Work…or something like it.

I love how I followed my personal entreaty to begin blogging again by promptly not blogging for a week.

Old habits die hard.

My family came to the east coast last week and spent some time graduating our oldest girl sibling, Julie. It was a wonderful time and gave me a much needed break from my busy life. I followed that break with a  four day weekend from the company that I work for. I relaxed so much that I became bored! A welcome reprise from what has been a completely interesting and exhausting time for me.

My East Coast Life

I got to thinking the other day and I realized that I miss writing. I used to blog pretty consistently for about a year. I really enjoyed it and I liked the feeling I would get when a friend or family member discussed something I wrote with me. It felt like something connecting me to the people I love in a much more sincere way than a wall post or text message.

When I blog, I open up my thoughts (however private they may be) to any people that may want to read them. Maybe my thoughts and their thoughts on some particular issue may be the same. Or maybe my thoughts will spark new thoughts for them causing them to explore some new arena.

So then I got to thinking about what I want to tell my friends and family about the last year or so of my life that they may not already know. Seeing as no one knows much of anything about my life lately, I have a lot of material to work with!

An Actual Conversation

ring ring

“Accounting office.”

(female voice) “Are you there until 4?”

“…I’m sorry? ..Yes I’m usually here until 4.”

“Good, I’ll be there…my daughter I mean.”

“I’m sorry?”

“We’ll be there at 4, ok?…Is this Rick Jong?”

“Yes..I mean this is Rick’s office. I’m his assistant.”

“Ok good, we’ll be there at 4, thank you.”

“I’m…ok thank you.”

(about twenty minutes later a man walks in and delivers some papers)

Focus. Its an issue.

For as long as I’ve been a relatively cognitive being, I’ve played video games. I grew up on those things. I’m one of those old fogies who managed a few hours on an Atari back when home game systems were the wave of the future. I’ve logged more hours than I care to admit to the mentally stimulating pursuit of this terribly addicting activity.

Lately, its been a source of a bit of discussion and, dare I say, tension between my opposite and I. For whom I care a great deal. So her distaste for one of my favorite past times has both shocked me and caused me to rethink my opinion of these fantabulous machines.

The first step for me was to essentially put myself in her shoes or the shoes of any dissenting opinion giver. What do they see when they see a person, child or otherwise, playing video games? The answer, horrified as I am to admit it, contains almost no positive imagery.

Look at us. We do not look like people overflowing with ambition or even joy, despite what may be hidden in our firing synapses and imaginations. We cannot look like ambitious people to a group who don’t understand or don’t want to understand why we enjoy what we enjoy so much.

So I had to do some soul searching. How can I both appease my own irksome attitude about spending too much time with my imagination and my girlfriend’s attitude toward the monster, while both enjoying the monster and keeping it a part of who I am. I cannot, no matter what my decision, allow the monster to devour my time or keep me from having true ambition rather than the imaginary kind.

I have a morning routine that I like to follow. I wake up much earlier than my job requires and I sit in front of my computer and log in some quality time with the monster. He and I get a great deal of fun out of our time together. Sometimes, when I get home from work, the monster can be heard through the front door, “Jeege. Jeege. Come and play with me.” More often than not, I heed his call and rush quickly to him. Before I realize what has happened, my evening is shot. I may cook a meal or maybe even watch an episode of a television show, but in the end I’ve spent most of my time with the monster.

I want to have success in life. I want to be an actor or a performer of some kind. I can make that happen. I have the drive, the determination and the confidence in myself to cause this thing to happen for me. But the monster cannot be a part of this process. I don’t want to banish him but he and I have to find some sort of common ground if we are going to co-exist. Because if forced to choose between he and my dreams…well, his death would be swift and resolute.

So I have come to a conclusion and I thought what better way to announce my decision than through a triumphant swing of my blogging stick over the heads of my entrapped readers.

I will only play video games after I wake up in the mornings and no longer spend any afternoon hours entrenched in front of my computer. That is the decision that I have come to. The time has come for me to buck up and move my ambitions to an arena with the potential for a greater amount of return, so that some day I can emerge from a life well spent like this guy:

Victorious.

Tonight

I am going to meet with my mentor this evening and discuss my future as an actor. We’ll talk about things like how I plan on succeeding and where I plan on getting my head-shots, etc…

Basically, we’ll discuss how to scare the crap out of myself and how to feel overwhelmed by the prospect of teh futures.

Seriously though, I’m looking forward to seeing him. Its been almost five months or so since our play finished and I’d like to know how he’s been. I’ve been so restless these last six months or so because I want to start down the path of being a professional performer. At this point, I don’t even really care what form of performance it is! I just want to do it.

I just want to do it.

For interests sake I have decided to embed a little video from one of my favorite rockers, Feist. This is one of the coolest music videos you’ll see. She is just…SO cool.