Here in Houston, storms in the belly of summer are a daily occurrence. Today happens to be one of those days, however, where the storm is arriving sonically before visually. The sky is a bland grey, lacking the usual black death thunderhead that usually takes up a good portion of the afternoon weather here. The thunder is booming in the background, diminished by the closed windows, the sound of the air conditioner turning on, and late sixties era Rolling Stones from the speakers. I've decided on a physically lazier day than usual -- in fact, it may become a weekend of the same -- and I am okay with that. I figure if I write a bit (be it for work or pleasure) and watch the movies I've rented (I'm finally getting comfortable with films after a long dry spell) and enjoy some really really strong coffee, I'll be happy. Besides, I've got a twinge in my right hip telling me that 1) I won't be getting to my (rather far off) goal of running 1000 miles from August to August, and 2) that I can use a bit of a healthy lay up before getting back on the road at a lower milage for a week or so. Perhaps it will be an 'easing' out of the humidity and heat of my runs here in Houston. God knows I'll be able to run farther up north, in easier and more manageable weather.
As a quick house cleaning aside, yes I was right. Spain won the Euro 2008 Championship. Over Germany, which was wrong, but at least I can now say that I've called the winners of the last two major Football tournaments. I'm sure that if I put money on it, I'd have lost. The only thing I'll really say is that while I was happy that I was right, I was hoping that Germany would "show up" to the game, much like they did against Portugal. Alas, it was not to be and I was right rather than happy, and Germany played like a slightly less mediocre version of themselves that lost to Brazil in the World Cup in 2002.
Anyway, it's Tour time. Let's hope for very little doping. I'd rather have a boring tour with clean riders than what we've had for the last ten.
Writing here is usually spurred on by something for me. I don't feel that my life is that important that I have to report on it all the time. In fact, I am a fairly boring guy. I have an active imagination, but I do a lot of -- shall we say -- 'repetitive living.' And I can't help but think that a lot of us who post on this internet 'thing' live in a similar fashion. I don't want to take away from the important aspects of our lives, however. I don't say this to criticise, far from it. In fact, I am kind of amazed. When did it become so necessary for us -- in a very basic way, this is exactly what we're doing -- to write our autobiographies? What are our blogs and websites if not a living, breathing, active version of that format?
Sure, many blogs (I really dislike using that term. It makes me feel like an old man in a dumb sit-com saying something "the kids would say.") are of specific theme and goal. My wife's blog focuses mainly on her knitting, but oft-times delves into more personal territory, and she reads other blogs that are exclusively knitting based. I read blogs that are devoted to music, music criticism, running, internet crap, friends' families, etc., because what are our lives if nothing than collections of these little interests in goals? Even if they are the "big" topics, like politics, or religion, or -- god help us -- celebrity missteps, this is the meat and potatoes of who and what we are.
But that doesn't properly touch on my earlier question. Here I am devoting a small slice of server space in some air conditioned room to the wanderings of my mind, and for what? What do I hope to achieve? Perhaps it's all just 'practice' for me, that I am actually writing something 'real.' Whatever that means, right?Who is to say anymore? Is a book -- published, on paper, with a glossy photo and hip typeface adorning its trade paperback cover -- more 'real' or 'important' than what some dude in Decatur thinks about the current state of American heavy metal or the musings of a self involved teenager in some cushioned suburban hell thinks about her friends and family?
I walk down this rather precarious road because I just happened to finish watching the film version of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. A well done film of an even better and -- truth be told -- riveting collection of graphic novels, the story is the story of a woman who grew up in what has to be one of the most turbulent times in one of the most intensely conflicted nations in the 20th century: Iran. The story focuses on -- obviously -- the most direct and obvious fallout from having to live under one oppressive regime (the Shah), followed by a revolution (1979), a war (the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s), and another oppressive regime (the Islamic Republic), but what popped into my head was how it simply is a story that most of us -- and by "us" I mean the white kid who grew up very safe in the suburbs, protected by a soft layer of easy entertainment and relative freedom -- have no fucking clue what any of that is like. Sure, I had to endure my share of crazy dysfunctional behavior, but I didn't have to worry about where my next meal would come from, or being sent into a war I didn't understand (although that is a concern for many now here), or worrying if government troops would arrest my family members simply for being sarcastic. Which they were. In spades.
Now, I know that this argument and line of thought are pretty cliche. "Yeah, yeah, they had to deal with that, but I had to deal with this!" And I certainly don't wish to take anything away from anyone's dealing with depression or addiction, or death, or whatever, but sometimes it feels like we all got a bit too wrapped up in the whole Holden Caulfield (I can't remember if I'm spelling his name right. The Catcher In the Rye has become one of those books I find to only work when you're a 15 year old kid who feels out of place and is looking for justification at your bitterness and unease. It doesn't work after 18 or so.) thing. That is to say that -- and I use myself as an example because I am totally guilty -- we all feel that our story is so damned important. To me, it sure as shit is!
If you could crawl inside my brain and look around at the visuals, you'd see a lot of reminiscing. And a lot of plans to write it all down in a book somewhere and hope that it would somehow get noticed, and people would buy it, read it, and -- cheap and corny but true -- like it. That "me", through my story, would become just that little more important. I'm not the only one. Look around, and you'll see what I mean. There is a graphic novel that covers just about every topic in the middle aged suburban white upbringing experience. But are they really that different? Are the authors really tackling the subjects in a myriad of unique ways? I can't say for all of them, but it seems unlikely. And what of all the blogs? Can we possibly read them all? Are they giving us any answers? Am I just part of the problem?
I think the reason we want to tell our stories is to give them some value. To make them real, to make them manageable. We are filled with maybes and what-ifs to the brim, and telling our stories gives those open ends a bit of closure, ends the speculation. Lets us move on, simply. I want to tell my story because at present I'm stuck in it. The past, the good old days, what have you. Mired in regret and a sea of "if only I'd...'s." I guess the tricky bit is telling the stories in such a way that they're interesting, right? That the whole tale of me getting drunk the first time has some deeper meaning, or has a point to the plot, if you will. And while I am a firm believer in the idea that "everything is connected," this may be a bit of a stretch.
So perhaps this is all practice. Maybe someday I'll write a book that an angry and (way too early for his or her own good) bitter 22 year old will read and they can relate. Maybe it'll help them. I don't know.
The thunder has wound down now. The Stones are entering the seventies, and my coffee is merely lukewarm grit in the bottom of the cup.
Time for living.
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