So Wait A Minute

You're saying I have to wake up early, spend the bulk of my time in a morass of boredom and fatigue, and then come home only to find that the day is already spent and I can only muster enough energy to browse the internet?

What kind of life is this?

The job is no worse, really, than my last one. But I used to do this! This was my life! I even wrote a screenplay in these conditions!

Surprisingly, the best part about working in Culver City is lunch. When I worked in Westwood, I had a panoply of mediocre dining options. The only truly satisfying refection in the neighborhood is Pinkberry, but I've got one in Larchmont right next door to the yoga studio, so Westwood can safely cease to exist. Culver City is far less bountiful in the number of fine dining establishments, but we've got some real doozies here: Honey's Kettle, Santouka. They've even got a Famima!! here.

I've been on a real ramen kick lately, so allow me to address the matter of Santouka. I didn't try their trademark shio ramen, so I can't make a valid comparison to my current fave Atch-Kotch, but it would be very close. (The two are very different stylistically, so the comparison may be useless anyway. I ain't hatin' on you, Atch-Kotch. I got much love for you and your utterly asinine valet parking lot.)

Santouka is a Japanese chain which recently opened its first branch here in Los Angeles, inside the Mitsuwa grocery store. You put down less than ten dollars, and you get a humongous bowl of incredibly tasty ramen, an artfully hard-boiled egg, and a bowl of absolutely perfect rice topped with a traditional Japanese accoutrement. In my case, I chose the salmon roe.

Seriously? They could just charge me ten bucks for the rice and roe. It's amazing. I walked out of the place happily satiated, which is a regrettably rare occurrence with Japanese food. (It's not the taste, it's the portions.)

It's a shame I don't make it out to Centinela that often. Here's hoping that Santouka opens a branch in Hollywood. Same to you, Famima!!

Coming Out Of Retirement

That's right, folks. I'm hanging it up and going back to the office grind of the wage slave.

For a week, anyway.

Sony Pictures needs some help finishing one of their movies, so I've gotten the call to come in and clean house. I'll be working the good ol' nine-to-six for the rest of the week, helping the Sony people sort out the movie's ending credits.

I will even have to abide by a dress code - collared shirts and non-sneakers! That will last all of one day - just enough time for me to make a positive first impression - and then it's right back to the t-shirts and the badminton shoes.

Which movie, you ask? Some direct-to-video thing about a guy who gets bitten by a spider. Yeah, I don't really get it either.

The good news is that only about twenty people worked on the film, so sorting out the credits should be no sweat!

Flickr Bug

Apparently, one of Flickr's image caching servers is acting up and so the service is randomly displaying other people's pictures instead of my own. This is actually kind of amusing, if you look through this blog's archives. Apparently, I hang out with ravers now. The issue should be fixed momentarily.

The Birthday Party

Today I did something fairly unprecedented: I awoke before the crack of nine in the morning. Unfortunately, this is going to be a repeat occurrence in the coming week (more on this in a bit.)

Today the reason for rising early was that my yoga instructor was having a birthday party/charity event at a yoga apparel store in Beverly Hills. You see, my instructor has an endorsement deal(!) with the store, and serves as their spokesmodel. In fact, if you see an ad for yoga clothing in the alternative newsweeklies, chances are you're seeing my instructor flamboastin' on Rodeo Drive. Inside the store, they have erected a pantheon of Los Angeles' greatest yoga instructors, comprised of banners depicting the instructors performing poses in front of LA landmarks and listing their institutional affiliations. The effect is not unlike the retired jerseys hanging from the rafters of a basketball stadium.

Anyway, it was quite the event. My instructor led a class, while the children of Beverly Hills stared at us through the windows. Meanwhile, the store employees chopped up coconuts at my instructor's request (she loves her coconuts), and an adorable chihuahua puppy wandered around the room, crawling on people's backs . This puppy noticed that everyone was holding downward-facing dog pose at the beginning of class, and decided to show everyone how real dogs do it, which caused a total cute meltdown, effectively shutting the class down for a few moments.

Taxes

More good news.

Looking at the early numbers, it appears that the state of California has given me the very generous gift of allowing me to live here FOR FREE. That's right - all those important and expensive social services we utilize daily as citizens of this fine state? I'm not paying a dime for them. I'm in the VIP, yo!

Also, because of my radical change in income brackets, it appears that the federal government was just a tad aggressive in withholding my income, and so the largest refund check in my short financial history is en route posthaste.

It's way too early to start talking about South America, but let's put it out there:

Next Spring.

The Importance of Good Budgeting

Another word on my trip to Asia.

I thought I might address the question of the potential impact of a month-long trek in Asia upon my financial timetable. Japan is obviously a very expensive place to visit, and three weeks in China are not exactly cheap. Does the trip cut the tenure of A Very Big If short? That is, will I go broke more quickly as consequence of taking this vacation?

The answer: absolutely not.

Let me explain exactly how under budget I am. I am so under budget for 2006, that my financial surplus can not only sustain the damage of one overseas voyage, but two. Not to mention the looming increase in leisure spending that has previously been alluded to.

Looking at the accounting ledger, it's as if the trip simply doesn't exist. And yet the tickets are in hand, and the backpack has been pulled out of the closet.

It's way too early to start talking about Europe, but let's put it out there:

Autumn.

Some Valentine's Day Advice

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and here is some lovely advice from the master... of Guitar Hero.

Rob: and there was this girl playing guitar hero
Rob: anyway, Kevin walks me into the room, introduces us
Jon: ahh
Jon: gotcha
Jon: haha
Jon: that's awesome she plays guitar hero
Rob: she's better than me but that's not saying much
Jon: how do you know shes better than you
Rob: because I watched her play
Rob: she even beat Kevin
Rob: and Kevin killed me
Rob: yeah, she likes Iron Man
Jon: thats cool
Jon: but i could DESTROY her
Jon: i play expert only
Rob: yeah
Rob: but for me, I don't want to beat girls at guitar hero
Rob: that's not my primary goal
Rob: good for you, though
Jon: haha whatever dude
Jon: you beat her, you win the key to her heart

Force Multiplier

For the past few weeks, I've been slogging through the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I can't say I'm particularly enjoying it (although the quality of the show is growing exponentially with each episode). And I have at least thirty more episodes to go.

So why am I watching it?

Because, like laser-guided bombs and aerial drones, Buffy is a force multiplier.

Let me explain. Force multiplier is a buzzword from Donald Rumsfeld's controversial transformation of the United States military; it refers to something that dramatically increases a unit's combat effectiveness. The idea is that if you have the aforementioned bombs and drones, you don't need as many boots on the ground. Note how quickly Iraq was occupied, despite the relatively small invading force.

As a screenwriter, I am - like the military - faced with an extremely large and difficult task that can only be attacked directly. I'm either going to write 120 pages of a script or I'm not. No way around that. There is no model in which I do not spend a lot of time banging my head against the keyboard like Don Music from Sesame Street.

But there are many ways to increase my combat effectiveness as a writer. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the difficult heavy-lifting of writing only occupies a few hours of my day. The rest are activities that are only tangentially related to my work.

1. Yoga
2. Reading
3. Watching DVDs
4. Meditation
5. Weight Training
6. Playing Video Games
7. Blogging (in theory)
   

A corporate middle manager might point out that an obvious way of optimizing my productivity would be to limit these extracurricular activities and devote more man-hours to the actual task of writing. And many writers that I know would agree - there is no substitute for chaining yourself to the desk, especially when the deadline rolls around.

But I have a slightly different approach. It's true that many writing problems are solved at the desk. But just as many are solved away from it. And in order to facilitate the problem-solving, it's important that the mind be constantly refreshed. People, colors, stories, silence. All of these comprise the raw material for my work, and I must never stop collecting them. After all, the best solutions in my line of work often appear when I'm doing something else.

For a writer, reading books and watching movies isn't a form of leisure, it's a way of attacking my work obliquely, as opposed to directly. That's why I'm watching Buffy - because there's much overlap between my field of inquiry and Whedon's vampire slayer. And the more extracurricular activities I participate in, the more possible routes I have to outflank my opponent: the unsolvable writing problem of the moment. My strategy is to create as much surface area as possible; to attack from every conceivable angle at once. Writing at my desk is a powerful weapon, but it's also the bluntest and most enervating. Watching movies and reading books and going to yoga are slower to yield their payloads, but no less powerful and rejuvenating to boot. And when I combine all of the above, it's almost as if the problems solve themselves.

I tend to get a little anxious when I stop reading books, or playing video games, and it's because I know I've stopped collecting some raw material. I've closed an avenue of attack. I've lost surface area.

It's not just play. It's force multiplication.

So It Begins

I had forgotten how difficult planning these things could be. I'm not only coordinating my own travels, but those of various party members, all of whom are arriving and departing on different dates. But somehow, we've managed to cobble together a plan.

LEG ONE: JAPAN


Tokyo: May 17 - May 20

Kyoto: May 20 - May 24


LEG TWO: SOUTHERN CHINA


Shanghai: May 24 - May 26

Guilin and surrounding towns: May 27 - June 3


LEG THREE: SHANGHAI


Shanghai: June 4 - June 18th

It's Time To Put On Some Pants

When I stopped punching the clock, one of the first declarations of my new independence was the total abandonment of my pre-work routine: performing morning ablutions, getting dressed for work, commuting. It's not as if my office had a very strict dress code, but I considered the hour it took to get ready for the job a tremendous pain.

So I stopped doing it. I went unshaven, wore my pajamas for most of the day until yoga, and generally got my slovenly on.

Then I discovered something - I just couldn't get as much work done in my pajamas. My pajamas are my official uniform for laziness, and while I'm wearing them, my mind expects to laze. Years of school and employment have trained my brain for a distinct cognitive shift from lounging around the house to laboring at my place of employment, and this shift is triggered by getting dressed.

So now I find myself again performing morning ablutions and getting dressed for work. My work clothes are just a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but the clothes make all the difference in the world.

When it's time to go to work, it's time to put on some pants.

I Think I'm Gonna Bomb A Town

Lately, I've been encountering a fair amount of synchronicity. But when you're a writer working on a story you're excited about, a little morphic resonance is perfectly normal.

A couple nights ago, I was walking into the local bookstore, when I noticed a sign trumpeting the announcement that LL Cool J was signing books on the third floor. Gone was the obligatory muzak - instead, the store was bumping some classic LL joints. Softly, of course; there's something very incongruous about spinning thug beats at cocktail party volume.

Ignoring the fact that the man who was at one time the toughest man in hip-hop was now signing copies of an exercise book in Barnes and Noble, I took the escalators up, and there he was. This was my very first LL sighting, and just a little underwhelming, especially considering how ardent a fan I was when I was, say, twelve.

But I couldn't help but find the event just a little auspicious, as I've been thinking about Mr. Todd Smith. A lot.

As a screenwriter, I have to endure a fair amount of slights and rejections. So many that lately, I've often hoped that my next script makes as large a splash as LL's early forays into hip-hop. In fact, I've had the recurring thought hoping that this next script hits like Mama Said Knock You Out, one of the finest examples of the classic braggadocio form in all of hip-hop.

Ordinarily, I'd dismiss this event as just another sighting of a b-lister in a city filled with them. But it's my very first LL sighting ever, and it comes at a moment when I happen to be invoking his spirit often.

I'll take what I can get.

Download: Sly & The Family Stone - Trip To Your Heart (MP3)

The Secret Lesson of High School

The novelist Douglas Coupland appears in a new magazine ad for Blackberry phones. He is casually posed in what appear to be stylish old-man pajamas, looking pensive as he takes a call from the zeitgeist. The ad states that Coupland writes "two hours a day."

What?

Aside from the revelation that Coupland actually uses a Blackberry, I find the claim that this prolific novelist - whose last tome weighed in at five hundred pages - writes only a couple hours a day to be astonishing. The ad goes on to assert that that Coupland spends the rest of his day engaged in design and art projects.

As someone who now dictates the entirety of his own hours, I think about workflow effiency a lot. When you're cashflow negative, and you're on a deadline, the question of how productive you are often rears its head.

The most efficient period of my life - the time when I felt like I was accomplishing the most - was high school. I have never felt quite as productive as I was then - felt being a very telling word. After all, how productive could doing menial Spanish translation exercises and simple chemistry problems be? Even this humble blog post requires more mental resources than much of my high school curriculum.

But even if I wasn't solving the world's problems in high school, I still felt like a very productive person. And that feeling is one of the most elusive and valuable ones for anyone who works, especially those of us who sit for large amounts of time in front of a monitor. How did high school, of all endeavors, achieve that effect?

My belief is that the great implicit lesson of high school is this:

Your first 45 minutes engaged in any endeavor are always more productive than your next.

Your entire day is engineered to conform to this axiom. You are always switching modes - subject to subject, mental to phyiscal activity, time for lunch - after three quarters of an hour. Very few things in high school require more than 45 minutes of your attention. It demands smaller bursts of concentration, as opposed to long grinds. Now ponder the fact that a job will often require you to focus on the same problem for the entire day.

And so, I've tried to structure my day the same way that Douglas Coupland does: as if I were still in school. (In his Blackberry ad, Coupland even goes so far as to say, "I've basically turned my life into art school.") I obviously don't have the same curricular breadth that I did in high school, but I attempt to break my work into 45-minute problems, and rotate among different "disciplines" within screenwriting. I'll work on a character's emotional story for an hour, and then switch to action sequence design, and then on to villain character design. I also switch modes of activity by going to PE (read: yoga) everyday. And I always take time out to feed myself well - another manner of switching modes.

The result of this high school-like regimen is a significant increase in my output without a corresponding dramatic increase in the actual amount of time I spend writing. Like Coupland, I really only spend a few hours each day engaged in the head-against-desk-banging that constitutes the activity of writing. But as they were in school, those hours are easy(er) and fast(er), and the only demand upon my time is that I solve a handful of manageable problems.

2007: Let's Do This

I'm supposed to be back in town today. Due to some unforeseen delays in the manufacture of a nightguard for my teeth, I'm out for another week.

It's been a good vacation, involving lots of sushi, gambling, and movies. A couple of our holiday traditions: 1) my mom and I like to hit the after Christmas sales at the department stores and compete to see who can receive the greatest percetage off a sale item. (I came in at fifty off a wool coat, and my mom came in at seventy-two off a pair of shoes.) 2) Marathon video game sessions among my brothers and my cousins. Previously, the game of choice was Starcraft. This year, it was Wii Sports. Both my brother and I can semi-consistently throw turkeys, which is inexplicable and thrilling. I'm highly anticipating the next iterations of Mario Golf and Madden, and I don't give a shit about golf or football, which can only mean that Nintendo's mojo is surely working its magic.

But now that January is here, I've got to go back to work, especially if I want to hit my next milestone, which is the first draft of my new script. Working from Dallas is difficult but possible; I competed much of my outline while my mom was in the hospital recovering from surgery. But Dallas requires a superhuman kind of discipline, since my brain is hard-wired to shut down when I'm in Collin County. And given how this county voted in the last several elections, mine isn't the only one.

Here's the plan for the week:

• coordinate with travel partners on our forthcoming sojourn to Japan and China
• daily meditation
• spend at least a few hours every day kicking the outline around
• go running every day
• visit the dollar theater (why don't they have these in LA?!) at least two times
• get my dry cleaning done

The Top Five People of 2006

Okay, enough smack talk. Man writes an outline for a movie and it's all like he liberated Iraq or something. It's time to talk about someone else other than myself, so without further ado, here are my my picks for the top five people of 2006. To be eligible for this list, you must be 1) a NEW presence in my life, and one that has 2) affected me in some significant way.


5) Bono, Rock Star/Activist/Capitalist



You're quietly saving up your nickels and dimes so you can quit your job. You figure you can do eke out at least a year, IF you live frugally: beans and rice, taking public transit a lot, squeezing out the dregs of the toothpaste. Then a rock star shows up at your company and buys the damn place, and hands everyone a nice bonus check. Now you can do 18 months. You can take unlimited yoga classes. And you're going to Asia. All thanks to a perennial Nobel peace prize nominee who makes video games about indiscriminately killing brown people. Bono, you may be a contradiction, but you're MY contradiction. God bless you.


4) ???, Unlockable Character



I am in so much trouble for doing this. I couldn't get the necessary clearances from the legal department to publish this, so what can I tell you about Number Four? Um, nothing. But I can tell you that this person garners a high mention count in discussions with my friends, and is the subject of considerable speculation. And the buzz continues to get louder and louder. Will "El Numero Cuatro", as we affectionately refer to this person, deliver on the hype? Hell if I know.


3) Satoru Iwata, President and CEO of Nintendo Co., Ltd.



This is the man who proved all those worthless game industry analysts and would-be pundits wrong in 2006. He championed pure gameplay over cynical marketing, graphical realism, and fanboy provincialism. And he bet the entire farm on his beliefs. In doing so, he saved the company that gave birth to many childhood memories, and reminded everyone what it was like to play a video game for the very first time. But that's not why he's on this list. He's here because he's a soft-spoken and humble man who quietly worked his way up from developer to CEO. He doesn't speak in marketing copy, loves and believes in his work, and is very cute. (No seriously, dude - I've been in the room with this man, and he's adorable.) In short, he's everything I aspire to be in the entertainment world.


2) My Yoga Instructor, Uh...Yoga Instructor



Here's what I wrote about her a week ago: "This woman is one of the greatest teachers I've ever had in any subject. I go to her class every single day. In that time, I've gained seven pounds of muscle. I've grown out of some of my favorite t-shirts. My back, my shoulders, and most importantly, my heart -- all of these have opened. I feel sturdier than ever, and yet, I feel softer than ever. Something is happening to me, and yoga is only a part of it. And my instructor been with me every step of the way, knowing how far I've come, and how much further I will go."


1) Naruto Uzumaki, Konohagakure Ninja (Genin rank)



Let's be real. Who couldn't see this coming? I've written about him previously here and here, but let me step outside my fandom to write that Naruto is by far the most potent adolescent power fantasy of our time. Stronger than Buffy. Stronger than Harry, even. There's a bored kid inside of all of us, waiting (and waiting still) for the call to adventure. The voice behind the call, if you listen carefully enough, is Mr. Uzumaki's. Naruto turns 15 this February, as the second saga of his chronicles premieres on Japanese television. You know I'll be there.

Twenty-Three Reasons to Quit Your Damn Job Already (2006 Edition)

1. Run into international pop stars at the shoe store.


2. Eat chocolate croissants whenever you damn well please.


3. Skip town for a couple weeks to hang out with old friends BECAUSE YOU FEEL LIKE IT.


4. Take public speaking lessons at USC Business School with future MBAs.


5. Take a road trip to Austin to help your brother move into his new apartment.


6. Learn to do a handstand.


7. Ride the train to San Diego and attend the Comic-Con.


8. Spend more time with your family.


9. Visit a tarot reader.


10. Attend a Hollywood movie premiere.


11. Tour the inside of a B-12 Flying Fortress.


12. Pitch a movie to Hollywood studio executives.


13. Walk the Brookyln Bridge.


14. Remove the bicycle from storage and ride around the neighborhood.


15. Learn to make risotto and other things.


16. Create ringtones of your favorite anime series for the amusement of teenagers across the Internet.
    


17. Gamble at an Indian casino.


18. Disassemble a video game console and recalibrate the laser.


19. Attend the Whitney Biennial.


20. Eat barbeque in South Central Los Angeles.


21. Take yoga lessons.


22. Serve as a juror on a trial and deliver a verdict.


23. Write a blockbuster movie about Lobsters fighting Butterflies.

Some Assorted Thoughts On Life and Happiness and Everything, Part VI

So this series is clearly turning into a year-end roundup of sorts. A summary seems appropriate at this point, because I am roughly halfway through this little adventure, having spent approximately half of my savings.

Let's answer some Frequently Asked Questions:

Q) Are you worried yet?

A) Nope.

Q) Are you happy?

A) Yes. Very much so.

Q) Do you miss your old job?

A) Lol.

I recently met with a former coworker from the video game company who hadn't seen me since I left. We caught up over lunch, and the following bit of dialogue ensued:

Him: I think this plan of yours is going to work.

Me: How can you tell?

Him: Your voice. I can tell by the way you talk about things.

I'm not necessarily agreeing with him. It's way too early to tell. But his commment is a small reminder to me that significant changes are happening in my life. And they may be happening more slowly than I can notice.

There was a day, not too long ago, when I put on a favorite t-shirt and noticed that it fit me a lot more snugly (and uncomfortably) than usual. I thought that perhaps I had unintentionally shrunk it by putting it in the dryer (I hang dry all my shirts). So I put on another shirt. Again, a bit too tight for comfort.

Then I realized: it wasn't the t-shirts. It was me. And more specifically, me in yoga class. I later weighed myself. I had put on seven pounds of muscle. And I hadn't even noticed.

I suspect something similar is happening to my creative faculties, but I won't really know until I am well into my first draft of Lobsters vs. Butterflies. I can tell you that ideas seem to come much more quickly than they used to. There's a nice sense of playfulness to my work. I'm beginning to remember what it was like to be engaged in something, only to hear my mother's voice yelling, "DINNERTIME!", and to look up, blinking.

And if you're asking me to compare my creative powers now to when I was punching a clock, it's no contest. The day after I left my job, I traveled to Thousand Oaks to visit an intuitive advisor. She described the then upcoming transition in my life thusly:

Download: Judy Talks About My Creativity Before And After Leaving My Job

At the time, I thought her metaphor was quite goofy. But now I realize that it was quite apt.

Welcome to the meadow, ladies.

Some Assorted Thoughts On Life and Happiness and Everything, Part V

This post is about destiny.

No, it's not another Judy post (come back tomorrow). This one is about something even Judy's formidable powers cannot foresee: ideas.

As a writer, you spend an inordinate amount of your life sitting in a room and banging your head against a desk. The only reason anyone would willingly choose such a life is that she has become obsessed with a beautiful idea.

Ideas are your most fragile and precious resource. They are both your livelihood and fuel, and you spend a lot of time waiting for them to appear. You "research": you read, you watch movies, you talk to people. You survey the landscape, take soil samples, and drill down, hoping for another big strike.

More often than not, you don't find it. Your greatest fear is that you've tapped out your wells. But the truth is, all of this "research" is a sham: you have no idea when or where an idea will appear. Ideas only seep slowly and unpredicatably from the most obscure crevasses and fissures of your life. They spring from the most trivial moments, the most chance encounters, the silliest events.

Don't believe me? Here's a roundup of my writing projects and their origin stories:

The Last Whatever: During high school, I walk across a courtyard and see an autumn leaf floating across the ground, traveling in perfect concentric circles. (Uh, that's it. And this script got me a ton of meetings and recognition. Ridiculous.)

Waxahachie Air: I buy a cheap paperback pulp, read a few chapters of it, and toss it aside. My friend Wallace shows up, picks up the book, reads a chapter I hadn't read, tells me, "Hey, this is interesting." I read the chapter he's talking about, and say, "You're right. I want to make a movie out of this."

Pillow Crisis: I go to a Minibosses show at Meltdown Comics. I idly thumb through some lame time-traveling comic while waiting for the band to go on. Bam! Random idea strikes. (I can't even tell you the name of the comic.)

Lobsters vs. Butterflies: My brother gets a summer job as a game tester at my former place of employment. He spends a lot of time in the Quality Assurance room with other adolescent guys, playing games, talking shit, and watching anime. His coworker introduces him to one Naruto Uzumaki, who immediately becomes an obsession of my brother's. Jon loads up my hard drive with twenty gigs of episodes, and makes me promise to watch it. He returns to college. I forget about Naruto. And then, one day, I quit my job. Suddenly, I have all the time in the world. I'm bored. So I watch some Naruto. And watch some more. Take a few breaks for meals and sleep. Watch even more. And as I'm watching, a story crystallizes in my head: the idea, the tone, the world.

Those stories are quite possibly the most banal things I've ever written. But their banality supports my thesis: a writer's entire career balances on the point of the most trivial and ephemeral moments.

What if I hadn't crossed the courtyard that day? What if I hadn't gone to the Minibosses show? What if my brother hadn't worked at the game company? Three whole years of my life - the years I spent chasing those random ideas down - would have been radically different.

There's a small, whimsical form of destiny at work here. And the only thing I can tell you about it, with any certainty, is that it feeds on idle time. It only sneaks up on you when you're ready to play. It only works when you step away from your desk.

One of the primary aims of my little experiment - of these eighteen months - has been to give myself as much idle time as possible. I can guarantee you that if I hadn't quit my job, I would never have watched seventy episodes of a Japanese animated series about a hyperactive twelve-year-old who wears an orange jumpsuit and yells a lot.

But I did.

And doing so might very well mean the beginning of an entire career.

Some Assorted Thoughts On Life and Happiness and Everything, Part IV

Download this and listen.

Some Assorted Thoughts On Life and Happiness and Everything, Part III

The amazing thing is not that Judy got it right.

The amazing thing is that she got it right, and life STILL took me by surprise.

P.S. We haven't even gotten to the best part yet. Buckle up.

Some Assorted Thoughts On Life and Happiness and Everything, Part II

One day I awoke, got dressed, and went to work at the video game company. Although this day began like any other day during my salaryman existence, it would not end so.

This was the day that I learned that 1) the future of my employment at the company was in doubt (this was a false alarm, but bear with me), and 2) my relationship at the time was over (most definitely NOT a false alarm). I learned of both within hours of each other. I learned of the first by e-mail.

I learned of the second by instant message.

No, this was NOT the opening of a Cameron Crowe movie. In fact, it was my life. It may not have been the most fulfilling life, in retrospect. But it wasn't bad at all. And confronted with the sudden and immediate loss of it, I was shellshocked.

So I stood up from my desk, left the building, and walked across the street to the Hammer Museum. The Hammer Museum has a wonderful enclosed patio: a cool, white marble cube filled with trees and bamboo shoots. It's one of the calmest places in Los Angeles, and one of my secret hiding places when I need to quietly regenerate. Indeed, I spent a lot of time there when I was working at the video game company. (Nowadays, not so much - my entire life is for quietly regenerating.)

As I walked to the museum, my head was filled with a resounding, endless chorus of panic. Panic exploding into panic. Recursive panic.

I entered the museum patio. Stillness and silence, my favorite trees. I climbed to the second floor balcony, and sat down on a bench. Before me was a giant balcony, cut in the shape of a half-ellipse. I could see the rooftops of Westwood rolling before me. I sat and listened to the wind, felt it against my skin.

Suddenly, I couldn't help it anymore. I smiled to myself.

"This is fucking AWESOME!" I thought. "How exciting is this? And SO dramatic!"

It was one thing to be threatened with the loss of a job, or with the loss of a relationship. But both on the same day? Within two hours of each other? If there was a god, this entity had walked up to the bar and told me, "I done bought them drinks. Bitch, you is MY GIRLFRIEND."

It just seemed so ludicrously operatic, hilariously tragic in the Greek sense. It felt as if powerful forces beyond my control had stirred, and were now rushing to evacuate me from my own life. I imagined angels walking around with walkie-talkies, barking orders to each other; "Operation: To Hell With This Bullshit" was a go.

Clearly it had been decided that this life would not do. And it would no longer continue. Effective immediately.

And for one of only a few times in my life, I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next. An entire universe of possibilites unfolded before me. I was thrilled.

I had the fleeting intuition that something wonderful was about to happen. Something important.

I enjoyed that thought. I got up from the bench, walked back to the office.

And proceeded to panic all over again.