Mr. Whippy's Lament
It seems fitting to begin with a day spent outside The Darkened Room, on a weird expedition with my parents and my stepsister to the wilds of East London, where we 'did lunch' with my proper sister, walked about in the rain a lot, and generally spent more time on the tube than we did actually doing anything.
All this was, apparently, to celebrate my 25th birthday. Which was appropriate, I think. Nothing like seeing in your quarter century with a belated celebration that mainly involved stumbling around the drab, rainswept streets of East London. Especially when the day as a whole was basically an exercise in gritting my teeth and trying not to say what I was thinking. After all, everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. Or at least trying to. Who am I to begrudge my kin these moments of togetherness?
Woah...hold on there just a second. This isn't going to be one of those 'alienated loner' blogs. Fuck all that. I like my family sometimes. Occasionally, I even love them. They just make me want to chew my thumbs off.
All of which is neither here nor there as far as my debut blog entry is concerned. No, this was going to be a little introduction to my world and to the mind that's actually sitting here typing this stuff. Only now that I think about it, that'd be pretty bland, too. Better to let the thing evolve, let the stories come as seems appropriate. This is my space. No-one else is going to be editing it or checking I'm following the correct structure, so I guess I can just cut loose, and consequences be damned.
It's all about the birthday, friends. It's all about reaching the grand age of twenty-five and realising with a clear and perfect horror that - amongst my circle of friends and acquaintances - I'm the only one that can't check a single box in the "Things You're Supposed To Be Achieving As An Adult In The Year Of Our Lord 2004" column of the Big Questionnaire.
I'm single, and have been for nearly a year at the time of writing. As of last Thursday, I am unemployed. I have no desire to either own or rent property of any kind, unless we count The Darkened Room, which is not so much a place to live as a nest to retreat to, like some kind of injured mongoose hissing at the predators outside...
Shit, do mongooses nest? Do they hiss? Is it mongooses or mongeese? And why did I choose such a stupid fucking metaphor?
Whatever. Back to my quarter-life crisis and back to the strange and horrible visions I've been having, visions where my friends shake their heads sadly and say things like "When are you going to get a job, Mike?" and "My wife has this cousin. Maybe you two should go out or something. You might hit it off".
Terrifying. People starting to believe that you are incapable of planning your own life...then starting to plan it for you, to offer what they think is helpful advice, little realising that all their example is doing is feeding the flames.
I'd best add a disclaimer to that section, too, seeing as I'm not planning on gunning down my happy friends, nor setting fire to them, their loved ones, and their possessions. I think about it sometimes, but only when I'm in a really good mood.
I want to be a writer. No, really. The comedy stopped just a second ago. That's how I came to be here. I keep quitting jobs and have a total inability to hold down a steady relationship because these things aren't, right now, my number one priority. I've written a bunch of screenplays and short stories and even poetry. I finished a novel last summer and I'm currently working on a second. None of these things have been published, as far as I know, but I'm getting to the point where I may just be able to write something saleable and cool.
Which is what I most want from my life and what I've been planning with a surety and structure that would terrify my parents and my happy friends if they could see and understand it. I mean, if I applied the same determination and passion to, say, becoming an ice cream man, you'd be looking at Mr. Whippy by now. But they don't see that because the process of honing an artistic talent into something worthwhile takes an awful lot of the kind of practice that produces no concrete result. Hence, many people around me believe that I'm actually doing nothing at all except wasting away in a series of bar jobs and dumping every promising ladyfriend I ever meet for no good reason.
Which is true, in a way. But fuck them. They are wrong and I am right. It is necessary that things be this way.
All this was, apparently, to celebrate my 25th birthday. Which was appropriate, I think. Nothing like seeing in your quarter century with a belated celebration that mainly involved stumbling around the drab, rainswept streets of East London. Especially when the day as a whole was basically an exercise in gritting my teeth and trying not to say what I was thinking. After all, everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. Or at least trying to. Who am I to begrudge my kin these moments of togetherness?
Woah...hold on there just a second. This isn't going to be one of those 'alienated loner' blogs. Fuck all that. I like my family sometimes. Occasionally, I even love them. They just make me want to chew my thumbs off.
All of which is neither here nor there as far as my debut blog entry is concerned. No, this was going to be a little introduction to my world and to the mind that's actually sitting here typing this stuff. Only now that I think about it, that'd be pretty bland, too. Better to let the thing evolve, let the stories come as seems appropriate. This is my space. No-one else is going to be editing it or checking I'm following the correct structure, so I guess I can just cut loose, and consequences be damned.
It's all about the birthday, friends. It's all about reaching the grand age of twenty-five and realising with a clear and perfect horror that - amongst my circle of friends and acquaintances - I'm the only one that can't check a single box in the "Things You're Supposed To Be Achieving As An Adult In The Year Of Our Lord 2004" column of the Big Questionnaire.
I'm single, and have been for nearly a year at the time of writing. As of last Thursday, I am unemployed. I have no desire to either own or rent property of any kind, unless we count The Darkened Room, which is not so much a place to live as a nest to retreat to, like some kind of injured mongoose hissing at the predators outside...
Shit, do mongooses nest? Do they hiss? Is it mongooses or mongeese? And why did I choose such a stupid fucking metaphor?
Whatever. Back to my quarter-life crisis and back to the strange and horrible visions I've been having, visions where my friends shake their heads sadly and say things like "When are you going to get a job, Mike?" and "My wife has this cousin. Maybe you two should go out or something. You might hit it off".
Terrifying. People starting to believe that you are incapable of planning your own life...then starting to plan it for you, to offer what they think is helpful advice, little realising that all their example is doing is feeding the flames.
I'd best add a disclaimer to that section, too, seeing as I'm not planning on gunning down my happy friends, nor setting fire to them, their loved ones, and their possessions. I think about it sometimes, but only when I'm in a really good mood.
I want to be a writer. No, really. The comedy stopped just a second ago. That's how I came to be here. I keep quitting jobs and have a total inability to hold down a steady relationship because these things aren't, right now, my number one priority. I've written a bunch of screenplays and short stories and even poetry. I finished a novel last summer and I'm currently working on a second. None of these things have been published, as far as I know, but I'm getting to the point where I may just be able to write something saleable and cool.
Which is what I most want from my life and what I've been planning with a surety and structure that would terrify my parents and my happy friends if they could see and understand it. I mean, if I applied the same determination and passion to, say, becoming an ice cream man, you'd be looking at Mr. Whippy by now. But they don't see that because the process of honing an artistic talent into something worthwhile takes an awful lot of the kind of practice that produces no concrete result. Hence, many people around me believe that I'm actually doing nothing at all except wasting away in a series of bar jobs and dumping every promising ladyfriend I ever meet for no good reason.
Which is true, in a way. But fuck them. They are wrong and I am right. It is necessary that things be this way.
posted by Michael at 12:50 PM
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