“I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen—I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
By popular demand to know its source, this quote comes from American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Reborn
“Now imagine your pain as a white ball of healing light.”
It’s been six weeks since I began to burn. I spent four months trying to win back the girl, and it just didn’t work. The fact is I had already lost the battle and picked the wrong fucking time to start fighting it. The blood had already been spilled, the tears shed, the bodies buried and the memorial structure to What Had Transpired Here had begun construction, and that’s when I finally arrived on the field looking for a foe to vanquish. Still I fought bravely and mightily and probably would have won but for the fact that my enemy had already won, gone home, started writing memoirs. I knew things had been going sour between her and I, but I took it for granted that it would wait while I threw my time and energy and effort at solving my personal problems. I was wrong. Finally I realized that by fighting I was only hurting us both – her, perhaps, more than myself – and threw in the towel. I hate hate HATE to give up and accept and admit defeat, but the only other paths before me fed into further despair and damnation.
The anger and rage and frustration and despair built within me for over a week before I figured out how to channel it (other than write, which usually helps a lot but just wasn’t cutting it this time). I started a training program in the hopes that physical pain would trump the emotional misery. It worked pretty well at first as soreness and exhaustion kept me drained and distracted. I set goals for myself to push harder each and every day, and I surprised myself by meeting those goals each and every time. I cut my smoking down from three or four packs a week to only one (which is helping in the wallet, too, since a pack costs from $8 to $10 up here). I’m also experimenting more and more in the kitchen, concocting unique experiences I would only wish upon myself until I get it just right.
It turns out I’m not out of the woods. Two weeks ago I stopped being able to sleep through the night. I can’t fall asleep until around 1:00, I wake around 7:00, and something rouses me at least once in between. If it’s a noise, it doesn’t register. If it’s a dream, it doesn’t linger. I find myself awake with no explanation, just a sense of confusion as I attempt to discover if I’m missing something critical to the moment. Has someone broken in? No. Is something on fire? No. Why am I awake? I cannot tell. The good news is that I seem to fall back asleep in short order, and I’m able to get to work about 30 minutes early and beat the bulk of the morning rush. This week I started cutting my caffeine intake to near zero in the hopes of combating this.
But the heartache has returned. Every moment of every day I feel her presence in my mind. It’s as if she’s standing just barely out of sight; turn my head a little and there she’ll be, speak and she’ll respond. This happens at work, at home, on the street, on the train, in a bookstore, in a movie theater, and I ignore it the way I ignore a scratch on the lens of my glasses. I cannot change it, and to dwell upon it would drive me completely mad. I can only ignore the feeling and hope it will starve and die before it rots me.
So now I’ve made two more changes. I’ve started reading again, new and imaginative stories that inspire me to tell a fictional tale half so interesting. There’s such a joy to be had from reading, hours spent on the same story that take more of my mental acuity than any movie or TV show.
Also, I’ve doubled my workouts. I keep the same rotation of routines, but now I’ll run after each. Saturday, I did my punching routine followed by a run. Sunday I did my jump rope/pushup/sit-up routine followed by a run. Yesterday repeated Saturday. Today was the biggest challenge yet; a run followed by a run. Instead of turning around at the midpoint of my playlist, I kept going until it was over. I made it all the way to the soccer fields at Northwestern University. The ruler function on Google Earth rates this as being about 3.6 miles which I covered in 30 minutes. Then I sat, stretched, started the playlist over and ran back home. Seven miles of gravel, sand and pavement passed under my shoes, and this is just the first week of the new regime. I’m excited at what I’ll be able to do in six more weeks.
School starts in two months and two days. By then I’ll be living in a new home, hopefully one I’ll love enough and be able to afford to keep for the next three years as I continue my professional education. My job has been continued through the end of July, and even should it go no further, I know I’ll be able to live on what I’ve saved until the loans kick in. Slowly I can feel my grief being replaced by a most pleasant, warm combination of pride and hope.
I’m still tender, but my skin is thickening.
It’s been six weeks since I began to burn. I spent four months trying to win back the girl, and it just didn’t work. The fact is I had already lost the battle and picked the wrong fucking time to start fighting it. The blood had already been spilled, the tears shed, the bodies buried and the memorial structure to What Had Transpired Here had begun construction, and that’s when I finally arrived on the field looking for a foe to vanquish. Still I fought bravely and mightily and probably would have won but for the fact that my enemy had already won, gone home, started writing memoirs. I knew things had been going sour between her and I, but I took it for granted that it would wait while I threw my time and energy and effort at solving my personal problems. I was wrong. Finally I realized that by fighting I was only hurting us both – her, perhaps, more than myself – and threw in the towel. I hate hate HATE to give up and accept and admit defeat, but the only other paths before me fed into further despair and damnation.
The anger and rage and frustration and despair built within me for over a week before I figured out how to channel it (other than write, which usually helps a lot but just wasn’t cutting it this time). I started a training program in the hopes that physical pain would trump the emotional misery. It worked pretty well at first as soreness and exhaustion kept me drained and distracted. I set goals for myself to push harder each and every day, and I surprised myself by meeting those goals each and every time. I cut my smoking down from three or four packs a week to only one (which is helping in the wallet, too, since a pack costs from $8 to $10 up here). I’m also experimenting more and more in the kitchen, concocting unique experiences I would only wish upon myself until I get it just right.
It turns out I’m not out of the woods. Two weeks ago I stopped being able to sleep through the night. I can’t fall asleep until around 1:00, I wake around 7:00, and something rouses me at least once in between. If it’s a noise, it doesn’t register. If it’s a dream, it doesn’t linger. I find myself awake with no explanation, just a sense of confusion as I attempt to discover if I’m missing something critical to the moment. Has someone broken in? No. Is something on fire? No. Why am I awake? I cannot tell. The good news is that I seem to fall back asleep in short order, and I’m able to get to work about 30 minutes early and beat the bulk of the morning rush. This week I started cutting my caffeine intake to near zero in the hopes of combating this.
But the heartache has returned. Every moment of every day I feel her presence in my mind. It’s as if she’s standing just barely out of sight; turn my head a little and there she’ll be, speak and she’ll respond. This happens at work, at home, on the street, on the train, in a bookstore, in a movie theater, and I ignore it the way I ignore a scratch on the lens of my glasses. I cannot change it, and to dwell upon it would drive me completely mad. I can only ignore the feeling and hope it will starve and die before it rots me.
So now I’ve made two more changes. I’ve started reading again, new and imaginative stories that inspire me to tell a fictional tale half so interesting. There’s such a joy to be had from reading, hours spent on the same story that take more of my mental acuity than any movie or TV show.
Also, I’ve doubled my workouts. I keep the same rotation of routines, but now I’ll run after each. Saturday, I did my punching routine followed by a run. Sunday I did my jump rope/pushup/sit-up routine followed by a run. Yesterday repeated Saturday. Today was the biggest challenge yet; a run followed by a run. Instead of turning around at the midpoint of my playlist, I kept going until it was over. I made it all the way to the soccer fields at Northwestern University. The ruler function on Google Earth rates this as being about 3.6 miles which I covered in 30 minutes. Then I sat, stretched, started the playlist over and ran back home. Seven miles of gravel, sand and pavement passed under my shoes, and this is just the first week of the new regime. I’m excited at what I’ll be able to do in six more weeks.
School starts in two months and two days. By then I’ll be living in a new home, hopefully one I’ll love enough and be able to afford to keep for the next three years as I continue my professional education. My job has been continued through the end of July, and even should it go no further, I know I’ll be able to live on what I’ve saved until the loans kick in. Slowly I can feel my grief being replaced by a most pleasant, warm combination of pride and hope.
I’m still tender, but my skin is thickening.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Word Salad
I enjoy words. It’s becoming rarer that I deign to make a string of them to encapsulate my thoughts in such a way as to make them tender for public consumption, or even for the perusal of friends and family. This is largely because I recently reacquired the latent habit of writing regularly in a private journal. Never designed to be posted or shared, my journal is pen and ink only – easier to burn, as someone recently suggested.
Keeping a journal is my private way of clearing the mental cobwebs which trap degenerate thoughts. Endlessly they rattle my skull and never perish. Repeatedly they remind me of their existence, which serves only to torture me by pinning my emotions squarely in the past. Constrained by what was, I fail to appreciate what is or what could be. With the mighty Pen I trace gossamer threads, draw painful thoughts and memories into the ink well, and shape words on paper. It’s such a relief mining the ore of raw emotion out of my heart. It’s refreshing refining the chaos into order allowing me to delineate where I’ve been, where I am, where I ought to be, and where I want to go. It’s vindictive validation smashing my depression between the pages of a tattered Mead Composition Notebook that turns five years old this month.
It’s the literary equivalent of screaming into my pillow.
And when words aren’t enough, I’ve learned to exhaust myself physically. Twice a week I run for half an hour. Twice a week I punch a concrete wall for half an hour (the flesh on my knuckles is proof I should maybe use different gloves for this). Twice a week I intermittently jump rope, pushup, and sit-up for half an hour. For the last month, I’ve cycled through these routines six days a week. I have a different playlist for each. I measure progress neither with pounds nor inches, but through running farther, hitting harder, jumping faster, and lifting more than I did the previous week.
Also I spent the weekend sanding down and re-staining my coffee table. ‘s nice. And on Sunday I took myself to the movies. Then I came home and cooked myself cheeseburgers. Mmm.
And now the mental effort of remaining alert for 20 sleepless hours is overtaking me. Sleep is rolling in behind my eyes like a storm on the horizon, a baptismal flood to wash clean my cluttered cranium and tickle me with imagery that will inspire a triumph of tomorrow’s greatness over yesterday’s trepidation.
I hope.
Keeping a journal is my private way of clearing the mental cobwebs which trap degenerate thoughts. Endlessly they rattle my skull and never perish. Repeatedly they remind me of their existence, which serves only to torture me by pinning my emotions squarely in the past. Constrained by what was, I fail to appreciate what is or what could be. With the mighty Pen I trace gossamer threads, draw painful thoughts and memories into the ink well, and shape words on paper. It’s such a relief mining the ore of raw emotion out of my heart. It’s refreshing refining the chaos into order allowing me to delineate where I’ve been, where I am, where I ought to be, and where I want to go. It’s vindictive validation smashing my depression between the pages of a tattered Mead Composition Notebook that turns five years old this month.
It’s the literary equivalent of screaming into my pillow.
And when words aren’t enough, I’ve learned to exhaust myself physically. Twice a week I run for half an hour. Twice a week I punch a concrete wall for half an hour (the flesh on my knuckles is proof I should maybe use different gloves for this). Twice a week I intermittently jump rope, pushup, and sit-up for half an hour. For the last month, I’ve cycled through these routines six days a week. I have a different playlist for each. I measure progress neither with pounds nor inches, but through running farther, hitting harder, jumping faster, and lifting more than I did the previous week.
Also I spent the weekend sanding down and re-staining my coffee table. ‘s nice. And on Sunday I took myself to the movies. Then I came home and cooked myself cheeseburgers. Mmm.
And now the mental effort of remaining alert for 20 sleepless hours is overtaking me. Sleep is rolling in behind my eyes like a storm on the horizon, a baptismal flood to wash clean my cluttered cranium and tickle me with imagery that will inspire a triumph of tomorrow’s greatness over yesterday’s trepidation.
I hope.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Some Words From the Forge
Get the poison out
Wash it through my veins
Eradicate the cowl
Too much, things look the same
Too long I’ve been in darkness
While reaching for the light
No further will I anguish
Bemoaning my sad plight
Enraged by my self pity
I’ll suffer here no more
I love the Second City
So I’ll get up off the floor
I am reborn in water
I am reborn through sweat
A hard run in a downpour
Leaves me so much more than wet
The Phoenix and the Dragon
And the Twins beneath my clothes
One symbol I was born with
The other two I chose
The downfall and the rebirth
Are certainties assured
I’ll resurrect pretending
I’m not doing it for Her
I’ll empty out this bottle
Most likely, by myself
Its hollow shell remaining
As a symbol on my shelf
Reminding me of what was
And where I made mistakes
Reclaim my heart for my own
However long it takes
Fall down seven, stand up eight
Has always been my line
I could never have imagined
There would be a Number Nine
Behind me, there’s a wall
And before me, empty space
The path I walk from now on
Will show me my new face
And though I have been hardened
By all the things gone wrong
A hard heart’s only brittle
I’d prefer a heart that’s strong
The challenge now before me
That lies within my skin
Is to ignore that nagging voice
That says I’ll never win
I have to keep from shutting down
But I don’t want to feel
I may feel grateful for a forge fire
But I won’t miss being steel
Wash it through my veins
Eradicate the cowl
Too much, things look the same
Too long I’ve been in darkness
While reaching for the light
No further will I anguish
Bemoaning my sad plight
Enraged by my self pity
I’ll suffer here no more
I love the Second City
So I’ll get up off the floor
I am reborn in water
I am reborn through sweat
A hard run in a downpour
Leaves me so much more than wet
The Phoenix and the Dragon
And the Twins beneath my clothes
One symbol I was born with
The other two I chose
The downfall and the rebirth
Are certainties assured
I’ll resurrect pretending
I’m not doing it for Her
I’ll empty out this bottle
Most likely, by myself
Its hollow shell remaining
As a symbol on my shelf
Reminding me of what was
And where I made mistakes
Reclaim my heart for my own
However long it takes
Fall down seven, stand up eight
Has always been my line
I could never have imagined
There would be a Number Nine
Behind me, there’s a wall
And before me, empty space
The path I walk from now on
Will show me my new face
And though I have been hardened
By all the things gone wrong
A hard heart’s only brittle
I’d prefer a heart that’s strong
The challenge now before me
That lies within my skin
Is to ignore that nagging voice
That says I’ll never win
I have to keep from shutting down
But I don’t want to feel
I may feel grateful for a forge fire
But I won’t miss being steel
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Late-Night Snack
I don’t know much about the nature of dreams. Generally it is agreed upon that dreams are the province of our deepest selves. Literal and metaphoric imagery splashes us with what we desire and that which we think we deserve.
What does it say, then, about being repeatedly stabbed? That was the common motif in the dream I woke from exactly one hour ago. And to think I went to bed early so I could be well rested for a change.
In the dream I was in prison for what I had believed was a noble cause. In the way of dreams I didn’t yet know what this cause was, but I had the feeling that it was helping someone else more than it was hurting me, and would be short enough to be bearable, and I would be rewarded when it was over. Before long, I stopped believing this.
The prison itself wasn’t the organized structure of walls and bars. It was a hollowed-out building into which bloodthirsty convicts are dropped and abandoned. Left without guards, there was a constant chaotic struggle for dominance familiar to anyone who’s seen much science-fiction (but not necessarily much GOOD science-fiction).
My escape was aided by a man most insane. In a parking lot he kept breaking car windows and using the shattered glass to slice at me because it amused him. Scared to defend myself, I was soon covered in plenty of my own blood, disabusing me of the notion that I needed to stick with him to aid my escape and survival.
We were hunted. We ran. I was faster, and he may have been captured, but I never found out because I never looked back, and I felt no remorse over this. Only the desperate fear of running, running impossibly slowly, feeling despair like I’m trying to outrun a car and there’s no way I can win except for some reason I seem to be, and my partial victory strengthens my confidence and redoubles my efforts.
Two police were in the middle of the field, but I ran on towards them because I’m not caught until I’m caught and something else may happen before then. Turns out the two police were facing away from me, distracted by a double line of Jim Carrey and Female Counterpart impersonators hamming it up (fucking weird-assed dreams). I turned right and jumped over a wooden fence, ended up hiding in the shadows of the side of a house in a suburban neighborhood.
I soon found myself standing in the kitchen of my pretty-nice home, talking to my wife (turns out I was married) about why I made such an escape when I was only supposed to serve six months and come back home. I explained that I had discovered my boss, for whom I went to prison and from whom I had the six month guarantee, was about to cut his losses, sell the company, and lose the power to get me out of gaol. My sentence was four years, and there was no way I’d survive that long in a place I didn’t deserve to be, having lied confessing to a crime I didn’t commit for the greater good of a man who was going to leave me to rot while stealing my wife.
It happened just that fast in my head. Also, the man looked exactly like Jon Voigt. Also, I’m impressed that my spell checker already knew the word Voigt.
I soon found myself sitting on the pavement of another parking lot near the entrance of a multi-storied apartment building. Here I’ll forsake a bit of detail for when I turn this dream into a short story. Suffice it to say I found myself about to have a duel with knives with a pair of men who’d just sliced the femoral arteries of a man who’d just delivered them a pizza. I woke up moments before the fight started. Disturbed that I was having such dreams, I consoled myself by fighting the duel in my mind, strategizing how I would quickly dispatch a murderous heroin junkie who’d challenged me to a duel with rusty box cutters. It’s only a problem until you know the solution.
When we’re children our nightmares are populated with monsters who want to devour our flesh (at least mine were). We don’t realize the true horror until we’re more grown up, that the real monsters are normal people who do monstrous things. These monsters don’t just hurt us by hurting us; they hurt us by hurting those we love. They hurt us by causing those we love to hate us, or to betray us while still confessing their love for us. We could even become these monsters and still feel like ourselves.
That’s horror.
What does it say, then, about being repeatedly stabbed? That was the common motif in the dream I woke from exactly one hour ago. And to think I went to bed early so I could be well rested for a change.
In the dream I was in prison for what I had believed was a noble cause. In the way of dreams I didn’t yet know what this cause was, but I had the feeling that it was helping someone else more than it was hurting me, and would be short enough to be bearable, and I would be rewarded when it was over. Before long, I stopped believing this.
The prison itself wasn’t the organized structure of walls and bars. It was a hollowed-out building into which bloodthirsty convicts are dropped and abandoned. Left without guards, there was a constant chaotic struggle for dominance familiar to anyone who’s seen much science-fiction (but not necessarily much GOOD science-fiction).
My escape was aided by a man most insane. In a parking lot he kept breaking car windows and using the shattered glass to slice at me because it amused him. Scared to defend myself, I was soon covered in plenty of my own blood, disabusing me of the notion that I needed to stick with him to aid my escape and survival.
We were hunted. We ran. I was faster, and he may have been captured, but I never found out because I never looked back, and I felt no remorse over this. Only the desperate fear of running, running impossibly slowly, feeling despair like I’m trying to outrun a car and there’s no way I can win except for some reason I seem to be, and my partial victory strengthens my confidence and redoubles my efforts.
Two police were in the middle of the field, but I ran on towards them because I’m not caught until I’m caught and something else may happen before then. Turns out the two police were facing away from me, distracted by a double line of Jim Carrey and Female Counterpart impersonators hamming it up (fucking weird-assed dreams). I turned right and jumped over a wooden fence, ended up hiding in the shadows of the side of a house in a suburban neighborhood.
I soon found myself standing in the kitchen of my pretty-nice home, talking to my wife (turns out I was married) about why I made such an escape when I was only supposed to serve six months and come back home. I explained that I had discovered my boss, for whom I went to prison and from whom I had the six month guarantee, was about to cut his losses, sell the company, and lose the power to get me out of gaol. My sentence was four years, and there was no way I’d survive that long in a place I didn’t deserve to be, having lied confessing to a crime I didn’t commit for the greater good of a man who was going to leave me to rot while stealing my wife.
It happened just that fast in my head. Also, the man looked exactly like Jon Voigt. Also, I’m impressed that my spell checker already knew the word Voigt.
I soon found myself sitting on the pavement of another parking lot near the entrance of a multi-storied apartment building. Here I’ll forsake a bit of detail for when I turn this dream into a short story. Suffice it to say I found myself about to have a duel with knives with a pair of men who’d just sliced the femoral arteries of a man who’d just delivered them a pizza. I woke up moments before the fight started. Disturbed that I was having such dreams, I consoled myself by fighting the duel in my mind, strategizing how I would quickly dispatch a murderous heroin junkie who’d challenged me to a duel with rusty box cutters. It’s only a problem until you know the solution.
When we’re children our nightmares are populated with monsters who want to devour our flesh (at least mine were). We don’t realize the true horror until we’re more grown up, that the real monsters are normal people who do monstrous things. These monsters don’t just hurt us by hurting us; they hurt us by hurting those we love. They hurt us by causing those we love to hate us, or to betray us while still confessing their love for us. We could even become these monsters and still feel like ourselves.
That’s horror.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Victory and Validation
I don’t even know how to begin. So I’ll just tell the story, I suppose.
I came home tonight a bit earlier than typical, mayhap by an hour. I finally started reading Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, and it’s been my train companion for the last day or so. I find myself struggling to keep up, remembering my chemistry and physics classes of high school and college daze, not merely to remember the science, but also to remember how I learned in those days. I could be great at those subjects when I really applied myself. I developed a stronger love of theatre when I discovered I could be good at it without trying nearly as hard. So sue me.
I checked the mail when I got home, eagerly looking for word from the IRS about reducing the amount of my garnishment. What I got instead was a letter from DePaul, one of the schools for which I’d auditioned. My heart sank.
When I got a letter from The New School on Monday, all I could think about was my friend who goes there now. Logical thought warred with emotional response. “She got a phone call,” I mumbled to myself, “but I got a letter. I got a letter. But she got a phone call. But I got a letter.” Absently, I noticed the envelope was awfully thin.
I went inside my apartment and curbed the emotions that toiled back and forth. Who would I call first? My father, who would help book the ticket to NY? My friend, telling her I’d soon need a place to stay for a weekend? No, stop it. What if it’s bad news. What if it’s a rejection. Are you prepared for that? A deep-seeded cynicism took over as I forced myself to slow down. Take off your bag. Take off your coat, hat, and boots. Now sit down. Now open the envelope.
“Hello, Mark –,” it read. Awfully polite & personal, thought I. “I want to thank you for taking part in our admission process this year.” I was able to make the connection that a letter of acceptance wouldn’t have started that way. “However,” it continued, “it is with deep regret that I inform you. . .” No wonder it was polite. Crap.
The New School holds three rounds of auditions, but I hadn’t even passed the first one. Rejection would have been easier to take if I had made it further down the road, if I had known that I had beaten at least one candidate. Instead, what I had earned had taken no talent, no skill – only the ability to pay the application fee held me in distinction from any other face on the street. I was no closer to one of the coveted Three Things I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to get.
A few days and many anguished moments later I held the DePaul envelope. Once more hope and fear shook me like competing ocean currents, threatening to capsize my ego. I talked myself into relaxing, and went into my apartment. I took off my bag, coat, hat, and boots. I sat down. Absently, I noticed the envelope was reasonably thick as I tore off the short edge.
“Dear Mark,” it read. Kinda formal, thought I. “Congratulations!” Jigga-wha? “Based on the recommendation of the performance faculty of The Theatre School at DePaul University, I am honored to notify you of your acceptance . . .”
There was no need to continue. If it weren’t for bold type, I wouldn’t have seen the next compliment. “In further recognition of the value The Theatre School sees in you as a candidate, I am delighted to offer you a Graduate Talent Scholarship of . . .” about ½ annual tuition, renewable each year.
I don’t have the words to express what I feel. So many times have I felt defeat, I can describe it in every detail. The rise of hope and the plummet of disappointment have been rather well cataloged in recent years. Of the three things I most desire in this world, I had thought that a single victory would leave me cynical, but not so terribly that I wouldn’t be able to continue to try. But if my one victory were this victory, I could eventually overcome and ultimately heal and one day be able to rejoice in all that I’d gained, and still go for the other two.
But this feels so much better than I ever imagined it would.
This news is a cool salve on a fresh burn. It numbs the pain and reminds me that I’m not only going to heal, but I’ll do so without a scar. And one day I won’t even remember the pain. Tonight, I shall sleep the sleep of the victorious.
I came home tonight a bit earlier than typical, mayhap by an hour. I finally started reading Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, and it’s been my train companion for the last day or so. I find myself struggling to keep up, remembering my chemistry and physics classes of high school and college daze, not merely to remember the science, but also to remember how I learned in those days. I could be great at those subjects when I really applied myself. I developed a stronger love of theatre when I discovered I could be good at it without trying nearly as hard. So sue me.
I checked the mail when I got home, eagerly looking for word from the IRS about reducing the amount of my garnishment. What I got instead was a letter from DePaul, one of the schools for which I’d auditioned. My heart sank.
When I got a letter from The New School on Monday, all I could think about was my friend who goes there now. Logical thought warred with emotional response. “She got a phone call,” I mumbled to myself, “but I got a letter. I got a letter. But she got a phone call. But I got a letter.” Absently, I noticed the envelope was awfully thin.
I went inside my apartment and curbed the emotions that toiled back and forth. Who would I call first? My father, who would help book the ticket to NY? My friend, telling her I’d soon need a place to stay for a weekend? No, stop it. What if it’s bad news. What if it’s a rejection. Are you prepared for that? A deep-seeded cynicism took over as I forced myself to slow down. Take off your bag. Take off your coat, hat, and boots. Now sit down. Now open the envelope.
“Hello, Mark –,” it read. Awfully polite & personal, thought I. “I want to thank you for taking part in our admission process this year.” I was able to make the connection that a letter of acceptance wouldn’t have started that way. “However,” it continued, “it is with deep regret that I inform you. . .” No wonder it was polite. Crap.
The New School holds three rounds of auditions, but I hadn’t even passed the first one. Rejection would have been easier to take if I had made it further down the road, if I had known that I had beaten at least one candidate. Instead, what I had earned had taken no talent, no skill – only the ability to pay the application fee held me in distinction from any other face on the street. I was no closer to one of the coveted Three Things I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to get.
A few days and many anguished moments later I held the DePaul envelope. Once more hope and fear shook me like competing ocean currents, threatening to capsize my ego. I talked myself into relaxing, and went into my apartment. I took off my bag, coat, hat, and boots. I sat down. Absently, I noticed the envelope was reasonably thick as I tore off the short edge.
“Dear Mark,” it read. Kinda formal, thought I. “Congratulations!” Jigga-wha? “Based on the recommendation of the performance faculty of The Theatre School at DePaul University, I am honored to notify you of your acceptance . . .”
There was no need to continue. If it weren’t for bold type, I wouldn’t have seen the next compliment. “In further recognition of the value The Theatre School sees in you as a candidate, I am delighted to offer you a Graduate Talent Scholarship of . . .” about ½ annual tuition, renewable each year.
I don’t have the words to express what I feel. So many times have I felt defeat, I can describe it in every detail. The rise of hope and the plummet of disappointment have been rather well cataloged in recent years. Of the three things I most desire in this world, I had thought that a single victory would leave me cynical, but not so terribly that I wouldn’t be able to continue to try. But if my one victory were this victory, I could eventually overcome and ultimately heal and one day be able to rejoice in all that I’d gained, and still go for the other two.
But this feels so much better than I ever imagined it would.
This news is a cool salve on a fresh burn. It numbs the pain and reminds me that I’m not only going to heal, but I’ll do so without a scar. And one day I won’t even remember the pain. Tonight, I shall sleep the sleep of the victorious.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
I Will Not Yield
I want to say something, but I can think of hardly anything that isn’t a complaint.
This week:
I came home from work last Monday ready for exercise. What I got was a crashed computer that took me all week to fix. I even bought $50 worth of cables to get my external drive up and running so I could back up my info. Two days after I fixed my hard drive (on my own, due to my expansive technical expertise and advice from my father, thank you very much), my external drive crashed. There’s no going back, it’s deader than dead. I could have put the $50 toward a new external drive that comes with cables.
Tuesday I got in the mail a notice that on my financial aid application the name I gave doesn’t match my Social Security Number, and needed to be corrected before It could be processed. Both pieces of information were already correct.
Last month I got a $250 credit from my new leasing company. Thursday I got a notice in the mail that they weren’t supposed to give that to me, so this month I have to give it back.
This weekend was good – I made some real headway trying to impress a woman who’s letting me try to impress her. After several weeks, I’m finally to a point where I can be near her and not exude desperation the way the sun emits light. I’m finally in a place where I can show her the side of myself that, if she had seen while we were still together, I’m confident we would still be together. It earned me two kisses that I didn’t even have to ask for.
Today I got in the mail a rejection letter from The New School. I guess New York isn’t going to be my home after all. It’s one thing to be rejected, but they still have two more rounds of auditions before they make their final decisions. It stings being told I’m not as good as all the people who are getting two more chances to prove themselves before being denied.
My conclusion for the week is that I should stop checking the fucking mailbox.
I need a victory. I need an honest-to-god, dyed in the wool victory. Cold-blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. I’m doing okay at overcoming new problems, but every one of those I solve elevates me back to staring up at the old problems again, those overbearing giants who threaten to grind my bones to make ye bread (fee fi fo fum). Some problems must be whittled, eroding flaws as time erodes a stone. Sure, fine, great, thanks Buddha. Fuck all that, now. I need a victory akin to firing a shoulder mounted rocket launcher at a gopher. I need to defeat a challenge like Muhammad Ali beating up a scarecrow. I need to earn something substantial that won’t dissolve with the next strong wind. Something that I can’t lose more easily than I gained.
Maybe I’m fighting the wrong fights. Maybe I’m reaching for that which I have no right to grasp. And maybe getting smacked around is just to toughen me up for the bigger disappointments I’ve not yet been strong enough to face.
"There were only two things I could have done. And one of them would have been to just lie down and never get up again. It's like how many times can life hit you? When do the blows start to hurt? When do you just . . . stop?" —Lyta Hall
This week:
I came home from work last Monday ready for exercise. What I got was a crashed computer that took me all week to fix. I even bought $50 worth of cables to get my external drive up and running so I could back up my info. Two days after I fixed my hard drive (on my own, due to my expansive technical expertise and advice from my father, thank you very much), my external drive crashed. There’s no going back, it’s deader than dead. I could have put the $50 toward a new external drive that comes with cables.
Tuesday I got in the mail a notice that on my financial aid application the name I gave doesn’t match my Social Security Number, and needed to be corrected before It could be processed. Both pieces of information were already correct.
Last month I got a $250 credit from my new leasing company. Thursday I got a notice in the mail that they weren’t supposed to give that to me, so this month I have to give it back.
This weekend was good – I made some real headway trying to impress a woman who’s letting me try to impress her. After several weeks, I’m finally to a point where I can be near her and not exude desperation the way the sun emits light. I’m finally in a place where I can show her the side of myself that, if she had seen while we were still together, I’m confident we would still be together. It earned me two kisses that I didn’t even have to ask for.
Today I got in the mail a rejection letter from The New School. I guess New York isn’t going to be my home after all. It’s one thing to be rejected, but they still have two more rounds of auditions before they make their final decisions. It stings being told I’m not as good as all the people who are getting two more chances to prove themselves before being denied.
My conclusion for the week is that I should stop checking the fucking mailbox.
I need a victory. I need an honest-to-god, dyed in the wool victory. Cold-blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. I’m doing okay at overcoming new problems, but every one of those I solve elevates me back to staring up at the old problems again, those overbearing giants who threaten to grind my bones to make ye bread (fee fi fo fum). Some problems must be whittled, eroding flaws as time erodes a stone. Sure, fine, great, thanks Buddha. Fuck all that, now. I need a victory akin to firing a shoulder mounted rocket launcher at a gopher. I need to defeat a challenge like Muhammad Ali beating up a scarecrow. I need to earn something substantial that won’t dissolve with the next strong wind. Something that I can’t lose more easily than I gained.
Maybe I’m fighting the wrong fights. Maybe I’m reaching for that which I have no right to grasp. And maybe getting smacked around is just to toughen me up for the bigger disappointments I’ve not yet been strong enough to face.
"There were only two things I could have done. And one of them would have been to just lie down and never get up again. It's like how many times can life hit you? When do the blows start to hurt? When do you just . . . stop?" —Lyta Hall
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