company secrets

previously published by me elsewhere:

It was about twelve hours into our trip to New York that I heard the news about the television show I've been working on. The word cancelled didn't come up, nor did the less stifling "permanent hiatus", but it appeared that I wasn't going to come back from our trip to another week of racing drama. Sure, we'd been on "break" from shooting for a number of weeks, but it seemed as though we were caught coping with one of those communication breakdowns.

I had joined the show partially on a whim, as well as due to the good graces of one of the producers. As I slowly shook off the shock of several miserable episodes and a concept that hardly sounds like my stein of beer I really took a shine to the work and to the crew I was working with, only to now feel like it has taken the same turn as several other projects I've devoted myself to.

Granted I was only working for peanuts and two predictable meat and potatoes meals. Maybe all I really have to show for my time is a silly baseball cap I wore for protection from the outdoors and swarms of gnats, a couple of blackened toenails, and a deep farmer's tan, but it still felt like something stable and worth my time. It's too bad certain key people had other intentions in mind, which I would gladly go into had I not signed away my life with all of that obligatory legal paperwork.

. . . leavin' today

previous published by me elsewhere:

The distinct stench of Fritos put up a fight against the mint scented chewing gum occasionally sticking to my dental work that I was using to keep my ear pressure at bay. The air conditioner blew what felt like the exhales of every unhealthy passenger that had spent time inside the cabin, or at least that's how my mildly hypochondriatic tendencies see it.

As the flight began its decent into the New York area, I could feel my heart palpitate a different rhythm as I was overcome by childlike giddiness as ant-size New York and northern New Jersey came into view. Through the smudged window I could see the tightly constructed residential neighborhoods and industrial regions with their railroad tracks headed in multiple directions like something out of the original version of SimCity.

Once on the ground the quick paced movement, rather foreign to the laidback Florida sensibilities I feel surrounded by, feels so full of purpose and intent. New York represents regular life, only amplified, and I happily became a part of it as we moved to the front of the line that was waiting for a taxi into the city. As the cab jerked in and out of traffic on the Long Island Expressway (L.I.E.) my eyes were wide, taking it all in since our visit was going to be all too brief.

As we drove into Brooklyn every turn became reminiscent of a sequence from a Woody Allen film, easily imagining the leaves falling behind two or three people immersed in intellectual conversation. Walking along those same streets later on felt exceedingly unreal to me, as if I was stepping along a Hollywood back lot. However, the spuriously blown trash on the ground and the chained up potted planters were recognizably the sort of details Tinseltown tends to neglect.

For me there's such a romanticism, mystique, and sensual allure to city life to the point that I often overlook the very ordinary things that go on everywhere. Even still it doesn't make me feel any less interested in becoming a face in that ever-growing crowd.

flight patterns

previously published by me elsewhere:

Like something lifted directly from some hackneyed, non-invasive, mainstream stand-up comedy routine of the mid-eighties, Friday saw the wife and I standing in line at the airport. Yes, that old standby punch line for when housewives and the family pet are already booked elsewhere sneaks its way into my writing.

We were slowly shuffled through like some perverse beef cattle ride into Disney, stripped down to our socks and bare feet, shaken empty of loose change, gum wrappers, and other shiny objects that might entice us to do evil. What other place would your shoes come off and all of your private pocket possessions be placed into a plastic bin for close examination? Oh, yeah, probably prison. Thank you Homeland Security!

On the other side of the X-ray machine and personal parcel conveyer belt everything seems such a blur. The sedative begins to take effect, and we're left stumbling about aimlessly like an infant who's just learned to walk, in awe of big crowds and shiny things, roaming about with a minimal sense of direction. It's as if you come to the airport and unlearn all of the knowledge and common sense you possess outside those walls.

We give up absolute control and offer our trust to these strangers in form-fitting fashion faux-pas, hoping they won't drop us out of the sky once we're picked up and pray we'll be brought our snack and blanky before we get too cranky.

What a strange, infantile, semi-humiliating experience to pay money for.

starting oveur

previously published by me elsewhere:

Surely I exaggerate, but I feel as though everyone around me is having a career crisis, as if it's the epidemic of the day.

Now I'm no foreigner to such an event over the years, being what I am. Depending heavily upon my strength of self-esteem I have called myself the likes of that all-encompassing artist, the gorgeously noncommittal filmmaker, the simplistic misunderstood writer, as well as opposite of "this" (i.e. this day job isn't really what I am).

And all of this has been on the chopping block at one time or another. However I have completely no idea what I would have given it all up for, since without my aspirations I don't really know who I am.

But as suspect as this following of dreams really is, not everyone has that to turn to in times of inner-crisis. Some people's job-related dreams don't involve long periods of unemployment. Image that!

There are some people who believe in the concrete, and don't let everything they choose to do merely satisfy whims of one's ego. There are realistic hopes and dreams that relate to a work environment fulfilling one's ideals, whether it's how it affects society, the structure of management, or the intelligence and compatibility of one's co-workers. Like in any relationship, if you can't find what's important to your core you're bound to go elsewhere.

The new is interesting. The new is different. There's something about, as they say, the new and improved and clearing the proverbial slate that is both invigorating and terrifying.

When I was in middle school, and even high school, I used to wish I could move away. I longed to go somewhere no one knew me so I could make a better, improved first impression on everyone. I felt so ill-placed in my own little world that practically becoming somebody else would make it all better. I suppose I am simply my own cross to bear, regardless how unnatural this notably religious metaphor lays upon my shoulders.

I guess it was like after college, when I moved back to the Orlando area. Besides being where I essentially grew up, it had been the hot spot for my sordid early college adventures, so to speak. Obviously it would offer more than the quiet, little Gainesville. Clearly there was a good reason to return.

Well, yes and no.

Three years later and it was right back to Gainesville, which was far more a daunting change than Orlando for me. It felt like running back to the simple life from a failure in the "big city", and even worse was moving there simultaneously with my sister's family as they sought a place to put down roots. Roots! That's what happens when you've seen the world, and it's time to settle down.

Around that time, I had chatted with a close family friend about the transition back to the old, the overly familiar, and she quoted the old saying about entering the same river twice (Heraclitus, by the way).

I have a friend who went north a few years ago, and has been seriously considering returning "home" to Florida. Its human nature, or at least harshly American to see the failure, the animal with its tail between it legs, in such retrograde.

Over the weekend I had a conversation with a friend, which included our seemingly outlandish thoughts of relocating to Canada. Then someone at a party was talking about giving away all of their possessions and living off the land, which I suppose would be some sort of faux-Buddhist cleansing ritual.

Wouldn't it just figure that I watch Michael Moore's new film "Sicko" yesterday? Fantastic stuff, but besides the obvious intentions of the film, it left me feeling like moving out of the country wouldn't be such a bad idea. Canada, sure. England, sure. France, what the hell. Add in those requisite feelings of sandpaper rubbing across vital organs that July fourth had on me this year and that blind patriotism always offers. It really felt like the country was celebrating the birth of someone who had long since died, which I tell you is no reason for fireworks.

Maybe it's not only career crises that plague many around me these days. Maybe it's a general swelling of transitional behavior that I feel receptive towards. An old friend considers coming home. A new friend moves to art school. A close friend works through their career options. Another 'finds herself' halfway across the planet, away from all that is familiar.

These are not really new realizations for me. I know the only constant is change, and all of that blah-blah-blah, but for me sometimes walking through life feels like drudging through wet cement. If you stop for too long, you're stuck.