DAY 1
hello, and happy tomorrow, which is actually today now! i’m chris. and basically, i’m going to write whatever i feel like writing. i’m going to try and keep it organized by topic as best i can, but it’s probably going to wind up being quite the clusterfuck anyway.

some topics i plan on covering are:
- SCOOTER
- MYSELF
- SMOKING
- ALCOHOL
- WORDS
- MUSIC
- AUTOMOBILES

i work at a hotel, so that might come up as well.

i suppose i should introduce a little bit about myself. you know, all those questions that new people ask you, or old people at family reunions ask you, as the case may be. i went to cedar springs high school, and graduated in 2005. cedar springs is a small town about 17 miles north of grand rapids, michigan. lots of farms. you know, horses and cornfields and shit. sometimes literal, actual shit. it’s an art form, being able to tell what types of animal manure they’re using to fertilize the fields, which happens in the spring and fall. horse is by far the most pleasant smelling, if poop can smell pleasant. cows are worse than horses, but still not too bad. pigs are pretty rank (they’re actually surprisingly cleanly and intelligent animals, but your poop is only going to smell as good as your diet allows, so pig slop is not going to do you any favors). and chickens are downright foul (fowl? see what i did there?). seriously, though, it’s bad. chickens suck, even if they and their unborn offspring are delicious. chickens are mean, smelly, loud, disgusting animals. and sometimes, when they get old, they get cankles and start eating their eggs. senile cannibals with smelly poop and unattractive legs = bad. man, fuck chickens.

for advanced techniques, you can start trying to determine the derivation of blended manure. picking out the complex bouquet of horse and cow with a subtle hint of pig on the tail end is a feat nigh on impossible. my uncle is really good at it. then again, he grew up in an even smaller town. hell, they used to raise chickens at home. so i guess over time you could really hone your skills. especially when there’s nothing better to do. which is like, all the time.

i haven’t been back to cedar much since high school. there really isn’t anything there to go back for. i mean, i liked it while i was there. i knew i would never be starting a home there. i knew i would be leaving and going to college. it was not a question. as the eldest grandchild on my fathers side, and being a rather dutiful student, it was an expectation. so i wound up going to GVSU, which is about 17 miles west of grand rapids, michigan (okay, so i just looked it up, and it’s only like 12 miles, but humor me, alright?). I had a good time there. met some really cool people. even participated in some really cool projects. and then, in 2009, graduation time came. so i graduated, with my useless B.A. in sound design for film and video. spent a week in europe with a friend. dicked around all summer. you know, things a college graduate would want to do.

there were two primary ways in which i was fucked at this point. first was, i didn’t know how to be a big person, work nine to five, all that jazz. the only thing i knew how to do, because i’d spent the last 16 years of my life doing it, was go to school. so i was already at a bit of a loss for what the next inevitable phase was supposed to be in my life. i mean, yeah, get a job, but what job? how? which brings in the other half of me being fucked. in 2009 the world economy saw its biggest recession since the crash of ‘29. and, perfectly, michigan was leading the way with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. fan-fucking-tastic. i’m still struggling with it today, but at least i have a full-time job for now, that doesn’t pay what it should, but it’s something. and after three years of having nothing but odd side jobs under the table here and there, along with nothing but unemployedness besides, hell - i’ll take it.

which brings me to here. i had heard about NaNoWriMo while i was at grand valley, but never participated. i had a friend remind me about it, saying she was going to do it this year, and i should too. so, i am!

scooter is a friend of mine. we are approaching our one year friendshiversary. he is … interesting, and even though it has only been a year, he hangs out with me like it’s his job, so we’ve been making up for lost time at an alarming rate. which is why he’s a perfect topic for this, because not only do we have a lot of fodder for discussion, it’s all pretty crazy stuff. like i said, interesting.

i guess you could say we are drug buddies, if you want to be a dick about it.

scooter is what i would call an idiot savant. he can do pretty much anything if you just take a minute and show him how. he plays guitar and can learn a new song in a couple of hours. he’d never played hockey before, but it took me all of 15 minutes to teach him a proper wrist shot. his mind and body are very in tune with one another. he can make a limb go numb with nothing but his brain and a little concentration. he will cry out in pain popping a zit so small that, if i had one of similar caliber, i wouldn’t even know it was there. hand-eye coordination and muscle memory are second nature to him. he can focus his eyes to better than perfect vision, and sees things to which i am typically oblivious.

he is extremely affected with attention deficit disorder. yet his brain is so mystical that he can keep up with it and still focus on all of those things at the same time, and retain them indefinitely. i often have trouble keeping up with him, even touched by ADD as i am (with an unsuspectingly marvelous brain, such as it is), and am continually frustrated when he and i both hold me to his standard. the outcome is invariably disappointing. but occasionally i can keep up, which is always refreshing.

i like it, though. i like the challenge. it’s fascinating to me just to watch his mind in action. i see glimmers of my own in there at times, and am even more interested to find the unique perspectives and ways of thinking that i had never even considered. but there are plenty of differences as well. i’m blind as a fucking bat. even with my glasses, which i have had since second grade, i can’t see shit half the time. i am much better at keeping my trap shut and just listening to the conversation ebb and flow, while he will prattle on incessantly. it’s convenient for me for the most part, since we can spend time together, and i don’t have to provide much stimulus to the conversation. he pretty much carries it on his own. it’s frustrating at times when i’m trying to focus on something, because it takes a lot of concentration on my part, and i can only focus on one thing at a time. as a young child, i would get so thoroughly ensconced in the task at hand, that i would get extremely angry when i was interrupted. i don’t get pissed about it as much anymore, and have learned to cope as best i can. sometimes you have to drop what you’re doing and come back to it later, because something much more pressing demands your attention. but that doesn’t make it any less fucking annoying to me. and he does it constantly, because his brain can keep up with everything, and what the hell is wrong with you, you fucking troglodyte. this is the 21st century. learn to fucking multitask, you piece of shit. at least that’s what the voices tell me. but i’ve tried. i just can’t seem to get the hang of it. i’m not optimistic for future success. the trick is going to be finding out how to tell the world to go suck a bag of dicks for a minute while i finish what i’m working on. then i can give them my undivided attention at a future point, yet to be determined. but the world isn’t cooperating with me on that front, for the most part. oh well. if one of us is inevitably going to be disappointed, i’ll voluntarily take on that mantle. malcontent people pleaser.

national novel writing month is over!

i did not make much of a showing, myself. less than 10,000 words. but thank you for the support that i'm sure would have availed itself given a more vociferous crowd.

it's okay, though. i accomplished a few other necessary things in the month of november, and this is 7k+ more words than i had in october. so, that's something. i plan to continue working on the project, and expanding what's there so far. hell, by next november i might be ready to actually write a novel. in the meantime, i'm glad to work with what i have. and keep learning how to write. if nothing else, i have learned that i'm not a writer yet. and fiction is really going to be the best way to garner some heavy duty chunks of words.

sorry to phil - and the rest of the world - that dr. sex and the sexy mayor of muscleville do not make any appearances in this material. but i appreciate the fodder they will provide me later. then it will actually be a novel. with like, characters and shit.

in the meantime, let me take you back to where i was 30 days ago:

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*WARNING!!! CONTAINS AN OVERABUNDANT PROLIFERATION OF SWEARS!*

THE. beginning.

of a supposed book that i’m writing. a chronic novel. of unknown proportions. i’m at the International House Of Pancakes, and i’m really fucking tired. so, i’m gonna go to bed, and write this shit tomorrow.

work
so, i've realized that while i bring a lot of specialized knowledge to the table, which i use on a virtually daily basis, it is extremely unnecessary for the job. good to have. really not needed.

there are ultimately only two critical aspects to holding down a maintenance position (aside from the social politics of whatever company you work for. that's a much bigger, separate can of worms):

1. Fix whatever broken stuff they bring to your attention.
2. If you can't figure out how to fix it, either:
a) have them call in someone else who is more specialized to fix it.
b) make damn sure it leaves your care broken enough to justify buying a new one.

that's pretty much it. simple. the only thing that makes this job difficult is me. which would happen at any job i have.