Bleeder

Funny story.

I got mugged last week.

Then my apartment got broken into.

Haha.

My mom tells me I have a weird sense of humor.

Everything's weird these days though. It seems that the direction of my life has gotten really dramatic. No middle ground anymore. It's always something really awesome coupled with something that really sucks. I get mugged, Sean and Jon come and visit me. I get to meet Sasha's family in Chicago, My car battery dies and I get a parking ticket. I have so little money that I can't buy groceries, but my friend takes me out to dinner. I like it like this. It's more interesting.

It's like I tell HyounJun every time he gets into one of my crappy 3rd generation hand-me-down cars for a long road trip: It's going to be an adventure.

What adventure would be complete without a twisted plot and agonizing losses, coupled with the eventual victory of all that is good, the restoration of the hero to his rightful place, where everyone cheers as he destroys the enemy, reunites with his trusty side kick, and finally gets to kiss the girl? That's why I don't worry when things go wrong. I hope for a happy ending.

Is that my story? I really need to get a side kick.

...among other things...

I probably should get a new wallet too.

The point is- 

Actually, I don't think I have a point. 

Well, maybe I do, but I don't think it's my point to make. Can you imagine if I was the one in charge of my story?

I was once "in love" (quotations indicate sarcasm, not towards love, but towards myself) with this girl. She was all that I could think about. I spent every weekend with her, and talked about her all the time, and when I couldn't hang out with her, I wanted to die. Smitten for sure. My friends were happy for me. They liked that I liked somebody. This was one of the first times that I ever thought that someone could like me, too. She also hung out with someone else sometimes, but that wasn't a big deal. We had this indelible connection. Nothing could possibly separate us. It was time to rearrange the alphabet and put U and I together. It was like a movie. If I was in charge of this story, I would be with her now. Who knows? We might even be engaged.

But I'm not. So, I didn't. She's actually with "someone else" right now, and I have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. It wasn't really like a movie, now that I think about it. Well, maybe it was, but it was more like a made for TV movie. A Lifetime Original Movie, or one of those BBC movies starring the UGLIEST actors in the world, who somehow manage to not even have great personalities, despite their obvious physical shortcomings. Isn't it supposed to work like that?

Not that I'm calling her ugly.

Not that I'm not.

The story that is my life would be quite a small one if I were in charge of writing it. Right now it's a strange, often frightening, always complicated, rarely safe, never boring, completely wonderful and awe inspiring thing. It tugs and tickles. It draws tears and blood, and it makes me wake up in a cold sweat.

How wonderful. How marvelous. 

And my song shall ever be...

I hope my apartment gets broken into again. I hope every wallet I ever buy gets stolen. I hope that the woman I "love" leaves me for a ham and cheese sandwich on my wedding day. The pain grows our dreams. The crying, the waiting... they make men out of boys and warriors from cowards. We are cut in half and we bleed. We bleed and we grow. We see our bodies turn red, and that's how we know we are alive.

And the writer of our story just keeps on writing. Despite us.

Good. Maybe He can make something of me.

Aesthetics

I've decided that I'm an artist because of aesthetics.

It's not the easiest conclusion to arrive at. I've never really seen myself as one.  I've always thought of artists a people who have their works published, or people whose names are in galleries, people with a little hype or buzz surrounding them... people who get paid to create.

By that definition, I am not an artist.

I am a waiter.

I have been other things, of course. I have been a student, I have been a tutor, mentor, librarian, and bingo scoresheet salesman (Maybe I'll tell y'all that story at some other time). But artist? Artists have studios, artists have commissions, artists have the proper tools.

I don't even really see myself as a filmmaker (despite having a degree in the aforementioned practice). I just have this crappy camera tat I bought in high school, which I shoot films that I edit on a computer that my parents went halvsies on with me when I graduated from 12th grade. How can I be an artist when I don't have the proper tools?

I like independent films.

I like the idea of taking a dream or vision for something that you really want and doing it without anyone's approval/finding. I love when an indie film makes it out to mainstream audiences and all the big studio exec scramble like mad to copy its success. It's a bit laughable to see these quasi-independent ventures that are actually funded by the big studios trying really hard to act like they're part of the indie "In crowd." They make their films look dirty and gritty like the low budget films that they so love with the goal in mind to re create the "magic" of the other film's reception.

Why would they do that? Make things a lower quality than they are able, I mean...

Is it just because they are trying to fit in, or did they just miss the point entirely?

I think I have a few things in common with them, and I think that's why I never (until recently) saw myself as an artist. 

It is not the quality of the medium that is important. The weight, in fact, rests upon the quality of EXPRESSION.

The artist's tools are inside of him. It is not what quality and grandiose title that is bestowed upon the artist that makes his work worthy of our viewing. It is weather or not he is able to speak truth, and enlighten us about our own lives. 

Everything else is just a question of aesthetics...

Let me put it to you this way. If I gave Rembrandt a piece of paper and a 64 pack of crayons and told him to make something, he would make art. He is an artist, and no matter what the medium, he will create art. If I give a big studio, professional tools, and a 10 million dollar commission to the guy who draws pictures of penises on the walls of bathrooms, he will use those resources to draw a huge penis. Because he's a dick.

I can't judge my own work through the same lens as other artists. I think that's one of the biggest problems with human beings today. The "compari-sin" if you will... I am not the next Monet, or Picasso, and I will not any time soon be creating works like them. I do not have the resources (or more than likely, the skill) to make what they make. I may have just a piece of paper and a 64 pack of crayons, but I can create art.

Because I'm not a Dick.

Everything else is a question of aesthetics.

Skipping Like Stones Across the Lake

I'm currently in a phase in my life that's not really a phase. It's more of a phase between phases. A series of stepping stones on a lake between two opposing shores, if you will. I am in a transition.

There is a question in my head, though. One that tends to knock rather impatiently against the door of my brain late at night. One that I don't feel quite right about skipping across the stones in my lake until I have answered:

What are my two shores?

What am I running to? What am I running from?

I used to think that I was running from evil towards good. I used to think very black and white like that. It was easier that way. More hopeful. I could think that everything was improving and some day everything would be alright. I used to think that way, but I don't anymore. There's good and evil in everything I do. Something of God, and something of myself. I just hope that this next phase of my life will be more about Him and less about me. I feel like it could go either way at that point.

I remember my mom telling me when I was little that phrase that I'm sure every child hears from their parents at one point or another. "You'll understand when you get older." 

Why is it that the older I get, the less I seem to understand? Something just keeps stirring the water, while I hold to my position, afraid to step either forward or back. 

I need to move at some point.

Which way?

Boys and Girls

My bathroom is a mess right now.

Bags of makeup, several types of shampoo, curling irons, straightening irons, and a bunch of other irons/ hair care tools that I have no idea what they do. I wonder about my visiting sisters and their friends. Do I really know what they look like?

Girls are messy. I'm not talking about "women" or "ladies," or any of the other things that a group of single men might idealize them to be. Let no one fool you. Girls are messy. They're loud, they're messy, they're emotional, and they have some sort of assembly line factory that they construct in the bathroom that helps them to become the person you see and idealize every day at school or work or church.

It's been a while since I've been this close to girls. Real girls. messy, loud, emotional hair care factory girls. I've just been staring at the bathroom, trying to guess what things do, or even which direction you hold them. 

Boys are simple. we don't do much to make ourselves look presentable. We wash our clothes, shower, shave, and brush our teeth. Beyond that, there's not much help for us. Boys are simple, girls are complicated.  That's probably why we don't really understand each other very well. We form this strange paradox in relationships. We pull each other in different ways, each trying to make the other more like them.

I had forgotten what it was like to live with girls. I had gotten used to this male-centric existence that I had been living. I had forgotten how much I needed them. Even though we don't always get along. Even though we're technically opposites, even though I don't really understand most of the things they do. I need them.

Boys and girls have this long, sordid history of not getting along, and hurting each other. I've been hurt enough to not want it anymore, but I've learned something this week about girls, in the middle of all the video games, girly movies, and (wrong) lyrics to John Denver being sung out loud. I think we need each other, and I think that without these relationships, we'll always be just one half of the equation.

The Philosophical Whims of Prepackaged Cookies

Today, something very special was supposed to happen. 

I don't know what it was, but I did everything I could to make sure that my good fortune was not interrupted. I woke up early this morning. I brushed AND flossed my teeth. I wore a nice shirt and my lucky socks. I went into the office, and called all of the people I was supposed to call. I did everything I could. You know what happened?

Nothing.

Conclusion:

Either I did something wrong, or the fortune cookie I ate on December 24th, telling me that three months from that day would be significant, was completely false. Or maybe it was just a piece of paper with something written on it. 

Not that I really believe in that sort of thing.

I think. 

It's silly, I know, but I had actually hoped, on some level, that something significant would happen today. I could really use a significant event. Something to change my perspective. I want something new.

God had promised me something new. (see my post "San Fransisco, Day One: Shorelines/Transitions" for more info).  When, though? My life seems to have taken the form of a ticking clock. Everything is about timing, and I have put my faith in someone who exists outside of time.

I think I really hoped that a fortune cookie message would tip his hand. I don't think I really thought that. I just thought it would be nice to know ahead of time when something big is going to happen, so I can have my camera ready, and plan my work schedule accordingly. 

My God, can you imagine what would have happened to my spiritual life if something important really did happen today? I would be done reading the Bible. I would be so obsessed with fortune cookies that I might actually want to eat one.

I shudder at the thought.

Back to trust. Good old fashioned trust. The type with no limitations on time, socks, ethnicity, or the philosophical whims of prepackaged cookies. One where we sit and we trust. One where we float along and we hope for the best. A world where we live so very often, and die only once. I can't imagine a stranger or more wonderful place to call home. Thank you, God, for not listening to the cookies when you came up with this place. 

I don't think I want to live in a planet that is run by cookies.

Even still...

I wonder where I'll be in three more months.

Up And Out: Theology For Assholes

When I was in high school, I heard a certain phrase quite often. I especially heard it the year that I went from being a lowly 5'2" to almost 6 feet. I have heard this phrase a few times since then, but it is no longer a compliment.

"You're getting bigger."

You see, there are two ways we can grow. We can either grow up or we can grow out.

 When we grow up, it is a wonderful thing. We become taller, more muscular, physically more able to handle what life throws our way. Everyone notices when we grow up, and it makes them proud, regardless of weather or not they had anything to do with the current state we find ourselves in.

When we grow out, it is the opposite. Growing out is unhealthy. It is an indicator of our indulgence. It doesn't look good. When people see that you're growing out, they ignore it, because it's not polite to mention that your excess is wearing you down from the outside. 

Today, I yelled at my roommate over something stupid. I called him an asshole. He doesn't deserve that. Ever. No one does. Especially someone of whom I have said that I couldn't love him more if he were my own brother. I apologized immediately, in my own stupid insufficient way. He said it was okay, and not to worry about it, then he left to go study. The thing is, I couldn't really forget about it. It bothered me so very much that I could just say something like that to someone I would call my brother. It's not like I have never used language like that before. My mouth is pretty much an open door most of the time. I couldn't shake it from my head. It kept replaying over and over again, and every time I heard the words I used, I couldn't believe myself. He came home two hours later, and I apologized again for how I treated him. He said not to worry about it again, that it was fine. I know him well enough to know weather or not he means it when he says not to worry about something. He meant it. I never want to call him that again.

So which was it? Up or out? Which way did I grow?

Have I grown taller, and stronger in my ability to care for others, that something that ordinarily wouldn't bother me could keep me bothered for hours? Or did I grow bigger, more bogged down and heavy with unnecessary self hatred that has been such a default reaction for me lately when I fail the people I care about? It's not like they're not used to it (there I go again). 

Truth is, I don't know. I hope some day that I can learn how to care better for those who have been placed in my influence without hating myself. For now, it seems like my life is a strange mix of the two. 

I'll need some exercise if I'll ever be able to make sense of this mess.

Getting Older

Why do we even bring children into this world? Is it because we're lonely? Because we want our lives to mean something? Seems pretty selfish to me. The world is not a very kind place to live.

I'm not talking about me. I'm not talking about me. Usually, I'm talking about me. Most of the things I like to talk about are about me, but today, I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about Jonathan.

I don't even know his last name. It's either Medina or Martinez, something like that. I run the after school program that is trying to teach him how to read. It isn't going very well. He's going to get older, weather he learns to read or not. 

Two months.

I have two months to get him reading at a level that is on par with his age group. He was a year behind at the beginning of the school year. If I bring him up one year, he'll still be a year behind. It'll just be a different year. 

It's not good enough. I keep telling myself to try harder to get through to him, but I just don't know how to do it. I think that me and his tutor are the only ones in his life that want him to go anywhere. My conversations with him go something like this:

"Why do I have to go to tutoring?"

"So you can learn how to read."

"Why do I have to know how to read?"

"So you can graduate."

"I don't wanna graduate."

"I'll bet your Mom and Dad want you to graduate."

"My Dad only went to first grade. Then he got a job."

"If you graduate, you can get a better job. You won't have to work at Taco Bell like I did in high school."

"You worked at Taco Bell? Cool! I want to work at Taco Bell."

It's just not good enough. I just can't be good enough to make them want anything. They're like jello. They'll become whatever is being put into them. They're going to work at Taco Bell. For all my efforts, they're not going to learn anything. I really wanted to be an agent for change with my life. But some days, we lose. We show up every day. We put everything me have into the game

-but we lose. I'm not writing this because I'm feeling sorry for myself, and my inefficient teaching methods. Some of us lose more than others. The world isn't very kind to little Mexican kids who can't read. That's something else that may never change.