Halloween

To whoever reads this, Happy Halloween. As it falls on a Saturday this year, I'm sure that the NYPD are having just as much fun as the kids.

I like Halloween, which is more than I can say for most holidays that revolve around candy. I've always liked it, it gave me a chance to be someone else for a while. Someone more fun, someone fantastic. It gave me a way out of my monotony. I'm a geek, and always have been, so the costumes I remember best are Beetlejuice, a random Star Trek officer, and Hagrid (as an adult). Each is so far removed from myself for that one day that I couldn't be more pleased to be them for a time. This year I chaperoned one of my brothers in his candy hunting, and my costume was: myself, with a shovel.

I told the people that asked that I was a gravedigger, as this gives me an excuse to carry one with me. The practicality of it allows me to protect my brother should anyone want to start trouble, as well as not really need to change at all. Yesterday, I was a pirate. The only real difference is an eye patch.

I don't want to be removed from myself anymore, over however long it's taken, I've come to like who I am enough not to want to be someone else, even for a day. I wanted a costume that was similar to myself, but none seem to really exist. So, I got around this problem.

Really, the holiday's only alive these days to sustain candy and costume companies (I'm sure they supply many jobs. There's an idea - make up a new bullshit holiday with a lot of stuff involved, have new jobs to make all that stuff. Economy's saved!), but it goes much deeper than that when it comes to feeding a child's imagination [good thing] and the level of apathetic escapism in adults [bad thing].

There's a reason why so many women show up to Halloween parties looking like they crawled out of a bad porno film. There's a reason why so many men model themselves after the punchlines to jokes they told when they were twelve. Attention through being someone else for the day. Don't find yourself attractive in some way? Today's the day you can turn all that around (for a day)! Wear that foam suit that makes you into a "fart detector," wear that cleavage-inducing corset that you wouldn't even see in a Renaissance Faire. Women love guys that are funny, guys love women with big tits. Instant appeal!

Fuck you. You're ruining the spirit of the day. You're nearly as bad as the people that slip razor blades into Carmel apples and give me reason to chaperon with a shovel.

This isn't to say that all costumes are out of spirit, or even to say that all of the costumes that might fall occasionally into the category above are bad. It's the intention that matters. Not to hurt any one's already fragile self esteem, but seriously. Instead of pretending to be something you're not, why not become something you'd rather be?

We all pick our costumes because there's a trait somewhere that we identify with, and many more that we wish we had. You like that the hero in some story is brave and rugged, and they have the same snarky sense of humor you do. Why not try things you're afraid of? Why not work on overcoming your own apprehension?

Happy Halloween kids. Check your candy before you eat it.

Apathy Posting #1

Tonight I'm feeling uninspired. This is nothing new. I'm known by many to have alternating bouts of apathy and productivity. Tonight's not going to be a terribly fruitful night.

I just erased five paragraphs worth of rant about holidays to type this line. They weren't very good, redundant and uninteresting. I commented that I hate most holidays, except Halloween, New Year's Eve, and Thanksgiving. The others can lick an ox's scrotum, generally. The reasoning was long winded, and didn't much matter.

Sometime soon, I'll write one of the blogs I promised months ago. There were three topics I've slapped out in conversation in the past that must eventually be written about, and one's coming up soon. Probably Monday, when the weekend's let me un-think my mind out of the corner it's squarely settled into right now.

Now, despite the lack of drive and content, I'm no longer a hypocrate (in this instance). I tell others to work through the sloth, and whatever comes simply is. Tonight, this just is. Something good's coming to make up for it. I promise this to myself.

Playing Dead in Oncoming Traffic

Today on the way to a shuttle bus my college offers to a main hub for the area, my friends and I found a possum running along the campus center's walls. We decided to follow it with a flash light, wondering where it was going to go. After a relatively short moment it halted and we could clearly make out it's unseasonably large torso. It was probably pregnant, otherwise it wouldn't've been as likely to run like it did afterward. Our intent was never to hurt it, only to study. The observation as it ran away after staying still in a flashlight beam was more than enough to consider the study successful.

This pregnant possum probably went to a hole somewhere, likely the back of the campus center, and told its family all about the evening. It probably discussed the way it was stalked, and how it valiantly fought off the horrible ape-beasts. It would've brought the bodies back as evidence, but several others came out to pull the corpse away to prevent vultures from stealing the remains. It was a hell of a fight though, that much can be said.

We all exaggerate the stories in our everyday life in conversation, it's too easy not to. With spoken words, they don't linger on the page for readers to break apart. With spoken words, they're gone in an instant after conception. Exaggeration allows them to linger longer in the air, and hopefully imprint the desired effect on the mind of your listener. That effect is always in your favor. You wouldn't describe your misstep during a "DONT WALK" sign as your negligence nearly getting you hit by a car. You'd say that some crazy asshole nearly plowed you down, and you had to jump out of the way.

Whenever it can be helped, I personally feel that this kind of blatant horse shit should be avoided at all costs. I could've said the possum attacked us, or that it looked rabid, or any number of other plausable lies. I elected not to, because I have a conscience.

Tonight I lack the inspiration to write. I probably terrified a mother-to-be nearly into labor, I don't feel I've earned the voice tonight.

Day Two

So far there is a distinct absence of failure. I'm posting again, and it's still recent and relevant to the previous one. Suck it, apathy.

I'm a geek, and I'm quite proud of it. I know this because I fawn over the technical aspects of upcoming video games while I try to compose a list of influential graphic novelists to pretend is definitive. Said list is far from complete, and right now mostly consists of Frank Miller, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Jeff Smith. These folks are proper reflections of my reading tastes, and I suppose my tastes in most other media. I could write several paragraphs about each author's unique style and how it relates to the human condition (therefore to myself), but at present I don't really see the need. Any following I'm likely to develop will probably either know who these people are, have the sense to look them up, or stopped caring once they realized that "graphic novelist" doesn't mean "people that write sex and violence and cannibalism," (even if these are all evident in Frank Miller's work. I think the more important trend to get from this list is the overarching genres each tends to fall into.

These five authors are all heroes of mine, and each represents something different about the way I see life. Jeff Smith has the ability to present complicated concepts in a way that anyone can understand and sympathize with, without getting tedious and preachy. Neil Gaiman presents the unusual in natural ways, allowing the audience to cope with the adversity in a more civilized manner. Alan Moore encourages the readers to pierce the conventions of normalcy that skew true vision, even/especially when said conventions are so huge that we miss them in everyday life. Grant Morrison asks questions that no one ever wishes to ask, and provides insight into the queries that all have but few ever ask in sanity. Frank Miller shows the gritty, animalistic side of all humans, especially those who are so "civilized" that their humanity rides solely on the perceptions of all other humans around them.

I generally didn't have comic books as a child, I discovered each of these authors within the last half decade or so, some as recently as this past month. This isn't nostalgia talking, it's practical research and pragmatic logic. If it were nostalgia, you wouldn't know what the hell I was typing about when I reference Zen: The Intergalactic Ninja. Comics aren't for kids, but when they get them, kids pretend they are.

I should start writing a graphic novel soon. Fundamentally, this is very different from a comic. Comics, as inherent in the title, are supposed to have punchlines. I want to write something deeper than a few throw away jokes on some throw away characters. I don't want it to be "Two guys walk into a bar... PUNCHLINE!" (This one works better in person, accompanied by a jab to the nose.) I want it to be "To guys walk into a bar in Israel... five minutes later, it ceases to exist." No nonsense, only the gravity of a situation and just enough quips to make it digestible to the reader.

There is just enough nonsense in the five heroes above's work to make the intense nature of the stories told bearable to the average person. Monsters craving quiche give way to discourse over materialism and fear mongering. The happy appearance of the campy villain from the 60's provides cover for the unraveling of all of space-time through God's boredom. The humor provides a lift so the readers can stay on point for the trauma yet to ensue.

I've got to try it. There's no drawback, there is only progress. And quiche.

Let's try this again.

Over the past few years I've attempted a blog 9 times that I can remember, each failing from eventual lack of activity. I can't say with certainty that this attempt will go anywhere, this may well be my only post. I hope it isn't, but I'm fully prepared for this go to fail too.

My name is Andrew, and I'm a writer. I specifically write creative nonfiction (don't let the sirens in your head go off - if I were to pepper my work with lies before I'm even known, how would that save my career?), though I've been known to dabble in short plays, poetry, and occasionally terrible fiction. I'm finishing a BA in creative writing at an underrated school in the CUNY system. There's a good many people who would disagree about this, but this good many is mostly composed of folks who would've done the world a better service through being thrown down a flight of stairs at a young age.

I don't want to overwhelm you with information in the very first entry, especially as most introductions to these things I've written have been unrelated to my attempts after at a meaningful literary foray. My tone can't ever be anything but casual online in my own journal. I can speak and write in whatever tone I choose... except when I'm actually trying to say something. Then the naturally fitting speech emerges, and I can't restrain it.

That said, in the event that this is my only post on this blog ever, I'd like to thank you for reading it so far. I'm sure it's as interesting to you as wood chips to an armadillo, and you have my undying gratitude for keeping up this far. If you stopped reading when I made that crack about throwing children down flights of stairs, then I suppose it doesn't matter what I say about you at this point. Bastards.

I used to end these things with a snippy little send off, like I was some sort of news figure with an awesome following. "Love, luck, and leverage." Sure, they're all useful, but each will only get you so far. Love has earned it's place in many people's [insert location here], and most folks these days are looking to get lucky in some way or another. Leverage is a little more tricky. It could be a wish for you to get the upper hand in the questionable situations you may encounter in life, say several of my old readers (in this case, friends who used to follow what I wrote because I would ask their opinions after. It quickly became a love/hate relationship with many.) Others have insinuated that it's in a political context, though this seems far fetched. If I cared about politics, I would've tried to join The Onion. In reality, it was just a wish for traction on snowy days. Look how that one took off.

Treads on boots, lady luck, and that "four letter word," - all useful, to a point. When the weather improves, all the leverage in the world will only make you seem like an overbearing ogre. Lady luck, in experience to date, is a two timing whore that will jump ship as soon as you decide to try to embrace her. Love turns out to be the only thing of the three that doesn't even really exist in itself, but only in others and in conjunction with yourself. Even then, if you're a nihilist or a politician, it doesn't exist at all. They're all limited in scope.

This revelation leaves me dead in a raft for how to end posts like this, or even if they should ever end. You're still here, so that's got to count for something. Should it ever end?

I don't think I should ever end th