air conditioning is seriously the best invention ever
Internet, what did I tell you about the liquor cabinet last night? I can tell this vodka has been watered down!
Um. Right.
Anyway, I'm in Panera. Again. I'm thinking of moving in. I really want a nap more than anything right now, but it's far too hot in my house to sleep. Instead, I ran away to partake in strawberry smoothies and AC and... mostly just that. I want to write and internet, but it is too too hot to do that in my house.
Today at work I nearly punched two people in the face. I had to take a time-out outside to keep myself from losing it. It was two kids, maybe my age, maybe a little older or younger, standing about two stacks away from where I was zoning. They started off talking about how nothing really mattered in life because everyone was going to die from the long overdue ice age/super volcano/apocalypse and then moved on to the Anita Blake books. The Boy said that he read them for plot and they were so good and he had a friend who just read them for smut and he totally couldn't understand that. They talked about that (loudly loudly LOUDLY) for awhile and then moved on to politics. Most of the following was said by the girl, but none of it was refuted by the boy:
Boy: Blah blah blah when we have a black president.
Girl: Oh, he'll never get elected. He's going to be assassinated, so we should really vote based on who his VP is.
[more random bullshit]
Girl: Besides, Hillary could still win.
Boy: No, she dropped out.
Girl: No she didn't! My mom said she gave a speech on Saturday!
Boy: A speech saying she dropped out! She's supporting Obama now.
Girl: Oh. That sucks. I could almost like him, but there's that whole thing with his pastor.
Boy: Well, I mean, I go to church and I don't agree with everything my pastor says.
Girl: But he MARRIED Obama and his wife. That makes him more important. Plus, isn't he a Muslim? I bet he's just pretending to go to church to seem more white.
It went on and on and ON and finally I got up and walked out through recieving to stand outside the store and seethe for a few minutes before returning to work. I have never wanted to punch a customer so badly in my life, even the ones who are mean to me.
It sucked, too, because the rest of the day was AWESOME. About a dozen people told me fifty times a piece how great I was at my job and how helpful I was. I worked with Emily, who is hysterical, and we talked about Anderson Cooper's manhole and Keanu Reeves and Rob Lowe and random actors and all sorts of stuff. Good times.
Emily: I read somewhere that Keanu Reeves is like, really depressed or lonely or something.
Kait: If I were Keanu Reeves, I'd be depressed too.
Kait: What movie was it that I watched recently where the director turned down some fantastic actor for the part because it HAD to go to Keanu Reeves?
Emily: Seriously? Had the director ever seen him on film before?
Kait: Maybe he saw him in Bill and Ted, which I unironically believe to be his best film ever.
Now I am home. Well, at Panera. I'm putting together the Will-in-Iowa story and I think it's going to be significantly longer than the Sam-in-Iowa story.
The difference between Sam's story and Will's story is that Sam is so wrapped up in his own breakdown that he doesn't notice what's going on around him until that night at the carnival. He's concentrating on figuring out who he is and what went wrong and coming to terms with the fact that he's passed his prime and even though he's not doing any of the things he thought he'd be doing, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's reached the end of his life or his usefulness. He can be content living in the middle of nowhere with Will and Jackson (the unnamed cat in the first story), doing nothing specific with his time. He can look back on what he did accomplish and smile instead of feeling embarrassed or ashamed of not doing more.
While all this is happening to Sam, Will has his own set of issues that Sam doesn't even notice. Will has become this zen, focused, peaceful figure to him and he doesn't even notice that Will is completely caught up in his own drama, that he's not zen and peaceful, that he feels like he's failed as well, except instead of just stopping the way that Sam does, he forces himself to keep going so that he doesn't have time to think about all that he's done wrong. He's held Sam on this sort of pedestal since they first met--Sam got him his job at the White House, introduced him to all these influential people in his life, and became Will's romantic and professional ideal. Having Sam show up on his doorstep just... broken and lost is hard for Will to deal with it. The fact that Sam is silent and stiff and standoffish doesn't help, and Will takes to panicking all the time, doing whatever he can to try and make things feel right, sure that if he waits it out, Sam will get better, but terrified that he won't all the same. Will is bitter, but he keeps it to himself and it doesn't really come out in Sam's story.
Sam's story is about his internal struggle. Will's struggle is external--how to deal with Sam, how to deal with himself, how to salvage what's left of his life. There's much more dialogue in it, and the moments that are key to him aren't the same as the moments that are key to Sam, with the exception of two--Sam showing up, and Sam kissing him on the ferris wheel. Will's story focuses on the build up of the tension and frustration that only he seems to feel--Sam is so caught up in his own world that he doesn't see how hard Will is taking everything, how tense Will is.
eta: One more thing about Sam vs. Will in Iowa. Sam's story contains a lot of my own misgivings about the midwest, my own fears, my own culture shock. After moving from outside of LA to Princeton (think trees, think suburbs, think cute little college town) to New York to DC to LA to Chicago, Iowa is like a punch in the gut to Sam. He doesn't even understand how the landscape can really exist, how people can actually live there. It's not an insult--I'm sure that many midwesterns feel the same way about our crazy cities and suburbs that are criss-crossed by major highways. It's something new to him, and the newness and strangeness of the surroundings factor into Sam's story. Will's had years to get used to Iowa--the landscape in his story is something that he appreciates, something he relates to. It's backwards and weird and a little harder to write than Sam's was.
Anyway. The point is that Will's story is longer than Sam's and starts a little bit before Sam's does. And I'm still trying to parse it all together.
***
I keep yawning and am very close to curling up in this Panera chair and going to sleep. SO TIRED, INTERNET. SO TIRED.
Um. Right.
Anyway, I'm in Panera. Again. I'm thinking of moving in. I really want a nap more than anything right now, but it's far too hot in my house to sleep. Instead, I ran away to partake in strawberry smoothies and AC and... mostly just that. I want to write and internet, but it is too too hot to do that in my house.
Today at work I nearly punched two people in the face. I had to take a time-out outside to keep myself from losing it. It was two kids, maybe my age, maybe a little older or younger, standing about two stacks away from where I was zoning. They started off talking about how nothing really mattered in life because everyone was going to die from the long overdue ice age/super volcano/apocalypse and then moved on to the Anita Blake books. The Boy said that he read them for plot and they were so good and he had a friend who just read them for smut and he totally couldn't understand that. They talked about that (loudly loudly LOUDLY) for awhile and then moved on to politics. Most of the following was said by the girl, but none of it was refuted by the boy:
Boy: Blah blah blah when we have a black president.
Girl: Oh, he'll never get elected. He's going to be assassinated, so we should really vote based on who his VP is.
[more random bullshit]
Girl: Besides, Hillary could still win.
Boy: No, she dropped out.
Girl: No she didn't! My mom said she gave a speech on Saturday!
Boy: A speech saying she dropped out! She's supporting Obama now.
Girl: Oh. That sucks. I could almost like him, but there's that whole thing with his pastor.
Boy: Well, I mean, I go to church and I don't agree with everything my pastor says.
Girl: But he MARRIED Obama and his wife. That makes him more important. Plus, isn't he a Muslim? I bet he's just pretending to go to church to seem more white.
It went on and on and ON and finally I got up and walked out through recieving to stand outside the store and seethe for a few minutes before returning to work. I have never wanted to punch a customer so badly in my life, even the ones who are mean to me.
It sucked, too, because the rest of the day was AWESOME. About a dozen people told me fifty times a piece how great I was at my job and how helpful I was. I worked with Emily, who is hysterical, and we talked about Anderson Cooper's manhole and Keanu Reeves and Rob Lowe and random actors and all sorts of stuff. Good times.
Emily: I read somewhere that Keanu Reeves is like, really depressed or lonely or something.
Kait: If I were Keanu Reeves, I'd be depressed too.
Kait: What movie was it that I watched recently where the director turned down some fantastic actor for the part because it HAD to go to Keanu Reeves?
Emily: Seriously? Had the director ever seen him on film before?
Kait: Maybe he saw him in Bill and Ted, which I unironically believe to be his best film ever.
Now I am home. Well, at Panera. I'm putting together the Will-in-Iowa story and I think it's going to be significantly longer than the Sam-in-Iowa story.
The difference between Sam's story and Will's story is that Sam is so wrapped up in his own breakdown that he doesn't notice what's going on around him until that night at the carnival. He's concentrating on figuring out who he is and what went wrong and coming to terms with the fact that he's passed his prime and even though he's not doing any of the things he thought he'd be doing, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's reached the end of his life or his usefulness. He can be content living in the middle of nowhere with Will and Jackson (the unnamed cat in the first story), doing nothing specific with his time. He can look back on what he did accomplish and smile instead of feeling embarrassed or ashamed of not doing more.
While all this is happening to Sam, Will has his own set of issues that Sam doesn't even notice. Will has become this zen, focused, peaceful figure to him and he doesn't even notice that Will is completely caught up in his own drama, that he's not zen and peaceful, that he feels like he's failed as well, except instead of just stopping the way that Sam does, he forces himself to keep going so that he doesn't have time to think about all that he's done wrong. He's held Sam on this sort of pedestal since they first met--Sam got him his job at the White House, introduced him to all these influential people in his life, and became Will's romantic and professional ideal. Having Sam show up on his doorstep just... broken and lost is hard for Will to deal with it. The fact that Sam is silent and stiff and standoffish doesn't help, and Will takes to panicking all the time, doing whatever he can to try and make things feel right, sure that if he waits it out, Sam will get better, but terrified that he won't all the same. Will is bitter, but he keeps it to himself and it doesn't really come out in Sam's story.
Sam's story is about his internal struggle. Will's struggle is external--how to deal with Sam, how to deal with himself, how to salvage what's left of his life. There's much more dialogue in it, and the moments that are key to him aren't the same as the moments that are key to Sam, with the exception of two--Sam showing up, and Sam kissing him on the ferris wheel. Will's story focuses on the build up of the tension and frustration that only he seems to feel--Sam is so caught up in his own world that he doesn't see how hard Will is taking everything, how tense Will is.
eta: One more thing about Sam vs. Will in Iowa. Sam's story contains a lot of my own misgivings about the midwest, my own fears, my own culture shock. After moving from outside of LA to Princeton (think trees, think suburbs, think cute little college town) to New York to DC to LA to Chicago, Iowa is like a punch in the gut to Sam. He doesn't even understand how the landscape can really exist, how people can actually live there. It's not an insult--I'm sure that many midwesterns feel the same way about our crazy cities and suburbs that are criss-crossed by major highways. It's something new to him, and the newness and strangeness of the surroundings factor into Sam's story. Will's had years to get used to Iowa--the landscape in his story is something that he appreciates, something he relates to. It's backwards and weird and a little harder to write than Sam's was.
Anyway. The point is that Will's story is longer than Sam's and starts a little bit before Sam's does. And I'm still trying to parse it all together.
***
I keep yawning and am very close to curling up in this Panera chair and going to sleep. SO TIRED, INTERNET. SO TIRED.