Well damn.
I've never been partial to a rational frame of mind. It's always left me with distaste, that strange sort of muggy calm that hits you in the gut when you know things are far too settled and normal for their own good. Makes my skin crawl, really. I can't blame it on myself, because I've always courted chaos. When "things" get too orderly and lined in symmetrical rows it's only natural I feel the destructive urge.
So, honestly, what the fuck did the above paragraph actually mean? Damned if I know, but the best I can figure out is it has something to do with my being an actor right now instead of a doctor. Or it could mean I'm on a veritable buffet table full of exciting illegal substances, but let's get real for a moment, I have a four year old in the house.
The truth is that southern Minnesota is the most painfully average place in the entire fucking country. Every city is situated in its own little isolationist hub miles away from any major metropolitan area that could be quaintly termed 'civilization'. It means there's no public transportation, no hole-in-the-wall bars in which to meet women who smell like vodka and car exhaust, and barely any recognizable physical objects except long stretches highway going who knows where. It also means you can rent an apartment for less than 300 bucks a month, so I'm not going to bitch and moan too much. The point is that when you're affixed to a major city you somehow think that that old suburban fear equation of marriage + babies + career = retirement and then death is some sort of amusing cliche you can use as a bedtime story to scare your children. While that idea is entertaining, it's not necessarily true.
When I started acting, it was for the hell of it, because my girlfriend dumped me or my class schedule was defaced by a big black hole between something and nothing. Nothing. I started acting for nothing and it became this bizarre psychological obsession. I don't do this for art. I have no idea what art is. A very pretentious New York novelist was asked a few years back if she related personally to any of the vividly violent subjects she portrayed in her paper life, and she scoffed at the reviewer in offense, stating blankly "I am a fiction writer". Way to cop the fuck out, sweetheart. You should get a big, shiny medal. The truth is that the very fine line between a fiction writer and her work is the same line between a therapist and a client and Peter Krause and Minnesota. It's what causes you to start breathing your work in the off chance that the closer you get to the edge the more some little detail of that chaos will reflect back onto everyone watching. Fuck art. I want madness.
So now that one particular timeline has expired and the hourglass has smashed against the wall it's pretty much the obvious question to ask what I do now. The obvious answer would be that I become dangerously involved with something else, stab another fork into the road and bury myself in more work, perhaps pick up an addiction or twelve. I'm sure that last one would be especially entertaining if it didn't ultimately dissolve into my spilling my guts for bleeding-heart strangers assembled in circles in church basements. "Hi, my name is Peter and I'm a fucking nut." Hi, Peter! The cycle will mutate, the chaos will both dissolve into the air and remain in my mouth like strong alcohol. Eventually, in a year or so, everything will be more or less the way it was before, and even though I have both a decent car and an illegible signature, I'll never be a doctor.
So, honestly, what the fuck did the above paragraph actually mean? Damned if I know, but the best I can figure out is it has something to do with my being an actor right now instead of a doctor. Or it could mean I'm on a veritable buffet table full of exciting illegal substances, but let's get real for a moment, I have a four year old in the house.
The truth is that southern Minnesota is the most painfully average place in the entire fucking country. Every city is situated in its own little isolationist hub miles away from any major metropolitan area that could be quaintly termed 'civilization'. It means there's no public transportation, no hole-in-the-wall bars in which to meet women who smell like vodka and car exhaust, and barely any recognizable physical objects except long stretches highway going who knows where. It also means you can rent an apartment for less than 300 bucks a month, so I'm not going to bitch and moan too much. The point is that when you're affixed to a major city you somehow think that that old suburban fear equation of marriage + babies + career = retirement and then death is some sort of amusing cliche you can use as a bedtime story to scare your children. While that idea is entertaining, it's not necessarily true.
When I started acting, it was for the hell of it, because my girlfriend dumped me or my class schedule was defaced by a big black hole between something and nothing. Nothing. I started acting for nothing and it became this bizarre psychological obsession. I don't do this for art. I have no idea what art is. A very pretentious New York novelist was asked a few years back if she related personally to any of the vividly violent subjects she portrayed in her paper life, and she scoffed at the reviewer in offense, stating blankly "I am a fiction writer". Way to cop the fuck out, sweetheart. You should get a big, shiny medal. The truth is that the very fine line between a fiction writer and her work is the same line between a therapist and a client and Peter Krause and Minnesota. It's what causes you to start breathing your work in the off chance that the closer you get to the edge the more some little detail of that chaos will reflect back onto everyone watching. Fuck art. I want madness.
So now that one particular timeline has expired and the hourglass has smashed against the wall it's pretty much the obvious question to ask what I do now. The obvious answer would be that I become dangerously involved with something else, stab another fork into the road and bury myself in more work, perhaps pick up an addiction or twelve. I'm sure that last one would be especially entertaining if it didn't ultimately dissolve into my spilling my guts for bleeding-heart strangers assembled in circles in church basements. "Hi, my name is Peter and I'm a fucking nut." Hi, Peter! The cycle will mutate, the chaos will both dissolve into the air and remain in my mouth like strong alcohol. Eventually, in a year or so, everything will be more or less the way it was before, and even though I have both a decent car and an illegible signature, I'll never be a doctor.