freedumb

Cleaning out an email inbox full of 500 some odd emails collected over the past year can turn into quite the cathartic experience. So long Los Angeles, so long graduate school, it seems high time for a new plan. Or maybe it feels like a time to forego all planning...

No expectations, no obligations, no limits.

Hoist the sails. Drink up me hardys yo-ho.

Smile.

Wonn

Once I started to write a one man show. This was the opening.

One man show: Take 1

If I could perform this show anywhere, ideally it would be somewhere magical...like Hogwarts......or Costco. Or my trampoline. If I had to sum up my childhood in a nutshell it would be me with a lateral lisp, pretending to be a girl, jumping on a trampoline. An odd combination, right? You think I say that for the comedic affect, and then my mother will show you the video of me on Christmas throwing a hissy fit because the Peace bear beanie baby was for my sister, and not me. I can only thank God that the same situation involving ski-barbie wasn't caught on tape from the Christmas before. But SANTA BROUGHT IT FOR ME, KALEIGHHH@$@#$!!!

It's weird because I have never been able to distinguish if I liked things like that naturally, or because my sister and I were essentially raised as twins, and I thought I was supposed to like the same things she liked.

I was a weird kid. I often look back on my childhood and feel bad for myself. I was really shy, and got embarrassed really easily. I also was very sensitive and had my feelings hurt often. I would get home from school lots of times and just go jump on my trampoline until it was dark enough to be a hazard. In complete humble modesty I still must admit, I'm pretty bad-ass at the trampoline. That's what having no friends got me. I wouldn't just do tricks, either. I would pretend I was in dangerous situations, lots of times involving things exploding around me. And I would just throw myself around like I was being blown away. Weird, right? It's so weird, and then pair that with me being painfully shy...so when a commercial plane would fly overhead, I would get worried someone might see me pretending to be blown up, and so I would just sit in the middle of the trampoline and not move til it passed over me. Like they would be pointing down and laughing at me, thousands of feet in the air.

That thing ended up becoming completely dangerous. Over the years it had lost all of the pads over the bars supporting it, multiple springs were missing, the remaining structure was completely rusted, and it had tears on each side. I think I was 12, jumping on it, running away from vampires or something in my mind, and I landed right on one of the tears, and the damn thing ripped in half. Unrepairable damage from my pre-growth spurt chubby ass.

That's when I started drinking.

Smilez

"Laughter. An essential ingredient for survival. And we laughed a lot."

-Patti Smith. From her autobiography, Just Kids.

......or B-U-S-T.

I've recently reached a state where I'm feeling very restless, bored, and quite artistically starved. So much so that when I do happen to find an outlet for some form of creativity or creation, it manifests itself in very sudden outbursts with no real direction.

For instance, I've found myself more so writing for the sake of writing every now and then, but to no sense of completion. I've written a total of seven postcards that I've yet to send. I've cut and ripped out a stack of pictures from different magazines to collage but have left them in a plastic bag in my backpack. I have brief outlines of unfinished, if even attempted, scripts. I carry around three unread plays, a pair of scissors, glue, paint brushes, a journal, and a video camera daily but usually leave my bag unopened. Choosing, instead, to stare mindlessly off into space while I listen to music on the patio of the closest Starbucks.

Finding myself in this stagnant position just makes me a huge negative energy to be around or converse with. You know those times when you aren't too happy with a particular situation in your life and you find yourself inexplicably taking it out on those around you? It's as if you go into out of body experiences and you hear that you're being a complete ass for no reason and yet you just can't stop yourself or muster up the energy to explain that it's no one's fault, it just is what it is. Well.......yeah.

This is probably a sign that I'm ready to pack up and leave again. Which, If I leave before August, will be my fourth home within one year. At this point in my life I've developed a Goldilocks complex, trying all the options available until something feels just right. In all honesty, I haven't minded this pseudo-gypsy lifestyle thus far. And better that a move should cure my boredom as opposed to a slue of tattoos and haircuts, which would probably be the only other alternative to scratch this lethargic itch.

And maybe that's okay. After all, if the feeling of being stuck in a town where there is no potential to grow and expand, to create and be inspired, and where the monotony of life has ignited a spark that will inevitably conclude with a massive internal implosion, what other option is there?

You pack your shit, and you go.

Happ-penis

Finding things to smile about is a good waste of time