7/22/06
that claws and tears and challenges you to stay
there was a pause as they sat out there in the fading light of the summer evening, talking about nothing, a movie, maybe, or a song, or something, it didn't matter. what did matter was the pause, a short stop where no one said anything and everyone breathed in deep and somehow saw the world at its simplest, its most beautiful. [a] would later reflect on those five seconds and realize that they were five of the only ten seconds in his entire life that he was truly calm and really at peace, both with himself and with the world. the golden sliver of the setting sun across the glittering bay lit the faces of his friends and wiped away all their flaws and their troubles and their pasts and in those five seconds he never loved them more. life became a painting, perfect in its stillness, deeper and sharper than it had ever been before; it was a moment apart from the world.
7/14/06
always been cowboys
it rolled over him like a wave, this overwhelming feeling. he had been leaning low on the bar, tired arms resting on tired elbows, idly cleaning a glass, the classic image of the classic bartender: just a touch past his middle years, balding, graying mustache, muscular, but only in that lumpy, almost-out-of-shape way. it had been an uneventful night--no, an uneventful decade, he would think later--abnormally slow for a saturday, when all the hands and their more successful counterparts would come in for a drink or three and perhaps a game of cards. but this feeling, this indescribably oppressive feeling that both terrified and excited him, had washed over him until he felt he was swimming in it. he had looked around to see if anyone else had felt it, but apparently no one had.
it was a very odd feeling, perhaps made more so by how absolutely certain it was. it scared him, but not in the way that the beasts of the night scared his children; that was a fear based in imagination, compounded by it. this was a fear of absolute certainty. when it hit him, his first thought was this: i’m either going to die tonight or i’m not. either way, this is the end of my life.
he didn’t really know what that was supposed to mean, but it didn’t stop him from thinking it. he did, however, have a feeling as to how such a thing was going to be decided. it was the man who would bring him his next life, whatever that might be, the man who had followed through the swinging saloon doors after the wave, swimming with it, or perhaps pushing it outward. he was not tall, nor was he particularly menacing; his girlish black hair flowed out from under his dusty hat to curl around and end just above his ears, and his beard was thin and neatly trimmed. he wore no guns, a fact that the man behind the bar had picked up immediately with well-trained eyes, even though he had his long brown coat wrapped tightly around himself. he had entered the saloon with a casual but steady pace, the walk of a person who knows where they are going but are in no hurry to get there, though he paused ever-so-slightly when he was fully inside. the man behind the bar saw his eyes flick up toward the bar, and then he was moving again; the pause and the glance were so quick that the man behind the bar wasn’t sure it had really happened.
the newcomer continued his slow walk toward the bar, and with every step the overwhelming feeling of change seeped further into the bartender’s bones. or maybe it was finality--the feeling seemed to press in on the bubble of his consciousness, exerting a powerful force but never revealing its true nature. i think this is what destiny feels like, he thought.
the man never sped up, never slowed down. he just kept on moving slowly toward the bar, eyes downcast, but his destination was clear. the man behind the bar fought back the terrible urge to reach for the shotgun just inches from his waist and take the first shot. he could separate the man’s head from his shoulders before he could even raise his eyes again, the damned devil, and--no, he thought, we’ll see who’s the devil yet. the man continued his inexorable march across the worn-out wooden floor, seeming to pay no mind to the men at the surrounding tables playing cards or the girls serving them drinks and flirting away their coins.
after what seemed like an eternity--and perhaps it was, in the grand scheme of things--the man stopped in front of the bar, directly in front of the man behind it. he raised his eyes and met the other man’s, face completely blank. the bartender felt a bead of sweat roll down his back and tried to force his heart to slow down. the shotgun seemed very far away, now.
suddenly the newcomer broke into a wide smile and rubbed his well-groomed chin. “hello there,” he said in a friendly voice, with more than a hint of relief. he took a half-step forward, leaned to his left, and sat down softly on a barstool.
“Hi.” It was all the bartender could say, really. The tension was broken, but only a little, and the oppressive feeling never left him.
“This your place?” the man asked. “Your bar?” He put his elbows up, resting his chin on his fists. It made him look oddly childish, like a boy asking his father for a story.
“S’my bar, but it’s not my place.” He refused to relax, refused to let his guard down. He would play along, though: “Belongs to Aunt Rae,” he said, nodding his head in her direction. The old lady sat at her table playing cards with a few of the regulars, unaware of what had happened and even more unaware of what was about to happen. When he looked back at the man, he saw that his eyes had never unfixed from his own.
For seven interminable seconds neither man spoke. Had it been eight, the bartender would have lost what little control he had left and would have reached for the shotgun. He would not have made it. When the newcomer finally broke the silence, it was with a small laugh, then: “This would be the time where you are supposed to tell me you don’t recognize me, you know,” he twisted his smooth, youthful voice into a gruff parody, “’I ain’t seen your face ‘round these parts, stranger’ and all that.”
The bartender stared at him, eyes slightly narrowing. “All right, stranger, if you want me to ask you what you’re doing here, then fine.” He paused in spite of himself. He had a feeling he knew the answer to this question before he asked it, and he felt it was not an answer he wanted to hear. He tried to take a deep breath, but it ended shallow. “What do you want?”
The man leaned up on his elbows, raising his face higher to the bartender. He seemed to grow older as he did this, and his eyes seemed to deepen. The bartender now saw them to be a dizzying gray-green, like the color of darkened granite. The world on either side of the man’s face seemed to fade as if it were also drowning in the oppressive flood that filled the bartender’s mind. His smile faded and, eyes narrowing, he said, “You know exactly what I want.”
it was a very odd feeling, perhaps made more so by how absolutely certain it was. it scared him, but not in the way that the beasts of the night scared his children; that was a fear based in imagination, compounded by it. this was a fear of absolute certainty. when it hit him, his first thought was this: i’m either going to die tonight or i’m not. either way, this is the end of my life.
he didn’t really know what that was supposed to mean, but it didn’t stop him from thinking it. he did, however, have a feeling as to how such a thing was going to be decided. it was the man who would bring him his next life, whatever that might be, the man who had followed through the swinging saloon doors after the wave, swimming with it, or perhaps pushing it outward. he was not tall, nor was he particularly menacing; his girlish black hair flowed out from under his dusty hat to curl around and end just above his ears, and his beard was thin and neatly trimmed. he wore no guns, a fact that the man behind the bar had picked up immediately with well-trained eyes, even though he had his long brown coat wrapped tightly around himself. he had entered the saloon with a casual but steady pace, the walk of a person who knows where they are going but are in no hurry to get there, though he paused ever-so-slightly when he was fully inside. the man behind the bar saw his eyes flick up toward the bar, and then he was moving again; the pause and the glance were so quick that the man behind the bar wasn’t sure it had really happened.
the newcomer continued his slow walk toward the bar, and with every step the overwhelming feeling of change seeped further into the bartender’s bones. or maybe it was finality--the feeling seemed to press in on the bubble of his consciousness, exerting a powerful force but never revealing its true nature. i think this is what destiny feels like, he thought.
the man never sped up, never slowed down. he just kept on moving slowly toward the bar, eyes downcast, but his destination was clear. the man behind the bar fought back the terrible urge to reach for the shotgun just inches from his waist and take the first shot. he could separate the man’s head from his shoulders before he could even raise his eyes again, the damned devil, and--no, he thought, we’ll see who’s the devil yet. the man continued his inexorable march across the worn-out wooden floor, seeming to pay no mind to the men at the surrounding tables playing cards or the girls serving them drinks and flirting away their coins.
after what seemed like an eternity--and perhaps it was, in the grand scheme of things--the man stopped in front of the bar, directly in front of the man behind it. he raised his eyes and met the other man’s, face completely blank. the bartender felt a bead of sweat roll down his back and tried to force his heart to slow down. the shotgun seemed very far away, now.
suddenly the newcomer broke into a wide smile and rubbed his well-groomed chin. “hello there,” he said in a friendly voice, with more than a hint of relief. he took a half-step forward, leaned to his left, and sat down softly on a barstool.
“Hi.” It was all the bartender could say, really. The tension was broken, but only a little, and the oppressive feeling never left him.
“This your place?” the man asked. “Your bar?” He put his elbows up, resting his chin on his fists. It made him look oddly childish, like a boy asking his father for a story.
“S’my bar, but it’s not my place.” He refused to relax, refused to let his guard down. He would play along, though: “Belongs to Aunt Rae,” he said, nodding his head in her direction. The old lady sat at her table playing cards with a few of the regulars, unaware of what had happened and even more unaware of what was about to happen. When he looked back at the man, he saw that his eyes had never unfixed from his own.
For seven interminable seconds neither man spoke. Had it been eight, the bartender would have lost what little control he had left and would have reached for the shotgun. He would not have made it. When the newcomer finally broke the silence, it was with a small laugh, then: “This would be the time where you are supposed to tell me you don’t recognize me, you know,” he twisted his smooth, youthful voice into a gruff parody, “’I ain’t seen your face ‘round these parts, stranger’ and all that.”
The bartender stared at him, eyes slightly narrowing. “All right, stranger, if you want me to ask you what you’re doing here, then fine.” He paused in spite of himself. He had a feeling he knew the answer to this question before he asked it, and he felt it was not an answer he wanted to hear. He tried to take a deep breath, but it ended shallow. “What do you want?”
The man leaned up on his elbows, raising his face higher to the bartender. He seemed to grow older as he did this, and his eyes seemed to deepen. The bartender now saw them to be a dizzying gray-green, like the color of darkened granite. The world on either side of the man’s face seemed to fade as if it were also drowning in the oppressive flood that filled the bartender’s mind. His smile faded and, eyes narrowing, he said, “You know exactly what I want.”
7/13/06
then get up and be it
okay, here it goes, opening scene, ready?
open to the first credit, somebody presents something or something, then blink to an alarm clock at 6:00 am and a song starts. obviously what song it is is very important to me; it has to set the tone for pretty much the rest of the whole thing. i thought about it all on the way home tonight, and the only thing i've come up with so far is ted leo's "me and mia," which is actually pretty good, i think. really though, this is pretty important, maybe even the most important thing in the whole movie. it needs to be upbeat but somewhat melancholy. other options: sparta's "sans cosm," the shins' "kissing the lipless" (problem: probably too zach braff), rilo kiley's "spectacular views" (i think that may have taken the lead).
okay, new plan. blink to the alarm clock displaying 6:00 am and the pixies' "cecilia ann" starts playing for about five seconds, then a hand comes down to hit snooze and we blink black again for the next credit, which i imagine would be the director. blink back to the clock, nine minutes later, another song, hand again, black again, repeat two more times. at 6:36, "spectacular views" comes on. our guy wakes up. credits montage continues as he showers, brushes his teeth, shaves, gets dressed, opens the fridge and frowns and closes it and walks away, then gets in his car, looks frustrated (traffic), gets out and goes to work, gets back into car looking much more tired and dissheveled, looks frustrated again (traffic), then comes home.
let's call him wes. why? no reason, we can change it later. wes lives with his friend nick and his former best friend dan. wes is 24 years old, two years out of school, for the sake of argument let's call him a political science major who doesn't really know what to do with the rest of his life. he works in, oh, let's say a research institute on the campus of a large university. honestly, it doesn't really matter where he works, just that he hates his job because he is completely undervalued and terribly unchallenged. nick is the lead guitarist in his latest project which he thinks is really going somewhere but is in reality completely awful and he knows it, and dan is an accountant who isn't terribly unsuccessful but is easily bored. he will also happen to be dating wes's ex-girlfriend--though they only dated freshman year of college and have been strictly platonic but very good friends since. wes is, of course, for the sake of extra drama, in love with her, always has been and always will, he thinks. let's call her jenny for right now, because she should be played by jenny lewis, which, trust me, is much better than calling her scarlett.
it's important to understand that while this wes character does have a job that relates to me, and as the main character will probably have several other traits that we share, he is not supposed to be "me." this is a story about a group of friends who are angry and disillusioned by the real world and so decide to become professional criminals, and i'm not going to do that. i mean, sure, i've thought about robbing banks to make a living--if i hadn't ever thought about it i probably wouldn't be able to attempt to write this--but i'm certainly not about to go and do it. anyway, i'm going to bed, because i'm tired. maybe i'll keep going tomorrow.
open to the first credit, somebody presents something or something, then blink to an alarm clock at 6:00 am and a song starts. obviously what song it is is very important to me; it has to set the tone for pretty much the rest of the whole thing. i thought about it all on the way home tonight, and the only thing i've come up with so far is ted leo's "me and mia," which is actually pretty good, i think. really though, this is pretty important, maybe even the most important thing in the whole movie. it needs to be upbeat but somewhat melancholy. other options: sparta's "sans cosm," the shins' "kissing the lipless" (problem: probably too zach braff), rilo kiley's "spectacular views" (i think that may have taken the lead).
okay, new plan. blink to the alarm clock displaying 6:00 am and the pixies' "cecilia ann" starts playing for about five seconds, then a hand comes down to hit snooze and we blink black again for the next credit, which i imagine would be the director. blink back to the clock, nine minutes later, another song, hand again, black again, repeat two more times. at 6:36, "spectacular views" comes on. our guy wakes up. credits montage continues as he showers, brushes his teeth, shaves, gets dressed, opens the fridge and frowns and closes it and walks away, then gets in his car, looks frustrated (traffic), gets out and goes to work, gets back into car looking much more tired and dissheveled, looks frustrated again (traffic), then comes home.
let's call him wes. why? no reason, we can change it later. wes lives with his friend nick and his former best friend dan. wes is 24 years old, two years out of school, for the sake of argument let's call him a political science major who doesn't really know what to do with the rest of his life. he works in, oh, let's say a research institute on the campus of a large university. honestly, it doesn't really matter where he works, just that he hates his job because he is completely undervalued and terribly unchallenged. nick is the lead guitarist in his latest project which he thinks is really going somewhere but is in reality completely awful and he knows it, and dan is an accountant who isn't terribly unsuccessful but is easily bored. he will also happen to be dating wes's ex-girlfriend--though they only dated freshman year of college and have been strictly platonic but very good friends since. wes is, of course, for the sake of extra drama, in love with her, always has been and always will, he thinks. let's call her jenny for right now, because she should be played by jenny lewis, which, trust me, is much better than calling her scarlett.
it's important to understand that while this wes character does have a job that relates to me, and as the main character will probably have several other traits that we share, he is not supposed to be "me." this is a story about a group of friends who are angry and disillusioned by the real world and so decide to become professional criminals, and i'm not going to do that. i mean, sure, i've thought about robbing banks to make a living--if i hadn't ever thought about it i probably wouldn't be able to attempt to write this--but i'm certainly not about to go and do it. anyway, i'm going to bed, because i'm tired. maybe i'll keep going tomorrow.
7/10/06
what happens in confession stays in the confessional
i came to several realizations today. allow me to indulge myself by listing said realizations:
realization one: there was a little while there, i'd say around last october, when i sort of got the feeling that it didn't really matter where i worked, i was always going to be miserable. this is a feeling that grew mostly out of my idea that my job wasn't really all that bad, and it was completely my fault that i was so unhappy there. everyone kept telling me that life wasn't supposed to be so bad, though, so i kept looking for another job, and lo and behold, when i found another one i was happy.
for a little while. you see, eventually, i started to realize that my current job wasn't really all it was cracked up to be. i think this happened when i went from looking very hard for things to do all day to not ever having enough time to do anything despite working constant overtime. it hit me especially hard when i had to work late on lindsay's birthday, which, for obvious reasons, i was not happy about. in addition, since i'm so busy all the time, my job gets boiled down into what i hated so much about working at usd: instead of working normal times and to normal goals like a normal person, i am constantly bouncing between absolute deadlines and constantly pushing everything i possibly can back as far as i possibly can. and what always takes priority over anything actually interesting? other people's bitch work, that's what. because i am nothing but a glorified secretary, and during the busy times (read: all the time) the glorified part fades away, or at least changes into "a whole bunch of different, not to mention competing, people's." yeah, i know that's going to take you a minute or so to figure out; i'll wait for you.
ready? okay. anyway, i've lately begun to slip back into thinking that maybe there's just no way for me to not be miserable at work, that maybe i'm just not cut out for the real world. the realization that came to me today was that this is not true: it's just that i happen to have another shitty job. i should also add that calling it a "shitty job" is not necessarily fair, as that would imply that i don't like the people i work with--well, maybe it wouldn't necessarily, but i want to be clear about that distinction. just as with usd, it's not the people but the organization that has fundamental problems.
you see, i just don't buy it anymore. the particular institute that i work for is a complete waste of money--well, maybe not complete, but it certainly doesn't have a very high return on investment. i've heard this complaint from a number of different people throughout the organization, and here it is from me: we just don't do anything.
i just can't sit in on another one of these meetings where people keep talking about pushing back release 0.5 and what sort of particular organizational theme a particular data set should have. because that in and of itself sums up my entire impression of the organization: all we seem to do here is talk about things and organize things and talk about organizing things... but where are the goddamn things? we're so concerned with collaborating and innovating that we don't have time to actually do any research at this research institute. and if the poor researchers actually do find time to get any real work done and actually do succeed in creating something, they have to spend the next three weeks out of the month showing it to people so we can make money that we use to pay people to sit and talk about things. honestly, i've found myself trapped in a bizarro-world of academics who think they're corporate--or maybe it's a corporation that thinks it's academic--and i just can't take it anymore.
so the realization is this: although i do not think it was a mistake to come here--as thinking such would mean that i regret my decision, and since i've gained valuable experience here i most certainly do not regret it--it is time for me to leave.
realization two: i now have two and a half careers that i know i don't want: i don't want to ever fix another computer and i don't ever want to be a secretary again. the half is event planning: i don't like the planning part of it, because i'm really not any good at it, although i though that event management was kind of fun, if only because it's kind of fun to sit there and watch all your carefully-laid plans go to absolute hell and have to think on your feet and save the day at the last possible second. planning is just something people do to protect themselves if they don't think they can think fast enough.
so now what? well, realization two was that maybe it's time i start trying to write for a living. obviously that doesn't mean writing video game reviews or lowercase blog entries, but probably more something along the lines of something terribly dull like web or marketing or technical content, but at the very least something like that might allow me at least a tiny bit of creativity, which would be infinitely more that i'm allowed right now and is coincidentally one of the major things i miss about usd--other than the kids, of course.
so anyway, yes, i'm going to start throwing my resume around town at various writing and/or editing vacancies and see if something sticks. i mean, i might as well.
realization three: the new cursive album is really, really good. actually, i guess i can't really say that, because i haven't really listened to it, but "at conception" is completely fantastic and i can't stop listening to it. this is actually a realization that i came to the night i downloaded it, but since i used the word "several" i thought i needed at least another realization before i went to bed. honestly, though, do whatever you can to listen to "at conception," because it will be the song of the fall.
realization one: there was a little while there, i'd say around last october, when i sort of got the feeling that it didn't really matter where i worked, i was always going to be miserable. this is a feeling that grew mostly out of my idea that my job wasn't really all that bad, and it was completely my fault that i was so unhappy there. everyone kept telling me that life wasn't supposed to be so bad, though, so i kept looking for another job, and lo and behold, when i found another one i was happy.
for a little while. you see, eventually, i started to realize that my current job wasn't really all it was cracked up to be. i think this happened when i went from looking very hard for things to do all day to not ever having enough time to do anything despite working constant overtime. it hit me especially hard when i had to work late on lindsay's birthday, which, for obvious reasons, i was not happy about. in addition, since i'm so busy all the time, my job gets boiled down into what i hated so much about working at usd: instead of working normal times and to normal goals like a normal person, i am constantly bouncing between absolute deadlines and constantly pushing everything i possibly can back as far as i possibly can. and what always takes priority over anything actually interesting? other people's bitch work, that's what. because i am nothing but a glorified secretary, and during the busy times (read: all the time) the glorified part fades away, or at least changes into "a whole bunch of different, not to mention competing, people's." yeah, i know that's going to take you a minute or so to figure out; i'll wait for you.
ready? okay. anyway, i've lately begun to slip back into thinking that maybe there's just no way for me to not be miserable at work, that maybe i'm just not cut out for the real world. the realization that came to me today was that this is not true: it's just that i happen to have another shitty job. i should also add that calling it a "shitty job" is not necessarily fair, as that would imply that i don't like the people i work with--well, maybe it wouldn't necessarily, but i want to be clear about that distinction. just as with usd, it's not the people but the organization that has fundamental problems.
you see, i just don't buy it anymore. the particular institute that i work for is a complete waste of money--well, maybe not complete, but it certainly doesn't have a very high return on investment. i've heard this complaint from a number of different people throughout the organization, and here it is from me: we just don't do anything.
i just can't sit in on another one of these meetings where people keep talking about pushing back release 0.5 and what sort of particular organizational theme a particular data set should have. because that in and of itself sums up my entire impression of the organization: all we seem to do here is talk about things and organize things and talk about organizing things... but where are the goddamn things? we're so concerned with collaborating and innovating that we don't have time to actually do any research at this research institute. and if the poor researchers actually do find time to get any real work done and actually do succeed in creating something, they have to spend the next three weeks out of the month showing it to people so we can make money that we use to pay people to sit and talk about things. honestly, i've found myself trapped in a bizarro-world of academics who think they're corporate--or maybe it's a corporation that thinks it's academic--and i just can't take it anymore.
so the realization is this: although i do not think it was a mistake to come here--as thinking such would mean that i regret my decision, and since i've gained valuable experience here i most certainly do not regret it--it is time for me to leave.
realization two: i now have two and a half careers that i know i don't want: i don't want to ever fix another computer and i don't ever want to be a secretary again. the half is event planning: i don't like the planning part of it, because i'm really not any good at it, although i though that event management was kind of fun, if only because it's kind of fun to sit there and watch all your carefully-laid plans go to absolute hell and have to think on your feet and save the day at the last possible second. planning is just something people do to protect themselves if they don't think they can think fast enough.
so now what? well, realization two was that maybe it's time i start trying to write for a living. obviously that doesn't mean writing video game reviews or lowercase blog entries, but probably more something along the lines of something terribly dull like web or marketing or technical content, but at the very least something like that might allow me at least a tiny bit of creativity, which would be infinitely more that i'm allowed right now and is coincidentally one of the major things i miss about usd--other than the kids, of course.
so anyway, yes, i'm going to start throwing my resume around town at various writing and/or editing vacancies and see if something sticks. i mean, i might as well.
realization three: the new cursive album is really, really good. actually, i guess i can't really say that, because i haven't really listened to it, but "at conception" is completely fantastic and i can't stop listening to it. this is actually a realization that i came to the night i downloaded it, but since i used the word "several" i thought i needed at least another realization before i went to bed. honestly, though, do whatever you can to listen to "at conception," because it will be the song of the fall.
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