The other night, my brother and I shared one of our rare moments when we actually talk about what’s going on in our lives and share our thoughts about things. It was motivated by his current struggle to maintain his finances to fit his/his families lifestyle. Of course, my current financial state came up.
My family doesn’t really understand me. It’s a given but, hey, they love and support me. In one aspect that they surely don’t get from me is in my choice of jobs. They can’t seem to wrap their minds around the fact that I would choose the unstable and often low-paying retail career over other things. My comeback is usually that I want to work doing something I enjoy or with people I like and, also, I like the ability to just go to work, do it, and leave. I don’t enjoy working in stressfull things.
During our conversation, when my brother questioned this, I responded simply by saying “Why not? I don’t have anyone but myself to worry about.” One of the main reasons I’ve never really focused on forming partnerships or having a family is precisely because I don’t want to have someone else’s life in my hands. I don’t want to live with that pressure.
Anyway, my point in this ditty is that, lately, I’ve been down about being broke and struggling to be able to do many of the things I need and want, like put gas in my car. Today, at work, I was once again reminded that I really shouldn’t complain.
At one of my jobs, an older Mexican lady works there. She isn’t fluent in English, doesn’t have a car, she had three kids, and is the sole earner of her family. Everyday she takes the bus to be at work by 4am or 6am, and works hard and well and motivated. Her struggles are so much more than man could ever be and it reminded me that, no matter how hard my struggles will get, they will never be as hard as those that have to support a family.
Thus, my lifes choices are reaffirmed in many ways.
Throughout my life, I’ve often wondered how people become artists. I mean, I’ve alwasy understood creativity, and craft, and all that jazz but never, really, what took all of that the next step?
I’ve wondered because I’ve always been an admirer of art and, also, I’ve had the privilege of knowing many people whom I would consider artists. You know, people whose life revolves around that particular medium of expression whether it’s music, or painting, or film, or dance, or design, or etc, etc, etc…
Mostly, I’ve wondered while simultaneously asking myself/the cosmos why I never quite had it in me to become an artists? Believe me, I am confident in my creativity and skill and craft in so many things but, am I an artist? No.
The closest thing to an answer, sort of, is the idea that I was set on this earth to be someone who appreciates art in all its forms. You know, following the notion of the tree in the forest scenerio because, frankly, there are some artists who don’t even appreciate their own art.
Anyhoo, deep thoughts.
I used to work for the now defunked BORDERS. You remember, that OTHER mainstream commercial bookstore. Although I certainly will agree that in it’s last years it was no longer what it had represented as an overall company and a mere seller of books, I stuck wit’ it to the end.
The area I grew up in was a small desert town made into a recognizable geographical location by the other two neighboring towns. Calexico, flanked the Mexico/U.S. border so, really, for me, it might as well have been in Mexico. El Centro was a few miles away and was the “metropolitan” town. By Metropolitan I mean it was the town that boasted a reatail scene by having the only Woolworths back in the day and exposing our town to our first Wal-mart. My hometown, Brawley, was the upper middle class soccer mom to El Centro’s middle class working girl, to Calexico’s lower class first generation immigrant cousin.
My point? Neither in these three towns nor within the several hundred miles surrounding us, was there a bookstore. Well, correction: there was “The Book Store” which maintained your typical newstand fare to front for what they really made money off of, the”books” and “educational videos” they sold in the much larger, enclosed portion of the store. Oh yes, and a small local bookstore which, really, only sold christian fiction and romance novels.
To be frank (Anne), I’ve yet to truly understand when or even how I acquired my penchant for reading, considering that I was neither physically nor in any other abstract way surrounded by a reading culture. Thusly, on those once- maybe twice-a-year trips we made to San Diego I ached, ACHED, to go to a mall or shopping center with a BORDERS or BARNES AND NOBLE or WALDENBOOKS or B. DALTONS. I rarely had the money to buy any books but I simply loved walking around browsing all the NEW books! I spent a considerable amount of time in our public library but, gosh, these books were new!
As I got older and more, ahem, worldly, I grew to prefer BORDERS above the others. When I started to work there, I became even more attached to it or, really, the IDEAL of it. I worked there for six years, the most defining years to date of my life, and even though only the first two or so were all they panned out to be, I maintained a loyal employee and customer. Now that it no longer exists and I currenlty live in Las Vegas where there isn’t a strong local culture for anything, I still haven’t managed to let go of my elitism, if you will.
I’m currently in a poor fiscal state where spending 20 dollars on a hardcover book is just not viable. There are several books I really want to buy/read but, in essence, my only options now make me feel guilty.
If I spend 40 bucks on the two new hardcovers I want, I feel guilty for spending that amount of money on a “non-essential”
If I just go to the bookstore and read without buying, I feel guilty because I’m perpetuating a part of what causes bookstores to go under.
If I buy it from BARNES AND NOBLE, I feel guilty and (irrationally) traitorous
If I buy from AMAZON or WALMART or COSTCO where the books are conspicously cheaper, I feel guilty because I am, again, feeding an animal that is devouring bookstores.
I’d love to stick wit’ my public library but, in the inimitable words of Veruca Salt, I want it NOW!
So here I sit, caught in a literary and anti-consumerist(ish) existential crisis. Lifting my fists up to the heavens asking “Why? WHY?” I know I will have to come to terms with one, or all, of the above but, damn, it’s hard. I’ve spent a large portion of my life being defined by the physicality of bound books and, although I am not against the digital life, I still can’t manage to jump on it’s bandwagon when it comes to books.
Can’t we all just get along? Can’t we have our bound books and read them too?
I’m not one for being stable and sedentary but I’ve always wanted a house/apartment to own so I can put up artwork, makes tons of foods and invite people over, have game/movie/random thing nights. That is all.
This past weekend, I was reminded that I am a social animal. It’s taken me quite some time for me to establish a social life here, mostly because I don’t really know how to do that around my family here who is, well, just totally different than me. Mostly, really, they’re just always up in my business in that, I don’t know, non-judgmental but still invasive way that family is good at.
Anyway, I had fun. Some peeps from work and I went to a comedy club/show. It wasn’t the greatest but it was fun. I mean, there was a whole lot of tranny talk and, let’s just say, the phrase “pools of semen in your dimples” was uttered. It was great.
The next day, the same crew chilled (literally cuz it was cold) at the swapmeet then crossed the street to have some homemade Pho from our friends Thai grandma. I had never had Pho before but, it was DA BOMB.
Overall, though, I enjoyed that laid back comraderie that goes beyond partying. I love to party but, you know, just hanging and doing random everyday stuff like swapmeets, and going to a friends house for dinner is ten times better.
I had an epiphany, last night about myself and the phenomenon known as the interwebz.
Lately, I’ve been in an emotional, mental, and creative slump. In the past month, I’ve had too much time on my hands and have found myself unable to channel it through something. Always before, I have found solace in writing but in my current state, even that, has done little for me. Namely, because I find myself unable to do it. Or, more specifically, unable to percieve my writing as something meaningful.
A large portion of this creative malaise has been my sense of inadequecy when it comes to the whole blogging and tumblr and every other online forum. Lately, I’ve simply felt like someone’s parent trying to be hip and happening with my kids’ friends but only coming off as more of a ninkumpooop. I’d read and observe the blogs and sites of others I know and wonder how it is that they are so good at this whole thing. They blog, and tumble, and tweet, and Facebook, and everything so much better than me.
What makes them so special? I’d ask myself. Well, last night, I found an answer.
What makes them special is that they believe that every single moment/act of their life is worth documenting and exhibiting. From the smallest act of putting jam on toast to the largest events like getting married or breaking up. They don’t differentiate between the “everyday” and the “special”. To them, the everyday is special.
It sounds like such a simple and obvious thing but, frankly, it has kind of blown me away and revealed to me where I’ve been going wrong for such a long time. I have not been putting enough worth in my own personal everyday, whether it’s warrented or not.
You have to truly believe that every single moment of your life is worth something!
It’s so easy to forget amidst the mediocrity and frustrations and inadequacies of our mortal coil. I feel that is the most positive thing that can ever come out of our current obsession with oversharing and overdocumenting.
You know, I’ve never been one to moan and grown about getting older. I’ve lived to get older since I was a little boy. I’ve always felt good about the kind of life I led because, despite not having attained certain things that society said I should have attained by any certain age, I had a lot of other things to compensate.
Lately, I don’t feel like that. My life has come to drastically existential point propelled by losing my job at Borders. It sounds so, dumb, to have put so much of oneself in a job like that but, sadly, I did. I don’t regret it because I enjoyed it and, for what it was worth, it was a notch above other retail jobs.
Lately, as I search for jobs. I find myself unwilling to be complacent about what I do but unable to assume the path I truly want. It’s not that I feel jobs are beneath me but, I am just unable to take things in stride. I want my life and the things I do in it to be meaningful. I had that but, now, I don’t.
I feel my age because I feel like I’m forced to start my life over again and I lack that same drive that I used to have when I was younger. My mindset is aggravated by being around so many younger folk who still have that drive and still see their future ahead of them as nothing buy awesomness.
I know a lot of this mindset is brought on by being unemployed or, marginally employed, and all that but I just can’t help it. I feel like an old dog trying to learn new tricks in a show I’m not familiar with.
How do you start over? I’ve always loved change but, it was always a feeling of moving forward. Right now, it doesn’t feel that way. If feels like I’ve come to the end of a road and don’t know where else to go.
Sigh, whatevs.
Tumblr is weird. Even after being on here for a couple years, I still feel like I don’t really get it. I feel like somebodies dad trying to be hep and cool for his kid’s friends and kind of almost hits the mark but not quite because, you know, I’m cool, but I just don’t quite get it the way they do.
