Okay to begin with, this is how I feel a lot of the time.

And this is what happens when I get really bored (you have to transpose boy for girl and adult for child and books/computer/car for pony and the boat isn’t that far off…).

No, I never learn either. Next week it will be some other boredom caused adventure.

This is how I feel life should be… and yet people, work, people keep putting their noses in when I am trying to build barriers.

And finally, how I feel most days when people talk about their girlfriends/boyfriends, et. al. while I have been in this serious celibate drought for, well, forever.

All comics Copywrite 2005 Wiley

Another day in paradise.

I started writing again, yesterday. I?ve been on this hiatus thing. Not a real hiatus, not a real lack of writing as I?ve spent some time updating this site and doing other projects (like the freelance gig I did that turned me off of technical writing), but I haven?t really been writing creatively for some time now. So, I started writing again. I?ve actually gotten serious about the second draft of the book I wrote in November. The second draft will not look like the first because I?ve changed a lot of things. I?m evolving. My forehead is much larger, my cranium capacity has increased, I am smarter. Okay, maybe not.

Regardless, the feeling that I can actually sit down and create something good has returned. Along with that feeling is the notion that I can also produce a lot of crap, quickly, and fear of what writing can bring. I don?t know where the fear comes from, but it is there. I am afraid of what writing can, or may, bring.

Logically I look at statements like that and I think, ?How stupid is that?? What I mean is that I have worked, professionally, as a writer, and, granted, I am not working in that vein anymore, the notion of the time and effort, the personal involvement and emotionally taxing nature of creating fiction really counters the logical side of me. I know what it takes to write something ? regardless of my current successes/failures.

Going back to rewrite the November draft of a book has been a daunting task. I am daunted. The daunt has fallen and I am it.

Well, let?s toss my hat in the ring and see what happens. Whatever happens will bring me closer to my goals.

Keep thinking I need to do some kind of significant update. Unfortunately, I also can’t seem to find the time or be bothered to do the update.

Today is Friday. I am going to a baseball game as a team outing (with work) this evening. My plan for the weekend is to clean my room, maybe go see a movie, do some laundry, wash my dress shirts, and then iron everything so that I am ready for church on Sunday and for work next week.

Yesterday, I spoke to someone at work to find out some training information on a new client Fidelity is bringing on and the center in Salt Lake City and she told me she would forward all pertinent information to my job quest on Monday next week (I said I would e-mail her on Tuesday if I hadn?t heard anything).

As most people know, London was hit by a few more, smaller, bombs yesterday. Apparently, very few people were injured this time and the London police have already begun apprehending suspects. One man was shot to death, today, by plain clothes officers in the tube, in front of witnesses, avoiding arrest. Things are pretty serious over there.

Beyond that, I am waiting for my toll transponder to arrive (New Hampshire has toll roads and they are moving to an Easy Pass toll system), waiting for a credit card to arrive in the mail, and waiting to hear whether or not I can enroll in classes for the fall terms through D.E. (distance education) at Southern New Hampshire University.

Have you ever just sat there and realized that it?s been another year?

Most people realize that a year has passed during new years celebrations, at their birthdays, on other people?s birthday?s, or on the anniversary date of a major event in their lives. For me, there are a series of anniversary dates that cause me to stop and reflect on my life and what I?ve accomplished and failed at. This week one of those anniversary dates is my moving to the North East.

This week has been quite interesting for me. Things have changed and it is apparent, to me that they have. My life is not that same as it was when I left Utah a year ago. Lots of things have changed and I feel that I am a very different person now than I was then. I don?t know how to explain that, because looking at my life on a day to day, a constant basis, there doesn?t seem to be a lot that is different.

I still look in the mirror every morning and in the back of my mind I still see the eighteen/nineteen year old kid graduating from high school and preparing, with some level of trepidation, to serve a two year LDS mission. The mission was a success, the past ten years of my life have been okay, and now I?ve spent one year in New Hampshire.

When I left Utah a year ago my intention was to locate a job and an apartment in Boston, MA. After arriving in the east and applying to a bunch of places, after spending a bunch of money, I interviewed and was not offered quite a few jobs that came along. In the end I worked for a bookstore (the name of which must never pass these lips) and went back to school. The school was an agreement between me and the couple I live with on housing arrangements. If I was in school I could stay with them. If I wasn?t, I couldn?t. Not a difficult choice as I was finding that the money (thousands) that I?d made and saved before moving out here didn?t go as far as I would?ve hoped. My mother was right, as were many other people, in my hopes as opposed to reality. I?d never lived in a city like Boston or away from family and the lesson was a good one.

Conversely, I have lived and worked and starved, yet again; and yet, I wouldn?t change the past year for a million individual feathers from an old feather bed (mostly because I am allegedly allergic to feathers and partly because I don?t see any monetary value in the elusive feather). Going to school and not getting the jobs I wanted taught me some lessons. First, I need to have that degree. Any degree would really do and as such I?ve reverted to the generic English degree with the intentions (stated and otherwise) of going on to do graduate work.

Working at the bookstore was not intentional or ideal. It seemed weird, to me, that at 30 and 31 I was going back to work at the ideal job of my youth. Some people, and I?ve met a few over the years, feel that working in a bookstore is some kind of nirvana. Working in a bookstore you meet a lot more of these people. They are lurkers. Wanting to work for the bookstore but not actually wanting to apply because that would mean their requirement to be at that same location changes. Instead of being a purchaser you are a worker; instead of being a reader you are a seller. The relationship between individual and customer changes when you begin working for the bookstore.

I did not enjoy that experience and actually found my faith being tested as health problems and paying rent became a real issue because of the hours I could work and the hours the store would schedule me to work. Moreover, I felt the need to go to school full time, to interact with other students, and to be challenged in that area and regardless of my abilities the opportunities to work never presented themselves in a way that would allow me to honor my debts and do what I feel and felt I needed to be doing.

I?ve spent the past few years paying down enormous debts. One new debt was an emergency room visit that I had back in February. Your idea of life and family changes when you enter an emergency room for yourself and feel as though the world is coming to a quick, and hard, end. For me I felt that they were going to have to cut into me and in the end I had almost $4000.00 in new bills I had no means of paying back. Before that was done, and it?s not entirely gone yet, the hospital ended up writing off everything I owed them because, for the past several years, I?ve made nothing and have lived well below the poverty line. Where my faith was challenged new faith and appreciation for the Providence seemed to take hold.

One of the many things I?ve had to work through has been the distinct differences between the north east compared to, say, Utah, Texas, California, or the western United States. Some differences are in the ways people approach work out here. It is, at the same time, very serious and very much a thing that has to be done but not as much a thing that defines an individual. Yes, people identify themselves, here as everywhere, with what they do, but what?s more, work seems to be different out here. I?ve gained the respect of many people who are natives of this region simply because I was raised to be at work while I was at work. Not a lot of people are actually ever at work when they are there. At least, in Utah, that has been my experience. People feel entitled to their jobs, they deserve them whether they do anything or not, where out here people work for their jobs and earn them. If nothing else, I?d earned my job at the bookstore and I?d earned the right to change jobs when a new one presented itself.

Writing has remained a focus for me, though in the past few weeks to a couple of months I?ve announced that I will no longer be doing technical writing. The voices inside my head laugh with glee when I say that, they seem to think it?s funny and they seem to think that I?ll be back to my professional roots; but they?re wrong. (Note: There are no voices in my head. That was used under the terms of poetic license.)

On the flipside to not doing technical writing anymore, I have discovered an even greater love for fiction and writing fiction. Crazy, I assure you. When people hear about that they want to know what my vices are. Currently, my vices are swearing. I can do it like a sailor and like a trucker and like several of my brothers. However, my personal resolution(s) are to no longer do that and someday I will beat, into a bloody pulp, that monster.

Back in November ?04 I wrote a book. This was done under a challenge from one of the people I live with. Offhandedly I said something like, ?I should write a book. That would take care of everything.? She said, ?Do it,? and then proceeded to challenge me to it after I further intimated that I could do the entire first draft process in about a month. About a month later I?d written in excess of 80 thousand words and didn?t want much to do with that manuscript. However, the very act of writing was quite therapeutic and the notion that I have a manuscript has helped me move forward with some of my personal goals.

Somewhat recently I decided that I was not comfortable with the direction that book went. I will actually do a radical rewrite and in the process create something new, and I hope, something far better than what I wrote in November. The characters have taken on a different life, in my head, and there is something far more symbolic about what I was trying to write about in November that is coming out of me now. No, I have not started writing the actual book that is something that I am working into but that I also plan to begin very soon. And no, I?m not going to be opening up about what I write.

In the process of the first draft, the November draft, I discovered that most famous writers hate to go through the editing process. They hate the sound of their own writing. Admittedly, I really have never enjoyed reading what I?ve written. Going back over a document, for a contract or a job, has been an aspect of the job I continually put off, but eventually get to. With writing, especially over the past year, I avoided the book from November like the plague and when I did sit down to work on it didn?t get very far. Something, a little voice, call it the Spirit, suggested that what I was reading wasn?t what I wanted to have written and that something else needed to change in my life before I would be comfortable enough to write what I wanted written.

Maybe the past year has been all about the growing hubris in my life. Hubris, pride, believing that I instinctively know better or more than those around me may be an element in my life ? though I don?t always say what I think. More often than not I say nothing. I say nothing and yet in the past year I?ve said more to more people than maybe I should?ve. When you get the up close and personal access to individual lives I?ve had with the family I live with, watched the mistakes, watched the successes, sometimes you can?t say nothing. I felt it appropriate, in some cases, to say things.

There are changes (around me) that I couldn?t keep quiet about, and sometimes I wish I would?ve.

At the same time, silence is not acquiescence. I do not agree with you just because I say nothing to your rantings, your statements, your opinion, or your forceful comments to me. Yes, I have an opinion. And yes, I have an opinion on most things. But no, my opinion isn?t always appropriate or ready to share and often I will go quiet.

The writing has been on the wall and one year away from family has taught me that. We have to learn to get along. I don?t just mean that as a matter of course for family members, but also for people, coworkers, etc., in general. We have to manage the way we interact with each other.

Two things have become more true, now, than ever before. One, not every opinion matters. Not everyone has an opinion that is even a good opinion or should be shared/listened to. Second, you have the right to share it and I have the right to listen, to voice my own opinion, or to ignore what you are saying. Often I will choose to ignore what you are talking about.

Recently, on an outing with friends (and I do consider some of them friends or potential friends) I stated that the act of listening, or not, was a defensive mechanism and that I chose, personally, to use that defensive mechanism when appropriate.

One year. I moved away from family one year ago. In that time I?ve become more insistent, I?ve become more vocal (in some areas) and less vocal (in other areas) and I feel that I am better for it. I?ve discovered I don?t want to do technical writing for a living; I?ve developed a better understanding of who I am and my needs; and I go back to Utah, soon, ready to take on my responsibilities as a member of the LDS faith, as a son, brother, and someday a husband and father. One year. Gods university. Gods college. Gods experience. My faith has increased and my testimony has strengthened and for that I am most grateful.

I feel as though I need to do an update today. Well, an update outside of the notice that I read, over the weekend, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Looking at the number of entries I would say that I’ve been a little remiss in updating this site. Sorry.

Now, for what’s been happening lately.

This past week I worked some pretty serious overtime and then scheduled to spend time with young adults in my branch on Saturday while accepting the responsibility to teach Sunday School and speaking in church on the same day. I enjoy speaking and have no problems, per say, with teaching Sunday School… but to do either on a Sunday generally causes me to want to run and hide.

The talk, and the teaching, appear to have gone well. Most people said, without the look of pain that seems to hide behind their eyes, that they enjoyed both and after this next week I may not have to teach, again, in church for a while.

I never bothered to finish several books that I purchased over the past several weeks. As you may have noticed, I have updated the Currently Reading section far faster than I have time to read the books. To start, Omens was just bad. I’ve read a couple of Neil Gaimon’s books, but that one was just… wrong. Normally I like, enjoy, a good Robert Littell book and yet, The Visiting Professor proved to be a book that I hated almost from page one and quit reading simply because I found the process very very hard.

I also started to read Lila by Robert Pirsig, a kind of sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That one turned me off simply by being. He tried going back to the well and failed. He tried to write another book on philosophy and may have succeeded in his mind, but of the fifty or so pages I read all I got was that his protagonist in Zen, Phaedrus, was stuck on sex. Maybe I’m wrong. But to add the subtitle, An Inquiry Into Morals, and you are asking for a lot more than most readers are willing to apply to reading it. That, and when you immediately begin to write in opposition to morals that most people hold, you are asking for a problem.

There are a couple of other books I’ve purchased and not read. That’s okay. I’ll get around to them soon enough.

Outside of all that I’ve been revisiting some ideas on the writing end of life. I am this close (imagine my fingers really close together) to starting the process of writing what I am thinking I need to write. Jordan (number 8) has been instructed to purchase two notepads and to carry a pen, a pencil, the two notepads in a backpack with him wherever he goes. This is so he can capture his evolving ideas on what he and I are working on and forthcoming projects. Apparently he’s relayed this to the maternal figure and in turn she’s told me that his intent is to do as he’s instructed. Hopefully before too long we can nock out the idea he and I have been hashing through for a couple of years.

With that my second draft of the book I wrote in November is coming along in notes form. I’ve decided to call this draft “One Year”. And along with that I’ve begun the process, internally, on putting together the ideas for my Alicia Grey story(s). There are people who might prove to be interesting archetypes for the characters; however, all characters are purely fictitious and any likeness to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Oh, I did start the application to BYU and need to get the Ecclesiastical Endorsement filled out and then my transcripts from SLCC and SNHU sent over. Should be interesting.

In short, things are progressing and I hope to review Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the movie) a couple of books (possibly including the Harry Potter book), and other things in the very near future.

I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince since Saturday morning in the early A.M. hours. Admitedly, a good book but not what I was expecting. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I am sure this wasn’t it. A part of me wants to be saddened by what I read; and yet, I feel as though the plot devices and twists put into this book need another book to resolve them properly. In short, J.K. Rowling did not give the reader enough information to make a proper judgment on what she’s done.

Not really certain whether or not I will be reviewing this book. In my mind I can’t review it without giving away the pieces that impressed me the most and will impress others a lot.

I’ll think on it.

As a side note, and for administrative purposes, I am still working on the Anniversary entry. It will come. I sorta promise. ‘Bout halfway there.