Sea Change

My reluctance to post has been due partly to uncertainty as to how to follow the previous post, partly to an irrational sense of obligation or responsibility to do the first post of the year justice. I thought it would be hilarious to make the first post of the year in screenplay format, designed as a trailer for 2009. That would have been awesome, but I felt neither precognitive nor creative.

“So it’s the first post of the year. How do I do it justice?”

I don’t. It’s that simple. Because it’s just a number. So far, the clouds look just the same as they did a week ago. The coffee tastes the same. Farts smell the same. It’s all the same. 2008, as much as I personified it for humorous ends, was just a number. There’s little to celebrate about its departure; New Year’s Eve is just an excuse to drink (fine by me). A new day has dawned? What, just because it’s not technically 2008 anymore, I have a blank slate? Is that optimism or superstition?

I never cared for New Year’s resolutions, either. I always say, “If you want to resolve to change something, just effing change it—don’t wait for the page on the calendar to turn.” I despise New Year’s Resolutions. At Luke’s New Year’s Eve party, I professed to all that my resolution was to impede and derail everyone else’s.

”Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just... do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.”

I keed, I keed. If you have New Year’s resolutions, don’t let me stop you. Stick to them, but don’t blame me if you fail. I just don’t buy into the whole New Year’s things-are-gonna-be-different thing.

Nevertheless, I do sense an imminent (and turbulent) shift.

The good news is that the store has kept me on indefinitely, meaning that I made quite an impression on the boss, having originally been hired as seasonal help. The bad news is that business is going to be so slow for the next couple months that I might as well be unemployed again. Indeed, I am in the middle of a two-week absence, after being warned by a coworker, “Unless you have been working here a long time, you’re lucky to work one day a week after the holidays.” Nobody could have told me this sooner, so I could plan for it? Thanks, shitty retail job. Thanks a lot. Six hours a week is not going to be a lot of pay, now is it.

The rug has once again been jerked out from under me, sending me careening across the room only to land rectum-first onto a very pointy, kitschy, ceramic Statue of Liberty.

Emotionally, I’m kind of used to that sort of thing by now. But what has changed is that I have ZERO tolerance for verbal abuse and badgering from the Dursleys.

Operation GTFO is my top priority in life. TOP.

I helped move my sister Starbuck into her new place in Springfield, MO, where she got a job as a copyeditor. Meanwhile, I'm looking into replacing her as a substitute teacher, which would necessitate me moving in with the parents. I'm looking into a couple of leads in the mean time...

So “change” is here, whether good or bad. We’ll have a new president soon… I wonder if that affects me in the least? Doubtful.

I could move to KC at the drop of a hat, if only an opportunity would open up. I have a temporary, free-rent living situation lined up in Blue Springs. I emailed my former employer (a staffing service) for placement, but they haven’t responded.

Also in Kansas City, Sensei Banks just had the first class at the new dojo. It’s official. The South KC Shotokan Karate Club now has its sovereign dojo, free from the administrative malarkey of a community center (whose top dog favors the slightly more competition-based judo classes and various silly aerobic programs over a traditional discipline like ours). So when I train with them again, that will be exciting.

Next fall, Josh Kalichman’s church music contract is up in Bowling Green, Ohio. He could go anywhere. Why not with me, so we can write music and toss a Frisbee on a regular basis? Why not. 2009 could just as easily be “a living nightmare” as it could be “a realization of dreams.” It depends on the translator you hire. After all, Hope hasn’t been a living, spoken language in a long time, so there are bound to be discrepancies.

So while I do not feel the buoyant optimism that most do over New Year’s, I certainly don’t deny the possibilities.

Meanwhile, I’ve sealed the bulkheads. My erstwhile frozen gym membership has now gone from “frozen” to “canceled.” I figured I was more likely to forget about it and have it become automatically un-frozen and surprise me with a bill in March, so I terminated the account. Also, outraged at the seemingly exponential interest rate of my JC Penney card, I finally paid the debt in full, summarily closing the account. Then I cut up my credit card and mailed a piece to each of the four corners of England as a warning. No more “hemorrhaging money,” as the Captain would say.

Whether sooner or later, rarely or routinely, I also sense an imminent duel with Dean Yzon. We’ll spar again… and I need to prepare. Some of my fondest memories of living in KC are, in fact, of fighting in his brother’s backyard in Brookside. One time we did so for about an hour and a half, barefoot in the frigid autumn, stopping only when we were too exhausted and numb to continue. Then we changed clothes and walked to Charlie Hooper’s for gin-and-tonics (despite what the pikey proclaims, it is not a sissy drink… just not my top choice). So I need to find a new routine to prepare myself for such a reunion duel this year. I wouldn’t want him to be disappointed, now would I?

”That’s it, Snake. Hurt me more. Make me feel alive again.”

All my ambitions are nebulous at best. I need to settle into a routine before I can expect results, but that’s what I’ve been telling myself for a long, long time now. Look at how little I composed in 2008. My imagination is screaming to be let out. If nothing else, I can post my Final Fantasy arrangements on some fan site somewhere, just to have someone hear and appreciate something I’ve created. In the mean time, I always have dozens of big ideas vying for attention.

I feel a hint of excitement and productivity just by virtue of catching up on leisure reading. I finally started reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time, and by next Christmas I hope to be “caught up” on all the fiction books I thought I’d have read this Christmas. I have ambitions, but I’m woefully “behind,” if there is such a thing.

Of course, I feel behind in absolutely everything. Comparatives are dangerous and silly, so I try to avoid them. But other people feel free to apply comparatives to me, which is doubly stupid. It’s one thing for me to say I’m “behind” my compatriots’ training level at the dojo in KC, or even that I’m “behind” my fellow composers having not written much lately, but it’s another thing entirely for someone to urge me to get married and start making babies because most of my friends are doing it. I don’t consider myself “behind” in that regard. But I did miss out on over a year now on “life”… and that rut was 2008.

The New Year is here, for whatever that’s worth. Not a lot. Just a number. So instead of “doing it justice,” I just crapped a list of talking points onto a page. I don’t know what you expected, but I’m sorry to disappoint. Sure, I could have divided this up into four or five smaller posts, but then you’d complain that I posted too frequently. Besides, there is still a common thread in this post: imminent change, a world of possibilities.

Turbulent and tumultuous times are directly ahead of me. I hope to come out ahead, though. God knows I’ve earned it.

Earned? As I said before: if there is such a thing.

Happy New Year. Change is coming. Good riddance, 2008. Although perhaps just a number, you really were a nightmare, from start to finish. Every… single… horrifying day…