I Wasn't Prepared For This, Oh, I Wasn't Prepared For This, When The Day Is Blue, I'll Sit Here Wondering About You

--"I Wasn't Prepared (live)", Eisley

Just a little update on the 'ole novel...

fourteen – turn me around
I've gone over in my mind the many reasons why Mallory didn't work out. I've tried to piece together the various causes that doomed our relationship right from the start. I want to say it was only the constant comparison to both Tierney and Carisa that did it. That normally would be enough to doom even the best of relationships. It didn't matter that Mallory was sensitive or pretty or amiable; just like it wouldn't matter that her photos were breathtaking. I mean—how can sensitive stack up against the pristine perfection that was Carisa's memory? How could Mallory's beauty compete with Tierney's blatant animal magnetism.

Poor Mallory never stood a chance.

But it was more than that. One of the main reasons why my time with her came to an end after only a few months was my fear. I was afraid. I was afraid of her. I was afraid of moving on. I was afraid of what moving on meant.

After all, Carisa was supposed to be the great love of my life and Tierney was supposed to be right behind her. If Mallory and I worked out I thought it might cheapen what I felt with the previous two. It would mean that I fell out of and into love far too easy. Taking up with a third young woman, almost losing myself again into that kind of ecstasy, would invalidate everything I ever felt before. It would be like it didn't matter who the object of my affection was. Apparently I could fall in love with everyone and their roommate if I continued along that path. And I wanted what I had with Carisa and Tierney to be real. I needed it to be real. For that my feelings for Mallory had to be extinguished before they had a chance to flare. I could only afford to have two great love affairs without feeling like I had lost all emotional perspective.

I was afraid of being the boy who cried love one time too many. Eventually someone would call my bluff.

The last night I spent with Mallory we had gone hiking up in the foothills behind Noir College. She liked to take pictures up there and I had suggested that it would be the perfect place to tell her the news I had to tell her. Some people like to break up with their significant others in public places to mitigate the chances of them causing a scene. Me? I like to go to as secluded of a place as possible. Emily likes to joke I should have done my break-ups in a cemetery. That way they would have a place to bury me after I had broken their hearts. My reasoning makes sense to me, though. Nobody likes to have an audience when they're going through serious turmoil. Nobody should be subjected to having to compose themselves when all they're feeling is the bitterness of life's duality. The reason I took Mallory up to those foothills two or three miles from the nearest paved road was because I wanted to let her down easy. I wanted her to feel safe to let the grief, if any, show. Granted, we were only four months into a relationship so there was no guarantee she would even be miffed by my decision, but I only had known my beloved Carisa for a few months as well.

Sometimes you just don't know the impact the time you spend with someone is going to have.

We had made it almost halfway up the hill to the spot I had picked out. It was this secluded clearing jutted up next to a grove of pine trees. It was approaching dusk and the trail was beginning to dim before us. But even in the dark I knew how to get to that spot. The previous two nights I'd spent deciding where the talk would happen before I came up with the solution. I had been sure not to take her up to this spot on previous dates. I wanted to make sure the only connotations she had of the spot would be from that night. There was no sense in ruining the good memories we'd already made, right?

Just as we had crested a particularly steep switchback, we heard the unmistakable sound of a couple of dogs growling. In the twilight with my heart already on edge from preparing what I was going to say, it didn't take much to elicit a surprised reaction. I don't know why I did what I did next. Playing it over in my head there were a myriad of options that I could've decided upon. I could have stood my ground, with Mallory's hand in mine, daring the dogs to come. I could have stepped in front of her, shielding her from any danger. Hell, even turning tail and running with her in tow would have proved more fortuitous than what actually happened.

Do you ever have those moments where you see yourself in slow motion? It's like you're astral projecting and you can see yourself deciding on a course of action and taking the action in a slurry blur of activity. Sometimes you see the scene and it's straight out of an action film, with you doing something so out of character that ultimately proves beneficial and commendable. I imagine if I ever had an opportunity to rescue someone from a burning building that's the movie I would see in my mind at the time. Or other times the movie of your life appears as a slow-motion close-up straight out of a period drama. Nobody's mouths are moving and it's all reaction shots and subdued passion doing all the storytelling.

Other times your life is a scene out of a slapstick comedy.

As soon as I heard the first whispers of canine ferocity, I yelled out a cursory, “Run!” before fleeing the scene with the speed one usually only sees on nature specials. I didn't take Mallory's hand. I didn't even wait to see if she was right behind me. I heard wild animals ahead of us so I took off in the opposite direction.

And I didn't stop running till almost a minute later. That's when I noticed my brunette companion wasn't there.

As it happened, Mallory had remembered someone telling her the best course of action when confronted with wild dogs was to stand still. Her rationale was that dogs have a chase mentality when they're excited. She believed that if she remained calm they wouldn't bother her. My rationale was that dogs also have a bite mentality and that one couldn't bite what one couldn't catch. Guess which one of us got bit? She definitely wasn't a happy camper when I finally made my way back to her and the apologetic owner of the two German Shepherds. It turns out he often walked his dogs off the leash up on that trail and he had no idea other people would be in the vicinity at that hour. I tried joking with Mallory that at the very least we'd proven the theory of an individual not having to be the fastest person in the group to survive. I thought it very prudent that at last we could definitively state that that individual only had to be faster than the slowest person of the group.

Mallory and her small, innocuous bite mark on her upper right arm were not very amused by that comment.

She broke up with me that very night, saving me the trouble.

It's the only instance where being afraid actually made things easier for me.

I officially take back my request for a super power. Instead of being able to change a woman's clothing without her permission, I want my temerity to be the source of my super strength. I want my trembling in fear to actually be productive. That would be the answer to all my Tierney problems currently. I could say to her that everything was going to be okay because I'm scared out of my mind. If she could just take comfort in that fact the two of us could possibly get through the next few days in relative safety.

I want to be scared when Tierney goes back to the clinic and have that be a good thing, you know?

----

The Carisa Meridian update:
13 chapters done. 9 more to do.
153 pages written. 100 more to write.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

I Have Run, I Have Crawled, I Have Scaled These City Walls, These City Walls, Only To Be With You, But I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

--"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", U2

Earlier this week Casey and Laurel had me over for a consolation dinner over my being recently let go from my previous employment. They had meant to do it earlier, but even with my schedule suddenly clearing up, it still took a long time to coordinate with them. I made repeated attempts to let them know that such a gesture was altogether unnecessary. I even told them that, if anything, I would have rather they not make a big deal over it since that only led me to reflect my current unemployed state even more. But Casey being Casey, that only prompted her to nail down the logistics ever more quickly.

It was a good dinner comprised of her version of chicken cordon bleu with a side of angel hair pasta. It did the trick of more than filling the three of us up. More to the point, it really made me feel like there were other people out there aside from the usual suspects that were genuinely distressed to hear about predicament. And, no, we didn't concentrate completely about where I was looking or what my plans were going to be next. And, no, it didn't become a pity party or an Eclipse is a rat bastard company. For the most part, the subject of my layoff was ignored and the conversation drifted only other more amiable topics. It wasn't that I was unwilling to discuss into detail my feelings about the subject. It was more that the evening was focused on seeing my situation as a celebration rather than a nightlong rant--more of a wake as opposed to a funeral.

After the conversation had died down, I even had the opportunity to teach them my new favorite card game, Cosmic Eidex. Seeing as CE is a game expressly made for three people and, what do you know, we had three people; I thought it was a perfect fit. Normally, Ziggy and Zags aren't too keen on my gaming obsession--not like Ilessa was, at least--but since it was get-together in my honor I thought it only appropriate that I get to pick what we did for the remainder of the time we were together.

According to Board Game Geek, Cosmic Eidex is described thusly:

This little trick taking game is a fairly intriguing little game only playable with three. The idea is to take either the most points or the least points (designated by the trump and rank of the cards that you take each hand), to earn a victory point. A set number of victory points gets the game. However, if in a hand one of the players exceeds a set number of card points, then the other two players automatically get the victory point. And if one player can get all of the tricks then he receives two victory points. Additionally, each player is given a relatively weak Cosmic-like power to break one of the rules. There are as many possibilities as there are cards, but wise card play usually outweighs their influence.

I've always found it an interesting mechanic that to play competitively you either want to commit to taking the most number of points or the least number of points. Most of the time it's the person who gets caught in the middle that loses out on scoring the trick. Indeed, the game was a moderate success expressly for the reason it prompted a philosophical discussion about the nature of setting and achieving goals. True, on a literal level, it was just the three of us sitting around the dinner table pitching in cards to win the trick or sloughing off cards in order not to win it. Yet on a more symbolic level, it could be described as a contest of wills between absolutism and the concept of zen nothingness. The choice at hand in the game isn't one of winning or losing; it's a choice between setting out towards a goal or giving up the goal entirely. It took the girls a little while to get away from the precept that you can only win by making points since it flies in the face of most games where you keep score. But once they understood that getting zero points is a valid strategy, the game definitely picked up before I had to leave.

I think it was Laurel who pointed out the correlation to my losing my job and the game. She told me that they had come into inviting me to dinner with the idea that I was suffering some great setback. But, truthfully, I was somewhat more resolved to my fate than that. In game parlance, I was more resigned to the idea that my job at Eclipse wasn't exactly my dream job. I was somewhat stuck in between having the security of a job but the disappointment of being in a job that simply did not match up with my expectations completely. As she put it, I was riding the middle. From that standpoint there were only two options to make me completely happy. I would have either had to get my dream job, whereby the majority of my expectations were met, or I could leave the job that was only serving to remind me of how much I had settled. If I couldn't have everything, then it was almost better of extricating myself from a position of only getting half of what I wanted. I was taking the viewpoint that rather than beat myself up everyday for being in a job that seriously was deadening me inside day after day, I was glad to not be under those conditions anymore.

If I couldn't get the high score job wise, then I'd go for the low score, so to speak.

And that's kind of how I felt I told the both of them. At Eclipse I always felt like I was jumping through hoops on a career track that I don't quite know if I wanted to see the end of. There I was, busting my hump, for a goal that just didn't seem all that glamorous or worthwhile to me. But now, yes, I don't have the satisfaction of having an occupation to pour my energy into, but I also don't feel saddled with the stress of a job I did not like completely.

It is kind of freeing to be in a position again of deciding where I head from here--even if at the same time it is a scary prospect.

I didn't win every game of Eidex that night. There were just some games where I went high with the hand I was dealt when I should have gone low, and vice-versa. That's one of the most important skills in playing that game, evaluating the hand you're dealt and formulating a strategy from there. Sometimes you're going to receive a hand where the decision is almost made for you, but the majority of the time you're going to receive hand where the decision isn't so transparent. In those cases you've just got to make the best guess with the information you have in front of you at the time. In those cases, perhaps, it's okay to change strategies in the middle of your turn depending on how those first tricks line up for you. In whatever case, you're not going to win every trick.

The important thing is taking the time to actually see what you have in front of you and not what you think you have. That's what working at Eclipse was like, playing a hand full of losers as if I could win out with them. Now, however, it feels more like a new hand has just been dealt to me and I'm still evaluating if I should just go for it or not commit myself to points that may not be there for me to win.

At any rate it's a brand new game and with it is a new chance to go running for it again... or just to slow play my hand for the first time in a long time if the situation calls for it. That's something I never could do as long as I had that job. I was always under pressure to fulfill my obligations. Now, for the first time in a long time, I'm in a position to evaluate my situation and rearrange my goals accordingly instead of the other way around like it was before.

Or like Casey said as I was leaving, maybe my time right now "would be better spent more games of Cosmic Eidex than jumping back into the job market before I'm ready." LOL

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Where Is The Day You Used To Inspire Me? Where Is The Time I Used To Depend? On The Relief Of Your Anchor I Thought I'd Never Need

--"Won't Be The Same", Dance Hall Crashers

I finished reading through all one hundred seventy-five pages of The Carisa Meridian today. One of the many points I noticed was the fact that a key incident to several chapters is a much-discussed "break" the narrator takes from his girlfriend at the time during college. I made it central to their relationship that they were well-suited to one another--almost too well-suited. I talked about they never really fought with another, preferring to solve their problems in civil discussions and hushed tones, ending usually with them making up without ever solving the inciting incident.

At first, I thought them ever separating from one another, even for a short period, was a lapse in continuity. Here there are supposed to be this super couple that never has arguments or even disagreements passionate enough to be noteworthy. How is it that they could ever rise to a level of animosity that would lead them to a trial separation? It didn't make sense to me at first. If you're not even perturbed enough to raise your voice, then you shouldn't be at a level of annoyance to seek distance from the individual who is causing you problems.

However, once I remembered the context of the period I was writing these chapters, it all made sense. The thirteen chapters of the novel I possess so far were written during the time period where Breanne weren't talking for a few months. I suppose it was rather easy for me to get into the mindset where having a pair of people who were rather fond of one another and yet were fed up with one another enough to not be on speaking terms made sense to me. After all, it's what was happening at the time. Granted, I would never go so far as to say we never raised our voices with one another or that we never had disagreements strong enough to make the case for a permanent separation viable, but at the time I think we did resemble the narrator and Tierney in the sense that two people so right for each other still can still fray one another's nerves. Even the two most perfect people for one another can still go wrong in how they relate to each other in so many ways. That's the point I think I was trying to make in the inclusion of a long-ago "break" between an otherwise picture of domestic bliss.

In the story the narrator refers often to this time as being one he would most likely to gloss over when it comes to the retelling of his life story. He never exactly mentions how long the separation actually lasted, but from my understanding it seemed to have only last four or maybe five months. And yet it's telling that those four or five months he's constantly referencing as being the only time he can point to as being unhappy with the way he and his wife got along. Everyday before then and after then (barring, of course, the time period the novel actually portrays is currently happening) has been marked as being more smiles than tears, and more laughter than shouting.

I think that comes from my own experience with Lucy and me. I can't tell you every matter that we've ever fought over, but I can tell you every time it's resulted in us not talking for any great length of time. I can't tell you why we ever said hateful things or the actual hateful things all the time, but I can tell you when it's resulted in one or both parties taking it effectively to heart.

That's how it is with fighting and arguing, the only thing people remember after a few years is the consequences. There really isn't any fight worth noting for the reasons that caused it. There really isn't any argument worth remembering for the exact word-for-word account. Often times the only that gets remembered is what the result was and how it often outstrips any memory of its root causes. It's plain to see that my own regrets of fights I've picked with people--Jina, DeAnn, Tommy, John, &c...--seeped its way into the novel because there's a very noticeable nostalgic bent to the plot. It's basically a story all about a man who idealizes the time he had twenty years prior and who can't reconcile that fact with the reality that his current situation doesn't quite match up to the memories he made all those years ago.

I know of what he thinks. A lot of my experience is tainted with the idea that there were decisions I made which weren't always fully thought out. There are whole chunks of years I wasted stubbornly refusing to make-up with people over perceived slights that, in the end, were never as memorable as the destruction that came about because of my reaction to them. I get that.

It's funny--even when I was trying to decipher what I was going for by having him mention the "break" several times, I always understood the emotion behind the references. I'm fully versed in the particular pain of being on the outs with someone and feeling like there is no way to get back in with them. I understand that completely.

It's just weird to think of how little things have changed since five years ago when I was first working on this book.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Cause I Don't Want To Get Over Love, I Could Listen To My Therapist, Pretend You Don't Exist, And Not Have To Dream Of What I Dream Of

--"I Don't Want To Get Over You", Mary Lou Lord

The problem with me when I write is that if I don't keep it up I completely forget what I've written. I guess that's more of a problem with my short-term memory than my actual writing, but it definitely has an effect on my writing. Sometimes I'll look back here and ask myself when the hell I wrote something. Other times it'll be more a case of remembering writing a piece but truly wondering felt as adamantly as I claimed to have been during the writing. The depth of my feelings sometimes eludes me after the actual living through the feelings. In truth, my memory is a poor accountant.

That's how I felt when I was on the phone with Lucy tonight reading over the work I've done so far on The Carisa Meridian in preparation to continue my progress on it after a six year absence. It became readily apparent to both of us that there are a lot of threads left behind on this story that I don't quite know where to pick them up again. The biggest example of this is that I wrote myself a note for the next chapter, chapter fourteen, to "get back to the conversation with Mallory." First off, I told my friend, I don't remember what conversation I needed to reference. Secondly, and what's worse, I haven't the slightest clue who Mallory is, what her importance is to the story, and what her arc is supposed to be. That's pretty awful when one of your secondary characters has simply fallen off the face of your recollection. Plus, it makes me feel like I've been feloniously negligent in my hoarding my story ideas. I should've kept a better handle on everything have to do with this story because it simply is the best thing I've ever written. It would make me very sad to see it turn out less than stellar simply because I lacked the conviction to store every important detail or relevant plot point.

However, there are some feelings I'll never forget. There are some key ideas and themes that all it takes is a few pages to remember why I even bothered attempting writing a novel in the first place.

There are some passages that still have the power to literally make me cry on the phone, even after six years.

----

twelve - because he's leaving

About a year ago, while we were driving our son to a play date with one of his friends from preschool, Tierney asked me how come I never remembered Carisa’s death. She remarked that I had never taken any time off, never gone back to Kilburn, never even mentioned on which day exactly she died. Back then I had come up with some glib answer about how an eleven-year-old mind doesn’t process information in quite the same manner as an adult. I told her that to me it was more important to celebrate her life rather than her death. Then I turned the conversation back on her and asked her if she didn’t agree. We ended up talking about her father’s death more than about Carisa’s, which was a good thing because I don’t know how well I would have handled a full-blown discussion on that topic.

The truth is and shall forever be that I always remember the exact day in October she died—October 13th. Every year on that date instead of going to work I sneak off, without Tierney and without my son, back to where she is buried. Sometimes Emily comes, most times she doesn’t. I have asked her not to tell my wife I visit there. I don’t think Tierney would understand. Emily is the only one close enough to me to understand why exactly I handle my grief in such terms. It’s not that I don’t believe my wife would care. I know she would. The trouble is that she would only care about me; she wouldn’t honor Carisa. The day would stop being about the flaxen-haired love of my youth and more about how it affected to me. And, quite frankly, Carisa, and especially her death, deserves more respect than that. I love Tierney to bits and pieces, but she would miss the point.

The point is that Carisa never had the attention in her life. She was always so busy making sure people got along, people were happy, and that she could in some way be the catalyst for that. She was always so busy shining the spotlight on other people, making them into the superstar, that she never quite kept enough for herself. It wasn’t that she didn’t deserve it—she was outspoken and pretty, direct and honest. There were more than enough occasions where people couldn’t help but notice her. Yet she never called for attention and most of the attention she received was very negative. She was always being labeled as weird and crazy by people that did not know her, by people she so desperately wanted to be her friends. The truth was she was always a giver even to the last day she lived. She gave, and gave, and gave, and she didn’t stop giving until she saw that you were happy or, at the very least, some version of it. She lived to see others happy.

The point is that it would make a mockery of her life that she couldn’t get some of that attention spilled upon her now that she was dead. I made sure every time I came to visit her on October 13th that I made it all about her. I never have a prepared speech; I mostly wing it. But it has always ran along the same lines.

“Carisa, you were the one good thing in my life that I have no regrets about. About the only thing I regret is that I lost you so young before I could see you grow up into the absolute perfect, charming, and beautiful woman I knew you could have been. I miss you every day—sometimes more than I think is healthy for me. I miss you every day I see Emily with little Craig and even littler Heather. I think to myself that could have been us, that should have been us. You would have made the greatest mother and I think you should have been given that chance if there were any justice in the world."

And then I usually cry and I usually don’t stop until it’s evening. If Emily is there she knows well enough to leave me alone. I don’t want to be comforted. I don’t want to be told I’ll be okay. I want to be sad. I want to hurt. Hurting is how I know it’s real, hurting is how I know the feelings I had for Carisa were actually genuine, are actually sincere. My pain on those days cannot be talked away, cannot be hugged from existence. They exist because she existed and because we existed together for awhile.

Tierney would not understand this.

If I ever let her come the minute she saw me crying it would be the end of honoring Carisa. After that point she’d try to make it all about me. She wouldn’t understand making it about me would be akin to an unforgivable sin. Carisa deserves a day all to herself. After all, Tierney has me the other 364 days of the year. More to the point, my wife has had me ongoing for twelve years now. What did Carisa get with me? A lousy stinking four months, that’s what. I know everyone always says that you should be able to share in all things with your spouse and all that. And in most things I would agree. Even during our troubles right now there still isn’t another individual alive today I’d rather have accompany me to the movies, to surprise me at work, to generally flash me that bright smile of hers and just brighten my day. We may have our problems—none bigger than the we find ourselves currently in—but not wanting her around has never been one of them. I think it’s like one of those days where you cannot decide for the life of you where you want to eat. You narrow it down to two choices and both of them sound fantastic. That was my dilemma with Tierney and Carisa. It isn’t one of wanting one over the other; it is one of wanting them both and not being able to have both.

On that particular day, with our son in the backseat, I was able to deflect the question away from having to explain to her why I do not ask her to accompany me to my memorials. It is a question I don’t think I can sidetrack her from for very long. She is eventually going to figure out where I disappear once every October. Then she will want to come. Then she will feel hurt when I tell her she cannot. Then she may, or should I say probably will, get me to change my mind. I do not want to change my mind. I do not want somebody making me feel better.

Carisa made me feel better once upon time. Then she died. No one should be allowed to make me feel good again. That’s how I feel sometimes.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Cause I'm Not Scared, But I'd Like Some Extra Spare Time, I'm Not Scared, But The Bills Keep Changing Colors

--"Pictures of Success", Rilo Kiley

After working for three years and ten months at Fujitsu Ten Corporation of America my position was officially eliminated January 5th, 2010.

More precisely, the Eclipse division at Fujitsu Ten was folded, making my job non-existent.

My first thoughts as it was happening was how surprising it was. We had recently made a push to increase sales from the end of November till the December break. I was told we were making this move in an effort to drive up revenue so that we wouldn't have to fold the business. I also was quite alarmed that they would let go of so many people right after the holidays. I mean--getting fired is never something one expects unless one is totally inept at one's job, but the timing was kind of hinky since the break gave mostly everyone that there was some stability. At least that's the way it was for me. As the day wore on and as I was dragged through the various stages of learning where I would go from that point--unemployment briefings, receiving information about COBRA coverage, and signing all the various forms--the tone of the day started to change. Rather than getting more depressed or anxious, I started feeling the opposite. I started to see the value of the opportunity I was being given. In a sense the realization that there were a lot of baggage associated with my job that I would be getting rid started to dawn on me.

It's no secret that there were a lot of customers I simply did not like dealing with on a day-to-day basis at my job. Hell, there were a lot of co-workers in other departments that I did not like dealing with very much either. That was the first light at the end of the tunnel for me. Never having to hear their crass and often idiotic arguments almost makes up for the loss of gainful employment. Never having to play the office politics games, the bow and scraping that goes on in an office work environment such as ours, almost makes up for the loss of a sense of identity in this world. Lastly, never having to go to a place that always felt like a distraction almost makes up for the loss of direction that I'm currently in the beginning throes of.

Losing my job isn't my ideal way to begin the new year, but it isn't the nightmare that it sounds like from the outside.

I'm not scared right now. I thought I would be, but I'm not. I've been unemployed before in much worse scenarios. But between the sizable severance package I got and, hopefully, unemployment I should be able to subsist for more than a few months. It isn't cool that I just bought a new car in the midst of this turmoil, but having the new car also means that I have the wherewithal to actually go to all those job interviews I'm trying to line up. It also means now I have the time and the vehicle to just get away from it all for a couple of days or a week maybe if I really wanted to. I'm having all those sorts of thoughts about what I should be doing now that I have the time--all the books I want to read, places I want to visit, the people I want to see, &c... It's like all those ideas I had locked away when I simply didn't have the hours in the day to achieve have all been uncovered again. And now it's time to catch up on some of those promises.

Chief among those promises would be the promise of writing again. Aside from my occasional musings here, having a full-time job had sapped all will to get anything done writing wise. I would come home and just vege out on the couch because I had just spent day parked in front of a computer. The last thing I wanted to do was park myself in front of another computer and try to compose something imaginative. It sapped all of my spirit in getting excited about projects. I kept procrastinating doing something about all those story ideas I had had floating around my head all day at work.

But no longer. Now is the time to get cracking on those stories again. Now is the time to limber up those creative muscles, to turn the spigot and get those writing juices flowing again. I'm a writer damn it and it's about time I remembered that, damn it all.

In that vein I shall once again be taking up the pen and placing it to paper on a project I once called The Carisa Meridian. I feel really bad that it's taken me over five years now to get it done. And now that I have nothing to do really but focus on my writing again, getting it done will be what I shall endeavor to do first. There's gold in there. It may not be the finest piece of literature ever written and it may not be the great America novel--not by a long shot--but just re-reading it today, I can honestly say it's the best thing I've ever written. There are characters there that I spent a long time crafting. There are ideas there that I forget I was capable of expressing. There's a whole lot of time, sweat, and energy there that translates to something decent and good insofar as I'm capable of creating something decent and good.

I've been lackadaisical in my approach to writing these last few years, concentrating on shorter pieces and letting my edge dull a bit as I wrote line after line about stuff that really didn't fire me up. Just rereading the first ten pages of my novel, my baby, has made me recall what a better writer I am when I'm actually caught up in something that excites me. It's made me remember how ignited the words can be when they're fueled by something approximating true passion. It's like a whole other activity. I might be writing here, but when I'm in the zone like I am with my novel, it's like I'm not even consciously doing anything. The words and thoughts are literally pouring out of me. If anything, I'm doing all I can to stem the flow in a distinguishable manner just so it doesn't come spilling out all over the place. When I'm writing here I'm creating something, sure. But when I'm writing something grand like Carisa, it's more like I'm guiding something miraculous home. I'm not doing anything but helping the real beauty, the real genius find its way back to where it belongs.

I need to finish this novel before I find another job. I don't know when I'll have another opportunity like this one to just bring something that good completely to life.

I would consider it a great shame if I just allowed it to stay in the state it's in now.

Yes, I'll be looking for work in the mean time and, yes, I know in the scope of things that's where my focus should be. But finding a job or having a job will always be what occupies my time. It'll always be just a means to an end.

Writing is what I really do. Writing is what I really am.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers

Disappearing Out Of Sight Along The Open Road, Into Indistinct Horizons I Had No Time To Reload

--"Lights Are Changing", The Bevis Frond

Well, I've got my new car finally. I've named her Haley after the residents of Reno, Nevada and Macon, Georgia--that and I think Haley has a nice ring to it. From what little (or not so little since I've already managed to log two hundred miles in a little over thirty-six hours with her) I've driven around it's become apparent what I've been missing all these years driving my mom's old Camry.

I miss long road trips. I miss the days of when I used to be able to drive up and down Southern California without a care to gas or time or distance. I miss the days when I didn't worry about my car conking out for whatever reason because it was old. Frankly, I just miss the idea of being able to set out from home and just driving around with people or by myself--not to get anywhere specific, but simply because the whole night was free and it just seemed a good time to drive. I don't know--I imagine in a former life I must have been some kind of sailor or frontier cowboy, because I've always had this innate wanderlust that I never seem to satiate. It manifests in weird ways too. While I have no inclination to leave the country (because I don't want to get snacked on by carnivorous plants a la The Ruins or tortured by sadistic Eastern Europeans a la Hostel or plain because I don't trust the food anywhere outside of the U.S.) it's always been an unfulfilled dream of mine to take an honest-to-God cross country road trip. Finally, with Haley by my side (and maybe a few other of my friends) that dream may become a reality in a few more months down the road.

I was doing fine a year or two ago. I had resigned myself to the fact that the car I was driving simply did not have the wherewithal to go anywhere far. I cut out trips to Vegas like I used to. I cut out as many trips up and down PCH between Santa Monica and Oxnard like I used to. I even cut out going as far east as Palm Springs like I used to. Indeed, the only direction I allowed myself some wiggle room when it came to driving was heading south to see a few Rilo and/or Elected shows in San Diego.

Other than that, I was pretty much rooted within the same forty-mile radius I've had for the last five years.

But now it's like I'm back in the game. It's like I never left in the first place. For as long as this site has been in existence I've held my happy feet (happy steering hands and pedal-pressing feet?) in check, but now no longer. Now I'm back to thinking every trip is doable. I'm floating ideas of traveling up to visit my brother in Davis and checking out the Rockies playing in Denver and driving out to Phoenix just because I saw some decent reviews of restaurants out that direction. The possibilities are limitless. Well, maybe not limitless. I don't have yet have the gumption or time off to attempt a real cross-country adventure, but it sure looks like I'm headed in the direction. For me it's never been a problem of nerve; my impulsive qualities have always made any road trip quite likely. For me it's always been a problem of reliability. With that problem out of the way I'm back to thinking larger and larger when it comes to planning out my next route to take. With that problem out of the way I'm back to considering the open road a viable alternative to another boring weekend at home.

I guess that's the way I'm way with everything. I don't often stop to suss out the particulars or to try to find the faults in a plan. Once the large hurdle is out of the way I don't often see the smaller hurdles. And with Haley it's like the huge worry of what I would do if I broke down on my way out is put out of mind so I don't have to stop to see everything else that might derail me. I don't see the cost or the haphazard nature of my planning. I don't see the having to take the time off or what exactly I would do once I got to the place I finally settle upon as my destination. The only aspect I'm focused on is the trip itself. I'm really looking forward to the point in my life when I can tell someone about the time I (or we or however many people decide to go) drove to Denver or Phoenix or wherever I end up going. For me that's a large part of why I like traveling, the ability to tell people I went here or there just for the fuck of it. I like cultivating that reputation of someone who just conjures up a place to go and just goes. Much as Lucy revels in her notoriety for being someone who acts on first impressions, when it comes to meeting the unknown path head-on I too revel in the awe, admiration, and amusement of whatever audience I might be regaling with an anecdote at the time.

The way I see it I like traveling for two main reasons. It gives me a chance to see and sample places similar but a little bit different than where I live. I also like it because it gives me a chance to funnel my experiences back to people who might be less fortunate than I am. Yes, it is a form of attention-grabbing, but a harmless one at that. When friends like Jeff or Casey or Larnel ask me about every little detail of my latest trip to Boston or Louisville or Chicago, it fills me with pride that I can provide them with such information. It's like I'm their eyes and ears in the world at large. It's like I'm their avatar out in an alternative dimension they'll never be privy to.

Yes, I enjoy traveling for its own sake. I like how it gives me the opportunity to think about things when I'm traveling on my own. I like how it gives me the opportunity to get to know the important people in my life a little better when I'm traveling with others. I always feel like I've grown in so many ways when I come back from a long trip and often times the ways I've matures aren't always readily apparent.

But I also like traveling because it makes me feel like I'm connected with more of the world. I'm getting out there to places most of the people from Southern California have never thought of going. I've driven, flown, and otherwise trekked to cities that aren't exactly touristy hotspots. For every Chicago or Boston or Philadelphia I've been to, I've also made weeklong trips out of visiting Wheeling, West Virginia or Macon, Georgia or Westminster, Maryland. And at each stop I've taken back memories and experiences that I've shared with everyone I've known, everyone who would have never thought so much fun, so much culture, so much life could be had in the teeniest of towns.

Basically, from all my travels I've learned that there's adventure out there anywhere you go in this country.

Now with Haley as company it's about time I grab some more of my fair share of it at long last.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers