I'm an M-80. (Day 148)

This is the second short story I ever wrote, and it's one that honestly...when I wrote it, I think I finally found where it was I wanted to take this writing direction.

It's called twentyvolVe, and it's....one of the things I'm most proud of in my life. Not because I think it's the greatest thing ever written, it's just one of the most honest. It was the first time I made something out of nothing. It was the first time I was happy with how something turned out.

I really hope you like it. I do. I honestly do.

Have a safe Saturday.

-Aaron Hale.

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TwentyvolVe.

By Aaron Hale

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"Happy Birthday, Darling." said Michelle, from sleep ridden eyes, as she turned to hit the snooze button. Mumbled good mornings, avoided kisses, morning breath and all. Wake up, shower. Eat. Eat something nutritious, and well balanced. I should really get into shape, I'm getting to the age where its all going to catch up to me. Back to the bathroom. I brush my teeth this time around, I don't usually like to do it before I eat, the toothpaste residue really mucks up the whole flavor of burnt toast, and nearly-expired Orange juice. Really mucks it all up. Really.

I take a look into the mirror. Its not something I make a regular practice of, which might explain why I always look like hell. I've got bags under my eyes, packed with hours of lost sleep, and too many shots of bourbon. Oh. My. God. Its only Tuesday.

I'm 20 today. I don't feel 20. These gray hairs are a testament to that. Whatever. I'm not in high school, I don't have to impress anyone. I hear Michelle call from the doorway.

"Babe, where do you want to eat when I get off of work? Want me to make reservations, or anything?"

In my ear, theres a strange buzzing noise. I never pictured there to be a moment in my life, where I would be discussing reservations. How does life come to that? The buzzing grows louder, more defined, more high-pitched. I mumble off some reply, but apparently its sufficient.

"Love you babe. Catch you at four, birthday boy."

I don't feel like going to work. Its not that work is all that hard, or even that undesirable, I just DON'T. FEEL. LIKE. GOING. I'm not even dressed. Remarkable wardrobe of an old cotton black jacket, shirt I slept in, and underwear.

I flip on the television, inevitably, scouring the news. Bombing in a plaza, somewhere in some Eastern country. Women wailing, US troops marching off to war, finding something noble to die for. War. Theres a preacher being interviewed, dressed better than God himself, with more money on his wrist and fingers, than in my whole apartment, caustically providing a captive T.V audience with scriptures misquoted, or perverted. They eat it up, I've had enough.

I turn the channel to that one channel. You know that channel, don't you? The one with b-list celebrities being interviewed by hip, young nobodies. That heiress lady, you know the one, her name escapes my tongue...Shes on the tube. Shes hocking some fake smile. She looks. Like. Shes. Made. Of. Plastic, and the product of too many hours spent spritzing herself with tanning lotion. Shes condemning the paparazzi, and making sex tapes on the side.

That's enough television. Anymore entertainment, and I might just blow my brains out, and save the people at the newspaper some ink for my obituary.

I think I'm numb and tired enough for the working day now. I get dressed.

I don't drive. I don't see the point. Just another heartache, just another bill, just another emission cloud to deplete the sky from protection. Why not commute. I see the hypocrisy. Whatever.

I sit next to this kid, who smells like gasoline, and looks like he just attempted to fight the bus hes now riding. Did I forget to lock my door? Oh well. Not too much to steal. Maybe the idiot box, maybe my stereo, maybe Michelle's fancy shoes, and jewelry. Mistakes are made, police files are reported, life goes on.

This kid, hes listening to some abrasive metal band. Hes wearing a shirt from Led Zeppelin, and his jacket has a patch, for decoration and style, not for practicality. That's fine. I study his patches more, and read the list of bands names off--one strikes me in particular: REO Speedwagon. The two E's in Speedwagon are worn off. Is this the desired effect for irony, or something relevant to this kids genetic culture, his proverbial make-up? I could careless.

At the next stop, this older man with a brown bag of groceries gets on the bus. No one up front offers him a seat, and the bus drivers growing impatient, ready to hit the gas. Hes ready to fulfill his appointed schedule, and he'll be damned if this old guys gonna mess that up. Time. Is. Money.

Its kind of an edgy moment, at least for me. The old man approaches my aisle, and grasps diligently to the worn leather rung above him. Almost sensing the old man touch the rung, the pissed bus driver throws the bus into motion, off-setting the frail vertigo of the old man. He almost falls, and drops his bag of groceries. Apples, and oranges roll about, and the kid next to me snickers. I've had enough. I stand up and persist that the elderly man sit down, while I fumble on the God-forsaken floor trying to round up the rogue fruits. One of the apples is completely done for, as its covered in dirt, oil, what appears to be (and smells like) dog shit. Maybe its human shit. I've seen some really gross things happen on this bus. I dust off the fruits for the old man, and apologize. Where at the next stop, and a bunch of kids are about to board the bus.

To hell with this.

I get off the bus in a flash, as the old man says his gracious thanks. Much obliged, old man. Much obliged.

I'm only about a quarter of a mile to work now. Might as well walk it.

While I'm walking to work, I pass this school yard. I don't ever, In my entire time of having lived here, remember seeing this school yard. I check Michelle's cell phone for the time. I don't have a cell phone, and she insists I use hers. She has two, and I completely think that's over kill. I've got another forty minutes to be at work. I sit on a bus bench, and watch the kids playing in the play ground.

Theres this kid who stands out. Its hard for kids to really stand out, when they are young, because they all kind of the same, unless they're your own, you know? But this kid, he stands out. Hes playing basketball, well, rather, trying. Every time he shoots, he hits the underside of the rim, and it reverberates throughout the small playground. Its okay, he keeps trying. The thing I like about his playing--the thing I like about basketball in general, is that he keeps moving, and most of the time, passes the ball to other kids. Hes going to be under appreciated his entire life, because he passes the ball.

I get up and go into a near by convenience store. Four bucks for a gallon of Milk? Real fucking convenient. I should pick some up on the way home. I get an energy drink, they're my newest vice. Oh well. As I'm walking out, there's this gal pumping gas into her black Suburban. Shes a soccer mom in training, if shes not one already. I wonder if that's whats in store for Michelle. I shudder at the thought of Mortgages, picket fences, 2 kids, a Labrador, and an SUV. I don't know why. I wonder if she knows this yet.

As I walk in through the door of work, I'm greeted with a few coy smiles, birthday wishes, and a list of duties to do for the day. I crack open the energy drink, and get lost for hours in writing reports, and make sure numbers match up. Production is high, morale is way low. Periodically, I glance at a music site I occasionally write for. Not much has been updated, but I re-read old reviews.

Its 2:45. Its time to go home. Somehow I still have most of the energy drink remaining in its now room temperature can. I don't like to waste things, so I take it with me. As I'm nearly out the door, I'm wished a few more birthday quotes. Its all garbage, celebrating a day of birth, really.

Back on the bus. I don't even remember getting on it, or waiting for it, for that matter. I sit the energy drink on my knee, and mildly glance at the advertisements posted on the bus. Theres a sign, that always, for some unknown reason, irritates me. Maybe you know the one I'm talking about, its the one that says, "Smile, your on camera". Something about that is so horribly condescending, it grates my last nerve. Also, I think its bullshit, because they'd catch the filthy person(s) letting there dogs, or themselves, shitting on the public transportation. Whatever.

I look at the window, and there's that school. That kids sitting out front, alone. Hes looking at this little girl, who you can tell is going to be a knock-out one day. She doesn't notice him, but you can tell she doesn't mean to be callous, she just doesn't notice him. You can tell hes hurt by it too. Hes going to be under appreciated all of his life, because he passes the ball.

I've been lost in thought for a couple of minutes now, when something rolls, and hits my foot. I look down, and its that same apple, and it has seen better days.

I get off at my stop, and make it back home. Before I enter the door, I check the mail. Theres a few cards in there, some junk, something that Michelle ordered off some website, and probably a cell phone bill or two. It depresses me to no end, so I leave it there. I check the time. 3:48.

I get inside, and immediately set the energy drink in the fridge. Theres a blinking light on the telephone, probably a few missed calls. I'm not in any mood to facilitate a recorded version of people I know. I pop in a mix Cd, and lay down on the couch. I just stare at the ceiling, for what feels like hours, and for some reason, I'm comfortable with that. Watching the paint dry.

Michelle walks in. Shes utterly, and devastatingly beautiful. Perspiration beading from her forehead slightly, thumbing through the mail I left in the box, as her hair falls into her eyes. Devastatingly. BEAUTIFUL. Am I aroused, I don't know. Do I want to be? Maybe, but I know whats coming up next.

"Baby...did you check the mail when you got home."

I mumble off the truth.

"Well, I mean, goddamn, David, I meant...God damn. Why just leave it out there, you know people might steal it. And anyways, you got some birthday cards, here's one from my Aunt Rose, here's one from your parents, and one from my mom and dad. Maybe you got some loot."

I shrug.

"Okay...well, shit, leave your attitude out there with YOUR mail, my mail order perfume came in today. Do you know how much this costs? David? Look at me. I'm trying to tell you that the reason we have a mail box, is for the convenience of having the mail delivered at home, instead of messing with that whole sticky mess at the post office. Dianne was down there last month, and she nearly got mugged on the way inside by some loser begging for change. Is that what you want to put up with?"

Shes anal. Very anal. There are two ways that this conversation could go--I could rationally explain to her that the mail gets delivered at ten in the morning, and both of us are at work, leaving our precious mail cargo unprotected from the sanctity of our rental, or I could fumble a haphazard apology, and let her finish rubbing my nose in it. I choose, wisely, the latter. Truthfully, Id rather take my chances with the mugger, than her.

She can be pretentious, she can be funny, she can be charming, and she can be unruly. I don't really know what to think about it all. Its a little heavy, in all honesty. I make my way to the bathroom, to take a shower. Maybe a bath. Maybe forget it all, and just read.

While I'm in there, I hear her play the messages on the phone. All of a sudden I hear her walking down the hall, a woman possessed. My ex girlfriend has left me a message on the phone, and now, I'm going to pay. I'm fully dressed in my birthday suit, and I turn off the shower, desperately trying to grab a towel. She walks in, and berates me about the whole situation.

She then realizes I'm stark nude. Some how, testicles and an exposed buttocks diffuse the situation, as water is still beaded on me.

We make love for an hour. During the course of it all, I stand above her, behind her, lay beneath her, her beneath me, and bite my lip. She is devastatingly beautiful, and right now, completely uninhibited.

Shes done. I'm done. I just want to lay face down on the bed, floor, whatevers closest, and close my eyes. Fat chance, its time to rush to get ready for some birthday bash, at some restaurant. We have reservations.

Dinner in a dark room. Its as pretentious as Michelle could be. Its quiet. And...God...its so dark in here. I order some chicken concoction, and prepare to over pay, for some burnt bird. Darkened as they call it.

"Don't you just love it here David? God, the ambiance of it, the serenity...much better than that dirty taco place you frequent. You know, you and I could benefit from eating a little better. God knows we're not about to get any younger.

My sentiments exactly, darling. She orders some sushi, a bottle of wine, and a salad. She also ordered me a salad.

We eat dinner, and converse about work. Shes in love with our situations. Working all day, coming home and watching some stupid sit-com. We used to watch interesting movies, watch amazing bands, and play video games. We don't anymore.

"David. I want to ask you something. You know how we used to go to that one place, next to the church, to watch those bands?"

I'm interested. Maybe we'll be getting out a little bit, at least out of this stuffy place.

"Well, I was thinking--" She pauses, and bites her lower lip. I know whats next. She smiles, theres love in her smile, there's love, and commitment in her eyes. "Would that church be an ideal place..." she trails off. Its like watching some mixed up, slow motion disaster, because in my guts, I know whats next. I know it, and I almost hate her for it.

She pulls out that box, that one from mail order earlier. The wheels are turning in my head, and I can almost mouth the words. Its unnatural, the reversed order of this.

She takes a sip of wine, and removes two rings, and places on on her ring finger, and then takes my hand. That ringings back, and the wine just hit me hard.

"Will you marry me."

The waiter delivers the salad. Thank God for that.

Shes on a mission, and holds my hand tighter, to regain my attention.

I think about swallowing my tongue. Biting part of it off, and swallowing my tongue. I just..nod, and somehow say yes. I hate it.

Its a swirl. The rest of the night.

The next moment I can grasp, I'm laying in bed. Michelle is facing me, and kisses my shoulder. Her breasts are exposed, and I have a sinking feeling that we fucked, and I don't even know it. Shes devastating.

"Good night again baby, and happy birthday David, I love you very, very, very much" She kissed my lips, and turns off the lamp.

The time is 10. I was born at 11:46 in the evening. Its not even my birthday yet.

That when I take out a pen, and a pad. Thats how you're reading this now.

Look at it this way...I'm writing this by the iridescent glow of the street lights below. We live in a second story rental of a duplex apartment. The basics, what do you want to know? I write this with a shakey mind, and low confidence, clinging to the last hour and forty-six moments of my teenage life. Sadly, this is the only life I've ever been cognizant of.

A life, that one, in my mind, stands to reason that was very memorable, if not for the pain, and past, is now complete.

I write this to you, with no knowledge of the present time before me, basically no knowledge at all, armed with fleeting hope, and vague contempt mixed for the future, and for humanity as a whole. Maybe as humans we're susceptible to frantic kicks, flailing arms, and shallow breaths, holding onto the past memories we've accrued, desperately trying to stay above the surface with them, if only for a brief interval, we're too tired to continue.

I've got this theory that I recently adopted. Our lives, do in fact have meaning, thats almost irrevocably undeniable. However, I think collectively, we've got time limits make meaning, to do so. Very. Short. Microscopic intervals.

Twenty. Thats the key. Its the key to all things relevant, and also irrelevant as well.

Here for instance, is what I suggest in its fullest: They say that a song has twenty seconds of instrumentation before the vocals kick in. Before the average listener, to the average pop song, loses interests in the melody beforehand.

You get twenty seconds of sound clips, in the news media. Twenty seconds of ideas, or quotes from the most prominent figures of our society, to digest, to formulate an opinion off of.

A movie has about twenty critical minutes to formulate a satisfying plot before the viewer walks out.

Sponsorship of your average television show, the half hour show...The sponsorship takes up an average of ten minutes of the programing.

It takes twenty years for a new generation to arrive.

My theory is this: You live your life in twenty year periods, increments, and at the end of those twenty years, you effectively die. Then you resurrect, you evolve into something radically different.

It brings me back to the beginning of it all. What would you ever want to know about me, if anything at all, that you couldn't conclude from your own observations? Would I ever be able to do myself justice?

Truth is. I wouldn't tell you if I could. The absolute truth is...I COULDN'T tell you. I'll be dead in an hour and forty six minutes.

*Editors note* This was written on October 10th, 2006. I just wanted you to know that for some reason.

-Until tomorrow.

I wanna be on the beach of Mexico, smoking refer and doing big lines of blow. (Day 147)

Sometimes it only takes a song that's barely two minutes long on repeat, hard, fast and loud. Angry, sexy and proud. An anthem; every word you were fucking searching for, but could even muster.

And when that happens, it hits you between the skull, drops you to your knees and floods you in aural salvation. Not even God on his best day could come close.

"When that hammer cracks your skull every day, you're bound to break."

So when did it become that we live only to exist, instead of existing solely to live happily? I know the hippies might have asked that question, but they were too stoned to follow up on it.

From every day forth, from this point on....It's looking good outside. The weather I mean.

It's looks like a nice day for a revolution.

Because god damn it, when that guitar solo kicks in, you better be ready to feel like those melting notes are coming from the fingertips of someone just as frustrated and defiant.

"My tale is told inside my broken bones."

You know something? I can relate to that. From my busted to shit hand, to my knee to my shoulder, to the crazy mute voices in my head. That's the story right there. I live in the desert, I didn't feel like scrawling it in the sand.

It can be something small. Like waking up to a five dollar footlong, made specifically the way you like it. It can be a track so short and sweet and fast...

This is an earfull, yeah you might say I'm much too young to die.

The rest is academic.


I just don't care if I pass certain classes.


-Until tomorrow.

I wanna riot, riot on my own. (Day 146)

Did anyone watch the Presidents speech last night, and feel like he's just a good tap dancer? Like he's the goddamned Governors son?

I'm all about hating Fox. But with him not allowing them to even ASK questions undermines the sanctity of free speech, no matter if they were willing to air their coverage or not. I don't care if that's not a popular opinion, it undermines what this country is about, and what a President like Obama has claimed to be against all this time.

I'm pleased with some of his policies, I feel he's gotten a shit load more accomplished in 100 days than Bush did in 200. I truly feel that. I feel he can be direct, but he's abusing his power in equally corrupt ways, and no ones calling him on it because he's a rock star with a real job!

Everyone is content right now. I feel slowly and surely he's implementing government where it shouldn't be, despite how badly the motor corporations fucked up...it's not the governments place to try to stick a band aid on it. He didn't really have a right to give the money out that quickly either.

If we're gonna evolve as a society, we need to call a spade a fucking spade. Even if it is against someone who's as charming as he is. Only one journalist, amongst the others who were to smitten by his charisma, had the balls enough to try and hold the President accountable for ducking around a question. It makes me feel good to be alive that someone has the guts to do that still, even when we're all afraid.

But the rest of the chicken-shit so-called left wing journalists danced under his puppet wires. I don't hate Obama, and fuck the notion of ever being a Republican. I'll even go so far as to say I do not regret voting for him. But these are only cosmetic changes, not foundation changes. You can only slap a new coat of paint over an old statue so many times without stripping it down prior before everything starts to peel and you lose everything.

Where's the accountability?

-Until tomorrow.

The looniest, zaniest, spontaneous, sporadic. Impulsive thinker, compulsive drinker; Addict. (Day 145)

So as promised, I'm here to give the unveiling of my new project, called Nice Day For a Revolution.

It's hard to explain entirely, and right now I'm tired. But I really want everyone to go check it out. It's an experiment, and as far as I can tell...no one else has tried this. It's going to be a bunch of series of people who, basically partake in a type of revolution. Be it love, death, political, sexuality or escaping the confines of the American Dream to live life in a way that's beautiful and ugly all in one shot.

I can't say how long this is going to go for. But my goal is to have this be completely free. However, if anyone wants to do a DONATION to have a tangible copy of any of the stories, then please please please get a hold of me. This is my way of trying to do something a little differently.

I'm really curious to see how this goes.

I'll explain more tomorrow. Right now I'm too exhausted.

Click that link and leave a comment.

-Until tomorrow.

The kindness of a stranger, or a trick of the trade? God knows I'm not the first mistake that she's made. (Day 144)

Tomorrow I want to tell you about a new project I'm under taking. I'm very excited about it.

Every year I try to reread Catcher in the Rye. Ever since I read it, I completely related to it on a level I didn't before. It's one of the only books I consistently reread, and each time it still feels like the first time, or at least some kind of fuzzy memory that actually happened to me so long ago.

Last night I wound up making a few fun mistakes, and finished cleaning up my room and decided now, after all that's been happening and everything that's been going on in my life, that now was probably one of the most precise and perfect times to reread Catcher.

The thing about it, why I reread it (I'm getting sick of using that word) is to see how much, if at all, I've progressed since I last cracked it open. There's a draw to that book that I can't really say I have that with many books, and none of the books I feel an intimate draw towards has this specific draw. There's something of a sleeper rebellion begging to be seen, it's the one book that will always defy time and age. I truly believe that. I truly believe that within those pages lays a character so goddamned engaging, timeless and direct...

Most protagonists are built up in such a way, you'd think they were the offspring of Jesus Christ. They shit gold and it smells like roses dipped in CK One. Nothing they do is wrong or flawed. That's not engaging, that's not personal, and while sometimes that makes for a good read it doesn't have the staying power as Catcher's Holden.

Other times the writer tries to make the protagonist the worst guy or girl you could imagine, and then somewhere along the line your supposed to fall head over heals in love with the sap, and all is well and fine. Again, sometimes that's cool to read but it isn't a declaration to something that's going to live well past the moment you hit 'enter' and submitted it to the literary world.

But Salinger doesn't try any of that with Holden. Instead, he just presents a character that's caught in a phase and state of mind that's so difficult to remove yourself from. A quite literal madman, and victim of his circumstances. That's something I can relate to. That invisible wall is one day I face all the time, and wish to cross but have no clue what to do. I'm still waiting to be an adult, and rarely realize that, "Oh shit...I'm 23."

And I get that sense from Holden, too. He's caring and empathetic, but not about himself at all. He stands on his own two feet, and when he's done with something...he searches for something to make sure that's the end, and just moves along.

I had a person very close to me for many years. She used to say I had the Holden Syndrome. I wish I still had the story she wrote about me, because it kind of broke my heart, but the way she wrote it, at that time showed how she cared and felt about me. It's a weird moment for a writer to have something written about him, in the terms of fiction. It's something I wish I could find, because I'd actually love to post it.

It was my birthday, which...birthdays aren't really my thing. My own birthday, I mean. Yours is okay. I'm fine with yours, and if I have the dough, I'd love to buy you a round. You deserve it. You really do.

But the character, I shouldn't say it was me exactly, but the character based on me, it was his birthday. He keeps recalling these whirlwind moments, and the girl based off of her. He keeps wishing he knew the right things to say to her, because she's left his life romantically, but instead at the end of the story he shrugs his shoulders as he enters his party and says, "Oh well. I hope there's cake."

And I don't know. From a purely observational stand point, I could see what she was saying about the character, and ultimately me. It was almost like a...plea to see this, and to snap out of it, but an ultimate knowledge that the character himself was doomed from the start. That some of us are lost causes, and yet somehow we still manage to stick out sometimes.

I feel like I've matured exponentially. I know that there's a long road ahead, and a lot of things that I need to accomplish soon. I can't say I no longer feel like that book is prophecy, that at one point it was but now...it isn't as much.

And there's a part of me that longs for that nostalgia of when I was 15 and read that book for the first time. How it hit me like a hammer, and I found myself searching for every "Fuck You" painted everywhere, and trying to scratch it out.

There's a part of me that wants to hold tight to that feeling, and strangle every second out of it, and not make a single change along the way. To absorb it deeper, and relish the fact that even though these are mistakes...all the phonies who say things like "grand" still meant more to me than the air I breathe. That I've been taken for everything I was worth from a hooker, and all I wanted to do was talk. That I had to pay someone to just listen, and not fuck. That some pimp put me on my ass. To cross every street on a gray day, and feel like every street that I was crossing, that I was disappearing.

I've went down this road. Not even intentionally, but I realize it later on. I just haphazardly wind up drunk on park benches at midnight when it's freezing, and having no idea how I'm getting home. Constantly feeling depressed, or that my mind was violently slipping away.

It's a revolution that keeps replaying, and keeps finding it's mark nearly 60 years after it's creation. This is scripture, this is the bible, and this is a warning sign of what can lay in front of me. A cautionary tale that you can't help but love for everything it's worth, and then some. It's sin and salvation in 214 pages.

Holden Caufield was right. You could spend an entire lifetime trying to erase every "Fuck You" in the world, and never even begin to make a dent in it.

-Until tomorrow.

If I fight and if her army falls to my fire, she will be the only war I come home from. (Day 144)

Long nights are killer nights.

This medication is not working right. It was, but now I just...either the levels are entirely too low, or this is completely wrong medication for me. It's so hard not to wind up wanting to just give up entirely on this entire thing. At least I gave it the old college try.

I'm not as optimistic as I wanted to be. Before, I could just look back and know my corner had someone that would stand with me against whatever army would be presented. Not that I'd ever really ask for back up, or anything, but it was the comfort in knowing that I could.

Today was a really big day for me. All I've worked for for God knows how many years. And the outcome is that I really, really need an agent, and I don't like that idea. But, what're you gonna do? Maybe I could have one for a while, get myself established, and then cut the cord. But for the time being, somehow I have to get an agent, which I don't know anything about...but I know is probably something really expensive, and money right now is not something I have any money for. I don't have any money, period. Even working a full time job, I wouldn't. I have no fucking clue what I should or could do.

To break it down, since I've had my meeting with them and everything:

Shitty movies can change your life. Trust me.

I was sitting and watching a movie with a friend of mine, and she turned to me, and maybe it was the booze talking, because I don't have enough talent to turn on a motion activated light switch, but she turns to me and says, "Aaron, you could do so much better than this. So much better than anything else we see."

And God save me, I truly did believe it at the time, because well...oh, I'm drunk at that moment. So we go with it, and we contact this movie studio who you may have heard of, may have not, I don't know.

Turns out they reciprocated my initial contact, and were interested in at least hearing me out.

So you flash forward to today, and I'm speaking with people who have more money in their wallet on a little plastic card marked "debit" that I ever have, or ever will. We're talking, and it's going well, and then they ask who is my representation. I reply, uh...you're talking to him.

Unfortunately, they can't accept ideas that don't have the proper representation. So it's not a bad thing, nor a good thing. It is what it is, and in order to properly fail, I have to have some dude in a suit sitting with me waiting for his next pittance from me. That's it, basically.

But the thing is, today should have been nerve wracking. It should have been terrifying and exciting, but speaking to these guys I remembered that I'm not a half bad actor myself, in that I couldn't give a shit less to what they said but still came across excited and happy and I wasn't nervous at all. It just doesn't matter to me what happens with that. I've got nothing to prove to myself or anyone else, not because I'm oh so accomplished...but more of...

What's the point? Who cares? Who honestly cares? Especially when I don't.

And it kind of sucks, in a sense? Because a year ago, three months ago...this is what I wanted more than anything. And now, to finally be talking to some one, and being put on the right direction, and having that 'feeling' where if you just put forth the effort, it'll come to fruition...not enjoying that, or being nervous and excited, it kind of sucks. It kind of sucks to be talking to the dudes responsible for American Psycho, Saw, Weeds, Dogma and of course...the beloved "Madea" series, and them telling you all these good things, and what to do to approach that next step, and be so...meh about it.

Who knows? Maybe I'll get some agent and fail properly. Or I'll get some agent and be able to pay bills one day. We'll see, I guess.

-Until tomorrow.

Don't worry brother this will blow over. (Day 143)

I hope everyone had a good weekend.

I drank entirely too much this weekend. I'm fairly certain I may take a little break-y poo. My poor liver is screaming. I guess I wound up calling two people last night, and I don't even remember doing so.

So I may be heading to Kentucky and a few other States next month. God bless the Heartland. I'm going to set it on fire.

See ya on the road!

-Until tomorrow.