An update of sorts.

Well aren't I just the neglectful type.

The fact that I can check several blogs on this same site every day and never remember to update my own is a testament to the absolute and utter ruin that my memory and motivation have become. I am become sloth, destroyer of afternoons and eater of many, many donuts.

I know not many people read this, but for those who do, here is a quick update on my goings on (I stole the idea from Black Smoke Factory...sorry Matt) .

The theme of the month is insecurity, I think. Still looking for a job, but the current economic situation pretty much only leaves nursing and paralegal jobs around here. not much good for a kid with an English degree. The one job I had some confidence in and was holding out hope for was filled without my knowledge, so I am now entirely without prospects. I'd apply at Starbucks but not even they are hiring right now. Damn you America! If only you people would pay off your credit cards on time... oh well. One other thing that's holding me back in the job search right now is the fact that I have a two-month commitment to a show coming up and I need most evenings off, something which a lowly service job is reluctant (and usually unable) to provide. And once that's over, I still don't know exactly what I want to do now that my dream job's dried up. Here's hoping, I guess.

Speaking of the show, that's the one thing that's got me in all sorts of twisty brain shapes at the moment. I'm super psyched to be doing MoJo at Dad's Garage Theater this February. The show is great, and the cast and crew include some of the most talented people I've ever met in my life. I can't wait to see how it comes out, because I'm sure it will be great... but there is one problem. I haven't acted in any serious way since I was in elementary school. Since then I've dicked around in many a project but most of it came down to improv and very short written things. This thing is about eighty pages of dialogue that gives Clerks a run for its money in sheer volume. Anyone can memorize lines given the right amount of time, but it's just a lot of pressure now that schedules and money and other people are involved. I hope I'm just being "green" about it, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intimidated by this thing. That being said, still way excited. Come check it out as long as you're not my parents.

Oh, and CAMPUS Strike Force has been going well. There's some rough spots here and there, but overall I'm glad I got the chance to do it and I think it'll be a good lesson in how to do (and not do) improv in that kind of setting once all is said and done. Thanks to anyone who's seen the show.

That's about it, aside from stupid things like New Year's Resolutions coming up and various other stuff. I'll do that in another entry. Till then!

[end transmission]

7 Things

So my buddy Eve tagged me to do an entry listing 7 things that you might not know about me. So here we go.

1. I am possibly the world's most forgetful person. Important things are no problem to remember, but I forget people's names about 15 seconds after I meet them most of the time. I can't even count how many times I've thought about doing some chore around here only to forget about it completely while checking my email for a minute. This is why nothing EVER gets done around my house.

2. I used to travel internationally every other year or so. Most of my extended family lives in the UK, so that was our bi-annual summer vacation. Scotland is awesome.

3. When I was in high school, I played the drums in a pop-punk-emo band called The Johnsons. After a big show in our senior year, we were actually offered a record deal by Sony but turned it down so that we could all go to college. I have no idea if I'd be richer or poorer now if we'd taken the deal and I wonder about it a lot.

4. My middle name is Alexander.

5. My father used to be a bookie in Scotland. He took bets on horse races and various other sporting events in a little betting shop owned by his family. He still won't tell me if his dad ever had to break anyone's kneecaps for skipping out on a bet.

6. I was a local spelling bee champion in middle school. I used some prize money to buy a hamster.

7. My high school once accused me of threatening a teacher on the internet and suspended me after a long period of threats and forced compliance... with the help of the ACLU I (and one other kid) successfully sued Gwinnett County Public Schools for a full expunging of our records and a sizeable amount of money. Sadly, the ACLU kept almost all of it. JUSTICE!

I'm supposed to tell 7 others to do this, but I only know maybe 4 people on blogspot. So if you're READING this, do it or don't or whatever.

Lessons

At the age of 23, I am, in the eyes of the law, an adult. This distinction is not something that I am inclined to agree with a lot of the time.

Now, a lot of people would suffix this statement with something about being young at heart and always keeping in touch with their inner child/teenager/ bitter adolescent, but I feel like I may still be stuck in that place, despite having done all of the things that generally mark the change into adulthood. I've moved out of my parents' house, gone to four years of college, and graduated. All of these things dictate that I am considered an adult.

When I was growing up I always thought that growing up to this point would reveal some sort of truth to me. Kids never understand why adults act the way they do, but it never bothered us because we were always under the impression that they knew what they were doing. After all, they were older and wiser and knew things that we could only hope to know in due time. We were told that if we stayed in school and did things right, then we would learn all of these things as well. Unfortunately, it turns out that there's no way for the school system and a few documentaries to teach someone how to operate once they've reached that magical point in their life when suddenly, things aren't figured out for them any more. Ultimately, growing up is about learning skills that will allow one to succeed and live at least comfortably in the world. I feel as if I am severely lacking in some of there skills. Of course, the one that led me to write this is that I have no clue how to go about finding a job now because all of my experience in job hunting thus far has been going to strip malls looking for part time jobs in restaurants, and the thought of being judged on a resume that I find rather uninspiring terrifies me. But there is another one that really makes me feel like a child.

I cannot deal with grocery shopping. I don't mean going up to the Publix to pick up bread and milk, but if you were to tell me to go there and spend at least fifty dollars I would have no clue what to bring back. You see, I can't cook to save my life. My diet includes one meal eaten outside of the house per day, and what I do eat at home is usually pre-made microwavable crap or simple sandwiches and chips. People have always told me it is cheaper to make my own food at home, yet when I buy ingredients to cook a full meal, it ends up costing me twenty dollars or more. Even at a relatively nice place, dinner costs far less to have prepared for me. I simply do not understand the concept. Not being able to cook also makes the store seem like a strange collection of random items that I am expected to use in some way that will produce a result, as if you were to hand me all of the parts of a motorcycle and ask me to put them together for you. So what you'd get is the culinary equivalent of a motorcycle with no handlebars and the exhaust pipe blowing straight into your face. Seriously, what the hell do you do with celery beside just...eating it? Who needs a quart of vegetable oil? CAKE flour? Sensory overload ensues, and I make a hasty retreat with my 3 Stouffer's Mac n' Cheese things and some kind of cereal. More than anything else, this makes me feel more anxious and lame than just about anything. You'd think after 23 years I'd know how to eat.

There are many more of these little things that I feel like I should know (the short list includes How Banks and Taxes Work, Why My Car Keeps Breaking, and What's So Great About "Lost"), and there doesn't seem to be any source of information out there that details any of them. Dad's gonna have a lotta 'splaining to do next time I see him.

Exercise

Has anyone heard of The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest? Basically, it is a competition in which writers are challenged to present the first line of the worst novel ever written. It sounds like something I would really like to take a stab at, so I'm going to use this post as a starting point and throw out a few.

"Punches rained down upon him, in much the same way that rain would."

"Leonard Casterfield had always been something of a stalwart man, the kind of man who could face a stampeding herd of buffalo and have each and every one of them in his bed by night's end."

"The arena fell into stark silence as the Ace of Spades hit the table; it was almost like a CRACK, but with a slight hint of THUMP."

"Coming to America is never easy, what with all the racists."

"Cursors flashed red across the terminals, bathing the room in a burgundescent glow and making every surface reminiscent of spilled grenadine."

"Hamilton had been to this beach before, the beach of his childhood, the beach where he first learned of love, of life and death, the beach where he had forged his character and destroyed his past... tumnescence set in upon him in time with the sun over the waves."

"You can find anything you want in the right place is Carbide City, whether it's a cheap high to get through the day or a full English breakfast."

"Flames licked the roof tiles as men scattered from the mess hall... this was not a part of Boot Camp."

"The Mother Superior cowered againt the side of the building, waiting for La Eme to unleash their signature hail of bullets."


...I could do this all day.

A Halloween Story of BILE.

Due to some fundamental flaw in the American education system, going to college did not immediately land me a job.

For this reason, I have spent the last month or so working at a local Halloween store. You know the kind of place I'm talking about; it's a little empty space in a strip mall with a ton of cheap yet ridiculously expensive costumes hung all over the place with the Monster Mash playing on repeat all goddamn day. It is a pretty simple gig, since all I ever really do is open and sort boxes of costumes or stand behind a cash register. I like being surrounded by costumes and some spooky music for hours at a time, and there are plenty of nearby stores to supplant my need for obscene amounts of caffeine to finish the shift, having slept only 3 hours the night before. It's a pretty fun little job, really.

However, something that has become apparent (and disturbing) to me over the course of this month is the views that people who come into the store have on originality when it comes to the holiday. To say it with the utmost geezerness... when I was a kid my mother always helped me to make a costume for Halloween. I always thought it was really cool to make what I was going to wear rather than shelling out for a cheaply made foam-and-plastic suit. This also could have just meant that we were poor, but kids never know that kind of thing. Even complex trademarked characters were attempted with the most spectacular of failures resulting, but they were still pretty awesome. Today, it seems that children and adults alike are terrified of having anything but the licensed, store-bought items necessary to efficiently browbeat other partygoers with "who/ what they are supposed to be".

The first person that really made me think about this was a customer who showed up at the counter witht a sixty dollar Teletubby costume (it was Dipsy, if you're interested). It is not in my job description to pass judgement on taste, so I thought nothing of it. But then then he said to me, in a tone which I can only describe as braggadocious: "Yeah, I always outdo myself every year. My costumes just keep getting better; my friends always like, freak out when I show up." This guy was simply buying something more expensive every year and somehow making it into a personal statement about how committed he was to the holiday and impressing his friends at parties. I asked what alterations he was planning to make to the costume, giving him the benefit of the doubt and hoping he was going to at least bloody the thing up, but he looked at me like I was insane.

Another girl came in today to put together a Family Guy character outfit. I directed her to the right things but suggested that, as this would certainly be popular, she could stand out from the pack by wearing a little alternate outfit from a specific episode. She loved the idea. We chatted excitedly about how to make it work. Then she called her boyfriend to ask about part of it, and I hear her say "...yeah... how are people not gonna know who I am? It's great... who cares if they don't get it?" Her boyfriend was actually concerned that people might not immediately catch the reference, and this is something he should WARN her about? I know we Americans have a reputation for being less than genius but I find it incredibly sad that something like a slightly less-than-mainstream Halloween costume can incite social anxiety in someone.

That girl was awesome. She didn't care and she went off with full intent to make the idea happen. I've never been so happy to blow a sale.