Strain of Consciousness

-The past few days have been filled with some type of creative energy. Failed though it has. The weekend, mostly drunken stupor. And in that state, I came to a challenge within myself and for our filmmaking collaborative of two. I’ve failed. My funds are low and my frustrations high. Friday: Last day of substitute teaching, tentatively at least, I have no clue what I’ll be doing when I return from my year long voyage to the other side of the world. After last week, the easiest assignment I’ve had in the length pf my substitute career, I knew it […]

-Walking through the corridors, quads and stairways, making my way from or to the parking lot, the general entryway for students on foot from the freeway. My eyes bounce from the pavement, down the narrow passageways between buildings and the groups of students standing, sitting, being, in each others’ faces. I’m contemplating a documentary, or maybe just photographs. Notice how everything changes and still stays the same. I remember walking through crowds, while still a student, now the crowds have grown larger but still remain. There was always a group in class who had replaced intelligence with machismo, or the […]

-Daejeon it is. The contract came today. Well, not straight to me. I did receive an e-mail with some sort of attachment, but it was in Korean…I don’t read Korean. We went down to the recruiting office and confirmed what the vacation periods were, signed the contracts and they were off, Fed Exed to the other side of the world. In about twenty days or so, we’ll be off to the other side of the world. So now comes the part where I become busy, packing away my things here, getting vaccinated and making all last preparations. So this may […]

-“Ok, yeah-,” “Yeah, ok,” “Yeah right-,” “Right-, yeah.” The interjections come at mixed pace and sometimes at odd moments. They think they’re using discourse markers but it’s more like discourse confusers. I’ve had three of these conversations now, they leave me giggling, but they leave my friend with his head reeling trying to understand some part of the bending winding conversation. They don’t mean to sound condescending, they really don’t. It’s just the difficulty with the language. It always leaves a humor impression. Like the previous conversation, I had with them, where they explained a single occupancy apartment would be […]

-The rain cascades against the window and I sit there with an unfocused attention. I hear the car doors slammed into the shiny plastic bodies, glistening in the garage light bouncing on drops of water falling on the new paint. The squeaking of the garage door as another octane fueled beast slides through the slicked streets, home. Two days ago, in a conversation, a chorus appeared. It stood out as if it meant something. And who is it? The rest of the song works well, but it’s that line that hooks you in. “Nail in my hand, from my creator, […]

-I keep thinking about the Pallbearer. Not so much the movie, there really wasn’t enough flesh to the characters, but rather the idea of passing and not being remembered. I was at the beach this morning, the sunlight dancing on the green blue. There are people talking and it’s just like in the movies. I’m not sure what the impetus was to go, but I attended an AA meeting. Across the circle from where I sat, with her hood over her head and only moments caught in slumber’s grasp, was a girl who I remembered from my solo performance class. […]

-I wake up almost groggy from a long night of nothing. It’s kind of like the way I’ve been living. There are moments when I can sit quietly with my thoughts almost frozen. A state of zen being, funny though, nothing comes. No epiphany, no enlightment, and least of all direction. My morning ebbs and flows til it is gone. I sit and watch movies, a favorite hobby, past time, unyielding occupation. For all the hours I’ve spent waqtching and dissecting films, I have yet to write a feature length script. The longest I’ve written was sixteen pages, the most […]

-“They are most happy, who have no story to tell.”-Anthony Trollope Sometimes I wonder if I have a story to tell. Notice that this is different from an imagination. Imagination I think is what brings us a certain sense of release from the malady of the quotidian. Having a story to tell takes to a different place, in which a world has to be created in order to tell the story. Yet I find myself disillusioned by the stories people seek in our times. I was out in Old Town yesterday and saw a huge line at the UA. Looking […]

-The sunlight seeps in through the window, fully woken I sit on the edge of the bed, a blank stare on my face. Perhaps the look of desperation. This morning, there was a numbness associated with my being awake. As I sat there, I felt cocooned almost within some drowsy existence, different from the one I’ve known well for the past twenty four years, but one nonetheless which I have known for short bursts, when it sneaks up on me on desultory days like today. It is in these moments that I wonder if I am losing my mind in […]