I would like to start by apologizing for taking a month off from the blog. I had to kind of figure out this whole thirties thing before I could go on unlocking the universe for the imaginary readership. I have decided to not listen to Ryan Adams for a while. Just to kind of see if constantly listening to depressing things could be contributing to the (seemingly) constant level of depression I was experiencing. I have instantly started to listen to The Smiths even more than usual, but that seemed counter-productive as well. I plan on letting Ryan Adams begin playing around the apartment the day that the new album comes out. On to the future.
When I was a child the Ghostbusters franchise was very popular. I saw the movie at an age that my parents were still married so this makes me think that it was 1985 or 86. I cried hysterically when they kill the Stay Puft Marshmallow man, because I thought he was cute, and since the character was clearly clumsy and thus undeserving of his fate, despite the clear threat to the structures of then-modern day New York City. The reasoning behind this cruel and upsetting ending was explained to me by my parents. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was not a good guy, he was a bad guy and thus needed to be destroyed. I hated this reality. Also the whole damn place is covered in marshmallow, something that I did not like. I should point out that I also used to cry whenever people got pies in the face on Bozo (not every time, but most of the time) and also when Cookie Monster chased my mom up the aisle at Sesame Street Live around the same time period. Fucking Cookie Monster. I don’t like food fights in movies. I don’t like unexpected interactions with foreign objects, especially the kind involving food (it is funny when people get hit by kickballs or other non life-threatening objects though, especially if it involves people I don’t really like).
I never saw the Ghostbusters movie again. I did see the second one a few random times. I would actually like to see the first one again. It just never seems to be on television. They had a cartoon in the 80’s that was pretty good. I happen to remember a few specific episodes. Slimer was kind of a good guy in the cartoon. The dude that played Bill Murray’s character did a relatively distracting vocal rendition of Murray, which almost ruined my enjoyment of the series, but eventually, I grew used to his inefficiencies and was able to enjoy the show. It is from this cartoon, based on the movies, based on who knows what that my entire concept and outlook on the calendar year were formed. You see I had a Ghostbusters calendar.
This Ghostbusters calendar was not unlike many other calendars that were a part of my life’s experiences in that each month had a different theme and it was based on a broad generalization of the months and the implied weather patterns of the specific month. Where this calendar differed was its arrangement or grouping of the months. I assume that most people look at the calendar and think of 12 months, have the year separated into quarters and halves and that is it. When I think of the year I literally go back to the physical layout of my Ghostbusters calendar and have divided the year into thirds. The first third of the year is Jan/Feb/Mar/April. The cool part of the year is May/June/July/Aug. Then the school months of Sep/Oct/Nov/Dec. I don’t specifically remember each individual month and what the picture was. I do remember Dr. Venkman was April and had an umbrella to shelter himself from the obvious never-ending supply of rain that happens the whole month of April that the creators of the Ghostbusters calendar would have you to believe. Perhaps they were from Seattle and this were actually true. It isn’t true in Michigan or Virginia.
Perhaps there are others out there who had the Ghostbusters calendar who are at a similar disposition. Perhaps I am smarter than everyone else. Perhaps I am at a severe disadvantage. Perhaps this explains why I sometimes have a hard time understanding the world that I live in or conforming to the implied rules of our society. Perhaps this calendar has been shaping the way that I handle time for the last twenty five years. I do not always make the best use of my time (see my entire twenties). I like to work hard, but only after lunch. I like the middle third of the year, but neglect to enjoy the months of April and September as much as I should because they have the distinction of being a part of “the winter months” which are a little bit less dramatic in Virginia as opposed to my Michigan childhood. Do other people feel the year slipping away more, because their more frequent (quarterly) evaluation of the calendar year makes them more aware? Am I just some weird out-of-touch dude who goes through life with such a loose leash on life? Can I go back and sue the people that created the Ghostbusters calendar that has minimized my life’s experiences by ruining my whole concept of the evolution of time? Or should I track them down and thank them for setting me free?
I don’t have the answers. I did just finish a book. It was my first ebook and I read it on my iPhone. It was a Dave Eggers book titled “You Shall Know Our Velocity”. It has nothing to do with Ghostbusters. It’s just that I liked it. It was depressing. I like the ebook format, for many reasons. One of these reasons is I feel like I enjoy the book more not truly knowing how much more I have to read. The book has a gauge that tells you how many dots you are in relation to where you started and where the book ends, this may seem like I know where I am at in the book. This is mostly true. However, I am free from physically feeling the weight of the pages shift from the unread to the read side of my book. I also don’t know what the hell 1457 pages left means because it isn’t really pages I am reading, it is like page fragments. This means that i enjoy the book more because I don’t really comprehend how much I have left to read. I can let the story draw me in and not get to the usual 100 page mark of a book before it becomes a permanent fixture of the landscape of my nightstand. I feel like now that I am in my thirties now, I need to read more. I also need to figure out if I am better dividing the year into thirds fourths or halves. I also need to explain that all of this came about because of my dad.
I was visiting him in Michigan a few years ago. In his bedroom on the closet door was a circle that had been divided into twelfths. Next to each division was a month of the year. There was seemingly no complex ideas being shared. I asked him about the graphic and it’s meaning. He explained that because June is the sixth month and there are twelve months in a year, that he had always assumed June first or 6/1 meant the year was half over. This obviously is not the case, and the year is not half over until the end of June. My dad had falsely believed the year to be half over an entire month too early. The purpose of the graphic hanging on the inside of his door is to help reprogram his concept of the calendar year, something he had been miscalculating for 50 years.
It was this conversation that led me to try and trace back my own concept of the calendar year and how it was formed. I knew instantly that it was the Ghostbusters calendar. I had always known. I just never stopped to examine why I thought that way. I had no concept of whether half of the year was over or left, because I divide the year into thirds. I knew the year was half over when I go to the visual image in my mind of the calendar (the Ghostbusters inspired one) and cut the cool months in half. It isn’t because I have ever thought to question why I know this. Just that it has to be half way through on June 30th because it made logical visual sense on the imaginary Ghostbusters calendar in my mind.
So today starts the last third of the year. I am indifferent to this. It means the cool part is pretty much over. September first is always kind of the point in the year that it hits me that whatever year it is is almost gone. It seems like it’s New Years Day (in which nothing changes) then Valentine’s Day (aka I Want to chase Drain-O shots with cyanide Day) then St. Patrick’s Day then Summer then September. It used to mean the start of school. I would take the trash at my parents house out on the afternoon/evening of the first Tuesday after Labor Day (which is always such a bummer holiday, not I want to chase Drain-O bummer, but close) and think to myself “Got Damn it’s already fucking September. Where does the time go? I hate taking out the trash. I hate school. I hate getting up in the morning for school. I hate the asshole rednecks that I go to school with. I hate the cross-country team too. Fuck running. I wish I was old enough to buy beer. September. God. I do love the endless blue skies that come with September. Too bad I’ll be sitting in fucking class all day and won’t be able to enjoy it. At least Michigan won. Fuck Notre Dame. September man. Weird.”
So in honor of September, the beginning of the end of my concept of the year, the start of a new (and sure to be disappointing) football season, and in honor of the completion of my first ebook, I would like to share with you some of my favorite quotes from the book. The coolest part of ebook reading is the ability to bookmark, highlight, and define words or groups of words for future enjoyment/sharing with the people who read your blog.
I will share them in chronological order and without personal reflection. Enjoy the rest of your year.
“We buried this shame in the drawer next to all the inequities, and ate.”
“”I’m losing my fucking mind. Use contractions, goddammit. You sound like an alien.”
“We were all world travelers who defied God and moved and beat time in planes and rented cars.”
“Fuck regular “movement”. Fuck cars, rental cars, and wheels, and engineering, and great metal machines that were always too loud and used that ridiculous kind of fuel, so goddamned medieval-“
“He liked, most of all, Wu-Tang clan, but we didn’t have any Wu-Tang Clan. We had Dolly Parton.”
“As we walked under the infrequent streetlights we had two and three shadows, as one light cast our shadow up and the other down, sometimes overlapping. The lights didn’t know what they were doing. The lights knew nothing.”
“I was a looker- someone who looked over at every car at every traffic light, hoping that something would happen, and almost never finding anyone looking back - always everyone looking forward, and every time I felt stupid. Why should people look over at you? Why would they care?”
“I would want to dance. I would be too sober, and would be watching the purses. I would sink into the booth, grinning for them, soul scraping me from inside.”
Everyone go buy this book and read it. I promise it’s less depressing than A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius .
