The curse of free-time

When I was working full time and going to school full time, my schedule looked like this:

Sunday 8-4 at work
Monday 7-4
Tues 7-4
Wed 7-4
Thursday 8:30-4:30 treating patients at the clinic
Friday 8:30-5:30 class
Sat 8:30-6:00 class

Repeat ad infinitum.

This was exhausting, frustrating, and generating a fairly large amount of burnout in me, which manifested itself in a blatant disregard for paperwork, extended lunch breaks, and a long period of time where I shorted work by an hour a day, showing up at eight instead of seven, etc. I would sit at my computer for hours, looking at screenwriting blogs, and writing what turned out to be an eighty page workbook for addicts, complete with references to masturbation and acid.

School was similarly neglected: I would generally study for about 30 minutes to an hour before an exam, and do the homeworks the day they were due. Often, I would pull the old, "oops, I emailed the wrong document" trick to buy myself one more day. My grades did not reflect my intense laziness, not because of any intelligence, but because of a well-honed craftiness at cutting corners.

Good times.

In the mornings, I would get up at five or six and write for an hour or two, completing a screenplay called "Recovering Leonard." In the evenings, after school or work, I would go out to the house (pre-moving in) and paint it, room by room, trim by trim. It was, without a doubt, the busiest time in my life.

Now, things are very, very different. I get up with the baby, and spend about three hours every morning just reading novels, blogs, magazines, comic books, etc. I do a little light cleaning. Maybe I write, maybe I don't, working in whirlwind twenty page spurts, rather than a better, consistant five page a day schedule.

Three days a week, I treat patients and attend classes. My procrastination is the same; I continue to study for tests a half hour before they are administered, and I never, ever do homework before the day it is due, whether it is a two page book assignment, or a thirty page business plan. Thank goodness acupuncture is more of a doing thing than it is an academic pursuit.

I just finished Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris. It was good enough, a quick read, but after something really fantastic like Oryx and Crake, it felt kinda phoned in to me. Now, I am making my way through the Absolute Sandman book, one comic chapter at a time, so that I can savor it. I am also reading Lisey's Story by Stephen King, which is interesting enough, so far. She substitutes the word "smucking" for "fucking," and King is making up more words than usual, but you can tell things will get pretty interesting after the first hundred pages or so.

Right. So. Here's the thing: I think free time is poisonous.

My wife and I live in an odd, secluded world together, constantly attending to the baby (good) and constantly dealing with each other (bad). Our daily grind, which used to consist of dealing with sixty drug addicts, now consists of basic housework and harping on one another. Hobbies seem like herculean efforts, and whether it is a baking experiment gone wrong, or a sticky place in the novel, their little challenges seem insurmountable. I think that we are drowning in all the time we have to do nothing. In contrast, business generates more business, and perhaps even happiness.

That said, the novel is at one of its fun points, for me. Jack just bought himself some lighter fluid, a screw gun, a crossbow, and a reciprocating saw, and he is going to liberate a little girl from a very bad police officer. The cop may or may not live, but it is going to become a turning point in the story, where Jack starts taking control of situations that are thrown at him. I have 164 pages, now. I have about forty thousand words to go, which is about two hundred more pages.

Here's a little snippet (which is, as usual, improperly formatted and without italics):

15

There was a whimper from under his desk. His eyes snapped open, the airport melting away from him. Jack looked around the room, trying to locate who or what was making the sound. Easy now, Jacky boy. Remember what the lady told you.

Another sniveling cry, this time from directly between his legs. Jack looked down, his breath starting to catch in his throat.

The little girl couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old. She was sitting on the floor in front of Jack’s legs. Her sandy blond hair lay in wet tangles that clung to the sides of her face like moss on a rotting log. She was crying harder, now, and a thin rivlet of snot poured out of her left nostril. She was a pretty little girl, Jack thought, and something terrible was about to happen to her. He could already feel his heart knocking on the inside wall of his chest. A thought, clean and simple, raced through his mind: I do not want to see this. Then: The storm is over, and everything clears up.

Jack shoved the chair back, and sat down in front of the crying girl. Focus on your third eye, Jack. Focus on your yintang. He breathed in, and felt the space directly between his eyes, the spot where the bullet had penetrated him. He breathed out, and reached towards the crying little girl. He breathed in, felt his hands pass through her, the air slightly heavier, like a light fog. Breathed out, closed his eyes, darkness. Jack breathed in, and he opened his eyes. He was sitting in a darkened cellar. Next to him, he heard a quiet whimper.

16

Jack leapt to his feet, and panic tickled at the back of his neck, causing all of his hair to stand on end. The whimpering continued from below. Okay. Chill. Focus. Breathe. Where am I? He thought. Jack put his hands out in front of him, and reached out blindly into the blackness, hoping to find a dangling string connected to a lightbulb. There was nothing but cobwebs. He strained his eyes against the darkness, trying to find some crack of light, some form. Again, her soft little whimper next to him. Can she hear me? Of course not. This isn’t real. He stood, rooted to the ground, breathing. Okay. Chill. Focus.

From somewhere to the right, Jack heard a long, loud scrape. Then a rustling sound, almost like a peeling. Suddenly, four cracks of light appeared in the wall, revealing a door. Then, he heard the unmistakable sound of a key in a lock. At this, the little girl’s whimpers became a breathless wail.

From behind the wall, a man’s voice growled: “Little kitty, little kitty, don’t you cry.”

A door swung open, revealing the sillouhette of a large framed man. His pot belly looked like a pregnant teardrop, ready to burst into a stream. Jack couldn’t see his face; only a blackness superimposed on light. Potbelly lurched into the room, and stood over the child. He clicked a flashlight on, and she was illuminated in pale, halogen light. Her racoon eyes overfilled with black, oily tears that mixed with days old makeup in a small stream down her face.

Potbelly clicked the button, drenching them in darkness. Jackson heard an oily clicking sound.

The flashlight clicked back on, and Potbelly was holding something long and obsidean. He poked the girl in the face with it, making a loud, hollow thud. She began to wail in a low, keening voice.

The flashlight clicked off. Her wails became muffled, and there was a rustling noise. She let out a small gargle, followed by another muffled scream.

The flashlight clicked on. Potbelly had shoved the long barrel into her mouth, and she held it between lips like a popsickle, or a (oh god don’t think of that, he thought).

The flashlight clicked off. There was a long silence, with only her occasional sucking of saliva so she could take a breath.
A flash of lightning, followed by a thunderous boom. For a split second, Jack saw little flowers of light floating in front of him. His heart broke, in that moment, for the child. He could still see her sniveling under his desk, and for an odd moment, Jack felt like he was floating, somewhere between his office and this dungeon, simultaneously in both places, and in neither.

Jack breathed in, Jack breathed out, and Jack stayed.

fishopod

So, I am typing on a brand new, erogonomic keyboard; the kind that is split down the center, and has a little hill in the middl of it. It holds your wrists in a neutral position while you type, allowing your poor little carpal tendons to do what they are meant to do. This is certainly a good thing, as I was noticing that my wrists have an unfortunate tendency to send shooting pains up my arm after a long typing session. The only thing that is sort of a pain in the ass is that I mix up the "I" and the "U."

That, and punctuation feels different.

Anyway, Christmas came and went, and it was pretty nice. I got all the books I wanted, and Andrea got a little iPod Nano, as well as the promise of a vacation in the Bahamas when I finish school in April.

Here are a few interesting things: Scientists have discovered a link between our fishy anscestors, and the little reptiles that first started walking on land. They called it a "fishopod." It almost seems that they couldn't have possibly called it anything else.

In other news, the first hydrogen cell powered motorcycle is hitting the streets this year. It is called "ENV," and people pronounce it "envy." The thing is silent, produces a mist of H2O as its only emission, and makes me want it, bad.

Finally, I am both drinking coffee and smoking again, which makes me wonder if there is a cyclical, perhaps seasonal nature to my cravings. Have any of the three of you ever noticed that you have clean periods followed by off-the-wagon periods in a cyclical, annual nature?

Anyway, I have to go. Gotta smoke a cigarette before Andrea gets home...

Holidays on Ice

Okay, I'm going to keep it funky: I hate Christmas. I hate having large amouts of family milling around, I hate getting presents for everyone, and I hate all the pressure for everyone to be festive. I mean, seriously. Lets break it down a little:

1) Infants don't care about Christmas. They care about titties, and shitting. Sophie could give a rat's ass that we brought a tree inside.

2) Speaking of which, bringing a tree inside is a pagan thing, not a christmas thing. Have fun worshipping the earth, you fuckin' Satanist.

3) Speaking of God and the Devil, why do we celebrate Jesus' birthday by sticking wrapped gifts under a tree? We are celebrating post WWII consumerism. Christmas is a truly manufactured American holiday, designed to get people to buy things.

So what's the big fucking deal? How come, despite my bah humbug kinda attitude (which I suspect many of you share), I still feel like I have to participate in all this? It's because of the media.

Stupid Dickens. Stupid Jimmy Stewart. Stupid rabbit named Harvey. Stupid movie where they have to do something with the sleigh. Stupid movies and tv which brainwash us into a stressful shopping frenzy every year, when we could just be with one another.

That said, I would just die for a Motorola Razor.

Again, Merry Christmas.

More lit

There are things that I want. Oh yes, there are things that I NEED...

These are the books and such that I wish I had money to buy right now:

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. It's his new short story collection. I like Neil Gaiman because he manages to weave fantasy and real life together with the language of myth. That takes both balls and an education. That, and he's a good writer. I also wouldn't mind his last novel: Anansi Boys.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. C'mon. Who doesn't want to have sex with teenage girls, really? And Mike, don't act like you don't, fucker. I'm on to you. All debauchery aside, it is in the top ten best novels every time, so how bad could it be?

The Blind Assasin by Margret Atwood. I read the Handmaid's Tale a long time ago, and I am just not that in to feminism. But Oryx and Crake is just pure story. I am loving it. So now I have to try a new one.

Focoult's Pendulum by (**** can't remember. Same guy who wrote The Name of the Rose). Maybe I'm grown up enough to read this now.

Every album by Sam Cook. This guy got more ass than a toilet seat, siring three children to three different women, all in the same month. He also invented pop music with bluesy, soulful tones.

Orphans by Tom Waits. Really, how can you not buy the new Waits album?

Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris. I'm low brow. Get over it.

The graphic novelization of the comic book Fables. I dig on comics. And I get laid. Let me say that again: I dig comics AND I get laid. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine by Nigel Wisemen: This thing is complete: Almost 1500 pages of etiology. How can a person go their whole life without knowing what "duck slop diarrhea" is, or for that matter, "running piglet qi" ? How's about "steaming bone disease," huh? Same diseases, cooler names, baby.

I want so many things, damnit.

Merry Xmas

It's funny; having a baby makes you care about Christmas.

We decorated the tree tonight. It's a cool tree... it is re-plantable, which means that it has a massive, burlap sack covered mess of roots that it sits on top of. This is actually very cool. It has an organic feel to it, and it's different.

I have to say, I feel like I am part of a family again. My parents are wonderful, amazing people, but we never quite got the whole hanging around the tree and drinking eggnog thing down. I am looking foward to sharing this holiday with my family.

So, there it is. Merry Christmas, happy holidays. My love to all three of you.

Handymen and girlymen

So, in the midst of a heated discussion a few nights ago, there was mention of an interesting idea. Andrea said that there are basically two types of guys: Guys that are handy, and guys that are intellectual. She accused me of being the latter. Now, this might sound vaguely flattering, except that the context of the discussion was how I fail to perform my manly duties around the house, including but not limited to:

a) Building a small wooden box around some exposed piping in the bathroom.
b) Putting plastic up over a window in the attic.
c) Replacing some piece of a drippy faucet.
d) Lawn mowing.
e) Replacing the filters in the water filtration thingamajig in the basement.

Now, mind you, this is merely a current list. The premise of the discussion, as it went, was that I am simply not very good at taking care of things around the house, and that it was infuriating to her. Now, this is no new argument to me: Every woman I have lived with, including both stepmother and real mother, has lodged this same complaint against me.

Moreover, my own father recognizes me as the panty wearing little puss that I am; pointing out such inadequacies as improper insulation of my basement door, and failure to bring the hose inside before it froze (d'oh).

So, I suppose the question is, what kind of a man am I? I'm certainly not particularly intellectual... it is rare that I study for an exam before the day of. I don't enjoy math, history, most fine literature, or art. I tend towards horror novels, and the kind of movies that most of the folks that frequent Fall Creek Pictures would deem as trash.

Furthermore, I am woefully retarded with technology. Indeed, switching to blogger beta was not without snags. Learning to insert html into my posts was an eye squinting, cursing out loud affair.

Socially, I am reclusive, and shun actual meaningful communication, opting instead for the kind of airy, don't really want to know how you're feeling sort of banter that fair weather friends provide. It's easier.

I have determined something today: I am neither handy, nor intellectual.

I am merely lazy.

And I think I should re-explore substance abuse.

testing, testing, 1...2

I just want to see if I can insert a link according to the directions, without using any of that hreff shit. Here we go... Neil Gaiman has an entertaining blog at:
www.neilgaiman.com

If you want to read articles by intersting hippies, check out:
www.commondreams.org

Ok. Let's see how retarded I really am.

Postscript

And maybe I did jerk off early this morning. How will you know? Message in a bottle, people. Its up for analysis. There are layers and layers of subtlety here.

Primary hypertension, blogging, and Alexis Zaharis

Today, I needled a woman who came in with a chief complaint of hypertension and anxiety. We got down the back shu points, and she was feeling pretty good sensation. Then we hit her liver point, and she automatically started weeping. It was like a switch went on, and she had a nice little emotional release. That was hot.

So, anyway, last night, I got to thinking about blogs, and what it means to have one. I was inspired to chew on that by my old friend Alexis Zaharis. We'll get to her later. Anyway, she made a comment that got me to think about the relatively egocentric nature of the blogosphere, and what it really means.

First I got to thinking about all the different types of blogs that are out there. The best of them, in my opinion, are informative blogs; people who have some trade, hobby, or experience that they offer to the world through the informal language of a blog entry. This is cool, and a fascinating form of primary research. Say I wanted to know what it was like to be a soldier in Iraq right now. Instantly, I could have a list of literally hundreds of individual's perspectives from a direct source. Say I want to write a novel...boom, there are hundreds of novelists and literary agents that post everything they know about the industry.

Now, unfortunately, I don't really have anything like that to offer. So that leads us to the second type of blog; that is, the platform blog. Thousands of individuals, yours truly included, have decided that their thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc., are somehow worthy of being shared. The real question, then, becomes this: Is a blog public or private?

Obviously it is public. It is a public forum that any of you (all six of you, in my case) can access at any time you like. In that way, there is no privacy here. But that said, what stops me from sharing with all of you that, say, I don't know, I jerked off at around six thirty am this morning? That's some private info there; I certainly wouldn't tell you to your face. But here, I feel perfectly comfortably saying it.

Here's the thing: I think that blogs are like messages in a bottle. Captains at sea, when faced with inevitable shipwreck, stranded survivors on desolate islands, people floating in open waters with nothing more than a lifeboat separating them from sharks... all these folks are people who might write a message in a bottle. Their lives, their thoughts, their words... they wanted to create some kind of public record an open letter to whoever happened to find it floating out there. They didn't care who read it, goddamnit, they just cared that they SAID it, you see? And don't we all feel the ocean closing in around us sometimes? Don't we all want some record, some carving in a tree that says we were here? Even if it is a paltry faux-journal that is hopelessly engineered to look good for friends (i.e. I didn't really masturbate this morning. See, I LIED.) So. That's it. I'm stranded out in the middle of the ocean, just like you, and this is a little message in a bottle, that maybe someone will find.

Someone like Alexis Zaharis. I met Alexis almost 25 years ago, theoretically on a playground at Montessori, if our parents are to be believed. I do remember, however, a time that we went to the mall. We saw the movie "Clueless," and then we went wandering around. At some point, we thought it would be increadibly cool to buy pogs of various sorts. About three years later, Alexis and I were keeping a correspondence going while she attended Miss Porters and I was at New Hampton. She mailed me a brief letter with a cool stuff care package in it, including various knick knacks, and of course, the pogs we had bought at the mall, years earlier. She signed the note "Love, and other indoor sports, Alexis." I laughed then, and I laugh now thinking about it, and I still have the pogs, another ten years later. Even if I do suck on the phone.

So, that's the kind of friend Alexis is, and that's the kind of friend I am. Anyone else who would like their own, personalized message in a bottle can contact me by email much more easily than by phone.

One more thing

Maybe there is a paucity of blowjobs in much of current literature. By gum, we will find out.

Language or communication

What is it that drives an otherwise realistic human being to think that they have what it takes to be a creator of something? Or, another way of thinking of it: What are people who attempt to create something really trying to do? I sit down at my computer every morning, and type away. I have for almost two years now. I've written one and a half screenplays, numerous short stories, one novella (read: aborted novel), and am currently banging out a full length novel.

Now I could tell you that I just do this for the pleasure of writing. I could talk about how it is a stimulant, and the act of writing is meditative, and that it feels like tapping into some kind of source code, to play with language. I could say all of those things. And I would be lying.

The real reason that I write, and that I wanted to act, back when I was slightly more filled with cum, is that I want to present myself to the world, and I want the world to respond back with a resounding "YES."

Now, this is by no means news to anyone. My one and only reader, Mike White, could tell you that I have been an insecure egomaniac since I was a child. But here's the thing: My insecure egomania drives me to create, and sometimes (albiet not often) the result is a fairly serviceable, if not clunky, piece of art.

Right now, I am reading "Oryx and Crake" by Margret Atwood, and it is good. Sickeningly good. Too good, because I realized that there is no way, under any circumstances that I will ever be that good. On the other hand, it is inspiring to see that kind of effortless command of language: She waltzes into the normally ackward land of science fiction, and makes it a goddamned literary EVENT. She weaves story together through intricate flashbacks, all the while making you desperate to find out just what the fuck happened to Snowman.

And then I realized something. All of the best novels I have ever read-- the ones that really made me think, or cry, or laugh, or do three all at once... they didn't have even one blowjob in them.

You might see this as evidence that I am out of my league. "Well," you might say, "it's clear that this hack has to resort to cheescake porn, and violence to get his point across." And to that, I offer you a quote from one of my generation's most profound poets:

"Will Smith doesn't need to cuss in his records. Well, I do. So fuck him, and fuck you, too."

Ahhh...

After two days of sleep deprived needling with the moxa queen, and one full day of typing feverishly away at my business plan, I am ready for a siesta. I had clinic at the integrative health center all week, and we treated a herpes zoster patient, a new patient with bell's palsy, a pregnant woman, and a nun, on top of all our regular return clients, all in one day. I'm in a bathrobe, and the only thing that will get me out of said bathrobe would be a trip to the diner in Ovid.

Some good bits of media that I've sucked on in the last couple of days:

"Clerks II." Watch it. Just...watch it. I laughed so hard that I farted a really wet one out, like maybe it was a SHART, and the somewhat sorry presentation of it all killed my chances of getting laid that evening, but it was worth it.

Last night, we watched "Art School Confidential," an indie flick about a visual arts student named Jerome who tries his best to woo the art world and the girl of his dreams. Kinda boring, kinda lame, but I enjoyed it because it reminded me of what it was like to be at North Carolina School of the Arts. I remember the subtle too cool for school-ness that pervaded the atmosphere there, and sometimes I even look back on it fondly.

After watching the artsy kids do their thing, I finished the book "Misery" by Stephen King. I think I read this for the first time when I was ten. My dad bought it for me, happy I was reading something. I remember that we were driving to Maine, and I had just gotten to the part where Nurse Annie chops the poor writer's foot off, and I couldn't stop reading until the end of the book. Well, the same thing happened again last night; I blazed through 150 pages without so much as a bathroom break. I looked up, shuddering, and it was 1:30 AM. Oops.

I am also reading "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel" by Elizabeth someone or another. It is a much MUCH slower read, but completely engrossing, in its stuffy, British way. Imagine Emily Bronte writing about magicians in an imaginary 19th century London where they hold a kind of academic/theoretical scientist sort of position in the world. More interesting than it sounds.

I just finished "Watchmen," the seminal graphic novel by Allen Moore. It was badass. Just buy the fucking thing and read it.

In my own little story, poor Jack just watched his Grandmother accidently incinerate herself in her hospital room. Now, at 118 pages, the story is moving into its second act. Writing fiction has a sort of narcotic bliss to it, where you get a little lost. This is both more fun and less fun than writing screenplays, which at around 14000 heavily formated words flies right by, but isn't as easy to lose yourself in. It is infinitely more fun than poetry, which always makes me feel like a pansy, and short stories, which require a command of story that I don't have yet.

Writing in this thing is pretty interesting, even though the only person who reads it is Mike White (hey, champ).