Same as it Ever Was (third installment)

So, if  you’ve been following my blog with any consistency, you know that I’m in the process of writing a short story.  I’ve posted two other sections (1 and 2) which may or may not be in the order that I ultimately want them to be in.  I’ve already made some changes to both of those sections, but am always open to feedback.  Let me know if there’s anything that you feel is awkward or just doesn’t really work.  I hope to finish this before I leave Singapore, but I have to get more motivated!

The persistent drone of the alarm clock was reminiscent of an asthmatic infant wailing in the middle of the night: short-breathed, incessant, and never coming when you have the patience or clarity to deal with it effectively. As such, Christian mustered up only enough strength to rise up and slam his palm down on the snooze button before he flopped back down on his bed like a dead fish. Christian and his bed were similar in many ways. They both looked like someone had made a very half-hearted attempt to dress them—Christian always wore his pants to bed, but no shirt, and the white sheets on his bed barely covered the mattress. Furthermore, some of the stuffing from the mattress was creeping out over the seams and, well, Christian’s stuffing had a tendency to make its way over the waistline of his pants in a similar fashion.

The second time the alarm clock’s serenade began, Christian managed to wake himself enough to turn it off and remain standing. He knew from plenty of experience (and many missed classes during college) that if he lay back down his feet wouldn’t feel the hardwood floor again for three or four more hours. He scratched his stomach and walked into his bathroom to brush his teeth. As much as he disregarded most aspects of personal hygiene, he was always sure to brush his teeth right before he went to bed and just after he woke up in the morning.

Christian took a very minimalist approach when it came to interior decoration: he liked to be able to pack up all his belongings within a few hours. It’s not that he moved around much; he just didn’t see the value of managing one’s environment past the bare essentials. He owned a few bowls, plates, glasses, and some silverware, but nothing matched. Besides, most of the time he ate out at a local Mexican restaurant where he could buy burritos the size of his head (claiming that this would last him all day).

The morning routine was designed to ensure the maximum amount of sleep time with the minimum amount of hassle. Even though he slept with his pants on, Christian managed to don a new pair of underwear each morning (to the great relief of his colleagues), and he had cut showers back from two days a week to one. He was very happy to point out to people that recent studies had shown benefits for one’s immune system from leading a less antibacterial lifestyle. He generally skipped breakfast, preferring to eat a large lunch. He owned several different outfits which mixed and matched very well (according to him) so that he could wear them interchangeably. He always managed to be out the door of his three-room apartment by 7:15 so he could catch the 7:30 bus—allowing him to arrive at work by 8:10 (which was within the realm of clock-difference). If he had ever shown a knack for mathematics, he would’ve been a fantastic economist.

Today, however, something was different.

“Letting the days go by… water flowing underground.”

Sitting next to Christian, a young man in a hooded sweatshirt was singing along to music that was pouring into his head through a pair of headphones that seemed to feed directly into his ear canals. Christian couldn’t imagine that this was very healthy. More importantly, the noise made it hard for him to think..

“Hey, would you mind keeping it to yourself?” Christian asked, turning towards the man. He looked a little startled and took one of the speakers out of his ear. Christian could hear the music faintly playing now that it was directed out into the open air. Same as it ever was… same as it ever was… same as it ever was…

“Sorry, what?” the young man asked.

“You’re singing out loud. It’s kind of distracting. Do you think maybe you could keep it to yourself?”

“Oh, yeah… sorry,” he said, returning the speaker to its cradle of skin and cartilage, and once more bobbing his head along to phantom beats. Holding a pen in his hand, Christian looked down at the open day-planner in his lap. Empty pages stared back.

The Fountainhead: An old debate revisited

I just finished reading a book I’d been putting off for years.  Partly because of its exorbitant length, but also because I have a tendency to purposefully neglect books that are commonly espoused as “must-read-classics.”  Yes, I can be that stubborn.

I finally caved in a few months ago, however.

I have a tradition of buying a new book every time I go downtown with my Social Psych students as they work on their experiments for their first assignment.  I went into the bookstore and saw this one cradling the barrier between the Fiction and Philosophy sections.  I thought to myself, “Well, I guess it’s time.”

Anyways, I’m glad to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed this book despite my stubborn anti-snobbism (which is really just being a snob myself).  It was refreshing to read a book that was so rigidly structured and purposeful.  Most of the modern fiction that you’ll read (and I’m guilty of writing in this style myself) feels a little too… natural?  Not to say that this is a bad thing, of course, just that “classic” literature tends to feel like there is more deliberate content in its prose.  If there was ever a novel that felt deliberate, this is the one.

Collectivism versus Individualism

Be prepared to be hit over the head by the end of the novel.  It can get very preachy.  Don’t let that dissuade you, however–the preachiness is very convincing.  If you’re coming into the novel with a background full of socialistic ideals and collectivism (as I was), be warned that this novel will challenge you more than most.  It is a novel that praises rugged individualism like I’ve never encountered in my life.

This debate is one that’s very dear to my heart and invades almost every aspect of my life (for reference, see my post on Punk Rock).

Since I began to consider politics and economics (read: high school and college days) I’ve always leaned towards the left; often-times the extreme left.  This continuum is interwined, I believe, with those of Idealism versus Realism and Subjectivity versus Objectivity.  The more I grow up (ha!) I find that these extremes are never really the answer.

The extreme left in politics isn’t practical and ends up being inefficient, while the extreme right neglects the human element and increases economic disparity.

Idealism can be argued for both sides of the political spectrum with realism existing somewhere in the center.

I find that things are less relative than we’ve always liked to think.  No matter how special and unique we like to think we are, there is an objective world out there (we can get into Skepticism at another time, perhaps).  This allows quality, integrity, and judgment to exist.  This is why it is ridiculous to say, “Well, I like ______ so I think it’s good.”  Goodness is an objective description based upon certain criteria.  Things have infinite forms of “likeability,” but that doesn’t make them “good.”  We cannot discount the effect of perception, however, as it is important to understanding ourselves and those around us.

The Fountainhead, however, is an exercise in extremes.  It will challenge you on all of these aspects.  It promotes extreme Individualism (read: the political right… although this is debatable) to counterract extreme Collectivism (read: the political left).  It promotes extreme Idealism over extreme Realism.  It promotes extreme Objectivity over extreme Subjectivity.  Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism is rampant throughout the novel, but there are specific moments where it really does feel like you’re being beaten into submission.  In the best possible way.

Extremism is fun to dabble in.  It’s much more exciting than moderation.  Reality will always try to pull you back to the middle, in my experience.

Anyways, definitely give this novel a shot.  The story itself is a pretty good read .  If nothing else, it’s good to challenge your views in order to find yourself wrong or to strengthen them even further.

Second Installation

So, it’s been some time since I gave you all a glimpse into this short story that I’m writing (still tentatively being called, “Same as it Ever Was”). Although I didn’t get any e-feedback on it, I did receive some very helpful comments from those who read it and got back to me in real life. Once again, if you find anything that strikes you as awkward or that just doesn’t flow well, let me know. This is still VERY rough and a lot of work needs to be done, but any comments would be helpful. Again, this may or may not be sequential.

“So, what do you do?”

Christian glanced up from his shoelaces. There was knot that somewhat resembled a hastily-constructed beehive. He’d never bothered to dismantle and right now it seemed a monumental task. Regardless, the nasally, female voice that spoke to him now brought him away from his task and forced him to recognize the person sitting next to him.

“What’s that?” Christian asked, not really bothering to look at the speaker, but rather gazing intently across the aisle at a mother scolding her young child.

“Dressed like you are, you’re obviously going to work, but it’s 11 o’clock in the morning and you’ve been on here for at least thirty minutes.”

“What’s your p—”

“That’s quite a long distance to be going for a lunch break, don’t you think?”

Christian didn’t answer, so the woman continued, after a pause.

“So, my question is, what do you do that you’re going to work at eleven?”

“I…” Christian began, but halted.  His brow furrowed with thought.

Looking up at the woman, he was a little taken-aback. She was short, maybe 5’2”, skinny, and had blonde hair that contrasted only slightly with her pale skin, but still showed hints of a previous pink highlighting. She was wearing a green sun-dress and tall white socks ending in a pair of red Chuck Taylors. She was chewing gum. He’d been expecting a housewife in her 30s—maybe it was the Minnesota accent.

“I write checks,” he answered, finally.

“Who do you write them for?”

“I don’t know… corporations, companies, conglomerates… things that start with ‘C’.”

“That’s funny,” she said with a smirk.

“I guess so,” Christian replied, and then smiled to himself briefly. Looking around once again, he noticed a large GAP bag sitting at the feet of the woman he’d just been talking to. Normally he would’ve paid this no mind, but he thought it was strange that the bag was filled with other smaller brown paper bags—all neatly creased and folded so as to provide room for as many as possible. He nodded at the bags and said, “So, are you like… really into the environment or something?”

“Me?” the girl asked, not noticing his gesture towards her feet. “No, not really. I guess maybe I should be, but I’m not. Why do you ask?”

“The bags. I figured you were going somewhere to recycle them, or something.”

“Oh, right. The bags. No, they’re for work.”

“Where do you work?”

“The Lion’s Den.”

“The Li… oh, wait… isn’t that like… a… uh…”

“A sex shop? Yeah. It’s where I’m headed now. Does that weird you out?”

Christian dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief, then folded his hands and looked out the window. “Does it weird me out? No, I uh… it’s just…”

The woman’s laugh didn’t do much to comfort Christian. It was just as nasal as her voice.

“It’s okay. I know it’s not very… um… ‘traditional,’ I suppose. Not like writing checks, anyways.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her and saw her smiling. She continued: “Anyways, don’t feel bad thinking it’s a little weird, because it is. Fuck, I mean, I’ll be the first one to admit that!”

“So, what are the bags for?”

“Well, let me put this in a hypothetical situation. Let’s say you were a customer—”

“I wouldn’t be—”

“Do you know what hypothetical means?” Christian rolled his eyes quite noticeably. “Good, then stop interrupting. Let’s say you were a customer and you’d just bought like, a magazine or a movie or…” She looked at him somewhat cautiously and then smiled. “…or a ten-inch Mr. Wiggly—”

“Hey!”

“Kidding! Chill. Anyways, it’s bad enough that people might see you walking out of the store, but you can still play the, ‘Oh, I was just in there for shits and giggles,’ card. I mean, we do get that, after all. But if you have merchandise in your hand? Well, then you’re up the creek.”

“So you give them bags? Isn’t it still obvious that you bought something there?”

“Not just any bag…” she said, reaching down below her seat and pulling out one of the immaculately folded brown paper bags, “…Kroger brand.”

“I don’t know… I’m not sure I’d be fooled.”

“Well, maybe not, but there’s a Kroger’s down the road, so at least it’s somewhat plausible. Anyways, people will pay extra for a little bit of manufactured privacy.” Christian nodded and looked again at the mother and child across the aisle. The boy was curled up on a seat with his head resting on his mother’s lap. She was slowly running her fingers through his hair and looking at Christian. However, when she noticed that he was returning her stare, she quickly averted her eyes and began to search around for something else to watch. Christian looked back at the blond woman who was now picking red flakes off of her fingernails.

“Do you enjoy it?” he asked.

“What?”

“Your work… do you enjoy it?”

“It’s good enough for now,” she said, shrugging. “There are some really… ‘interesting’ people that come in, so it makes for good stories… but, I mean, it’s just temporary. You gotta move on sometime.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, there’s no way to really move up in my industry… well, not in any way that I’d like to, at least,” she said, chuckling to herself.

“No, I mean, couldn’t you just stay where you are? Couldn’t things just not change?”

“Everything changes. Besides, what would be the fun in that?”

“Comfort, I guess,” Christian said, with a sigh. Before he knew what was happening, the woman had reached over, grabbed his wrist, and yanked on a little bit of hair that was growing out near a mole on his arm. Instinctively, Christian yelped and drew his arm back, shooting the woman an angry look.

“What the hell did you do that for?” he asked, a little too loudly. The mother across the aisle gave him a displeased look.

“Well, are you comfortable now?” Christian didn’t answer, but turned his head away. “Exactly, but now you know how comfortable you were before, and now you can appreciate it.” She sighed, and said, “Look, I’d love to keep talking about this with you. Really, I would—but this is my stop.” She pulled on a plastic cord, signaling to the driver that she needed to get off, then stood up and began to walk towards the front of the bus. However, just as she passed the mother and child, she turned and paused before saying, “Good luck.” With that, the bus came to a stop and she disappeared.

I had a great conversation with another writer (do I consider myself a writer? That’s a good question…) here in Singapore at a fun little test-run shindig at Le Noir called Ogywawa on Wednesday. This has sparked some renewed interest in my writing. I’ll have a lot more time in September to hopefully finish up this short story.

Same as it Ever Was

Well, I’ve received some gripes that my blog posts aren’t “personal” enough. I’m not sure that I ever wanted this to be a blog about myself in a self-report kind of way, but I don’t see how any blog is impersonal as it reflects the interests and style of the writer.

In order to appease the masses of readers that visit my blog daily (how much is a mass? 16? Let’s say 16), I’ve decided to go ahead and include part of a short story that I’ve been writing… haltingly… and hopefully hear some comments as to what works and what doesn’t. For example, if you start to get bored with it, tell me exactly what makes you feel that way. I don’ t have much of a community of writers over here, so hopefully this will work as some sort of a proxy.

I don’t want to say too much, because I don’t want to influence any first impressions, but I’ll make a few more comments afterwards. I’m not sure how to get the formatting quite right on the blog here, so please forgive that. Anyways, the tentative title is “Same as it Ever Was” (and clever readers will recognize that allusion).

Water flowing underground.

Christian’s hazel eyes rose from the black jacket of his spiral-bound day planner to strafe the empty seats surrounding him. Their blue and red knit lining hinted at padding, but the coarse, scratchy fabric underneath Christian’s pants told him otherwise. As he let his head fall backwards and rest against the translucent window behind him, he was comforted knowing that onlookers would never see past the ten foot tall ‘Clearasil’ ad that was chugging along at 35 MPH; they would never see his grayish-blond hair pressed flat against the opposite side and think to themselves, “Well, there goes Monday.”

“Dude. You, uh… you… okay?”

In his cursory glance, Christian had failed to notice the single other passenger on board. As a result, he was startled at the sound of another voice. Sitting up and bringing his head forward once more, Christian appraised his new companion: He was large. Large doesn’t really begin to describe it, however. This man was large in a way that poor dieting doesn’t sufficiently account for—he was large in a medical kind of way. He had long, dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and he spoke with unintentional pauses that might seem thoughtful for some, but in this case indicated a possibility of heavy drug use—but Christian was not one to judge.

“Dude?” the man reiterated.

Christian collected himself, breathed in heavily through his nose, met the man’s gaze and responded with a very casual, “What’s up?”

“You… uh… you just looked kind of… out of it?” The man had a way of making statements sound like questions by raising his voice at the end of his sentences. “…and you’re like… kind of… sweating a lot? Like, a whole lot.”

Christian hadn’t noticed before, but now that he was sitting up he could feel his once-white button down shirt stick to his back. As Christian searched his pants’ pocket for a handkerchief, the man continued speaking.

“’Cause… I mean… I’m like… a big dude, y’know? I sweat a lot… but man, I was just worried that maybe you were… like… y’know… sick or something?”

“Well, thanks for your concern, but I’m really alright. I just…” Christian stopped for a moment to think about what he was saying before he continued: “I think… I think I missed my stop.”

The man nodded and leaned back, stretching his arms back behind the adjacent seats. After a few moments, he looked over at Christian and said, “Uh… aren’t you gonna, y’know, get off? ‘Cause, I mean—”

“No, I um… I know what you mean. I just… I think I’m going to stay on the bus for a while.”

The perplexed look on the man’s face was not surprising for Christian, he wasn’t sure he knew what he was saying either.

“Are you lost?”

“I don’t know… I just feel like getting off would be a bad idea.”

“Um… okay… I uh… I’m just gonna… sit over here for a while, dude. Um, maybe you should ask the driver to… uh… turn up the AC… or something?”

“I’ll be okay, thanks though.”

“Okay… well… nice, uh… nice talking to you.”

Christian gave what he felt was a confident smile and his gaze once more fell upon his day-planner.

So, that’s the first section. Actually, I’m not sure if that’s going to be first, but it’s the first part that I wrote. I’m not completely happy with it yet. In fact, I’m pretty far from happy with it. So please, any criticism you can give would be helpful. Basically, it revolves around the central character (Christian) as a passive “protagonist” and his encounters with people on the bus–the bus being a metaphor for life taking him along its course without him actively trying to change it.

I’ve already tried many times to have a passive central character in my stories (as much as I’ve been advised otherwise), so I’ll see if I can pull it off more successfully with this endeavor.