Green Eyed Shadow

Jack repressed the headache with the back of his hand. It was already late and he was still only half finished. The words on the page spread out before him like highway that disappeared from sight before the end. 

"And miles to go before I sleep . . ." he muttered to the glow of the computer. It was the only company he had in the pitched silence of the room. He shoveled some more willpower into the furnace of his brain and began typing again. Slow at first, but after a while he settled into the flow of his mind and produced a steady rhythm of sentences. 

So immersed was Jack that he didn't realize the change in pressure as a door opened and closed in the living room. The shadow found it easy, so very easy to stand so very close to the typing man. The shadow could smell the must of a few days absence of shower on him, the oils rising like a filmy fog. "Oh this will be so very easy" whispered the blade as it slid out of the sheath and into the base of the man's neck. 

The keyboard stops clacking, the computer screen starts flickering, and in its fading glow the face of a green eyed woman without a mouth examines her work. Where lips would be press against where fleshy cheek would sit.  But alas, the man with miles to go has broken down on the side of the road. The stretch of words fades into oblivion. There is only darkness. 

The shadow leaves just as she came, without a passing thought to Jack staring into the blackness of the room.  The blade is glowing now, and soon, oh so very soon, it will be bright enough to pierce the hearts that truly matter. 

On Networking to the First Job

         Its never the first step that's the issue, it's what happens after that first step. So you have made it. You graduated. Congratulations! Have lunch with you family, go out and get wasted with your friends, update your resume and smile at your accomplishment.

         Now to do something with it.

         This is where to watch that perilous stretch of stepping stones rise out of the river rushing in front of you. This is the writers attempt at a metaphor for networking, did you find it amusing? Not the point. Time to pick up the phone and schedule a meeting with everyone you know who is both successful and connected to someone in the field you want to pursue. In my case its the writing industry, the publishing world, and the realm of  makeup artistry.

          Work hard. Wrack your brain and your legal pad for all the burning questions that will lead you to that dream job. Pull the suit out of the closet and put it on. On the way to the interview rehearse your opener and your bullet points until your blue in the face, until its so natural its like someone slapped the words on your brain like a slab of meat on a steel table. Know your questions raw and well done. I swear I'll stop with the butcher metaphors now.  Use your best professional voice. Cross your ankles and whatever you do: don't stare and don't say "um".

          After your pitch (which should sound like your asking for advice on how to get a job and not "please could you try and get me a job as a writer somewhere?) is the most important part: listening to every word they say. These people are the keys to your future. They may only give you breadcrumbs to follow, but if you listen to the words coming out of their mouth the path will lead to more and more individuals who will have the answers to your questions. One of them will even tell you there's a job you'll be perfect for if you only apply. It will be a slow, uphill climb-but at the end will be your dream job. I haven't made it there yet but I'm sure It will be worth every ounce of effort. Thank the people giving you advice, write down their names and once you are hired, send them something they will enjoy.

          I will close this blog post with a word of warning to the aspiring writer/reporter/publishing house worker: Sometimes the stepping stones lead right back to where you started: on the other side of a big river. If this begins to happen its time to stop networking and start taking matters into your own hands. Best of luck guys.

On Perserverance

          

Turn down the background noise. Shut off all the lessons that you have learned, all of the hobbies that you have acquired through friends, shed away where you were, are, and will be.

                Just sit there for once, in original thought. If you are afraid let the fear wash over you, through you, and then drift away behind you. It is here, in this silence, when you truly are yourself, when you truly grow. Love or hate, anger or depression, you are feeling not because you should, but because you are.

                This is where you grow, and move along your own path in this life. 

on a glimpse into my past

I guess you could say my family is typical. We consist of generations of Americans, as in, they were born here, raised here, went to school here . . . and died here. This rinses and repeats all the way back to the signing of the Declaration of the Independence, to the army of General George Washington. It is safe to say that I am American. No, no, scratch that. I am a New Englander. My clan has settled all over the north from New York to Maine.

But before that?

Before that my family knew the lands of Ireland, knew a congregation of Methodists who grew tired of the potato famine, and thirsty for a life of prosperity, across the sea.  Before that my family knew the walls of castles, and social turmoil as they fought for power in the court of Henry VIII.  And before that? Well, that is unknown. It is rumored that Wright is a Celtic name, and that my people may be the figures seen in history books dancing and leaping, paying homage to their Goddess, praying for a fruitful harvest and a fertile spring.

Now my family consists of nuclear detachment, but that is a personal history for another day. I have grandparents. I love them as much as any grandchild loves their respective elder. They are the key to my past, the shareholders to the files of information I grasp onto and fuse into my mind. They are the reason I know who I am today, and why I will someday tell my grandchildren who they are. My Great grandparents have passed on before I really grew to know them.

Growing up there were few traditions. They typically circulated around a roasted turkey and a Christmas tree. Father always played Santa. Mother always cooked the best mashed potatoes in the world. We always hung an ornament on the black carved wale that lays guard over the front door. This is something my grandfather carved before the paralysis took him. Perhaps one thing, a tradition you may call it that is quite significant is when my family needed to sell the houses. We buried a statue of St Joseph, and then, once the house sold (and it always did shortly after), we would dig it up and set it in a prominent location in the new residency.

At FSU I attended break dancing classes intermittently but never pursued it seriously. Growing up I took a few dance classes in middle school. This consisted of ballet for two years, and then they (the big tall scary grownups) wanted me to join point. I went to two classes and promptly dropped it, with respect of course to the art of standing on your tippy toe with a millimeter of cardboard protecting you from excruciating pain, I still couldn’t see myself doing that.  I still have this dream though, of being front row center of the stage doing spin after spin on one toe, while the audience sits awed, and then cheering at the talent.

My true dream is to have a talent. Period. To discover what it means to have talent and be close to talent. Movement is the expression of the soul. Maybe in this class I can learn how to express my desire to be great at just one thing through dance.

On Transitioning into the Real World

The past few days have sunk me into a haze that drifts between the absence of thought, time, and space and spurts of activity, of life. When all you've known is school and a job, and it's cut from you like an umbilical chord, you float in a sea of absence. There is no inspiration to write, because that originally came from school. There is no inspiration to read, everything I had to read was because of school, there is no reason to clean, that was the only escape I had from being scholastically productive.

So for three days straight I sat and stared at facebook, not reading, not really interested in what was going on, just zoning out. The whole time there is a voice leaning into my ear "you should do the dishes . . . you should make a makeup tutorial . . . you should play your piano . . ."  Things I said I would do once I was done with school. For some reason I had no motivation, like it was post traumatic stress disorder. Did I have shell shock from the absence of school?

Yes. Yes I did.  I think I'm starting to come back from it now. I forced myself to clean the house from top to bottom. I even used bleach and scrubbed the floors. Something about the smell must have burned my brain back into reality. The house is clean now. I just finished blow drying my hair and am about to start on a pile of laundry that will surely dominate my existence for the next two weeks. The struggle for motivating myself to do something seems to be at an end. I think I'll even pull my piano out from the closet-hell, I think I'll reorganize the whole damn closet. It will be a blank slate.  

Tomorrow is a very big day for me. Tomorrow I walk down that all too important aisle and step into my future. No, I'm not getting married, I'm graduating from college.

From now on when I write it will be for me. It will be because I want to.