Social Potlucks

Yo. I guess I'm in no strong position to type anything, since my lethargia and congestion are rueing the day thus far, but that's not to say I won't at least try.

What are we? When I sit down, stand up, walk around a city's downtown blocks..what's actually going on? While sitting on a lift yesterday riding to the top of a peak, somewhere around 8800 ft above sea level Joe posed to me that "we stick together."
This struck me, because I wasn't in this frame of thinking, nor did I think was he. He was referring to social circles. And outcasts from social circles (We being indefinable outcasts).
We all try to be things, lots of different things. Some fall more easily into their desired niches than others, and there are some who stand out in the long run as simply, tirelessly, never fitting in. I breezed through my younger years knowing exactly this - because I could choose about 7 different social categories at school in which I most definitely didn't naturally fit, and maybe about two that I possibly could. The first of those two were the Computer Geeks, the second were the GATE Geeks. And I did plays, so maybe that could be a third: Drama Geek. But seriously. Drama Geek?
For some reason, in those early years I kind of just knew better. Because in even earlier years there weren't clique; they seemed to develop somewhere around our 10th and 11th years of living. But as the rest of the junior high world merged with eachother and fashioned little secure-yet-exclusive social circles, I found myself not. I looked around at them, poked my head in every now and again and definitely got my pride knocked a good few times because of it. Maybe that's what turned me around and made me think, 'why would should I put myself through this?'
I did have friends, but they were like me: unsure about what all this fuss was about when somewhere like two years earlier we were all in the same boat together, and the only thing that divided us were classrooms.
SO I made friends with some teachers, did my homework, and enjoyed learning about computers, and celebrated a couple really solid girlfriends.
Around 14 and 15, high school presented a FAR heavier demonstrative of these social events: and the longer I stayed the more spread out my "fitting in" became. Instead of residing within any particular social circle, I started to relate to ALL of them. I accumulated friendships across the entire social spectrum. Since I didn't belong in any I figured I might as well try to belong in all; show that we are all still just people like we used to be.
I did do drama in high school, and loved the comradery. That became my mostly-niche somewhere around the last half of my last year of the 12th grade. (Maybe it was the Beattyland video that was made for me for my 18th birthday, because that really reeled me into the light of having hilarious true friends.) But these guys weren't snowboarders, so the niche was still not perfect.

After school, I was relieved to discover that the cliques immaculately disappear instantly in the working world. Status-based popularity is empty and temporary and everybody knows it. The cool people are the ones that DO things, and not people that look like they do things. Big difference.

So why does Joe say this now? When we're both in the supposed clear of social hazards, doing lots of things and loving every second of life?
Because it has shaped everybody around us, forever. I could go into a whole new blog about the two business-owning rich guys I sat next to on a different life yesterday.

...

Is it better to know yourself and have fine-tuned opinions about people and things, or to identify with nothing and say Yes to everybody?
I'm not so sure. I waver back and forth between lands of knowing and not knowing.
Joe has gotten farther than me. His experiences far outreach my own. His journeys have really solified his compassionate-yet-thickskinned personality, and I admire that. The only person that he identifies with is the Clique of Himself. And I think that's the direction I like, the same as when we were younger and people started shaping circles in the first place - instead of submitting to someone else's ideals, I get to keep making up my own.

Slumkind of wonderful

Candice and I just went downtown to exchange some old shoes for cash, have a taco, and watch Slumdog Millionaire at the Nickelodeon. It's not a rare thing for a movie to move me, but it is for a movie to leave me feeling hopeful. Cheesy? Well I think this movie did just that for me; it triggered the potentials that linger in all of us for age-old romance, for rags to riches, for passion in friendships, for reminding me that even shit and filth can feel hopeful. It retold a truth I keep forgetting: the possibility to escape everything with the ones you love. The same sweet freedom we used to know so well as kids.
I hope that all of you get to watch this film sometime in the next couple weeks - it's a real piece of love.
Feels like you've touched the Triforce when you walk out.

unemployment

this sucks. Things have been more difficult financially than they have ever been before. I had been expected several checks much earlier in the month, but now it's nearly the twentieth and none of them have arrived. I check the mail 20 times a day waiting for the invisible mailman to come so that I can finally get money in the bank, so that I can finally stop obsessing about it and go about looking for better work. But because nothing comes, day after day, I feel like I'm just prolonging an inevitable dread.
But I'm secretly not really that worried about anything (surely Candice would hate to hear me say that) but it's true. I know that in time, the checks will show up, the problem will be resolved. In a month I will have caught up without question, I will have delivered a few pizzas, finished the mess with the ridiculous EDD people, paid all my freaking bills, and maybe even have auditioned for a thing or two - all by my birthday. All the while, my lovely counterpart will work her steady job and make good too. Soon we will both be sitting happily around in nonchalance reading books, feeling the "everything is wonderfully ok" vibe.
I paid some dues a while back, then I got some promotions, now it's gonna be time to pay some dues again. And you know what? I promise you that I have no qualms to spend a hefty lovely chunk of my next amount of time paying dues. Its in the due-paying that we dream the hardest, right? I just can't wait to start paying. Because the one thing worse than paying dues is WAITING to pay your dues. My good heavenly Krishna it's an awful game to play, the waiting one.

So there it is, optimism masked by pessimism, masked by unshakable optimism. I assure you, unless something goes horrifically wrong (and even then, still) everything is going be extremely fine indeed. InDEED.
Love you guys. Pray that USBank goes under, because then I wouldn't have lost a cent.
:-)

Peace
Mikie

I miss blog comments

Comment away! I sometimes wonder if anybody's even listening. Not that i say too much anymore, but you know.

everything's sterling silver now

I read a magazine article tonight about guys that have "Changed Their Lives" in their forties by quitting their high-end, professional jobs to pursue the things they really want to do (ie. starting an adventure-guiding company, a non-profit charity organization, a traveling vagabond and a New York comedian). These stories perplex me. When I read about them, I can't help but wonder what these men were thinking while they sailed through their mid-twenties, making as few bucks as me while searching to find a career that fit for them. Why didn't these men, who seem to represent such large chunks of "successful" men in our western world, pursue the things they really wanted to do THEN? Why is it so typical for people to wait until their early or mid forties to finally pursue the things they really wanted to do? Honestly, I don't get it. It took me two years of college to have the same realization that took these guys 25 years, which is the same realization that some people may never even achieve in their entire lifetime! WTF mate

The problem is that ours seems to be the first generation who's realizing that those full-time money-making careers are not satisfying enough. It's a cool realization to have, and can't really be unlearned. But I screwed myself by having it at 24, so that even now I don't have some sort of financial backing to set me up while I begin pursuing my real wants. I have few things and a heart so full of passion and ambition that I basically explode every night before I go to sleep. I can't cash in my 401k or budget my severance checks to help me fuel my creative future in "Finally Doing the Things I want to be Doing". No, by discovering that I refuse to waste my life at 24, I have no economic safety net to rely on to help me along in my pursuits. The economy does not behave nicely towards folks who want to do the things they really want to do. It's not set up that way. It makes you wonder what your real choices are here, where your skills really belong.

Am I alone? Did anybody else at 24-27 realize they were a Big-Business-Exec-Destined-For-Emotional-Relapse-at-45-to-Quit-Their-Job-to-Pursue-Better-Things besides me? Seriously. No job meets the ridiculous criteria I've set for myself.
I should have talked to Steve about this.

Matt, I think you know too. You seem to be someone who's landed a high-paying job while still doing the things you really want to be doing. Right? Have you done it correctly?
Seriously, I'm taking suggestions. I want to figure the "next thing" out soon. I'm sick of supernatural forces trampling my daily joys. There's an answer here, I just haven't found it yet.
Like the economy: there's an answer, we just don't know it yet.
Advice is Welcome.

new phone, new coffee pot, same old blub

As I was driving through the chilly sunset tonight, I realized this:
Occasionally I want nothing more than to just be entertained.
Nothing sounds more refreshing or relaxing to me than an opportunity to sit back, release the reigns and enjoy the show. This is one reason why I loved the bar I used to work at in Burbank. I could walk into work having the worst day imaginable, and still there'd be a friendly drunk old man or woman eager to smile and entertain me.
Steve, for example, said one day,

"Mikie? Mikie! What's wrong with you? Snap out of it! You're not yourself today Mikie. Well then let's talk about it, I want to hear what you're thinking about!"

Steves want to help us feel better again. They are Casual-Dependable people: they don't care enough about us to really be upset with our feelings, but at the same time they ain't goin nowhere. You could sit there and shoot the shittiest shit with Steve, and he'd listen to every word you said. He'd laugh, argue, or just plain listen, and in exchange would recount his own stories that might seem totally pointless to others, but incredible to you. Because he doesn't care, but he just wants to entertain. For some reason, it feels amazing to take the attention away from you and just be entertained. Like Steve's carefree laughter... cake for an infant! You can depend on Steves to simply make you smile. Steve lets you try new things. Steve reminds you that you can believe in anything you want, and feel any way you want to. And Steve doesn't let you leave without remember something valuable.
Life will throw you screws. You just have to catch some of them
and set them down.
Thanks Steve.

peace outie

I just shattered the coffee pot

There's something suspicious about this. I sometimes feel like the world of material things is out to get me. I have a severe knack for breaking beautiful things, spilling drinks, dropping glasses, smooching bumpers, bonking people - and at the same time I'm remarkably good at Yoga and other balance-related activities. So what is the deal?! Am I just so good that the world feels a need to belittle my supernatural powers of perfect balance through humbling chastisement?
Why do I break only beautiful things, and leave the crappy stuff unscathed?

One Hundred and Fifty Percent

Remember back in the day when everything we did was the biggest, hardest and most important thing we've ever done? Yeah well not much changed. Every day when you wake up in the morning you consciously or not make a series of events occur that will affect everybody around you forever, simply by getting and up and living. You create your reality, and others witness it. Pretty incredible. What if you inherently knew that you were destined for great things? What if you knew what you've always known since you were little, that You will someday be the mover and shaker for some of the greatest events known to mankind? The actions you will take will affect hundreds, millions of people around the world! Just like when you wake up in the morning and begin creating your life each day, so can you wake up in your life and begin creating changes in society for the good, every day, with all the good things you do! Have you began it?
we are all on a journey through the thickest mud and most treacherous waters. We have our friendships to help us with their flashlights and our enemies to chase us from behind. Society is a flooding river from a flash storm, and with only our bodies, words, hopes and dreams can we save the place we came from, from where we shall someday return.
I believe in the 150% - I believe in not allowing our lives to be complacent because even if we choose complacency we can choose it at 150%!
whoever said that, thank you for the sound advice.
I hear you quiet and clear
Look out world, this boy's got a mission again,
let's shake sh*t up!

Marty

here we go

I've been having a pretty difficult time getting a job lately.
And I saw Milk tonight. The film was excellent! seriously, it was great. Strolling downtown in the brisk night with Candice was refreshing, the Del Mar is a charming place to see movies in Santa Cruz, and afterwards nothing beats Orion's belt shining bright in the moonlight. You know?
Yeah. But getting a job in Santa Cruz is literally the most difficult thing I've ever attempted to do, in the history of my life. Graduating college was actually easier than this. By the time I'd done this much work I would be making thousands in the TV business, even millions. Seriously, the self-selling I've done here for the most repetitive, diminuitive work has been fruitless and I am humiliated one day after another. Only mother nature and a few close amigos are here to remind me that I am worth even barely more than nothing at all.
4+ months of Santa Cruz and I am no better off financially than a 17-year-old coming out of high school.
I'm ready to move to a place where there are opportunities for real jobs, and more friends than I have now. I don't know what the future's all about, but I could use a bit more motivation than I'm giving myself. Any help?


_Mikie

for god's sake give me a cool job. please, somebody hire my poor unemployed a$$

peanut butter and chocolate

my heart's exploding.
Mostly because I just ate about 5 peanut butter cookies in under two minutes, and partly because of how thrilling the chill of winter and heat of summer can shake your bones with a certain sweat of life.
We went to the San Francisco today. There was a long truck with the word PHANTOM written across it in black and white. For some reason, I felt like a child haunted and mesmerized, and a little desirous. That's kind of how I've always felt about the San Francisco. The stretching hills of lines of houses in faded pink and off-white, that huge fork-antenna towering over everything, the frenetic slurry of to and fro in crowded crosswalks of Market St, the slick library art, the indoor shelters and laughing bums, AWESOME! San Fran.
San Francisco remains a mystery to me - a code.
And the best part about mysteries?

Solving them

colloquialistic vermouth

in the great scheme of my everlasting Gobstopper (life) there have been of few voluptuous quotes having filled my bosom with brims of healthy bewonderment. Of these quotations, I have here selected the mitest tip-tops, words that suit my current fancy and most curiously puzzle. Be them words contained within the lives and belly of a snake, or the countless daunderings of that smelly thing we call hope, these waterlike quotable phrases have spilled their way onto my blogabyte, hitherto they lay, laid and translated for the feeble eyes and ways of seldom few. Bare with me if you will, and take with you what can you find, wherever else but here, some quotes:
(as you read each quote in the moment would you but not allow its mellow philanthrophy to dwaddle and dat beneath your hat and swim within your hearty heart of hearts?)

The grass is always greener on the other side

If you break it you buy it

If it ain't broke don't fix it

Two wrongs don't make a right

If you love something give it away

I don't care what you believe, just believe it

In youth and beauty wisdom is rare

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you

Indian-giving.

A dream is a wish your heart makes

Where have all the merrymakers gone?

Would you rather...

There is no I in Team

Yes We Can

I have a dream

How do you pick up the pieces of an old life?

Never have regrets

Peace, Love and Happiness.

Live locally, Love globally

Blub big time

And there we have a mouthy verse,
and one bag of chips after.