3 am (The Past is Catching Up)

Ipod on, breathe out and step into the street. It’s 3 am, there’s alcohol in my blood and I’m walking home. My periphery is blurring, the streetlights stroll by slowly and my legs are moving faster than they feel. It’s cold for summer, though it doesn’t surprise me now that I’m back home. In LA, low high 50’s is frigid but back home, the chill is refreshing.

I’m walking by the kosher bakery that’s changed hands 4 times in 4 years: my God, I’ve lived here since I was 6 months old. I walked on this street thousands of times. With dogs, with running shoes on, with girlfriends that I disappointed long ago. My God, it’s 3 am, I’m drunk and I’m reminiscing about a gray streak of municipal property.

The night has already been odd enough. Tonight, my past came pouring back in the form of a beautiful girl. Mix in old friends, a rough semester and a couple of drinks and my tongue was loose. I didn’t know she would be there. She came along with another girl that no one other than the host knew. Why was she here? It wasn’t for me. She didn’t know anyone else at the party. Why had she come? I never bothered to ask though. She stepped into the room and flashed me a smile. I shot up, stepping over crowded chairs and inebriated friends in order to lazily slip my arms around her waist and say “I missed you.”

It was so easy. It had been over a year since we had seen each other, since we pulled over outside my house so she could terminate our budding romance. We had seen each other only twice before as a couple, the shortest relationship I had ever had. Yet, for some reason, I cared about her more than any other girlfriends I’ve had: before and after. There was something simple and beautiful about her. She was warm. My fingers spent hours tentatively sliding up and down her soft arms. But that was it. We left our love on the side of the road and drove off.

A full year, and here we are in each other’s arms. She’s smiling at me knowingly, with her head tilted up so she could meet my eyes. What happened with us? Why did I just let her go? I’m either lost in love or lost in alcohol because I never ask her over the course of the night. Rather, we spend most of the night in an embrace, slowly running our hands over each other’s arms and legs, playing a year’s worth of catch-up. The conversation is superficial, we are going through the motions, both thinking the same thing but too terrified to act. The alcohol is still talking more than I am, but she’s been drinking too and so we sit and enjoy each other’s intoxicated honesty that is filled with empathy and pity.

She leaves me with a kiss on the cheek and a goodnight. Later, people ask me if we hooked up. I regretfully tell them no. Drunken sympathy ensues. They all saw the sparks and were all anxiously awaiting for something to catch fire, only to be disappointed by the meager light show.

I’m walking home. It’s 3 am. I pass the bakery that has changed hands 4 times in 4 years. What’s changed since last year? The bakery has a different name but the airy sugar cookies are still the same. I’ve crossed the nation but I’m still afraid to move ahead. And her. Is she different? Have her feelings changed? Was it really her hand on my arm tonight or have drunken fantasies stepped in to embellish the truth? I don’t know, to be honest with you. I never bothered to ask.

Sex and Violence

Today in my screenwriting class we talked about how sex and violence were staples for any writer’s diet. These two themes can be found in almost every good story and film. In response to one of my story ideas, the Professor asked me if my characters were going to have sex at the end, because as is, my story is trivial. He’s right too, looking back at my rough outline, the story is pointless, there is no real point to what my characters are doing. And so, it looks like my two young characters are going to have some long-awaited sex at the end of the scene.

The problem is, I don’t feel too comfortable writing about sex or violence. I’ve never had sex. Odds are, if I took a hard look at myself, I’d say that I’m secretly terrified of it. In a line from the failed NBC show Quarterlife, “Sex is always awkward.” That’s it plain and simple. I feel awkward about sex. How am I supposed to write about something that I’ve never experienced? How am I to create a scene of passion and love when I feel so removed from those emotions? Do I get over it and fake it? Can I create a character that is equally as terrified of sex as I am? Maybe just by writing a scene that results in sex will force me to work through my own awkward hesitance. Who knows.

As for violence, that’s a different sort of issue from sex. I don’t feel awkward about writing violence (which is maybe an indication of how much tv I watch and video games I play) but it still does not feel natural. I’ve never been involved with or witnessed true violence. I live in an upper-class Jewish suburb of Boston, what kind of violence could I possibly be exposed to? Also, as terrible as it sounds, won’t be judge me when they read a scene of mine that’s just brutal? Imagine this: you pick up a piece of paper and on it is written a scene that describes a man beating his wife to the ground with a blender. She’s covered in blood and it streams down her face as it mixes with sweat and tears, pouring into her mouth as she tries to scream but can only manage guttural shrieks that sound like they’re shredding her vocal cords with a bread knife…Wouldn’t you think to yourself how fucked up the writer must be to create this? Granted, this is not a perfected scene of brutality but you get what I’m going after. I’m not a violent guy and I don’t think this way, but this is what people will see when I put it on paper.

But maybe this is what writing is all about; creating new and foreign situations for yourself and your audience. Your characters can be projections of yourself or manifestations of the kind of people you admire or despise or simply observe on the street. So maybe that’s my answer, just open up and give sex and violence a shot. It might open my eyes or help me work through my own issues. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get laid.

Hesitation

In contrast to my post from earlier today, I’m generally apprehensive about posting my life to the internet. I just read Emily Gould’s article in the New York Times Magazine and, for her, having her life put in a glass showcase box seemed to lead to more downs than ups.

Granted, I can control what I say here, essentially self-censoring so I don’t embarrass myself or create more awkwarud situations than I already do. But regardless, it’s nerve-wracking writing here. You get that feeling like you’re giving a speech or a walking onto a stage for the first time: your body shakes, you stomach seizes up and you start to get paranoid. What do people think of me? Can they tell I’m about to shit my pants? Can they hear me? Can they see me? All of these things are coursing through my head right not, unimpeded by my weaker sense of creative self-expression.

I want to share what I’m thinking about, but sometimes that nagging little voice of reason speaks up and stops my hand before I do something foolish. I’m a fairly level-headed guy, as my friend Emma can attest to, so shutting that voice up is difficult sometimes. I’m trying, however. I really am trying. And in all honesty, this is probably one of the most spontaneous things I’ve ever done.

Thoughts and Actions

This is my first entry here but it is not my first blog. I have been off and on updating a blog-esque site at www.quarterlife.com/endofhistory. Although this has some of my aimless musings, it has been more geared towards my short screenplay writing. However, being a relatively self-contained site, I have not received much feedback of any kind of my work, both blog and screen writing. Thus, I have decided to diversify by opening up to a new audience: wordpress.

I’m not a a particularly open person, which makes blogging counter-intuitive to my nature. However, over the course of the past year or so, I have realized that my openness is only part insecurity. The other part has been a lack of audience, which is what led to me start writing. I, like most other people on the internet, was looking for a place of release while also seeking self-verification. I needed to know that what I was thinking about was warranted, true (or false) or simply delusional. I needed to know that I existed.

Although I have found writing for myself incredibly therapeutic, I found that wanted to take the next step and find an audience. Thus, the internet stepped in. I thought that by posting my work and my thoughts online, I would receive some acknowledgment, either positive or negative. However, I’ve been disappointed in this area. Most of the commentary I’ve received is from my close friends who know me far more than any of you ever will most likely. Not that there advice and criticism has been mediocre or unwanted, because I have greatly appreciated their input, but sometimes you want a third party. I am still looking for that person, or those people, who don’t know me and have no notions about my personality to step in and take a peak under the covers of my life.  Isn’t that a strange, 21st century desire? To have our privacy invaded? But it’s not longer invasion when we proffer our lives to the hungry, screen-staring masses, it’s an invitation.

So I’m inviting you to take a look at my life, at least the parts I present to you. I’m looking for dialogue, criticism, verification, anything. I’m calling this blog, for now, thoughts and actions because that’s what our lives are about. We think and we act. But sometimes, we dont’ act on our thoughts and that is why I’m here, writing to a crowd I can’t see. Though this is not much, this is my first action towards opening up.

-Gabe