Last night

Took my daughter to an event as school, was fun but as usual it meant coming home, eating and then running out the door. Have another event at school for her tonight, so I can expect the same. I'm not complaining, I love spending time with her and seeing her interested and happy. I just realize that my son isn't even in school yet, and the time that I spend with both of my kids is a reason that I don't have time to do other things sometimes. I can't imagine not spending time with them, and when I'm with them it's easy to feel that my priorities are in the right place. I just need to figure out if I should feel satisfied with my place as their father, or if I can successfully do that and something more.

My screenplay

I've had an idea for a movie screenplay in my head for months and months. For a long time I thought about writing a book, even got started a couple of times, but for whatever reason things would just stop. A book makes sense because my sister used to be a literary editor (now an agent) and she's always volunteered to help me refine whatever I put together. That's a fantastic resource, yet the story in my head is definitely a screenplay and not a novel. It's even something that could be done so low budget that I might actually be able to find a way to put it together myself. Sure, it would be rough to drum up the funds and it could very well be a loss but wouldn't it scratch that creative itch I have?

I think a part of my personal issue with getting started is one of the last pieces of baggage my father left with me. I read a great interview with Roger Clyne where he mentioned telling his father that he was going to give music a try, and his father said he was disappointed and that Roger had failed. The rub being he'd failed because he said he'd try, not that he'd chosen music. The poison that I was fed when I was younger was the buildup of expectations (You can be anything you want!) followed by the cautionary wisdom (But be realistic!). For some stupid reason the cautionary wisdom has always stuck with me. Because of that I have trouble starting my writing, I don't want to end up "wasting" the time with nothing to show for it.

I know I'll always kick my own ass if I don't try something though.

Angry white guy

It's hard to write about something like this without coming across as completely emo. At any rate, I always found it odd how much I related to the book and movie Fight Club. See, if you listen to the highbrow reviewers they'll mock anybody who relates too much to the characters for multiple reasons. One of the reasons (which is valid) is that the characters have a need to be angry, even though they don't have a reason to be angry.

See, people think that the middle class white guys have no right to be angry. It's true, really. I don't think of myself as angry anyhow, but that's not the part of Fight Club that really clicked with me. It's more the discovery that I've become just another consumer, that I've somehow not come close to becoming that which I one day dreamt of being.

It's not anger, it's disappointment in yourself. No reason to be angry about it, but confusion seems a fair enough result. I guess at the end of the day it's a matter of how you cope with it. Do you accept it and move on, or do you look closer and try to figure out the why of it, and figure out if it's something you can live with or if changes need to be made?

Fuck it, I was right the first time. That sounds really emo.

What's the point?

Why bother with a Blog? I don't know myself. Not sure what I hope to accomplish. I certainly don't have amazing aspirations like getting Kevin Costner to look at my webpage, or turning a paperclip into a jumbo jet. I don't expect anybody to read it, which makes it an exercise in masturbation that would have embarrassed me even as a 14 year old. Basically, I'm at a place in my life where I've realized I'm so much the average white male that I'm not sure how I got here. Mid-life crisis? I'm too young, first of all, and secondly I have no desire to cheat on my wife and I'm driving a piece of crap rather than a sports car or a motorcycle. Those are the tell tale signs aren't they?

So I need to get in touch with who I am, with what my dreams once were, and I need to remember what it's like to have a life of passion instead of a life of apathy. Maybe I'll be shouting into an empty room, which is something that has always been fine with me, but I find that writing helps me to get in touch with my subconscious in ways that nothing else can.

I need to figure out how how to replace apathy and routine with hopes and dreams. It sounds big, but it's just as likely to end up with me swearing about the guy that cut me off on the way to work.