Looks Good on Paper

I was thinking earlier today about what to do with all the time that I have on my hands. I desire to see more come out of all of my hours that are now seemingly wasted away by too much E network and Mtv. Not to say that all E network and Mtv watching is a waste of time but at the rate I'm at, you might as well hook me up to a pop culture gossip I.V. and let me live out my days in peace. Sitting at the coffee shop, I realized that maybe writing is one of those things that I could do to fill in all the time that I spend sitting around here with nothing to do. "Writing?" I think, "I can't write here. I don't have a computer here." Then all of a sudden like a lightning bolt revelation I realized that at one time I was familiar with these things that were known as pen and paper. All of a sudden it all clicked. " I could write with a pen and paper."

I have trouble with writing and speaking alike for the same reason, and that is that I never quite know what to say. I mean I can chat it up for sure. I am a born socialite so merely coming up with words is definitely not the problem. Sitting down and writing out something worthwhile that has a point however, is not an easy thing for me to do. Normally when I sit down to work on something like a paper or a speech I merely stare at the page for a few hours not quite knowing where to begin. I either do that, or I ramble on for several pages, writing about how I have nothing to say and how much I can not write. (not unlike what you are reading now)...I usually take one of those two strategies for a couple of hours until I either get tired of it or come up with something better to do with my time.

Today I have been sitting here at the coffee shop most of the day lounging on the couch watching a customized blend of CNN, HGTV, and the E Network.* As I sit I wonder about the last time that I was at a place in my life where I did not have a plan. And I don't mean like what resteraunt I wanted for dinner tonight. But an actual realized plan of what my life was going to be like. My life now is pretty planned out. Not so much so that I ever really know whats going on from day to day, but enough to know that I live in the city that I wan't to grow old in. And I can roughly invision what my day is going to look like in ten years.

I thought back to the last time I can remember not knowing what my life was going to end up looking like. I believe it was two years ago, the day before leaving Kansas city to visit Denver for a couple of weeks. I wasn't too sure what was going to happen there. But I went in to my work and told them that I definitely wouldn't be in for a couple weeks since I had, the night before, bought a bus ticket for Denver on a whim.

This particular day I was trying to spend a little time with a few friends before I left, but rather found myself sitting on old furniture, chain smoking a pack of camel lights with my friends mom. I was waiting for this friend to finish recording some music in his childhood bedroom turned music studio. This friend in particular was quite tempermental about being left alone during these, "in home recording sessions", and in being so, had stationed his mom as a sort of "studio bouncer." She sat there in the living room reading a novel it appeared she had picked up at random from the front rack of the grocery store. (something with a title in the likes of: The Magic Sunset, The Night of the Rogue, or The Silver Herald.) She was chainsmoking through a pack of paul mall 100's.**

With nothing much else to do I sat there with her and read through the paper that was sitting on the coffee table. I remember reading an article about the worlds hottest pepper and how beer helps tame the spicyness of food.*** Later that evening after the recording session was over we all whent out for mexican food and home for beers strictly for research purposes of course.

The whole story doesn't have much to do with anything, except that it was two years ago, and ever since my life has been so full of purpose and direction I haven't once experienced the confusion that comes from not knowing where you are going. Now, as far as the headaches that go along with knowing where you're going that's a whole other blog.




* Something really brings out the dynamics in political talk when juxtaposed next to the latest episode of America's Next top model.
**It's always the little things that you remember.
*** Yet another great excuse to have a beer.