On the eve of 39

Age is just a number, they say.
You're only as old as you feel, they say.

I have always been a little bit blessed to neither look, nor feel, (or in all honesty, act) my age.  Although I do confess I'm slowing down a bit.  Those things they say are true.  With a certain degree of relativity.  As is the case with all things time related.

There are also certain expectations within our western culture regarding people who are late thirties, pushing forty.  I've met none of them.

There is nothing really remarkable about 39.  Its only real significance is that it's almost 40.  That's the real big one now isn't it.  I still have a year before I have to deal with that particular mental hurdle.

On December 23, 1973, I came naked, screaming, and bloody into this world.  It was very early in the morning, during a blizzard in Spokane, WA.  My parents lived there only because my father had found work up there.  My father had grown up a farm boy in Wyoming, and it was less than a year after my birth that he would take his new family back there to stay.

I was a Christmas baby.  I came home from the hospital three days after my birth in a large stocking and a little elf hat.  I still have the stocking and hat.  I do not however have a picture of myself wearing them.  Shame.  So instead, here's a picture of me holding a football.

I have a shit ton (thank you Deena for putting that phrase back in my head tonight) of baby pics, growing up pics, pics of all sorts of adventures of my early life.  I do not however have a pic of me in a stocking and elf hat.  I wish I did.  I'd probably think it was adorable.

I've been going back through my photo albums of when I was a kid.  Reliving my own life memories, and being often amazed at how fresh some of those memories feel.  Events that happened decades ago, are so easily replayable in my mind.  Yet, I have a hard time remembering most of yesterday.  Time does funny tricks to the brain.  I guess it picks and chooses for me the things I'll need to remember.  I'm pretty okay with that.

Also going through my pictures I see a lot of people that are now in the earth, instead of on it.  People who in the grand scheme of things, made no significant mark, and in my own personal scheme of things, well, made all the difference in the world.

I have been a lot of places.  I have done a lot of things.  I have met some amazing people.

I have been married.  I have been divorced.  I have been in and out of both long and short term relationships.  I have had friends that have moved me so deeply there is no way to express how I will forever feel about them.  I have had mentors, and teachers.  Influences of both good and bad.  I have learned and forgotten, and learned again.  I've laughed with rock stars.  I've joked with Academy award winning directors.  I've shared cigarettes with TV actors, and flirted with starlets.  I've bumped fists with professional athletes.  I've talked shop with professional comedians.

I have no money.
I have no car.
I have no career.
I have no home to call my own.
I have absolutely NO complaints.

I have lived a helluva life.

I've been on stage.  I've killed on stage.  I've been killed on stage.  I've kissed, and dreamed, and fought on stage.  I've been naked on stage, and worn elaborate costumes.  I've been silent on stage.  I've screamed and cried, and every night reborn on stage.  I've lived a thousand lives under bright lights, and can only hope for a thousand more.  This actors life has consumed me since I first discovered it at the tender age of 5.  I have lived, and will die, a theatrician through and through.

And so, after so much time spent looking back, it seems that now, on the eve of my 39th, I should look forward also.  I do have a bucket list.  Certain things I would like to experience before I die.  I present here now, my before 40 list.  Things that I have a mere three hundred and sixty six days to accomplish.  I give this list in no particular order of importance, or desire for achievement...simply laid out on digital paper for your perusal...if you want.

1) WRITE
 I am first and foremost an actor.  This is how I choose to define myself.  This was the answer I always gave as a child when presented the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?".  This is the answer I still give when complete strangers present the question, "What do you do?"  I'm actually very proud of that.  It gives absolutely no indication of financial success, stability, achievement, or security...which is always the REAL question people are asking, when they ask "What do you do?", but it's what I do.  It's what I always wanted to do...and I do it.  To me, that is the real mark of success.
There does remain however that little problem of actually needing money to survive.  Odds of me finding any type of financial security being a professional actor are probably 1 in 1 with a whole lotta zeroes after it.  Statistically speaking, the odds of me finding similar financial security as a writer, are probably nearly the same.  1 in 1 with a whole lotta zeros after it.  Here is the real problem I've discovered.  I am not cut out for any type of corporate world job.  Even though the odds of me gaining financial security as an actor or a writer are...what's the cliche...astronomical?  I honestly think that the odds of me finding financial security as a corporate cog 9-5er are even MORE astronomical.  That's a simple truth that has taken me FAR too many years to realize.  I don't really have any true marketable skills.  I can memorize lines, and I can put words together...but there is nothing I'm really good at that serves as a working part of a corporate machine.  So I may as well pursue something I really love to do.  I want to give the writing game a chance.  I really do.  I have a number of friends who every November are able to put together 80000-100000 words in only a month.  I figure with 11 extra months to try, I should be able to come up with something.
This is the goal that is going to take the most amount of mental discipline.  No one is going to make me do this.  If I am lucky enough to find success with it, it will truly be MY success.  Only I can cause it to happen. Only I can make myself sit down and write each day.  So...here's to the next year.

2) HAVE "THE GOOD KIND" OF THREESOME.
I know it's trite, but it's my list so suck it.  I've done the "bad" kind already.  Truth be told it wasn't that bad at all.  In fact it was a pretty enjoyable experience for all involved.  All that Hollywood bullshit you see about awkward next mornings, and weird dynamics that come as an unfortunate consequence, is just so much morality preaching.  It was, in reality just another really fun thing that friends did, and became a good memory with nothing but smiles for everybody later.  Of course that's only my experience...probably different for everybody.
Here's another little truth.  I don't anticipate the "good" kind being all it's cracked up to be.  I'm not good with attention.  I've also had WAY too many years to build it up in my head.  Come on now, nothing can live up to that kind of anticipation.
Now you'd think with my incredibly sexually open attitude, and some degree of experience, (I've done a LOT of stuff) this is something that I would have had already...but nope.  It isn't.  And quite frankly that's the only reason it's on the list, so I can cross it off the list.  I know it's like the ultimate male fantasy, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't among a few of mine...but really it's here...only because it would be something new for me.
It's also something I've discovered that can't really be planned.  I've discovered this because it HAS been planned...and didn't happen.  It's been discussed.  It's been arranged.  It's happened on paper...but alas.  Also...to my knowledge, I don't know anybody...or the right anybody's...or the people I knew at one time, are at a different place in there life now...either emotionally, or geographically.  Life moves us all wherever it will, and so it goes.
So being something I can't plan, and being in a place where other participants are pretty much non-existent, this is the one on the list that I have little to no control over actually making happen, outside of prostitution, and although I have no moral qualm with this, (in fact I'm all for it), that's just not the way it goes in my fantasy.
So this is the one on my list, that I actually anticipate will still be on the list at the end of the year.  Regardless, it's on the list.  So...here's to the next year.

3) QUIT SMOKING
I talk about this one a LOT.  I've tried it a few times.  I'm going to keep trying.  Now that I'm insured, it's one of the first things I'm going to take care of when the new year rolls around.  I intend with full purpose to get pharmaceutical help...whatever it may be.  I simply don't want to enter my 4th decade a smoker.  This is the one that will take the most physical/mental combined effort discipline.  It is going to suck dog balls.  I know that already.  I apologize in advance to anyone who may have to deal with me when I am quitting.  I'll in all likelihood become a whiny little bitch.  I'll become snarky.  I'll hate everything in the world except boobs on some days.  I will want to throw, and break, and destroy beautiful things.  I will want to punch kittens.  I will want to angry fuck every living breathing thing.  I will also get my taste back.  My smell back.  My breath back.  Some amount of my bank account back.  Much of my life back.  The reward is greater than the loss.  It's something I think is worth fighting for...and I do believe it will be a fight.  So...here's to the next year.

4)TONE UP
Last year on my birthday I weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 210 pounds.  I made a goal then that by my next birthday I would be back to a weight more suited to my personal aesthetic.  By June I was down to about 160, and I have maintained that since.  Now though...I'm soft and lumpy.  I am thinner, but I have no definable shape.  I'm simply a big pile of walking soft spots.  I have neither the time, nor the financial means to actually join a gym, so I'm going to have to do this the old fashioned pushup/situp sort of way.  Perhaps even take up running, and on the occasions I can make it to a rec center...swimming.  I really want to put a little bit of definition on my body.  Looking at the pile of goo in the mirror is getting as old as looking at the rolling cushions did a year ago.  I know this one is going to take a lot of physical and mental discipline as well.  Oh well.  No one ever said self improvement would be easy.
Now I really wish that I had had the forethought to take before/progress/after pics of the weight loss process.  I didn't.  If I had I would post them here just to display the difference of how I was to how I am.  Instead, here's a picture of me in a hoody, smoking a cigarette.

Hey I said I was GOING to quit smoking.  I didn't say I already had.  Since I didn't have any forethought on before/after pics with weight loss, I'm at least thinking that direction with toning up.  Gotta figure out a way to digitally document that progress.  I think that may actually help me stick to it.  So...here's to the next year.

4) MAKE IT TO 40
I know that seems like a weird one, but people my own age, and even younger keep dropping dead.  This is a goal I only have so much control over, but it's one I'm taking with a certain amount of seriousness.  I have no particular fear of death, but I sure as shit don't have any desire for it.  Even if I am lucky, disciplined, and smart enough to accomplish everything on my Before 40 list, it's only the tiniest percentage of what's on my actual bucket list.
I have led a wonderful life so far.  Although it's true that no matter how bad it is, it can always get worse...it also stands to reason that it can always get better.  I have had in my 38 trips around the sun, some pretty amazing experiences.  I can only imagine how many more are possible.  I'm going to do everything in my power to find out.  I'm going to do everything I have control over, to live as long as it takes to find out.  Yes it all comes with the price of aging, and physical pain, and emotional pain, and frustration, and loss, and all sorts of horrible things...but for me...all of that...is the tiniest price to pay for all the good stuff.  I'm selfish I guess, but I want to keep having the good stuff.  So...here's to the next year.

I have been lucky enough to love.
I have been, to my astonishment, even more lucky to have been loved.
I have been able to do what I love.
To continue to be able to, still always amazes me.
I will always be the explorer.
I will always be the observer.
I will always learn all the things I want to know.
I will always seek the answers to my own questions.
38 amazing years have taught me so goddamn much.
38 amazing years have given me so goddamn much.
You.
Yes you.
Are part of life's gift to me. So...

Here's to the next year.

I wonder what color your eyes are.

I absolutely revel in my own superficiality.  I practically advertise it.  In nearly every public forum, I've taken great care to highlight, manifest, and to some degree even invent a caricature of myself.  Private messages, this blog, or one on one conversation are really the only places that I crack it open a bit, and let something a little more real out.

In public I just can't do that.  I have no interest in the real me being on display.

Oh I don't care about my body.

Or my face.

Or my most superficial thoughts, fantasies, jokes, or platitudes.

Anybody can have those.

I'm talking about the real shit.

The stuff I truly care about.

The stuff that has meaning to me.

I'm an actor for fucks sake. I'm never me when other people are looking.  This is intentional.  I don't wear a mask, I wear a full fucking costume of myself.  I do this with full knowledge and intent.  

Yes I'm hiding.

No I'm not afraid.

I think it's my greatest egotistical trick.  I'm not afraid of being judged...

I've already cast judgement.

This is not to say I can't, or won't open up.  I have.  I will.  I would love to if I haven't.

Just not publicly.

Facebook, twitter, G+,  any of it...all of it...

If it's public...it's only my facsimile.

My shadow.

My most shallow.

Here though.  Here is just a bit different.  Here I let some things slip through the cracks.  It's still not much...but it's a helluva lot more.

Since I'm curious...

Since I know that most, if not all of you reading this also have a FB account...

Since I understand that the first basic rule of psychology is projecting ourselves onto our counterparts...

I wonder how many of you are the same.

How much of you am I NOT getting, because we only ever communicate through a social media website.

Don't get me wrong...I'm glad that we do.  Some of you I wouldn't know at all if it wasn't for such places...but

but

but

I'm selfish.

I'm curious

I'm interested

I'm interested in you.

I want more of you.

I want to glance for just a moment behind your mask.

I want to look under your costume.

I want to know all the things that you're hiding...

...just like I am.

I think we really need to sit down and chat someday.

Face to face.

Look each other in the eyes.

Touch hands.

Hear the sound of each others voice.

Hear words....instead of read them.

Hear laughter...instead of read LOL.

Come to a realization together...at the same time...without waiting for a response or reply.

Please don't think that I'm jumping on the bandwagon of disparaging social media...I absolutely LOVE the digital world.  I truly do.

But it does offer easy escape.

It is it's own false virtue.

We far too easily allow digital contact to replace human contact.

I'm a little bit curious to know what honesty feels like again.

Who knows...I may hate it.

But probably not.

My only response...

There is so much hate lately.   I don't deal with that very well.  I used to.  I used to thrive on it.  I've mellowed out in my past few years.

A couple months ago a friend of mine commented that he missed my fire.  It's true.  I used to be much more fiery than I am now.  I burned with a different kind of passion.  I was for lack of a better word, a complete asshole.  My wit was quick, and my tongue was quicker.

I'd be the first to jump into any debate, with biting sarcasm, and no shortage of vitriol, lightly infused with pointed humor.  I was a young prick with an opinion...on everything.

I no longer take joy in any of that.  The fight is still for the young pricks with opinions I think.  Oh its, all still in me.  I still have the thoughts, I simply choose not to vocalize them much anymore.  I find it doesn't really contribute much to the desired outcome...which for me is a few laughs and good conversation.

So now instead of jumping into the fray, I typically withdraw.  I move away.  I just spent so very many years involved in, and a lot of times contributing to the negativity.  I'm tired.  I no longer have the desire for the fight.  Now I want to be involved in things more personally meaningful.

Events of the last week have instead of inspiring us to love more...have inspired us to fight more.  We are aflame with dissent.  We all have our opinions now, and for the love of god we must shout them from every rooftop and corner.  There is a whole lot of talking at, and pretty much no talking to.  Everybody has a solution.  Everybody has an answer...but the problem is...to all the wrong questions.

So without the fire, or the vitriol, or the acerbic humor...here's my opinion.

And yes...its simply that.  My opinion.  I'm not making an attempt to come to a solution.  I'm not offering answers.  I'm simply stating my feelings.  If you agree...cool.  If you disagree...cool.  I hope we can still be friends.  I say that only because I've recently seen so many friendships dissolve over nothing more than differing opinions.  So without further preamble, amble or ramble...here goes.

I live in a world, where at any given moment, in any given place, in any imagined scenario, time, or location, a person can walk up behind me and shoot me in the head.  There is no gun law that currently exists, has ever existed, or will ever exist that will make this less true.

Please don't immediately assume the above statement is a reflection on how I personally feel about gun laws. It is not.  I'm actually not ever in this blog going to address my stance on that.

I'm simply stating a particular truism.  The laws in and of themselves don't make a difference.  Just as speed limits, drug, prostitution, or ANY law, ultimately makes ANY difference, to the person who is already going to break that law.  However, I'm going off point.

I also live in a world where I can be stabbed, drugged, beaten, taken, hell...even eaten.  I can be hit by a bus, I'm often ALMOST hit by cars.  Being a pedestrian in Salt Lake City is no game for the fearful.

I live in a world, where being shot is on a daily basis, no matter where I am, a very real possibility.
I live in a world of violence.
If I had lived 1000 years ago,
I would still have lived in a world of violence.
I have a feeling that unless our emotional and intellectual evolution takes a very serious turn, that its safe to say that if I were to live 500 years from now, I would live in a world of violence.  We all like to think that perhaps it will be different, but there is absolutely no historical evidence in 10000 years of human history to suggest that it will be.

For all of our claims of progress and civilization, we are pretty much still separated into tribes swinging sticks at each other.  We just have bigger words, more powerful weapons, and the ability to write shit down.

We are taught to fear.  We are taught this through media.  Film.  Television.  Politicians.  News reports.  And most unfortunately...through experience.  We learn that we, and even more frightening, our children, are vulnerable.  This makes us afraid.  This makes us angry.  This makes us jerk our knees, and ultimately make the worst decisions possible.

For example...The U.S.S. Patriot Act.  The TSA.  Homeland Security.  Guantanimo.  Wars.  Police States.  More and more and more government control and interference.

Again you may think I have revealed my personal feelings regarding gun control laws.  I assure you, I have not.  Nor will I.  That is not what this is about, and I actually have no interest in starting that conversation.

I've stated before...but I might as well again, I made a very personal decision many years ago that I would personally no longer make any fear based decision.  I may in the case of random bear attack make a fear based action...but I will never in a moment of contemplation, let fear motivate my decisions.

There is no law that cannot be broken.
There is no amount of government provided security, that actually makes us more secure.
There is no amount of regulated safety, that actually makes us safe.
The appearance of safety and security, are not actual safety and security.

If somebody wants me dead badly enough, and they are lucky enough, I will be dead.
Every single moment I am alive, There exists within a range of probability the fact that the next moment I will not be.

I have accepted this as a simple truism of my existence, and I live very comfortably with that knowledge.

I do not, nor do I pretend to have any answer on a large social scale.  I do however have an answer that works for me on a very personal one.

Instead of fear, and fear based decisions...

...I choose love.

Every damn time.

I choose fun.
I choose laughter.
I choose to share joy, and sorrow, triumph, and tragedy with those I am lucky enough to share those things with.
I will hug.
I will sing.
I will joke.
I will cry.
I will be hurt.
I will ease hurt where I can.
I will talk.
I will listen.
I will laugh.
Oh god I will laugh.

And I will love.

Every damn time.

I cannot change the world. I'm pretty sure you won't either.  But I can change MY world.  I can create my world every morning.

This is not delusion.
This is my life without fear.

Once in the way of old tradition

So I haven't forgotten.  In fact for the past few nights I've actually written...just nothing of consequence.  I am a creature too easily trapped in my complacency.

I have moved over, but I have by no means moved in.  I look at all the unpacking I still have to do, and lose all interest in actually tackling it.  I will.  Eventually.  Til then its living out of boxes and bags...and really...I'm okay with that.  Until I'm not, then I'll change it.

My birthday is coming up.  Ten days.  I'll get more specific about that in a later blog.  Closer to the actual day.

People often commented to me about my birthday being so close to Christmas.  Most assumed that it must really suck.  To tell the truth...how would I know.  I've never known any different.  My mother though, saint that she is, made sure that always...my entire life...my birthday and Christmas were separate events.  She never made it seem like a burden that both those events were so close together.

Except for one thing.

And I never minded that one thing.  In fact...I always liked it.

Every year as a kid...on my birthday, we'd load up in the car...make the drive to SLC...and go look at the lights on Temple Square.  I really enjoyed that as a kid.

Earlier this year, I came to care about someone very much.  More than I was prepared for.  More than I cared to admit.  I was surprised by it at the time.  When I allow myself to relive all of it...well...I'm still rather surprised.  Sometimes I think the best way to learn about ourselves is simply to live.  And accept.

It was late in the summer, and we were talking.  I told her about my old family tradition of going to look at lights on my birthday.  We made a date then, that she and I would do it together this year.

Alas life.  It happens.  It gets in the way of all the best plans.  It continues to teach...if we let it.  If we accept it.  It also likes to make a giant cosmic fist and thrust it as far up the asshole as possible.  Sometimes just to watch us dance funny.  So that little birthday date became impossible.

I'm still going.  I will walk alone around the grounds of a religion I no longer subscribe to.  I will look at the facsimiles of a mythology I no longer believe.  I will listen to music that every single other day of the year, drives me batshit crazy.  I will carry with me memories, wishes, and the ghosts of love.  I will walk among strangers, lost in my own imagination.  I will wish the entire time that I could be smoking.  I will avoid conversation with the inevitable missionaries that will be posted at every entrance and exit.  I will love every goddamn second of it.

I truly will.

I don't buy into all that true meaning of Christmas crap.  I don't get caught up in the spirit of the Holidays.  But that night, for that night only...I'll give into it.  I will really truly connect to all the joy, without the commercialism.  Without the cynicism.  Without the dry sarcasm and biting wit that so often defines and consumes me.  I will look at the lights, listen to the music, and remember all the things I love.

I think our traditions, no matter how silly, or hokey, or sentimental they may be, are truly important.  They are because we make them so.  They connect us to each other.  To ourselves.  To our selves.
To our humanity.  It's the traditions that connect us to our own personal history.  In my own moment of tradition...all by myself...I will remember who I was, and why that is important.  I'll get to reflect on who I am, and why that is also important.  I will...if I take the time...be able to mark the path between the two.

Tradition also gives us something to look forward to.  They are the dots that connect the past to the present. Reliable events that spark both memory and new experience all at once.

So although I no longer have any connection to the religious meaning, or concern myself with any particular significance to the holiday, this is something that will have great meaning for me.  Something that I need to do, for no other reason than it's what I have always done.

It would be grand foolishness to throw away the old me, simply because I am a new me.

Update

I'm trying something new. I'm writing this entire post from my phone. This may possibly be a mistake as in the past week my stupid piece of pocket plastic has twice crapped out on me, causing me to twice lose all my photos, apps, info, pretty much all the stuff I had taken for granted. *stupid smart phone*

Also writing from here is much MUCH more time consuming.  I type with a relatively high degree of accuracy at around 70 wpm. In all honesty, I have no idea if this is fast or slow when compared to other people. I really don't care. What I do know is it's a helluva lot faster than I swype on my little digital keyboard.

Also I'm shit with editing. Typically, I'll type out whatever bullshit I feel like writing and hit publish without a second look. I know this is a cardinal sin in the writing world, and often I'll go back after publishing, re-read whatever I put out there, and discover all sorts of small errors.  Whatever. Maybe someday I'll learn to care. Maybe using my phone will force me to. Autocorrect has introduced me to a whole new world of headaches. *stupid smart phone*

So why am I doing this? Simple. I need my fix. I don't even need, or necessarily have anything to say. I just need to see my own words in front of me. I need that hope that other people might see them as well. I'm a strange sort of junkie who has gone too long without the next hit, and like that junkie who has exhausted all other resources, I've gone to my last available dealer. The product may be shit. I may have to work twice as hard to get where I'm going, but goddammit I gotta do something.

I have two real computers. Or rather I have two overpriced, overused paper weights. My desktop died a couple years ago. I still have it around, but it's just so much an elaborate dust collector. My life, being nothing if not defined by bad timing, has thrown me the challenge of losing my laptop right in the midst of my move. Now it sits there, starting at me. Mocking me with strange mechanical laughter every time I hit the power button. It goes into a strange boot loop, and won't even let me try safe mode.

I know both of my computers may be fixable, but this costs money, and moving is expensive, so it may be a bit until I get all those little irritants worked out. Or perhaps just save my pennies and get a new one. Either way, until that happens, I have my little un-trusty phone to get me through.

So on to other things.

The Move:
Pretty much done. In the final stages of cleaning. Getting a few remaining possessions out of the old place and into the new. I like the new place, new roommates. It's comfortable. Inviting. Warm. It's not yet home. I'm okay with that. I've mentioned previously that I'm a homeless soul, so wherever I put my head at night is usually fine. I've a feeling I'll really enjoy it there, once I acclimate to all the little necessary adjustments. There will probably be a lot less walking around naked, but who knows, maybe the new roomies will have to make adjustments too.

The Holidays:
I hate this time of year. Everything real feels like it's put on hold until after the new year when people return to normal. I always feel like that month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is spent in this weird phase of making plans. I actually have no problem with the actual day, and usually quite enjoy it. Throw my birthday on top of it all, and I do have so many good times, but really...all the fucking plans. The priorities, that any other time of year, just wouldn't be. It becomes very difficult to "just be" during this time of year.

Me:
Still acting. Have another audition in a week. Need to find a monologue. Prepare. Memorize. Make sure my clothes that don't have holes are clean. Do my best, hope for the best.
Still dedicated to my bachelorhood. I really don't anticipate any change there. It would be nice to find similarly minded folks of the opposite sex, but I don't really anticipate any change there either.  Still eating crap, consuming too much caffeine and nicotine, not sleeping much, and overbooking my schedule...fast tracking myself to an earlier grave. Don't really anticipate much change there. So really nothing has changed.
I do have other, more interesting things on my mind, but for now, I just want to see if doing all of this is even doable with a *stupid smartphone*.

My Beautiful Day

A couple months ago I tried a blog experiment with a friend of mine.  If you follow this at all, you may remember when Deena and I both took the same topic, and wrote from a different perspective.  There is no measure of success on something like this.  There is no mark of failure.  This is...well for me...simply fun.  I am doing something with someone I respect as an artist, a writer, and a person.  I hope its something that we occasionally continue to do.  It's something we're doing again today.
Although her residence, home, and family are all here in Salt Lake City, Deena has been on an extended stay in New York City, honing her craft in all ways.  Acting Classes, courses, auditions, watching, and being part of all things theatre, in the living heartbeat of the American theatre world.  I am painted with admiration and jealousy.
It was decided that a fun writing topic would be to both of us, from different sides of the continent, with a similar life passion, just do a "Day in the Life" type blog.  It's broad.  It's open to go anywhere...and who knows...maybe it will.  So as I did last time around, if you are reading this because you came here first, and would like to see the other side of all of this, please follow her blog here...

A Diary of Today

If you are reading this because you connected to me through her...thank you.

And off we go.

Saturday November 3, 2012.

7:42 a.m.

I shouldn't be awake.  Like most 9-5ers, I get two days a week to sleep a little more in the mornings, and this is one of them.  My stupid eyes opened up though, and here it is.  I'm awake.  I'm not all that thrilled about it, but I might as well accept it.  Deal with it.  Not like I was in the middle of some great dream anyways.  In fact the last thing I remember I was chatting online with a friend of mine.  Fell asleep mid conversation, and now I'm waking up.  I've been becoming a bit curious about this lately.  Sleep has become like this big blank spot that separates precise moments of consciousness. I mean of course it is.  It's probably that way for everybody, but I've really become aware of it lately.  I'm doing something...doing something...doing something...waking up.  There is nothing in between there except the passage of a few hours, and it always seems to happen exactly that fast.

I wake up, like I do every morning with this driving need.  Urge.  Nearly uncontrollable, and has become habitually instinctive.  I don't even think about it anymore.  It's beyond routine.  It is simply the first thing I do...every single morning when I wake up.  I don't even tell my hand to do it. It just follows the same simple pattern that it always does.  The first movement I become aware of, is my hand reaching down to grab my phone.  I start my day checking all the messages I missed.  There are a few.  A conversation I'd been having that I fell asleep in the middle of.  Comments.  Voicemail.  Birthday alerts.  I love being connected.  I do.  I live in isolation by choice.  I don't have a lot of human contact, outside of that forced on my by work and life schedules.  The people I care about most are all in the palm of my hand, and I talk with them often through plastic and magic.  All these things I read, before I even crawl out of my bed, make me smile, make me laugh, and that is a damn fine way to start any day.

Sometime between 7:50 and 8:10

Breakfast.  It's a gorgeous morning already.  There is sunlight.  Dead golden leaves litter the ground, and a few remain on the trees in my back yard.  I step out for my morning breakfast.  It's the exact same as it is every morning.  Caffeine and nicotine.  I often talk about quitting smoking.  I need to.  I'm going to.  I simply don't have the discipline to do it cold turkey.  I've tried.  The longest I made it was two weeks.  I one time was absolutely determined to quit smoking, made the mental decision, threw away all my cigarettes, and lighters, and two hours later lit up again.  So I'm a non-quitter.  I quit quitting.  I gave up believing I could do it on my own, and realized if it's going to happen, I will probably need pharmaceutical help.  My waiting period at work officially ended November 1st, so as of three days ago, I can now go see a doctor, and get whatever drugs I can to assist in my efforts to become nicotine free.  There is a part of me that wants this...that is ready for it.
There is another part of me that is very much not.  There is a certain joy, a particular quality, a love affair of sorts with cigarettes.  I've heard that one of the keys of quitting the habit of smoking, as actually quitting the HABIT of smoking.  Figure out the cigarettes that are very much part of the routine, and quit those ones first.  The hard part for me, is those cigarettes are my favorite ones.  The first cigarette of the day, and the last of the day, are quite frankly the best of the day.  These are my moments of zen.  The times I really go into the nicotine haze of beautiful introspection.  I will miss them when they're gone.
I watch the morning through smoke.  I go into the labrynth of my mind and journey through plans, and timetables, and well...hope.  Hope for all the things I haven't planned or timetabled.  Curious about all the little things that could happen.  That I would like to happen.  This is my breakfast, and I love feeling the dry lazy burn in my throat as my mind takes its morning journey.

Shower.
To shave or not to shave.  (Not)
Clothes?  I guess.  I kinda have to, but I'd rather not, so it doesn't really matter what.  Find a shirt, put it to my nose.  It passes inspection, put it on.

Read script.
Text mom.
Check rehearsal schedule.
Read a few pages of book.
Have about half an hour to kill...
contemplate masturbation...
decide against it...
Keep reading book...

9:45

Since the beginning of June, I have not had a week go by that I didn't have a rehearsal to go to.  This thrills me to death.  This morning it's Screwtape.  I didn't audition for this show.  Auditions themselves, and the first few weeks of rehearsal conflicted with another show I was already doing.  Just as that show ended, I got a call, asking if I could step into a role in Screwtape.  Sure I said.  It's a small role.  Tiny in fact.  What in the Film and TV world we call a cameo.  I'm thrilled about it.  I absolutely love that I can still step on the boards, say my words, and leave the stage.  I don't have the responsibility to carry anything, but I still get to be part of the overall process.
So off to rehearsal.
Walk to bus stop.
Get on bus.
Buy ticket.
Take seat.
Put in earphones.
Watch the streets roll by.
Three stops later, I look up and notice a new passenger boarding.  She's pretty.  Blonde.  Bouncy, low cut shirt.  I hate that I'm such a typical guy...but...I'm a typical guy.  I notice all the things.  She see's me seeing, and smiles.  I smile back.  She sits down a few seats away, and thus ends this small human encounter.  Another simple, elegant reminder that my emotional connection to even the idea of romance is completely, totally, absolutely locked up, but the physical drive, and interest is still very much alive and active.  Sigh.  Conundrum.  Absolute interest in the most banal.  Complete disinterest in the most beautiful.

10:15

Stepping into my realization.  I'm sitting on a park bench in Sugarhouse.  If I think about it, of course I can remember how I got here, but its all a blur.  None of the in-between matters, but now...all of a sudden, I step into my realization, and see myself sitting on a park bench in Sugarhouse.  It's a moment of clarity.  Everything in this moment is real, and stopped.  Everything leading up to this moment is already over, and it hits me that every single second of my life...every decision...every choice made at each pivotal point...has led me to be right now, at 10:15 a.m. Saturday, November 3rd, 2012, to be sitting on a park bench in Sugarhouse.  This is always true, no matter who, or where, or when you are, but sometimes it's fun to think about.
I take a couple minutes and just look at all the people, walking, running, or driving by.  All of their moments have led them to that moment as well.  Each person in their own reality bubble, doing all the things that are simply the most important things in the world to them, in that instant.  Neat.

10:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Rehearsal.
As I mentioned earlier, I have a very small contribution to this production.  It's a long rehearsal, and although I'm only needed for a small part of it, I stay the entire time.  I watch the other actors.  I watch the director.  I watch the stage manager.  I watch the process.  I love the process.  I love studying how each person approaches it the same...and differently.  I love the different philosophies brought into the room.  I love the technique.  I love the creation, and discovery.
I know that at some point I will be writing about all of this.  I wonder what it is I'll write.  I wonder if I'll have anything interesting.  I think about Deena in New York, wondering what she'll be writing about.  I wonder if she's in a rehearsal, or a class, or an audition.  I allow myself a moment of broad contemplation.  There is probably a rehearsal for some show, somewhere, in most cities in America.  People just like me, connected with an invisible thread of passion for telling stories.  People like me who sit in rehearsal and watch.  People like Deena who travel thousands of miles away from friends and family to study, learn, and improve her craft.    People in all the places in between, to some degree or other, doing pretty much the same thing.  We are all a certain monster driven by the intangible to do the impossible.

4:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
My parents are in town for a family event on Sunday that I will miss, and The Utah Symphony that night that I won't miss.  I've often joked that I could never make it as a rockstar or broken celebrity, because I don't have any parental issues.  I love spending time with my parents.  Although over the course of my life I have developed my own religious, political, and life philosophies that are pretty much polar opposite of my parents, and those they tried to raise me with, we are all still so incredibly close.  Naturally over the course of dinner, discussions regarding all those philosophies come up, and we gently glide the surface of all of them, but we do it with civility and respect.  We understand that although we are diametrically opposed to all the things the others are saying, we are still valued as people with the common bond of love, respect, and friendship.  Although we know we have different ideas on which road and direction to travel, our desired destination is pretty much exactly the same.  Oh that all America could have dinner with me and my parents.  It is in fact quite possible to completely disagree on everything, and NOT hate each other.  In fact not only not hate each other...but really really enjoy spending time together.

8:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

RHAPSODY IN BLUE

I am so excited for this.  I've always loved the Rhapsody in Blue.  I mean really...who doesn't?  It is ear candy.  It's excitement, and joy, and achievement, and celebration.  All wrapped up in music.  From the opening scale wail of the clarinet, to the final orchestral explosion, I am in rapture.  I have chills, and I can't stop grinning.  Every member of the symphony simply tore it up.  The pianist was on fire.  Strings, brass, percussion, wind, all of it blowing up the stage.  There was life in front of me not dancing...but soaring through the roof.  It was breathtaking.
My parents have been season subscribers to the Utah Symphony for years, but it often happens that they aren't able to use tickets for certain performances, so they pass the tickets on to me.  I have never, nor will I ever, decline to use the tickets when I have a chance.  As a result I've seen the superstars of symphony.  Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Hayden, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Bizet, Ravel, Stravinsky, and so many others.  I have never until tonight seen a sold out audience.  Every single seat was full.  Gershwin sold the place out.  Now I can't say, because I haven't ever been, but I imagine the yearly Messiah sing-a-long also packs the house.
I thought about this.  Is Rhapsody in Blue something easier on the ears than perhaps Beethoven's 7th? (Which was also pretty damn amazing by the way.)  I don't think so.  Is it more appealing?  I don't know.  Is it simply more familiar?  Perhaps.  I don't have an answer really, but it was interesting.  An observation that made me ask questions that I really can't answer, but certainly opinions regarding that answer are interesting.

10:00 p.m. - ???
And now the empty night.  I come home and listen again to R.I.B.  A few times.  It still tastes amazing, but nothing beats live that's fer damn sure.  I piss about the interwebs.  Stupid FB shit.  Some facetime with my PS3.  I love my aloneness, but sometimes not so much the loneliness.  I crave physical human contact, but not at all human emotional contact.  That need is already met in the most amazing and incredible can never be met sort of way.  Hard to explain and I have no intention of trying.
I spend I don't know how long, or how many hours, just being.  Doing.  Nothing significant, but probably mildly entertaining.  I write.  I listen.  I watch.  I play.  I chat.  I eat.  I do.  Just do.
And then it ends as it began.
The ending cigarette.
Under stars and moonlight.  Surrounded by the death of the season.
I do this every day.  I wrap it up in nicotine, and thought, and imagination.  I taste the pleasure of it all.  I recognize my gratitude for all of it.  I think of you.  All of you.  I flash you through my mind.  I remember my friends.  I remind myself that they are there.  That they are meaningful to me.  That they...you...are part of who I am, and why I am.
And I think of her.
I think of her, and inhale.
I think of her, and inhale, and tell myself...

For now
For always
That's enough.
That'll do.

And with that lie...
I go to bed.

Once more beneath the stars

I am haunted.

Today was overcast.  Mild.  Cool, but not cold.  There was no sunlight.  Just clouds.  All day.  It was perfect.

I walked through memories.

I saw the world's most beautiful ghost, everywhere I looked.  She walked with me, and tried to offer me her hand, but when I reached for it, my hand continued, unobstructed, with forward momentum.

So did my feet.

I find I'm often touching her.

I'm building portals, to cross dimensions, just to see her.

It doesn't work of course.

I pass through a void.  Often.  Intentionally.

I pass the places previously occupied, now silent.

I wonder how long this will last, and hope its forever.

I'm quite certain, in its own way, it will be.

It's just a thing.
A phase.
A fancy.

Or so they'll say.

A moment of glory turned memory.
Turned frozen.
Turned golden and green all at once.

Some nights there just aren't enough cigarettes.

There is simply not enough softness to simmer the savage beast.

The sound of her voice was enough.

She never knew that.

It was brief.
It was all so much unsaid.
It was everything in shorthand.

It was freedom in the length of a traffic light.

It was captured in a kiss, and released on the exhale.

Everything
and everything
and everything

and nothing at all.

All so much just lost in the wind now.

Divergence

a gleam
a glimmer
and a smile

Blank Slate

There is a thick haze around the nearly pregnant moon tonight.  I don't know the cause.  I like to think its the smoke of a million stoners, getting blazed in celebration of tonight's festivities.  I like to think the combined smoke of my cigarettes and incense are contributing.

I know that none of that is true, but it makes me smile to think it.  Of course almost everything I think of makes me smile.  Even the most heartbreaking things.  I smile on purpose.  It makes it all taste better.

As I'm writing this, it is currently 8:57 mountain time, Wednesday, October 31st. For some inexplicable reason, I keep thinking today is Thursday.  Of course by the time many of you read this, it will be.  Funny how written communication is the closest thing we have to actual time travel.  I'm writing these words in my now.  You're reading them in yours.  We're connected in a spectrum that transcends actual time.

Neat.

I'm staring through the haze at that glowing silver bitch in the sky, and I can't help but get a little introspective.  She has had that effect on men and women for as long as there have been men and women.  I'm no different.  This has been for me, a year of incredible change.

If by the end of the year I am involved in no more theatrical productions, I will have done this year, the exact same number of shows that I have done all my previous years in SLC combined.  That's sad for past me, tiring for present me, and absolutely thrilling for future me.

For the first time since 2007, I have a job that schedulewise, actually caters to my real life.  I'm pretty happy about that.  The job itself is what it is...but I don't really care.  I've always said I could do anything as long as I'm afforded the opportunity to do at night what I'm on this planet to do.  I'm proving myself right.

This year saw the end of my second longest, and in many ways, most meaningful relationship I've ever had.  I understand that ending was necessary, but feel the effects of that loss no less.  I learned so much from that time with her and would not trade it for anything.  I think every real lesson comes with pain.  It's simply how this shit works.

So I've had a chance to re-learn myself.  Rediscover.  Realize that I'm exactly who I thought I was all along. Just...different.  More mature?  I don't think so.  I'm still plagued with an irrepressible Peter Pan complex.  I still have an insatiable love for all things ridiculous, outrageous, bawdy, and well...flat out stupid.  I'm still a big fan of bad decisions.  I still ache to do the things that will make great stories later.  I still don't give a red rat's fuck about all the things I'm supposed to care about.

I still love.

This year I've learned I am capable of emotional depths I had previously been completely unaware of.  I found that to be interesting.
I learned that I care even less what people thought of me than I had previously believed.  I found that uninteresting.
I learned that honesty with other people comes much easier for me than honesty with myself.  Which I found to be really quite entertaining once I gave it a shot.

Because of various circumstances, some that were decided, and some that simply didn't happen the way it had originally be planned, I have been living in the same apartment I've been in since 2008.  When we broke up, it was never a question that I would be the one to leave...but because of one thing...then another...then another and another and another...I haven't.  Earlier tonight I went to look at the new place I will be renting.  It's a room in a house, owned by friends I've known for a few years now.  Looking back over the course of the past few years, it all seems so serendipitous that I will be living there.  I will be living there.

This will be, to my knowledge, my last big change of the year.  I have occupied this space for over four years now, and in just a couple weeks, it will be just another memory.  It's strange to me how already I miss it just a little.  Everything becomes even more real, once it becomes a little bit real.  That type of reality is a sneaky bastard, that ever inches closer, but never while you're looking.  So tonight, hands were shook, hugs were exchanged, a bargain was struck, and a time was set when I would change the location of my bed.

And still I change.
And still I'm the same.

This is the year that my greatest tangible gift was a stick.
This is the year that my greatest intangible gift was loss.
This is the year I learned that I have x-ray vision.  I can stop time. I can accept the inevitable with grace, and I can say no to a third slice of pizza.
This is the year I became tabula rasa, and discovered that I'm the one who decides how to fill it.
I'm still deciding.
Every day.

Sleep tight floating feather

I don't dream.

I know the typical response to that is, "Of course you dream, you simply don't remember."  I guess that means my reply is something along the lines of..."Isn't that the same thing?"

If you have absolutely no memory of something happening, did it happen?

Is a thought about a unicorn a real thought?

Probably, but it has no value.  No meaning.  No existence by which it can be defined.  So yeah, I guess I probably dream, but since I have no memory of it, it's simply easier to say that I don't.

There are some, a few rare occasions that I do remember them, but not often enough to really be significant. Typically I remember turning off the light and putting my head on my pillow, closing my eyes, then turning off my alarm clock.  It all seems to happen just about that fast.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I guess I'll go into it again.  Those few times I actually remember dreaming...of all of them...ever...there has not once been a sex dream.  Not once.  I feel like I'm missing something.  My brain won't give me nocturnal porn, and I'm a bit upset about that.  I'd like to speak to someone in charge, but it seems there's a vacancy.

 In fact not only have I never had a sex dream, I've never to my memory even dreamed nudity.  No one has the decency to get indecent in my dreams.  So all that said, if I ever happen to tell you in conversation that I dreamed about you (I probably never will) you can rest assured that we didn't do anything sordid.  Dammit.

I have had math dreams.  Really weird shit too.  Absurdist math.  Non-math.  Theoretical no theory.  A lot of spirals and circles and shit.  I've also dreamed cartoons.  In fact many of the dreams I remember over the course of my life have been animated.

Really though, weeks...sometimes months will go by, and I will have complete zero memory of having dreamed at all in that time.

I have a theory.

I think I keep my brain, just as busy as my body during the course of the day, so at night when it's finally time to rest, my brain needs it just as much as the rest of me...and shuts down.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pretending any sort of intelligence, or massive brain work going on.  I'm simply saying that my brain is always...always...going.  Like that goddamn battery bunny.

Mostly just daydreams.  Fantasies.

It's been postulated that we don't actually live in a Universe.  We exist as one fraction of ourfinite selves in this particular part of an infinite multi-verse.  That there is no real end to each dimension.  They just go on and on forever, and in each one, we exist...but following a different path for each major decision we've encountered in our life...and made differently.  In each cross dimension we may already be dead.  We may be more happy, more sad, more wealthy.  Married to different people.  Single.  Gay.  In jail.  The possibilities are really endless, when you consider how each decision in your life could have gone a different way.

I don't really believe this theory.  I have no reason to.  But that's just how I am.  I don't believe ANYTHING without reason to.  Really it's more simply stated that I don't believe anything at all.  I either know...or I don't konw...and if I care, I'll find out.  If I can't find out then I'll exist without the knowledge, but also without the belief.  I'm okay with that.

I like the theory though.  I don't believe it, but I like it.  In that theory, in that fantasy, in that other dimension that in fact I don't believe in, I'm with her.
When I dream, she visits me there.
When I daydream, I visit her there.
When my fantasies are given freedom to travel, she is my companion.

The reality is something quite different, and I have to live with that.  Here.  In this dimension.  In this reality.  This place that I don't have to believe in...because I know it.  I know it as my only reality.  I don't have to define it, I simply have to accept it.  Change what I can, if I want to.  Live with what I can...or can't...or whatever.

What is, is.  THAT is what is real.  That is the foundation for all other lines of reason, though, and progression.  We can't build on what isn't.  We can't form a truth, based on a fiction.  We can't create real, from nothingness.  This is how religion was invented.

There is nothing wrong with the fantasy.  The dream.  The fiction.  These things are necessary.  They do serve purpose.  They provide entertainment.  Escape.  Motivation.  Beauty.  Emotion in an otherwise empty abyss.  The problem comes when we lose the ability to distinguish.  The ability to function in a reality where those things must remain fiction.
 
Sometimes I like to imagine myself on a boat.  A world of unseen life below me.  A cosmos of undiscovered possibility around me, but my horizon, in every direction is empty.  There is nothing, and I am comfortable.  I am content in the near silence.  I am not concerned with anything.  I am at peace with myself.

Funny thing is, I really am at peace with myself.  Oh sure, I have a shitton of first world problems.  No more or less than anyone else I know.  I have my needs.  My longings.  My cravings.  These things don't separate me from anyone else, or make me unique.  I've just found my own way to compartmentalize it all.  To put each thing in its place.

When I need, or want, to address any given emotion, or event, or problem, or solution, I simply open its compartment, and observe.  Dissect.  Eat it with delight.  Taste it.  Consume it.  Then put it away again until next time.

I don't think I've said yet, what I originally intended to say.  I don't remember what it was.  It was something about dreams.  And the girl in them.  I guess I'm not ready to approach all that in my writing yet though.  I though I might be, but all my brains defenses went up.  All the alarms sounded.  All the walls came crashing up, and stopped whatever progress might have been made.

Maybe in my not-dream sleep tonight I'll remember.  Maybe I won't.  Maybe its just that thing that I want so desperately to talk about, and just have yet to find the proper medium.  Or person.

Maybe it will go away on its own.

Maybe the other me, in another dimension, is making love to her right this second.

Maybe I'll go smoke about it, and hope he's having a good time..

You just can't help it

The right earbud of my headphones is shorting out.  While walking to wherever I may be going, the sound will entirely disappear on that side.  In these moments, I feel like I'm doing the sidestroke in my own music.

As an entertainment tech I worked a LOT of shows.  I worked for a LOT of different entertainers.  I sometimes wish I would have kept a list, because sometimes I forget.  Oh well.

I worked for the Chippendales for a few years.  That was actually a lot more fun than I would have initially expected it to be.

I also worked with showgirls for a bit.

Rewind.

Growing up I was always, incredibly, HUGELY, intimidated by physical beauty.  It started I think when I was very young.  Before I knew or understood what attraction even was.  When I was but a lad, I had no problem telling people if I thought they were pretty.  It came easy to me.

As my formative years progressed, I found myself being shunned by those people.  I would be rejected flat by my young advances.  I was too young and stupid to know to keep that shit to myself.  The girls I liked didn't want to know or hear that I did.  I think I embarrassed them.  Naturally over the course of time, I took that rejection to heart.  By the time I had hit my middle school years, I was pretty much like any other pre-teen.  I was all to aware of, and even exaggerated my own flaws.  I found all the parts of myself I didn't like, and they became the focal point.  I became convinced that I was ugly.  I'm sure most of us have had that phase.  I'm not unique...but it did stick with me longer than I should have let it.

Even after I did grow out of it, I was still affected by it.  I took it to heart.  I had a very difficult time talking to girls, and the more attractive I found them, the more difficult it was.  And if they defied the set standard of beauty...you know...even prettier than the pretty ones...well...forget about it.  I couldn't even look at them.
No really.  I couldn't.  I was afraid they would catch me looking and be disgusted that someone like me, would be looking at someone like them.

I realize of course in retrospect that it was a lot of my own insecurities.  I was judging them to be a type of person...based on the type of person I thought I was.  It was a vicious little self destructive line of unreasoning.

This plagued me even through High School.  I didn't go to my Jr. Prom, because I was too afraid to ask anyone.  Every girl I thought was attractive...I was quite certain thought I was unattractive in direct proportion.  I wasn't allowed to date until I was sixteen.  It's a Mormon thing.  Didn't matter.  Even after I turned sixteen, and was now allowed...
Oh sure, there were a ton of people I would have pretty much done anything to even be able to say hello to...let alone date.  But I didn't.  I couldn't.
I harbored crushes of course.  I still remember every one of them.  Most of them developed because a girl would say hi to me, or laugh at a joke I told in class.  It sprung out of the fact that she didn't seem to be completely repulsed by my presence.  For me...at that time...that was simply enough.

I have of course over the past however many decades grown out of all that.  I was married to an incredibly gorgeous woman.  Have been involved in relationships with just...I dunno...really fucking pretty people.  So I'm not a complete social idiot.

Except I am.

I'll occasionally get lucky.

Or something.

Thing is though...it's still there.
And its strange.
I'm a fucking actor.  Personal rejection is a huge part of my life.  You learn to deal with it.  You learn to hear no.  You learn to hear next.  You learn the phrase... "Please come to our next audition"...so well, you can actually sometimes hear it, before the director even says it.  I'm pretty sure on some level, all actors have a VERY personal relationship with rejection.  It's part of what we deal with.  Constantly.  We move on, we hone our craft, we get better, we get roles, we get work, we get reputations, we act we act we act...and we STILL get rejected.  It's part of the process.

I still have a hard time talking to people.
I have never.  Not once.  Not a single goddamn time...walked up to a girl in a bar to strike up a conversation.  Pretty sure I never will.  I fucking HATE bars.
But I think you also see the point I'm making.
I don't really approach women.  It's just not in me.

But then I worked eROCKtica.
That was the name of the show.
7 or 8 gorgeous...absolutely in every way physically stunning girls dancing mostly naked to live classic rock music for 78 minutes.

There is no way to fully communicate how gorgeous these girls were.  Some had been NFL cheerleaders.  Most were professional models on the side.  All of them were of course dancers.  Just the height of what we have socially accepted as the epitome of physical beauty.

Naturally there was no way I was going to talk to any of them outside of whatever needed to be communicated for the job.  And I didn't.  In fact for the most part I even avoided making eye contact, lest they think me some sort of trollish pervert.

One day one of the girls came into rehearsal wearing a Denver Broncos jersey.  I couldn't help myself.  I remarked on the jersey, and that I also happened to be a huge fan of the team.  She smiled.  Replied.  We talked football for a bit.

Holy shit.  Not only was she gorgeous but she was a person too.

Kinda says more about me than it does about her doesn't it.  Some of us take a bit longer to learn the silliest of life's lessons.

A few weeks later, I was down near the stage after having set up for the show, smoking a cigarette.  One of the other girls from the show came over and joined me.  We smoked.  We talked.  It was all so...normal.  Not at all what I was expecting.  Just people smoking.  This became a routine.  Every night before the show, myself...other techs...and any number of the girls would hang out in our little smoking area, some smoking, some not...and just shoot the shit.  It was always just so nice.

The greatest shock to me in all of that...at the time...is that I actually became friends with pretty much all of them.  Not just work friends...but you know...friends.  They'd invite me to clubs...parties...we hang out...friend stuff.  With pretty people.

Wanna know something funny?  I had pretty much the exact same experience with the Chippendales too.  Different gender...nearly exact same experience.  I became friends with some of them.  Really...fucking..pretty people...and just little ole me.

It took me that long in my life to learn that huge of a lesson.  That people really are just people.  Its all relative, and its all arbitrary, and its all just exactly what we make it.  Except I learned something else too.

Beauty is.

Bear with me.

Earlier tonight I was just perusing my FB.  Going through my friends list.  Looking at pictures.  I eventually went through my entire friends list looking at at least the profile pic of every single one of you and realized something.

I am the luckiest motherfucker on the planet because

every one of you

every last goddamn fucking one of you

is gorgeous.

I have the prettiest friends in the world.

For a guy who grew up with all these petty insecurities.  Who claims so much to be intimidated by beauty, I've gone and surrounded myself with it.  I've put myself in the middle of the most amazing people I could find...and somehow...without even realizing...it just happened.

Beauty is, and you all have it.  In spades.  And I sit here...still just little ole me, and I am consumed by love, and quite frankly adoration for every last one of you.

I have this thing where I look at your face...and I smile.  I can't help it.  Every last one of you have contributed something to my life, that I can't adequately express gratitude for.  Really all I can do is

hopefully

return the favor somehow.

Self editing...

I'm kind of afraid of becoming a one trick pony here.  You see there are really only a couple things on my mind.  One of them I can't/won't talk about.  The other...well...I already have.  At length.

I am in serious need of distraction.

When I was younger, I would play the piano.  My parents had one, and I used to spend hours banging on the keys.  Don't get me wrong.  I don't make any claim to actually being good.

I had lessons when I was a kid.  Learned how to read music.  Which I can still do, if I take my time with it, but I didn't take to reading music like I took to reading words.  I had to work at it.  I'm quite lazy.  Plus I learned that I have a pretty good ear for it all, and that in all honesty just made it worse.  I could hear a song, and pick out a fair facsimile...so actually reading the music, and learning it right just seemed like way too much work.  So I became mediocre.

It proved a phenomenal distraction however.  I would just sit for the longest time.  Making music.  Learning songs I liked.  Singing along when I knew the words.

Mostly I liked creating new melodies though.  I really liked the process of it.  Then I'd come up with some dopey mix of words, call them lyrics, and have myself a new little song.  My god I loved it all.  I'm not claiming any of it was ever any good.  I'm just stating that I really liked it.  It was a great way for me to work out whatever was in my little skull nugget at the time.

I don't really sing either.  Oh I can carry a tune.  I can mostly hit the right notes.  I just don't care much for the sound of my own voice.  And my range is absolute shit.  I'm somwhere in the low tenor range...but can't really sing all that low...and can't really sing all that high...but those 6 notes in the middle...I can nail em every time.

I haven't honestly sat down at a piano in over a decade.

I really
really
really

need to do that again.

I have absolutely zero access.  I've contemplated breaking into any one of the millions of mormon churches here in my area.

They'd probably get mad at me though.

By the way.  I don't hate musicals.  I know a lot of people who know me think this is the case.  It isn't.  I actually really enjoy them.  In fact I will probably be taking in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson this weekend...or next, and I'm really quite excited about it.

I just only enjoy them once.  That's it.  It really is...all I need.  I can read a book, or watch a movie over and over again, its true, but for me...and maybe...hell even probably...ONLY me...musicals only impact me one time.  Whenever, in my entire life, I've seen a musical a second...or third...or 85th time...it's lost its impact.  I don't feel the same way as I did when it was fresh.

I just saw the season announcement for Centerpoint Legacy Theatre, and it is the safest, most boring, most unoriginal, season I've ever seen announced.  There isn't a single risk on there.  There isn't a single new thing.  There is absolutely NOTHING to be excited about...and therefore, I have concluded that it is a theatre that I will NEVER give a single dollar to.  They will generate exactly 0 revenue from me.

I know that we as artists are supposed to support the arts.  I know we have some sort of obligation to...yeah...fuck that.  I do support the arts.  I do not in any way support pussy ass theatre that does not challenge, embrace, or explore.  If your only goal is to get butts in seats...I assure you...mine won't be one of them.

Sorry.
End rant.
Seeing that kind of season posted though...
really makes me angry.
I want to kick the AD so hard in the nuts, that his great grandchildren sing Alto for life.

I just wrote six more paragraphs about it all.  Since I stated already that I ended the rant...I deleted them.  Probably for the best, they were pretty vitriolic.  Not a lot of sugar coating.  I guess I just gotta get that shit out...

Maybe...

See that's my problem.  I don't think it matters right now what the topic is.  I could just as easily go off about politics, religion, early mornings, diet soda...almost anything.

The pressure cooker is pressed and I just need to let out the steam...I don't think the topic is even relevant anymore.  The things I need to say I can't say.  The things I need to do require a willing partner.  The things being bottled up inside me right now, do not age well...and all of my ways to usually get that stuff out...aren't working.

I can't write, because I can't focus.  I try to focus, and it all becomes so angry...and ugly.  I don't like angry or ugly.  I honestly don't...but I can't find my pressure valve.

I need a bath.

I need a piano.

I think that's it.

I just need a piano.

HOMELESS

That's what I am.  Okay, maybe not in the literal sense.  I do have a roof over my head.  I will soon have a different roof over my head, and still...still, I will be just as homeless.

I grew up in a small town.  1000ish people total.  300ish in my entire high school.  45 in my graduating class. I had amazing friends in my high school years.  People that I still hold so very close its insane, and yet...  It was goddamn Wyoming.  No matter how close you are to however many people, you are still going to have more than ample opportunity to form a relationship with isolation.  I did.  Its my best relationship ever.  It takes a unique kind of person to live in Wyoming.  It takes an entirely different kind of unique to CHOOSE to live there.  Once the choice was mine to make...well...I chose no.  For all the things I love about Wyoming, and there truly are very very many, the things I love most in my life...aren't there.  So I had no choice but to leave.  A piece of her came with me, and will always be there.  I will always think of myself as a Wyoming boy.  I hate cowboys.  I hate country music.  I hate all the things that are typically associated with Wyoming...but there it is.  Its who I am.  I was formed in her belly under open skies and cold wind.

When the impending apocolypse happens, whether it be Christian, Zombie, or Mayan, I will be able to pick up my shit...move to the mountains that I grew up in the shadow of, and live the rest of my days in isolated hermitry.  I have mad survival skills.  I can go up into the highest of the high wilderness, build my little shelter, and live off the land for as long as I need to.  I grew up learning hunting, fishing, wilderness survival, camping, backpacking, moving around, exploring, navigation (without gps), and in general living with what the earth provides, regardless how hostile the environment.  This is what happens when you grow up in a place where you have no choice but invent your own fun, and you have the biggest of all nature to do it in.  This is what happens when your father passes down a love of nature that he got from his father, that came from...well...you get the idea.  I was raised by mountain men.

I will probably die in a nursing home in Florida.

My father works in a mine.  Over 1000 feet underground.  He mines Trona.  You've most likely never heard of it, but you also most likely use its byproducts daily.  He works in the largest trona deposit in the world.  My dad, who is a Vietnam vet, and a mole, and knows and has taught me more about living in nature than any Bear Grylls bullshit I've ever seen, was a Humanities major in college.  Not only did he instill in me a great respect and understanding of the outdoors, he also gave me culture.  In Wyoming.  I learned from him also a love of history, civilization, art appreciation, music, mythology, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, Dante, The Beatles, and oh so many many other things.  Mostly from him, I learned to love learning, and to seek the things I loved learning about.  In my tiny little town, (pre-dating internet) the only way to do this was to go to the Library.  I did.  Often.  The more I did, the more I realized that when the time came, I would have no choice but to leave.  Although giving me the world, I had no access to it.

Since turning 18, I have lived in nearly every state west of Colorado.  Some places for a few years, others, no longer than a summer.  Eugene Oregon I lived in for less than three months...and loved every second of it.  I've seen the beaches, the mountains, The Grand Canyon, the deserts, the prairies, the casinos, the whore houses, the architectual achievements, the ghost towns, the ghettos, the slums, the hills, the bars, the clubs, the museums, the concert halls, the zoos, the stadiums, the lighthouses.  I have been lost on the back roads, I've been stranded on freeways.  I've couch surfed, and body surfed.  I swam with a seal once.  I've partied with showgirls, and rock stars, and chatted with movie stars and film directors.  I've eaten with comedians, and magicians.  I was once offered a freebie by one of the working girls at the Bunny Ranch.  I turned her down.  I've high fived sports stars.  I've smoked with television celebrities.

I've done all those things.  Sounds exciting huh?  In each their own moment, they all seemed rather...well...normal.

Now I ain't no Johnny Cash.  I have in fact NOT been everywhere, but I've been places.  I've traveled around a bit.  I've seen my share of shit.

I don't settle.

I can't settle.

I have never...not once...felt a sense of being home.

"You can't go home again."  - Thomas Wolfe
"Especially if you've never had one." - JayC Stoddard.

I have an insatiable wanderlust.  Its not even the joy of travel and vacationing that people talk about.  I honestly don't care about places.  I simply always feel the need to keep moving.  I don't know what I'm looking for...truth is...I don't think I'm looking for anything at all.  I just can't put my feet in the ground.  I can't tie myself to a place and call it my own.

The longest I lived anywhere after leaving Wyoming, was Vegas.  I was there for seven years.  I miss it.  I honestly do.  Vegas is in me now as much as Wyoming ever was.  But I think I've finally come to the conclusion/realization that I'm not going back.  It was actually a difficult moment for me, as I miss oh so very many things about it.  Oh so very many people that are still there.  Deeply.  People that I think fondly of on a daily basis.  Vegas however, for all the things I love and miss, is not my home.

Neither is Salt Lake City.

This week I am losing another, incredibly close friend to distance.  She is moving out of my life, and I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't entered my mind to follow.  That however was passing fancy.  Fantasy.  Silliness.  Her life and mine are no longer twining, and although sad...it is simply the course that life takes.  Often.  Many times its been me the one that picks up and leaves.  This time...I'm the one staying.  C'est la vie.  Que sera sera.  And a whole bunch of other foreign phrases that mean essentially the same things.

For all the things I love about Vegas, SLC has nearly none of them.  I think that's why I miss Vegas so very much.  Its the intangible.  The untouchable.  The forever out of reach.  Like so many other things I've become accustomed to.  There are simply things in this world I am going to have to do without.  So what if it happens to be gambling and strippers.  There truly are many other things too, but since I know that's what most people associate Vegas with, I figured I might as well...


So.  Here I am.  In this town that I seemingly bitch about.  And the reality is...sometimes I really do.  I don't love it here.  There are so many things that bother me.  Of all the places I've lived.  Of all the roads I've traveled, SLC is the LEAST pedestrian friendly city of them all.  If you walk in SLC, pretty much everyone hates you.  Especially city planners.  And the transit system was pretty much thrown together as an afterthought.  Everything closes.  Usually early.  Unique food?  Forget it.  If you like chains, its fine...but if you want something a bit different...oh its here, sure...but you REALLY have to look for it.
It gets cold here.  Really fucking cold.  And I am without doubt, the worlds biggest pussy when it comes to the cold.  I shiver if its below 60.  I was built for Vegas weather...and even there, I'd bitch about the winters.
I could go on and on about all the various things I don't like.  I won't.  I didn't mean to turn this into that kind of blog.

Instead I'll simply say...

I'm staying here.

Now I don't know the future.  As previously mentioned, I am a wanderer.  I move around.  I am homeless.  I can be picked up and blown by any kind of wind...but I think in this case...

It's going to have to be a pretty strong wind.  If I got offered the dream job of a lifetime in some other city...of course my bags would be packed and off I'd go, but as I'm not looking or applying for any such job, the likelihood seems nil.

SLC is not my home.  I don't know that I will ever actually have one.  It is however, I've come to realize, my home base.  It is the place I've learned to hang my hat.  For all the shit I talked about NOT liking...there really are so many more things that I DO like.  Many of those things have names and lives of their own.  There are people here that I love.  There are things here that I feel I've yet to do.  To accomplish.  There are actors and actresses that I haven't yet worked with, that I so desperately WANT to work with.  There are stories to be told.  There are stories to discover.  There are stories to make.  I think for me...that all is going to happen right here.

So I sit on my porch.  I smoke my cigarette.  I feel the air penetrate me.  Violate me like a back alley rapist, and I laugh.  I didn't mean to be here, but here I am.  My wandering feet have stopped dancing for a moment.  I will still travel I think, but perhaps with more purpose, but less intent.  I know that I will never in my life consider this my home...but I do believe that there are things and people here that will make it more homey.  That will let me play here.  I won't ever settle, but I've come to realize, I don't think I'll ever settle anywhere.  So I might as well not settle here for a bit longer.  Perhaps til I die.


Or until a really strong breeze comes my way.

Beholder

To preface:
I read a lot of blogs.  Friends.  Acquaintances.  People I've never heard of.  Political, religious.  So many topics, so many people, so many words.  One of my favorites in the world belongs to a friend of mine.  Its interesting to me, in the digital age, how that word has changed our perception.  When I was a kid, a friend was someone you played with.  They lived across the street, or shared a class.  Someone you actually saw face to face with some regular frequency.
The internet has changed all of that.  I have more than a few "friends" whom I've never actually met.  People from all over the world that I have come to care for quite deeply.  Based on words alone, I have learned about people I would have otherwise never even known existed.  These people have made me laugh.  Made bad days good.  I have shared their joys, triumphs, failures, jokes, stories, and even recipes.
It seems that people cross cyber paths more frequently now, than real paths.  The case can be made, (and has often been) that this is kind of sad.  Personally, I don't think so.  Although true that I would absolutely LOVE to meet every single person I know from FB or other sources IRL, the fact is, with a lot of them, this just may not be possible.
I don't know when Deena Marie and I first started talking online.  I'll never forget the first time I ever saw her.  It was the first play I went to when I moved to SLC.  She was one of the actresses, and sort of blew my mind.  Her performance was staggering.
We did not meet that night.
I have no memory of how we became friends on Facebook.  I typically don't add new people, but in this case I must have, simply because I knew who she was from the show, but she would of course had no clue who I was.  I just don't remember doing it.  I have no recollection of when.  I just know that for a few years now she has been on my friends list, and I've followed her life in the same way I follow everyone's life who happens to show up daily in my feed.
Over time either one of us would occasionally comment on the others post.  Make jokes, remarks, whatever.  It's how I do.  I think though what sparked friendship beyond casual comments however, was our blogs.  We've each remarked to the other how much we enjoy each others written work.
And I do.  In all honesty, I can't get enough.  I have her blog address bookmarked on my home computer, and in my phone for easy access.  She has moved me deeply by what she has written.  She has no shortage of talent, and if you don't know her, or have never read her blog...I recommend you give it a shot.  You'll not likely be sorry.
The reason I bring this up now is this.  We though that it might be fun, interesting, I'll go ahead and say neat (a word I don't use lightly), to attempt a little writers experiment.  It was suggested that we both write on the same topic.  Each coming at it from our own perspective.  Without consulting one another, or discussing beforehand what would actually be written, just take the topic and run.  See what happens.
The initial problem was the topic itself.  What the hell should we write about.  So it was put to the public.  Our topic was assigned, and agreed upon...and now here we are.  If you're reading this because you follow Deena's blog, and she linked you here...thank you.  Its likely you have no idea who the hell I even am.  I know your time is valuable, and I appreciate you spending a bit of it with me.  If you are reading this because you follow my blog, and are now curious as to the other side of the same topic, please go to http://beanerlarue.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-nature-of-beauty.html

The agreed upon topic of the post is

The Nature of Beauty.

and so to begin.

Once upon a few years ago, my not yet ex wife handed me a book titled 'The Beauty Myth'. I did as I do with all books that are given to me.  I read the blurb on the back, and became a bit excited to read it.  I gathered that it was going to address topics that I've always been interested in.  As the title suggests it seemed as though it would discuss how the idea of beauty has evolved over time, and not for the better.  How popular media and corporations have abused the idea of beauty to a dangerous degree.  I was fascinated and started reading almost immediately.  I didn't make it past the introduction.  One of the very few times in my life I stopped reading a book that was gifted to me.
The problem was that it was an immediate attack on me.  Personally.  Sure the author didn't use my name, but never before in all my life, have I felt so much the criminal for no reason beyond having a penis attached to my body.  The author made it quite clear that for no reason other than the fact that my extra x chromosome grew a little tail and became a y, I had inherited the birthright of villain, before even taking my first breath outside the uterus.
I had opened the book, already prepared to agree with whatever she had to say on the actual topic.  Instead I never even got to it.  Apparently, all that is wrong with the world.  All the horrible images.  All the bulemia, all the anorexia, all the self loathing that is forced upon women through print, and digital media...is all my fault.  Guess I'm sort of a douche that way.

Funny thing...I think beauty really IS a myth.  At least as far as what's being sold to us as beauty.  All the creams.  All the clothes.  All the toxins we can eat, swallow, or rub into our skin to make us more beautiful.  All the gym memberships, the anti-age creams, the weight loss pills, the posters, the billboards, the tanning salons, the hair salons, the nail salons,  the advertisements, the guarantees, the surgeries, the workshops, classes, all the fucking things. They are all of them there, so someone can feed your insecurity about how you look, and whether or not someone will fuck you, and take your money.  They toss around the word beauty.  They throw it in your face, as though its something you don't already have, but for a nominal fee, and a pinch here, a pluck there, and 200 dollars later...it too can be yours.

Drink Coke  - Bill Hicks.

The perfectly symmetrical face to sell eye liner.  The unbelievably chiseled naked bodies, to sell clothes.  The gorgeous sunset to sell erectile dysfunction drugs.  The bikini clad girls to sell beer.  All the pretty to sell all the ugly.

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. - Kate Moss.

I guess in this disturbingly cynical opener, the nature of beauty is to destroy and impoverish.

Once upon a decade or so ago, I went with a group of friends to the new movie 'American Beauty'.  I enjoyed the film quite a bit.  I was quite taken by it, and went along for that ride all the way...until...
until...
Until I was forced to sit through watching a piece of trash caught in a crosswind and was told it was the most beautiful thing ever seen.  I laughed out loud.  Really?
It's a fucking plastic bag...blowing in the wind.  That's it?  That's the pinnacle of beauty?  I wracked my brain.  Maybe I was missing something.  Maybe there was symbolism or something I wasn't picking up on.  I dedicated FAR too much thought to the idea.
It seems like now...pretty much anything can be beautiful.  All that has to happen, is that someone has to label it as such.  A stock picture with an inspirational quote.  A simple, basic, line drawn facsimile of a rose.  A well placed witticism.  I'm told all these things are...or have been...beautiful.

I suppose in this also cynical thought, the nature of beauty is simply to lower its own standard.  If everything is beautiful...how can anything be?

Once upon about four months ago, my girlfriend of over four years told me that she thought it was time for us to part ways, and explore our lives separately.  It was a devastatingly heartbreaking moment.  I for a couple moments couldn't breathe.  I was in pain.
For days.
Weeks.
Maybe still to some degree.

At first was the anger of course.  Not directed at her...or really AT anybody.  Just sitting.  Existing.  Taking up space inside of me.  The anger that accompanies pain, and insecurity.  The ideas of waste.  Wasted time. Wasted effort.  Wasted years of my life.

Then of course, once I put my head back on, I understood that none of it was a waste.  That the time I had spent with her was wonderful.  All of it.  Even the bad parts.  The joy I had with her was something pretty special to me.  It really was...beautiful.
Our life together.
Our conversations.
All the things we shared.
Was born out of beauty.

I was not able to move on, move forward, until I allowed myself that moment of clarity.  I needed to beauty, to overcome the pain.  I needed the joy, to let go of the sorrow.

I think in this particular situation the nature of beauty is to build.  To allow progression.  To inspire epiphany.

See ultimately that's the thing.  Beauty can build or destroy.  It can inspire love, and jealousy.  It can steal your breath, or drive you insane.  It can create.  It can motivate.  It can paralyze.  It can do oh so many things...but really...it has no nature...
It is as wild as all the things in nature really are.
It can also not be defined, confined, controlled, or put into action or words.  There are as many definitions of beauty, as there are people on the planet to define it.
All the things you find beautiful, I may...or may not.  I will say this though, I love that you do.
I love that you have the capacity to recognize it.
I love that you have the desire to find it.
I hope...
I truly hope...
In my hope of hopes...
that we can share it.
I'd like that.

I think it would be beautiful.