Yo Melvin

Yo Melvin,

Yeah that's right, dude, some people might call you a journal but I just named you Melvin. Please take a moment to dismiss all possibilities that I'll ever regard you as Dear, and you're on crack if you think the word diary will ever appear again on these pages. Fuck that, Melvin, you are Melvin, Yo Melvin.

I have to tell you, Melvin, I'm very new to this. And frankly, I think I've already screwed the whole thing up because I have never heard of anyone starting one of these things with a prologue. And before you start tweaking out, Melvin, that asterisk is not a typo, there are just some things in life that I'm not sure about and I've recently discovered the asterisk as a temporary fix. You know, something to throw down there to cover my ass while I continue looking for some answers. Not that you should be judging me, Melvin. Don't forget that you have no say. You could be something fruity like Jinky tomorrow if you don't play your cards right. So please, I am begging you, do not stray from the point of all this. I feel like I have humored you enough, and if you don't mind I will now be getting on with my life. You are more than welcome to stay, just try not to be a fucking distraction, okay Melvin?

Anyways, I just feel weird jumping right into a single day. I’ve already made the mistake of watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3 without seeing the second one, and I vowed never to let that sort of thing happen again on my watch to myself or anyone; this even includes questionable individuals like yourself. I can sense already that you’re a real nosy fuck, Melvin, so I’ll do my best to stick to the program set forth today, and you’ll know every little moment of this “whole life that I have ahead of myself.” You might even be exposed to a healthy chunk of my afterlife in the event that my ghost remains literary. But nonetheless, I have no choice but to catch you up to speed at least a little bit on the past twenty eight and a half years of my life. We’ll rush through the necessary details, and if you’re lucky I’ll fill you in on the minutiae as the pages turn. 

Alright that's enough. Get some sleep, Melvin.

The Birthday Party

“Hey, Catie. Happy 13th Birthday!”

“Your parents are getting divorced!”

What? That’s a weird way to say thank you, he thought to himself. His parents just dropped him off at the party. Everything was fine. Kids these days are so misinformed.

“Uh, no they are not.”

“Not what I heard.”

He was getting tired of his small town and its smaller problems that make room for big boredom and bigger rumors.

“Whatever. Can I put my coat somewhere?”

“Sure. Oh and you gotta try the cake!”

One nice thing about kids, they can change a difficult subject on a dime. Adults should take a page from this playbook more often.

“Yum, this cake is delicious. I love chocolate raspberry.”

“Me too! Hey maybe you’ll get two cakes now on your birthday.”

Damnit, why’d she have to come back to this. His parents were not getting divorced. Only yellers and fighters split up! The closest they’d ever come to fighting was when his father closed the soda bottles too tightly so they were hard to open. That doesn’t dissolve a marriage. It’s typical effect is a preservation of carbonation.

“I’ll have one cake, for my one house, and my one life.”

At that moment his fork slipped and knocked his slice of cake onto the floor.

It's Who You Know

“You gotta network. You don’t network enough. It’s who you know, you know?”

It is my least favorite business model ever. I know enough people in LA. I like working hard more than knowing many. You line up 10 people in this town and there is a good chance I will not enjoy 9 of them.

Take the “Yoga Mentor” I met the other day. Didn’t even know those existed! I hope she doesn’t have industry connections, because you know it’s who you know, and then I’d have to be friends with a Yoga Mentor and when I talk about her people will think I have an imaginary friend.

Another guy revealed he is “in recovery.” But not for drugs and alcohol; he is in Underachievers Anonymous. First of all, if you have trouble being productive, taking time out of every day to meet up with other unproductive people doesn’t exactly sound like a solution. But who am I to judge? I am mostly curious about how this program works. What is a Underachievers Anonymous emergency? You call up your sponsor, "Larry, I'm so confused right now. I have this sudden urge to just sit on the couch". DO NOT SIT ON THE COUCH! I'm coming over there, we'll surf LinkedIn all night if we have to!   

Who you know can kill you too. This is why I haven’t introduced myself to my upstairs neighbor who is probably a serial killer as evident by her daily furniture rearrangement and nightly marathons of X-Files episodes.

I also want nothing to do with her hipster boyfriend, who takes that subculture to a sci-fi level that you can only see to believe. He pulled up on his bike the other day with - get this - A SECOND BIKE strapped to his back.

Is knowing weirdos the price of making it? Is it worth it? All I know is that all the people I would want to know aren’t good for the all important “network” file. I walked by a homeless gentleman last week. I wore earbuds, but the music was low enough for me to hear him say “Sup gangsta” as I passed by. Best moment of my life to date, hands down. I was this close to stopping, getting him the help he needed to end his homelessness and paying for an education to pursue a career in film and television. Because of all the people I’ve met, he’s the one I wanted to network with the most!

Let Me Know If You’re Ever In Los Feliz

He had two skills: being funny and sabotaging romance.

He was funny even back in middle school when the hormones began. Girls like funny guys.  But he was fat in middle school. The two cancelled each other out. Youngsters are superficial. And he didn’t like the fat girls. He was young and superficial.  

He dropped the weight in high school but had no idea how to open up a dialogue. A crush developed, but his only tactic was to call her and ask about the homework. A decent strategy if used sparingly, but he did this most nights and was third in his class at the time. He knew what the homework was. He did the homework. Better than 99% of his classmates. Including that girl.

He got his act together in college, but only partially. His personality bloomed to the point where he acquired a girlfriend. She pursued him, and he had wanted romance since his Kraft Macaroni and Cheese middle school days so he gladly changed his relationship status from “lost” to “found.” Here’s a little secret about people who pursue you, though. Find out “why”. Lust, laughter, an intangible attraction, all valid answers. But control? Not valid. He learned the hard way.

He broke free of that prison, moved 3,000 miles away, and was back to square one. Wiser now but still possessing zero ability. At a bar a girl wandered up, peered around aimlessly, and announced “I’m looking for someone...”. What an excellent prompt for what is known in literary and love circles as a “meet cute”. Instead of a simple, “You found me!” he concluded “I hope you find them” did the trick.

It might be hopeless. There was one truly great conversation with a girl. He felt confident about their repartee. At the end he handed her his card. Here’s a fun fact; handing your card to someone who interests you is the adult equivalent of calling for the homework.

After the handoff came his big closer: “Let me know if you’re ever in Los Feliz.”

It’s been six months now. He wouldn’t be surprised if she hasn’t gotten a chance to make that trek though, because you know, with all the horrible traffic these days...

The End

It’s not when you’re 13, 18, or even 21. You become an adult the first time your heart breaks.

I was 16.

It’s not what you think. Call off the witch hunt for some poor girl who is now in her late twenties. My kingdom for a female who made me feel that happy before she made me feel that sad; a dragon truly worthy of believing in and chasing. I guess that’s why they call them heroines. There I go again talking about women. Life would be so much more productive if I were asexual. Back to my figurative Bar Mitzvah...

I was home alone. My dad was traveling and my mom had taken the ferry off the island to visit the hospital again. I'd survive, there was a pizza in the freezer. It was the summer before the Christmas my life would change forever and I would get a cell phone, so our only lifeline was our landline. We screened our calls. I would have picked up anyway but since Mom’s voice was just a half pitch lower I grabbed the phone a half ring sooner. There is no useful transition with these things. Hello leads directly to he’s gone. I cried, she cried, we cried, then I had to figure out how to cook the pizza.

Preheating the oven gave me a few minutes to think in place. Some rationalizations poured in at least. He was well into in his 70’s, an outcome that a 16-year-old version of himself likely would have jumped at in Vegas. But my brain was not fully formed and I grew up with stem cells and Oprah, so I was having much more trouble. Everything was okay when I focused on the periphery and complex elements of it all, but everytime I circled back to the simple issue at hand - my grandfather was no longer present with us - that’s when everything crashed back down. The oven beeped to welcome in the pizza and allowed my brain to dodge the simple reality again for a second and step back. 

But you can only play Jenga for so long before it all comes to an end.

Just Kidding

          “Merry Christmas” is a cliche, yet thoroughly appropriate and wonderful way to start December 25th. “Look, here are pictures of your parents during happier times” is not. Guess how the morning began?

His Aunt never knew what to say. She was the middle child. Her older sister the success, her younger brother the delinquent, therefore all attention magnetized away from her. Luckily she learned at a young age to take this like a champ, to triumph above it all.

Just kidding! It ruined her life. She felt a constant need to manufacture attention, and today it came in the form of reminding her nephew of his parents’ divorce. Luckily he could sidestep this trap and head on over to the beautiful tree, decked out with amazing ornaments passed down from generation to generation, circled with layers of presents, flawlessly selected after countless top secret phone calls, email chains, and direct messages on twitter.

            Just kidding! No tree. No presents. Maybe a twitter tutorial later; he had become the family’s pro-bono 24/7 IT technician; a role he cherished, much in the same way a football team cherishes its kicker after missing an extra point to lose the Super Bowl.

At least a fancy dinner reservation awaited that night. Unfortunately the plan was to split the bill. This wasn’t a white Christmas. This was a red Christmas. This was Communism. Can you blacklist an Aunt?

Interesting question. Maybe his Grandma, the host of Christmas 2012, would know the answer. This was all hypothetical of course, because her deafness had reached Jedi levels. Going to her house was like attending a lecture series. Most lecture series at least have Q&A’s, but at this series, every answer out of his Grandma’s mouth was the same: “WHAAAAT???”. He loved his Grandma. He just wished she could will herself to take those hearing aids in for readjustment. Why couldn’t she do that? She took her car in for maintenance and that was always a breeze.

Just kidding! That was always life threatening. Driving with Grandma was like skydiving

 with a 92-year-old parachute. On the bright side, she nominated herself as the wheelwoman for dinner, so if it turned Kamikaze he might not have to fork out that fifty dollars after all. In the meantime there he stood, in an empty corner perfect for a tree, reminiscing about his parents’ divorce. But what would he do between now and the Pinko dinner? Only one option. He would suck it up, put all the family craziness aside, and humor his Aunt and Grandma.
             Just kidding! He’d fake another nap. A brillant strategy. Getting dicey though thanks to overuse. Five naps in three days; those were great-grandpa stats. They were nervous about his health. They needed him to be healthy so he could return soon, preferably New Year’s Eve. He could set up their new printer. He’d be open to that idea...
             J.U.S.T. KI.D.D.I.N.G.