Bloggawhat?

It has been far too long since I blogged, but I've got a good reason this time -- I've been pretty caught up in the vast amount of shit I must accomplish in order to finish my master's degree. It is a year late, due to circumstances out of my control, but in some ways that makes it even sweeter. Honestly, last fall when I got injured, I figured I didn't have a chance in hell of finishing. I was already feeling like the practice of writing papers and reading swaths of critical articles had left me, and had the conviction that I had chosen the wrong field of study when I started out.

In many ways, I still feel that way, but I have gotten real about it as well. When I was applying to graduate schools, I was being advised about my fiction writing by a professor who I really looked up to at the time. This person encouraged me to apply to MFA programs, and to go for the best ones. I only applied to a few of the top programs, and NO mid-level programs, which was probably some of the worst advice I've ever gotten and I should have known better. We all want to believe we're awesome, though. The "safe" school I applied to was good ol NCSU, and since my mom had been a fiction writing teacher there until recently, I didn't want to enter the MFA program, so just applied for the MA.

Well, that was dumb, because wouldn't you know it, I bricked on those MFA applications. The prof I was dealing with said sure, come to State, we'll do the thesis together. Blah blah blah. But the latter part didn't work out, and I was forced to change topics very soon before I was (originally) scheduled to graduate.

The rest is kind of history, but this is all to say I have felt very, very unmotivated to write a paper in a field that doesn't interest me (I guess I was hoping for more close readings of texts and analysis of the way they actually worked, as far as style, mood, word choice, etc. -- and less about politics and horseshit, which much of literary criticism seems to be.)

So the fact that I have finished a draft and now am just shy of finishing a major revision is a very, very good thing. I have like two weeks before it's due, I've got to pass a Spanish test next week, and if I can square all that away, I will actually finish. Which is amazing to me. I really had just about written it off.

The next barrel of monkeys will be finding a job, and I am drawing thin as far as ideas for that. Ideally, I'd like to work for the government. Like, starting off at the bottom at some agency office, being a solid worker, rising up through the ranks. I know that the government takes good care of its employees and offers a good retirement package. Unfortunately, however, all those jobs are being cut at the moment. So I will have to figure something else out.

Some volunteering I've been doing has been making me think working with young adults/kids might be a good thing for me. Believe it or not, I've been a teacher for a 6th-7th grade Sunday School class for the last couple of months. I've just enjoyed it so much. Anyone that knows me well knows I'm kind of a cynic about religion, but this is a church I grew up in, with all the right political/social stances, and it just seems to have naturally worked out to come back. That has been a major plus for me, probably the best thing that's happened to me all year. I was really proud of them, they put together a fundraiser and raised like $500 for Haiti relief in one afternoon. Cool stuff like that.

What else... well, I had an awesome experience at an invitation poker tournament that my good friend Ed brought me to. It was a 45-man (or thereabouts) tournament with the top 5 places winning money. I had an awesome run... though I can't really credit myself with amazing play, I just managed to get my chips in when I was ~60% favorite or better, and all my hands held up, until the end. When there were four of us left, I caught two pair on the flop out of the big blind. A guy with a similar chipstack to mine made a huge overbet, I thought he was just stealing so I reraised all in, which was an overbet in itself. To my surprise, he called, with just one pair. It was looking AWESOME for me, but the turn and river cards were both diamonds, giving him a flush. So I was out in 4th for 200 bucks. If I had knocked him out, the 3rd place guy would have been out quickly after (tiny stack) and I would have been playing heads up for the win. 500 for 2nd, 1000 for 1st. So while I was happy that I won what to me is a fairly significant amount of money (lets me have some entertainment anyway), I was hurting over that for days afterward! Man, so close yet so far away. But that's how it goes.

This blog has been all over the place so far, and probably won't be entertaining to most, but whatever. The last thing I wanted to say is that I have gotten back to doing the kind of writing I love to do, just for myself. I haven't had a lot of time for it the last week or so because of the impending school stuff, but it feels so good to be back to exercising that creative muscle. The best thing, probably, is not caring about showing it to anyone. If I write anything worth showing, I'll show it, but otherwise, I'm just going to enjoy myself. And that's a nice feeling.

This is gonna sound over the top, but it's true -- I feel like this has been one of the best years of my life so far, things seem to fall into place one after the other. There are plenty of things I still lack, like, well, a job, and a female that is not my dog -- but I trust things will continue to line up properly as long as I keep giving all my effort. I am actually happier on my own than I have ever been, and I think that's saying something.

So this hasn't been a very humorous blog post, lacking all the constant attempts at sarcasm I normally season these with, but screw it, I just wanted to throw a general update out there. I know a few people read this, but I also like to keep it kinda as a log for my own reference, like "oh, looks like I was feeling pretty good in April 2010, what a naive fool I was!!!" Or something like that.

Who are the Word Police?

Since no one has yet stepped up to the challenge, I'm declaring myself a self-appointed sheriff in the realm of lame, useless, and often cringe-inducing new words that somehow become ubiquitous within days of being introduced. If a word or phrase is lurking around these parts without my approval, this is fair warning that it may be shot down.

I apologize in advance for offending anyone who uses these words, I'm just cranky about the English language. I'll be the old guy yelling at kids to get off my lawn and to stop using double negatives.

Let's try a few of these on, shall we?

1) Epic. Let's get a quick google definition... "very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale); "an epic voyage"; "of heroic proportions"; "heroic sculpture"
So it's a specialized word, right? One of those words you save for, well, a truly epic occasion. Like when you decide to set out from San Diego in a kayak and wind up in Wilmington, NC months later. That's epic. Eating a sandwich that is delicious is not an epic action. It's just a good sandwich. It would only be epic if it took you years to eat, or if you had to slay some sort of demon/dragon to gain access to said sandwich.

*sub-annoyances*
-Epic Fail. I know this one has been around for a while, but it still makes my skin crawl. You're walking down the street and you drop your lunchbox. It pops open and your apple rolls down the street and into the gutter. "EPIC FAIL!" you announce to anyone who'll listen. "I JUST FAILED EPICALLY! CHECK ME OUT!" No, to fail epically would be something along the lines of Napoleon and/or Hitler staging a massive invasion of Russia and losing a bloody war of attrition, leaving millions dead. That's an epic fail. Since the war in the middle east has cost many lives since 2002 and hasn't yielded Bin Laden, you could argue that it's an epic fail. If they caught him after 10 years, that'd be an epic win. An epic win is not finding an open gas pump at a crowded filling station. And this brings me to...

2) For The Win (FTW). How hard is it to say "This cookie I'm eating is good"? Why complicate it by holding it up, grinning, and saying "cookie FOR THE WIN!" What did the cookie help you win? Are you the new cookie eating champ? Or is it the cookie that won? I don't get it. Places where this phrase is acceptable: the set of Hollywood Squares, sporting events.

3) Fuck my Life (FML). OK, this is one that started out kinda cool in my view, just because the site that spawned the saying was pretty brilliant. You could peruse all the horrible things that were happening to others, which made you feel slightly less pathetic. But now people have started WAY overusing this. "I missed the bus and I have to wait 15 minutes for the next one. FML." "I just opened a soda and a little bit of it sprayed out on my shirt. FML." I think there needs to be a minimum requirement of a certain level of horror and embarrassment for this one. "I got explosive diarrhea with zero warning at my senior prom, FML." That should be considered a mild FML.

4. Creeper. I am not sure why this has caught on so much, but I have heard people at many different age levels using this. I'm not really opposed to the word so much as the idea that you can just add "er" to an existing word and have it mean basically the same thing. Letters cost money, you know! Plus, 'creeper' should really mean 'something that creeps', like maybe a spider or a millipede. A creepy person doesn't creep, they're just creepy.

OK, allow me to apologize for my curmudgeonishness (new word!... I guess that makes me a curmudgeoner) but I thought it would be fun to attack a few words head-on. There are plenty more that I object to, but I'll save those for another time. Oh, and if I offended anyone, I was basically just joking... you can use whatever words you want. It's a free country. FML.

I'm just sitting here thanking God and whoever else that my Brian Wilson year is just a few short days from being totally over.

This has been a year that began in total darkness, with me finding more and more light here and there as it's gone on. Funny thing about majoring in English because you're not sure what you really want to do with your life: majoring in English does nothing to help you discover what you really want to do with your life. That's been a journey that I have delayed embarking on for far too long, and a big part of this year had to do with making up for lost time on that score. And what did I have to do to achieve that? Well, bust my ass fixing up people's yards, for one thing. Having to really put my head down and push hard to get to the next stage. Basically, I had to go through a time of trial to get a sense of the strength and resolve that's somewhere down there.

So I guess you could say I had a total crisis of faith months ago. The shitty, nonexistent job market compounded matters, as I ground away at odd jobs until I finally landed a gig at a law firm downtown. Of course, three weeks into that I was horribly injured on the job, and got to go back to the land of unemployment, only with a disability check this time. (It doesn't make it suck all that much less.)

Add to that having to withdraw from school two semesters in a row for completely different reasons each time, and you've got a bullshit sandwich.

But now... man, I finally feel strongly that I'm on the other side of all that stuff, rather than stuck in the middle of it. I'm moving to a new apartment day after tomorrow. I'm starting my last semester of grad school in a couple weeks (granted, I'm starting it for the third time. But still.) I'm... well, I'm still limited in what I can do for a job, but I'm meeting with my lawyer about that next week to discuss what I can and should do. Things are coming together.

One thing I've learned: my inner life is all that really matters to me. As long as I can write funny stories, read books, listen to music, and spend time with my friends, I don't feel that I really need anything more than that. A boring job -- like maybe a government desk job, which is one avenue I've been looking into for my post-graduate employment -- is all I need. As long as I've got my mind and a good group of friends, I'll be satisfied.

So... good riddance to 2009, but I'm still pretty glad it happened. I'll look back on it as a defining year. And, with any luck, won't have another year like it ever again.

Peace to everyone out there, and good luck for 2010. We still have two years until the horribly cliched apocalypse arrives, or at least that's what I gather from current cinema.

OK, yeah, haven't posted in a while, blah blah blah. It wouldn't be a blog post by me if it didn't begin with an acknowledgment of the fact that I never post.

I'm finally coming off this crap about the injury. I have finally, after three full months, gotten the splint off my left hand and can use it in a limited fashion. I'm told I might not ever get full bendiness back in the thumb, but frankly I'm just glad to have it operational and with intact nerves.

I guess if you read my blog, you could see for yourself that I had kind of a hard time while that was going on. Since it's a work injury, there is little recourse for me to take -- kind of messed up, but apparently the laws in this state aren't exactly friendly to workers. I'm thinking about writing an article about my experience and trying to get some local paper to print it. People should know how little protection they have under the law as workers in this state. Unless you like a 2/3rds pay disability check which doesn't account for potential lost wages in other endeavors, in which case, by all means, go lose your hand in a work accident.

Things are looking up, though. I'm about to move to a 1 BR apartment in North Raleigh. It's a nice place. And in all other areas, I'm just feeling optimistic. There are a lot of unknown factors regarding the future, but I feel quite capable of controlling those factors to the best of my ability.

I guess this isn't exactly as sustainable life skill to be proud of, but I have had the chance to play a lot of poker over the last few months, and have gotten pretty good at tournaments. This month so far I've gotten over $600, mostly from really huge multi-table tournaments with micro buy-ins. I don't spend every hour of every day on it, but when I wasn't able to type and could only use one hand, that was one of the few forms of entertainment available to me.

There are a hell of a lot of people I lost contact with this year that I miss quite a bit. Being out of it for several months at the beginning of the year combined with the fallout from that and then the injury BS, I've spent a lot of time out of touch. Want to rectify that with as many people as possible.

So.... holla.

In other news...

I don't think TV has ever come close to reproducing any entertainment as perfect as "Blind Date." Not only does it epitomize the idiocy of short-attention span television in general (bumper-sticker like slogans pasted on the screen at almost all times, weird animations usually of the lowest-common-denominator-appealing variety), but it also features the nationally televised crushing of souls.

I don't know where they get the competitors for this show, but it seems like a Blind Date representative goes to bars in order to find the most pathetic horny loser in the nation, and then they set that person up with an attractive, appealing "Date." They are then asked to eat sushi off of one another within 15 minutes of meeting each other, cameras right there on them.

I often think about things that are wastes of time to intellectually pursue, but I can't shake the idea of advanced sentient aliens on other planets picking up bits and pieces of a transmission of "Blind Date." I'd bet they'd be setting their phasers to "completely f'ing obliterate in a burning horror show of death."

And also: Do you think anyone that met on Blind Date has later gone on to get married? Do you think they had a Blind Date-themed wedding? Discuss.

Ohhhh snap, it's yet another blog.

I'm going to save the excuses and the i-would-have-blogged-but-this-happeneds. Truth is, if I had a left hand that HAD THE POWER, I'd be telling you stuff that would curl your already-curly hair. But I don't, so I ain't, which means I'm not.

I miss stuff. I have been doing a lot to make sure the straight and narrow is still a viable path, but I miss the insane stupid shit that I previously would engage in. I'm not going to lie and say I don't miss that.

Right now, I miss being in love. I miss the feeling of improving myself for someone else. Shit, that's what I want. I want to be accountable to someone I care about. I want to have to change my daily habits to achieve that. And I guess it's pathetic, especially since everyone's getting married. God damn it.

And I fucked up. A year ago, I let the best mentor I've ever had just give up on me. Because I hadn't been doing everything I was supposed to do. And why? What have I gained? Noooooothing.

Can you take stuff back? I mean, do you get any points for acknowledging past idiocies? I don't think so.

I have been getting back to the rhythm of writing. At this point, it doesn't matter. I just want to articulate everything correctly. I don't want to be that guy that once thought I was good and actually wasn't.

My hand is broken, and there is plenty I can't do. But there was plenty I can. So watch the hell out. You might have already written me off, and you might be surprised.

Dude... I have a note from home saying why I couldn't blog for the last few weeks. I'll scan and upload it soon.

But I imagine you want the short version, in fact, I imagine you champing -- literally champing -- at the bit, waiting to hear the tale. Champing your ASS off!

So the short version is: after getting injured at work, I am now a one-handed man. For the next few months, anyway.

As to my injury, I won't describe it in graphic detail. Just know that the ER doc eagerly snapped photos of it with his iPhone to "show his class." Also, it was caused by a falling wall cabinet's sharp edge slicing through my thumb. You don't want any more information on that one, trust me.

I had to have surgery to reattach the tendon, and since I'd been gripping really hard when the cabinet took a life of its own and tried to kill me, the cut was even worse than it could have been. My split tendon parts retreated way up to the tip of the thumb, so an incision had to be made along the length of the thumb to find/reattach it.

Yeah.

It's been a major interruption and a completely lame series of events, but trying to find that elusive bright side, I gotta say that if/when I do get use of my hand back, I am going to feel like I just got some sort of ninja voodoo superpower. (That's a good idea for a comic book superhero, by the way: Two-Handed Man.)

Thankfully, not everything has been lame -- my oldest friend just got married and I had the honor of being a groomsman. It was great and crazy partying, even by wedding standards. So I at least had that to enjoy.

Plus, hell, I used this as an excuse to get TV and DVR in my room. Can't argue with that, right?!

Well, I'll blog more later, but my typing ability is very limited. I have voice recognition software for most of what I'm saying, then I go back and edit, one key at a time.

Until next time... sooner, I hope.