Days of Futures Past

After aiding Chris with his girl problems our discussion somehow turned to my writing. I informed Chris that I currently have two unfinished novels sitting on my hard drive. He asked to read them, so I emailed him the files. Of course, after I sent the files, I immediately began to re-read them for myself. What I read both impressed me and troubled me at the same time.

The longer of the two unfinished works, Pair Bonding, is 94 pages of dense, elaborate, and dark storytelling. I haven't worked on it in earnest for almost a decade. The bulk of it was written during long nights at Waffle House through numerous periods of depression throughout my early 20s. It, along with the second novel, is a part of a time travel series based on a character I created during my junior year in high school.

The second novel, Lessons to Learn, is much more current. In fact, I originally came up with the story after my break up with Ex. I've only written 20 pages of it so far, though the goal, as with Pair Bonding, is to have between 200-250 pages at completion, as I've never been a fan of books longer than 300 pages in length. The tone of Lessons to Learn is far more hopeful and upbeat. Unfortunately, the writing, as a result, isn't at all as good as in the writing in Pair Bonding.

I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I've long observed that some of the best writing comes from depressed people. Authors like Edgar Allen Poe and Ernest Hemingway wrote literature which will be read for generations, all while being depressed alcoholics. And I've read psychological studies in recent years which point to a correlation between depression and hypersensitivity to minute details which could explain how depressed writers are able to paint such vivid pictures with words. So, does this mean that as long as I'm not depressed I'll never be able to write as well as I did when I was trying to escape my pain by withdrawing into my own creative universe?

Of course, that raises a whole other proposition. Is the loss of my best writing ability an equivalent exchange for improved self-efficacy, self-esteem, and overall happiness? I used to think that true happiness could only come from exploiting your natural talents to their fullest. Granted, I can be happy without writing, but there is something special which comes from knowing that people enjoy my work and having them offer validation of my talent.

Nowadays, validation, for me, comes in the form of good grades and new friendships. It's a validation of me as a whole person rather than simply a validation of a specific skill. And perhaps that is the way it should be, because it is too easy to pass my writing off as something separate from me as a person. I can say that writing is a "natural" talent as opposed to something that I am personally responsible for through my own deeds. But good grades and relationships are something which I have to cultivate with my own actions. And each new step is rewarded with a greater sense of personal achievement for which there is no equivalent exchange.

And let's face it... I'm still a pretty good writer!

Have fun and keep living life... and exploit your talents to the fullest!

Take a Picture... It'll Last Longer

I thought I would do something different today and post pictures of my day. All these were taken with my iPhone 3G's miniscule 2MP camera with no zoom feature, though they turned out surprisingly well. I've had an interest in photography for about six or seven years now, but I'm not a professional by any means. Still, I seem to have a knack for image composition and finding unusual ways to make the ordinary seem less ordinary. Hope you like the shots:

I chose to early vote today at a One Stop Voting location here in Raleigh. It was at the Pullen Arts Center and for some reason I was in a very "look at the ground and the sky" sort of mood today. It was a little gray all day, so I really liked the flat uniform lighting that everything had. I like taking pictures on gray days because you don't have to worry about compensating for shadows or harsh reflections. This photo seems to need no explanation about what it is.

I was just walking along the sidewalk down to the Arts Center when I passed this drainage cover. I was a bit shocked to notice what seemed like the most ornate drainage cover I could ever remember seeing in a sidewalk. I'm sure people thought I was crazy, but I had to stand there and stare at it for at least a minute before I decided to take the picture. Why would someone go to so much trouble to sculpt a drainage cover? A better question might be why don't more people go to that much trouble to craft ordinary things in their own lives?

Like I said, it was a gray day. Though, just before sundown, I caught some blue glimpsing itself past the crowd of gray puffs and wisps, and dancing across the edges with just enough sunlight to make for what I thought was a beautiful composition. Unfortunately, a photograph can't fully do justice to the moment which felt like getting lost in the realism of a planetarium exhibit as I cast my gaze straight up into the heavens. I do wonder what people think of me as I stop and stare at things that most people just make cursory notice of before moving about their lives.

I'm not exactly sure what it was that caught my attention about this large handicapped parking space. Something about the natural lighting at sunset made the blue paint take on an almost electric quality, even though it was constantly interrupted by cracks and blotches of oil. I started to ponder whether or not the badly weathered state of the area caused the parking space itself to be handicapped irrespective of its legal designation. Plus, I liked the juxtaposition of the brilliant blue, a reminder of how new it once was, with the deep pits and cracks of age.

And, finally, I end my day at the Waffle House, as is often my way, saddled up to the counter, finishing my meal off with a glass of sweet iced tea and a chocolate chip waffle as the blog of the days events scratches itself into my small notebook from the tip of my ball point pen.

Have fun, and keep living life...but don't forget to stop and look at it from time to time!

Baptism by Rain and Bacon

I haven't been sleeping well lately. There's no real reason. My mind just doesn't want to shut off. Seeing as how most Americans don't get enough sleep I'm guessing you can sympathize. I downloaded one of those neutral noise programs for my iPhone called White Noise. It doesn't have as many sounds to choose from as some of the other programs, but it was free so I'm not complaining.

The best noise of the program is its rain setting. Since this is a basic program you can't adjust the intensity of the rain, but I'm still impressed with the realism of the steady downpour that rumbles from my 3G's diminutive speaker. It's difficult to be bombarded by a barrage of mental diarrhea when you're laying contemplatively on your back as you meditate on the obligatory mental image of the rapid splash splosh of uncountable drops causing the surface of a puddle to dance and shimmer with light.

Of course, as I write this I'm at Waffle House again on a hectic and dramatic Friday night at 3 AM, where the sizzle skittle of an unending order of bacon on the grill is doing a good job of bringing my thoughts to singularity. Like the sound of rain, if I can just manage to focus enough to hear the bacon over the cacophonous crowd and the discordant clashing of plates and utensils, bacon is consistent, steady, dependable; it washes over my senses and cleanses me, at least for a moment, of the sins of intellectual dissertation which blockade my calm.

So, perhaps, instead of prescribing warm milk to curb those disabling episodes of insomnia you should fry up some bacon. Just make sure you're wearing something protective because you'll never sleep with 3rd degree burns on your sensitive areas!

Have fun, and keep living life... or some approximation thereof!

Another Night at Waffle House

I can't begin to estimate how much money I've spent, late at night with nothing better to do, eating and hanging out at the Waffle House. If you aren't from the South, you probably don't know what the hell a Waffle House is, so I'll describe it. You know how you always want something meaty, greasy, unhealthy, but downright delicious after you've just spent the last few hours getting sweaty and drunk at a nightclub on Friday or Saturday night? Well, that's pretty much why Waffle House exists. It's one of those places that hasn't changed a bit in 20 or 30 years so you know exactly what to expect as soon as you pull your car into the parking lot.

Over the last 15 years, I've come to Waffle House an average of once a week, although in my early days I would come about 3 times a week. Back then, I would bring a small, thick notebook with me in which I would write a few pages of story material for a novel each night. For some reason, the drunks who would plop themselves at the bar next to me would always want to know what I was writing and if it involved the Waffle House or them. Of course, why the hell wouldn't I let this strange, inebriated, barely coherent person be the star of my novel? At the time, I just wanted to be left alone, so I would tell them no and ignore them while they continued to slosh through a one sided conversation about how you could tell alot of stories about the stuff that goes on at the Waffle House.

The thing is, the drunks were right. I think that's why I love the place. In my quest to get my life back on track I've discovered that one of the most important things about being a Lifer is to try and live your life with passion and commitment. There's plenty of passion at Waffle House on a daily basis. And there's plenty of people who should probably be committed (rimshot). Every night that you are there you see people enjoying themselves. They eat, they talk, they laugh, they hold hands, they act as though Waffle House, and the people that work there, are a part of their family. It doesn't matter who is working behind the counter, if you've been to Waffle House more than once, those people ARE a part of your family. You grew up there, you lived life there, and you learned important lessons. And if you eventually learned what a patty melt plate, smothered, covered, chunked, triple scramble on the side is, well that's an added bonus!

Have fun, and keep living life... or some approximation thereof!