i am not a guy who generally knows right away what i want. i would say i am laid-back, nothing taken too seriously–you know, like that. other people might say that i can’t make a decision to save my life, or not to leave anything up to me–you know, something like that.
anyone that has ever asked me what i want for christmas or my birthday knows that my response is always “i don’t know, whatever.” and it’s not the kind of answer that actually means, “i’m playing it coy and sweet, but in reality you’d better already know what i want and have bought it, or boy will i be hurt,” it’s the kind that means, “i really can’t think of anything, so seriously, i would rather tell you what i want than risk getting something i don’t, but i really have no damn clue.” so if you want help from me, too bad, buddy.
so my hat goes off to b., who not only knew exactly what i wanted, but was able to pull it off without me having anything even remotely resembling a cue about it.
when she asked me last month if i wanted a party, my response was,”who would come?” it wasn’t a self-pitying response but a practical one; the truth is, i haven’t made tons of friends here yet. so i thought trying to organize something might end up a little…disappointing.
so when the surprise party was sprung, with people from all over the country (and even one guy from mexico–gracias, samuel!) all coming here to austin to wish me the best, my mind was pretty much blown.
it was, i realize now, exactly what i wanted for my birthday.
it’s a special thing when you get what you needed most before you even know what it was you needed. it’s a powerful feeling, knowing that you are loved when you never even asked to be told.
i have a house here. a great girlfriend with a great job. four dogs. i go to school here.
i have a life in austin.
it’s nice to know that the people that don’t live here in austin are still a part of it.
when i had moved to new york, i had always thought, “i want to work on a woody allen film.”
i had a few crappy jobs–student films, spec commercials, low-budget movies that would never see the light of day–but nothing that could be called the fulfillment of the dream. a kid actor i met on a student film actually did have a part on a woody allen movie, and he called me from the set one day when they were shooting in my part of town. i went there, met the kid, met the film loader (who basically told me to get in the union or no one could help me), and went home again. that was as close as i got to ever working or woody.
i did work as a camera p.a. on a pilot for a series that went national for a short time before being cancelled. there were billboards, there were commercials. that was something, i figured. so when i moved to l.a., i felt like i had come close to meeting my goal.
similarly, when i moved to l.a., i set a goal: i would work on buffy the vampire slayer. it was a show my roommate in brooklyn had introduced me to, and i was in love with it, and wanted to be a part of it.
three years later, working on a kid’s show for the disney channel (also nationally televised, so nothing to sneeze at), i worked with a girl who often worked on buffy. i was in awe of her. she was just like, not older or smarter, or anything. just like me–except she had worked for buffy.
she knew i loved the show, and one day when she was working with us, she told me this: “hey, i’m supposed to work for them tomorrow, but i don’t want to do it. they’re working with snakes, and that freaks me out. do you want to swap jobs for the day?”
my heart leapt. my heart flip flopped. my heart could not stop beating ten times the normal speed. i got sweaty and nervous.
and i said no.
i told her i was scared of snakes too, that i was needed here…a litany of excuses.a ll of them untrue.
in that moment, i decided i didn’t want to risk it. i didn’t want to go in there and fail. i wanted buffy to be a happy place, and i was terrified that i would go in there and screw up, that everyone would hate me, and forever after that, i would watch the show, and go “i worked there once. they hated me.”
also, i thought once i met the actors, saw the stuntmen, etc., i would never enjoy the show in the same way again. which was also valid.
do i regret never working there? sometimes. i set a goal and i chickened out. but the goal was arbitrary, and the pleasure i received (and still receive) from that show is much greater than any one day of work would have been.
is there a moral to this? chase your dreams? don’t set your goals so high? reach for the stars? be careful what you wish for? yeah, maybe all of those.
or maybe i just want to remember how close i got. that i could have gotten there if i’d wanted to.
as i go out and i look for work, maybe i am inspired that i can do anything i want. i just have to be sure that i really want it.
school’s out for summer, as alice cooper once said. so in honor of that (or at least until i have a good “correspondence summer school” story):
it was spanish class. our assignment: we were handed a xeroxed photo of someone and told to write a personal ad for that person.i had a pretty blond girl, and wrote how she wanted to graduate and be a veterinarian, was looking for something not too serious, etc. no big deal. we were told to turn them in, and take someone else’s. we were given highlighters and told to “grade them”–to catch errors and correct them, signing our name at the bottom in case they had questions.
now, it’s a class of about thirty people, and i would say i know all their faces, but i would NOT say that i know all of their names. so the owner of the paper i picked up was not known to me at that time, though i saw his name.
i started to grade. i caught a few small mistakes, and then i noticed that all the pronouns were male: “i’m looking a for a guy who, he should be…” and i knew on the front was a picture of a man. so i corrected all them. it was, after all, a simple mistake, something many students in the class might have done by accident. i corrected every pronoun, changing it from “he” to “she.” it was just as i finished grading the paper that i realized whose paper i had.
flash back to week three in class. an oral exercise talking about our ideal partner. our teacher went around the room asking, “what would your ideal partner be like?” she asked the girls about boys, and the boys about girls. when she got to this one guy, he said (in spanish,of course), “i don’t like girls. i like boys.” our teacher had handled it smoothly, saying, “ok, then what kind of boy do you like?” and we had gone on without a hitch.
except for me thinking what an unusual way to come out to your class–in spanish.
so here i was, almost done grading the paper, changing all the “he”s to “she’s” when i realized i was grading that guy’s paper. and chances were, he meant to write a personal ad for a guy looking for a guy. and what was wrong with that?
i saw my error, but there was nothing i could do. my corrections were in fluorescent pink. how could i cover my lack of acceptance, my closed-minded and chauvinistic assumptions? there was nothing to be done. i wrote “ignore gender corrections” and never made eye contact with him again.
for the rest of the semester.
dear weather;
i have been meaning to write you for some time. i appreciate that things are changing, and that mankind just seems to be to blame, and all, but i mean really, could we pick some sort of “climate” type consistency and just be one thing for a while? the rain, and then the cold, and then the hot, and then the rain–it’s frustrating, is what it is. i keep pulling out my shorts, and then i have to dig past them to get to my ong pants again. could we just, you know, pick one and stick with it? i’m ready for summer now, if that sways you one direction or the other.
dear my car;
i understand that you’re a machine, and you just do what you’re made to do, but really, who ever heard of a door that won’t latch? i am the only person i have ever heard of that had to bungee my door closed while i drove. i mean, could i be white trashier?
trying to fix the door myself ended up being even more expensive (“don’t touch it ever again,” the mechanic told me when i eventually brought it in) and somehow i couldn’t open it anymore, entering and exiting like one of the duke boys (getting out=much more awkward than getting in. can’t remember if they ever showed that on t.v.)
anyway, that was not a great time to make me spend that money.i appreciate the running all the time, and everything, but man, couldn’t you have timed it a little better?
dear ibook;
i know you’re old, and you’ve hit the ground a couple of times when my foot was tangled in the power cord, and that we’ve sort of been on borrowed time fora while, but man, did you pick a bad time to finally die once and for all. i had a paper due, and you know i can’t type well on the desktop keyboard for some reason! not to mention the cost of a new laptop. you think i’m made of money? you know i don’t have a job, right? i just have to say, ibook, you hurt me with that parting blow. i will miss you as i play with my (shiny! clean!) new macbook, and i will shake my head as i pay off that credit card debt you made me take on. we’ll always have those years together, but ouch, man. you know?
dear time;
i just wanted to thank you for being who (what?) you are. i know we all curse you sometimes (i’ll be 34 in a couple of weeks, and i probably won’t be as generous to you then), but when i am studying for tests and stressed about them, and feeling overextended by all the deadlines and papers and such, it’s nice to be able to stop and think to myself, “by this time tomorrow (or next week, or whatever) i will be able to relax. no matter how i do on the test/paper, it will all be over by then.” so,though it’s not always my favorite thing that you never stop or take a break, or even slow down a bit, i appreciate knowing that you will never let me down when the bad stuff is going on too. “this, too, shall pass.” word,
dear the price of gas;
i hate you. why are you mean?!? cut us all some slack and leave us alone!
dear lindsey lohan;
i know things are hard for you, being so rich and (moderately) successful, and that everyone has drugs around all the time, and tells you that you’re superawesome, and you think you can do anything. i know it’s hard to remember this, but i think it’s really important to try and imagine what you look like to the rest of the world when everyone sees you with your pinky up your nose just a couple of weeks after rehab. i’m trying to be there for you, linds. cut it out. straighten up and fly right. the world needs you.
p.s. linds– can you believe the price of gas!?
