family. And I feel about the same way with the change in definition as I did when “literally” became “figuratively”.
My fingers are crossed.
In other news, yesterday I managed to rack up my 2,000th page view since December 7th. As a gesture of thanks, I reprinted an old tale of mine, and then promised to start working on a version that more closely showcases what I’ve been able to pick up since I first wrote it, which I will debut here in when I hit 2,000 views for 2015. That’s only 83 views away, so I had better get started on it, if I want it to be ready on time.
Great. Now, in addition to finding someone to pay me for doing something, I have to rewrite one of my favorite stories for all of you. It’s only 900 words or so now, and I’d like to make it a little longer. I think it’s time that I learn how to make a meal instead of just a snack-sized story. I guess this means that I will have to put myself back into the mindset of who I was when I wrote the damned thing, and from there, try to remember everything about the story. I guess the biggest thing which worries me right now (about Terracrats, not life in general) is that I don’t know if I’ll be able to maintain that youthful tone, or if I should even try.
It will probably be the victim of a gritty reboot.
Batmart Begins:
I glared down at the cherry of my lit cigarette, furtively glancing about in the fading light of this spring day. Anyone happening to glance this way would wind up seeing us for sure. I dropped the cigarette to the saltwater-soaked concrete and ground it beneath my boot, much as my ex-girlfriend had done to me not months before in lieu of a birthday present.
Damn. I was going for mockery, but I kind of like that.
Just when I thought that the end had come, I managed to escape to the tide of spiders and get myself to safety. I apologize for leaving you all hanging, but I had to stay ahead of those foul, eight-legged creatures. I made it out the door, which I managed to slam shut, and waited for what would have been the single most terrifying sight I’d ever had the misfortune to witness (aside from the birth of my son): A constant flow of spiders streaming out through the cracks between the door and frame. But, as I waited, breathing ragged and hypersensitive, nothing came my way. As the heavy seconds slowly fell to the monotony of minutes, a new dread settled down upon me. The arachnid army had not come for me, so what in the hell were they doing? I could only imagine how they were now fortifying their defenses and turning my bedroom into a webbed winterland of creeping horror. I briefly considered the ramifications of simply setting my apartment ablaze, but thought better of it, as I had a bunch of stuff that I’d rather not live without. Not to mention that I don’t really have the cash to pick up and move anywhere else right now. No, if I was to keep the spiders from winning, I would have to take them down without collateral damage.
I was then reminded of a dream which I once had when I was just a little boy. There had been a fire in the house where I was living, and when I came back into my room, I looked around and saw everything covered in a layer of soot, with scorch marks rising up the wall like blackened wings poised for flight. My eyes were drawn then to my closet, which appeared more burnt than the rest of the room. Upon the shelf, above the torched and melted clothing, sat a porcelain clown with silken raiment of black and white. As I reached up to take hold of it, it fell on its own, plummeting down past my fingers, and landing with a sharp crack as it hit the floor. Instead of shattering upon the ground only the top of the head broke away. I looked down at the broken clown head, smeared with soot, and reached to pick the doll up. And then I saw the spiders streaming out from within the porcelain. I couldn’t see where they were all coming from, or how they could all have fit. They were tiny, but black as midnight, and going everywhere. Just as they reached me, their little legs scrambling all over me, I bolted upright and escaped the dream. My tiny eight-year-old frame was shaking, and even the daylight filling up my obviously undamaged room did little to allay my fears. And sitting upon the shelf within my closet sat the unbroken porcelain jester, whose dead eyes held secrets I was not prepared to know.
I shuddered back into the present, haunted once again by memories of nightmares long forgotten. The door before me remained unchanged, and I knew that I must act, or lose my will altogether. I crept closer, listening for any sign of the menace which was hidden out of sight within. Nothing. Not a single scrape or scurry. I took hold of the doorknob and gingerly turned it counterclockwise, pressing against the door ever so gently with my shoulder. I was at my most vulnerable in this position, and I was sure the spiders knew it. But I pressed on, pushing through adrenaline and heightened arachnophobia, and cautiously into the room. I saw no evidence of an infestation as the door swung open, not near the frame, nor anywhere between my position and the desk in the corner upon which rests my laptop. I shot a quick glance upward, as no one in the movies ever seems to think in three dimensions, but saw only the empty ceiling which had always been that way. I began to walk over to my desk, when a thought occurred to me.
These creatures had shown signs of intelligence, and were nowhere to be seen. If they wanted to lure me into a false sense of security, they must be hiding somewhere that I would never think to suspect. I slowly turned my head to look at the bed beside me. It appeared to be in the same condition as I’d seen it not ten minutes before, but who pays all that much attention to the mundane objects which no one thinks may one day be completely infested by hyperintelligent arachnids. There was nothing out of the ordinary to clue me in to their position, but I knew, deep down, that the moment when my head finally touched down upon the pillow, I would swarmed by tiny spiders, and wrapped up in a sleeping bag forged from spider silk. I know that one doesn’t normally forge silk, or sleeping bags, but we’re dealing with creatures of indomitable will, superior intellect, and devious resourcefulness. Under those circumstances, I wouldn’t put anything past the little buggers, strained metaphor or not.
It was then that I happened to see the empty can of Red Bull sitting on the windowsill. I looked down at my shaking hands, and started putting it together. The lack of sleep. Too much caffeine. A memory of childhood terror set off by a single spider in the corner of my room. Mosquitoes flying all about me, and a trip into madness inspired by a blank screen before me. I began to breathe again, surprised that I had not been doing so. The spiders were only in my head. Well, except for the one I’d thrown a shoe at just moments before. I forced myself to chuckle, and walked over to my computer to shut it off, so that I could get some sleep. The laptop itself hardly makes a sound, but the fan beneath it makes a godawful racket, and makes it nearly impossible to fall asleep.
And sleep. Oh, precious slumber which I’d been so long without. How I missed the feel of its warm embrace. Even now I could hear it calling softly. I could feel the tension begin to slide away, and I knew that I was ready. I powered off the laptop, and gently closed up the machine. Just as I was falling into bed, I couldn’t help but notice a small movement at the edges of my periphery. A massing of miniature monsters, swelling now that trap’d been sprung. A nightmare come into sobering clarity, and I could not a thing but continue to fall, both onto the mattress and into dreams.
And as the final light began to fade, I saw nothing beyond the spinning dances of the spiders.
I’ve thinking of how best to describe how I’ve been feeling lately, and that’s been leading me to think back to one of my favorite movies of young adulthood: American Beauty. I remember the first time I watched it, and how it resonated with me then, how Annette Bening managed to capture the frustrations and drives which I could see in my girlfriend, and Kevin Spacey became my personal hero, the embodiment of a man who truly no longer cares, which was something that I had been desperately attempting for at least the past half-decade. And then there was Ricky Fitts. I never sold drugs in High School, nor did I have to worry about a father such as his (or, for that matter, any father at all), but I got the whole photography thing, albeit in a more static format, and the scene when he’s describing the magic of the plastic bag managed to define my artistic sentiment for years to come.
“It was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. Right? And this bag was just dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. That’s the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember… I need to remember… Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it, and my heart is just going to cave in.”
-Ricky Fitts, American Beauty
Maybe it was a side effect of growing up in the Pacific Northwest, but I felt such a connection to the beauty all around me, and since I had taken up photography, I’d learned to try to focus all that beauty through frame of the viewfinder. And maybe it was just a common sentiment among disaffected youth, desperate to find some meaning, any meaning, for the pain they couldn’t help but feel each and every day. All I know is that in the moment that I saw that plastic bag dancing in the wind, I knew that, despite the pain, and despite the seeming hopelessness of the mundanity of the world around me, there was something that made all of this worth it, and I just had to find out what that was.
Even today, encased, as I may be, inside my concrete tomb, I try to hang on to that ideal, to strive to see the beauty just behind the meaningless atrocities of trying to get by. And even though it’s hard to see it through the smog-filtered sunlight of the San Francisco Bay Area, and in the actions of a populace worn down by the iniquities of life, every now and then I can see it poking through, like an overeager child who wants nothing more than to play peek-a-boo with you. And then I blink, and the joy has gone; the vibrancy of life has been replaced by a Polaroid from the 70’s, where everyone is washed out by ennui and yet still manages to look ridiculous upon proper retrospection.
“Both my wife and daughter think I’m this gigantic loser and they’re right, I have lost something. I’m not exactly sure what it is but I know I didn’t always feel this… sedated. But you know what? It’s never too late to get it back.”
-Lester Burnham, American Beauty
I’m not sure where I lost that special something which defined me in my youth, whether it was being beaten down by poor decisions, or simply the inevitable outcome of growing older. One of the reasons why I quit my job and set out to make myself write every day was because I knew that I had lost something- something visceral and vital within me- and I knew that if I didn’t do something, I’d never get it back. I had been worried about the things that other people cared about, running after money, selling pieces of my soul one hour at a time just to pay the rent and keep up with the Joneses. Since I was a little boy, the only future which I ever sought involved me changing the world with the words which only I could write. And yet, here I was, almost three decades later, doing everything except anything I enjoyed. There are necessities which must be attended, but the world the would be a poorer place if no one tried to live their dreams. I knew that I couldn’t afford to let my son grow up in a world where all the magic had been lost, and so I took a chance, and changed my life completely.
“It’s a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you wonder what else you can do that you’ve forgotten about.”
-Lester Burnham, American Beauty
Of course, the afterglow has long since faded, and I now face the future with more uncertainty than I think that I can bear. Despite the fact that I’ve been writing almost every day, and even gotten back to where I now feel comfortable in doing it, I’m not writing anything of value, at least not by the standards which I have set for myself. I thought, back in December, that I would have until Mid-January to find some form of gainful employment. I thought that, knowing myself, it would mean that I wouldn’t begin to write my masterpiece until the night before my interview, or worse: first shift in the morning at my new place of employment. But neither of those moments has arrived, and so the desperation for lasting glory has now all but completely faded. I’m still doing something similar to what I’ve always dreamed of, but I know that I need more. There are stories in me, just begging to be freed, and I’m an idiot if, through fear and my own inaction, I allow them to just fade away.
“I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn’t a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time… For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars… And yellow leaves, from the maple trees, that lined our street… Or my grandmother’s hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper… And the first time I saw my cousin Tony’s brand new Firebird… And Janie… And Janie… And… Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me… but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst… And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life… You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry… you will someday.”
Lester Burnham, American Beauty
And there it is: the philosophy which snuck its way inside me when I began to cry. Beyond the plastic bag, and the beauty which it hides within, there is the knowledge that the only thing which stands between myself and perfect happiness is only myself. I wish that I could step back a little from the nonsense of my life, if only to just let the moments stretch into infinity, so that I might stand a chance to feel just one more moment of unbridled wonder. Somewhere within the pain, both physical and spiritual, there is something which I cannot see which will make everything seem worth it. The look of contentment on my son’s face as he figures out the world. The way my wife is so full of life that it radiates out from her, threatens to consume her from within. How my grandson laughs as we share a private giggle at the jokes that only toddlers and elderly can hope to understand. The fierceness of my daughter as she rages at the world just as I once did, when I was younger. The joy of setting words to paper which once existed only in my mind. I am spoiled for happy moments from which to choose; I just wish that I could see them.
It’s been kind of an exciting week for me here. I succumbed to the narcissistic pressure within me, and submitted a few columns to reddit.com, figuring that I had gotten more or less back into form, and was ready for a truly global audience. I wasn’t prepared for the result. Amazingly, my column about Star Trek took right off, and has, to date, gotten more views this week by itself, than almost double the total amount of views I’d had in my best week prior to this one. Of course, reddit is a fickle mistress, and large numbers of people reading me there didn’t translate into much voting, in either direction. After spending almost a week in the r/startrek subreddit, I’ve gotten five votes, two-thirds positive, which have garnered me a total score of… 1 imaginary internet point! I’m trying not to get too hung up on that, as redditors can be unforgiving assholes (I should know), but it still kind of hurts that over two hundred people took the time to read what I had written, and only five had rated it positively. Still, I’ve said from Day One that my main goal in all of this was to give people a chance to read my stuff. I wasn’t expecting everyone to love it, but I had kind of imagined that it might have had more of an effect. Still, though, it’s kind of amazing. People with whom I have absolutely no connections in the real world have stopped and read the words and thoughts which have exited my head, and that, to me, is incredible.
The numbers have gone back to normal now, as I made a decision on Wednesday morning not to drink from that particular well anymore, at least not for a while. I wanted to see how many new readers I could maintain, and now, sadly, I know. It’s kind of wild to see just how this week has skewed the numbers, and I know that April is probably going to be the first month since I’ve started where I don’t increase my readership versus the month which came before it. To be honest, the temptation is there to head back to reddit sometime next month, just so I can try to avoid such a dubious distinction. Or I could try to make my stuff better, I suppose. I’m honestly just please with how easily the words are coming, compared to when I started, and how I can just jump in, even if it’s seven in the evening, and pound out words which, at the very least, make some sort of sense. I mean, I’m not really any closer to my larger goal of writing something that I can sell, but I’ve found my groove, and have built the courage to try out several different things over the past few months. And something that will please my wife: I’ve discovered that I can still write in the mornings, and that I can usually pound out an average column in an hour and a half. That basically means that I can now go looking for a job, free from the worry that it will cause my words to suffer.
The downside is that I now have to come to terms with my fear of everybody, and deal with easing myself back into the Food Service Industry, but luckily, I’ve had almost fifteen years of restaurant experience, with a decade of that spent in management. I know what I am doing when it comes to rocking in the kitchen, and the only thing which has held me back has been my exhaustion at the very notion of returning. It’s not the owners, it’s not the employees, and it’s definitely not the distributors; the component which worries me the most is having to deal with a brand-new set of customers. Well, that and doing interviews, but the latter is more a reflection of my personal bi-polarizing issues, so ultimately, it’s sort of just on me to get myself through that process. But when it comes to the customer experience, I think back to every single customer I’ve had the pleasure of not serving these past four months, and I’m reluctant to go back. But restaurants are generally always hiring, and are usually in need of competent management. And the only way that I can pay off all my bills at this point, is to jump into the deep end, and become Mr. Manager once more.
I’ve sort of gotten used to living this life of carefree indolence, and loathe to imagine the day when it must come to an end. But all good things must do so, if we are to truly appreciate them. I could be wrong, of course, and the only thing that stands between myself and happiness is my inability to accept myself for who I truly am: someone for whom putting on pants is the moment when he knows that his day will never stand a chance of recovering. If I was single, I suppose that I could travel the country on the backs of couches, seeking out just Wi-Fi, nicotine, and the occasional full belly. But the fact is that I would have never made it this far without the love of my dearest wife, and should the day come when she’s had enough of my shenanigans, I don’t imagine that I’ll be able to really handle anything in the manner expected of an adult. There will be crying, floor-pounding temper tantrums, and snot running down my face like a river flowing freely from my nose. And then I’ll slip back into habits better off forgotten, seeking solace in my liberation from overwhelming pain, and before I know it, I’ll wake up in Billings, Montana with a tattoo of Crying Rose, and naked, save for a strategically placed necktie. Poor Bad Leon Suave, I’m sure that he doesn’t entirely deserve that.
See? Watching the worst case (and yet, strangely entertaining) scenarios play out inside my head is still more comforting than the knowledge that I’m going to have to get (another) job! I’m not sure what that says about me, but I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading all about it. I’d say that I am now heading off to bed, but I think that I’ll do some pity-voting back on reddit.
The cowboy rode off into the sunset, but left his steed behind.
One of the things that I have come to appreciate since becoming at least conversationally fluent in Spanish, is just how fascinating the notion of language is, in and of itself. A language is not just a compilation of vocabulary and rules concerning grammar, but the expression of a culture as it attempts to put order to the world. This is what has caused the most problems in translations of ancient texts, aside from degradation of the source material: our lives are so fundamentally different from those our ancestors could have hoped to experience that there is very little common ground upon to which one might hope to base a translation. Not only would ancient peoples not have words for common technological marvels, but they would also be bereft of words to that might describe the very concepts that go behind them. How could I possibly explain to someone living five thousand years ago what it is, exactly, that I am doing now. I mean, if it’s a pain to just explain what a blog is to my grandparents, who have, at least, some experience with these newfangled computing machines, what hope would I have of explaining it to tribal nomads?
I bring this up because I have noticed changes in the way I think, depending on the language which I’m speaking. I think that was harder to wrap my head around than new words and a system of conjugation that actually made sense. Take, for instance, the concept of liking something. In English, I would say, I like to watch movies; whereas in Spanish, I would have to turn it all around, and say, Me gusta ver películas, or: It pleases me to watch movies. And where I might love doing something in English, in Spanish, it enchants me. Just a slight cultural shift, but once you’ve seen it, it’s always going to be there. My journey has been made easier by my decent vocabulary in my native tongue, and there has been more than one occasion when I have understood more than I might otherwise have hoped, simply because I was familiar with an underappreciated cognate. Thank you, Latin roots. In English, I am the master of my destiny. I like things, I love things. No matter what I am saying, what’s important in the sentence is that I am saying it. Spanish, on the other hand, is almost entirely dismissive of the speaker. When I am talking to someone, I rarely use pronouns, except to emphasize a point. It’s no wonder then, that such a culture shock exists for Latinos when they come here.
I’ve had many Latino friends tell me that, sure, they make more money here, but they’re also spending so much more. But the one thing that they cannot seem to get over, at least the ones who’ve come here as adults, is the pace of life itself in the United States. Everybody seems to be stretched to their breaking point, and we’re making money just to spend it, without leaving any time for ourselves to do things which might bring us some enjoyment. We set our jaws and grind through our days, and wear ourselves down to where we cannot take it anymore, and then we get right back up and do it all again. And in this exchange of cultures, it seems that nobody is truly winning. Kids born here cannot hope to compete against a work ethic that was never meant to go for hours, and we’ve managed to export diabetes wholesale down to Mexico.
About the work ethic thing: I am not saying that one group of people is inherently better than another. What might be viewed as sloth when it comes to the citizenry, could easily be interpreted as someone simply trying to pace themselves for a couple of full-time shifts a day. And while someone might give their all, work hard, never complain, and keep going no matter what, that kind of pace is inherently untenable, and I’ve seen it rip away decades of life that someone will never have the chance live. A sprinter is effective because of the distance run, and the time he budgets himself to recuperate. You cannot sprint all throughout a marathon, or you will die before you reach the second marker. Maybe it’s time that we learn how to slow the pace a little. We work so hard during the day (and often the night, as well), that we leave no time for ourselves or for our families. Sure, we have newest, coolest stuff, but we’ve forgotten what it means to be human.
I seem to have drifted a bit from my original intention, rather like how Latin spread throughout the Western world only to become Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian, not to mention coloring my native tongue, as well. I just wanted to bring up how cool language was, not get into a diatribe about socioeconomic policies. Sorry. I guess that’s been happening more frequently this past week. It’s just that I seem to have opinions about right and wrong which have been updated through the process of immersing myself into a group of people with a background which I do not share. And that’s the magic of language, really. If you take the time to learn a second language, or a third, or more, it can not only allow you to communicate with the people you might have otherwise been unable, but the languages themselves can offer up a new way of thinking, a new way of perceiving the world around you. If you study language, you can read back through the story of mankind itself, see where we came from, and how we got to where we are today. The evolution of language is like the evolution of species, and it’s fascinating to see how far we’ve come.
I hate it when boarders cross me!
Tomorrow I am going to try to do something a little more lighthearted, as a way of thanking everyone who’s come and considered all the heavy things I’ve recently had to say. Thank you everyone, and have a wonderful weekend!
Let me just start by saying that I’m not sure if I’m a shining example, or cautionary tale, but I said that I would write this, and write this I will. Sometimes there are things so important to me that I have to actually get out of bed and put pants on, that I can be taken just a little bit more seriously when I begin my long-winded defense of things I care about. Other times, I just say I’ve got pants on, and sort of go from there. But this is definitely a pants-wearing moment. For some reason, the one place that I actually wanted to spend time during those carefree years before adulthood (aside from in the high school bleachers with my girlfriend) is facing a possible closure due to the fact that… I don’t know… kids these days? Unlike so many other places that adults wanted us to go, back in the day, I still remember that we actually wanted to hang out at the Teen Center. Obviously, part of that was its prime location, not more than a couple of minutes’ walk from anywhere on campus, but more than that, it always held that feeling of being organically cool. No one there came out and stunk of old people trying to “get us.” More, the staff there engaged us like they would with any other human beings, and it engendered a level of mutual respect.
Don’t get me wrong, we were still teenagers, and not above testing the boundaries, and seeing just what, exactly, that we could get away with. I mean, sure, my girlfriend and I were asked to stop sucking face (on a couple of occasions), but we weren’t judged for having been making out. It’s easy to gloss over one’s memories of youth, insisting upon the adoption of a bitterness that comes with growing up, but that’s something that we never had to deal with. I remember always being treated with respect (and more than I deserved most times), and never told what I should do, but rather, encouraged to go out and make the right decisions. I can say that for a fact, I avoided so much more trouble than I otherwise would have, simply by having somewhere to go, and something to do. At home, I faced anger and disappointment for not being the person that I was expected to become, but in that little building, sitting beneath the shadows of those concrete bleachers, I was always warmly welcomed. And now, a couple of decades later, I realize that I really do miss that place, and those people, and I wish that I had something similar in my current life. Maybe what we need is a Wayward Adult Center, with snacks, warped pool table, and an NES.
Sorry, got a little off-topic there.
What really meant the most to me, and allowed me to become the adult that I am today (still alive, and moderately well-adjusted), were the staff members who chose to spend their time there. They were the parents that we wished we’d had, the ones who didn’t judge us. I can still remember Shannon taking time out of her day to sit and listen to me expound upon my heartbreak every time a new girl broke my heart, and she helped guide me through the dark times of my depression when even I didn’t really know what was going on. And it wasn’t just me that she took the time to help, nor just Shannon to offer. I always felt that no matter who was working, I had someone upon whom I could rely to help me through the most confusing years of life. And even though I began complaining about the “kids these days” beginning sometime around 1999, the fact is the Teen Center has somehow managed to maintain its youth connection and remain relevant to kids over almost a quarter of a century is a testament to how badly young adults just want to be accepted, in any generation.
Even the flannel-wearing, long haired Grunge generation!
The Teen Center was an exemplary alternative to the plethora of unsavory distractions of which we might have availed ourselves, and so it must remain. Perhaps the taint of time has yellowed in my eyes the character of youth, but I feel that more than ever, a place like this must exist, must reach out and help young adults make the bewildering transition from little kid to productive member of society. Even now the youth have begun to drift away upon the tides of interwebz, and it’s up to us, those who have made it through to the other side and come out alright, to help keep the doors open and get the kids off their internet machines and sat down upon a couch and talking to other people currently in the same room. Using their voices. And maybe even learning what a belt is for.
There are some who will say that maybe the Center’s time has passed, and that the kids these days no longer need an anachronism such as that. And here is where I must disagree. More than ever, we need someplace safe for the kids to go, where they can practice what it’s like to be grown up, before they face real consequence for failure. Those of us who were lucky enough to have had this resource available must stand proud and extol its virtues from the rooftops (or, should one wish to avoid a charge of misdemeanor trespassing, the streets), and help to keep The Center of the Cool Universe massive enough to exert its hold upon those who need it most.
As I have been preparing this, I was also asked to share any pleasant memories of the time that I spent there. Unfortunately, trying to remember specific happy things from two decades past is a little daunting, but I do have a quilt of snippets which I can share with you. The first time I went to the Teen Center, I believe it was following a middle school dance, or something involving Commodore, anyway, and I walked up to the this building nestled into the backside of the high school (how rad was that?) to see a show that some local bands were putting on. I used to spend my weekend evenings (because I was broke and had no girlfriends) at the Teen Center with my group of friends and played role-playing games- out in the open. For a date, I bought Independence Day on VHS and brought it to the Teen Center to watch with my girlfriend at the time, the logic being that the theater was too expensive, and this way, I’d still have a movie at the end of the date. It took me a few years to figure out the look that Shannon had in her eyes when I told her my Master Plan. It was amusement and sympathy. But, to her credit, she didn’t say a word as I sat my girlfriend down in front of the television set and proceed to the lay the groundwork for no longer having a girlfriend. She even gave us the room, though there wasn’t a whole lot of privacy, mainly, I believe, so that my shame would be more manageable. And I still can’t play pool, as I learned on a warped table, and if that sounds like negativity, then you’ve never seen me make the impossible shots, which somehow are the only kind that I can make.
I’m including humorous moments and self-deprecation, but the fact is that I spent the majority of my teen years there, and never once was I made to feel unwelcome. It was always nice to know that there was someone there to be on your side, to listen to your problems and nudge you in the right direction. Let’s come together now, and help out this institution. Let’s re-establish the Teen Center’s Non-Profit Status and get the kids back through the doors once more. It’s not a matter of telling them that it’s cool; it’s simply a matter of being cool. I know that it has been a while since we were cool to kids, as some of our own would most likely gladly tell the world, but these issues never really change, and if there is one thing that I believe in, it’s that the world will always need a Teen Center with someone like Shannon Buxton at the helm.
You! Get off Facebook! Help out a good cause! Or stay on Facebook and help out a good cause!
