| a promising start to one's 21st |
[Jun. 27th, 2007|02:13 am] |
So, as is the custom of most drunkards, I'm in a introspective mood. My room appears smaller than it should be, and a gyroscope about the size of my fist is reeling about wildly in my head whenever I try to focus on something else than this screen. Might as well record the thoughts of this night, steeled as I am to the words I rattle out in what I believe to be Arial.
Writing's been on my mind lately. Whatever it was that granted me the talent I employ--fate, or fortune, or happenstance, most unlikely and divine--I am grateful. |
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| bellmen are taken care of very well |
[Jun. 23rd, 2007|02:52 pm] |
So I've been working at a hotel for the past week now, probably the nicest one in Evanston, and let me just say that I've met a few guests who come in with no small sense of entitlement. They're the jaded ones, tired of everything the world can offer because they've already been spoonfed so much of it.
Money's good though--ridiculous, even--and it's getting to the point where I just stash the tips I make into a black leather bag. Just give me the word if you need someone to skip town with. I'm itching to pass that sucker through an airport x-ray.
Speaking of tips, if you've ever been unsure as to how much to tip a bellman, five dollars is more than safe. But if you're feeling a little less generous (or if you can tell your bellman is insincere in his desire to relocate your luggage), just give two or three dollars, but fold the dollars into a roll. That way the tip seems like more than it actually is, and unless your bellman is shameless in counting his spoils out in the open, he won't have time to check how much you actually gave him until later. |
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| Nuggets of insight |
[Jun. 12th, 2007|01:46 am] |
So I always assumed that everyone else picked at the respective cruxes of their own personalities as obsessively as I do, and that when they struck upon some metaphysical gold they each rushed to their respective blogs and posted that nugget of insight as fast as their WPMs would facilitate. Then I came to the realization that most people keep that wisdom to themselves.
Much as I love laying all my inner quirks out on a carpet for everyone to see, like at some kind of dusty bazaar that only sells trinkets one could only describe as "inexplicable" were houseguests to come over and witness their display on a coffee table, generally those quirks are more than anyone needs to know. I document them for my own benefit, pretty much; I only post the thoughts online so as to justify the time I spend working them out. It's like I'm almost publishing them this way.
The downside to this is that it shoots the hell out of any mystery I've built up around me, and women love mystery. They love tall, silent men in trenchcoats who, when hard-pressed to talk about themselves, only manage to gaze up at the sky and murmur "I'll tell you someday" as their eyes tremble with tears. I think the only way to compensate for my honesty is to buy a bigger trenchcoat, a trenchcoat so big and so brooding that women are immediately hushed by its mystery and I have to take it to the cleaners every other day because I drag it through mud all the time. |
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| Balloons |
[May. 27th, 2007|08:16 pm] |
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I think one of the best ways to propose to someone would be while holding a bouquet of balloons. If she says yes, you can release the balloons for what amounts to a perfect photo opportunity on the happiest day of your life. If she says no, you can still release the balloons, and then take out a BB gun to calmly shoot each one down. |
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| (super)POWERS |
[May. 5th, 2007|02:44 pm] |
If I ever make a superhero comic, every single superpower in it will be completely original. So that means no superhuman strength or speed, no healing factors, no flying(!), no telekinesis (pretty much everything psychic is out), and no fiddling with time. The more impractical the power the better, which means what we're left with is a rogue's gallery of more or less average people with a bizarre, unexpected quirk. Kinda like the way people are already.
Speaking of which, is there anyone with the power to control gravity? That'd be such a good power--right up there with magnetism--and yet I can' t think of anyone who can. |
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| misanthrope |
[May. 5th, 2007|01:37 pm] |
I've come to the realization that this place has become somewhat of a sink for my negative thoughts; all the misanthrophic desires and seething pessimism I keep carefully sealed away in what feels to be a spot a few inches below my sternum, I pour out onto these pages. I'm more than willing to share these thoughts with others, mind, but the topics they cover generally don't make for sociable conversation in real life, and they're complex enough that committing them to words always poses an interesting challenge.
It's an outlet, and I'm fortunate to be able to articulate exactly how I feel. |
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| "Fucking Chink" |
[Apr. 20th, 2007|01:27 pm] |
It was a bad week starting out, and it all culminated in this. I'm not sure why they did it--it could've been a joke to them, these days following the Virginia Tech shootings an open season more than ever for cashing in on Asian epithets--but on my way to class I was called a "fucking chink" by a group of assholes in an SUV.
More than the slur itself, what stunned me was the idea that there were people who would attribute the horrible actions of one individual to an entire race. When my dad called me a day after the shootings to warn me about a potential backlash against Asians, I remember listening to his words with a good measure of skepticism. At the very least, I didn't think it could happen at Northwestern, and I thought it less likely that it would happen to me.
But with those words and a bark of laughter, someone showed me otherwise. Now every time I come across a white person I don't know, I can't help but wonder if he or she thinks any differently about me. I've never been more aware that I look nothing like them than today. |
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| strikeout |
[Apr. 13th, 2007|02:13 pm] |
man strikeout is so pointless
it's like oh i don't mean what i'm writing but i do and you need to know
goddamn it is designed for drama and drama alone |
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| Engineering Law |
[Apr. 13th, 2007|01:46 pm] |
Engineeering Law is the most amoral class I've ever taken. By and large, every topic covered in that class involves the quantification of human suffering and loss into money, and the glibness with which the lecturers equate the death of a child with a few million dollars is...startling, to say the least. If I lost a loved one through the fault of another, transmuting his or her memory into money wouldn't do anything to make amends. That's not even an equal trade. So no, I don't want your money. What I want is for you to never forget what you have done. You have taken someone precious and irreplaceable from me, and if I can help it you will bear that burden for the rest of your life if that means branding my loved one's name into your skin. I wonder how many defendants would choose a multimillion dollar settlement over a permanent reminder of their crime.
That said, in the event that someone else does me in, I give full permission for any of my loved ones to milk the defendant for as much money as possible. |
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| emergency broadcasts |
[Apr. 13th, 2007|01:33 pm] |
I find emergency broadcasts and tornado sirens eerily soothing. Whenever I hear them I'm in a position of relative safety--in a warm living room, usually--so in those instances there's comfort taken from the fact that their warnings almost don't apply. But when I'm in a car or, even better, on the middle of the street when a siren goes off, it's the greatest thrill imaginable--a portent for impending catastrophe, and a challenge to see if one has the daring to survive.
And then the rains pass. |
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| Terrible Substitute |
[Apr. 1st, 2007|04:10 am] |
What are some terrible substitutes for personality?
Religion is a terrible substitute for personality.
Sexuality is a terrible substitute for personality.
Money is a terrible substitute for personality.
And anyone who has to lean on those three things to define themselves isn't much of anyone at all. |
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| funk and theatre majors |
[Apr. 1st, 2007|03:39 am] |
I'm not exactly sure what the deal is, but lately I been in a deep blue funk. It's been barreling down on me every time I find myself at a party or large gathering of people; wild, exciting and utterly foreign people that I don't know. I think I keep setting my expectations too high--it's like I expect some kind of epiphany each and every night, from the acquaintance of some sparkling new friend, maybe, or the ever-present (and oh so unrealistic) chance to start something with someone. I like to say you need to be skeptical of the girls who fall for your cheapest tricks, but when even that quarter-behind-the-ear routine doesn't work it begins to sound like sour grapes.
I gotta say, there's something about theatre majors though. Dancing to the blues must be a prereq because they certainly know how to work a room. All those personalities jostling, juking, jiving to the beat, and you know those egos couldn't fit together in a phone booth during the day but tonight they swing and wail off each other like they were born to this music. They do a good job of making me feel like I'm not living enough. |
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| man i just got a lot in my head |
[Mar. 22nd, 2007|02:13 am] |
Yeah, hopefully these posts get more frequent. At the very least, they keep me busy and they're a step above wasting my time elsewhere on the Internet. My writing style might fluctuate drastically from post to post, or I might slip into what I think is "literary" for a few consecutive posts. It largely depends on the subject matter and how I'm feeling, which, at 3 in the morning, is decent. Am I going to blog about my life? Probably not. If there's anything you want to know about it you can more or less ask. Here, I'll write about the stuff that isn't so apparent.
I gotta say, it's nice to write something that isn't in a screenplay format. |
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| Stop Watching |
[Mar. 22nd, 2007|01:42 am] |
Have you ever stopped to think how much time we spend watching things? There's TV, then movies, and reading. You've got theatre and paintings and all manner of art. Basically every artistic or creative endeavor boils down to a product for an audience to watch. Except music, which is interesting in that it's possible - even encouraged - to engage yourself in another activity in coordination. Take your eyes off a movie and the story's gone on without you; take your eyes off a book and the story is paralyzed in place.
Although there may be millions of worthwhile things in this world to watch, it'd be a waste to spend your life doing nothing but watching. Here is where the responsibility of every creative person lies. It's not enough to keep an audience transfixed with your work, for then you've made them accept the passivity of watching. You've stolen their drive and dulled the qualities that make them uniquely human. Instead, aim to make them desire to do what you do, and thus create in turn. That's the most any artist should hope for. |
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| I Hate TV |
[Mar. 22nd, 2007|12:56 am] |
I hate TV. A few shining examples of genuinely clever material aside (Scrubs how you make me giggle) it's the closest you'll get to funneling garbage directly into your brain. That's right, make sure to fill every goddamn wrinkle with New York and her exploits as she embarrasses herself on national television. But let's avoid launching into a tirade against the entire medium just because of the drivel the major networks know we love to lap up. I like to think that all the inane reality shows MTV could put out about overprivileged kids in LA couldn't ruin the good, honest uses of the medium that exist.
So no, my problem with television isn't with the material that's being put out, though that is a problem. My problem is that it's no substitute for human interaction. Nothing pains me more than when a group of friends gather together in front of a television to waste away the hours, as watching television is the bare minimum of activity that when done with others still constitutes as "hanging out." That communal box sucks away all creativity - every single word or idea uttered from that point on serves no other purpose than to comment on an especially irritating commercial, or the protagonist's (and I use that term lightly) embarrassing choice of clothes. Listen, if I wanted to watch TV, I would've stayed at home where my reign over the remote is absolute and where my concerns as to your appreciation for a documentary on the Civil War are nonexistent. But no, I came here to hang out because I enjoy your company and think you're more than worth the time.
Human interaction outside of watching something's become somewhat of a lost art. |
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| BOOM |
[Feb. 1st, 2007|04:45 pm] |
...I been keepin busy. I draw for the school newspaper every Thursday, and it is my hope that I will slowly, eventually encroach upon the other days of the week until I'm the only purveyor of comics in town. Basically I'm going to be the Walmart of cartoonists.
And seriously, all but one of the columnists for my school paper are at each others' throats. The fifth columnist, the guy staying out of the fight, usually writes about ALS, or controversy over the new game consoles, or other things generally difficult to get riled up over. |
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| Flash fiction |
[Dec. 13th, 2006|12:07 am] |
Flash fiction's a short story generally around 1000 words in length; any shorter and you start writing micro- and nano-fiction, which limit themselves to a few hundred and a handful of words respectively. I really like the restriction; every line you write tends to be absolutely necessary and it's interesting how much of a world you can pack into the fewest of words. I wrote these a while back, and they've just been lazing on my computer since then.
The Shallowest Man
According to the general consensus of the doctors and nurses present at the time, Milo Papel’s mother was in labor for a total of seven seconds. His mother had been pregnant for about eight-and-a-half months when she gave birth to him, though one couldn’t tell just by looking; despite being well into the third trimester her figure had remained every bit as thin as when she started. She had no doubt that she was pregnant, as she had constant cravings for banana splits and felt a slight thump downstairs from time to time, but only through an ultrasound could the doctors find the existence of an apparently healthy boy developing in her womb. The Papels were understandably concerned.
Seven seconds after Mrs. Papel’s water broke, Milo was born, and the eight-and-a-half-month mystery was put to rest: laying gently in the hands of the doctor was a cooing baby boy, perfect in every way a parent could hope a baby to be, save for the fact that Milo utterly lacked a third dimension.
Milo possessed a length and a height but simply no width; looking at him head-on gave one the impression that Milo wasn’t a real boy but a film projection of one onto some invisible surface. As the doctor gently pressed his hands together above and below Milo and turned him sideways, Milo simply vanished from sight.
Suffice it to say Milo had a difficult childhood. As a result of being unable to participate in most class activities and being completely overlooked by those standing to the immediate left and right of him, he became painfully shy. Occasionally he did muster up the desire to try and talk to someone, but by the time the infinitesimal width of his feet were able to negotiate the distance between himself and the second party, they had already left.
So Milo grew up quietly, passed all his classes as an above-average student and went to law school, hoping to major in civil rights advocacy for the dimensionally challenged—of which he was the only one, as far as anyone knew, and he quickly became the leading expert in the field. He met his wife, Katie, a few years later at a used music store when she had mistaken him for one of the posters.
Marrying Katie was the best thing to happen to Milo, but it couldn’t last. The last night they ever saw each other, Milo had decided to get off work early and surprise her with a bouquet of pressed flowers. He found her in bed with Jeff, the plumber. The bouquet wafted slowly to his feet as he stood there, mouth trembling, a projection of a man whose world has been shattered.
“I…I’m sorry, Milo, but you just can’t…satisfy me like other men,” Katie tearfully explained as she bit her lip.
“I know,” Milo sighed, a tear sliding down the plane of his cheek. He left without another word, and slipped out through the crack of the front door.
On the Set of "Brain Feast"
Hugh Braddock was a terrible actor, but you had to admire his determination in staking out a place for himself in the B-movie world. He had a sizeable number of parts to his name—“Screaming Jaywalker” and “Burning Cop #4” were among his most memorable—and it seems the studio felt they were good enough to cast him as the lead for their new zombie flick.
Excited for his big break, Braddock immediately went to work coming up with ideas for revolutionizing the zombie movie genre. His favorite one involved attaching a chainsaw to the end of a four-foot rope, which he would then swing over his head “like a lariat of ass-kicking,” he would excitedly gesticulate whenever he got the opportunity. He was convinced that this weapon of his would kickstart a cult following of fans across college campuses nationwide, or at least warrant a couple of signings at local video rentals when the movie went to DVD.
The studio had the prudence to nix the idea, but Braddock arrived on the first day of shooting with a saw-whip anyway. “LET ‘ER RIP!” he yelled, too excited to come up with a decent catchphrase as he pulled the ripcord and started swinging.
You really couldn’t call it ironic, and I think we would’ve been more surprised had the saw not traveled a perfect arc through his upper thigh. As the paramedics loaded him up onto the stretcher, he kept insisting that the writers find some way to work the dismemberment into the plot. We told him it was probably going to end up as a special feature on the unrated DVD. |
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| TURNING POINT |
[Nov. 22nd, 2006|12:10 am] |
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Have you ever considered how many times you've marked turning points in your life with a shower? Take a shower after bombing a test, and you emerge dripping and resolved to never fail again. Engage in the rudest of hookups, and when you're done showering you know that was the last time you kiss a girl with a mustache. There's something about a constant torrent of water blasting in your face that makes it the perfect demarcation point between previous failures and the promise of change; it's like a physical white noise that permanently separates us from whatever it was we were doing before we stepped in. All I know is I step out a changed man every time. |
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| dang this has been inactive |
[Oct. 17th, 2006|12:13 am] |
An ant trail runs down the approximate middle of my room, comfortably far enough into my roommate's half that I don't feel compelled to do anything but watch. Their communication's improved over the course of the past few days, pheromones having traced out an invisible thread leading from their floorboard empire to the top of my roommate's desk. He must've left something there to melt, or hidden a dead bird underneath all those papers.
The ants keep up the procession, a social mixer that they've stretched out over what amounts to a narrow, serpentine hallway, partygoers weaving through knots of guarded friends and after potential lovers, bumping shoulders and pausing briefly to ask whether the drinks really are further on. Over the course of forty minutes only one ant's excused himself early to venture into my half of the room. Apparently unafraid of the ant trap we set up, a tiny white charnel house which radiates a radius of emptiness that most of the ants avoid, he wanders near my shoes before I lose track of him.
My roommate returns; his feet and swivel chair cut swaths through the elongated party. But more guests are slated to show up, and the parade continues unabated. |
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