book notes #4

I decided to switch it up and begin working on my memoir instead of the novel I wrote for National Novel Writing Month.  I can't seem to focus on one project and stick with it until it's finished, which is making me pretty crazy.   I realized my free proof copy of my novel expires the 30th of this month so that motivated me to start writing again.  The thing is there's no way I'll have it ready by that time so I thought I'd dust off the old memoir and see if I could finish that and use my free copy to print that out instead of the novel.  As I was organizing the notes and chapters I had printed out, I realized how little I had accomplished over the past four-something years.  I have about 92 chapters planned out (don't worry, each chapter is only a page or two) but I had only made it to chapter twelve.  Four years for twelve chapters?  Whoosh.

So, I started working on the memoir again and pumped through several chapters in a couple of days.  I was making good progress.  But as I looked over my source material, I was dismayed to find that a lot of what I wrote back then does not reflect how I feel about those certain topics today.  That's not necessarily a bad thing as it has been many years ago and my opinion on certain things is bound to change, for better or worse.  The bad part about it is that it's hard for me to tap into those feelings so that I can express them in writing.  Because I don't really feel that way anymore, it's almost as if I'm reading a stranger's notes instead of my own.  I almost feel as if I have to go backward and experience certain events again from that old perspective so I can accurately document my head and heart positions at the time.  It's slowing the process down quite significantly and it's also hard to keep myself from injecting my new views in the mix.

I worry that once people read the book, they might get the impression that those feelings and beliefs and value systems are ones that I still hold today, thus misrepresenting me.  I suppose it wouldn't be so horrible because I did feel these things at one time so it's not as if it's false but I also feel I've moved past those certain ways of thinking.  Of course, they weren't necessarily bad ways of thinking.  They were just different.  But no matter what people will think of me, the book needs to be written.  It's something that I think will haunt me until I can sort it all out and write it all down.

My last problem is I don't think I'll finish the memoir, either.  At least, not in time to beat my free copy expiration.  I don't want to pass up that free proof copy so I don't know what to do.  Because I won't finish the memoir, I thought about switching back to the novel and just trying my best to polish it up before it was time to submit.  Of course, it wouldn't be the final version.  Just 'cause I had it printed doesn't mean the story would be set in stone.  I also entertained the idea of not even touching it and just submitting it the way it is now, rough but ready.  That way, I could say, "Hey, look what I accomplished in 30 days."  Then, once I am ready to revise, I'll have a good foundation to start from.

Whatever I decide to do, I'm probably going to be pretty busy for the next month in preparation for printing.  So, it's likely I won't write very much for the rest of this month.  Or maybe I will.  I guess it depends on how deeply something is affecting me.

I'm very excited to have a hard copy of my words.  Even if it's just one illegitimate copy.  I just need to experience that tactile tantalization.

christianitease

"I searched for God, No answer came
Just the victim of dying love
Take my sins away..."
-Aiden, ReEvolver

Sometimes, it feels like Christianity is nearly unattainable.  One of the biggest goals in the religion is to be Christ-like, which includes being kind to everyone, including friends, neighbors, even your enemies.  It's really all about being humble and showing love to everyone.  And for me, someone who pretty much dislikes people as a whole, someone who doesn't believe in love anymore, this is problematic.

I don't want to act like I've seen the worst humanity has to offer because I know that is not the case but I have seen a lot of rude and disrespectful people in my time.  Working in retail, I see it every single day.  I know it might sound silly to develop an opinion on mankind based on discourteous customers but it really does add up over time.  It all comes back to my paper cut concept, how small annoyances or missteps don't seem like a big deal when dealt with separately.  It's only when it all builds up within you, stacking sickness upon setbacks until it swells into insanity.  And in retail, you really see how selfish, rude, uneducated and unwashed people can be.  It doesn't help that my fellow employees are just about as bad as the customers.  And while one bad person can ruin my day, a collection of crass (and oftentimes crusty) customers can ruin my entire outlook.  It would be different if I had a rude interaction every once in a while but it is all day, every day.  I'm pretty sure that will wear on anyone after a while, no matter how cheerful they believe themselves to be.

Yet, God, and my employer, command that I be nice to these people, that I treat them with kindness and respect, although they ignore my greetings, destroy my perfectly folded shirts and berate me when they aren't given the type of discounts they believe they are entitled to.  And I am nice in the face of their fury.  But I don't like it.  I wish I could call people out on their nasty behavior, put them in their place and even give them a good smack, something to rattle them out of their rudeness.  But I can't and it probably wouldn't make a difference anyway.  All of this is coming after a tragic time in college where my perceptions of people were originally shattered.  Now, those broken perceptions are ground into my face daily.

It's hard to look an a-hole in the eye (no pun intended) and be generous.  Yet, that's what we are supposed to do.  But it's easier to be negative, to be rude and hateful and angry just like everyone else.  It almost feels natural.  And in a way, I suppose it is.  We all fall short of the glory of God.  We are all born sinners.  It is who we are.  As Christians, we are constantly told we are only worthy of hell and it is through God's grace that we are given the chance at heaven.  So, we are forced to go against the ungrateful grain and be gracious instead.  And through it all, Jesus promises to make it all better in another life.  Your human life will most likely always suck but your heavenly soul will find peace.

It's kind of strange because you're told to spend your life denying yourself and loving your enemy and although you may not find this lifestyle easy, you're working toward something beyond yourself, something incomprehensible and amazing and yet we will never know how amazing it will be.  That is, if we even earn our place in heaven.  Sure, you can say a prayer and give it all to God but is that enough?  We are never given a glimpse of that promised prize, never know if all our efforts will be worth it.  We are only told if we don't abide by the rules, we will only suffer more in hell.

On Earth, barely any thing is black and white.  Barely any one person is black and white.  Good people do bad things and bad people sometimes show mercy.  Yet, when it comes to your soul, it's pass or fail, stop or go, do or die.  It seems a bit harsh, doesn't it?  It's not even so much about being a good person as it is having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  But, a part of that relationship is being a good person so I think it still does play a big part in acceptance into heaven.  You can't be a curmudgeon Christian.  And you can't be an amiable atheist (of course you can but as far as heaven goes, it doesn't help your chances).  

I think it's easy to be a Christian when you don't face much adversity.  I have an acquaintance who is a strong Christian but she's also had it easy her entire life.  Obviously, she might have faced problems I'm not privy to but let's just say she has not.  It's pretty easy to have faith when you don't have to struggle for it.  And just to play devil's advocate (pun intended), I have another acquaintance who is a strong Christian but life has constantly crapped all over her.  So, I suppose it is possible to keep the faith while failing at life.  So, where does that leave me?  Pretty sure that means I'm just a selfish jerk.

It all feels like this big tease.  Life's cruelties are so easily dismissed as just the world we live in but God is waiting on the other side to sweep us up, dry our tears and set us in a warm bath called heaven.  God is so good.  God is so gracious.  God is loving.  God won't turn His back on the believers.  Yet, I've never experienced any of that goodness firsthand.  You could argue the fact that I'm not poor or out on the street as proof of God's goodness.  And I can see how you'd say that.  But what about free will?  Free will is also a big part of Christianity.  God loves us but if he forced us to love Him it wouldn't truly be love so He gave us the free will to choose or reject Him.  So, what if everything good in my life was a product of free will, the choices of others, random chance?  It seems pretty convenient that a lot of Christians pass off good fortune as God's blessing and misfortune as the consequences of free will.  And I think it's a cop out.

Feeling God's existence is something I've struggled with my entire life.  Even when I was at my Christian best, praying and reading/studying my Bible, going to church and sending out positive energy to the world, I always felt the same sadness scouring my insides as they always had.  And I prayed for salvation every night.  And although I went through the motions and tried to seek God sincerely, I never felt Him, never felt like He had entered my heart, never changed me.  I've heard that because I might not feel God the way others do doesn't mean He's not with me.  That's all nice and good but what if he's not with me?  I can't go through my life on an assumption, especially when my very soul is at risk.  I need some confirmation.

And then college happened and everything suddenly spiraled downward at an alarming pace.  I kept God close.  Maybe not close enough.  I graduated and came back home to no job, no money and no friends.  Some of the most important people in my life disappeared and I completely cracked under the weight of debt and failure, fell into an element of blank and died.  And yet I prayed and asked for God's help.  And, as always, nothing.  Finally, I gave up because I felt like it was a waste of time.  Of course, I understand God doesn't answer all prayers.  I understand God's not going to drop gold on my doorstep.  I understand that God will not make life perfect.  Please, I'm not that delusional.  Yet, I always hoped God would at least give me a sense of peace, a semblance of calm as a sign that everything would eventually work out.  I wasn't asking for the world, just a word, a gesture of encouragement, a feeling of being full instead of that incessant emptiness that has plagued all of my years.  I really just needed a "hey, you're gonna be okay, kid."  And I couldn't even get that much.

I'm only complaining.  I know that God still loves me.  I know I'm being selfish.  I know it's not His fault but mine.  I know I'm probably not trying hard enough, being persistent enough or having enough faith.  I can just hear all those stock Christian responses right now.  And I'm not saying they are wrong.  I'm just simply saying how I feel about things, how my life hasn't fit in with that Christian mold of prayers and peace.  I'm just saying that it shouldn't feel like it's that hard to talk to God, to ask for some peace.  Why does it feel like I'm constantly running through this obstacle course that continues to add pillars and pitfalls to postpone my progress?

At work, some people set up a church next door to my department.  The company I work for is separated by the rest of the mall by a giant glass sliding door. Is it just me or is a mall a weird place to have a church?  Not that there's anything wrong with that but I guess I just don't picture consumerism and Christianity jelling like that.  Anyway, we always close the mall door on Sundays because no other store in the mall is open (except now for the church).  During my most recent Sunday at work, I looked into the mall and saw the churchgoers outside, some going in, some coming out, others standing around and talking and smiling outside.  A teenage girl was swinging a younger girl around with her hands.  I could hear the muffled giggles.  And as I looked through the glass, I thought it was an appropriate scene, quite literally reflecting my spiritual struggle.  Here I was, miserable, put to work in a hopeless job and on the other side of me was that promise of peace, that vision of what I thought Christianity should look and feel like for me.  There was happiness there.  Community.  And there was a wall that separated me from it.  I could see it and hear it but I could not touch it.

I was closed off from it all.

shift

The longer I go without writing, the more my thoughts pile up in my head until I literally feel weighed down with worry.  The worst part is once I try to write some of what I'm feeling, everything is too tangled up to pull apart and put down.  It feels weird to go so long without writing, like I'm missing something from my routine, like I'm missing something from myself.  It's like not brushing my teeth for a week and then discovering I had no hand to do it with in the first place.

I feel like I've been busy although I'm not sure if it's legitimate business.  I've been reading a lot lately.  I even managed to tackle two books at once at one point, which is a pretty big accomplishment for me because I can't really multi-task when reading.  I'm a one book kind of guy, most of the time.  If I'm not, some of the characters start book jumping, along with situations, until I'm utterly confused, unable to tell one story from the other.  Plus, I can't read more than a few chapters of any book, no matter how interesting, without falling asleep.  You'd think this would be a good night-time routine but it doesn't necessarily work that way.  It only seems to happen in the middle of the day.  I'm on my bed reading and suddenly I'll wake up two hours on top of a drool-stained page.  People don't like to share their books with me.

I've also been trying to exercise more.  It's horrible I tell you.  I hate exercising and I always have.  Even when I was at my thinnest, I hated what I had to do to be that size.  I never felt those endorphins and never had more energy afterward.  And it sucks because I have to be incredibly consistent.  If I take one day off, it makes it all the harder to get going again the next day.  But, I've been trying and that's the first step.  I've collected quite the selection of exercise programs over the years and so I should have a good variety of workout routines to choose from without getting bored.  Right now I'm doing one of those walk five miles in your living room workouts.  It's pretty easy, which is a good thing.  I don't want to get too burned out too quickly.

The only other problem is my diet.  It's funny how I can do really well with dieting and then never exercise or be really good at exercising and then eat garbage.  I can't seem to find a good balance of both.  I know a big part of it is because my head and my heart just aren't in it.  I think at this point it's just easier for me to wallow in my sadness, to allow myself to be a slave to my gluttonous desires.  I can't seem to get my mind to focus on the larger picture, to realize that these small sacrifices should pay off in a big way later on.  I guess I'm so miserable that today is the big picture, that I am just barely scraping by, am just trying to get through one day at a time.  Kind of sad.

I feel I've been going through these turbulent shifts in awareness and ignorance lately.  All my shattered convictions come back from time to time, taped up and tender but ready to be received.  And I say, "Yes, I think I can believe in this again" but it never lasts too long.  Some days I feel God is good and other times I think He doesn't care and sometimes I struggle with whether He exists at all.  Some times I feel something good happening inside of me, as if my heart is showing signs of life again.  It shifts around inside me, hoping to find a comfortable place to beat and grow but those moments are fleeting.  I feel like I want to love but it seems so hard, so incomprehensible to my screwed up mind.  Maybe all I really want is a connection.

I still struggle with being an ex-vegetarian.  I've managed to make it a few days at a time without thinking about the harm I'm doing but it still comes up often.  It's weird because it seems like I shouldn't make such a big deal about it.  I think one of the reasons why it is is because it deals with food, which has always been a big deal and the other reason is when I found my Christianity crumbling, vegetarianism was almost like a substitute for me.  It was something to believe in, something I could feel good about being involved in.  It was comforting in some ways, made me feel like I belonged to something, that I was doing something for the greater good.  If my views on food weren't so screwed up, and if I wasn't so fat and vain, I'd probably go back.

Am I the only one who feels haunted by people?  And I don't mean former lovers.  I mean just everyday people that come and go from your life.  It's not that these people weren't special to me but it's not like I had this incredibly deep connection with them.  Okay, maybe some of them I did but I can't seem to let them go or allow their memory to leave me in peace.  I still think about my rude ex-roommate and all the girls who left me for other guys (or other girls).  I always wonder what I did, what I said to make them just not care anymore.  And I wonder if they even realize the profound effect they've had on me, how they've shaped the way I see people and why they are the reason I don't think love can work with me.  All because they simply cut me off, these people that I thought would never leave me, people I thought were in my life like oxygen.  But they are the reason I don't breathe.

I used to be one of those people who never understood others who swore off love because of a few bad relationships.  "How dumb," I'd say.  "Just because one or two people hurt you doesn't mean you should close off all potential love in the future."  But, now I think I get it a little bit better.  Sometimes it's a deliberate attempt at shielding yourself and other times it's just a subconscious bout of self-preservation.  And as for me, I don't feel so much like I'm trying to protect myself as much as I just feel too exhausted to deal with it all, the way people can be so flaky and moody, the back and forth of jokes and jeers, the constant dance of building up and tearing down each other.  Uh, human interactions.  How do you all do it?

I think the only love I have left is in my imagination.  In fact, I'm falling in love with a fantasy that will never actually happen.  And you know what?  I'm okay with it.  I don't know whether that is comforting or devastating.

ana-sthetic

Raising my shirt above my nipples, I inspected my torso in the bathroom lights.  Seeing the swooping shadows slice across my skin always made me smile.  It meant progress.  It meant the fat was melting away and allowing my ribs to show through the pallid skin.

Every morning, after peeing, I'd raise my shirt and check on my shrinking frame.  It felt good to see those ribs.  It didn't feel good to diet or exercise but it was nice when my pants fit, when my chest was flatter, when I could run my hand down my stomach to smooth out my shirt and could feel the cool metal of my belt buckle without the lump of fat resting on top.

It was a struggle to not eat my favorite foods, denying myself sweets, getting up and exercising, waiting, wondering when that promised energy was going to kick in.  It was difficult, frustrating and exhausting.  Yet, the presence of the bones helped me get through another hungry day.  I loved food but I loved the feeling of being thinner as well.  I think, although I love food and thinness equally, I disliked myself, thus the food always won out.  Because I didn't like myself, I didn't take care of myself, didn't discipline myself, let myself go in more ways than just the physical.

One of the reasons I was able to lose weight was because I felt I was doing it for something.  I had a goal, some kind of image in my head of what I wanted to look like and how it would benefit me.  When I was in high school, I always had a fantasy that I would transform myself over the summer and come back and be different, thinner, better.  I didn't want to be known only as the fat could who could draw.  I wanted my peers to see me in a way they hadn't before, see me as someone who was desirable, handsome.  Approachable.  And the summer before my senior year, I did it.  And I was noticed.  And it felt good.  But, I still had a long way to go. 

Community college rolled around and I began to look to the future once more.  I knew where I wanted to pursue further education and I once again went on a diet and exercise kick, losing more weight than I did in high school and becoming the thinnest I had ever been in ten or so years.  I did it because I was preparing myself for real college, preparing myself for people and projects.  I knew college would be such a huge transition filled with enough pressures and I didn't want my physical appearance to be a hindrance to the large amounts of socializing I was planning on doing.

I was thin and felt good by the time I got to SCAD.  I slipped up during the first quarter, falling victim to the clichéd freshmen fifteen but I was back on track after winter break.  I kept myself accountable and started vlogging about my weight loss and checked my ribs every morning in the mirror.  I weighed myself every week.  I went to the gym with my roommates.  I had class and three different projects to work on at any given time so there wasn't much time to eat.  There was even a time when I severely restricted my food intake.  I didn't exactly starve myself but I was pretty close to it.  It didn't disturb me, though, because I felt good at the end of the day.  Yeah, I was hungry and tired but I felt I had finally managed some kind of mental control over myself.

And then I graduated and came back home and let myself go again.  With Mom's Southern cooking and no more classes or a job, I sat at home and managed to undo all the years of hard work, slowly swelling back to my high school hugeness.

Of course, it wasn't apparent to me how large I was getting as I sat around all day in elastic sleep pants.  It only became obvious when I tried to actually go out and do something and put on jeans and couldn't button them.  How could I get so big so fast without even noticing?  I stopped vlogging, stopped weighing, stopped lifting my shirt in front of the mirror.  I lost all accountability.  I also discovered Ben & Jerry's brownie cheesecake ice cream, so that didn't help matters.

I've lost and gained weight so many times now that it all seems like this large smear in my memory.  I can't differentiate days from doughnuts.  And I find myself at the bottom, yet again, looking up that long ladder of weight loss and wondering if I can make that climb one more time.  I'm not sure if I can.

Of course, not having a job wasn't the reason why I gained the weight back.  Well, not directly.  I mean, it was the reason I gained weight but not because I was bored.  It was because I was depressed.  College turned out to be a giant wreck of three years.  And with no job and all that time to reflect on my tumultuous time there, I ate to cope.  Despite all efforts over the years to control my eating habits and exercise regularly, I never learned to eat for nutrition instead of filling a void.  When it came to food, I suppressed the physical act of eating and completely ignored the emotional baggage that made me binge.

And for months now I've been saying I'm going to lose the weight again, that I'm going to go through that arduous weight loss journey once more.  But, I haven't because I know it's hard.  I've been there before and knowing how difficult it is makes it all the harder to get started.  It's difficult to learn how to deal with my feelings through methods other than food.  Nothing I've tried seems as satisfying.  Admittedly, I haven't tried very hard. 

But you know what's not hard?  Pizza, pasta, cookies, sweet stuff.  Cheese.  Bread.  Starches and carbs.  It's comforting.  It's my anesthetic against the everyday external conflicts and incessant internal torture.  And I know it's temporary and ultimately more damaging but sometimes I'm so hurt and angry that I just want to stop the pain in that moment and I don't care how I do it.  Fix it now, figure it out later.  Just stop the pain.  Just get rid of the sadness.  I'll deal with the consequences another time.  But, I don't.  I deal with the consequences with more food.  With inactivity.  With hating myself just a little bit more.  Instead of wanting to put out the pain, I should have just sucked it up and dealt with it.  I guess a little hurt never killed anyone but what if you're already dead?  I think it hits me harder.  I also think I'm incredibly weak and give in to way too much way too soon.

I need something else.  I need someone to care.  I need to care about myself.  I need to know that I am worth working on.  That I am not stuck in mediocrity.  I need to climb out of my festering funk.   It's easy to fall, to let your problems snowball, to just go with gravity.  It's hard to stop mid-fall.  It's as simple as catching yourself but when you don't have any hands or feet you just continue to tumble.

I'd like to one day be able to see my ribs again.  Not break them with bad habits.

water cooler crumbling

As if work doesn't suck enough, all the good people are leaving and moving on to better jobs.  Some of the bad people are, too.

One of my favorite coworkers called me last Sunday and told me she's turned in her notice.  She found a job pertaining to her degree so it's definitely a good thing.  For her.  I mean, I do want to be happy for her and the grain of non-selfishness within me is happy for her but it sucks that I'll be losing someone I enjoy working with.  So many people who work there are negative and manipulative and she wasn't about any of that.  She clocked in, did her job, no b.s., and left.  She was also just a good girl in general.  And I'll probably never see her again.

It seems the trend with me and girls is they'll communicate with me for as long as we are placed in a certain situation together, such as work or school.  I met a lot of great girls in college and as soon as our classes together were over, I didn't hear much from them again.  Same with when they'd get a boyfriend/husband.  The husband thing I can understand a bit more but it just kind of sucks because I always think we have a good thing going and then I find out it wasn't good enough for them to hold on to me.

On the other end of the coworker spectrum, one of my least favorite coworkers also found a job.  Once again, I'm conflicted.  As much as I should be happy to be rid of her (and believe me, it is a relief), the circumstances surrounding her departure are less than savory.  Not only was she one of the most worthless employees I've ever had the misfortune of encountering, she also wasn't that great of a person.  Well, she comes bouncing into work one day saying she found a manager position at another job.  After I shat myself, the jealousy kicked in.  She obviously lied during her interview.  Like, I'm not joking when I say she was a raging loser at her job.  Even the managers knew she was useless and expressed that often.  So, for her to get a manager position at another job over me is a real kick in the nuts.

It's not even so much that she got a better job than me but that she just isn't deserving of one and I feel like I am.  I work my butt off everyday and it's thankless and exhausting and stagnant.  Where's my opportunity to grow, to gain new experience and a raise?  I know I'm sounding bratty and selfish and that life isn't fair.  I've heard it a million times but it still sucks and I just have to express how I feel about it.  It's hard enough filling out application after application and getting my hopes up that this will finally be the chance to break away from retail hell and then I never hear anything not even an interview, and yet this chick who never did anything and never had any responsibilities (because no one trusted her) weasels her way through and now she's happy and I have to witness it.  Heck, I've gotten associate of the month twice and associate of the year and I've only been there eight months.  That's got to say something about my work ethic but I guess no one seems to see that.

And she will be replaced by more mediocre workers.  And my favorite coworker will be as well because quality people like her don't stay here in this area.  They move on to bigger and better things as soon as they can.  The rest is just trash and our company sweeps them right into the doors, slaps a name badge on them and let's them loose on the public.  And I guess that makes me a little trashy, too, since I'm also here.  Although I did try.  I did to to college.  Even did well at it.  But grades don't matter when it's content and creativity employers want to see.  Things I don't possess anymore.  But, I gave it a good shot.  So maybe I'm not so much trashy as just a little bit unpolished.

I see so many high school and college students treat the job like it's unimportant.  And maybe to them it is.  It's even unimportant to me but I don't treat it like that.  Yeah, I hate this job but I also have a responsibility to do a good job.  People rely on me.  And I try to do every job to the best of my ability, no matter how invested I may or may not be in it.  But these kids just swoop through and don't take it seriously and it's frustrating because I have to pick up their slack but I'm also quite jealous because they can be so laid back about it all.  For them, this job is just pocket money until they go to college or until they finish college and get a good job.  It doesn't matter if they don't do a great job because they don't plan on being there too long anyway.  I don't have that luxury.  I have student loans.  I have other bills.  And I can't screw around and risk losing my job.  I can't be care-free.  I was raised to take jobs seriously so it does come natural to me but I also don't have a choice like the rest of them. 

Size, straighten, colorize.  Watch as customers destroy a stack of shirts.  Clean up after them.  Watch it happen again.  Ask every customer if they want to fill out for a credit card.  Ask them for their e-mail address at the end of the transaction.  Ask them for their zip code.  Tell them about our survey and beg them to rate us a five so the district manager will be happy.  Offer to order something for them if they can't find it in the store.  Even if they do find it in the store, mention we can order anything in the store in multiple sizes and colors anyway (and when we do try to order something for them, it is usually out of stock online as well as in the store).  Size, straighten, colorize again.  Watch as more customers ruin an hour of straightening in three minutes.  Check fitting rooms every thirty minutes.  Get change for coworkers.  Size.  Greet every customer in your department.  Create conversation with them.  Straighten.  Just offer.  Colorize.  Help the other departments straighten their stuff.  Call a manager for help if you have more than three people in line.  They show up ten minutes later after you've checked everyone out and squeezed as much personal information from them as possible.  Offer them magazine subscriptions at the end of the transaction.  On their receipt, highlight how much they've saved.  Colorize again.  Straighten again.  Measure clueless people for dress shirts.  Watch as they unpin and unbutton dress shirt after dress shirt, try them on, decide they don't want them.  Fold and pin them back.  Straighten.  Don't forget to greet and smile.  Return clothes even if they reek of smoke or are stained.  Return even if their receipt is expired or they don't have one.  Return anything because the customer cannot be unhappy.  Show them it is okay to be irresponsible as we'll take care of them anyway.  Be nice to them and show them they can take advantage of us and knock down a stack of shirts because no one will stop them.  And the new thing is we are encouraged to say, "It was a pleasure serving you today."  Some higher up got that trick from Chick-fil-A because customers were apparently more satisfied when they were told it was a pleasure to be served.  As if putting up with their crap wasn't demeaning enough, we know have to let them know how much of a pleasure it was to endure their halitosis and ignorance.  Gosh, the company is taking tips from a fast food joint now.  We're doing so well.  Size again.  Straighten again.  Put up with bad attitudes and body odor.  Feel like crying.  Feel like screaming.  Feel like killing.  Go home.  Do it again the next day.  And somewhere in there, try not to lose your mind.  Good luck with that.

And now, I don't even have anyone good to work with anymore.  So, it's just going to get worse.

book notes #3

I finished writing my novel last Friday night.  Because I had the day off, I dedicating it to finishing.  I will admit that I probably rushed it a little bit but that's what the second draft is for, eh?

It feels good to know I wrote a book.  It's bittersweet, though.  Anyone can write a book.  Not too many people can write a good one.  Am I one of the good ones?  I suppose time will tell.  For now, all I can do is try to make it as good as I can within my....uh, I hesitate to say...talents.  I think one of the reasons it's taken me so long to write this book and even more so, what's taken me so long to write my memoir, is because I am absolutely terrified that I suck.  It's one thing to sit back and wish that I could be a great writer and animator and overall a great artist but it's another to actually produce a work and put it out there and bomb.  It almost feels safer to wish for future admiration rather than go out and really try for it and fail.  Because what happens when I fail?  Where do I go from there?

I know I have low self-esteem and maybe I don't see how...talented (there's that icky word again) I am but in all honesty, I don't necessarily think it's my low self-esteem at work here.  I just genuinely don't think I'm great.  Maybe I'm not the worst writer in the world.  But, I'm not amazing and for me, if I'm not amazing, what's the point of even trying?  There's so much garbage in the world and just about as much mediocre work clogging up people's heads and I don't really want to add to the junk pile.  Then again, not everything has to be amazing to be influential.  Or maybe I'm just a bad judge of good art.  But art is subjective.  Can you see how complex this whole thing is for me?

I just come across random blogs sometimes and I see how so many people are so much better than me and I think to myself, "These people deserve to have a book out.  Not me."  But, I really enjoy writing.  And if I like it, why shouldn't I continue?  And if someone else likes it, why shouldn't I share it with others?  I guess it goes back to the fear of rejection.  But, people will criticize anyone.  Because art is subjective.  Not everyone is going to like the same piece.

I also hesitate to work on it too hard because I don't want to put so much of myself into the project only for it to utterly fail and cause me to never write another word again.  I know that seems extreme but so are my emotions.  It would just seem like a huge waste to dedicate so much of my time and then I won't sell but three copies.

I started printing out the novel so I could begin editing it but ran out of ink halfway through.  I thought I had an extra ink cartridge but it turns out it was color ink and not black.  It kind of irritated me because I had it all set up and everything but now I'll have to wait until I can get some more ink sometime next week.  I guess it doesn't even matter all that much since I'm going to now focus on fleshing out the characters instead of working on the actual content of the book.  Because I wrote the whole thing in a rush, I don't think I was able to make anyone three dimensional...or believable...or even likable.  That's kind of a big deal to have good, likable characters.

Then, I have to get into plot and dialogue and weave in the twist that I have at the end of the story.  Plus, my closing is kind of weak so I need to work on that.  I have a lot to do.  I'd love to post snippets of the story but because everything is so rough right now, I'd rather wait until it's a bit more polished.

It has come to my attention that I might not have even provided a basic synopsis for the story.  I really thought that I had but I guess I have not.  It's a pretty basic premise.  A guy named Chris and his girlfriend named Jenny are attending a Zombie walk when Chris is bitten by one of the attendees.  At first he and his girlfriend shrug it off as an overzealous zombie fan but then Chris starts getting sick.  As his health rapidly declines, he begins to think he was bitten by a real zombie.  And there you have it.  I didn't want to go too far over my head so I kept it simple with two main characters and their situation.  I figured since this was my first foray into novel-writing, I shouldn't include too many characters or interlocking stories because then I'd just be setting myself up for a big mess and most likely a big failure.

I just need some talent.  And motivation.  And Ritalin.

the man who killed me

You know how you always hear about the people who are haunted by those they've murdered?

It doesn't work that way.  It's actually the opposite.

When you wrap the rope around someone's neck, you aren't only tying off their air but tying yourself to them.  Think of a celebrity who has been killed and you'll know their killer.  Think of the store clerk shot by the robber.  Think of the children cut up by their classmate.  The slain become slaves, tethered to their torturers, yanked by the neck and forced to follow the ones in control of the rope.  Your killer will stay with you like a footprint in your soul.

When I died, a piece of him went straight to hell with me.  A voice trapped in my ear, a memory locked in my mind, a touch tucked under my skin, forever bubbling up and seeping through every pore and part of me.  Killing me over and over.  Breaking and mending and shattering and tending.  My eternal punishment.  An inescapable escalation of pain and humility, scarred along my body, navigating the wounds to find an impossible solution.  The bruising, the petechiae, the shattered glass of innocence lodged into my chest and arms.

He did so much harm and still does.  Time has tackled the worst of it but he still manages to come through clearly on certain days.  The rope is slacked, never severed, and I can still feel its pull.  He still manages to sting.  Yet he is untouchable.  I was rendered a ghost of bone but he is the indelible demon, intangible and translucent.  God-like, deaf and unwavering in decision and deed.  Stealing my life while robust in his own.  Ending me over and over, my sinew, soul and spirit crumbling forever under the weight of his hand, his tongue, his indifference.

Sometimes my hell is presented as a two-way mirror.  I sit and watch, locked down and languid, my eyes pried open as he grooms himself for hurting, corrupting the clean, bashing his brethren, seducing saints, all the while enjoying the spoils of the world.  He combs the teeth from his hair, washes the blood from his skin.  He fingers the strings of his guitar, floating up a melody of melancholy, a soundtrack to my suffering.  I see him wag his tongue and smile his small-toothed smile.  Through the glass, I can see what he's done to me, to others.  I can see him.

But he only sees himself.

book notes #2

I wrote 5,538 words yesterday.  It's about twice as much as I've ever written in a day.  I'm pretty proud of myself.  Of course, it did take all day.  I wrote a little bit, watched television, ate, surfed the web, wrote some more, and then repeated the process until falling asleep. 

Because I have been off this weekend, I suppose I haven't been so stressed out and that has allowed me to have a clear mind to write.  That's another reason I hate my job.  It's so mind numbing and all consuming that even when my shift is over, all that residual anger and frustration and fatigue comes home with me and all I want to do is go to sleep, but I don't go to sleep because the faster I go to sleep, the faster I'll be back at work.  I need a bigger buffer zone than that.  But since I'm too tired to write, I just sit around and do nothing productive.  I hate that I'm that way but I can't think of a better solution so I just kind of coast for now.

It seems that I can write until I hit some sort of wall with the story.  I'm kind of trying to let the story tell itself without putting too many restrictions on the direction, therefore the story is going its own way and that often leads to bumps in the road.  Depending on how much energy I have or if I'm thinking clearly, I can overcome those obstacles rather easily or I'll step away from the writing and not come back until a week or two later.  I think the combination of work and hitting one of those rough patches made me hesitant to get back into the swing of things.  In fact, that's why this whole process has taken so long.  I managed to write a little over 50,000 words just in the month of November last year and since then it's taken me 4 months to write a little over 28,000 words.  That's not very good.  I think if only I could have continued at that pace, I'd be done writing and well into editing by now.  I suppose I shouldn't beat myself up about it too much.  It is my first book and I am battling outside factors.  Just the fact that I'm working on this thing almost consistently is a good sign.  I think I'm pretty close to finishing the story and it's taken less than a year.  Way better than the memoir that I've been putting off for years now.

As I said, the story seems to be shaping itself and I like that.  I feel uncomfortable trying to change too much.  It's almost as if maybe my subconscious needs to tell the story a certain way so I'm kind of letting it take the reigns.  I feel like if I get too involved, it might muck it all up and it won't be as good as it would be had I just let it all happen.  Plus, so far I'm pleased with the way things have happened.  I'll be writing and suddenly I'll think, "Hey, this is the point where this needs to happen."  And then it does and it opens up wonderful new avenues for the characters to travel and it all feels very organic and natural and I like it like that..  It's actually kind of fun to see how the story unfolds as I write it instead of having this rigid outline that I have to strictly follow.

I was hoping to be super close to finishing by this weekend.  I was going to write every day this week and try to come close to the conclusion by tonight.  Well, I didn't even start until yesterday so I'm way behind but I think I wrote just about as much in that one day as I would have over the week so it's kind of worked out.  I just hope that today is as productive as yesterday was.

My only real problem now, and this is a minor one, is I have no idea what to name the book.  And that's really weird because I am usually really good at coming up with titles for the stuff I write.  In fact, I'll come up with a title in my head and then base what I write around the title.  I guess I'm a title first kind of guy.  I'm not saying I'm great at titles but I think I am.  I remember my nonfiction writing professor in college didn't like any of my essays' titles.  He said they were too cutesy.  I would agree with him but I like cutesy so it works for me. 

It is bothering me, though.  I'd like to think that maybe something will happen in the story that I can pluck a title from.  I love it when I read a book with a sort of obscure title that you're not sure how it relates to the book but then toward the middle or end of the book the title comes up in a character's dialogue with another or it comes from a memory or an observation and suddenly it all comes together and makes sense. I love that.  I hope I can recreate that. 

This is so lame.  The tentative title is Decay.  I will not be sticking with that if I can help it.  I feel like it's hard to name a zombie book without stepping on the toes of every other zombie book title out there.  Anything to do with rotting or deterioration has pretty much already been taken.  And let's not get started on how many ...of the Dead titles there are.  Plus, there's no zip to my title.  There's nothing to hook the reader into reading it or buying it.  Decay?  Where's the creativity?  It's kind of frustrating because I'm normally so good at coming up with titles but this one is really escaping me.

There's also a part of me that wants to discuss the book but at the same time that would spoil some of the surprises that pop up throughout the story.  I'd also like someone to read a rough draft just to give me pointers but I don't want to ruin anything for anyone.  In a perfect world, the story would be perfect and ready for everyone to read and enjoy without having to point out my (probably numerous) missteps.  But, I really do think I need some outside help.  This is my first book and my first foray into the world of large-scale fiction so I'm probably making a nice mess of things without even realizing it.  Sure, I've written short stories but there's a world of difference between short stories and novels.  I think I'll try to push the story as far as I can until I feel like it's decent enough to show and hopefully whoever reads it will still be entertained, even if they are proofing it for me. 

mile-an-hour mind

You know how driving long distances can make you exhausted?  You're not physically doing much, just working your hands and a leg, but you are so aware of your surroundings, concentrating on road signs and landmarks, that by the end of your trip you can feel mentally mowed down.  I know when I drove the eight hours to and from college, it took me nearly three days to recover.

Well, this is how my mind feels all the time, with or without a speedometer.

I'm always focusing on something, always wrangling my thoughts, fighting the urge to be pulled in one thousand different locations, unfolding my brain like a map to cover so much ground, making notes and scribbling directions so fast and furious that I write holes into the paper as I burn rubber with my regrets, constantly creasing until the paper crumbles.

My job isn't physically demanding but the stress is emotionally overwhelming.  My living conditions are not detrimental to my body but my spirituality is stressing my heart.  I never do anything yet I'm always tired.  I know my parents think I'm lazy, and maybe they are right because I will admit there's a slice of sloth in me, but mostly I'm just exhausted.  That's why I think I'm not artistic anymore.  It seems the older I get, the more disturbed I become.  And the more disturbed I become, the less creative I am.  I'm too preoccupied to push myself as an artist and a writer, preoccupied with everything ranging from garbage that doesn't matter to larger than life issues I cannot control, things that should not take so much of me away from myself, things that I should have let go a long time ago but can't for whatever reason.

My mind is racing at one hundred miles an hour but my life feels stuck in first gear.  And I have to wonder, when will my mind stop wandering?  When will I find a rest stop for my cerebrum?  I need a place where I can relax and release the tension, a space where I can be still and take in the scenery.  When will it end?  Where will it end?  Will I reach my destination?  Will my head eventually just run out of gas as I run myself into the ground or will I crash and burn and finally shift into shambles?

(sk)intact

Those Proactiv commercials really piss me off. 

I've had problems with my skin ever since I was around twelve.  I know this isn't anything new or shocking as most people go through a pockmarked pubescence to some degree or another, but the bad skin wasn't just a side effect of physical maturation.  It lingered.  It was trapped in my clogged pores, presenting itself in clusters of pimples, blackheads and under the skin bumps.

Because of my pimplesplosions, I had to take a crash course in skincare.  I have tried almost every single product you can find at the drugstore and none of them have provided very good results.  Some even made my skin worse (thank you Neutrogena Acne Wash).  On top of the pimples, my skin was dry, irritated and flaky around my mouth while my forehead remained an oil slick.  I naively went in trusting that these products would clear up my skin as they claimed they would.  When it got worse, I realized something was amiss.  So, I tried to go the more natural route.  I tried those home remedies as well, including salt scrubs and egg white facials.  I've put more lemon on my face than you can shake a tart 'n tangy stick at.  While tasty, the results were less than satisfying.  I went online and researched acne and how you should take care of oily skin.  Some said alcohol would dry it up.  Some said alcohol would make it worse.  Some say you should moisturize oily skin.  Some say you should not.  I even researched ingredients and realized a lot of ingredients in drugstore products are cheap and they suck.

And yes, I've even tried Proactiv.  Thrice.  I honestly can't remember the first time I used it.  I just know I returned it.  I don't think it made my acne worse but I don't think it really helped, either.  It was just kind of...there.  I also tried Murad and that stuff didn't work, either.  Even if it did, I remember one of the products in the line smelling horrid and I thought I wouldn't be able to use it even if it did clear up my skin.  I finally had to resort to Accutane to get my acne under control.  Those were the best months of my life, skin-wise.  Not only did my acne completely clear up, it got rid of my blackheads and banished all facial shine.  My skin was finally perfect.

Then, the Accutane messed up my liver and I had to stop taking it before I finished up my round of treatment.  Screw my liver, my skin was glowing.  But, I suppose doctors have to care about that kind of stuff so they took me off it.  Several months later, my skin still looked good.  But, the oil eventually returned and then the blackheads and then the pimples.  I always wonder if I would have finished my treatment if I could have permanently rid myself of the blemishes.  There are days I would kill to get a hold of those controversially effective pills, liver be darned.

Of course, the acne wasn't as severe as it was pre-Accutane.  Just a pimple here or there or even a small cluster of zits.  Nothing too terribly serious but it was enough to bother me.  At one time, my skin had been so horrible and then it cleared up so beautifully and I just hated to see it go back to it's former grossness.  Because of that, I developed a slight obsession with getting my complexion creamy again.  Those brainwashing Proactiv commercials were really playing on my insecurities and I caved and ordered it a second time.  I thought, "Hey, maybe it didn't help because my skin was so severe but now that it's mostly under control, this stuff will take care of the occasional bump."

It didn't.  I returned it again.  So, I started anew and went back to the drugstore.  And back to researching.

It's all hugely annoying, really.  You try to do find products with good ingredients only to run into claims from one company that says a certain ingredient is amazing for the skin while another says it is horrible, such as mineral oil, petroleum, menthol and parabens.  Of course, one company could just be saying someone else's products are horrible just so you'll buy their stuff.  For the longest time, I tried to avoid products that contained ingredients that were thought to be harmful in some way.  Let me tell you, almost every product contained one or more of those harmful ingredients.  That left my selection extremely limited.  Eventually, I got over most of those claims after I decided that certain ingredients probably weren't as bad as once claimed.  I guess you just have to really do your research and find out what you feel comfortable putting on your face.

So, when the drugstore stuff wasn't cutting it, I ventured into high-end skincare, spending exorbitant amounts of money on what ended up being the same crappy ingredients in prettier packaging.  I spent way too much time and money figuring out that high-end products either are just as bland as the stuff you can pick up at the supermarket or my skin really does suck and nothing, no matter how expensive or well formulated, will work for me.  I had to wonder, where did that leave me?  Here I am spending a student loan payment on grooming products when I could splash my face with some soap and water and come out with the same results.  It was stressful, which is funny because stress is correlated to breakouts.  I'm worrying about how to fix my skin and the worrying is just making matters worse.

It seemed no matter what I used, added, omitted or changed, nothing ever made too much of a difference.  Over the years, it seemed like my skin started to clear on its own.  Those small clusters of pimples turned into one or two.  But those one or two were still extremely annoying.  By no means do I have terrible skin, at least not in the eyes of others.  The annoying part is when one zit clears up, another takes it's place somewhere else on my face.  So, while I'm not a pizza face, I am usually sporting some kind of pimple or another at all times.  I'm sure a lot of people can deal with that.  I can't.  So, I continue to search for that one magical ingredient/product/combination of products that will give me that healthy glow I used to possess post-liver damaging medication.

And because of my rabid search for clear skin, I once again caved and bought Proactiv...for a third time.  It's crazy because I know the stuff isn't the miracle it's made itself out to be.  I used it twice with bland results and yet, those commercials are so captivating and positive and it really does make you believe that stuff will make your skin supermodel clear.  It's sad how they take advantage of people's low self-esteem and desperation.  I suppose every time I succumb to those annoyingly persistent commercials, I think to myself, "Well, it sounds good on paper.  Decent ingredients and it's actually cheaper than what I'm using now, so let's give it another shot."  And I did.  And I still don't like it.  I don't hate it.  Let me say that it's not terrible.  But, the first time I used it my skin felt like it was on fire.  That is pretty bad considering I'm all about putting acid on my face (salicylic and glycolic being my favorites), so my skin should be pretty resistant to powerful ingredients.  Not this stuff.  First of all, the scrub in the cleanser is way too rough.  It's supposed to be beads but it feels more like tree bark and chipped up razors.  I can't imagine anyone with bad acne getting any benefit from such a harsh scrub.  If anything, it would probably aggravate any blemishes on the skin.  The toner and lotion aren't that bad, though.  It is drying, however.  Like, really drying.  You have to slowly work your way into that three-step routine.

After two weeks, I realized I wasn't feeling the stuff.  If I can be honest, I really just wanted to try it again just to remember how it smelled and felt on my skin.  I suppose I was having product nostalgia.  One of the big things I have about products is how they smell and how they feel on my skin.  Another reason I don't care for drugstore products is because they smell so strongly.  They might not always smell bad but when you use a facial cleanser that you have on your face for approximately thirty seconds and then you end up smelling it on yourself at the end of the day, that's a problem.  That's why I prefer fragrance-free products, which are extremely rare at the drugstore.

Through years of trial and error, I found a group of products that I feel mostly good about.  They range from high-end to super cheap.  I've tried to put away the notion that expensive means better or that I have to use one single brand of products.  I found out the hard way that no one line of products are perfect.  No matter brand you use, there's usually a clunker or two to be found.  I've realized that I will probably always have problem skin and the best thing I can do is just take care of it using products that I really believe in, stuff that I feel won't exacerbate acne and might actually reverse past pimple damage.

But, I'm now facing a new problem: wrinkles.  Despite my age and the fact that I have oily skin (they say oilier folks wrinkle slower and less than dry people) and the fact that I'm never out in the sun, I'm starting to notice crow's feet and laugh lines.  Just my luck.  Once I control one skin problem, another pops up.  I suppose I'm destined to look haggard.  But, that doesn't mean I won't fight it tooth skin and nails.

I'm going to start saving up for Botox now.