I don’t think our league lasted a whole season, there were just too many logistical things that we needed to take care of.  John actually made a valiant effort to calculate the scores (remember no internet and no espn.com so he had to use the newspaper and a calculator), but eventually we stopped writing.  It was just too difficult of a discipline to maintain (we had to mail each other at least once a week) and eventually we lost touch and he moved and forgot to send me his new address.  With the rise of the internet, I joined some fantasy leagues with my friend Jeremy in high school but eventually those petered out as well. (I blame Fantasy Baseball and it’s grueling 162 game schedule.)  I took a hiatus from fantasy sports for a while until I currently got in to my current league on accident.

It probably sounds odd that I still read the online version of the Minneapolis Star Tribune but since I’m still a big fan of the Minnesota sports scene, it’s the best place to get my information.  Oh a whim, I started posting comments on a sportswriter’s blog.  He wasn’t a beat writer for any of the teams, he was known for kind of mixing pop culture and sports culture, much like ESPN’s Bill Simmons (fun to read, for sure).  After making some references to The Royal Tenenbaums, I was given the opportunity to write a guest post on his blog. (so technically, I’ve written for the online edition of a major publication)  I continued to comment and post on that blog for a while and then eventually I was invited to play Fantasy Football with the regulars and with the proprietor himself.

Unfortunately for me, most people that comment on the Minneapolis Star Tribune site are indeed people that actually still live in Minnesota, so that makes having a fantasy draft tricky.  If I work until 5pm on a weekday, and I don’t get home until 5:30pm (approximately), that means that the soonest I will be ready for a live draft (to pick our teams) is at 7:30pm Central Standard Time.  While 7:30pm isn’t considered particularly late, a draft does take a while, and since the drafts usually happen on a weekday and the local Minnesotans try to meet up, this can be inconvenient and it’s 100% my fault.  We’ve gone through 2 seasons already, and obviously the internet has aided us well in this long distance partnership.  For all I know the guys despise me for causing their drafts to run later since I’ve never met them .  I haven’t even seen a picture of the majority of the guys but they all seem like pleasant enough chaps.

We’re on Year 3 of this Fantasy Football league and I’ve been mediocre at best.  I don’t watch as much football as I used to when I was a kid but I still keep up with what’s going on.  I probably wouldn’t put the effort in to finding another league if this one dissolved.  I don’t blame John or Jeremy for the dissolution of the leagues we had when I was younger.  I blame it on just being kids.  I really appreciate that these guys, who I’ve never met in person, accommodate me and make sure that I’m not forgotten.  It’s both touching and sad that these guys who are definitely closer to the “stranger” end of the spectrum versus the “friend” end of the spectrum are more thoughtful and accommodating than a lot of the people that I think that I’m close to.  I guess it’s one of the more redeeming factors of being a sports geek; the blinding loyalty you have to your fellow geeks.  When your team is terrible, you will still defend them to the very end and together you’ll find a silver lining amongst the sadness and when that one guy from California whom you’ve never met still wants to play even though he never wins, you let him, because of that same unexplainable loyalty.

My mom was bemused by these gift exchanges because my mom is not a nerd, or at least not a nerd of our generation, so when Mike would buy me a sock monkey or a poster version of Jay and Silent Bob’s blueprints from the movie Mallrats, my mom would complain at the lack of quality gifts that Mike would give me.  I, on the other-hand, would buy Mike books, and while these books were kind of geeky (David Sedaris – though Mike thought I was using this book to out him since Sedaris is also gay), my mom thought books were more practical.  She didn’t mean it to be critical, and when I told Mike about her criticisms, he was really amused and not offended at all.  In fact, for my 21st birthday, inspired to prove my mother wrong, Mike bought me a martini set, complete with a shaker.  Not only was it a practical gift, it was kind of classy.  My mom really thought Mike had finally come around and what took the cake was the fact that my mom doesn’t actually know what a martini is; she thought that he bought me really cute dessert cups for ice cream.

I don’t think my gift exchanges with Mike back then have taught me any lessons about gift giving that I use today.  I’ve always tried to avoid the gift giving faux pas of thoughtless gift card giving and have avoided the other major no-no of gift giving (buying girls clothes/clothing accessories without them picking it out and trying it on).  Gift giving isn’t particularly a science, but I take a certain pride in getting people original gifts that they would really like.  If I can’t figure out something that’s perfect for someone, I prefer to take them out for a good meal so I can assure them some sort of satisfaction.

Charis and Allison perform for the local community theater a few times year outside of the duties with the Technicolor show.  I haven’t been able to see them in all their different performances, and I’ve only seen them once since our last show, but I made sure that they remembered I was there.  I came out to watch them on opening night as part of a sold out crowd.  I missed them walking down the red carpet because I had to stop by the Fullerton Farmer’s Market so I could pick up some gifts for the girls.  I couldn’t just stop anywhere to get the gifts, it had to be the Farmer’s Market.  There’s a man who comes down from Gillroy to the Market every Thursday, and I needed to buy some garlic for Charis.

Charis is a very unique 10 year old child.  For one, she’s a leap year baby (2/29), and two, she loves garlic, raw garlic. One of my first conversations with Charis consisted of her asking me two questions: Do I like raw garlic? (yes) and How much can you eat at one time? (I have no idea).  She then proceeded to tell me how much she can eat at one time, and the fact that the number was greater than 0 was pretty surprising to me.  So, I decided that as her gift for opening night, I was only going to get Allison flowers and I was going to get Charis a braid of famous Gillroy garlic.

I had asked her about this possibility before and she told me that she would rather have garlic than flowers, so it wasn’t a total surprise when I gave it to her, but she was still kind of shocked that I followed through with my plan.  She wasn’t at all embarrassed to be walking around the courtyard of the theater carrying around a bag of garlic.  She even stopped to smell it a couple of times.  Allison seemed perfectly content with the more traditional gift of flowers and complained that the garlic made the bottom of her bouquet stink.

I’m sure that if I had pitched this plan to my mom, she would’ve told me that I was being foolish for wanting to buy a kid a bag of garlic, and I’m sure other people would’ve told me the same thing as well, but when a gift is given, (as I knew back in college with Mike) as long as it makes sense to the giver and the receiver, that’s all that matters.

I would classify myself as more of a Type B personality than a Type A.  I’ve always skewed towards procrastinating, being laid back and having a cluttered desk, so a job where I had to plan things and take care of the logistical details was quite a challenge for me.  It was a crash course in being responsible and I had to learn from my mistakes quickly.  If I wanted to have a BBQ and I wanted to play music, I would need to request an extension cord so we could power the PA system.  After a couple of events, I started to plan better and figure out what I needed before the last minute.  Of course, being prepares doesn’t necessarily mean that things will absolutely run smoothly, so over time, I’ve learned to roll with the punches.  I’m not an expert at it, I’m not sure if anyone is, but it’s always safe to think that something will probably going wrong.

I think I always had it in me to plan.  I don’t think I received some sort of Clockwork Orange style brainwashing.  I’ve always been driven to do more than the average person.  From starting bands, writing screenplays and music sites, to this blog and the show that compliments it, all those things have required a good amount of planning.  While a lot of these plans have fizzled out, I’m still trucking along, constantly trying to figure out the best way to use my talents and my skills.  Perhaps it’s a sign of this generation, but my planning doesn’t involve white picket fences, it involves hanging out and trying to advance my non-existent creative career.  I don’t know how I shifted into this mode.  When I was in high school/college, I wanted to be married at 22, at 22, I wanted to be married by 25, at 27, I wanted to be married by 25.  Maybe I just got jaded, maybe I gave up, maybe I just realized that I can’t plan for that, no matter how good of a planner I am.

I remember listening to an audio commentary by the Writer/Director Wes Anderson, who is one of my favorite filmmakers.   Frankly, it was pretty boring because he discussed all the meticulous details that went into his decisions.  I probably would’ve found the commentary more fascinating if I didn’t see that same meticulous attention to detail in me.  From the words I use in my stories, to the details in my plans (I try to leave room for flexibility), to the socks I wear at my show, I pretty much live in the details of life.  It’s pretty exhausting and since most of the action is going on in my head, people probably don’t realize how much thought goes into each decision.  I wish I could be more out of sight, out of mind, but probably at my age, if i haven’t learned how to do that by now, I probably won’t learn it at all.

I’m never going to be able to quite being a planner.  I can get better at dealing when things go wrong, but that’s probably all I can hope for at this point.  Whether one creative pursuit fizzles out, another one will be born, and hopefully one of these will bear fruit, and realistically speaking, I only need one of these things to work out to be happy.  There will be days where everything goes right and days where everything goes wrong, and sometimes I will have absolutely no control in either case.  I wouldn’t say planning is futile.  I think it helps get you to where you end up, but often times you have no idea where you’re going.

Irvine is a planned community.  It is a city owned by the Irvine Company and takes great pride in being considered the “Safest City in America”.  It’s located in sunny Southern California and borders Newport Beach in Orange County, widely recognized as one of the richest counties in America.  For some reason, they decided to stick a public university there and didn’t build a “college town” around it (if I’m not mistaken, the college was one of the first things built there).  I went to said college and stuck around for about a decade.  At first I enjoyed being there because things were so convenient.  There was almost literally a Target on every corner (or at least off of each major street), which was a drastic change from living in North County San Diego, which is still somewhat still under development.

Unfortunately, we missed out on the college town atmosphere and we didn’t have a football team.  The only thing that my roommate Phil and I could really find redeeming about the place (other than it being Will Ferrel’s original stomping grounds) was realizing that Pavement shot one of their music videos not only in the city of Irvine, but at the University shopping center across the street.  Sure it is kind of an irrelevant detail in the grand scheme of life, but we took any victory that could.  Besides, Pavement, and perhaps the Replacements are the only bands that I can confidently say, shaped my personality as we know it.

My friends, especially Phil, always wondered why I stuck around for so long.  I really don’t have an answer.  At first, I think I stuck around because I really liked my church, then it was because I still had some close friends around from college, and then eventually I guess I stuck around out of convenience.  I’d be foolish to say that Irvine hasn’t shaped me in some way or another but I can’t say how at this point.  Some people probably assume that it’s shaped my appetite for fashion, but that was actually caused by my trip to New York a couple of years back.  I do feel compelled to at least look decent when I go to the malls here, but that also might be because I’m 28 and single.

“So drunk in the August sun and you’re the kind of girl I like because you’re empty and I’m empty” – Gold Soundz

I’ve always assumed that the longer you date someone, the bigger the fallout becomes when you break up.  Sadly, the girl that did the most damage to me… I can’t even say that we actually dated.  There was some stringing along, some mixed messages, some feelings shared including the dreaded “I like you but…”  In hindsight, I should’ve bolted instead of sticking around for the drama, so I will be fair and assume my share of the blame.  She was a couple of years older, so maybe I thought she would be above these shenanigans (naive move on my end).  It was a situation that ugly.  People got involved (no retraining orders or violence, just a lot of politics, I guess), and right when I thought things were going to calm down, she told me she had started dating someone else with one minute left to go on my lunch break, which led to a pretty ugly breakdown at work.  For some reason she kept telling me that she wanted to be friends and I believed her.  Then on my birthday, she apparently had forgotten that she “had a date” and that she couldn’t tell me personally, so she sent me the message through our unassuming mutual friend, who I basically yelled at.  It was the beginning of the end for me, both at that job and to be honestly, at church as well.  It was the first time in my life where I understood what “needing a change of scenery” really meant.

” Was a distant voice/ Made me make a choice/ That I had to get the fuck out of this town” – Box Elder

One day I had left my laptop at my friend’s apartment and I needed it to do some work.  I called him but he wasn’t home but he told to swing by and pick it up because his roommate was home so I shouldn’t have a problem.  So I knocked on the door and after waiting a few seconds, I turned the knob and walked in and grabbed my laptop from the living room.  As I turned to leave, I heard a gun cock back and then saw it pointed at me.  I guess my friend didn’t tell his roommate I was on my way over to get the laptop, so I explained to him why I was there and calmly told him “you can put your gun away”.  He disarmed the gun, stopped pointing it at me and gave me some sort of explanation about how he was training to be a cop and some people in the complex knew about it and he was paranoid about them or something that didn’t exactly make any sense.  (I don’t think he passed his psychological exam – true story) While he didn’t actually fire the gun at me, it was an experience that has definitely stuck with me.  I never felt like I was in any inherent danger, but my friend’s apartment in the “safest city in America” was the last place that I ever imagined having a civilian pull a gun on me.  While I’m pretty sure this happened before the fiasco with the girl, perhaps I should’ve taken this moment as a realization that I didn’t belong here.  It was a moment that didn’t make sense on so many different levels, and usually when this happens in a dream, I wake up because I know I’m in a dream.  It was a moment where I should’ve realized that me being in Irvine didn’t make sense, and that I just needed to “get the fuck out of this town”.

I think our most recent family photo was taken sometime between 2001 and 2002 and I haven’t heard any chatter of taking another one anytime soon.  It’s hard to get all 5 of us kids in one location, especially now that 3 of the kids have kids of their own (and we’re spread out on both coasts).  In our last family photo, my hair was still growing back from when I shaved my head (I had dyed my hair blue) so it’s probably not even a very accurate depiction of me, but I’m not holding my breath for a reshoot.  I don’t take a lot of pictures of myself, I don’t really take a lot of pictures in general.  I don’t even own a a camera, I just have my phone (which I guess at this point is just as good as a camera).  I guess it’s pretty ironic, as a person with a film degree, that I don’t take a lot of pictures.  Even with film projects, I always tried to take as little footage as possible.

I think if I had an actual camera, I would probably often forget that I have a camera on hand or that I would forget it at home.  I think in general, taking a camera out and lining up a shot disrupts the moment when you’re in the middle of an experience.  Since I’m so light on photos, I’m probably fortunate that I have such a vivid memory so I can therefore recount experiences and events that I have no visual evidence of.  While there are no photos, I remember the first time that I met Bruce as his mom carted him around on a Radio Flyer wagon.    I actually remember a lot of Minneapolis better than my sisters who lived there longer than me and learned to drive there.  I’ve remembered a lot of things whether good or bad, both recent and from way back.  I wouldn’t say I have a photographic memory or that I remember everything that has ever happened to me, but I remember quite a bit.

Unfortunately I often need these memories triggered, so it’s not like I can pull every memory out on a whim.  I was recently friend requested by an old high school classmate on Facebook.  I recognized him in his picture, knew his name, but couldn’t recount exactly how I knew him in high school.  I knew that we didn’t hang out outside of school, but I didn’t remember if I had classes with him or if I was in a couple of clubs with him, or if we just knew each other through mutual friends.  I had no idea what we talked about back in the day, I just knew that I thought he was a nice guy.  I felt kind of bad.  I know that it’s Facebook, but he obviously remembered me better than I remembered him, so I felt like a fraud.  It’s like if I had run into him on the street and he said “Hey Ryan!” and I replied back with “Hey you!” while racing through my memory to figure out why I recognized him and what his name was.

I know that I could probably go to my parents’ house and dig up my old high school year book to find out if he had written anything to me to try to find clues on how exactly we were friends.  I could also message him on Facebook and just bluntly ask him.  I’ll probably do neither.  Not as a sign as a disrespect to my classmate but as just a fact of reality.  I can’t be friends with everyone that wants to be friends with me and vice versa.  There’s only so many hours in a day, days in a week, and so on.  Even though it’s entirely possible that this guy would be a better friend to me than current people in my life, I won’t know that now.  It’s possible that I will someday decide to reconnect with the guy and remember that I enjoyed hanging out with him, but for now, with the lack of time in my life, and the lack of memories I have, that friendship is just going to have to wait.

During my sophomore year in college, I met a girl who we’ll name Josie (since I don’t know any Josies).  I met her at a club meeting and even though we had some mutual friends, neither of us were aware of this at the time.  We talked for about 2 hours and the topics ranged from small talk pleasantries (what’s your name? where are you from?) to literature and jazz.  While she and I had different tastes, there was some sort of connection that we had.  Even though she had never heard of Pavement, she was intrigued to hear about them.  Even though I wasn’t familiar with a lot of the authors and books that she liked, I was more than eager to hear her talk about why she loved them.  We were geeking out together and it was an amazing feeling.

We became good friends after that and it lasted throughout college until she moved away for school.  We kept in contact for a little while but eventually we drifted.  I remember when she came back from an East Coast trip, a few months after we met and everyone asked her how it was.  She told most people about the weather and how it was fun, but when I asked her about her trip, she told me how excited she was at how late the museums were open out there.  I did eventually fall for her at one point but she never felt the same way.  Our boundaries were always good so I never felt like she was stringing me along and I respected that.  As we got to know each other better, I realized that we weren’t a good match, which isn’t to say that I discovered things about her that I didn’t like.  Though our friendship, I learned a lot about myself and most importantly learned that the “connection” we had provides far more amazing feeling than just some pretty girl laughing at your clumsiest jokes.

I’m glad that I never put her up on a pedestal.  I don’t view her as “the one that got away” or as someone that I would drop everything and move for (as a friend, she’s asked me), and I’m careful to not compare girls I’m interested in to her.  We are better as friends than we would’ve been as lovers.  I just search for a “connection” where I can talk to someone for hours on end without having an agenda of things to talk about.  Honestly, I can’t say that every girl I’ve been interested in or dated over the past few years, has offered me that same sort of connection. So while I can’t say that I’ve avoided the meaningless “she’s cute and she likes me” trap that I like to believe I’m too mature for, I know better to settle for a relationship that doesn’t offer me that stimulation.  I understand that it might not come right away, but if it doesn’t show up at all, it is time to move on.

I have a bit of a bittersweet view on love.  I have a picture in my mind of a muggy afternoon, the air conditioner is broken, there’s nothing good on TV, and there’s nothing particularly exciting going on in life.  It’s just you and your significant other and the “No, I love you more, no, you hang up” phase is nothing but a distant memory.  There’s no work stories to share of stories about your friends and family.  You’re both tired and all you can do is talk and try to connect.  All you have is each other and your ability to enjoy each other’s company with nothing else to aide you.  I don’t find this as a depressing idea.  I’m just a firm believer in the adage of “all you need is love.”

As much as I’d love to have a list of specific traits that my girlfriend/wife will have, I just feel like being able to have “the connection” will trump it all in the end.  While I will absolutely admit that I would love to find someone before I hit 30, I know deep down that I’ll be happy to dismiss that silly goal if I know that I’ll be able to feel that connection for the rest of my life, because you can manufacture “having a good time” and I believe you can even manufacture “romance”, but you can’t manufacture effortless conversation and feeling understood.

My 28th birthday has been a bit of a bittersweet affair.  My birthday was overlooked at work, so I didn’t get the birthday cake in the conference room.  While I wouldn’t consider it heart breaking, and I know most work-purchased birthday cakes are subpar, I would like to get a cake, knowing that my co-workers have gotten cakes for their birthdays.  I also wouldn’t mind being paid on the clock to eat cake and to chit chat.  If I was working at an office that didn’t celebrate anyone’s birthday, I wouldn’t be feeling so weird about it, and I’ll fully admit that I’m being kind of petty about it.  If they get cake, I want cake too.

Moving around my 28th birthday has been difficult as well.  No matter how close or far a move is, and no matter how much or little you own, moving is never fun, it’s never easy, and you’re never too prepared.  I wouldn’t say that the move was dramatic and full or surprises, but it was exhausting both physically and mentally (thank you Time Warner Cable), and throughout the move, I’ve had a lot less friend interaction than I’m used to.  Couple that with no internet (for the time being), and all of a sudden I’ve been feeling completely isolated.  Couple that with the lack of birthday cake at work and… I’m just kidding… or bitter… or both.

It took a couple of weeks to have an actual birthday party because of my friend’s wedding and the move, but it was actually worth the wait.  About 23 of us piled into the a shuttle with a bunch of food and alcohol and headed to the Hollywood Bowl to watch Bugs Bunny and the Symphony.  I had friends from the present and a couple of friends from my college days join me in what was a fun filled night that ended with fireworks.  This is what I love about birthday parties, it is one of the few occasions that you can different groups of friends together to hang out with you.  So, while I was drinking beer with Chris, I was sharing rice crispy treats with Allison and Charis, and and getting passed along food from Allison’s parents.  While the Bowl doesn’t really encourage mingling with a large group, it was enjoyable for everyone, except for the people who tried to park at the Bowl (but they had a good time once they got in).  I was handed birthday cupcakes (I couldn’t eat them all) and that more than made up for my lack of workplace cake.

Before we got on the shuttle, I was given an envelope from Charis and Allison and they told me that there was a present inside.  There was a handwritten card from the two girls.  It had an apology for its sloppiness and an explanation for it (they made it in the car).  It also contained two friendship bracelets in it.  Apparently, there are conflicting sources on the prices of these bracelets.  Charis says they’re normally 25 cents, Allison says they’re a dollar, but mine were free.  Allison quickly tied them around my wrist and told me that I’m not allowed to take them off (but later told me if the colors get too faded, she’ll make me new ones).  It’s the first time I’ve had friendship bracelets since I was probably around their age, and while I’m not going to try tug on the heart strings by saying their friendships is the greatest gift of all or that they went from being my show assistants to being my friends, I will say this: by sacrificing $1.25 our of their own pockets, Allison and Charis made me stop worrying about how stressful and crummy I’ve felt over the last couple of weeks for at least a little while.

I was absolutely over-confident that my writing was going to immediately take me somewhere.  I wasn’t thinking about fame and fortune necessarily, but I was definitely hoping to do something I felt I was passionate and skilled to do.  It took me a few years to get over the “if I don’t write for a living, my soul is dying” attitude and while I have definitely not given up on writing, I am more willing to enjoy “the ride” opposed to trying to dictate where I’m going.  I’ve been humbled, so if I ever get the opportunity to write for film/TV, I’m a lot more willing to work on projects that I might’ve deemed beneath me in the past.  To show my commitment to writing, I’m going to give Joel Schumacher some advice for if/when he ever decides to make a reboot of the critical and box office failure, Batman and Robin.

(Disclaimer: I, in no way am advocating that Christopher Nolan relinquish the rights to the Batman franchise.)

Batman and Robin currently holds a 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, far below the 84% rating of Batman Begins and the 94% rating of The Dark Knight, so logically it would be foolish to take the franchise away from Christopher Nolan (the director of the latter two) and give the franchise back to Joel Schumacher (who basically burned the franchise down to the ground, his first Batman movie, Batman Forever clocks in at a paltry 42%, Tim Burton’s films are rated at 70% or higher), but Hollywood is not always known for making sound rational decisions, so while we all await whatever Christopher Nolan is cooking up for his 3rd Bataman movie, there is a minute chance that somehow Joel Schumacher will somehow end up with the franchise again.  I’m not hoping for it, but if it does happen, let me help the man out.

First of all, lets keep Bruce Wayne/Batman as is.  Christian Bale is a fine actor and while he might be a rage-aholic, that fits Bruce Wayne like a glove.  Also, I don’t think George Clooney will give it a second shot after all the ridicule he received after the first go around.  Second of all, lets simplify things.  While there were many things wrong (and many of those things are probably unfixable) with Batman and Robin, lets simplify things story-wise.  Introducing 2 new villains and Bat Girl all in one film is too much, and since Nolan hasn’t (and may never) introduce(d) Robin, we have quite a conundrum.  In short, my advice is to: allude to the introduction or Barbara Gordon as Bat Girl for a future movie, introduce Robin in some more updated fashion (not the child of circus acrobats who tragically died performing a stunt), and pick two villains that are just around to wreak havoc.

The two villains that would be perfect for this would be The Penguin and Mr. Freeze, and they should be played by the original actors, Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The two have a natural chemistry from their time together in the movie Twins (which I’m guessing will eventually be given a reboot, might as well kill 2 birds with one stone with this reboot) and their recent fame could be used to help promote the film.  Opposed to making the Penguin into a cartoony villain, DeVito could just reprise his character from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, except he could be more decrepit and sinister (if that’s possible).  Arnold, on the other hand, could make his usual set of one liners, but now that he’s just finished a term as governor, he could make his one-liners politically topical such as: “My heart is colder than the hiring freeze for California public schools.”

Once again, I would recommend that there be as little origin story for these two as possible.  Mr. Freeze doesn’t need to be pining after his wife.  He can just be the product of some botched experiment and there needs to be very little explanation of why he and the Penguin are trying to destroy Gotham.  Skip the sentimentality and just let the duo find new ways to enrage Batman. (And rage is Christian Bale’s forte, as I’m sure McG will confirm.)  Have the Penguin and Mr. Freeze run around like an evil Dukes of Hazzard and have Batman try to stop them.  Heck, you can even have Dennis, Charlie and Mac be the henchmen for the Penguin and they can all plan their capers in a bar for all I care. If you want them to kidnap Rachel Dawes, at some point, so be it, though I don’t think she’s necessary in this film.

I’m sure there will be complaints that the film is too male-centric and pumped full of testosterone and that there’s not enough of a female presence, but since Arnold Schwarzenegger is the film, I’m sure that’s why people have come to expect and love about the guy.  I’m sure critics will deride the film for being pointless… and for being made by Joel Schumacher, but I think I’ve proven to myself that I’ll be able to put my ego aside if a writing opportunity came up in the future.  While the script may not be very good, at least I’ve had a lot of fun with it, and that’s what’s I’ve been hoping for: not fame or fortune, but being able to do something that I love.

After filming a couple of weddings after college,  I got out of the business entirely.  It took me awhile to readjust myself to being a guest at wedding.  I wasn’t thinking about how I would shoot a wedding when I was invited to one, but I needed to readjust to enjoy weddings again.  It was a gradual process and after going to a couple of friend’s weddings, I stopped feeling bad about leaving when I wanted to or having more than enough to drink, and most importantly, I was happy for the couples again, instead of fearing what kind of crazy demands they would have post-honeymoon.

I spent my 28th birthday at my friend’s wedding.  Some people asked me if I was bitter that my friend had his wedding on “my day”, but I was fine with it.  (I know how much insane planning goes into a wedding, so if my friend had to choose that day, I’m sure it’s because it was the best deal or he didn’t really have much of a choice.)  People are always out of town around my birthday anyways because it’s the day before the 4th of July and a lot of the people who were invited to his wedding were people that I would’ve invited to my birthday party, so either way, I would be spending the day with friends.  Plus, there’s nothing noble in saying “I’m not going to your wedding because it’s my birthday, and I’m going to fight you for our friends.”

People wished me a happy birthday at the reception and there was good food, cake, and an open wine/beer bar.  I spent a part of the night talking to two pastor’s wives about the intellectual value of Sponge Bob Square Pants and why I respected the girl from iCarly (she’s the teacher’s pet in School of Rock) until I found out she wanted a singing career but that she’s still better than Hannah Montana (who is the spawn of the man who wrote “Achy Breaky Heart”).  So basically, I acted much like I would have if it was my birthday dinner.

The past couple of years have been very transitional for me, so while I enjoyed the weddings I was invited to, those weddings also brought up a host of issues that I’ve had to deal with either because of the people I ran into or because what was going on in my life in general.  Starting last year, with the wedding of my friends Ed and Nicole, I’ve been able to enjoy these special days out of sight, out of mind, and while I’m not advocating that my friends constantly get married on the weekend of my birthday, I don’t harbor any feelings of resentment, because honestly, in my early to mid 20s, there wasn’t a whole lot to celebrate anyways and the fact that I’m enjoying the things I’m supposed to again is hopefully a sign that I’ve survived a lot of the volatility that I’ve had to experience in my 20s.  An older friend of mine told me that around 30 is when people really figure themselves out (with exceptions of course).  I didn’t really know what that meant and at one point of my life I wanted to be 25 forever.  Professional athletes tend to peak around 27-29 and now that I think about that, it makes sense.  It’s a time where people are physically, mentally, and emotionally in good shape, and hopefully I’m also at my peak.

Perhaps I’ll never be #1 at anything, but I hope at this point, I can let the game of life come to me and that I can put myself in the best position for success.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be a paid writer, or paid to do my show, but at least I can be happy on my own b-day and happy for my friends when they find happiness, and while that sounds petty, I sure feel like I’ve come a long way.

I remember during my first week of middle school, I felt like everything was a total blur.  I started middle school the week after Thanksgiving and I had to transition from being a 6th grader in elementary school to a 6th grader in a middle school in the span of a week and a half.  I no longer had recess, I had to maneuver my way from class to class across a campus, and I had to keep track of the names of all these new classmates that I had never seen in my life.  I got so confused that I was no longer sure that I was speaking the same language as everyone else.  I remember the first time I tried to order food from the cafeteria, I asked for a “pop”, and the lunch lady looked at me like there was something wrong with me.  After an awkward moment, I said “a coke?” and then she finally responded to me by telling me that they didn’t sell soda, but I was already humiliated.

I became friends with a guy named Dante, who’s name sounds like he would be on Jersey Shore, but he in fact is very much not like a character on Jersey Shore.  We got along pretty well and coincidentally enough, we had the same birthday.  He didn’t live in my neighborhood and we weren’t within walking distance, but we decided we should hang out anyways.  Since this was 1993, we didn’t have access to Google Maps or a GPS, so we were stuck trying to discuss directions over the phone.  He had no idea where I lived and since we were kids, giving him major cross streets didn’t help him much, so we decided it might be best for him to give me directions to his house from our school.  Dante had a really strange way of giving me directions, though.  He started by telling me to drive down the street our school was on, which seemed reasonable enough, but then he would tell me that “if you keep going down the street, you’ll hit a dead end and you will die, so you’ll have to turn on to this other street instead.”  After a few more minutes of trying to direct me to his house, his mom decided to intervene and was able to figure out where I lived.  She picked me up, we hung out, we had a good time, and we still keep in contact to this day.  The end.  Eventually middle school stopped feeling like a blur, but it didn’t get much better after that.  I made some good friends, but for the most part, I was uncomfortable, I was bummed out, and I pined for the old days.

It wasn’t until college that I could finally feel comfortable with Sandy.  The expectations were gone, and I could see why so many people saw that she was beautiful and chill.  I realized that I didn’t need to be in love with her.  I tried to force feelings when they didn’t need to be forced and we both suffered because of it.  Moving at the age of 11 had really filled me with angst and Sandy was just such an easy target to dump all that angst upon.  I wanted her to save me from it all, but it didn’t happen until much later, and it didn’t happen all at once.  It was a process, and it was a process that didn’t involve her at all.  I didn’t give an apology; there was none needed.  San Diego isn’t my true love and it’s neither of our fault, it just was never meant to be.