Should be Writing

That Writer's and Critic's event that I'm doing a pre-reading at is in less than a week. Actually, I'll be done with it in exactly one week from right now. And I haven't even started really putting words to Word, yet. Which is bad. Really bad.

But the problem is, I don't usually feel compelled to write until the last minute. Or if there is no challenge I can see. And usually being "down-to-the-wire" is enough of a challenge for me to produce something. It works for every Writer's Night Drake has had that I've desired to go to. I've only once read something I'd produced way before. Otherwise, I'm usually late because I just finished whatever it is I am going to read and the printer ran out of paper halfway through printing it.

In this way, I'm a terrible writer.

Some people - I've found out - write ALL THE TIME and are constantly putting something together. Some idea in their head goes onto paper or into a Word document. That's not me. I only produce under extreme challenges or - in rare cases - when an idea is so grand I can't fit it in my head anymore.

A few of these examples include the script my older brother and I put together one week, this short story called 10 Up/Down, a recent story, Dust to Dust, and then a few other, random things. Like this book I wrote this one time. Yeah, it wasn't very good.

Otherwise, I can't finish anything. I started writing this book over the past summer, but I ran into what I call my "anti-muse" and have not been able to produce a single page really since. I put together a few scraps over Christmas break, but nothing worth - heh - "writing" home about. Aside from that, there are about half a billion "false starts" on my hard drive that will never ever get any farther than that.

And that's sad.

I came to realize over the past few years that I need to constantly create. But this just doesn't happen, anymore. I produce a crummy web comic twice a week, I write here in this blog, and I make stupid pictures and post them on Facebook. But otherwise... I'm not doing even a tenth of the creating I want to do.

I must learn to remedy this.



Please tell me how to remedy this.

Being a "Special Guest" (also: Some Yoga Stuff)

So on the 26th the Writer's and Critic's series is having a special guest reader, Tim Bascom, come over from Simpson to read from his book and, as of late, the English dept. has been having guest readers give a reading of their materials before the main show. These secondary special guests have been English students. This time, for Tim, the secondary student guest is SKYLER BARTELS.

That's right. So come one, come all, and see your least favorite classmate, peer, friend, or whatever give a reading about London or something, I don't know. I've barely started writing the thing which - I am aware - is a bad thing. I should probably get on it pretty quickly, here. So I probably will.

Also, as I stated in an earlier post, I've started doing yoga stuff. I was asked by Aliona to go and I said "sure" for once and so I've been going. It's been kind of off-and-on since I had bronchitis and didn't really feel like going for, like, a week or so. But otherwise I'm learing new things about my body! Like... for example... the ways it won't move and the ways it will move. Turns out, there are far more ways it won't move than I'd previously figured. Huh.

Otherwise, I'm supposed to be typing up a paper tonight and I'm also supposed to be going to bed pretty quickly. But I'm doing neither of these things, it seems. Instead, here I am, blogging on this thing. Which I've done rather frequently as of late, even though I said I was probably going to quit.

I guess I just don't know how to quit you!

Oh, That Ice

The first time I noticed the ice in my gut, it was when my younger brother came up the stairs to interrupt my video game playing to inform me that my sister, Sarah, may have passed away. A huge chunk of ice, sharp and cold and dense, grew within an instant. It was uncomfortable, it was weighty, and it was all things wrong.

This block of ice, chuck of ice... whatever, has invaded my gut time and time again. It always manages to vanish, always dissolves back into nothingness. But every one and again, it shows up like a bad habbit or an annoying mosquito when you're trying to sleep and its dark and you can't see it to swat and kill it, but its there. Oh, God in Heaven, is it ever there.

Sometimes I know why it shows up. Specific events have caused it to surface. Over the summer, some student loans people kept trying to talk to me and I figured it was something horrible, maybe that they weren't going to give me any more loans and I'd be out on my butt in the streets rather than out on my butt at Drake. But they wanted to update my address for shipping and letter purposes, nothing more. The ice was there, however, letting me know it was ready to make me wish I was dead.

Other times I don't know why the ice is there. It simply is. It shows up, most times, like this... and usually signals something huge or major that is going on, either behind the scenes - literally - or just in my subconcious. Something huge or major, but most definately bad.

Today I have that ice. And I'm trying to determine what it is there for, this time. If I can figure it out, I can usually get rid of it pretty quick like and move on with my life again. But sometimes I simply can't. Every once in a great while, I never solve it. And either the major or huge thing takes place and I feel completely blindsided, or nothing ever seems to happen and I just move on (but something probably did happen and I was just naive to notice it).

I hope its nothing. Maybe its always been nothing.

I don't know.

I don't want to grow up.

Bronchitis is _________

(Hint: the answer is "Stinky")
_______________________


So, yeah, I figure you've got this gathered and what have you already, but I've been suffering from bronchitis for the past - nearly - week. Really started to hit pretty hard last Thursday where I was found wandering around almost aimlessly at the All-Majors career fair (which should have been called All-BUSINESS-Majors career fair...). My girlfriend tells me I looked dazed. Aliona also tells me I look way better today.

Which is good, because I feel way better, now, than I did a few days ago. Friday, when I went in to see a dr., I felt like death. Seriously. Like death. I just wanted to lie in bed and cry. But I didn't. Because I'm a man. I whimpered like a pro!

I had to miss some classes yesterday because I was still running a 102ish temp, but today I was right around average temperatures, so I went to classes and everything was fine (for the most part). Then I did some homework, made some stupid pictures with MSPaint, hung out with the girlfriend some (where she told me I looked way better), and then came back to do more homework!

Oh boy!

Nothing like getting over being sick to remind you of how much you hate homework.

Tomorrow: BUILD-A-BEAR THING!

PS: Also, I started doing Yoga. I'll fill you all in.

AMC

When did AMC, a movie channel that is supposed to be dedicated to broadcasting American Movie Classics begins showing junk?Today I was flipping through and caught a shot of Lara Craft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.

This is not a CLASSIC. This is a recent movie that did "OK" at the box office but in all truth failed to really bring about any change in people. Isn't that why we consider movies to be classic? I think of classics and I instantly think of Casablanca.


This is a movie that will always be remembered, throughout all of time. Love it or hate it, no one can deny that it is a classic in every sense of the word. It is a powerful and wonderful film that more people should see. This is the kind of movie that should be on AMC. Not Tomb Raider. What the hell?

In twenty years if people were asked to list movies they regarded as "classics" I can bet you more people will have Casablanca or Citizen Kane in their top 5-10. No one will have Tomb Raider on that list.

Tomb Raider isn't even so bad that it can be considered a classic in regards to its poor quality. Its a well made movie, for what its worth. Is there a great plot? No, but its OK. The effects any good? Sure. Acting? Passable. Concept and overall followthrough? Fine.

A movie like Snakes on a Plane will be considered a classic, I feel, but not because its a "great movie" or anything like that. Simply because of the cultural impact it had on a nation so devoted to it (mostly online). People knew it wasn't going to be a fantastic example of cinema art, but thats not why they went to see it. And thats not why it will be considered a classic. It was so bad that it was exactly what everyone expected it to be. And it never had any higher goals. It ended up right where it wanted to end up.

Tomb Raider is just worthless and a throw-away film. Really, the only moment I remember (aside from the split second I watched just a bit ago) is Lara Croft punching a shark in the face. As cool as it was, even when I saw it the first time (I think flying to China? London? I don't remember...) I thought it was stupid as hell.



AMC has been showing terrible movies in an attempt, I think, to boost ratings. But this is what happened to MTV and VH1 that made them so terrible. They needed to do other things than show music videos and, as such, ended up having stupid reality shows and game shows and now, for the most part, barely have anything to do with music and/or music videos.

AMC, stop doing what you're doing and show classics. Thats what you were born to do, and so few of us know what we're on this Earth to do. Use your gift for good.

Not for stupidity and ratings.

Thanksgiving Related Text

So I'm home for Thanksgiving, playing a loaned-out Guitar Hero 3 with my younger brother, and looking at old family photographicals.

First off, the drive was OK. Zak (my younger brother) and I got out of Des Moines before it snowed and, although it did snow here a bit today (it has all melted, for the most part) before it snowed here, too. I hate snow. I hate most weather, though, so this is to be expected for the most part.

Second, while I said I wouldn't own Guitar Hero 3 while I was in school, that shouldn't stop me from borrowing it. So I did. I played Even Flow, which was awesome, but Cliffs of Dover on Expert is killing me. Like, literally. Killing me to death with its hardness.

Third, food. While our Thanksgiving dinner isn't until Saturday (on account of my lame old Dr. brother, Pete not getting home until Friday evening), I have eaten so much food that I am about to burst. String cheese, chocolates, brownies, chili, pumpkin rolls, crackers, cookies, more brownies, and more Dr Pepper than you can shake a stick at... Its the good life.

4th (still can't spell that), I finally saw Live Free or Die Hard and it was great and had lots of explosions and, if I could, I would trade my family for explosions. So... it was awesome.

5th, last night I looked at a bunch of old family photographs we have in photo albums and, you know what? I looked like a goon when I was a young lad, too.

I will return again shortly with another post. But I may be giving this up after the new year.... I'm just not very good at keeping up with it anymore...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We're Living in a Computerless World...

...and I am a computerless girl... what?

So, I have my computer working again. I got a processor fan in the post and replaced my old, janky one (it was making a lot of clicking noises and/or not spinning at all) and it runs smooth and silent and it works again. And its like a dream.

But for the three short days in which I had no computer and had to live in the library, here at Drake, I felt disconnected from the world.

In my first year at Drake I felt I had spent too much time on the Internet and not enough time on studies, so I removed my Ethernet cord and lived a disconnected life for a week. It was torture and I got less done because I simply played computer solitaire instead of reading and studying.

But, that's because I had a computer. While I wasn't connected to the world through the Internet, I could be connected to Midgar in Final Fantasy VII or my imagination through MSWord.

But those three days where I had no computer, I couldn't help the characters in the first Final Fantasy save their world, I couldn't talk to my girlfriend online until 2AM, I couldn't catch up on webcomics, I couldn't write homework or fiction, and I couldn't even browse through my folders.

Some people are big on cars, others on sports teams or just the sport itself. My computer is like an extension of my being, like another limb. Without it, I feel like I've lost an arm or a leg, and I stop functioning altogether.

I'm glad I have it back.