Past and Present Tense
Main Entry: "pipe dream"
Pronunciation: \ˈpīp drēm\
Function: noun
Etymology: from the fantasies brought about by the smoking of opium
a : an illusory or fantastic plan, hope, or story
- - - - - - - - - - - -
People are always emphasizing the importance of goals in life. I think sometimes people have one good idea and latch onto it like a key to a bomb shelter. Goals are good to have, and I definitely stand behind the idea of having them, but there's a fine line between a goal and a pipe dream.
The last 4 years of my life can be summarized as a series of near successes. A near-success is a complex thing. It's generally avoidable by "playing it safe". In more rare cases, people can surpass a near-success by actually being successful...but we're certainly not here to discuss those such people. I was recounting random memories of my childhood the other day with Kira. I told her about how in the first grade I covered my room in posters and supposed office supplies for a radio station that I made up and pretended to own, and another occasion in fifth grade when i took some of my dad's business cards and pasted a fake computer store logo with my name over the top of them. I don't think I was made to play it safe, but it also seems that I've always been pretty good at pipe dreams. Of course, it doesn't take much to open a computer repair shop...unless you're a 10 year old.
To give you a flat out idea of how I've ended up where I am today, I'll keep this part simple.
In October of 2006 I began working at Borders Bookstore on Mill Avenue as a bookseller, and at the Marquee Theatre as a parking lot security staff member. (you paid me $5 to park, and I occasionally got to guard the the tour buses) It was a very full schedule, but I was determined to work my ass off and save money because I had a grander goal in life: going to the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences and become a cozy, well-paid recording engineer in LA.
Fast forward through some awkward dating encounters and many days of working two jobs with no car. It's January 2007, and an awkward red-headed girl with thick black glasses begins working on the inventory team at Borders. I find something intriguing about her. She hardly speaks, but when she does, it's wrought with nerdy social commentary and wit.
This is Kira.
Kira and I first encountered eachother when she came into Borders to ask for an application. She seemed easy enough to read at that moment, but I had no idea. I stood at the register with Mallore, another bookseller. I followed Kira across the store with my eyes and saw her turn toward Mallore and I in a slightly lost manner. As she began to approach, I said quietly to Mallore, "I bet this girl.s about to ask for an application".
Over the first couple of weeks of Kira working along side me, I got a better sense for who she was, or at least the person she wanted to present to me. Little did I know that I would have an indefinite amount of time to get to know who she was, and even take part in who she would become.
May 2007: All my waiting finally comes to an end. School is about to begin. At this point I've had plenty of time to become acquainted with the world. It's no live-in love affair, but we're acquainted. More so than the majourity of the people I graduated with...aside from teen pregnancies and drug addicts. Kira and i are living together in a tiny studio apartment. I quite my job at the Marquee to make time for school. At this point, I'm going to school full-time, working about 25-30 hours a week and riding a 50cc scooter. Please don't mind me if I may say in entire seriousness, "Those were the days".
Over the 8 month period that I'm attending classes at the Conservatory, Kira and I begin to grow as individuals, but more so as a couple. We love, we fight, we make stronger bonds than we will ever have to present point. A common issue of argument is the issue of what I'm going to do after classes end and I must complete two months of internship. We come to the decision that I'll move in with my parents in Georgia to complete my internship and Kira will follow thereafter.
During the time of the internship, I began to know what it was to be fake. I was interning at a hip-hop studio in Atlanta known as Triangle Sound Studios, but more popularly known for it's management group, Redzone Entertainment, home to The Dream, Tricky Stewart, The Clutch and Jazze Phae. It was an amazing opportunity that anyone in the popular hip-hop scene would have killed for. Unfortunate is what it really was. I met numerous famous artists and producers, as well as a number of very talented individuals, but I was also putting on a false persona every moment that I was in the facility in hopes of pursuing my dream. I was rarely away from the studio. I slept there most nights. I was questioning my future and my ability to move forward from where I was.
Kira was left without me. With as much struggle as this was for both of us, she used it to her greatest advantage. She began to regain her independent spirit. So much so that she decided that she wouldn't be joining me in Georgia.
Perhaps I'll go into further detail of this point in time in a later posting...
In July 2008 I moved back to Arizona. I resumed my position at Borders and found a second job at a new convenience store on Mill Avenue called Thirsty Dog. After a brief period of "it's complicated", Kira and I continue our relationship. After my first majour near-success, I have a new goal: Jumping back into live sound production.
This starts a pattern I'm currently attempting to break. That pattern would be the slow degradation of the goal. The more near-successes you experience, the more vague your goals become.
I took a job doing sound for a star-up church in Gilbert that operates out of a Boys and Girls Club gymnasium. It shows a lot of promise until they run out of money and I get laid off. I do a few more gigs around the valley, but it doesn't last. Eventually that goal becomes something of the past and focus turns to merely surviving.
In the midst of going through financial hardships, family disagreements and a hardened spirit, I decide to try my hand at music theory. I don't wish to attempt any specific degree, I merely wish to learn. Crazy right? Going to school to learn... It doesn't go quite as planned. I took an Intro to Music Theory Class, which I recently discovered I received a D in. I am however enjoying life more than previously, but it's short-lived.
At this point, my focus, again, turns to survival. Kira and I decide that it might be in our best interest to move to Wyoming, where her sister lives, and we could live rent-free for a year. The plan was for Kira to move immediately and I would follow shortly. Perhaps we should have learned from previous experience that this was not a good idea. Near-success.
In June of 2009, my focus is still on survival. I jump on an opportunity that holds no interest of mine, except financial stability, which is something I'd been without for some time. This brings us to my current employer of 1 year, Walgreens Central Pharmacy Operations.
My professional goals had dwindled to the point that I can't even recall any that I may have had in the past year. My primary focus was still on survival. Not just for me, but for my future family with Kira.
On October 13, 2009 I asked Kira to marry me. She said no...but she was kidding...as she continues to do...
I'll have a whole entry dedicated to this at a later point.
This brings us up to date. I spoke to admissions and advisement counselors at Mesa Community College today in hope of a new grand goal: A degree in business.
I'm slowly remembering the things in life that make me shine.
I have specific goals again, only this time I have a realistic plan.
I'm not young and full of hope anymore, but it's nowhere near too late to achieve something amazing.
Forgive me for not divulging said plans, but I feel that keeping things simple will prevent them from getting out of hand.
For now, I'll take life as it comes, with a grand scheme in mind, but knowledge that reality often has a different idea for me.
I apologize for horrific use of tense.
Pronunciation: \ˈpīp drēm\
Function: noun
Etymology: from the fantasies brought about by the smoking of opium
a : an illusory or fantastic plan, hope, or story
- - - - - - - - - - - -
People are always emphasizing the importance of goals in life. I think sometimes people have one good idea and latch onto it like a key to a bomb shelter. Goals are good to have, and I definitely stand behind the idea of having them, but there's a fine line between a goal and a pipe dream.
The last 4 years of my life can be summarized as a series of near successes. A near-success is a complex thing. It's generally avoidable by "playing it safe". In more rare cases, people can surpass a near-success by actually being successful...but we're certainly not here to discuss those such people. I was recounting random memories of my childhood the other day with Kira. I told her about how in the first grade I covered my room in posters and supposed office supplies for a radio station that I made up and pretended to own, and another occasion in fifth grade when i took some of my dad's business cards and pasted a fake computer store logo with my name over the top of them. I don't think I was made to play it safe, but it also seems that I've always been pretty good at pipe dreams. Of course, it doesn't take much to open a computer repair shop...unless you're a 10 year old.
To give you a flat out idea of how I've ended up where I am today, I'll keep this part simple.
In October of 2006 I began working at Borders Bookstore on Mill Avenue as a bookseller, and at the Marquee Theatre as a parking lot security staff member. (you paid me $5 to park, and I occasionally got to guard the the tour buses) It was a very full schedule, but I was determined to work my ass off and save money because I had a grander goal in life: going to the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences and become a cozy, well-paid recording engineer in LA.
Fast forward through some awkward dating encounters and many days of working two jobs with no car. It's January 2007, and an awkward red-headed girl with thick black glasses begins working on the inventory team at Borders. I find something intriguing about her. She hardly speaks, but when she does, it's wrought with nerdy social commentary and wit.
This is Kira.
Kira and I first encountered eachother when she came into Borders to ask for an application. She seemed easy enough to read at that moment, but I had no idea. I stood at the register with Mallore, another bookseller. I followed Kira across the store with my eyes and saw her turn toward Mallore and I in a slightly lost manner. As she began to approach, I said quietly to Mallore, "I bet this girl.s about to ask for an application".
Over the first couple of weeks of Kira working along side me, I got a better sense for who she was, or at least the person she wanted to present to me. Little did I know that I would have an indefinite amount of time to get to know who she was, and even take part in who she would become.
May 2007: All my waiting finally comes to an end. School is about to begin. At this point I've had plenty of time to become acquainted with the world. It's no live-in love affair, but we're acquainted. More so than the majourity of the people I graduated with...aside from teen pregnancies and drug addicts. Kira and i are living together in a tiny studio apartment. I quite my job at the Marquee to make time for school. At this point, I'm going to school full-time, working about 25-30 hours a week and riding a 50cc scooter. Please don't mind me if I may say in entire seriousness, "Those were the days".
Over the 8 month period that I'm attending classes at the Conservatory, Kira and I begin to grow as individuals, but more so as a couple. We love, we fight, we make stronger bonds than we will ever have to present point. A common issue of argument is the issue of what I'm going to do after classes end and I must complete two months of internship. We come to the decision that I'll move in with my parents in Georgia to complete my internship and Kira will follow thereafter.
During the time of the internship, I began to know what it was to be fake. I was interning at a hip-hop studio in Atlanta known as Triangle Sound Studios, but more popularly known for it's management group, Redzone Entertainment, home to The Dream, Tricky Stewart, The Clutch and Jazze Phae. It was an amazing opportunity that anyone in the popular hip-hop scene would have killed for. Unfortunate is what it really was. I met numerous famous artists and producers, as well as a number of very talented individuals, but I was also putting on a false persona every moment that I was in the facility in hopes of pursuing my dream. I was rarely away from the studio. I slept there most nights. I was questioning my future and my ability to move forward from where I was.
Kira was left without me. With as much struggle as this was for both of us, she used it to her greatest advantage. She began to regain her independent spirit. So much so that she decided that she wouldn't be joining me in Georgia.
Perhaps I'll go into further detail of this point in time in a later posting...
In July 2008 I moved back to Arizona. I resumed my position at Borders and found a second job at a new convenience store on Mill Avenue called Thirsty Dog. After a brief period of "it's complicated", Kira and I continue our relationship. After my first majour near-success, I have a new goal: Jumping back into live sound production.
This starts a pattern I'm currently attempting to break. That pattern would be the slow degradation of the goal. The more near-successes you experience, the more vague your goals become.
I took a job doing sound for a star-up church in Gilbert that operates out of a Boys and Girls Club gymnasium. It shows a lot of promise until they run out of money and I get laid off. I do a few more gigs around the valley, but it doesn't last. Eventually that goal becomes something of the past and focus turns to merely surviving.
In the midst of going through financial hardships, family disagreements and a hardened spirit, I decide to try my hand at music theory. I don't wish to attempt any specific degree, I merely wish to learn. Crazy right? Going to school to learn... It doesn't go quite as planned. I took an Intro to Music Theory Class, which I recently discovered I received a D in. I am however enjoying life more than previously, but it's short-lived.
At this point, my focus, again, turns to survival. Kira and I decide that it might be in our best interest to move to Wyoming, where her sister lives, and we could live rent-free for a year. The plan was for Kira to move immediately and I would follow shortly. Perhaps we should have learned from previous experience that this was not a good idea. Near-success.
In June of 2009, my focus is still on survival. I jump on an opportunity that holds no interest of mine, except financial stability, which is something I'd been without for some time. This brings us to my current employer of 1 year, Walgreens Central Pharmacy Operations.
My professional goals had dwindled to the point that I can't even recall any that I may have had in the past year. My primary focus was still on survival. Not just for me, but for my future family with Kira.
On October 13, 2009 I asked Kira to marry me. She said no...but she was kidding...as she continues to do...
I'll have a whole entry dedicated to this at a later point.
This brings us up to date. I spoke to admissions and advisement counselors at Mesa Community College today in hope of a new grand goal: A degree in business.
I'm slowly remembering the things in life that make me shine.
I have specific goals again, only this time I have a realistic plan.
I'm not young and full of hope anymore, but it's nowhere near too late to achieve something amazing.
Forgive me for not divulging said plans, but I feel that keeping things simple will prevent them from getting out of hand.
For now, I'll take life as it comes, with a grand scheme in mind, but knowledge that reality often has a different idea for me.
I apologize for horrific use of tense.