Dear Cashiers of the World,

I know your job sucks--especially during the holidays--but trust me, it sucks for most of us on the other side of the counter, as well. And if one more of you snot-nosed brats gives me attitude when I am clearly being nice and respectful to you, then you will only have yourself to blame for the bloody, tinselled, 50%-off, you're-lucky-you-have-a-job carnage that follows.

Merry X-mas.

Love,
Me

The Writing Process

Wake up in a panic about the writing workload ahead. Lay in bed thinking about how to proceed. Get up, wash face and brush teeth--deliberately forego shower. Slap on clean-ish clothes from pile, go get extra-strength coffee. Return, eat leftovers or errant cookie. Sit down at desk, check emails briefly. Put on Pandora, classical. Open research sites but don’t read them. Stare at hard-copy outline. Take deep breaths. Stretch. Go to bathroom. Pluck eyebrows. Sit back down at computer. Check phone. Open work in progress, read latest paragraph. Change an adjective, delete a transition. Write next sentence. Consider failure at writing, contemplate photography. Look up word in thesaurus. Write another sentence. Check notes. Get a glass of water. Scan Facebook and Twitter. Write rest of paragraph, think it’s pretty good. Change mind 15 minutes later. Look up another word in thesaurus. Check fact online. Delete last sentence. Write down cool words that will never be used. Look at photos of subject. Review outline. Rewrite last sentence. Wonder how much everyone will hate what’s written. Write outline for next paragraph. Masturbate. Eat a piece of fruit. Call boyfriend. Repeat.

The autumn of my discontent...

It's a week like any other week following two life-altering bombs dropped by close friends--one involving birth; the other, parental death--and some fairly innocuous digestive problem after an unfortunate late-night excursion to a dubious North Beach eatery. Fast-forward past my subsequent 36-hour colonic and a day languishing in front of bad daytime TV and a traumatic viewing of "Letters to Juliet," and witness me, weak-brained but at work, zombie-walking from meeting to meeting with rooms full of idealistic go-getters.

By the time the last meeting turned words to mush in my head, I was feeling the crash. It's that feeling one imagines is like in the movies, when a car flies off a bridge in slow-motion, brutally barreling into the dark, tumultuous waters, where it drifts poetically and with certainty into a never-ending abyss.

Yeah, like that. Full of cliches.

And so it was today that I mumbled my goodbyes, decided to forsake all plans to attend luminous Litquake events in the city, went straight home and crawled into bed, where I: a) pulled the blankets over my head and sighed gratefully, then b) wept for about 15 minutes for no reason, wondering if I was sad because I was sick or if I was sick because I was sad, then c) realized that my weeping and all of life's events in the past week was forcing me to address the same old problem I'd faced--to be honest, my whole life but more specifically, ever since I thought it would be a good idea to ditch my low-paying but full-time writing gig in what everybody was saying was a "dying industry" to launch myself into a "growing industry" in which I could help create history--oh, but I can't write about it. See, 'cause, there's an NDA we'd like you to sign...

OK, fine. There are lots of other things to write about. So what's my problem? Apparently, for me, the freedom to write about anything I want with no deadlines whatsoever is absolutely inhibiting. And so I find myself in this tragic spiral of feeling invisible at work, like I have no identity at all, so I live in a bubble of complacency, which kills my drive, and I feel lost and worthless--so I don't express myself at work. And I don't write.

Not birth, not death. Just the murky gray matter in between.

Homme...

It's hard to be a man in this culture. I get it. I have a subscription to Esquire--I understand the complexities of finding the right loafer for the appropriate dinner jacket or sportscoat while attempting to not look too much like a douche, at the same time adhering to the protocols of balancing social mores and romantic obligations as you get older and reach higher platitudes of career goals vs. creative pursuits, all the while maintaining your individuality, assured sexuality, manlihood and graceful, unassuming maturity and being the kind of guy that other lesser-minded dudes (ie, your friends) still enjoy hanging around.

I understand all this. And I admire the delicacy by which certain men seem to so effortlessly achieve this balance--which is what I was thinking about when I saw George Clooney in a preview for The American. I couldn't help but marvel at how Clooney was able to capture the stark metaphorical narrative of the film solely in his face--in a simple, world-weary look. No doubt, he is the epitome of an Esquire man.

But then, a few minutes later, as I buckled in for the silly-Sunday-fun ride of Iron Man 2, I was even further astounded by the depth and breadth of life--and subsequently, the epic battle of Being A Man--that I saw in Robert Downey, Jr.'s eyes.

Without giving anything away, much of the film is locked on the peepers of a man trapped inside a metal suit as he fights for his life, against his "opponents" (which, notably, include himself), and in an effort to "save the world" and, quite possibly, win The Girl. Does he do it? Doesn't matter. Because, along the way, he IS a man. It's all there in his eyes.

Obviously, there's a bit of a correlation between RDJ, the actor, and his character in the Iron Man series, Tony Stark. Both have been handed a legacy--and likewise, seem simultaneously able to handle, and not-so-much handle, the pressures and stamina of such expectations. You see in his eyes a lot of years--years spent living hard and years spent thinking about how and when it all went wrong. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate that he's not trying to cover it all up (as so many men, especially in Hollywood, are apt to do) with Botox and strippers and calculated indifference.

What Downey, Jr. is so aptly able to capture aside from this hard-earned experience (and subsequent wisdom) as well as vulnerability, is a certain ability to convey a deeper understanding of what's really at stake--his soul. Yes, he's prone to self-destruction. Of course, he's narcissistic. Absolutely, he's sensitive and unpredictable--he's an artist! But also, he's a man.

And yeah, those wrinkles are hot. They'll go with any loafer or sportsjacket, as far as I'm concerned.