| Stupid copy-paste html from Write or Die won't display the words and minutes. :| |
Now. What do I write about? A couple of years ago when I was in Japan, I wrote semi-regularly just to gripe about my job - I was confident my Japanese bosses wouldn't be able to read my posts anyway, so it was rant all you want. I loved doing that because aside from the fact that I could use all the curse words in my vocabulary, I was even able to invent new ones. And also it was a great way to create sort of a snapshot of that time of my life, which will forever be sailing the internets, and I could always read it and get transported back to my mid-20's self in Osaka or Tokyo, and it was both a terrible and exciting time and person to be. Most of my posts were fucking depressing (sometimes I wrote while literally crying), but the standout posts I believe (and some of my fans attest to this) are those about the group dynamic of the people around me and how we sound off one another. Those QQ (Quotable Quotes) posts still make me laugh even now, more then five years later. Hold the fuckity fuck. I just read that. It's been five years?!?
So. I'm 30 now and still nowhere near being a writer. I've been masquerading as a programmer the past seven years - depressing, I know. According to that aptitude test we took in high school I could've gotten away with any course I took in college (I was in the 99+ percentile), and I fucking chose Electronics and Communications Engineering. Why? It sounded cool when I said it. I imagined somebody asking me what my course was, and it was going to fucking roll off my tongue, all four words of it, and it would make me better than everyone else within a fifteen-foot radius.
Ultimately I got out of college and took the first job offer I got, a programming job in a Japanese company. I learned how the Japanese work, and unfortunately it's been part of me ever since - I can out-OT any one of you. Did you know there is a scary number of Japanese who die every year because of overwork? They even have a word for it. One character is "work" and the other is "death". That's fucking scary.
Ok, 483 words later, and I realize that I'm rambling like Holden from The Catcher in the Rye. I bought that book some time after I started working - I StumbledUpon this list, right, of the 100 books you should read before you die or something, and TCITR was in it. Also when I was younger I read a long-ish magazine article about this young girl who became the (old) writer's lover, and I was intrigued how a young girl would be attracted to such an old guy. Maybe he had stuff to say, you know. And, you know, the notoriety surrounding the book, Mark David Chapman or someone, that guy who shot John Lennon - he had the book on him that night, right? Suffice to say I bought the book for I think a little over a hundred bucks, and read it, and I can't tell you what it was about - not because I don't want to but because I don't really remember what it was about - but I CAN tell you this: it was a fucking trip. And it was full of cussing. Guy cussing so I can't really relate to the style, but I was familiar with the sentiment.
Six minutes left... oh God Sadako's gonna come out of my laptop, isn't she? Anyway, going back to the 100 books list. I fucking bought Atlas Shrugged because of that list. It was gonna be good, you know, it's heavy, the title's pretty well known, so if somebody were to ask me, "Have you read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Raynd?" I was going to be fucking ready, you know? Truth is I only read the first thirty pages or so. Fucking boooooring. And what the fuck did Atlas shrugging have to do with anything? The book was about this train company or something. I dunno, I gave it up. Thankfully my friend's mom saw me lugging it around with me when I went to their house and asked if she could borrow it. That was, I dunno, seven years ago? This is the first time I've thought about it again.
Two minutes to go and one hundred sixty words to go... I'm not going to make it! Anyway this has been really fun, I'm remembering how I used to structure my sentences (run-in? on? sentences are the only way to go!) and where to put my fucks. Hmm I'm thinking Tina Fey could be a really good influence. And maybe Nora Ephron. I have to remember to find if Powerbooks has any of her works. Oh, and I gotta buy at least ONE Gordon Ramsay book. That guy's a fucking genius. Well, I'll do this again tomorrow. Good night.
