It’s been a very long and semi-interesting year. I am grateful to all the people who have read and followed my blog, and I am looking forward to an extremely productive 2016 where I hope to bring you more stories, share more experiences, and write with so much more heartfelt honesty that I start to wonder if I should have posted that last line in the first place.
This will be my last blog in 2015, and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has replied, commented, followed, and supported me during this time in my life.
I am not sure what the new year will bring, but I guarantee I will be back in a couple weeks to tell you all about the ups and downs, the highs and lows, and the brutal truth that I just can’t seem to stop regurgitating onto this website.
WordPress is a great community to be a part of. I like that we all have something to say, and we all have a level of understanding and empathy for each other, regardless of where we live, where we are visiting, or where we will move to next. Thanks for that.
That’s me about 9 years ago standing in front of the greatest hole in the United States probably wondering “what does it all mean.” There I am in the middle of absolutely no traffic the last time I was at a major crossroads in my life.
I was driving cross the Southwest, trying to figure out what to do next as my 30 year old world was in upheaval. I was mentally in a bad place back then, but apparently I was too resilient to allow that be the death of me. I guess sometimes I do my best work that way. I must have been in my element.
It’s funny how life is cyclical.
I’m not in a bad place anymore, but I’m still in a world of upheaval, figuring out what to do next as my 40th year old world approaches relentlessly. It got me thinking about moving on, and moving up, and the lyrics to the song “Craving” by James Bay that I heard the other night.
He writes….
Where do I go? What do I need? Is it ecstasy or is it fear? Am I on my own…am I even close?
Those are tough questions to answer. I would love know the answer to all those questions at the same time. Even though I am clear about where to go, and what I need, the other three answers vary daily like a horoscope from ecstasy to fear, to no, no, yes yes.
I’ll admit it, a part of me is scared to death about uprooting myself for a third time in my life, but then again, if the last 39 years have taught me anything, it’s to listen to my instincts, and follow my heart because what have I really got to lose?
Nothing.
I’m as free from limitations as a bird flying south for the winter, except this bird will head northwest because I feel a better life is waiting for me.
I like how music that means something to me know, reminds me of a time when I felt this way before, and of course, always seems to find me when I need it the most.
Just for today, I think I can answer those 5 questions by saying
I had my last therapy session yesterday. Now I know what you’re thinking… Christian, you said on your main page that you blog because you can’t afford therapy, so why did you lie to us?
Well, the truth is I CAN’T afford therapy…. but at one point in August of this year, things had gotten so bad that I couldn’t afford NOT to go to therapy.
Am I cured? Absolutely not. Was I sick in the head? Probably, but then again if I wasn’t sick in the head or going through some sort of life changing event, I wouldn’t have anything to write about and this blog wouldn’t really exist, so here we are.
I enjoyed talking about my problems and my issues with someone in person outside of my inner circle. It helped to give me perspective on where I am going and what I am doing with my life, even if I had to drive 30 minutes to Pasadena to make that happen twice a month.
Since I’ve now gotten to the point where I’m ready to move on and start a new chapter in my life, I figured that my mental mission to fix my brain was accomplished and it was time to stop therapy, in addition to the fact that I have no health insurance and each session set me back sixty five dollars.
I’ve decided to leave Los Angeles for now and move back to Seattle in early 2016. I have to say that even before I knew what the outcome of all this was going to be, it had always been in the back of my mind for years.
For those of you who can read between the lines, L.A. has been detrimental to my confidence and my well being. I don’t feel I was ever rewarded for all the hard work I had done over the years, I feel as if there is nothing left here for me, and even though the sun shines down on my face 340 days a year, that warmth is fleeting and that sunshine is shallow, and seldom does it make me feel like I’m at home.
My therapist agrees, and I don’t think he is lying to me because a therapist is supposed to challenge you and call you out on your shit, and he has done that in the past, but when I came back this week from my trip to the Pacific Northwest, there was something about me that neither he or I could deny.
I have evolved. I have a plan. I have graduated to a place where I know what’s best for me now, and I know that I need to leave something behind.
Obviously I am going to keep writing because it helps me, and I think I’m pretty good at it. I know this because it makes me feel better to get it out, people tell me that they can relate to what I’m writing, and even though I am hungry and I want to eat my breakfast right now, I choose to wait just a little bit longer until I finish writing this blog because I feel like at some point in the next few weeks, I am going to need to go back and read it again so that it reinforces what I felt when I woke up this morning.
I’ll probably go back to therapy in a few months when I have a new job that gives me the health benefits that we all so desperately need more than the right to own a gun. I know I’m closing the book on L.A. for now, but I’m keeping the page dog eared just in case I want to re visit it at some point.
However, I’m never going to to stop writing about the things that go on inside my head because as I said before, ultimately, THIS is my therapy.
Or at least it’s the closest and most cost effective clinic in town that doesn’t require me to have health insurance to join. I love it here.
This is how it all begins…(or ends) The choice is up to you! Remember to VOTE for your Faves!
Your Choices How to DIE This Week Are:
11. Finally being able to afford a trip to Mexico when a tumultuous Hurricane Harry hits the shore and drives a palm tree branch through your chest while you are sipping a Mai Tai on the beach.
12. Going down in an airplane next to your mother in law, while sitting next to a newborn who has been crying the WHOLE time, an old woman with terrible gas, and one guy who is trying to tell everyone on the plane to “stay calm”
13. Getting into a time machine and going back to watch the Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan show, only to accidentally transport yourself into the middle of Vietnam right before the area you land in gets nuked by the United States just like that scene in Forrest Gump.
14. Having a truck fall off an overpass onto the freeway, smashing the car you are in while you were late on your way to work, and being forced to listen to the ridiculous immigration stories of your Armenian Uber driver.
15. Walking down to get the mail, opening a letter, getting a paper cut, but pulling out a check for a million dollars. You celebrate, then read a note inside that says this letter was laced with arsenic which immediately gets absorbed into your skin through the papercut and you die a few hours later when you go to cash the check, which you find out was a fake.
16. Strapping filet mignon, porterhouse, and flank steak to your body then being thrown out of a car into an alley full of ravenous junkyard dogs who eat you alive.
17. Being force fed beets through your mouth until you cannot eat anymore, then being force fed beets through your butt until it comes out your mouth then being left to starve to death, unless of course you want to eat those beets. (I obviously have an issue with beets)
18. Having to sit through a two hour conversation with your Russian neighbor, while his non English speaking wife repeatedly stabs you with an ice pick and pours top shelf vodka into your wounds. Death by Ketel One.
19. Having to attend an entire U2 concert.
20. Catching a foul ball during the World Series, then being interviewed by the local media when ANOTHER foul ball comes straight at you and hits you in the head causing you to die on live television.
Please share, re-blog, comment, and like. Buzzfeed ain’t got nothing on this list!
(#21-#30 Ways to DIE: December 15th, 2015!)
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I had another Hollywood moment the other night. What is that you might ask? Well to me, a Hollywood moment is when something in real life happens that could have taken place in a movie or on a TV show while you’re hanging out in Hollywoodland.
I used to get them a lot when I first moved here 12 years ago, like that time I saw Kelly Osbourne walk into Star Shoes, when I know she was only 19, or when I sat next to Taryn Manning at Prizzi’s and we had a conversation about how she didn’t know there wasn’t any sauce on a margherita pizza, or when I drove past the house in Burbank that was Kevin Arnold’s residence on The Wonder Years, or one that time Keanu Reeves asked me where the bathroom was, and then told ME I looked familiar.
Funny Keanu, I was thinking the same thing.
I wasn’t starstruck any time it happened…. instead I logged each moment in the back of my head as a topic of conversation for one day, and used them as proof to myself that I was on the right track because something “magical” in my eyes had just occurred and that’s all I needed at that point to keep me going.
I was young, I was impressionable, and these moments made me feel like it was only a matter of time before something “great” happened.
Years went by, and as I started to slowly loathe living here in L.A. I noticed these Hollywood moments stopped happening as much. When I did see some famous spot, or some famous person I started thinking how much uglier that liquor store from Superbad looks in real life, or how much of an asshole Ke$ha is (as if I would think any more of her in the first place. )
My reality was reflecting how I felt about this town, and I wasn’t surprised at all that these moments had turned on me.
I hadn’t had a good Hollywood moment in about 3 years until the other night, but this one was different from all the rest. There was no celebrity spotting, there was no awkward conversation at dinner, and there was no recognizable locations. It was just a bar full of women who just attended a concert, until they all broke out into song.
There I was with my co-workers having a drink after work at the Well when someone put on the song “Hello” by Adele.
I hadn’t noticed the song was on until the chorus when almost every woman at the bar in unison just started bellowing out the line…
“Hello from the other side!”
It felt like they rehearsed it, but I know that was impossible. It was just like being at a live show. It was startling in the best way, and as I sipped my Don Julio and sprite, I immediately turned around and watched as these women sang every word of the chorus. It put a smile on my face because I could feel the power that song had over them, and I thought to myself how cathartic that moment in Hollywood was for me to witness.
I wanted to get out my phone and record what was happening, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop enjoying the moment long enough to do that. I found myself starstruck, when not one star or celebrity was in the building. That had never happened to me before.
I’m sure signing along to ANY song at a bar probably happens in this country on a daily basis, so why was this moment so magical for me? I guess because it made me think back to a time when I really enjoyed living here and I was motivated and driven. I guess because it caused me to remember back when things were going so well, I just figured that they would always be that way.
I guess because it hadn’t happened in awhile.
I have one foot out the door here in L.A., and aside from the Adele sing a long the other night, I have witnessed a couple more of those Hollywood moments lately like when Skrillex appeared unannounced on stage the other night at my work during the GTA show, or when I served Teri Hatcher a red wine and I could swear she was flirting with me.
At first I thought that these moments meant I should stay because things are starting to happen but then I realized, they aren’t happening to me, they are happening around me. Maybe it means the opposite of what I thought so many years ago.
Maybe it means it’s time to go.
Things are starting to fall into place for me but they only started to recently when I decided that I would be happier if I moved to Seattle, managed a bar, and started writing my book. It’s almost like the universe is telling me this is the right path because my plan is making sense to other people who want to be a part of it, and it’s very possible that this grand idea of mine could manifest in the next few months.
So why are these “Hollywood moments” starting to happen again when I have finally decided it’s time to leave? Should I second guess myself? Should I stay and see what happens next? Is my acting/writing career about to take off and maybe this is a bad time to leave southern California? The answer to those questions are all the same. They begin with “No,” and end with “fucking way.”
Ever notice at the end of some movie, they use a location or repeat dialogue or bring back some scenario from an earlier act to tie it all together? Like in Swingers, the first and last scene are about Mikey (played by Jon Favreau) complaining about his broken heart, but then 78 minutes later he is trying to explain why it happened as they sit in the same booth in the101 coffee shop at the end of the film, as they did in the beginning of the film.
I think that’s what happening in my life. I’m experiencing these Hollywood moments again because the movie is about to end. I’m being reminded of how powerful these last 12 years have been to me, but I’m also being reminded that whatever I have been creating the last few weeks might be the right course of action, and I should just sit back and watch it all happen until the credits start to roll.
I know it may be silly to try and appropriate a moment in time when a group of women at a bar singing along to a top 40 hit could have some relevance in my life, but I really feel like for some reason, it did.
I know it’s about someone who is far away from someone else who they haven’t talked to in awhile. I know they are sorry for breaking someone’s heart, and I know that even though those lyrics don’t necessarily relate to a person in my life, perhaps they relate to a situation.
Maybe it’s me from L.A. saying I’m sorry to Seattle for leaving it 13 years ago. Maybe I broke the Emerald City’s heart, but maybe I have a chance now to mend that wound if they would only pick up the phone.
Tonight another Hollywood moment may happen, but tomorrow I still feel like I’m going to wake up and keep going on the path out of L.A that I apparently have chosen. I know what’s best for me, and I know that I have had moments in my life when I feel like I’m in a movie or a TV show, but I know now that I don’t necessarily have to be in Hollywood land to have it all make sense.
Perhaps one day I will be listening to that song and I will be saying “Hello to the other side” as I face south from my balcony in Seattle and wave to Los Angeles and remember that time a few years ago when I was moved by a bunch of women belting out the lyrics to a song at a bar one night after work.
What an amazing Hollywood moment that will be when it happens.
This is how it all begins…(or ends) The choice is up to you! Remember to VOTE for your Faves!
Your Choices How to DIE This Week Are:
1. Being repeatedly kicked in the crotch by Taylor Swift as she forces you to listen to the new Coldplay album while Miley Cyrus sticks out her tongue and stabs out your eyes and ears with plastic utensils.
2. Being tied down with pieces of Hillary Clinton’s pantsuit, while being smothered to death by Donald Trumps hair as Jeb Bush munches on kettle corn and laughs until you die.
3. Drowning in a sea of unread “Cyber Monday” emails.
4. Going to get a Brazilian wax, but instead of hair, the waxer rips out the top layer of skin all over your body, and then dumps you into one of the semi-frozen Great Lakes in Michigan.
5. Same as number #1, but in front of a live audience.
6. Having someone put a gun to your head, pull the trigger, and nothing happens. You breath a sign of relief and think you are going to live in the exact moment that your murderer pulls out another gun that DOESN’T jam and shoots you in the head for real this time .
7. Falling off the edge of a cliff, only to realize it’s a mere three feet fall, but when you stand up, the ledge you fell onto gives out and you fall a mile and a half to your death into the Grand Canyon while tourists take pictures.
8. Winning the lottery, then running outside to celebrate with the winning ticket only to slip and fall on a patch of ice in front of a 7-11 while some homeless person shanks you 51 times with a knife he fashioned out of a toothbrush. You die, bleed out, and no one ever claims the winning ticket. Instead the money goes back to the state government.
9. Having someone meathead at LA Fitness drop fifty pound weights on your body until all 206 bones are broken while every douchebag in the place takes “gym selfies” of your demise while flexing in the mirror, then posts them on Facebook.
10. Listening to Katy Perry after you eat six pills of the strongest ecstasy, while you overheat from the inside and have a brain aneurysm in the middle of the song “Firework.”
Please share, re-blog, comment, and like. Buzzfeed ain’t got nothing on this list!
(#11-#20 Ways to DIE: December 8th, 2015!)
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Complaining Is An Art Form 