Tagged: writing

Storytime Saturday, featuring an excerpt from A Million Little Boxes – a work story. 

I decided that I’d refuse to let a building define me. I’d refuse to allow any company, or entity, or job, or anything define who I was as a person. As a human. As a man. The contents of that building did not define my success. My success was not in there. It’s in here. It’s within my chest. Within this soul. I am defined by who I am, and what I do…what I believe and what I feel…what I’m capable of…not by the whim of some fucking corporation. Interestingly, it was brought to my attention that I may be afraid to move forward, that I feared success more than I feared failure. The thought of that shit had me up in arms, like “what?” You’ve got to be kidding me, right? “All I want is success”, I’d tell myself.  But you know what?  Maybe I was.  

Storytime Saturday, featuring an excerpt from A Million Little Boxes – a work story.

The day that my potato exploded in the microwave was an eye opener.  It was a sign…an omen.  A message from the powers that be.  Maybe I’d nuked that fucker for too long, or maybe I just didn’t give a shit.  Either way, that little vegetable bastard decided to commit culinary suicide and blew itself spud first all over the confines of the microwave with a mere five seconds left.  I mean, c’mon…it couldn’t have kept its composure for a measly five more seconds?  Suck it up, god damn it!  I had no money left, I had no lunch, and I was hungry enough to eat the scum out of the bottom of a homeless man’s shoes.
  It was definitely a sign…an omen…a message from the powers that be.

Poems – Vision. 

I am a huge dreamer.  I try to also be a huge doer.  It is a challenge to find that balance, since it’s often much easier to do the dreaming than it is finding the time and mojo to DO.  The two (hopefully) go hand in hand, as dreams are nothing but fairy tales without action.  As such, I am a huge advocate for dreaming and doing.  A major advocate for living life rather than just existing.  My poems are not meant to be preachy, “this is how you should live your life” style poems, but rather reminders of things that I think about.  Things that I have noticed in my own experiences and in my own walk of life.  I don’t pretend to have any answers at all.  But I’ll tell you what, the quest for those answers is fun…and it is my joy to write about those explorations.  In that vein, feel free to check out today’s observation.  We are all on this journey together…let’s try our best to dream and do.  I’m with you.  Best of luck to you today.

Library Lusting.

Something about this room stuck with me.  Though highly ornate, some comforting, inviting undertones reign supreme. High, breezy ceilings and a flood of natural light help add to the fresh ambiance, and the plush couch speaks relaxation.  Tuck a neat little desk in the back?  Perfect for writing.  And the gang of books would keep a reader occupied for eons.  Oh yes, this is most definitely a book lover’s room. 

Story Time Saturday, featuring an excerpt from A Million Little Boxes – a work story.

When would I decide that enough was enough? Had I determined what enough was? Or when? What was my threshold? My breaking point? How much would I have to endure before I realized that I’d had it up to here? It had been years of the same old, years of stringing together reason after reason, excuse after excuse, line after line. Coaxing together a thin fabric of a façade that masked my true purpose, a purpose that had lain dormant for God knows how long. It was once asked if dreams deferred wither and dry up like raisins in the sun; I often wondered that same question. 
 What happens to dreams when they’re cast aside like old laundry into an old darkened corner? Do they begin to smell? Do they rot? Do they grow hairy mold? Or do they just die…regretfully, painfully, scornfully, and utterly unforgiving of the person that relegated them to that less than golden fate? Do we blame ourselves? Do we blame ourselves as the result of our jobs? Or is it all one giant soup that we’re all stewing in, bubble by bubble, until we reach the boiling point that sends us oozing over the edge of the pot and into the unknown? Maybe there in that zone lies the reason behind it all…the purpose that we all so desperately seek…the one that very few of us have ever truly lived enough of in order to assist the rest of us schlocks that were too afraid to step out and live. 

Library Lusting.

Deep, dark wood (and even deeper sofas), tall ceilings, high windows unleashing a torrent of soft natural light…and the best part?  A gang of anonymous books lining the length of both walls.  If you could avoid falling asleep on those bed-like sofas, you could get some major reading or writing done in this room.  True enough, this is indeed a book lover’s room.

SaturdayDreaming – The Unique Power of Film and Television.

This SaturdayDreaming installment just so happens to be my very first post on this blog, penned waaaaay back in 2009.  It’s been a fun ride.  Hope you enjoy, and happy Saturday! 

Film is in my blood. When I was a kid, my older brothers and I would literally cycle through the same batch of movies every single day after school. We would craftily rotate between current and old stuff based on the mood. For the hidden singer in us, we had classics like Grease and West Side Story on standby; for the action hero side of our imagination, we watched Excalibur and Total Recall. Here’s the kicker, though – we didn’t just watch these films; we became a part of them. I can recall many light-hearted arguments involving which characters we wanted to be in the movies that we saw (we each wanted to be the coolest character, of course).  

 We didn’t merely watch Bruce Lee annihilate Chuck Norris in the Colosseum; we were Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris duking it out kung-fu style that day. We didn’t just watch the suave Ludlow brothers of Legends of the Fall; we became the brothers (and of course, I was the coolest). So much of our childhood developed around the TV that we can, to this day, readily quote lines from films that clinically intertwine with our day-to- day conversations.
 

Not surprisingly, movies and television became our go to form of comedic self-expression. Our lives lit up watching A Different World, Yo! MTV Raps, and The Cosby Show. Much of our childhood unfolded alongside these larger than life characters doing larger than life activities. Sure, we created our own characters, and re-enacted our own daring adventures, but the television was the catalyst that thrust us into that imaginative void; that realm where dreams become reality, and thoughts and deeds transcend what’s perceived to be real.  

We weren’t couch potatoes either, I might add; our heroic deeds often spilled into the backyard, where we became mighty sporting heroes and dauntless explorers. In a weird way, movies and TV helped to mold and shape me into the man I am today. My artistic endeavors can all somehow be traced back to those freewheeling days huddled in front of the TV, dreaming about the tales and characters that were being projected into my psyche (and of course, I was the coolest one).