So after a year’s hiatus, I’m back. I’m sure this website and all 10 posts were dearly missed by my eight readers.
In celebration of my highly-anticipated comeback, here’s an episode of Kablam! after the jump.
I’ve been in a writing slump for almost seven months. A lot of writing “manuals” and “guides” say that this is normal, but I think that such publications are full of shit. Let’s face it–most of us decide to become writers as our sole profession because we’re lazy. Telling writers that writers’ block, a period that could last anywhere from a few days to a few years, is in fact normal.
But if writers are lazy, then writer’s block is just another term for “unemployed.” Let’s take a look at a bullet list of my life:
- I tried working at my school newspaper. I got a few dozen clips during my active year, but eventually fell out of my position as a reporter because of a major screw-up in the reporting of a feature story. I single-handedly got the entire staff chided out by the advisors and publishing board because of it.
- Although I was a bit broken by that experience, I trudged along and landed an internship with a local free publication. My editor asked me if I wanted to stay on and freelance before summer started. Rather than take on that responsibility, I slept past noon everyday and never got anything done.
- I tried taking the very last reporting class for my degree and had to withdraw from it because I ran into some recurring fincancial problems and couldn’t handle any of the work.
- Due to the economic crisis, I still have financial problems and newspapers and magazines are laying off reporters all over the country.
Perhaps I should have gone into a practical major–medical, law or business. For the past three months, I beat myself up over this flaw in my career choice. After all, many writers have day jobs and therefore have the financial stability and albeit TIME to sit down and write great articles and novels.
But I realized something. I hate hospitals. The thought of working alongside blood, urine and feces grosses the hell out of me, not to mention the fact that medical professionals have to stay in school almost twice as long as most people. HA! Secondly, becoming a lawyer doesn’t always guarantee money. Look at those commercials on television about asbestos and dieting pills. Do I really want to help Mr. & Mrs. BillyBobbyJoeFranklinJohn from West Virginia in their quest to get money from some fast-food chain because the burgers made their asses immobile? And business majors scare me. Constantly associating myself with cutthroat corporate baboons and the prospect of having to sit in an office as a routine nauseates me.
So I guess there’s really only one real option. Does waiting tables as a five-year plan until I catch that big break sound appealing? Fuck no! But there doesn’t seem to be much of a choice until someone saves the media or I become the next J.K. Rowling.
I hate Harry Potter, but I digress.
I was on the phone with a friend last week and we got on the subject of middle school relationships. You know, the kind featured on Oprah that introduce our moms to flamboyant definitions to terms like “hooking up” and “rainbow party.” I have no recollection of attending any rainbow parties in the 8th grade, but it got me thinking of my very first boyfriend. He died a few days ago and I’m again reminded prematurely of how old I’m getting.
I was just growing out of giant ballchain necklaces and South Park shirts. (That’s embarrassing) Once I started listening to better music and looking more like a normal human being instead of a walking KoRn concert, someone noticed me. He wasn’t that great looking, but we both played the guitar and liked the same movies and that was the extent of my 14 year-old standards.
I have this one picture of us at the 8th grade end-of-the-year formal. He looks thin, pale and had that helmet-gelled hair popular among white males in the late 90s. My bright blue contacts made me look like a fish.
We broke up before high school and didn’t talk much afterwards, but I sometimes thought about catching up with him and asking if he ever found that watched Bringing Out the Dead and if he still thought it sucked.
My parents told me his dad found him and the rumors said it was an overdose. But that’s what everyone says when a 21 year-old dies.
I’ve been to the viewings of three high school friends in the past five years. Four, if you count the girl who sat in front of me in homeroom. Funerals for old people are sad but natural, like putting your 20 year-old cat to sleep. Seeing bodies of friends I spent summers with makes me feel old and helpless, regardless of the fact that I turned 21 six months ago.
Rest in peace, Bryan.
I went to lunch with my old neighbor today. Over burritos and Styrofoam cups of ice water, we talked about his current job. He’s a neuroscience major and wants to work in research. Right now, he is has a student worker position with a prominent local anesthesiologist’s study on the brain.
I made the mistake of asking what he does in the lab. He answered my question by telling me that he kills rats, takes out their brains and cuts them into little slices to be placed on slides. I made another mistake of asking to elaborate.
“In order to preserve the brain, we load the rats with ketamine to numb the pain. While they’re tripping balls, I put them in a vice so they don’t move while I cut them down the middle (Keep in mind, they’re still alive) and inject poison into their hearts. It was cool at first, but after a while, it gets depressing.”
I wonder if I should ask him to lunch again.
Filed under: Me
I’m trying to quit smoking. While my health beckons for abstinence from nicotine, it took a slap in the face from the plethora of overdue bills for me to finally give in. I can’t breathe and I’m broke–it’s time to quit.
I’m a professional quitter. I’ve been doing it since I was in elementary school when I quit saxophone lessons and liking school. In high school, I quit swimming, playing guitar and the student newspaper. For three years, I’ve tried to quit smoking, on and off. The most recent attempt was this past Christmas-into-New Year’s. I think that time of year has become a tradition.
I know that there’s a 90% chance that this time will be yet another one of those failed efforts, partly because I try to wean myself off of a pack rather than go cold-turkey. Weaning works for about a week. Once I’m at one a day, I relapse either from boredom or bar-dom.
We’ll see…
