I've failed again--I should have updated this thing a few times since the last post, but time constraints wouldn't let it be so. Here's me making it up to you:

I read The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff today, in its entirety. Though it's only about 160 pages long, with much of that space being set aside for illustrations, this says something--because I normally fall asleep after reading 30 or so pages, despite how much I claim to love reading. Anyway, I'll indulge you in the details of the book, which seeks to reconcile A.A. Milne's beloved character with the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism. Hoff holds up Pooh as the embodiment of Taoism through the virtues of being simple-minded, taking pleasure in small things, being more or less worry-free and so on--in other words, the book (and Taoism in general, I guess) is a philosophy for life that isn't obscure and convoluted to the point of being understood by only a small coterie of scholars and academics. It's also another installment in this series of "self-help/meaning-seeking" books that I've found myself reading lately (and I will discuss this, occasionally, on my other blog).

As it's been nearly a year since I posted to this blog I figured it's due for an update. I have made a few other blogs in the past year, none of which were created with the purpose of being a journal or diary; instead these were supposed to be little sanctuaries for creativity, in an effort to stimulate myself into writing, well, creatively. So far the project has failed. Anyway, the point here is that I'm going to try to update this page a couple times a week and just talk about what's going on in my life.

Right now: I am trying to get to South Korea sometime in the spring so I can teach conversational English. This looks promising, but I'm still waiting on some paperwork to be finalized. It seems as though most of the people I know who have participated in similar work programs in Korea did so before the country came up with all this mandatory paperwork, therefore I have no help in getting these things together.

While in Korea (bear in mind that I am optimistic about this prospect): Other than teaching, I'm going to try to involve myself in traveling, taking a million pictures, reading and writing consistently and possibly learning to speak some Korean. In other words, exactly what every other language teacher probably does. I read that Korea isn't the ideal country in which to "find yourself," but I don't think that's what I need. I just want some solitude and a little financial security, even if it is brief.

Beyond Korea: As it stands, I'll probably be in Korea for a year, arriving back in the United States sometime in the summer of 2010. I've been putting off a master's degree for nearly three years now, so if things turn out well I'll have decided where to go by the time I return. I've been reconsidering my options for graduate school, and while I'll most likely end up getting an M.A. in literature there's a chance I'll change my mind.

Blacksburg: This town weighs more heavily on me each day I spend here. There is nothing noble about Barnes & Noble; while that's not necessarily funny it is true. I will soon make a post about the contradicting nature of working in a chain bookstore--the product versus the clientele versus the employees...it will make more sense when the topic is fully realized. I'll have to think about it a little more in depth before I attempt some kind of analysis and opinion.

Meeting Justin Cleveland

At Helen's request (and to fulfill a promise I made months ago) here's everything I can remember about the beginnings of my friendship with Justin Cleveland, with many key details left out to protect his reputation, of course.

I knew of Justin throughout elementary school but it wasn't until Mr. Rigley's class in sixth grade that we became friends. And, as with Dan, we started out as enemies. I do not recall why, though I would think it had something to do with Justin having a big mouth. I remember us hitting each other in the hallway of the school, though neither of us hit hard enough to cause any pain.

At some point during the year we must have bonded over a mutual love of baseball and basketball cards. Of course, this was a hobby which occupied the spare time of many boys our age, and there was a certain social status attached to those who had the most "valuable" sports cards. As an aside, I'll mention that we also looked to shoes and NBA replica jerseys as indicators of social status, but sports cards were the most important. We pitied those poor boys who had an album full of "commons," or cards of relatively minor athletes whose cards didn't warrant a high price in Beckett or Tuff Stuff.

**I'll save my history with sports cards for another post, another day**

Now, my relationship with Justin wasn't exactly continuous. We would fall out with one another every couple years, I think, or there would be extended periods of time when we wouldn't see much of each other. As we were on different "teams" in 7th grade (I was unfortunately on the Madison "team," while Justin was probably on Monroe), our in-school socializing more or less disappeared. The only middle school memory of Justin which I can recall with any clarity (though it may have been sixth grade) is a birthday trip to see the Roanoke Express. There may have been many sessions in which we traded cards, played basketball or rode our bikes but no specific episodes will come to mind.

The high-school years: Justin and I were the only boys in the yearbook class our tenth-grade year. At least a dozen attractive girls surrounded us on a daily basis, though there was a marked difference in the way each of us responded to these surroundings. I don't know if Justin had had any girlfriends by this point but I know he was more advanced than I when it came to any male-female interaction. I was a very overweight 15 year-old, which certainly didn't help. Justin was scrawny with a fashionable haircut, leading some girls to compare him to Ryan Phillipe (some actor from a movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar, I think). It goes without saying that I didn't have the upper hand (nor have I ever), but I think the two of us provided a nice balance within the classroom atmosphere, at least. We did as little work as possible while the rest of the students worked at about a half-pace. I can say I didn't learn much about girls from Justin, though I was always (and still am) puzzled about how he could say absolutely stupid things and girls would find it to be cute (Justin, if you're reading this, I'm not calling your intellectual aptitude into question, I'm merely pointing out my inability to understand the ways in which the mind of a teenage girl works).

I'll leave off here for now...we've had a long history together and it cannot be summed up on this day.

I have spent the majority of today in front of the computer. This has to stop. It is a crime on my part to ignore a day's natural beauty in favor of a piece of machinery, but I have done wrong today and will do so again.

My reading as of late has not been very consistent, as I spend a large part of my time wallowing in my own misery. However, all is not lost, not entirely. What I have read recently has been inspiring and intellectually stimulating, and I have ascended halfway from my self-created pit of depression and darkness. Tolstoy's Confessions speaks to me, what I've read, though I've not yet arrived at the part where (I assume) he relates his conversion to theism and discovers a meaning for living. Beyond that, Alain de Botton's The Consolations of Philosophy has really helped bring some clarity to my problems, and I aim to read more by Montaigne, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.

Dan Wing

The friendship between Daniel Mark Wing and I was initially rocky; in fact, I think among the first impressions we had of one another were along the lines of keen dislike. We first met towards the end of ninth grade. Dan's family had moved to Virginia from North Carolina the previous summer, and though we lived maybe a mile from one another it took us close to a year to meet each other. A mutual acquaintance (my neighbor, in fact) had played on the freshman basketball team with Dan who, if I remember correctly, scored precisely one basket that entire season. My neighbor and I would often make the afternoon trek to the playground, which is situated across the street from Dan's adolescent home. I can't precisely recall how our first encounter played out, but there was bound to be tension--me, fat; Dan, a rail. The neighbor had no problems making fun of us equally, which for some reason didn't bring us together against a mutual enemy but polarized us even more, inviting us to spout as much mid-pubescent vitriol as we could muster. I vividly remember referencing Dan's father as Saddam Hussein--I attribute this to my poor vision, poor sense of humor and the fact that his father would never come across the street to the playground, but would shout from the front yard.

These afternoon basketball sessions continued through the end of the school year, and I can't recall exactly when we started to form something the mold of a friendship. I was at the playground alone for some reason and went across the street to see if I could get Dan out to play some basketball. Maybe we played, maybe not. I think we ended up played Goldeneye on Nintendo 64 because Dan was certain he was a better player. I didn't agree, and I don't to this day, but he probably did beat me. There's no shame in that.

The impetus for the friendship, I think, was the fact that neither of us had many friends. I was in the most awkward phase of my adolescence, plagued with acne, overweight, bursting with insecurities. Dan was still the new kid. We discovered a common hatred for those popular kids at our high school, or at least a common understanding that those kids would more or less amount to nothing, and assured ourselves that while we were the losers at the moment, we'd win in the end (I'm hoping the end isn't here yet because neither of us has much to brag about yet). Now I look back on those days of high school politics with indifference, but of course in those days it's very much a big deal. We were able to rationalize a lot of the fear away over basketball, Arby's roast beef sandwiches, Mrs. Wing's Weight Watchers food (I claim those myself), pizza from Little Caesar's, videogames, verbally lusting after female classmates, verbally tearing the others apart.

Our incompatibilities were many--I was as profane as possible, Dan was (at the start) fairly reserved about his swearing. He had the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, I had Wu-Tang Forever. I can't (or refuse) to recall how I dressed in those days, but Dan was very basic in his attire--straight-legged jeans and a t-shirt. Total fucking dork compared to most of the kids in our school. We still had mischief. And Napster. When American Pie was released on DVD we somehow managed to rent it and get it back to Dan's house (I don't think either of us was driving at that point, so I guess his dad took us). It's embarrassing to bring up, but at 15 there's not much more tempting than movies with breasts fully exposed (except breasts in real life) and we were pretty fired up about the topless scene. Now, at this point the only DVD player in the house was on the family computer, and for some reason that evening the Compaq really didn't feel up to showing us American Pie or any naked breasts. After probably 30-45 minutes of tinkering with the computer it came around and let us watch the movie. I don't remember what happened when we actually came to that scene, or if we even enjoyed the damn thing. The frustration of maybe not reaching our miserably pathetic goal that night is all that sticks in my memory.

I have memories from those years in abundance: random acts of vandalism and larceny, playing jokes on people through e-mail (we'll talk about that one in the Justin Cleveland post), Dan's first experiences with mind-altering substances and my role as the babysitter, evenings at Dan's youth group (where we'd play games that involved girls sitting on our laps!), endless shit-talking, flunking (or almost, in Dan's case) geometry, miscellaneous adventures in Dan's Plymouth Reliant, Star Wars books, playground basketball with overzealous rednecks and spacy Vietnam veterans, the Gene Kleveland legacy, and a general disregard for too many things to mention.

I have to say that his influence has been incalculable; whether or not that influence has been positive or negative, I can't say. He was a major crutch during that crippling period, one of a few, but the most consistent of all.

I'm feeling particularly sentimental this evening; at the moment, I'm listening to "Come On, Eileen" and avoiding the bleak weather outside. Such conditions are conducive to writing, I suppose, but as always I'm short on ideas and working with kids on a regular basis is thinning my vocabulary. If I was ever a word gymnast, that time has passed.

But back to the original intention of this post: my intent is to document my first encounters with my closest friends, how the relationship was founded, what effects the friendship has had on me, etc. I don't know what I stand to gain from this little project of mine--probably nothing but some much-needed writing exercise--but maybe one day those people will stumble across my blog (most probably don't know it exists, and that's fine) and find something I've written to be humorous or amusing or even surprising.

To jog my memory later (and to maybe whet an appetite or two), here's a running list of who's to be included:

Daniel Wing
Steve Tollin
Gillian Karp
Mark Burnette
Jacob Murray
Phil Cason
Justin Cleveland
Drew Schwemer
Jordan Powers
Joseph Powers
Mickey Humsi
Jesse Lambert
Mark Lentz
Tim Pruitt
Ed Porter
Rebecca Huvar
William Humsi
Cody Abell
Aaron Cline
Eric Cregger

Poor, poor again

There's a nagging temptation to say that my job has made me more miserable than I was before starting it; this isn't exactly true, I suppose, because I've felt a financial burden (albeit, a small one) lifted from my shoulders. I've been hitching a ride with Yep Roc's publicist, who also lives in Raleigh. Carpooling is a good idea, but we won't be able to every single day due to some conflicting schedules, and my week of driving will be financially stressful because I don't make much money. Free music is a perk, but I lose nearly two hours of my day driving to/from work. I don't sit down at all during the day. I didn't take lunch today, so I was basically on my feet working from 9:30 this morning until 6 P.M. I'm not trying to complain too much, but it's a very disheartening thing to have graduated from college and not be able to use the degree, much less get an entry-level position that requires a degree, giving me at least a moderately respectable income.

I can't get my mind in gear to study for the GRE.

I have daily spells where I feel like my life is falling apart and that I need to start all over again.

I trip me up

My current dilemma is this: I'm unemployed and it won't be long until I'm completely out of money. The car payment and October's rent will pretty much put me in the gutter. That said, I've been offered a job. The upside is that it's with Red Eye Distribution, a major music distributor/a brother company to Yep Roc Records. Nick Lowe, Billy Bragg and Paul Weller are three of the old farts on the label (and my favorites to boot!), and The Minus Five and The Apples In Stereo are as well. I'll get a lot of free music. I'll work with people who have similar interests. The bad part is that it's 45 minutes away. It pays $7.50 an hour. It's a job in the warehouse/shipping/packing department. Now, I was told this is how most of the employees get started. That's fine, but it's not a financially feasible option for me with gas prices as they are now, and since I'm considering selling my car I don't want to pack on the miles.

My solution: I work at the job for a couple weeks and continue to search for a "real" job, or at least a better job, in the Raleigh area. If I can find another Red Eye/Yep Roc employee who lives in Raleigh and is willing to carpool, then I won't be in such a hard place.

I regret submitting my resume to the company; the job itself will be a lot of fun, I think, but it will be a difficult journey to and from work, and the pay won't make up for it. I didn't realize the place was so far away--the Triangle is goddamn enormous. But when the opportunity to work in the music industry (if a warehouse job counts) presents itself to me, it's one I can't readily turn down. It used to be my dream.