The Apple and the Birdcage

My friend, Stacy, is working in Yellowstone right now, and I want nothing more than to be there with her. I am beginning to think I’ll never make it back like I said I would. It’s even harder the second time. Harder to plan, harder to commit, harder to fund, harder to leave.

I’ve been smoking way too much lately, and as I repeat this phrase for the millionth time, I suddenly come to a realization, I just smoke too much in general. A pack a day, give or take a few cigs, but cancer is the furthest thing from my mind these days. Turning 28 has been eating at me, which is stupid, because when I’m a senior citizen, I’ll be kicking myself (not literally of course, I’ll be too old) for not realizing how young I really was.

Money is running out but we can’t live off the government forever. We can’t stay in college forever, however, I am feeling very much inclined to go ahead and get my master’s degree, as is my faithful roommate.

Empty bank accounts may end up spoiling our summer, but at least the beach, well, parts of it anyway, is still free. “Gotta go to work, gotta go to work, gotta have a job,” but this is easier said than done. I have a bachelor’s degree after all, and I can’t even land a lousy minimum wage job. The economy is in free fall and nobody’s doing any hiring. My mom still pays my gas bill and part of my rent, but I’m not ashamed, at least I’m not living with her – not that there’s anything wrong with that, I’m just saying, at least I have some independence.

Here we are in a place I never thought we’d be. Maybe I knew, I don’t know. This is the life of the drug culture, and through it all, the only addictions I’ve seemed to maintain are caffeine, nicotine, and THC. Not bad, considering the position of everyone else I used to call my friends. Pills are the new heroin and they’ve taken a toll on my social life. I’ve been out of the loop, but a face from the recent past filled me in on all the latest. After hearing about all the soap opera stuff I’ve missed, I’m sorry I even asked.

Abortions, overdoses, addictions, lies, deceit – nothing has changed. I have the mind to call, but what would be the point. They are in a place that can’t be penetrated, and I can’t put my life on hold for friends who don’t even realize my absence from the scene. So, this is where we are and nobody’s dream came true.

I can’t stay focused. Everything is coming to a head, deadlines are nearing their end, graduation is relentlessly biting my exposed heals. It’s been a longtime coming, and I wish it would never get here. I wish I was still in high school along with a foreign generation and all the time in the world.

I’m homesick for a home that no longer exists.

A pleasant breeze makes the sun bearable on a day like today. Seagulls fishing down by the lake keep coming up empty-handed and I realize that they are as unsuccessful as me. I should be looking for a job right now, but my sanity has become first priority.

Five some-odd years dedicated to earning a 4 year degree, and now that the goal has almost been met, I’m wondering what the point was. All this time and money spent, but what have I got to show for it? A full bookshelf and empty wallet, a lifetime of debt and a useless resume. Maybe I can make a career out of therapy writing.

Five some-odd-years spent chasing after a bachelor’s degree, and now I find myself chasing after minimum wage jobs, and I can’t even land one of those.

“I have a four year degree, and you’re going to subject me, a college graduate, to a stupid drug test?”

In three hours I have to attend another city council meeting in Kemah, and I have no confidence that I will do a better job than last time. My hate for reporting and journalism has worsened. I really have tried to enjoy, or more to the point, grow a liking for it, but it’s just not working. I can’t picture myself doing this for the rest of my life, wouldn’t want to. But therein lies the problem. What do I want to do when I grow up?

(Screw this pen!)

I’ll tell you what I want to do, Drink Dr. Pepper, smoke a lot of weed, gorge myself on falafel, drink some rum and sleep all day. Yeah, who’s going to pay me to do that? I know, I should have been a musician, but that industry sucks more than the wonderful world of writing. What would Hunter S. do?

College is a joke. $20,000 some odd dollars later and I learned that I was on the right track before I decided to go to college. Work a bad job, and do what you love on the side. It’s a simple concept, but it stands the test of time. I refuse to leave this park until I’m in a better mood, not a good mood, just a better one. I’m slowly getting there.

Kill em’ all. Let Allah sort em’ out.

While driving down the dreaded Bay Area Blvd, I saw these words proudly displayed on a bumper sticker decorating the back of a young white couples’ car. I was behind this car for about five minutes, reading the words over and over again until they turned off onto a side road. This can’t mean what I thought it meant. I must be missing something.

When I reached my destination, I jotted down the words on the back of a high priced receipt. I sat in my parked car observing surrounding bumper stickers pasted on cars, trucks and SUV’s. “Support our Troops,” “Proud American”, “W”, “One Nation Under God”, “I’d rather be Fishing”. “I must be missing something,” I thought.

On the way back from Bay City last weekend, I saw a sign in someone’s yard that read “Divorce Sale”. Although I was by myself, I read it again out loud and cracked up. Who does that?

I hate criticism. My creative professor gave me a B+ for my poem “Hillcroft”, but it’s not so much the letter grade that bothers me, it’s the way in which he worded his comments. When speaking of the last four lines of my poem he writes, “Not to sound harsh, but none of these lines are particularly luminous, and then they get more or less repeated which nails the coffin, so to speak.” I actually cried when I first read this. I was crushed and outraged. After printing out the email, I read over it again and then crumbled it up and tossed it in the corner of the room only to pick it up an hour later, fold it, and stick it in my journal. I’m over it now, but I’d still like to know what his credentials are. It’s safe to say that I won’t be making an “A” in this class, but who cares anyway? I’ve never had a 4.0, and I haven’t made the Dean’s List since my first semester, but screw the dean, he’s not on my side. Graduation is right around the corner, and as my internship proves to me how green I really am, I dread the day when financial aid no longer supports me. I don’t want to be a part of the real world, but I have no choice – student loans are piling up along with outstanding bills. Two more months.

Let beauty fade. I don’t think I care anymore. It will happen soon enough anyway. Men don’t have to worry about this as much, they’re not expected to be pretty. If a woman is no longer young and attractive, you might as well bury her alive. I could have been a model, maybe not Victoria Secret, but I could have made a living with the Sears catalog at least, but I wanted to put my mind to work instead, and it’s proving to be a bad move.

My selected profession is not going well. I’m interning for the Clear Lake Citizen, a very small weekly newspaper for the Houston bay area. Of course I’m not getting paid, but it’s probably for the best since I have no idea what I’m doing more than half the time.

I had an assignment to cover the Kemah city council meeting, and so reluctantly, I did, well, kind of. I took my tape recorder with me because I suck at taking notes. Deciding to rely entirely on my hand-me-down mini recorder, I jotted down only one quote from the mayor, who looked to be enjoying the meeting about as much as myself. I had never been to a city council meeting before, and the only thing I had to draw on was the yellow and brown citizens of Springfield gathering at city hall with mayor Quimbly at the podium waiting to discuss the latest tyranny brought on by Mr. Burns. In reality, city council meetings aren’t nearly as exciting as they are on the Simpsons. It only lasted an hour, but my eyes grew heavy after the first five minutes.

This morning when I arrived at The Citizen for my daily sentence, I was confronted with an awful realization. My hand-me-down recorder was a piece of crap. Nothing on the tape was audible. The mayor’s voice went from sounding like he was recovering from a severe stroke to sounding like one of Alvin’s chipmunks. “I’m screwed,” I thought. “How am I going to write this article?” I had to rely on memory, and for the life of me, I don’t know where my mind was during the meeting. The Simpsons, I guess. I sat in front on the computer, which still ran on DOS with its black screen and yellow letters, wracking my brain for something to write about. I began my lead knowing that it would be dropped by the editor:

“In the midst of a buzzing fire alarm, sick council members and broken microphones, the Kemah city council meeting trudged forward.”

I couldn’t remember what was voted on or what their final decisions were, but I came up with something to turn in to the editor, and I don’t even know if it’s accurate. I am a horrible journalist, but I blame my incompetent school for that.

I can’t quit thinking about the death of Hunter S. His family says that he had been planning his suicide for about ten years now, but they said it still came as a surprise. I went to Barnes and Noble today and bought one of those many books that I had been meaning to purchase and read for quite a while. Songs of the Doomed is the book I decided to buy, and although I’m not even past chapter one, I’m already hooked. I wish I could have met you.

Although I have no working theme, I’m hoping it will all come together. Tomorrow I must put in my three hours, but things are going well despite my reluctance for the learned craft of journalism. I would like to someday write a novel, and although I’ve started many, I have never made it past the first chapter. But I’m writing again and happy to say that I’m well on my way to prolonged creativity.

I will write a page a day, just like I used to, before everything that needed to be said was said, before I gave up the pen for TV.