Skatistan

This is awesome



Yeah.

Weight Loss

In the past three weeks I have lost 10 pounds. No girlies, it's not that fashionable Atkins diet that everyone is talking about, it's my own brand of dieting. I like to call it, "The Tortured-Jobless Journalist's Guide to Loosing Weight in NYC". Here is what you do:

Breakfast- A bagel with cream cheese or a slice of pizza. All depends on how you want to indulge.

Lunch- Nothing. Only two meals a day.

Dinner- As many bowls of homemade soup or noodles as you can possibly eat. * **
* Substitute twice a week with beer.
** Substitute once a week with a lavish meal that you can definitely not afford. This sends you into a panic
about the dwindling status of your bank account, causing you to spend even less money on food.

Exercise- Walk upwards of 5 miles each day. Tour the Brooklyn, take unnecessary trips Uptown, visit Times Square for the 3rd time.

Yeah so- that's my diet. I think I will start eating better once I get my own place. It's hard to keep food in the house here. I don't want to make a mess in the kitchen or take up valuable shelf room in the pantry. I will also feel more comfortable eating once I get a job. Speaking of which, I will begin to chronicle my job and apartment hunt on this blog. I will also chronicle the job hunt of two of my friends:

Eric N--He is my friend from school who moved to NYC two days ago. A solid guy. He wants to be a writer of some kind. Don't we all....

Jake F-- He is my friend from North Carolina. He still has a job at this point, but believes he is getting laid off by the end of this week. It's the economy, stupid.

Starting tomorrow I will post a status report for all three of us. Potential leads, interviews, firings, etc. Find out how we all are handling the ever-drying tit of the NYC job scene.

And so I'm here. The Big Apple.

It's about time, I think. I've been claiming I would come to NYC for months now.

The city is rather intimidating. Wait, I should change that- the JOB SEARCH is rather intimidating. I've sent out about a dozen resumes and replied to countless jobs. No responses. Every Media/Journalistic job you can think of that is open- I've applied to it. From being a production assistant on Anderson Cooper 360 to an administrative assistant for the American Heart Association.

I always knew the job search would take a while. Yet I am impatient. The problem is- without a job I can't get an apartment and without an apartment I'm staying at Molly's place. I dig staying here, but it's not my place. How long before the old 'boyfriend in the apartment' wears on all the rightful tenants? 1 week, 1 month, 1 year? I don't want to stick around long enough to find out. I've already discussed with my buddy Jake and he has agreed to let me sleep in his bed with him. Not on the couch because his roommates wouldn't like that; but in his bed. That is my back up plan, sleep with Jake in his bed.

This means I am either in Jake's bed or Molly's bed. I like them both, Molly in a more "I want to sleep in her bed" kind of way, but I need to find my own bed. Or at least a spot on the floor in some building where I pay the rent.

Revolutionary Road

I'm reading Richard Yates's Revolutionary Road. In the past, I've liked his books for one reason: they are depressing. They start depressing, give you a glimmer of hope in the middle, but by the end you are fully entrenched in the book's depressing qualities. A cheating spouse, a handicapped husband, a life different than you imagined. These themes or variations of these themes are all prevalent in Yates's short stories. The same is true for this novel. It is de-press-ing. I mean, Yates is an eloquent writer with an awesome use of prose and an outstanding ability to describe the subtle workings of people's minds, but what grabs me is his bleak outlook on life. For some reason, bleakness is what I search for in the books I read.

One minor character in the book, Shep Cambell, is particularly interesting to me. Yates describes Shep as a man from an upper-class home who always yearned to be a blue-collar man. Basically, Shep rejected his upbringing and romanticised blue collar life. He always hung out with the tough kids at school, was a humble infantry man who excelled in his field during the war, avoided going to an East-Coast private school and chose instead a technical college that was paid for by the GI bill, moved to Phoenix and worked as a middle class mechanical engineer, and finally married a Plain Jane. He understood the riches he came from, but sought what he thought was a simpler life as a working class man.

But, midway through his life he freaked out. He realized that he hated talking cars with his co-workers, detested the dusty housing development he lived in, and found his life boring. Instead he wished for what he was originally destined for. He wished he had never sought a working class life. His his life wasn't filled with the romantic ideals he imagined. Instead, he wished for the world of intellect and sensibility that he turned away from. He describes a brief section of the life he should have taken:

In the East, when college was over, you could put off going seriously to work until you'd spent a few years in a book-lined bachelor float, with intervals of European travel, and when you found your true vocation at last it was through a
process of informed and unhurried selection...

Uhh-ohhh. I'm leaving for the East Coast on Tuesday, and this is how I picture my life in NYC. Exactly like that, in fact. Reading through some obscure book by an even more obscure Victorian-era author as I pour coffee from my French press. Meeting friends for drinks in SOHO after laughing off the latest amateur exhibit at a trendy gallery. Working my way up the ladder from my journalist internship into a potential paid position overseas. The list goes on.

I know this image I have of my life in NYC isn't grounded in much reality. But it is my true romantic image of how my life will pan out while living in NYC. Because of this, two questions come to my mind:

1- Am I running away from what I truly am, just like Shep Cambell did? Will I
wake up one day stuck in a false life, surrounded by things that aren't really
me? All because I lived out my fantasy of what I thought I wanted in life? Will
I become a journalist, only to realize I had romanticised that profession?

2- If I am like Shep Sheppard, what am I running away from? My West-Coast
upbringing? A life destined to be a salesman or a cartographer like my parents?

Deep questions.

Ultimately, most of my body isn't concerned about this. Life is what life is. I know I liked working at the radio station. Not just thinking I liked the work, but actually liking it. And I am self aware enough to realize the difference between what I actually like and what I think I should like.

I would have been like Shep Cambell if I went to China. Wanting to go to China not because I loved China, but so I could tell people, "yeah, I lived in China for a year...."

Yet a small part of me is still scared that I am a Shep Cambell. I don't know why. I know I am going to NYC for the right reasons. And if at any time I don't like my life, fu*k it, I'm going to Puerto Rico. Still, Shep remains in my mind.

You Wanna Fight?

I nearly came to blows with a dude today.

I was sitting at 4th ave computers in Lacey, trying to get my computer fixed. For one reason or another, my computer can no longer access the internet. Very frustrating. Anyway, for those of you who have never taken a computer to a repair shop let me tell you, it is a waiting game. Luckily when I got there, three technicians were helping customers and I was the only one waiting in line. In other words, I would be up next. The line also had a 'take a number' dispenser, and I also took my number. I had the next number and I was next in line. I sat smugly in the waiting chair, confident with the knowledge that my computer problem would be fixed as soon as there was a vacant technician.

But that is when the waiting game commenced. After sitting confident for ten minutes, I realized I wouldn't be served in a timely fashion. Computer issues are difficult and time consuming. I could be waiting hours for the next vacant spot.

So I waited, and waited, and waited. And then the action started.

This guy sidled up to the line. You know the guy. A line sidler. He walked up to the front of the line like he never even saw me. He was a short yet buff Asian man. He stood with his head up, encroaching on one of the customers at the counter. Shuffling his feet and moving in close. He looked like the kind of guy who is always ready to pick a fight. You can tell when a guy is looking for a fight; just in the way he holds himself. All pompous and cock-shouldered, like he is giving a douchey 'up you' to every one around.

At first I think he hasn't seen me. I cough a little bit, making my presence known. This part kills me. The guy has the nerve to look at me, look me up and down, and not surrender his position. He doesn't back down, but looks at me as if to say, "yeah, like you are going to do anything about it?" At this point I understand that he knows he snaked my position, and he is willing to defend himself.

I get nervous. What am I going to say I ask myself? Obviously, I have to say something. I can't back down like a punk when he takes my spot. I have to confront him. Should I start off nice, and then get adamant that he cut me in line? What if we wants to fight? Do we step outside? Do I fake with my left and hit him with my right? What if he screws up my face? My face is my livelihood, man, what if he hits me in the face?!?!?!

Then I get mad. Like real mad. I start flexing my muscles in the chair. I can feel the testosterone shooting through my veins. He is going down, baby, he is going down. Will I fight dirty? Psshhhh of course I fight dirty. Filthy little rat boys who cut in line don't deserve a clean fight. I will go right for the face and then maybe knee him the groin. OHHHHHH he is going to get it soooooo good....

And then he leaves. I guess he couldn't wait any longer. I like to think he felt my eyes on him like white on rice, but perhaps not. After getting my computer fixed, I felt so jazzed about the whole thing, I blasted gangster rap in my car the whole drive home. I was singing along. Tupac. How do you want it? How do you feel it? Coming up like a something in a something... I kinda trail off here. I felt like Tupac. I felt tough.

But then I look in the mirror. I'm wearing nerdy glasses and my Undertaker t-shirt. My nose is running a little. He could have taken me for sure.

I still think I look like Tupac.

How sick is this video?

Like Gaza

Do you see all the comments the previous post is getting? Nothing regarding my blog of course, but a tangent on Israel and Palestine. Slyvain, My Dad, And Molly are coming to blows on the issue. I consider myself the hypothetical Switzerland of this blogging war. Unbiased in my support for no one but myself.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is intense. For some reason, I always seem to fall on the side of the Jews. This has nothing to do with my knowledge of the conflict or some deep seeded anti-Palestinian sentiment; just a gut feeling I have. It is upsetting to me that Hamas can lob missiles into Israel for most of the year, killing civilians, and Israel can never take military action against them without being labeled baby killers. I understand that thousands of innocent Palestinians are being hurt, and that is beyond horrible, but what else is Israel to do? They have already placed every imaginable kind of economic sanction on Palestine with little affect.

But on the flip side, maybe Israel shouldn't be on the offensive. Maybe getting missiles lobbed into your land is the downside of placing your country smack dab in the middle of the Arab world. I know they deserved that land, and it is their holy land, yet shouldn't they expect retaliation? Zionist bastards. Just kidding.

Continuing with this Jewish theme, let me tell you about a Jew that disgusted me. HA. Normaly, I am totally into most Jews. My girlfriend is Jewish. I have many Jewish friends. When I was growing up my family lit the Menorah over the holidays, only to be more worldly. We would also play dradel. Is that weird?

Anyway.... the reason this particular Jew disgusted me is because of what he was doing. He was on a subway, drinking milk from a plastic container. Like a Nalgene bottle. I am very particular about milk. It has to be fresh, and it has to be cold. His plastic container full of milk looked moist with warmth, and the milk was some weird off-colored yellow. It looked hideous. He would sit silently in his seat, only to take long, slow gulps of his milk every 30 seconds. The worst thing about the whole situation was the milk dripped down his chin, running through his beard. Man, just thinking about that incident makes me gag. The story had nothing to do with the fact that he was a Jew, more about his repulsive choice in drink.

And tomorrow's topic- the blacks.

Just kidding.

And I'm Back

I'm back from the dark depths of the North Cascade Forest. Insanity occurred there. Pure, unblemished insanity. It was more than great. Just what the doctor ordered for me. I am in the midst of writing a harrowing recap of what occurred in the woods, tentatively titled-

A Journey Towards the End of a Snowy/Rainy Road:

Crisis of Time in Northern Washington

It will be done soon.

Sorry about the lack of posts. I was on my Radical Sabbatical. But I'm back, and more enthused than ever. Currently, I'm working on getting to NYC. I may already have an apartment lined up. It's a studio in Brooklyn. It will be split between 3 people. A man named Jonas-his name is Jonas- is spearheading the operation for us. He is a crazy, crazy dude, and I'm stoked to get him as a roommate. He works for a party planning outfit with my buddy Jake and knows NYC like the back of his hand. The third roommate is yet unknown- possibly one of Jonas's friends; or Eric N. It's freaky to have an apartment lined up with no job, but such is the life of a college grad. I guess.

Instead of working on anything productive today, I read a whole book. Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Amazing. Amazing. The story is set in a post apocalyptic world. A man and his son wander on a road, heading southward. The book is exactly how I like 'um-depressing as hell at the beginning, and slowly gets more and more depressing as time goes on. By the end of the book, you want to cry in a cold shower, and you feel damn lucky not to live in a post apocalyptic world so you can even take a shower. I have this half cocked theory that the whole book is one giant allegory for a father raising his son to be a competent man and handle the world with dignity. Has anyone else read this? Am I way off base here?

Well anyway, I'm back to my blogging. More posts everyday. More regular than my bowel schedule, in fact. More on this later?

Radical Sabbatical

Sorry for the lack of posts; I've been chilling hard.

Quick update:

1. Had family time for x-mas.

2. Molly came for New Years.

3. We went snowboarding.

Other than that, not much has happened. I'm moving to NYC on the 20th of January. Starting tomorrow, I will be doing a big story up in the woods- so stay tuned. More to come by Saturday.

Also, I realize how boyfriendy I was up at the mountain with Molly. If single Brett would have seen me up there with Molly, he would have laughed his face off. I must have looked like quite the tool, slowly following her with the video camera, recording her first time snowboarding. Then I uploaded 'Molly's first time!' onto youtube. I'm like the boyfriends I hate.

Molly is really cool though, so it's ok.