Fuckity-bye.
If 2008 ended on a bit of a downbeat, then this year has most assuredly been the intermission between acts.
More than ever, I feel I've wandered. This year, nothing ended up quite as planned or, if there were plans, they never lasted till fruition.
At the beginning of this year after the massive beating I endured in the twilight months of 2008, I was slated to teach for a few years. That would be the rabbit trail I walked along while I took time to find my way back to my proper career path, one that would put this Poli Sci education to use. But, alas, those plans quite easily evaporated at possibly the worst time imaginable and I found myself adrift in a job market that would have nothing to do with me. Young, eager, and unwanted. Alas, the deadlines for school applications had passed at that point, and there was nothing I could do but shoot myself, screaming, into the ether and hope I hit something.
I enjoyed Spring 2009; don't get me wrong. It was the most fun I've had in a semester at Yale. I can't imagine ending those four years on a happier and more congratulatory note.
And I also finally had the chance to work independently with crowleycrow, something I'd quested after for three and a half long years. The culmination, Selim, My Brother, could not have made me prouder.
I wrote my first short film, my first spec script, my first screenplay. I somehow very serendipitously stumbled upon the opportunity to turn that semester into the realization of a dream. One era had ended and, in my mind, another had begun. Already, I'd begun planning my career path as a screenwriter.
I realize now, in hindsight, that the writing was my anchor. Drifting down the stream, pulled by the current of unemployment, each project I began was a new piece of driftwood I could cling to to keep from drowning. Perhaps that's to account for the proliferation of scripts I put out. I couldn't afford to stop. Without the security and stability of a regular schedule, one afforded by the attaining of an academic degree, I had to create my own sanctuary. I had to build my own fortress. I'd been dropped off in a vast and interminable desert and my task wasn't so much to find my way as it was to make one.
There were countless calls from friends and family to rest, to enjoy the forced repose, but one thing I've discovered this year is that I detest rest if I'm not absolutely sure there's work to be done at the end of it. I hate not knowing where next to put my foot.
That's what I missed most about school. The next step was not decided for me. And that summer, I was forced to watch all those comrades of mine who'd "planned" a little better or who'd been a little more assiduous to the realities of our situation as college graduates in the midst of a recession strike out and forge their own destinies with a confidence I supremely envied. It was like watching them all climb onto the last chopper out of Saigon while I was forced to take it up the arse from Ho Chi Minh.
Stranded.
Then came fall. And deadlines. And blessed stability.
I'd always planned to go back to school, I just hadn't realized how much I would hate the time I spent out of it. But, alas, application deadlines weren't the only ones I was excited about.
It appears those projects I'd burned myself out to write were quite something in and of themselves.
The film festival is a wondrous invention, and I think it's very telling that, even with organizational catastrophes and administrative bed-shitting overall, it can be made into a successmerely by the quality of people that have congregated in attendance. I fell in love with Queens because of the people I met there, but I also fell in love with this new craft of screenwriting. And while I'm probably going to put off a move to Los Angeles for as long as possible, whatever burgeoning success I've enjoyed so far has managed to convince me that LA isn't completely outside the realm of possibility.
And now as I begin to send out law school apps and prepare for my time in Georgia, I feel as though I've wandered back on track, as though my odyssey on the rabbit trail has come to an end.
Another constant, however, another guiding light perhaps, is E.
Those keeping score at home will remember E from that semester I spent in Paris back in 2007. Well, I would be remiss in not thinking of her as a bit of a thruline through the narrative of this year. Off-time has allowed me the chance to renew our formerly sporadic communications, and I've been given the distinct pleasure of watching a friendship blossom through the most remote contact imaginable. All it takes is a few minutes, sometimes even an hour or two, of online conversation and my day has reached a stratospheric high point. Sure, online communication is not without its faults and is no real substitute for real, in-person interaction, but that something which began in 2007 has been able to hold its own for this long against rather long odds is something of a miracle. An entire friendship conducted in a foreign language.
I find myself subconsciously (re-)directing my path so as to put me on the other side of the Pond in as short a time as possible if only to be able to see her again and hear her laugh without the filter of an internet connection.
She's turned into the light at the end of my tunnel. And precisely at a time when I'd begun to lament that the light had been replaced by just more tunnel.
The intermission seems to be drawing to a close, the rabbit trail merging with the larger path. And I find I'm a better man for having wandered. I'm always surprised by the forms those agonizing periods of our lives take, and I can't help myself from thinking I'll know what to look for when I spot a bit of turmoil rounding the corner.
But these tornadoes sometimes have a way of shooting me right where I need to be when I need to be.
Goodbye 2009. Goodbye Intermission. I'm ready for Act II.
More than ever, I feel I've wandered. This year, nothing ended up quite as planned or, if there were plans, they never lasted till fruition.
At the beginning of this year after the massive beating I endured in the twilight months of 2008, I was slated to teach for a few years. That would be the rabbit trail I walked along while I took time to find my way back to my proper career path, one that would put this Poli Sci education to use. But, alas, those plans quite easily evaporated at possibly the worst time imaginable and I found myself adrift in a job market that would have nothing to do with me. Young, eager, and unwanted. Alas, the deadlines for school applications had passed at that point, and there was nothing I could do but shoot myself, screaming, into the ether and hope I hit something.
I enjoyed Spring 2009; don't get me wrong. It was the most fun I've had in a semester at Yale. I can't imagine ending those four years on a happier and more congratulatory note.
And I also finally had the chance to work independently with crowleycrow, something I'd quested after for three and a half long years. The culmination, Selim, My Brother, could not have made me prouder.
I wrote my first short film, my first spec script, my first screenplay. I somehow very serendipitously stumbled upon the opportunity to turn that semester into the realization of a dream. One era had ended and, in my mind, another had begun. Already, I'd begun planning my career path as a screenwriter.
I realize now, in hindsight, that the writing was my anchor. Drifting down the stream, pulled by the current of unemployment, each project I began was a new piece of driftwood I could cling to to keep from drowning. Perhaps that's to account for the proliferation of scripts I put out. I couldn't afford to stop. Without the security and stability of a regular schedule, one afforded by the attaining of an academic degree, I had to create my own sanctuary. I had to build my own fortress. I'd been dropped off in a vast and interminable desert and my task wasn't so much to find my way as it was to make one.
There were countless calls from friends and family to rest, to enjoy the forced repose, but one thing I've discovered this year is that I detest rest if I'm not absolutely sure there's work to be done at the end of it. I hate not knowing where next to put my foot.
That's what I missed most about school. The next step was not decided for me. And that summer, I was forced to watch all those comrades of mine who'd "planned" a little better or who'd been a little more assiduous to the realities of our situation as college graduates in the midst of a recession strike out and forge their own destinies with a confidence I supremely envied. It was like watching them all climb onto the last chopper out of Saigon while I was forced to take it up the arse from Ho Chi Minh.
Stranded.
Then came fall. And deadlines. And blessed stability.
I'd always planned to go back to school, I just hadn't realized how much I would hate the time I spent out of it. But, alas, application deadlines weren't the only ones I was excited about.
It appears those projects I'd burned myself out to write were quite something in and of themselves.
The film festival is a wondrous invention, and I think it's very telling that, even with organizational catastrophes and administrative bed-shitting overall, it can be made into a successmerely by the quality of people that have congregated in attendance. I fell in love with Queens because of the people I met there, but I also fell in love with this new craft of screenwriting. And while I'm probably going to put off a move to Los Angeles for as long as possible, whatever burgeoning success I've enjoyed so far has managed to convince me that LA isn't completely outside the realm of possibility.
And now as I begin to send out law school apps and prepare for my time in Georgia, I feel as though I've wandered back on track, as though my odyssey on the rabbit trail has come to an end.
Another constant, however, another guiding light perhaps, is E.
Those keeping score at home will remember E from that semester I spent in Paris back in 2007. Well, I would be remiss in not thinking of her as a bit of a thruline through the narrative of this year. Off-time has allowed me the chance to renew our formerly sporadic communications, and I've been given the distinct pleasure of watching a friendship blossom through the most remote contact imaginable. All it takes is a few minutes, sometimes even an hour or two, of online conversation and my day has reached a stratospheric high point. Sure, online communication is not without its faults and is no real substitute for real, in-person interaction, but that something which began in 2007 has been able to hold its own for this long against rather long odds is something of a miracle. An entire friendship conducted in a foreign language.
I find myself subconsciously (re-)directing my path so as to put me on the other side of the Pond in as short a time as possible if only to be able to see her again and hear her laugh without the filter of an internet connection.
She's turned into the light at the end of my tunnel. And precisely at a time when I'd begun to lament that the light had been replaced by just more tunnel.
The intermission seems to be drawing to a close, the rabbit trail merging with the larger path. And I find I'm a better man for having wandered. I'm always surprised by the forms those agonizing periods of our lives take, and I can't help myself from thinking I'll know what to look for when I spot a bit of turmoil rounding the corner.
But these tornadoes sometimes have a way of shooting me right where I need to be when I need to be.
Goodbye 2009. Goodbye Intermission. I'm ready for Act II.