power hungry

The only time I really like to write is when I'm out and about... not like when I'm shopping at the mall or working out. It's not like I'll be powering up my laptop in between my bicep curls. But, still, I find the environment most conducive to writing creatively is usually at a Starbucks. When I'm home, there are oddly too many distractions. Most would think that being in public with other people and noise and sites and sounds that the distractions may prevent me from being productive, but I find the opposite to be true.

When I'm home, there are so many other things that can prevent me from doing something I might really need to do. Clean the litter box, mop the floors, take out the trash, fold laundry, iron shirts, sleep... all these things will keep me from doing anything remotely productive like writing. The oddest part is that I hate doing almost all those things; but when I'm home, I feel practically obligated to do at least one or a few of those chores. Since the cat doesn't lift a paw to clean up after herself, I turn into freaking Alice (without the Bunch) when I'm at the house. That's why on the days lately when I 'work from home,' I'm working from Starbucks.'

One draw back from only feeling inspired to write when I'm at a Starbucks is that unless I'm near a power outlet, the writing becomes a timed event. This afternoon is a prime example. Choosing a much too crowded Starbucks to plant myself, I had to take the only table available.

I don't mind it being in the center of the Starbucks; after all, this helps fill some flawed need I have to be the center of attention and continue my dillusion that the world revolves around me. Plus, I get to witness pretty much everything going around me... like, from here, I can see the guy who has been waiting on the restroom for about 5 minutes... which means the person IN the restroom has been in there for 5 minutes... which means the guy waiting probably doesn't want to go in there any time soon.

From my current vantage point, I also can pick up the odor the guy that smells like a dog. I can hear the guys next to me debating the virtues of Dallas. I can see the guy across from me is reading the Lisa Jackson novel "Wicked Green" (it looks stupid-- and quite honestly, so does he a little bit).

But, most of all, I see where there are available outlets and how each one of them is blocked by people NOT using or needing them. There are the Turkish guys with their med school books at one table near a wall outlet. Yes, they need the larger table, but not the plug. Still, they are spread out and appear as though they'll be planted there for a while (even if they are only splitting a tall coffee).

Then, behind me is a couple of guys who looked like they met online and chose this Starbucks to meet in person and see if they hit it off. From the body language it seems like a match. Goody for them. I'm sure they'll tell their adopted grandchildren all about this day.

The only other outlet in the place is actually being used by some guy on his laptop. I'll forgive him for using the plug. I will not forgive him for that shirt he's wearing.

So, here I sit, in the middle of everything but completely cut off at the same time. No energy source. No power. As I see the battery measurement slowly but surely decrease, I know my time is limited. So, instead of crafting a well-written piece with substance and depth or humor or style, I'm just going to go do what any gay man does when he can't get what he wants. He goes shopping.

pancakes

I wrote this a month and a half ago... I didn't publish it at the time simply because the mood was WAY to somber on my blog. But, I haven't posted much this month, and since I'm buried in writing mortgage industry stuff for a while, I'm afraid I'll lose any regulars I might have (especially the one in Germany), so, here's what I was feeling a month and a half ago... and a little yesterday...

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I had pancakes for brunch.

If you know me, if you know my regular eating habits, if you know my standard Sunday routine, you know that this is a cry for help.

Last night was horrible. Not in 'the end of the world' kind of way, but in the kind of way when a truth hits me... a truth I knew all along. A truth I knew would eventually reveal itself, but for some reason, I thought I had more time before it did-- at least, I hoped I did. It would have been more time of delaying the inevitable, of kidding myself, but I'm involved in theatre, and so I'm comfortable in a world of pretend; often times, I prefer it. Sadly, the reality we live in rarely is a choice, and apparently, the warning is right: the objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

The details are irrelevant. I fell for someone I shouldn't. I want something I can't have. It's not the first time, and more than likely, it unfortunately won't be the last time. But, it's been a while since it's happened, and so I'm out of practice. I forgot how it felt. I forgot how to fix it.

Some people are great at dealing with disappointments of the heart. They shake them off. They go for a run. They go out with friends. Me? I wallow. I try not to for too long. I try not to around people. But, I do... I fill up a bathtub of pity and sit in it until my fingers get as wrinkled as raisins. Others easily judge this approach, but for me, it's the only way to attempt to heal or move on. Feel it as deeply as possible and explore all its darkness so I know the areas that need the light the most. Then, I have to throw it all up somehow-- either with phone calls to friends or on my blog. Then, at the end, I hopefully feel a little lighter and a little better, having named the pain, having voiced the pain-- not letting it smother me as much as it feels it does now.

Eating pancakes at brunch is my Sunday morning version of drowning my sorrows in wine -- which I thoroughly did last night. A good penot noir, “Under the Tuscan Sun” and quite a few tears. Wrinkly fingers, wrinkly toes.

When I woke up this morning, though, I hadn’t slept the heartache off as I had hoped. I saw it before my eyes opened. Getting out of bed is never my favorite part of the day but shadowed by an unwelcoming truth, it takes more strength than I can sometimes muster... like working out in the morning.

And, while someday, this despair, this heartache, may channel itself into something productive like exercising or doing chores to keep my mind off of it, today, the only way to deal with it today, this morning, was with pancakes. So, prying myself from bed (and pretty much knowing the side of bed I rose on today was inconsequential), I dressed without showering (again, a day when personal hygiene seemed like an unnecessary luxury) and made my way to my Sunday diner.

The pancakes arrived to my table hot and fluffy, with nice cups of butter and syrup on the side. Still caring enough not to OD, I sparingly spread the butter and syrup over my plate. I would only drizzle the syrup of the section of the pancakes I was about to eat. I’m not entirely sure why I took this approach. I didn’t use less syrup by doing this. I think, in my head, I was taking a more healthy approach though. I’ve watched enough “The Biggest Loser” to know that syrup is bad for you… rots your teeth, too much sugar, gets you chunky and so on. By giving myself a little at a time, I guess I thought I was being better to my body.

Kidding myself is my unconscious hobby.

What hurts so much this time around is that I should have known better. I have no one else to blame. It's like I saw the person sneaking up behind me with the intent to frighten me, and when they yelled "BOO!" I still was scared shitless, screamed bloody murder and jumped out of my skin. There was no question my heart was destined to be where it is today; I saw it coming from the start. So, why against all my better judgment did I let myself get this deep into it? I can’t play the inexperience or ignorance card. I can only look in the mirror and point the finger—and ultimately believe the heart will go where it wants.

I flashed back to a week before when I was joined at my regular brunch by the family of a friend of mine from college. Her sweet 4-year old daughter had ordered pancakes—for a completely different motivation. She thankfully hasn’t learned about comfort food yet. She wasn’t nursing a heartache… it’s simply what she wanted. At 34, I have to do something extraordinary or live through something painful to earn pancakes. At four, you just have to stay in your seat during church.

The rules change. The bar gets raised.

With half a pancake left, she asked her dad for more syrup. He explained that there was none left. They had emptied what was given them on the pancakes at the start of the meal. “You don’t need more syrup. It’s soaked into the pancakes. It’s in there.”

I heard him say those words as I slowly ate my “Pity Party ‘Paincake’ Platter” (which, by the way, comes with a side of bacon). Before I could finish whatever section of pancake I was about to devour, the syrup would already soak in. I couldn’t beat it, and I couldn’t stop it. The pancake and the syrup would be one. The pancake is sweeter, even if you don’t see the syrup on top.

The trickiest part of it all is that I want someone who is pancake worthy. I want someone like this person – someone intelligent, funny, driven, kind and beautiful. Someone that reads me better than people that have known me for years. Someone that I can’t get out of my head; someone that awakens my heart. Someone worthy of drowning my sorrows in pancakes without ever driving me to that point. It’s a risky proposition and a scary thought… and like Big Foot, I’m not sure if such a being exists. And, even if he does, how do I know that a short stack isn’t awaiting me at the end of our time together?

I don’t know. No one knows. There are no guarantees how things will end. But, when they do, if they do, all I know is that I’ve had the experience. I’ve had this experience. It has been poured into my life. And, while right now I feel the rotting, the decay, and the pain it causes, hopefully, ultimately, I somehow will be made a little sweeter by it.

spring awakening

Today, I saw two things that I really needed to see.

The first was random. I personally can't believe I saw it... but I did. My eye couldn't help but catch it.

I was in rehearsal for my current show (shameless plug: "i google myself" at WaterTower Theatre's Out of the Loop Festival... running March 5, 8, 12 & 13!). During the course our tech, I had a lot of down time backstage. At one point when I was waiting for a cue to be brought up, I was standing by the exit door. The play is being produced in a black box theatre, so everything is painted black (and it's a box shaped room, thus the name... which sadly exhausts most of my theatre knowledge). As I stood there, I could see the daylight fighting to break through the black doors that held it back. The biggest gap between the double exit doors was at the bottom. There, where the brightest light was piercing through, I could see green.

Against the black, the color stood out profoundly. In fact, it looked so green that for a minute, i didn't think it was grass. I thought perhaps a green mat was outside the door or maybe the concrete was painted green (I'm not sure why anyone would paint concrete green, but I was just running scenarios through my mind). I bent down to get a closer look through the hole in between the doors. It was. It was grass... green and bright.

As I stood there, waiting for my cue, surrounded by black and darkness, my eyes were attached to the small spot of light and green that I saw.

Then, when I came home, I had to run to the back ally. My damn garbage bin that the city provides doesn't have its back wheels so whenever the slightest breeze comes along, the stupid thing falls over since it's not balanced. Some days I just let it lie there, but if it gets too far into the ally, then I try to set it up right again so my neighbors won't curse me (although, if they did curse me, it would probably be in Spanish and I wouldn't understand them anyway, so it probably wouldn't matter that much.)

When I first moved into my house a year ago, I planted a tree in the backyard. I thought it would be great to have something mark this big start in my life. Plus, I wanted something visual to see the time I spend here; with so few things available to provide a visual representation of our time in this world, I thought it would just be nice to have something I did show growth-- especially when there are so few days I demonstrated it myself.

Being my first time to plant a tree, I was afraid I did something wrong. Maybe the hole wasn't deep enough. Maybe I didn't water it enough. Maybe I should have covered the base of the new tree during this past winter. Maybe I should have fertilized it more often. I mean, that first year, it was looking kin to Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Then, when winter came, like all other trees, it lost its leaves. My fear was that I had not prepared it enough to survive the cold weather... that when spring arrived, it wouldn't come back. Sometimes, the winter can be so hard that there's no life left for the spring.

Heading out back to pick up the garbage bin, I started in a run. I just came back from a workout so the wife beater and gym shorts that I had on were not quite the clothes I needed to be wearing in the 40 degree weather. I quickly passed the tree, set up the garbage bin and started my jog back, and then I stopped.

Leaves. There on my skinny, Charlie Brownish tree were leaves. Not just one or two but several. Many. Lots. Lots of leaves were beginning to form and bloom on my tree.

It survived the winter. It continued to grow. It was dressing up for spring.

If I had just seen one of those things in one day, I probably wouldn't stop to think about it. But, seeing them both in one day, it made me think. It made me notice. It gave me hope. I too can and will survive whatever winter I face... this one and others -- because there will be more winters, but there will also be more springs.

Today, I am just thankful to be reminded of the spring awakening.

blaming albuquerque

Back in the days when they used to have Saturday morning cartoons, seeing a great Warner Brothers cartoon was common. This was an era before the Saturday morning tween-centered sitcom. There was no "That's So Raven" or "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody." No, old school folks like me had "Alvin and the Chipmunks," "Muppet Babies," and "The Smurfs." And, we liked it... we loved it!

Of course, we also had The Loony Toons on Parade... Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn... all of them would march into our televisions on Saturday morning and make us laugh and help us unwind from our week full of book reports, spelling tests and math pop quizes. Usually, I would be seated on the floor with a TV tray, a glass of milk and some fresh chocolate covered donuts that my parents would have brought back for me from their weekly Saturday morning visit to the grocery store.

No Loony Toons would ever have been complete without at least one feature focusing on Bugs Bunny. Some of Bugs Bunny's best stories were the ones that start showing Bugs burrowing under the ground, zigging and zagging through the turain. Then, in an Artic setting, in the midst of a snowstorm, Bugs would pop up from the ground in Bermuda shorts, a surf board and a shade umbrella. Obviously dressed for a tropical location and finding himself in freezing weather, Bugs would pull out his trusty map to retrace his steps and see where he was. This would typically lead our hero to pinpoint the source of his problems... Seeing where he went wrong, he'd say, "I must have taken a wrong turn in Albuquerque."

I look around my life now and objectively, I have it good. I have a job-- which in these economic times is something to be especially thankful for. And, I actually LIKE what I do, so again, nothing to spit at there.

I have a house of my own which also doesn't suck. While, true, I have just the "bare necessities" in terms of furniture, there are more cracks in the walls than I prefer, and I have no idea what to do with the landscaping or decorating, it's a house, and it's mine.

I do a decent amount of theatre work ... and the work I do is decent. I don't get every part or every show I want, and the schedule can really stress me out. But, I'm able to follow my bliss to a degree that keeps me content.

I know some pretty great people that I call friends, and the better part is that most of them call me a friend too. Sure, I can get on their nerves, and a few of them can tap dance on mine. I may ocassionally forget or neglect an important event in their life, and a few of them really suck around my birthday, but overall, I'm surrounded by some good folks.

I have a family that loves me... despite the challenges I've presented them and the distance I've created.

I'm healthy, and I'm glad to have the resources and time to continue to exercise and eat right. Not sure that I'm necessarily buying more time on this planet by doing it, but at least it helps me look in the mirror without throwing up.

And despite all those things, I feel off track. Emotionally, I still feel lost (which, yes, I'm seeing a theme in my writing... No need to go all Dr. Phil on me). It's just some sense of emotional wandering I've had lately. I have lost my emotional footing lately.

Looking back, I know where I went wrong. The wrong turn I took is very clear to me. I see the one I should not have fallen for.

So, while I could stay up the rest of the night, finishing this bottle of wine and blaming Alburquerque, I'm more curious about what to do now that I'm here.