Writing in the Face of Failure

''You want to know the difference between a master and a beginner?
The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.'  

Upon first glance, writing is a well-meaning and natural outlet. But somehow along the way, I've taken to sabotaging myself before I even pick up the pen. Facing the possibility of failure takes a lot of guts. 

Like the other day, I took out my analog notebook and began to write. The desk was uncomfortable and too solid, so I moved to my bed. I wrote on my stomach for a while, but then my back started to hurt. I flipped over, got comfortable, then my pen stopped working, and then the pillows weren't very supportive of my urge to write in bed. 

In that brief moment, I literally mourned for the time wasted. And I was irritated by the fact that I had never thought to get a pen that wrote upside-down. A whopping twenty-three dollars worth of money? Hah, I have normal black pens that are free. Free because I bought them with my now non-existent money. This is defeat.

Wait. Chill out. 

Welcome back to reality, Elizabeth, where pencils exist.

The answer seems obvious, but is it worth not starting something because you may fail? Swing by Doodle Alley to see how welcoming failure can be more rewarding than you think. 

Create With Courage, my friends!

Elizabeth

The Post-Grad Gap of Pop Culture

Pop culture tells us that high school is awkward. College is for partying and discovering who you are. Your 40s are full of resentment and routine. Where are the books and movies that tell me what happens after college? Other than the Graduate, what've we got?

I'll be happier once I leave high school... College is a necessary drudge. I'll do better next semester... Next time will be different. 

I've followed other people's expectations for most of my life. I was a quiet child, hoping that my good behavior would earn me brownie points. I did well in grade school, and have always had "intelligence" as one of my top three traits until recently. All of the movies I had seen and all of the things I've heard taught me that college was the next hoop I was supposed to jump through, except none of my collected data hinted that college would be so hard. I wasn't ready, but definitely couldn't teeter on the fence of my parents' disappointment much longer. I hadn't done anything, but maybe that was the point. College did what college does: it got me out of my shell, it provided a somewhat safe space for self-discovery. But it didn't prepare me for life after college, just as my advanced high school course work did not prepare me for college.

I didn't realize that after college, you have to work work work until you die die die. Money has never been much of a priority to me, and I don't think it ever will be. I'm a natural worrier, so I've never wanted to think about it. I knew that you had to work for money to pay your bills and things, but I never fully understood that you have to work for money, and that money pays your bills.

Pop culture has generally guided me in the right direction because I take anything I ingest with a grain of salt. There's a hefty mountain of books and movies that cover high school years, the summer before college, and college. The moral of these stories are usually "be yourself" and "don't turn your back on your friends." The first movies that come to mind are The Breakfast Club, Easy A, and Superbad. College movies are sloshing with alcohol and bad decisions. Skipping the 30-year-old Friends, Sex in the City, and various stoners still living in their parents' basement, the next age group shown in pop culture is the downtrodden, lonely 40-year-old with a piece of burnt toast, no butter. They're stuck. I don't want to be stuck at 40. I don't want to be stuck now. Pop culture, tell me what to do. My age group is hardly represented in a positive light (i.e. Lena Dunham's tv drama, Girls), and I have no idea why/what/how to make life work after college. 

The obvious answer (that I don't want to admit is right) is that I need to stay focused on the here and now, and to take my time enjoying each step. But honey, I'm only existing right now. I'm trying to get the hang of balancing my job and a social life. It's much harder than it sounds. I have to sort through the muck of over-analytical thoughts, social anxieties, and general distrust/disgust of humans. I just want pop culture to tell me what I'm supposed to do. I flailing around like a fish out of bacteria-infested water. Either choice sucks and ultimately kills me. 

The Magnificent Vincent Price

I nabbed the 1953 edition of House of Wax starring Vincent Price a few days ago and finally popped the DVD in last night. On the cover in small font read, "Mystery of the House of Wax included (1933)." I hadn't realized Price's version wasn't the original. Unfortunately, the 2005 version of House of Wax, starring Paris Hilton, is a painful belly flop on a leech-filled lake.

Back to the 1953 Wax, Price portrays an artist obsessed with beauty, his figures as living history, and above all, his beloved Marie Antoinette. His business partner and financial backer urges him to leave history in the past. 'There should be shock value!' he said. But Price's character disagreed, and continued reassuring Marie Antoinette that she is his esteemed pleasure. The business partner lights a match, saying that the insurance money ($25,000) would make them rich. A fight broke out between the two of them while the gallery went up in flames. Price's character was said to be dead. Years later, with hands disfigured, the wax artist starts again with a new gallery. This time, he highlights the tormented souls of history instead of the gentle and beautiful. The new gallery also features recent crimes that one would read in the newspaper, such as his old financial partner hanging himself in an elevator shaft.

It's interesting that Price's character shifts from a gentle artist to a man of grim shock in this film, especially when Price himself is a man of showmanship. What we would now consider cheap gimmicks, the audiences considered awe-inspiring. The 1953 House of Wax, for example, was one of the first 3-D movies to be a success at the North American box office. In House on Haunted Hill (1959), a skeleton jumps out to attack the wife of Price's character. While the film was traveling the country, theater to theater, a 12-foot blow-up skeleton was released swinging into the audience. Of course, all of the younger boys loved this, told their friends, and saw the film again.

Oh Vincent, if only the remakes of your films were half as good as yours...

Depression and That One Panic Attack I Had

Depression is a killer, I can tell you that. It used to overwhelm my entire existence, but now it's a wasp buzzing in my ear that I can't whip around fast enough to see. I hate this. I haven't been to a psychiatrist in almost a year, it seems. Since I'm no longer paying tuition, I can't use the university's psychiatrist. I have to see a new one within this next month... I just refilled the last of my anti-depressants this week. I'm scared the new psychiatrist will want to drastically (over time) change my medications. For those of you who have never been on mood-altering prescriptions, it's not guaranteed that any one medication will work for you. Sometimes you have to combine them, switch them up, lower or increase the dosages.

Every time they switch you, there can be up to two or three weeks of intense nausea, mood swings, and "My entire world is crumbling before me" thoughts. I switched from medication to medication, lowering one and adding another, upping the dosage to the highest only  for it to not specifically be the right medication for me. I was weaned off and overloaded with too many different anti-depressants for me to remember. None of them worked, I felt as though I was too deep in the hole, and all of the nausea and head-spinning from settling into different meds was making it much worse. That led to my first and only panic attack I've ever had. I was in college and working at a cafe at the time. Our customers flowed in and out of our doors by the hundreds every shift. I was on my fourth medication in probably three months- it takes up to a month for anti-depressants to seep into your system and actually start working. I remember my body feeling very rigid and my mind very absent that day. I'm not so sure what triggered it, but by that stage of my life I had reverted into increasing self-isolation. More and more, as I went through the shaded walkways of campus, I quietly panicked as others walked towards and past me. I couldn't look anyone in the eye, for fear they would know I was in trouble and would kick me down further. Friends became acquaintances, acquaintances became strangers, strangers enemies. Each and every person came with their own hopes and fears, likes and dislikes, and perceptions of reality. Then of course each of those people had their own friends and family. It was all very distressing.

Back at the cafe, all of these thoughts were rushing and swirling in my head, and I finally burst open. I quickly walked then ran to the bathroom, with hundreds of eyes following me. I started hyperventilating and couldn't get enough oxygen, I felt weak and minuscule, as if I were about to faint, and the women rushing out of the bathroom were going to kick me in my sides and step on my fingers when I went down. A coworker came in asking if I was alright. No, of course I wasn't alright, you filthy whore. Leave me be. I walked out with her to my boss, telling her I threw up so I could leave this icey death trap. I couldn't explain to her and I was still hyperventilating, people were staring and most were ignoring me. My boss wasn't understanding, I ran outside behind the building, rocking back and forth as my hands covered my ears and my eyes were shut as tight as they could go. It was as if a nuclear fallout was about to happen and I was alone.

C25K

I just had my first couch to 5k experience. Day 1 of week 1 is to alternate walking for 90 seconds then jogging for 60 seconds for like 20 minutes. Something like that. Boy, that was hard. I haven't exercised.. really ever before. Well in college, I did the elliptical for 30 minutes every so often. Anyways, I couldn't finish the 20 minute workout today- I got to minute 13 and felt like throwing up. I've cooled down, but my head feels like it's going to pop off and I want to go back to sleep. The next time I go walk/jog, I should be able to finish the workout and not feel so bad.

-End bout of exercise complaints-

Halving My Belongings

My organizational projects are mostly overwhelming. I don't like cutting them up into bite size pieces. I'd rather rush to clean my living space all at once in an adrenaline-induced flurry instead of picking up a few things here and there. 

So right now, I have a crazy goal. For the sake of floor-space and mental clarity, I want to get rid of at least half of my belongings. It's something I've been thinking about since I last moved. I don't like having so much stuff! It makes me feel claustrophobic. My room in the new apartment is terribly small, too. In order to go through my things, I would have to unpack them from where they are stored. It'd mess the whole room up. I would have to move my desk and a few other things into the living room to make space. Ugh. That reminds me- I need to buy a dresser. Most of my clothes (including articles I want to sell & donate) are still packed in boxes.

As horrible as it may seem, I think if I were to lose all of my possessions in a fire, it would be a very positive and freeing experience. 

It's Wednesday, not Wednesday..

Christina Ricci's dream role is to play a psycho-killer. Off to the typewriter, brb.

The Long-Winded Answer to "What can you do with an English degree?"

The short answer? Subjects like English teach *how* to think... whereas engineering/math teach exactly what you need to know to do your engineering/math job. English is all-encompassing, whereas engineering/math is specific.

As a lovely lady with an English degree, I can tell you full-heartedly that a well-rounded liberal arts degree facilitates creative problem-solving, abstract critical thinking, and the ability to "connect the dots" within most contexts without much effort. It encourages lifelong learning and makes it easier to wrap your mind around new subjects and theories. I'm good at math and science, but they could never excite me as much as language can. Unlike English questions, math and science questions always have a correct answer. I do miss that.

In college I had explain myself almost constantly to engineers and math majors. But those equipped with math-heavy degrees have a hard time bending their mind around this concept: There is more than one way to live and everyone processes stimuli differently. In my experience, the engineer and math majors don't debate to understand the liberal arts major's plight or to expand their horizons. They do it to imply their superiority. Typically, they are unwilling (or possibly unable) to put themselves in a different situation than their own.

Onto your question: What can you do with an English degree? The short answer is whatever you want. Law, Publishing, Media, Marketing, Advertising... basically anything except engineering jobs that require a specialized engineering degree. I want to be a Production Designer- the person who creates and tweaks everything from sets to lighting to camera and editing style in order to make the film come alive with a unifying tone and presence. I could have gone the route of getting a film degree, but decided against it. Kids with film degrees are stepping all over each other. Meanwhile, I have an English degree. It sets me apart. I can connect different factors of the film as if it were a Rubik's cube. I can disconnect them, analyze them, turn them over and out and reintroduce them to the film in a completely new way. There are tons of film majors who understand what they need to change, but would not be able to express it to a large group of people. Like I mentioned before, everyone thinks differently. I observe, analyze, understand, and articulate well.

"It's Called Work for a Reason"

My biggest goal in life is to love my career to pieces. I'll spend extra hours at the office, typing profusely and crossing off tasks. I've been working in retail for a short while, though, and it's already taking a toll on my spirits. Is it supposed to feel like this? Even the best of jobs are sometimes disheartening, but if you love it, it won't matter. I've worked 13 hour days on film sets before, but I never watched the clock. I really loved it. I wish entry-level film work paid more than a sandwich a day.

I think back to another popular phrase: 'Relationships are hard. Relationships take work.' It kept me going for a long time in an unhealthy relationship for a good while. His bipolar mood swings kept me on a somewhat random Pavlovian cycle. I tried leaving him a couple of times, but then he'd be so sweet and apologetic. I felt needed and my feelings were accepted, if only for a little while.