Filed under: Frontal Lobe, Garbage | Tags: boredom, cleveland, experience, fomo, Life
A long over-due post. Before embarking on an intense adventure through the Webiverse and having my raw, vulnerable, hungover-induced brain impacted by floating words – I shall write my own.
Finally, a lazy Sunday that I can just think the day away. I have been in Cleveland for 2 months now, obsessed with DOING and EXPERIENCING as much as I can in as little time as possible. Still living in a state of panicked urgency – a quality of life I oftentimes bring upon myself after recently being plugged into a new location. I thought this part of me would change after living in Cleveland, but despite my lowly expectations of an unexciting city, I’ve still been been able to take on any action that seems the least bit exciting and have a great deal of fun with it. Duel road trips to Chicago, Niagara Falls in Canada, fusing music with the experience, churning the corporate life, taking on a film class, kayaking in a dirty human river, fighting inebriation, cooking, exploring social media as a tool to connect, learning the intricacies of splitting an identical life with another, succumbing to impulsive materialistic indulgences, and acting upon random spontaneity most of all! I haven’t changed.
Every once in awhile, I will take a step back and observe this infuriatingly exciting life. Once learned, and repeatedly learned – my life is a series of forced actions driven by a maddening paranoia of time and long spells of boredom. BUT THE MOST INFURIATING PART IS: not all experience, is good experience lived wisely. What do I mean by this? I move and breathe as if I am this object in space traveling at a constant speed. And once another force strikes me and knocks me off the path I was currently traveling on, I shall naturally continue in that new direction – only to be knocked again by other forces into other directions. All this energy, all this life that I try to capture, squeeze, and condense into minutes – has no known purpose except to achieve the act of doing. What is so important that I see in this act, that drives this strange sense of maddening urgency? As my roommates likes to put it, I have an extreme case of FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out.
I have to willingly change my way of thinking. Perhaps I should stop conjuring magical thoughts and outlining outrageous goals that dissipate the moment I get distracted with the mundanity of a structured life. The fun game in victimizing myself as one whose sole purpose is to play against the grain. It’s like I’m trying to catch water with my hands. Within the last hour, I’ve dreamt of moving to Germany for a few years to study spoken German and sign language, whilst simultaneously studying Carl Jung’s Red Book in its native German language. I’ve thought maybe I could drop the whole business marketing thing, and stay in Cleveland to organically nurture my creativity and bring my visions alive through film. But I mean, I’m on the corporate fast track and I could potentially find a belayer to catapult me into piles of money – or at least die trying to fill out the gaps of a cookie-cutter life. Perhaps I will rot the day away with silly little thoughts and post them onto this blog and earn some money through Google ads. But, I love the idea of moving to Thailand to become a scuba diving master! Essentially, I want to mold and shape the earth as if it were playdough, making it into anything I wish it to be at any given moment in time. But the somber reality (and what perpetually drives my fear) is that the playdough I have in my palms today is nothing but liquid water, slipping through my fingers and evaporating into stale air.
UTTER DISAPPOINTMENT. I have no good words about the Killers’ new CD. ‘This Day and Age’ sounds like a combination of old polyphonic Nokia ringtones mixed with Keyboard presets. The saxophone is very questionable – doesn’t quite mesh with the techno beats. Seems like Brandon Flowers is a little too fond of his voice singing in an awkward key, as he carries the same tune throughout each song. Did the Killers just use the bait & switch method to tease us into buying a CD pumped out to stimulate the year-end economy? I like the radio hit ‘Human,’ despite sounding like he’s into dancers – but think twice before purchasing this new album. We are definitely denser, rather than human.
The reason why I became a huge music buff was because of the Killers’ first album. It was my stepping stone into the Indie world of musicana. It’s when I started liking movies like Garden State and listening to the Postal Service. It’s shaped me to be the person I am today. You can see why I am severely disappointed in the fact that the Killers got lazy and produced a CD just to make money. Lamesauce.
On a separate note, it’s raining in LA!! As I was walking back to my apartment, I noticed that it was seriously POURING and that there were bubbles floating in the water puddles. I understand why the rainfall would hit the water and create bubbles – but for some odd reason I found it fascinating that they would float around in the water like a stampede of bubbles in a bubble colony. The truth is…this fascination was probably sparked by the boredom I just experienced while listening to the Killers. I am glad that my bartender is a Killers fan and refuses to believe that their CD sucks. That means I get to give my CD to him for free & he will feel obligated to give me free drinks next time we hit up Brennan’s. I can’t believe Alison by Elvis Costello came on while we were sitting at the bar – that song was sent to me by the person who introduced me to the Killers. Strange life this is.
Truth. Thanks for the encouragement. But let me tell you about my weird day!
It all began with my radio alarm going off. Usually the alarm goes off at 6:38AM blasting Mexican rap or mariachi music…but not today. This morning my heavy eyelids awoke to a droning Christian sermon. “Repent thy sins, for the Lord Jesus is near.” It wasn’t a happy Christian sermon. It was ominous and powerful and I immediately hit the snooze button out of fear. 20 minutes later my phone alarm went off. I looked outside at the dark shadows behind my blinds – no sunshine, it’s not time to go to work yet is it? Sinking feeling in my stomach. I longed to cuddle with my blanket for just a few seconds longer. 5 more minutes? Fuck it. I picked up my cell phone and set it down on my ear, too lazy to hold it up. I dialed Neutrogena’s phone # and asked for JH, my boss. “John, I’m sorry I can’t make it in today. I’ve got an awful stomach flu, I think I ate bad Thai food last night.” After hanging up I curled up into a ball and went into hibernation.
10 minutes later my eyes snapped open and I saw my clock flash 8:33AM. I checked my phone. The last phone call in my phone log said Jen Rubio 11:49PM. FUCK!!!!!!!!!!! I never called my boss?!?! IT WAS A DREAM? Brain, you totally dicked me! Now I’m late!!
No shower, last pair of underwear left – I scurried up to my cube after I swerved into the parking lot. I ran up to my cube, then I scurried back down to my car because I forgot my laptop, of course. But when I came back down to my car, I realized that I left my car keys in my cube dungeon. So frazzled, just a mess, just a mess. It’s like I left my brain behind wherever I went. I spent the rest of the day hiding in the innovation lounge to “work.” I ditched a basketball duel and didn’t even come out for lunch. I definitely locked myself into an introverted bubble – to afraid to venture into the outside world.
…….So after work I drove home during the usual time. Pulled up to my good ol drive-way and perused my $4.99 purse I got from Urban Outfitter. FAIL. I gave my only key to Jen Rubio. I backed up of the driveway to wait for someone to come in or out of the gate so that I could sneak in with my car. As I backed out of the drive-way my left mirror slammed the key post and my mirror POPPED OFF. It was like my heart broke into a million little pieces. I had already done so much damage to my car. Poor hood, poor mirror. And that was the white mirror, the one I broke last year on Cinco De Mayo during my cush adventure. The misery continued further into the night – I don’t want to go into details, but let’s just say that I went on a hunt for a $5 bill because my laundry machines only eat $5 for some stupid reason. I also laid around for 2 hours, on the verge of passing out due to mad hunger. No key, no money, no food = no good.
Anyway that’s not what I wanted this post to be about!!!!!!!!!!
I hate writing long-winded posts. I guess I’ll have to write about what I wanted to say….later. As a reminder and perhaps a sneak-peak: the next post will be about celebrating my 4th birthday on facebook.
I’ve been cheating on you. It’s not like I don’t care about you, it’s just that I’ve lost interest. I have found a new and exciting venture–one that has been sucking every minute out of my time. I know it hurts but it’s been going on for about a month now. I’ve been seeing AWD–Advanced Writing for the Disciplines.
I feel a striking pang of guilt mixed with excitement with each word I offer to AWD instead of you. We are in constant dialogue and I am learning so much about the political and economical effects the Olympics are having on China. But don’t worry…it’s just a phase, I promise. So please forgive me, beloved blog, and give me a little bit more time–soon enough, all of my writing attention will be supremely devoted to you. xo
