Writing and Living, I guess.

I am now finally settled from the settling. I moved to Seattle. Most people ask me for an explanation, (especially because I don't have a job), and I can't give them one that would satisfy a reasonable, practical response. Sorry.

My unreasonable and impractical response is that I get to live with friends. My dear friend Erin Cooley is going to marry med school next year (she will have a life, but it could be in Seattle, Boston, the Bronx) and I have always wanted to spend a significant amount of time with her.

We eat and sleep and shower in a cave on Ravenna St. Apparently it's in a "yuppie" part of town. I have to rely on map quest to go four feet in any given direction, so I'm just going to trust that that is true.

Die Bierstube is becoming quite the hang out. (I still miss the Bigfoot) Good people and good times to be had for sure. Maybe they are hiring.

I live with another kid named Nick who I met the day I signed the lease. He likes good music, he fixes things like our water purifier, and helped me research my property law rights. I'm a fan. Again, I just trusted that Erin found a stellar third mate. (I was actually the 3rd one to jump on board, but just work with me here.)

Despite the fact that I'm unemployed I always find myself doing things. That is great. I need to be entertained. Just ask Leslie Dugas, Amy Brown or Jon Fox.

I also realized something. A challenge for myself I guess. One of my main goals was, and still is, to find the silliest things to do so I can write about them and share them with you. That will happen simply by default. I can't seem to help getting myself into some sort of trouble. That goal is great, but I think the need to seek silliness derives from some weird fear, I guess. I am afraid that if I'm not doing anything interesting, I have nothing interesting to write about. Fiction is scary to me. I would rather fiddle around with a pre-made template than rely on my own imagination. Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit. Or maybe I am subconsciously self-aware that my writing skills remain within the delight confinements of non-fiction observation. I guess we'll see.

Or maybe I'll be riding the bus one day and come up with a kick ass wizard who has an owl, an invisible cloak, takes on the most evil character who's name can't even be spoken aloud and become richer than the queen of england.

It could happen.

We're Wizards and We're Bored

I was watching Harry Potter 6 the other day. I’ve spent a lot of time on the couch for the past two weeks, and flying around on broomsticks, nothing but the most romantic lighting, and having a dark lord to fight looked pretty appealing. Escapism, folks: Narnia, Middle Earth, and whatever other book or TV series that makes you bummed you live in the real world. How is it that authors can create worlds that are so much more compelling than the one their readers live in? It seems like the realness – the fact that it is there – should outweigh the fantasy that glows two-dimensionally on a piece of furniture.

I listened to a Louis CK recently. Check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LkusicUL2s. Plus, people and information are available to me through the Internet. It’s like some sort of legendary spring of knowledge, but I frequent only two sites and get bored.

We Westovarians put together a Life board game. We included all the typical events in life after graduation: unemployment, weight gain, marriage, winning the lottery, etc. You hit certain squares based on a dice roll. The random and deterministic qualities were bleak – and satisfying due to our post-grad fashionable jadedness. It was a little uncomfortable how easily we could map out the big events in a middle-class American’s life. Deterministic, impersonal, and bullshit. It was tough to whip out our senses of adventure.

But one square said, “Make an omelet.” I get to make breakfast almost every day for the rest of my life.

If we all lived in Harry Potter land – we’d transfigure instead of problem solve, wear robes instead of jeans, and escape from Basilisks instead of going grocery shopping – would we be excited and entertained all the time? I can’t imagine what it would be like if we were. Ron says to Harry for chapters at a time, “Holy bloody smokes Harry, we’re wizards.”

Holy bloody smokes.