new times are a’comin

kgb

Well, it’s August November.  That means, among other things, I’ve been gainfully employed for nearly six months.  I’ve found I need to keep reminding myself that what I do now is ‘have a job,’ otherwise it all seems like something I’m pretending to do.  I assume this feeling comes from being a (fairly) recent college graduate who received a bachelor of arts in a relatively obscure foreign language.  Also, I am working on a college campus so there hasn’t been a real disconnect from my student life to my employed adult life, albeit the campus is 3000 miles away from my alma mater.  There are certain qualities that exist across all liberal arts college campuses, so that they all begin to feel very similar.  Even the architecture starts to run together, all brick and mortar, symbolic of…

Well, not to sound like a broken record, but I’ve done it again: made it through an entire 12 months and documented perhaps a sixteenth (if I’m being generous) of how I spent them. I think the problem is one of focus. As in, I am deficient of the ability to concentrate on a single thought or idea for more than a few minutes.

I’ve decided it’s easier to blockquote myself than it is to actually go back and complete those thoughts I had, which serves to prove my point that I have a lack of focus. Though, perhaps it’s really an incredible sign of self discipline that I went back and pulled these from the dusty annals of half-written musings.

At any rate, I’m writing at my work desk, because where better to put aside superfluous matters than while on the job? I sometimes chide myself for not spending more hours of my workday to exercises in writing, instead surreptitiously fitting in a game or two of Candy Crush. If I were to write a more accurate and honest description of my job, it would probably resemble something more along the lines of:

“Plays Candy Crush two to three times daily; checks and responds to emails intermittently; makes afternoon coffee.”

I would argue that learning how to make an excellent pot of coffee in the workplace is a vital skill for any number of reasons, not the least of which being the blatant favoritism shown to the one who brews. But I should clarify: I’m the only one who works in my office, so it’s really just a daily competition with myself to see if I can improve my boss’s opinion of me. It’s both incredibly demanding and preposterously easy; in other words, the most stressful zero-stress job. Far and away the biggest source of heartache is deciding how to space out the three or four things I need to get done any given week. If I do it all at once, where does that leave the other 4 days? Sure, there’s the internet, to which I’m conveniently connected all the flippin’ time, but even that loses its appeal after a time. Well, the solution lately has been to make lists. So many lists. I’ll leave off with one featuring a couple of wonderfully clever and useful Japanese words:

日帰り (higaeri) — day trip

朝帰り (asagaeri) — coming back in the early morning (after staying out all night [drinking])

This title is optional

kgb

Time to break out the old blogging shoes and write like a wolf in a deer-eating frenzy, or whatever it is that wolves typically eat in a frenzy. I just wanted to evoke some really intense natural imagery. Speaking of, it’s time I get in some kind of frenzy that isn’t related to job stress, which is lately the kind I’ve been closest with. You’d be surprised by the amount of stress one can amass sitting at a desk (or maybe not, for those who work such a job), though I probably create it more as a diversion from the sheer boredom that is desk work. I do get to indulge in my most intense organizational impulses, though, which is relaxing. My desk is an empty plane onto which I can build all manner of paper and plastic structures. Stacks and stacks of notepads and binders, carefully aligned in a not-quite perfect grid pattern, because the real interest is creating interesting spaces in between. Too much symmetry is stifling and intimidating–there should be that playful quality of mayhem peaking out from under what at a glance appears to be the utmost level of tidiness. That’s often how I feel about writing, too. It isn’t simply the words that get written, it’s how they get written. Literally, how do the letters and words and sentences look next to each other in sequence? All about the variety. Short. Followed by something lengthier, the words flowing along in a stream; they keep running down, down, down, down to the terminus. Maybe that’s why I’ve come to enjoy poetry: form and content at play. There are rules to abide, but mostly it’s a Candyland free-for-all go with your gut extravaganza. And who doesn’t love an extravaganza? A frenzy, if you will, to bring things full circle. Does that mean I’ve negated what I just said about too much symmetry? Guess I should work on that.

Mapping the ancestral tree

kgb

So, just a few months ago I was swept up in piecing together the family genealogical record. It is the kind of activity that at the start would offer maybe mild levels of fun, but as I quickly made my way into the grandparents and great-grandparents and fourth cousins 3 times removed, it became clear that my family relations could’ve been the subject of a great Russian novel, or perhaps even a Greek classic. These folks got around, and with such appellations as Creed and Leonidas, they weren’t just whistling Dixie.

Though my particular branch of the family has elected to stay within a certain fifty square mile radius for several generations, my other relatives ventured far north, west, and occasionally overseas.  They left it all behind for the promise of something better, even if that something better turned out to be death by massacre (RIP cousin Crockett).  It’s inspiring, to say the least.

I suppose I’ll have to achieve some kind of greatness; wouldn’t want to disappoint the ancestors, after all.  Changing my name to Luther seems like a good start.

An obligatory 5 year retrospective of blogging

kgb

Actually, there’s nothing saying I have to write a blog concerning the fact I have been blogging for five years (however intermittent my posts), but somehow it seemed like an important benchmark of my internet life.  That’s half a decade of writing things of questionable literary quality and thrusting it into the quasi-public sphere of internet readership.  Sometimes I feel angry that I don’t have a million followers and haven’t figured out how to make my livelihood just on the basis that I have a blog with more than zero posts in the archives, but I quickly realize this anger is misguided and born of some delusion that because I am on the internet I should be famous.  That’d be like saying since I lived in L.A. I should be a celebrity.

The internet has this potent magic, a heady mix of entertainment and information; and, somehow, it can easily convince an individual of his massive importance to the world.  It’s even more intoxicating when you realize that it only takes one thing to distinguish yourself amongst your virtual peers.  Heck, sometimes it doesn’t even need to be original.  In fact, the internet is so full of simulacra that even if you thought you had an original idea, it already exists.

So, what to do? Well, in my case I jumped on pretty much every internet fad that has passed through the limelight. (And since internet time is exponentially faster, that count is reaching the septillions.) Consequently, I have been deeply disappointed since about age 12, but I did have a pretty fine mastery over the Geocities html editor interface.  Now, in the third decade of my life, I have come to an understanding that if I am not destined to be an internet elite, I will be its connoisseur.  Like a sommelier, my palette will discern the very best, leading me to the deep and complex underneath a sea of facsimile.  Then, rather than projecting my good taste onto the world via some social networking medium, I’ll keep it to myself, treasuring my snobbery in that tiny reptilian heart that beats so cold in the deepest reaches of the soul.

playing the waiting game

kgb

I have approximately one and a half hours to go until setting out for the LAX airport for an early morning flight.  I wish I could allow myself to say with utter conviction that we’ll be there in plenty of time, but my superstitious nature forbids it.  My hope is that I’ll fall asleep for a while on the drive, then again during flight/layover, and finishing up with some more sleep after arriving back in WA.  It will be a day of sleep, fantastic sleep.

And that’s all I have in me for now to write…

the dream continues

kgb

I’m sinking ever deeper into my television frenzy.  These recent weeks have been Homeland with the intermittent episode of House, because I like to keep things fresh.  I also apparently enjoy television shows featuring british actors portraying americans.  Something about the tenor of their voices, I suppose.  That plus the fact they’re amazingly talented.

I’ve also thrown The Hour into the rotation, perhaps a subconscious decision on my part to pay homage to the english actors I so enjoy on my american programs, though none of the folks featured in this show appear in either of the other shows (flawed logic, I know).  This show also indulges my obsession with all things mid-twentieth century, particularly the smart mode of dress and everyone’s blatant dismissal of smoking as anything but cool.¹ If that’s not enough, the story itself is full of spy plots and cold war intrigue.

Putting the sexy in reporting
Putting the sexy in reporting, three full-bodied hairstyles at a time.

¹ Hey, kids: Don’t smoke (to excess).